The bear in Eurasian plant names: Motivations and models

Ethnolinguistic studies are important for understanding an ethnic group's ideas on the world, expressed in its language. Comparing corresponding aspects of such knowledge might help clarify problems of origin for certain concepts and words, e.g. whether they form common heritage, have an independent origin, are borrowings, or calques. The current study was conducted on the material in Slavonic, Baltic, Germanic, Romance, Finno-Ugrian, Turkic and Albanian languages. The bear was chosen as being a large, dangerous animal, important in traditional culture, whose name is widely reflected in folk plant names. The phytonyms for comparison were mostly obtained from dictionaries and other publications, and supplemented with data from databases, the co-authors' field data, and archival sources (dialect and folklore materials). More than 1200 phytonym use records (combinations of a local name and a meaning) for 364 plant and fungal taxa were recorded to help find out the reasoning behind bear-nomination in various languages, as well as differences and similarities between the patterns among them. Among the most common taxa with bear-related phytonyms were Arctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng., Heracleum sphondylium L., Acanthus mollis L., and Allium ursinum L., with Latin loan translation contributing a high proportion of the phytonyms. Some plants have many and various bear-related phytonyms, while others have only one or two bear names. Features like form and/or surface generated the richest pool of names, while such features as colour seemed to provoke rather few associations with bears. The unevenness of bear phytonyms in the chosen languages was not related to the size of the language nor the present occurence of the Brown Bear in the region. However, this may, at least to certain extent, be related to the amount of the historical ethnolinguistic research done on the selected languages

Primers used for qPCR analyses of <i>Ldh</i> expression in <i>D. pulex</i> and <i>D. pulicaria</i>.

<p>*The gene ID refers to the <i>Daphnia pulex</i> draft genome annotation (dappu v1.1) at <a href="http://www.jgi.doe.gov" target="_blank">www.jgi.doe.gov</a>.</p

Analysis of variance of relative <i>Ldh</i> expression in 18 clones of <i>Daphnia pulex, D. pulicaria</i> and hybrids.

<p>The number of <i>Ldh</i> transcripts per <i>Gapdh</i> transcript was calculated using the 2^−ΔCT method and is the dependent variable in this analysis. Gene is <i>Ldh</i>A or <i>Ldh</i>B; Group refers to <i>D. pulex</i>, <i>D. pulicaria</i>, and <i>D. pulex-pulicaria</i> hybrids; temperature is 10°C or 20°C; dissolved oxygen is high (6.5–7 mg/l) or low (2–3 mg/l). Interactions are indicated by an asterisk (*). Sources of variation that show a significant difference in gene expression (p<0.05) are in bold-face type.</p

Expression of <i>Ldh</i>A and <i>Ldh</i>B relative to <i>Gapdh</i> in <i>Daphnia</i> under four combinations of temperature and dissolved oxygen.

<p>Each <i>Daphnia</i> group (<i>D. pulex</i>, <i>D. pulicaria</i> and hybrids) was represented by six clones in the final analysis. The Y-axis shows the number of <i>Ldh</i>A and <i>Ldh</i>B transcripts per 1000 <i>Gapdh</i> transcripts calculated using the 2^−ΔCT method. The four treatments consisted of two temperatures, 10°C or 20°C each combined with two levels of dissolved oxygen, 6.5–7 mg/L (hi) or 2–3 mg/L (lo). Blue bars represent <i>LdhA</i> and red bars represent <i>LdhB</i>. Error bars represent standard error of the mean (SEM). The numbers on the graph are the mean value of relative <i>Ldh</i> expression for each treatment in each group. Only the difference between mean relative <i>Ldh</i>B expression in <i>D. pulex</i> (3.1) and <i>D. pulicaria</i> (14.9) is significant (<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0103964#pone-0103964-t003" target="_blank">Table 3</a>).</p

Aquarium set up.

<p>Each of the four aquaria contained 27 chambers that were filled with one of nine <i>D. pulex</i> clones (pond), nine <i>D. pulicaria</i> clones (lake), and nine hybrid clones. Each chamber had a mesh bottom allowing food and air/nitrogen to circulate freely within the aquarium while keeping the clones isolated from each other. There were four aquaria each characterized by different environmental conditions. Aquarium 1 corresponds to 20°C/High [6.5–7 mg/L] DO; aquarium 2 (20°C/Low [2–3 mg/L] DO); aquarium 3 (10°C/High DO); and aquarium 4 (10°C/Low DO).</p

Gene Expression Variation in Duplicate <i>Lactate dehydrogenase</i> Genes: Do Ecological Species Show Distinct Responses?

<div><p>Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) has been shown to play an important role in adaptation of several aquatic species to different habitats. The genomes of <i>Daphnia pulex</i>, a pond species, and <i>Daphnia pulicaria</i>, a lake inhabitant, encode two L-LDH enzymes, LDHA and LDHB. We estimated relative levels of <i>Ldh</i> gene expression in these two closely related species and their hybrids in four environmental settings, each characterized by one of two temperatures (10°C or 20°C), and one of two concentrations of dissolved oxygen (DO; 6.5–7 mg/l or 2–3 mg/l). We found that levels of <i>Ldh</i>A expression were 4 to 48 times higher than <i>Ldh</i>B expression (p<0.005) in all three groups (the two parental species and hybrids). Moreover, levels of <i>LdhB</i> expression differed significantly (p<0.05) between <i>D. pulex</i> and <i>D. pulicaria,</i> but neither species differed from the hybrid. Consistently higher expression of <i>Ldh</i>A relative to <i>Ldh</i>B in both species and the hybrid suggests that the two isozymes could be performing different functions. No significant differences in levels of gene expression were observed among the four combinations of temperature and dissolved oxygen (p>0.1). Given that <i>Daphnia</i> dwell in environments characterized by fluctuating conditions with long periods of low dissolved oxygen concentration, we suggest that these species could employ regulated metabolic depression to survive in such environments.</p></div

First line gemcitabine/pazopanib in locally advanced and/or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma. A hellenic cooperative oncology group Phase II study

Background/Aim: The efficacy of gemcitabinebased chemotherapy in locally advanced/metastatic biliary tract carcinoma is limited. The aim of this trial was to assess the activity of a novel gemcitabine-pazopanib combination in such patients. Patients and Methods: In this phase II, multicenter trial, patients with histologically/cytologically confirmed biliary tract carcinoma, previously untreated for advanced disease, received 1000 mg/m2 of gemcitabine on days 1 and 8 every 21 days and 800 mg of pazopanib once daily continuously for 8 cycles, followed by pazopanib maintenance. The primary endpoint was objective response rate (ORR). Results: A total of 29 patients (median age; 69 years) were enrolled between June 2013 and March 2018. The ORR was 13.8% in the intent-to-treat and 19.1% in the per protocol population. The median progression-free and overall survival were 6.3 and 10.4 months, respectively. Conclusion: The low response rate precludes further testing of the combination in patients with biliary tract carcinoma. © 2020 International Institute of Anticancer Research. All rights reserved