1,721,613 research outputs found
Activation of protein kinase C as a modulator of potentiated UK-14304-induced contraction in dog mesentene artery and vein
We assessed the role of protein kinase C (PKC) in the mechanism responsible for the potentiation of UK-14304-induced contractions produced when isolated dog mesenteric vascular rings were pretreated with threshold concentrations of 12-O-tetradecanoyl-phorbol-13-acetate (TPA), KCl, or endothelin-1 (ET-1). In dog mesenteric artery. UK-14304 produced a biphasic concentration-response curve in the presence of TPA, KCl, or ET-1, with the curve portion at lower concentrations being alpha 2-adrenoceptor dependent and the portion at higher concentrations being alpha 1-adrenoceptor dependent. Calphostin C (10(-6)M), a PKC inhibitor, abolished amplified UK-14304-induced contraction in the TPA-pretreated tissues. In the KCl- and ET-1-pretreated tissues. 10(-6)M calphostin C antagonized amplified UK-14304-induced contractions by approximately 20% in both parts of the concentration-response curve. In contrast, in dog mesenteric vein, amplified UK-14304-induced contractions by TPA, KCl, and ET-1 were entirely dependent on alpha 2-adrenoceptors. Calphostin C (10(-6)M), which in control experiments had no effect on KCl-induced contraction and antagonized responses to TPA by 60.1%, inhibited UK-14304-induced contraction by 18.3%. Amplified UK-14304-induced contraction was antagonized by 10(-6)M calphostin C by 21.8% in KCl-precontracted tissues, 58.1% in ET-1-precontracted tissues, and 66.3% in TPA-precontracted tissues. In the ET-1- and TPA-pretreated dog mesenteric veins, 10(-6)M calphostin C decreased maximal tensions of enhanced UK-14304-induced contractions to the same level as the UK-14304-induced maximal tension inhibited by 10(-6)M calphostin C in untreated dog mesenteric vein. Therefore, TPA can be a precontracting agent that amplifies UK-14304-induced contractions through PKC activation in both dog mesenteric artery and vein. PKC predominantly mediates the contraction amplification mechanisms after exposure to ET-1 in dog mesenteric vein and does not play a major role in the amplification of UK-14304-induced contraction by KCl in both dog mesenteric artery and vein. These data show that a common mechanism need not underlie amplification of adrenergic responses in mesenteric artery and vein
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Repeated treatment with the α2-adrenoceptor agonist UK-14304 improves cognitive performance in middle-age rats: Role of hippocampal FADD
[eng] The cell fate regulator Fas-associated death domain (FADD) balances cell death with non-apoptotic actions via its phosphorylated form. A recent study associated loss of cortical FADD with cognitive decline and increased risk of clinical dementia. Since the activation of cortical α2A-adrenoceptors improved memory deficits in various animal models of working memory loss, the present study evaluated whether UK-14304, an α2-adrenoceptor agonist known to acutely regulate brain FADD forms, would improve cognitive function in middle-aged rats. Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with UK-14304 (0.3 or 1 mg/kg) or saline (1 mL/kg) for seven days. Cognitive performance was evaluated in the eight-arm radial maze. FADD protein content was measured in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus by Western blot analysis. The results showed that UK-14304 (1 mg/kg) improved cognitive performance (less time: -310±45 s, p=0.025 and fewer errors: -2.75±1.06, p=0.043 to complete the maze) and increased FADD selectively in the hippocampus (+35±11%, p=0.029). Interestingly, hippocampal FADD content negatively correlated with the time (r=−0.651, p<0.01) needed to complete the maze. Thus, better cognitive scores were associated with higher FADD hippocampal content. These results support a role for α2-adrenoceptors in ameliorating cognition and suggest FADD protein content as a possible correlate for cognitive performance
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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