1,721,099 research outputs found
Antibacterial Activities of the Cathelicidins Prophenin (Residues 62 to 79) and LL-37 in the Presence of a Lung Surfactant Preparation
No full textThe antibacterial activities of the cathelicidin peptides LL-37 and an 18-residue C-terminal fragment of prophenin, corresponding to positions 62 to 79 of native prophenin (PF-18), were analyzed in the presence of a modified surfactant preparation isolated from minced porcine lungs. At low micromolar concentrations, both LL-37 and PF-18 showed significant activities against different serotypes of group B streptococci, with LL-37 being more active on a molar basis. The surfactant preparation at a concentration of 10 mg/ml partly blocked the antibacterial activity of 9 muM LL-37 and completely blocked the antibacterial activity of 9 muM PF-18. However, 10 mg of the surfactant preparation per ml had only minor inhibitory effects on LL-37 and PF-18 at 90 muM. Addition of up to 900 muM PF-18 did not affect the surface properties of the surfactant preparation. These data suggest that surfactant preparations containing antimicrobial peptides could be useful for the local treatment of pulmonary infections
PEC-60 increases dopamine but not GABA release in the dorsolateral neostriatum of the halothane anaesthetized rat. An in vivo microdialysis study
No full textThe effect of striatal perfusion with the intestinal peptide PEC-60 on endogenous dopamine (DA) and γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) release in the dorsolateral striatum and GABA release in the globus pallidus was monitored using in vivo microdialysis in the halothane anaesthetized rat. The results show that PEC-60 (100 nM) increases DA release in the dorsolateral striatum without influencing GABA release in the dorsolateral striatum or in the globus pallidus. In addition, PEC-60 failed to influence the extracellular striatal 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) and homovanillic acid (HVA) levels. The PEC-60 induced increase in striatal DA was abolished by the addition of tetrodotoxin (1 μM) to the perfusion medium. These data suggest that PEC-60 plays a role in modulating striatal DA release but not DA metabolism and that this effect is primarily targeted on the presynaptic DA terminals of the nigrostriatal DA pathway rather than on the postsynaptic striatopallidal GABA projection neurons in the dorsolateral striatum. © 1994
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Variations on the Author
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
No full textWe 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
Antiviral potential of cathelicidins
No full textThe global burden of morbidity and mortality arising from viral infections is high; however, the development of effective therapeutics has been slow. As our understanding of innate immunity has expanded over recent years, knowledge of natural host defenses against viral infections has started to offer potential for novel therapeutic strategies. An area of current research interest is in understanding the roles played by naturally occurring cationic host defense peptides, such as the cathelicidins, in these innate antiviral host defenses across different species. This research also has the potential to inform the design of novel synthetic antiviral peptide analogs and/or provide rationale for therapies aimed at boosting the natural production of these peptides. In this review, we will discuss our knowledge of the antiviral activities of cathelicidins, an important family of cationic host defense peptides, and consider the implications for novel antiviral therapeutic approaches
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