1,720,959 research outputs found
Cyclotides : a novel class of natural antibiotics
No full textCyclotides are circular plant proteins that are approximately 30 amino acids long and have high heat and enzymatic stability. Their N- and C- termini are joined together to form a continuous cyclic conformation. The three-dimensional structure is stabilized by three disulphide bonds arranged in a cystine knot. Cyclotides are known to be antimicrobial, hemolytic, immunomodulating and anti-cancer, thus forming the basis of medicinal plants against various diseases. Bacterial drug resistance is a major concern, and there is an urgent need to discover novel antibiotics. In this project, we are looking at the antibacterial function of cyclotides extracted from a locally grown
plant, Clitoria ternatea which belongs to the Fabaceae family. My results show that cyclotides are potent antimicrobial agents and exhibit synergy with conventional antibiotics. [Peer Assessment Review
The biology of ADGRL4/ELTD1 in angiogenesis and tumour development
Get PDFADGRL4/ELTD1 is an orphan adhesion G protein-coupled receptor that is expressed in both endothelial cells and vascular smooth muscle cells. ELTD1 expression was significantly upregulated in the tumour vasculature and previous studies in our laboratories identified ELTD1 as a novel regulator of tumour angiogenesis. The aims of this project were to further investigate ELTD1’s in vivo role in the normal and tumour vasculature. In this project, both constitutive and inducible endothelial cell-specific Eltd1 knockout mouse models were generated using Tie2-Cre and Pdgfb-Cre lines respectively. Both models exhibited no significant differences in body and organ weights, or other welfare parameters such as behaviour and movement. There were no observed immunohistochemical differences (CD31 and H&E) in the vital organs namely, brain, heart, lung, liver, kidney and spleen. Interestingly, inducible endothelial cell-specific Eltd1 knockout aortic rings showed inhibition in endothelial cell sprouting that was not observed in the constitutive knockout, suggesting a functional compensatory mechanism in the constitutive model. In both E0771 and MC38 syngeneic tumour models, despite no significant differences in tumour growth curves and survival outcomes, there were observed immunohistochemical differences with generally higher necrosis and hypoxia, and reduction in microvessel density and pericyte coverage in the Eltd1 knockout tumours. Both genetic and drug induced endothelial-Eltd1 deletion gave similar results which affirmed the effects of endothelial-Eltd1 on the tumour vasculature in vivo. Single cell sequencing of acute Eltd1-depleted lung endothelial cells revealed heterogeneity in Eltd1-expressing endothelial cells and showed that lung capillary endothelial cells had higher Eltd1 expression compared to lung arterial endothelial cells. Interestingly, their differential gene expression profiles were distinct. But in both endothelial cell subsets, there were differentially regulated genes whose functions have been associated with endothelial biology, angiogenesis, tumour development and immunology. In summary, endothelial-Eltd1 depletion did not cause toxicity but altered the tumour microenvironment. Therefore, ELTD1 could be considered as a potential target for cancer therapy in combination with other therapies targeting hypoxia and angiogenesis
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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