1,720,975 research outputs found
First person – Annalisa Pinsino and Andi Alijagic
No full textFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Biology Open, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Annalisa Pinsino and Andi Alijagic are co-first authors on ‘Sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus immune cells in culture: formulation of the appropriate harvesting and culture media and maintenance conditions’, published in BIO. Annalisa is a Third-class Researcher in her lab at Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Biomedicina e Immunologia Molecolare ‘A. Monroy’, Palermo, Italy, investigating probing safety of nanoparticles by outlining sea urchin innate signalling pathways in vitro. Andi is a PhD Student in the lab of Dr Annalisa Pinsino
Transcriptional and in silico analyses of MIF cytokine and TLR signalling interplay in the LPS inflammatory response of Ciona robusta
Full text linkThe close phylogenetic relationship between Ciona robusta and vertebrates makes it a powerful
model for studying innate immunity and the evolution of immune genes. To elucidate the nature and
dynamics of the immune response, the molecular mechanisms by which bacterial infection is detected
and translated into inflammation and how potential pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) are involved
in pathogen recognition in tunicate C. robusta (formerly known as Ciona intestinalis), we applied
an approach combining bacterial infections, next-generation sequencing, qRT-PCR, bioinformatics
and in silico analyses (criteria of a p-value < 0.05 and FDR < 0.05). A STRING analysis indicated a
functional link between components of the Tlr/MyD88-dependent signalling pathway (Tlr2, MyD88,
and Irak4) and components of the Nf-κB signalling pathway (Nf-κB, IκBα, and Ikkα) (p-value < 0.05,
FDR < 0.05). A qRT-PCR analysis of immune genes selected from transcriptome data revealed Mif as
more frequently expressed in the inflammatory response than inflammation mediator or effector
molecules (e.g., Il-17s, Tnf-α, Tgf-β, Mmp9, Tlrs, MyD88, Irak4, Nf-κB, and galectins), suggesting close
interplay between Mif cytokines and Nf-κB signalling pathway components in the biphasic activation
of the inflammatory response. An in silico analyses of the 3′-UTR of Tlr2, MyD88, IκBα, Ikk, and Nf-κB
transcripts showed the presence of GAIT elements, which are known to play key roles in the regulation
of immune gene-specific translation in humans. These findings provide a new level of understanding
of the mechanisms involved in the regulation of the C. robusta inflammatory response induced by
LPS and suggest that in C. robusta, as in humans, a complex transcriptional and post-transcriptional
control mechanism is involved in the regulation of several inflammatory genes
Sea urchin Paracentrotus lividus immune cells in culture: formulation of the appropriate harvesting and culture media and maintenance conditions
No full textThe sea urchin is an emergent model system for studying basic and translational immunology. Here we report a new method for the harvesting and maintenance of primary immune cells isolated from adult Paracentrotus lividus, a common Mediterranean sea urchin species. This optimised method uses coelomocyte culture medium, containing a high-affinity Ca2+ chelator, as the ideal harvesting and anti-clotting vehicle and short-term culture medium (≤48 h), and artificial seawater as the master medium that maintains cell survival and in vitro-ex vivo physiological homeostasis over 2 weeks. Gradually reducing the amount of anticoagulant solution in the medium and regularly replacing the medium led to improved culture viability. Access to a robust and straightforward in vitro-ex vivo system will expedite our understanding of deuterostome immunity as well as underscore the potential of sea urchin with respect to biomedicine and regulatory testing. This article has an associated First Person interview with the first author of the paper
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
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