1,721,126 research outputs found
Critical transition across the Waddington landscape as an interpretative model: Comment on “Dynamic and thermodynamic models of adaptation” by A.N. Gorban et al
No full textMicroenvironment promotes cytoskeleton remodeling and adaptive phenotypic transition
No full textThe cytoskeleton includes three main classes of networked filaments behaving as a coherent and complex structure that confers stability to cell shape while serving as sensor of internal/extracellular changes. Microenvironmental stimuli interfere with the non-linear dynamics that govern cytoskeleton architecture, namely by fostering symmetry breakings and transitions across different phenotypic states. Such process induces a whole-coherent adaptive response, involving the reprogramming of biochemical and gene-expression patterns. These characteristics are especially relevant during development, and in those conditions in which a deregulated crosstalk between cells and the stroma is at the core of the pathological process. Therefore, studying how the cytoskeleton can be modified–both pharmacologically and/or through microenvironment-dependent changes–has become a major area of interest in cancer and developmental biology
Mating-type switching in CBS 732T derived subcultures unveils potential genetic and phenotypic novelties in haploid Zygosaccharomyces rouxii.
No full textIn haploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a complex recombination system regulates mating-type switching and requires one MAT expression locus, two donor cassettes (HML and HMR) and the HO endonuclease that catalyses gene conversion. Zygosaccharomyces rouxii is the most distant species from S. cerevisiae with a functional HO, but with a poorly understood mating-type switching. Here, we described that two subcultures of the type strain CBS 732T underwent the α to a genotype switching leading to mixed MATα and MATa populations. Remarkably, during this event the donor cassette was copied into the MAT locus, except for its own 3 ́ end, resulting in a new MATa2 gene copy different from the silenced HMRa2. Moreover, CBS 732T cells bypassed the cell-cycle control, which oversees HO transcription in S. cerevisiae, and expressed HO at the stationary phase. Despite HO dysregulation, mating-type switching seemed to occur rarely or belatedly during CBS 732T colony formation in most of the tested conditions. When morphology and mating behaviour were analysed, two subcultures displayed distinct outcross fertility responses. Overall, our data support that mating-type switching causes genotype instability and phenotypic novelties in CBS 732T, and open the question whether this mechanism is shared by other Z. rouxii haploid homothallic strains
Myoinositol and Inositol Hexakisphosphate in the Treatment of Breast Cancer: Molecular Mechanisms
No full textMyo-Ins is among the oldest components of living beings, undergoing complex
evolutionary modifications ultimately leading to the current multiplicity of functions
for inositol-containing molecules in eukaryotes. Besides the biological role
sustained in its free form, Myo-Ins and its phosphate derivatives—chiefly represented
by InsP6—also serve as important components of structural lipids and
secondary
messengers
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
Feasibility of teleoperations with multi-fingered robotic hand for safe extravehicular manipulations
No full textExtra-Vehicular Activity (EVA) plays such a key role that more and more time is devoted to it in space missions. Nevertheless, EVA presents so many intrinsic critical aspects to result highly hazardous for the human operators. This is why a convenient alternative can be offered by telerobotic manipulations, with multi-fingered robotic hands working in teleoperated mode, to safely and remotely replicate the capabilities of the operator's hands. But at present, remotely controlled robotic hands cannot provide the same dexterity of humans, so this work is intended to experimentally evaluate their feasibility and technological limits when operator's hand gestures are one-to-one mapped directly to a robotic hand device. In particular we demonstrated how state-of-the art sensory gloves, used to measure angles of human finger's joints, can introduce averaged errors of 4.6 degrees in angles, and that these errors increase to 6.5 degrees when remotely replicated by standard anthropomorphic robotic hands
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
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