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Identification of serogroups Australis and Icterohaemorrhagiae in two dogs with a severe form of acute leptospirosis in Italy
Get PDFLeptospirosis is an infectious disease that causes serious illness in dogs. For this reason,
epidemiological and clinical studies focusing on disease characterization are widely advocated.
The aim of this study was to characterize the leptospires identified in dogs with confirmed symptomatic
acute leptospirosis. Leptospira spp. DNA detected in urine, blood, or both samples from nine infected
dogs was analyzed using the multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) technique. Leptospires from
two dogs were successfully typed: one was identified as belonging to Sequence Type (ST) 17 and
one to ST198, both within the L. interrogans species, serogroups Icterohaemorrhagiae and Australis,
respectively. Based on the results of routine serologic tests, antibodies reactive toward these serogroups
are commonly revealed in dogs in Italy. This study provides the first molecular analysis that identifies
infecting Leptospira directly on DNA from biological samples of dogs, showing that serogroup
Australis can lead to a severe clinical presentation of leptospirosis in infected dog
A maize histone deacetylase and retinoblastoma-related protein physically interact and cooperate in repressing gene transcription
No full textIn mammalian cells the product of the human retinoblastoma tumour suppressor gene (pRb) can recruit Rpd3-like
histone deacetylases to repress transcription. In this study, we investigated whether this mechanism might also be
relevant in plants and found both conserved and distinct features. The expression profiles of the Zea mays Rpd3-
type histone deacetylase (ZmRpd3I) and the retinoblastoma-related (ZmRBR1) homologues were analysed during
endosperm development. GST pull-down and immunoprecipitation experiments showed a physical interaction
between ZmRBR1 and ZmRpd3I. Because ZmRpd3I lacks a LXCXE motif, conserved in several pRb-interacting
proteins, we have mapped the amino acid domains involved in the ZmRBR1/ZmRpd3I interaction. Furthermore,
we observed that ZmRbAp1, a maize member of the MSI/RbAp family, facilitated this protein interaction. Cotransformations
of tobacco protoplasts with plasmids expressing ZmRBR1 and ZmRpd3I showed that the two
proteins cooperate in repressing gene transcription. Our findings represent the first indication that in plants a
regulator of important biological processes, ZmRBR1, can recruit a histone deacetylase, ZmRpd3I, to control
gene transcription
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
Effectiveness of BNT162b2 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 among healthcare workers
Get PDFBackground: The present study was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of BNT162b2 among HCWs of a university hospital while a recrudescence of pandemics was hitting the province, with a high rate of the B.1.1.7 variant. Methods: The study was performed in the context of health surveillance at the workplaces. We monitored the SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 symptoms among HCWs classified by having received the entire vaccine schedule or not; the latter further classified in not vaccinated workers and workers who had received the first shot more than 14 days earlier. The SARS-CoV-2 infection was diagnosed by conventional RT-PCR on rhino-pharyngeal swabs, followed by gene sequencing in positive vaccinated HCWs. The cumulative incidence of infections in the period was normalised to 100,000 people. Results: At the end of the observation period, HCWs that had completed the full schedule were at lower infection risk than both unvaccinated HCWs and the workforce who had not yet gained the complete theoretical protection from the vaccine (by 2.4-folds). Overall, ninety-two SARS-CoV-2 infections were observed among HCWs, mostly among not protected workers (52 cases) but none of them showed symptoms requiring hospitalisation. Conclusions: The vaccination campaign effectively reduced the appearance of symptoms and the incidence of infections among vaccinated HCWs. Among vaccinated HCWs, gene sequencing was possible in five cases only, 4 B.1.1.7 and 1 B1.525 variants. The high rate of unsuccessful gene sequencing observed among infected vaccinated workers could be explained by a low viral burden. Vaccination for COVID-19 should be mandatory in occupational settings with a high infective risk
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