1,720,971 research outputs found
Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and corneal nerve health: Current evidence and future directions.
Corneal nerves play a key role in maintaining ocular surface integrity. Corneal nerve damage, from local or systemic conditions, can lead to ocular discomfort, pain, and, if poorly managed, neurotrophic keratopathy. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are essential dietary components that play a key role in neural development, maintenance, and function. Their potential application in modulating ocular and systemic inflammation has been widely reported. Omega-3 PUFAs and their metabolites also have neuroprotective properties and can confer benefit in neurodegenerative disease. Several preclinical studies have shown that topical administration of omega-3 PUFA-derived lipid mediators promote corneal nerve recovery following corneal surgery. Dietary omega-3 PUFA supplementation can also reduce corneal epithelial nerve loss and promote corneal nerve regeneration in diabetes. Omega-3 PUFAs and their lipid mediators thus show promise as therapeutic approaches to modulate corneal nerve health in ocular and systemic disease. This review discusses the role of dietary omega-3 PUFAs in maintaining ocular surface health and summarizes the possible applications of omega-3 PUFAs in the management of ocular and systemic conditions that cause corneal nerve damage. In examining the current evidence, this review also highlights relatively underexplored applications of omega-3 PUFAs in conferring neuroprotection and addresses their therapeutic potential in mediating corneal nerve regeneration
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
“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
We 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
We 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
Quantifying corneal immune cells from human in vivo confocal microscopy images: Can manual quantification be improved with observer training?
Manually quantifying immune cells (ICs), commonly considered dendritic cells, in the corneal epithelium from in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) images can be influenced by observer bias. This study sought to evaluate the repeatability of manual IC quantification. Cell counts were first performed for 184 non-overlapping IVCM images by a single observer. Quantifications were undertaken to establish the total cell numbers per image, and the numbers of three cell morphological subtypes: mature ICs (with elongated dendrites), immature ICs (with short- or non-discernible dendrites) and globular cells (with large bodies and no visible dendrites). Cell counts were then repeated by the same observer, and independently undertaken by a second observer. Prior to these counts, both observers undertook an agreement 'training' process to define IC appearance and delineate the morphological subtypes. Total IC counts demonstrated excellent intra- and inter-observer reliability (intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) > 0.90). Bland-Altman plots showed that interobserver measurement bias increased as a function of the total IC number in the image prior to consensus training. For total IC counts after the observer training process, there was no significant interobserver measurement bias. For IC morphological subtypes, there was a positive relationship between the mean inter-observer difference and average cell count for mature ICs and globular cells, but not immature ICs. In conclusion, higher variability in manual corneal IC counts exists when more cells are present in an IVCM image. Implementing an observer training process reduced inter-observer variability and minimised systematic measurement error
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We 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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