1,721,019 research outputs found
Current advances in carbonaceous materials for analytical applications in liquid phase
No full textCarbonaceous materials, namely graphitized carbon black (GCB) and porous graphitic carbon (PGC), are an exciting class of stationary phases attracting remarkable attention due to their peculiar characteristics of retention behavior for non-polar and polar analytes, becoming an alternative to the typical reversed-phase stationary phases.The present review is focused on the recent and critical analytical applications of GCB and PGC in liquid phase applications. A comprehensive overview of GCB in sample preparation was done, primarily solid-phase extraction and related techniques. Traditional analytes, such as pesticides and hormones, are reviewed along with new applications, especially short-chain peptides and polar metabolites, where this sorbent allowed for filling a gap in sample preparation from complex biological matrices. The second part of the review article describes the applications of porous graphitic carbon in liquid chromatography and supercritical fluid chromatography. The discussion covers the most relevant analyte classes, with an extensive description of the advantages and disadvantages of PGC over other chromatographic techniques
Liposome protein corona characterization as a new approach in nanomedicine
No full textThis trends article describes the analytical approaches for the in-depth characterization of the protein corona on liposome nanoparticles. In particular, examples since 2014 are summarized according to the analytical approach. Traditional protein corona characterizations from in vitro static experiments are provided along with the newly introduced experimental setups for characterization of the protein corona by in vitro dynamic and in vivo studies. Additionally, a special attention is also devoted to the need for introduction of new experimental workflows for characterization of a much wider array of biomolecules. In the most recent years, an extension of the protein corona concept to the biomolecular corona was introduced, and the analytical targets are no longer restricted to proteins, but to other important biomolecules as well, as they can potentially affect the biodistribution and interaction of nanoparticles with the biological systems. The few recent examples in this field are discussed for the characterization of metabolites and lipids in the biomolecular corona with examples, also extending the discussion from liposome to other types of nanoparticles. A final discussion is provided on the potential key role of the most recent omics approaches in the study of the nano-bio interface, with an overview on top-down proteomics, which allows a better elucidation of proteoforms, and on lipidomics and metabolomics, which allow a comprehensive untargeted characterization of lipids and metabolites, respectively. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]
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
Kratom: The analytical challenge of an emerging herbal drug
Full text linkMitragyna speciosa or kratom is emerging worldwide as a “legal” herbal drug of abuse. An increasing number of papers is appearing in the scientific literature regarding its pharmacological profile and the analysis of its chemical constituents, mainly represented by alkaloids. However, its detection and identification are not straightforward as the plant material is not particularly distinctive. Hyphenated techniques are generally preferred for the identification and quantification of these compounds, especially the main purported psychoactive substances, mitragynine (MG) and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH-MG), in raw and commercial products. Considering the vast popularity of this recreational drug and the growing concern about its safety, the analysis of alkaloids in biological specimens is also of great importance for forensic and toxicological laboratories. The review addresses the analytical aspects of kratom spanning the extraction techniques used to isolate the alkaloids, the qualitative and quantitative analytical methods and the strategies for the distinction of the naturally occurring isomers
Protein corona fingerprints of liposomes: New opportunities for targeted drug delivery and early detection in pancreatic cancer
No full textPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth cause of cancer-related mortality in the Western world and is envisaged to become the second cause by 2030. Although our knowledge about the molecular biology of PDAC is continuously increasing, this progress has not been translated into better patients’ outcome. Liposomes have been used to circumvent concerns associated with the low efficiency of anticancer drugs such as severe side effects and damage of healthy tissues, but they have not resulted in improved efficacy as yet. Recently, the concept is emerging that the limited success of liposomal drugs in clinical practice is due to our poor knowledge of the nano-bio interactions experienced by liposomes in vivo. After systemic administration, lipid vesicles are covered by plasma proteins forming a biomolecular coating, referred to as the protein corona (PC). Recent studies have clarified that just a minor fraction of the hundreds of bound plasma proteins, referred to as “PC fingerprints” (PCFs), enhance liposome association with cancer cells, triggering efficient particle internalization. In this study, we synthesized a library of 10 liposomal formulations with systematic changes in lipid composition and exposed them to human plasma (HP). Size, zeta-potential, and corona composition of the resulting liposome-protein complexes were thoroughly characterized by dynamic light scattering (DLS), micro-electrophoresis, and nano-liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (nano-LC MS/MS). According to the recent literature, enrichment in PCFs was used to predict the targeting ability of synthesized liposomal formulations. Here we show that the predicted targeting capability of liposome-protein complexes clearly correlate with cellular uptake in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PANC-1) and insulinoma (INS-1) cells as quantified by flow-assisted cell sorting (FACS). Of note, cellular uptake of the liposomal formulation with the highest abundance of PCFs was much larger than that of Onivyde®, an Irinotecan liposomal drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2015 for the treatment of metastatic PDAC. Given the urgent need of efficient nanocarriers for the treatment of PDAC, we envision that our results will pave the way for the development of more efficient PC-based targeted nanomaterials. Here we also show that some BCs are enriched with plasma proteins that are associated with the onset and progression of PDAC (e.g., sex hormone-binding globulin, Ficolin-3, plasma protease C1 inhibitor, etc.). This could open the intriguing possibility to identify novel biomarkers
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
Developments and pitfalls in the characterization of phenolic compounds in food: From targeted analysis to metabolomics-based approaches
No full textThe review describes the state of the art of phenolic characterization in food by liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. From conventional targeted analysis, a special attention was devoted to metabolomics-based strategies, which are becoming increasingly popular in the characterization of phenolic compounds. Most works in the field exploit the profiling approach by annotation of full scan high resolution mass spectrometric data. To improve the confidence, the use of tandem and multistage mass spectrometry is emerging as a valuable strategy which can provide more insight in the structure and help differentiating the many isomeric compounds which are typical of this class. The efficiency, however, is strictly connected with data handling and bioinformatics to search databases and match product ion spectra. The different approaches, from profiling, through suspect screening to untargeted analysis, are described with a discussion on the limitations of each approach and future developments needed to improve identification confidence
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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