1,720,985 research outputs found
Factors influencing charge capacity of vanadium pentoxide thin film during lithium ion intercalation/deintercalation cycles
No full text‘Transformation of amyloid-like fibres, formed from an elastin-based biopolymer, into hydrogel: an XPS and AFM study’
No full textPrevious studies have revealed the propensity of elastin-based biopolymers to form amyloid-like fibers when dissolved in water. These are of interest when considered as "ancestral units" of elastin in which they represent the simplest sequences in the hydrophobic regions of the general type XxxGlyGlyZzzGly (Xxx, Zzz = Val, Leu). We normally refer to these biopolymers based on elastin or related to elastin units as "elastin-like polypeptides". The requirement of water for the formation of amyloids seems quite interesting and deserves investigation, the water representing the natural transport medium in human cells. As a matter of fact, the "natural" supramolecular organization of elastin is in the form of beaded-string-like filaments and not in the form of amyloids whose "in vivo" deposition is associated with some important human diseases. Our work is directed, therefore, to understanding the mechanism by which such hydrophobic sequences form amyloids and any conditions by which they might regress to a non-amyloid filament. The elastin-like sequence here under investigation is the ValGlyGly ValGly pentapeptide that has been previously analyzed both in its monomer and polymer form. In particular, we have focused our investigation on the apparent stability of amyloids formed from poly(ValGlyGlyValGly), and we have observed these fibers evolving to a hydrogel after prolonged aging in water. We will show how atomic force microscopy can be combined with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to gain an insight into the spontaneous organization of an elastin-like polypeptide driven by interfacial interactions. The results are discussed also in light of fractal-like assembly and their implications from a biomedical point of view
ToF‐SIMS study of stages in the electrochemical growth of insulating poly (o‐aminophenol) films
No full textPrevious XPS investigations of insulating poly(o-aminophenol) (PoAP), electrosynthesized by cyclic voltammetry on Pt substrates, revealed the formation of a thin film of about 7 nm of thickness, firmly adherent onto the electrode surface and stable even under Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) conditions. A constant repeat formula made of alternating quinoneimine and monomer units was derived with polymer chains terminating as carbonyl-type groups. Based on these findings, we have continued our investigation on insulating PoAP by employing time-of-flight SIMS whose superior surface sensitivity is well-known. The aim was to corroborate the polymer structure with particular reference to the top surface layers in view of possible bio-applications and to understand the possible way of interaction with the underlying platinum electrode surface. In order to do this, we analyzed PoAP films grown at different levels of the electrochemical synthesis (1, 5, and 20 scan cycles) and the platinum substrate itself. The individuation of the main characteristic fragments and the behavior of their intensity by varying the stage of the electropolymerization allowed to confirm the polymer structure and the presence of terminating carbonyl groups. Remarkably, from the analysis of the PoAP/Pt interface at the early stage of the polymer formation, it was possible to discern that polymer chains tend to interact with the electrode surface preferentially by the nitrogen atom of the oxidized monomers. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
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
An X-ray Photoelectron Study of Valence Charge in Transition Metal Aluminides
No full textIn an earlier paper we proposed a new method for interpretation of background structure in X-ray photoelectron (XP) spectra and showed that this could be used to study bonding states in intermetallic compounds using, as an example, a particular Ti—Al alloy. In this paper we have applied this method to study a set of aluminides: Me—Al alloys, where Me represents a transition metal: Ti, V, Fe, Ni or Nb. The method for background interpretation is based on a peak-shape parameter k, which links the intrinsic energy loss structure, associated with a given line in the XP spectrum, to the atomic number. This parameter is thus related to the number of final state configurations available to the photoexcited atom or ion and we show, now, how the value for aluminium varies across a series of compounds with the transition metals. The results for k are accompanied by measurement of the Auger parameters which may be indicative of the charge transfer occurring between Al and Me and thus are also influenced by the final state configuration. The approximate proportionality found between these two parameters gives confirmation that k may be a sensitive probe of the final state and bonding effects and confirms the extent to which aluminium orbitals interact with the 3d transition metal structure of vanadium, iron and nickel, and the 4d of Nb. This is in full accord with the results obtained from the TiAl alloy. Complementary information was obtained by comparing the values of k for the pure metals with those for the vanadium, iron, nickel, niobium and aluminium peaks in the intermetallic compound. XP spectra have been obtained from the alloys and these are also presented in the paper. As a result of this work it is concluded that the final state features of the spectra result from charge transfer between sp and sd valence bands
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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