1,720,963 research outputs found
Neuroendocrine, immunologic, and microvascular systems interactions in rheumatoid arthritis: physiopathogenetic and therapeutic perspectives.
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Reciprocal interactions between the neuroendocrine and immune systems during inflammation.
No full textThe neuroendocrine and immune responses to inflammatory stress represent important integrated physiologic circuits for the regulation of inflammation whose basis has been reviewed. Proinflammatory cytokines such as IL-1 beta, TNF alpha, and IL-6 released from inflammatory foci initiate a local inflammatory response and travel by way of the blood-stream to the central nervous system, where they trigger a variety of neuroendocrine counterregulatory mechanisms. There is an important NEI loop. Stimulatory signals are received by the neural systems from inflammatory foci and are transduced by the hypothalamus, thereby initiating a complex hormonal and cytokine cascade of reactions aimed at modulating inflammation and returning the organism to normal physiologic homeostasis once the trigger has been neutralized. Conversely, a number of mechanisms that modulate the anti-inflammatory activity of the neuroendocrine responses to inflammation are also activated. Defects in the neuroendocrine-immune interactions can profoundly affect the susceptibility to developing chronic inflammatory disease and influencing survival after bacterial infections. The NEI loop has important pathophysiologic implications for disease processes
Hypothalamic-pituitary-mediated immunomodulation: arginine vasopressin is a neuroendocrine immune mediator.
No full textOrganisms respond to a variety of environmental agents, such as those that cause inflammation, by mounting a coordinated complex series of adaptive responses involving the immune, nervous and endocrine systems. These adaptations are aimed at restoring the homeostatic balance and the return to the status quo ante. This interaction is facilitated by cytokines, hormones and neurotransmitters, as well as receptors that are endogenous to the neural, immune and endocrine systems. These shared ligands and receptors provide the molecular basis of this cross-talk. Studies of animal models of autoimmune diseases have shown that defects in the neuroendocrine immune communications contribute to the development of chronic inflammatory autoimmune disease. By analogy, similar observations have now been made in patients with inflammatory rheumatic disorders. For instance, patients with rheumatoid arthritis have abnormally low cortisol responses to inflammation, whilst the production of prolactin is excessive and dysregulated. Prolactin is a pro-inflammatory neuropeptide. This paper reviews the evidence to support the viewpoint that the neuropeptide arginine vasopressin, which is also produced by the hypothalamus, should be considered to be another neuroendocrine modulator of immune and inflammatory responses. It is also being hypothesized that the production of arginine vasopressin might be dysregulated and excessive in rheumatoid arthritis, and that this could be another additional neuroendocrine factor contributing to the pathophysiology of the disease
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
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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