1,720,996 research outputs found
Structures Involved in the Oligomerization of Prestin
No full textHearing is an essential part of daily life for most people, yet little is known its molecular constituents. Cochlear amplification is the mechanism by which the hearing process is tuned and boosted in the inner ear. Somatic motility, a unique property of the outer hair cells in the inner ear, is a major component of cochlear amplification. Outer hair cell somatic motility is driven by the motor protein prestin, but little is known about the structure-function relationship of the motor protein prestin. This has lead to disputes over its role in cochlear amplification. This work seeks to clarify the structure-function relationship of prestin by testing the hypothesis that the prestin protein family’s function is dependent on homo-oligomerization through the STAS domain. Förster resonance energy transfer demonstrated that homo-oligomerization occurs in several prestin homologous sequences. Subsequent sequence analysis of prestin homologous sequences revealed a model of the STAS domain, a putative protein-protein motif in the STAS domain, and two putative pore regions in the transmembrane region. Scanning cysteine mutagenesis suggested that one cysteine (C415) affects both structure and function and may have a role in disulfide bond formation. Mutation of the protein-protein motif in the STAS domain also significantly altered both structure and function, but it is unclear the role this motif plays in homo-oligomerization. These results, along with recently published structural data, were used to generate a refined model of prestin. This model postulates that the STAS domain acts as an ‘ATP-gate’ regulating prestin function. If correct, this model may help further our understanding of the structure-function relationship of prestin and its role in human hearing.ProQuest Traditional Publishing Optionvii, 213 page
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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