1,720,966 research outputs found
Silver-containing mesoporous bioactive glass with improved antibacterial properties
No full textThe aim of the present work is the study of the bacteriostatic/bactericidal effect of a silver-containing mesoporous bioactive glass obtained by evaporation-induced self-assembly and successive thermal stabilization. Samples of the manufactured mesophase were characterized by means of transmission electron microscopy and N2 adsorption/desorption at 77 K, revealing structural and textural properties similar to SBA-15 mesoporous silica. Glass samples used for bioactivity experiments were put in contact with a standardized, commercially available cell culture medium instead of lab-produced simulated body fluid, and were then characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, field emission scanning electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. All these analyses confirmed the development of a hydroxyl carbonate apatite layer on glass particles. Moreover, the investigated mesostructure showed a very good antibacterial effect against S. aureus strain, with a strong evidence of bactericidal activity already registered at 0.5 mg/mL of glass concentration. A hypothesis about the mechanism by which Ag affects the bacterial viability, based on the intermediate formation of crystalline AgCl, was also taken into account. With respect to what already reported in the literature, these findings claim a deeper insight into the possible use of silver-containing bioactive glasses as multifunctional ceramic coatings for orthopedic devices
Core-shell microgels with controlled structural properties
No full textCore-shell microgels with controlled structural properties: Here we report on the multistep synthesis of fluorescent core-shell microgels with inner and surface controlled composition. The tunability and versatility of this approach was confirmed in each step of the synthesis by confocal imaging, XPS and AFM. In particular, the in situ AFM measurements allowed us to study the swelling behaviour to understand the structural organization of the layers at single particle level. Microgels have gained great attention in the biomedical field for their wide application in diagnostic and drug delivery systems. The bulk properties as well as the surface features of these particular microparticles define their final performance. In particular, multifunctional microgels with complex architectures have been widely used in multiplex assays for their favourable capability to accommodate encoding systems and anchoring groups for probes to capture circulating targets by simply changing synthesis parameters. In this work a limited set of fluorescent encoded poly(ethyleneglycol) based microgels, of size ranging between 0.5 and 1.3μm, with a core-shell architecture were obtained by combining precipitation and seeded polymerizations. Here we demonstrate the possibility of tailoring and controlling the bulk and surface properties according to the synthesis by fluorescence imaging and pH titrations. Concerning the structural characterization, we adopted a method to calculate polymer fraction volumes from AFM images and combined these with equilibrium swelling theory (Peppas-Merrill equation) to determine the mesh size of the microgels. Surface composition was probed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy directly on freeze-dried microgels. In such a way we were able to describe the organizations of the different adlayers also in response to pH, highlighting the possibility of some overlap of the adlayers representing physical barriers at the boundaries of each shell
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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