1,721,116 research outputs found
Fluconazole resistance in Candida albicans: A review of mechanisms
No full textAntifungal agents have greatly contributed to the improvement of public health. Nevertheless, antifungal resistant pathogens have increased during the past decade, becoming a serious concern. Candida albicans has been the most extensively studied pathogen in antifungal resistance because of their morbidity and mortality associated with infections in immunocompromised patients. This review describes the antifungal mechanims of the azole fluconazole widely used for the prophylaxis and treatment of candidal infections. The specific molecular pathways occurring in fluconazole-resistance of C. albicans and some issues about new antifungal agents are also discussed
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
Cytokine pattern secretion by murine spleen cells after inactivated Candida albicans immunization. Effect of cocaine and morphine treatment
No full textIn the present work we have analyzed: i) the effect of heat-inactivated Candida albicans immunization on the cytokine production by murine spleen cells; ii) the effect of a subchronic cocaine and morphine treatment on this production. The treatment with a single dose of inactivated Candida blastospores induced interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon-gamma (IFN gamma) and interleukin-4 (IL-4) production at 24 h after in vitro restimulation of splenocytes. In this model, the exposure to morphine (25 mg/kg, 5 days before, during and 5 days after inoculation with the yeast) significant decreased IL-2 and IL-4 levels, while secretion of IFN-gamma was unaltered. The same cocaine treatment (10 mg/kg) resulted in unchanged levels of the three cytokines tested. The results showed that non-viable Candida cells of this strain induce a predominant Th0 response. This immune effect is in part impaired only by a subchronic administration of morphine
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
Synergism between thymosin alpha one and epidermal Growth Factor in the stimulation of rat fibroblast cell proliferation: cellular and molecular aspects
No full textAltered growth factor sensitivity in EL2 rat fibroblasts: influence of this biological characteristic on cell growth
No full textExtensive evidence indicate that platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) play a key role in the stimulation of the 3T3 fibroblast replication: in this connection, PDGF and EGF act as a competence and a progression factor, respectively. We have previously demonstrated that EGF alone leads density-arrested EL2 rat fibroblasts to synthesize DNA and proliferate in serum-free cultures. Here, we have analyzed the role of EGF in the control of EL2 cell proliferation. Our data show a dose-related effect of EGF on DNA synthesis and cell growth, with maximal stimulation for both parameters at 20 ng/ml. On the other hand, autocrine production of PDGF or PDGF-like substances by EL2 cells is seemingly excluded by experiments with anti-PDGF serum or medium conditioned by EL2 fibroblasts. EGF binding studies show that EL2 cells possess high affinity EGF receptors, at a density level 3 to 4-fold higher than other fibroblastic lines. In addition, EL2 cells show a normal down-regulation of EGF receptors, following exposure to EGF, but PDGF, fibroblast growth factor (FGF), transforming growth factor beta (TGF beta) and bombesin have not decreased the affinity of EGF receptor for its ligand. Moreover, in EL2 cells, the EGF is able to induce the synthesis of putative intracellular regulatory proteins that govern the PDGF-induced competence in 3T3 cells. Our data indicate that EGF in EL2 cells may act as both a competence and a progression factor, via induction of the mechanisms, regulated in other cell lines by cooperation between different growth factors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS
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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