1,720,957 research outputs found
Structural characterization of different proteins as potential drug targets
Get PDFStructure determination of proteins is key to understanding their function and mechanism of action. In this thesis the structural characterization of three proteins by X-ray crystallography is described.
The human Aryl hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR) is an important transcription factor which has been known for a long time to be involved in several regulatory processes and immune-system adaptation. Its first structural characterizations only emerged in very recent years as its stability in solution is precarious. Despite our numerous attempts to produce a soluble construct, it was not possible to conduct any structural characterization of AhR given its very low stability in solution.
The Main Protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2 is an essential enzyme for the virus maturation and replication. We extensively characterized this protein both in its wild-type variant and in several mutants developed in our laboratory with the aim to bet-ter understand its enzymatic mechanism and binding dynamics. A novel conformation of the wild-type variant of Mpro and several structures of mutants in pres-ence of inhibitors and endogenous substrates are hereby described.
The first experimental structure of murine Threonine Aldolase (Tha-1) enzyme was determined in presence and in absence of its PLP cofactor. These structures were important for the validation of a reverse-docking algorithm and provide the first structural evidence of a mammalian Threonine Aldolase enzyme
Spectrophotometric methods for the measurement of soil pH: A reappraisal
No full textThe pH of aqueous soil extracts is generallymeasured potentiometrically by glass electrode (GE). Spectrophotometric
methods have also been used till around the '80s, and then they have apparently been abandoned. However,
the use of microplates and spectrophotometers able to read absorbance values in them can significantly
increase the speed of the data collection (saving analysis time), thus justifying their reappraisal. Three spectrophotometric
methods are proposed in this work: a one-indicator (OISM), a separated three-indicator (STISM)
and a mixed three-indicator (MTISM) spectrophotometric method. They are based on the addition of one or
three colorimetric indicators (methyl red, bromocresol violet, and bromothymol blue) to the aqueous extract.
The pHismeasured through its absorption properties in the visible region. The analysis of 60 soil samples showed
that STISMand MTISMresults correlate well with the ones obtained by GE. The STISMmethod, beingmore simple
and general than the other two methods, is proposed for quick routine analyses. The repeatability, reproducibility
and accuracy of STISM(and of GE, for comparison)were evaluated bymeasuring several times the pH of a
series of soil samples and of a certified reference soil. The standard deviations of STISM results were slightly
worse than those of GE,whereas the accuracywas slightly better, indicating that STISMand GE have overall similar
performances. STISM method is much faster than GE one: the analysis time saving is around 2 min per sample,
and it becomes very high when hundreds of samples have to be analysed. It follows that STISM can represent
an advantageous alternative to GE for rapid and accurate soil pH measurements
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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