1,720,987 research outputs found

    The Utility of Immune Function Profiling in Rheumatoid Arthritis Therapeutic Efficacy Monitoring

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    Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is a chronic, systemic autoimmune disease, primarily affecting the small joints of the hands, wrists and feet. Disease onset is insidious with classical symptoms including pain, morning stiffness, and persistent synovitis; accompanied by fatigue, malaise and weight loss. RA patients also suffer from a number of extra-articular manifestations and additional comorbidities, including rheumatoid nodules and scleritis; as well as an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), lymphoma and infection. Ultimately, RA is a devastatingly progressive disease, if a diagnosis and an effective therapeutic regimen is not established quickly. Identifying when a therapy is proving ineffective can be difficult, however, and is reliant upon accurate formal joint counts, CRP measurements and patient global assessments. These are potentially insensitive means of assessing remission and may result in delayed changes to therapeutic regimens. The identification of new biomarkers to improve the predictive value of these evaluation models would therefore greatly benefit patient care. Based upon current evidence, it has been hypothesized that RA patients who fail to make a clinical improvement following the initiation of csDMARD and bDMARD therapeutic regimens are identifiable by their profile of the following CD4+ T-cell populations: follicular helper, memory helper, antigen-specific and naturally-occurring regulatory CD4+ T-cells. As such, flow cytometric assays have developed for the identification and enumeration of these respective CD4+ T-cell populations; the relative and absolute counts of which were investigated within a cohort of healthy controls, with normal distributions established. Subsequently, we have identified distinct alterations to the CD4+ T-cell compartments of newly-diagnosed, treatment-naïve and longstanding RA patients, with clear associations with patient clinical outcomes observed. Of notable significance, the relative distribution of CCR4- Th2-like follicular helper CD4+ T-cells within newly-diagnosed, treatment-naïve RA patients at the time of diagnosis, has proven highly predictive of therapeutic efficacy; with changes in the relative distribution of Th17-like follicular helper and Th17 memory helper CD4+ T-cells also associated with changes to disease activity over time. Furthermore, consistent with previous studies, the CMV status of newly-diagnosed, treatment-naïve and longstanding RA patients, is associated with an aggravated clinical course; with changes in CMV-specific CCR4+ Th17 cell responses related to changes in disease activity 12-months after the initiation of a csDMARD therapeutic regimen. No such relationships could, however, be discerned within the naturally-occurring regulatory CD4+ T-cell compartment, limiting the utility of employing naturally-occurring regulatory CD4+ T-cell measurements in therapeutic efficacy monitoring. Nevertheless, these preliminary results indicate that the addition of follicular helper, memory helper and CMV-specific CD4+ T-cell responses to current remission assessment practices, could improve the identification of RA therapy non-responders, enabling the swift adjustment of RA patient therapeutic regimens and, consequently, improving disease management

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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

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    We 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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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 Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902

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    In Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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