1,720,957 research outputs found
Novel compound heterozygous spatacsin mutations in a greek kindred with hereditary spastic paraplegia SPG11 and dementia
No full textExperimental spinal cord injury : methodological and neuroimmunological contributions with some historical background [Elektronisk resurs]
No full textSpinal cord injury (SCI) is an incurable neurotraumatic catastrophe that afflicts mostly young individuals with resultant functional impairment of varying degrees of severity. The single pharmacologic treatment option at present is systemic methylprednisolone administration within 8 hours postinjury oftentimes accompanied by neurosurgical interventions. As a rule, SCI becomes a chronic condition with significant handicap for the patient and socioeconomic repercussions for the affected families and health care system. Important discoveries in the field of central nervous system regeneration since the early 80‟s have led to diverse potential therapeutic approaches for neuroprotection and repair. Unfortunately, most envisioned treatment apporaches would only be applicable at the acute and subacute stages of SCI, thereby excluding the large patient base with chronic SCI. In the first part of this thesis work the methodological aspects of a neurosurgical treatment protocol in a rat model of acute and chronic SCI were explored. In complete spinal cord transection experiments in rat, the acute and chronic spinal cord lesions were characterized with high-resolution magnetic resonance technology. A microneurosurgical „repair‟ protocol was employed in both acute and chronic (at 2, 4 or 8 months postinjury) SCI. Behavioral evaluation of the operated animals with standard locomotor behavior tests and two novel behavioral tests, developed by the author, the Bipedal test and the Head-scratch test, demonstrated a statistically significant recovery for those animals that were subjected to the microsurgical reconstruction protocol. Partial functional recovery and histologically verifiable axonal regeneration was achieved in rats with both acute and chronic SCI. In the second part of this thesis work the neuroinflammatory and neuroimmunological correlates of peripheral and central nervous system injury were studied in mice. In one set of KO mice (TNFa, STAT4, STAT6) and their corresponding wild type controls, behavioral recovery and axonal regeneration were evaluated after spinal cord overhemisection. In another set of KO mice (STAT4, STAT6, IFNγ, IFNγR and IRF1) and their corresponding wild type controls inflammatory and glial cell reactions were assessed after unilateral facial nerve transection lesions. The results suggest a positive role for the TH2 subset of the adaptive immune response in anatomic recovery after SCI. Finally, in this thesis work the historical origins of the ‟inhibitory white matter hypothesis‟ were researched shedding light on the pioneering work of Lugaro. Future treatments will have to address the complexity of SCI with a multipronged approach in order to effect the appropriate type and degree of immunomodulation, achieve neuroprotection, and promote collateral sprouting and axonal regeneration ultimately resulting in tissue repair and functional recovery. This thesis suggests: 1) that complete, long-standing SCI can be amenable to therapy by demonstrating that the functional incapacity of experimental chronic paraplegia in rat is partially reversible, and 2) that judicious modulation of the immune response after SCI may have a role to play in axonal regeneration after SCI
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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