1,721,195 research outputs found
Are patients with inflammatory bowel disease at increased risk for covid-19 infection?
No full textCrohn’s disease [CD] and ulcerative colitis [UC], the main inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD] in humans, are chronic, immune-inflammatory diseases, the pathogenesis of which suggests a complex interaction between environmental factors and genetic susceptibility. These disabling conditions affect millions of individuals and, together with the drugs used to treat them, can put patients at risk of developing complications and other conditions. This is particularly relevant today, as coronavirus disease [Covid-19] has rapidly spread from China to countries where IBD are more prevalent, and there is convincing evidence that Covid-19-mediated morbidity and mortality are higher in subjects with comorbidities. The primary objectives of this Viewpoint are to provide a focused overview of the factors and mechanisms by which the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2] infects cells and to illustrate the link between such determinants and intestinal inflammation. We also provide clues about the reasons why the overall IBD population might have no increased risk of developing SARS-CoV-2 infection and highlight the potential of cytokine blockers, used to treat IBD patients, to prevent Covid-driven pneumonia
La cessazione della materia del contendere nella dottrina e nella giurisprudenza sotto il vigore del c.p.c. del 1865
No full textL’istituto della cessazione della materia del contendere, tuttora ignoto al dettato normativo del codice di procedura civile italiano, viene, da alcuni decenni, pacificamente utilizzato dalla giurisprudenza, di legittimità e di merito, ed è stato ampiamente studiato dalla dottrina, nonché ormai accolto anche nei principali manuali istituzionali. In questo studio se ne approfondiscono le origini già sotto il vigore del codice di rito del 1865 (che pure ignorava l’istituto), verificando come la giurisprudenza ed anche alcuni Autori (come ad es. Chiovenda e Carnelutti) ritenessero già allora possibile attribuire a questa figura una specifica utilità, e quindi un “diritto di cittadinanza” nel sistema italiano, ad imitazione di quanto accadeva (ed accade) per il processo civile tedesco, nell’ambito del quale, però, questo istituto risultava, così come risulta anche oggi, espressamente legittimato non da mere, quanto autorevoli, opinioni, bensì dall’esistenza di ben precise norme inserite all’interno della Z.P.O
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
FUNCTIONAL ROLE OF ESTROGEN RECEPTORS DURING AGING AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN INFLAMMATORY PROCESSESS
Full text linkEstrogens are female sex hormones, belonging to a group of steroids, and they are responsible for the sexual characteristics of the female. They also have effects on bone, cardiovascular system, brain, and skin. The effects of estrogens are mediated by binding to their cognate receptors, the estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ). ERs are transcription factors that regulate transcription by associating with estrogen-responsive-elements (EREs) located within the promoter of target genes. The aim of my studies was to evaluate the effect of aging and blockade of ovarian functions on estrogen receptor transcriptional activity and ER anti-inflammatory action .
In specific aim #1 we proposed to study genes driven by ERE-containing promoters: endogenous as well as surrogate reporters; within specific aim #2 we proposed to provide support to the theory that lack of estrogen anti-inflammatory activity is a major component for the onset of pathologies associated with menopause (osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, metabolic and neurological dysfunctions). In our study we evaluated ER activity during aging in ERE-Luc mice. The analysis showed that ERα is still synthesized during while with age, ovariectomy further increases ERα content in uterus, aorta and hippocampus, but not in the brain. To evaluate ER transcriptional activity in aging and after ovx we first studied the expression of the reporter luciferase (by measuring luciferase mRNA); next we evaluated the expression of ER endogenous genes such as Prothymosin alpha (PTMA) and Progesteron Receptor (PgR) known to be a direct target of ER. This study showed that the ER present in aged tissues is fully functional from the transcriptional point of view. In ovx animals the trend of ER activity is unclear. We were intrigued by the observation that, in aged female mice, a reduction of circulating levels of estrogens induced by ovariectomy was associated with an increased ER activity in several organs. To further study this phenomenon we gonadectomised male and female mice at the age of 5 months and we measured luciferase activity by in vivo imaging at 6 or 20 months of age. Luciferase activity is higher in females than in males in both groups of age, however gonadectomy does not affect luciferase activity in young males (with the exception of the chest), but clearly decreases photon emission in aged mice. In our study we also tested the hypothesis that with aging the loss of the anti-inflammatory activity of estrogens may explain the increased susceptibility to inflammatory disorders (i.e., osteoporosis, atherosclerosis, diabetes, certain neurodegenerative disorders), reported by epidemiological studies in women. Our analysis focused primarily on TNFα, IL1β, MCP1 and MIP2. The mRNA of all these inflammatory mediators was shown to increase progressively with aging. To evaluate the influence of estrogens on the expression of inflammatory genes, we measured the content of mRNA encoding for inflammatory mediators in different tissues of ovariectomized females. Due to the relevance of inflammatory processes in the CNS, we next focused on the effect of ovariectomy in the different brain areas by IHC studies the state of reactivity of microglia and astrocytes, cells known to play a relevant role in neuroinflammation. Our data show morphological differences between astrocytes in ovariectomized compared to sham operated mice in all the brain areas at all months of age. Also microglia presents a morphological activation in all the brain areas, as observed in astrocytes. Finally we investigated the extent to which the susceptibility to an inflammatory stimulus changed during aging and if the ovariectomy was playing a role in this phenomenon. In the hippocampus TNFα production increases with aging, MIP2 and MCP1 espression changes at 12 months and is similar at 18 months, whereas mRNA levels of IL1 beta are not affected by aging. Ovariectomy does not seem to influence the inflammatory process
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
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