1,721,038 research outputs found
Can estrogens protect against COVID-19 the COVID-19 puzzling and gender medicine
No full textMortality by COVID-19 is higher in men than in women. Among the advocated reasons are a different exposure to risk factors such as smoking, reduced care of men about their health or different association with other morbidities. Nevertheless, a different expression of ACE2 may explain the different mortality between sexes.A potential protective role of estrogen is discusse
Genetic Hypothesis and Pharmacogenetics Side of Renin-Angiotensin-System in COVID-19
No full textThe importance of host genetics and demography in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a crucial aspect of infection, prognosis and associated case fatality rate. Individual genetic landscapes can contribute to understand Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) burden and can give information on how to fight virus spreading and the associated severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). The spread and pathogenicity of the virus have become pandemic on specific geographic areas and ethnicities. Interestingly, SARS-CoV-2 firstly emerged in East Asia and next in Europe, where it has caused higher morbidity and mortality. This is a peculiar feature of SARS-CoV-2, different from past global viral infections (i.e., SARS-1 or MERS); it shares with the previous pandemics strong age- and sex-dependent gaps in the disease outcome. The observation that the severest COVID-19 patients are more likely to have a history of hypertension, diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease and receive Renin-Angiotensin-System (RAS) inhibitor treatment raised the hypothesis that RAS-unbalancing may have a crucial role. Accordingly, we recently published a genetic hypothesis on the role of RAS-pathway genes (ACE1, rs4646994, rs1799752, rs4340, rs13447447; and ACE2, rs2285666, rs1978124, rs714205) and ABO-locus (rs495828, rs8176746) in COVID-19 prognosis, suspecting inherited genetic predispositions to be predictive of COVID-19 severity. In addition, recently, Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) found COVID-19-association signals at locus 3p21.31 (rs11385942) comprising the solute carrier SLC6A20 (Na+ and Cl- coupled transporter family) and at locus 9q34.2 (rs657152) coincident with ABO-blood group (rs8176747, rs41302905, rs8176719), and interestingly, both loci are associated to RAS-pathway. Finally, ACE1 and ACE2 haplotypes seem to provide plausible explanations for why SARS-CoV-2 have affected more heavily some ethnic groups, namely people with European ancestry, than Asians
Predictive role of gene polymorphisms affecting thrombin-generation pathway in variable efficacy of photodynamic therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration
No full textAge-related macular degeneration (AMD) represents the leading cause of central
blindness in developed countries. The majority of severe vision loss occurs in
the neovascular form of AMD, generally characterized by the presence of choroidal
neovascularization (CNV) beneath the fovea. Photodynamic therapy with verteporfin
(PDT-V) and drugs acting against vascular endothelial growth factor are the most
commonly employed treatments for AMD-related subfoveal CNV. The combined use of
both these strategies is the most promising therapeutic approach towards this
harmful disease. The therapeutic action of PDT-V depends to a photochemical
perturbation of thrombo-coagulative processes within CNV. Predictive correlations
between peculiar coagulation-balance gene polymorphisms and different levels of
post-PDT-V benefit have been recently documented in Caucasian patients with
neovascular AMD. Particularly, heterozygous A-allele carriers of factor V Leiden
1691 or prothrombin 20210 gene are characterized by a greater possibility to
exhibit clinical benefit after PDT-V. Both mutations induce thrombophilia
increasing the thrombin generation in plasma and, thus, they can consistently
intensify the photothrombotic phase of the therapeutic CNV occlusion. In
prospect, considering the different individual susceptibility to PDT-V, a
preoperative assessment of the genotypic thrombophilic background could optimize
the eligibility criteria of this intriguing treatment. This review summarizes
some of the recent published patents on treatment of neovascular AMD, with a
particular attention to PDT-V application in combined therapeutic modalities
Pharmacogenetic aspects in therapeutic management of subfoveal choroidal neovascularisation: role of factor XIII-A 185 T-allele
No full textIn Western Countries, the occurrence of choroidal neovascularization (CNV)
secondary to different forms of macular degeneration represents a common cause of
blindness. Particularly, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and pathologic
myopia (PM) are the most frequent diseases related to CNV development. At
present, the combined employment of drugs acting against vascular endothelial
growth factor (anti-VEGF) and photodynamic therapy with verteporfin (PDT-V) is a
promising therapeutic strategy for neovascular macular degenerations. However,
this approach inevitably leads to an increase in health-resource utilization. In
several clusters of patients treated for CNV, correlations among common gene
polymorphisms implicated in coagulation- or complement-cascade and different
levels of, respectively, post-PDT-V or post-anti-VEGF benefit have been reported.
Factor XIII-A G185T substitution (rs5985), a frequent anti-thrombophilic genetic
variant of Caucasian ethnic groups, unequivocally influences a worsening of the
CNV responsiveness to PDT-V in patients affected by either AMD- or PM-related
CNV. These coherent pharmacogenetic findings point out the opportunities to: i.
optimize the eligibility criteria of PDT-V and, ii. customize the interventional
strategy against CNV, for finally minimizing the socio-economic burden of
neovascular macular degenerations
Predictive role of C677T MTHFR polymorphism in variable efficacy of photodynamic therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration
No full text
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
- …
