1,721,146 research outputs found
Why do we keep failing in identifying reliable biological markers in depression?
No full textDespite major depression is a raising and wide spread health problem, the knowledge about its biological bases is limited. This not only has consequences epistemologically speaking, but also has clinical implications. However, considering the whole literature on biological bases of depression, it seems that a precise or unique biological marker enough specific and sensible to be used in clinical practice or to better understand the psychopathology of the disorder is not available and research has produced highly heterogeneous results. Moreover, the studied markers are often assessed with expensive and not commonly available techniques, limiting their possible application in clinical routine. Here we hypothesize that the emerging clinical and biological heterogeneity mainly reflect the fact that depression, as most of psychiatric disorders, is not a unique condition, but the sum of different entities with similar symptoms. Such entities may rely on different and only partially overlapping biological features. Therefore, rather, than continue to invest on highly inconsistent studies, we sustained the necessity of a shift in the study paradigm. Namely, future researches may focus on a bottom-up approach considering patients with homogeneous biological markers and evaluating whether these markers correspond to precise clinical features. Unsupervised supported vector machines and other data driven approaches may represent the best tool for such type of research. Pursuing the idea of a clinical exploitation of this type of research we also considered markers derived from electrocardiography (like the heart rate variability) the most promising given the relatively low cost, simplicity and availability of this technique
Challenges and Opportunities for Human Behavior Research in the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic
No full textHuman chemosignals and brain activity: A preliminary meta-analysis of the processing of human body odors
No full textAcross phyla, chemosignals are a widely used form of social communication and increasing evidence suggests that chemosensory communication is present also in humans. Chemosignals can transfer, via body odors, socially relevant information, such as specific information about identity or emotional states. However, findings on neural correlates of processing of body odors are divergent. The aims of this meta-analysis were to assess the brain areas involved in the perception of body odors (both neutral and emotional) and the specific activation patterns for the perception of neutral body odor (NBO) and emotional body odor (EBO). We conducted an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on 16 experiments (13 studies) examining brain activity during body odors processing. We found that the contrast EBO versus NBO resulted in significant convergence in the right middle frontal gyrus and the left cerebellum, whereas the pooled meta-analysis combining all the studies of human odors showed significant convergence in the right inferior frontal gyrus. No significant cluster was found for NBOs. However, our findings also highlight methodological heterogeneity across the existing literature. Further neuroimaging studies are needed to clarify and support the existing findings on neural correlates of processing of body odors
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
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