1,720,998 research outputs found
Resolution of inflammation is altered in chronic heart failure and entails a dysfunctional responsiveness of T lymphocytes
No full textChronic heart failure (CHF) is characterized by an ongoing nonresolving inflammatory status, where T lymphocytes seem critical. It has been recently recognized that transition from acute to chronic inflammation could be caused by defects in resolving inflammation, the resolution of which is mediated by a novel family of -3-derived specialized proresolving lipid mediators such as resolvins. We analyzed 27 elderly patients with CHF and 23 healthy age-matched control subjects, and we reported significantly lower levels of D-series resolvin (RvD)1 in plasma of patients with CHF that were associated with a reduced ability of their leukocytes to produce this lipid via its biosynthetic enzyme 15-lipoxygenase and that correlated with gas exchange dysfunction. Furthermore, when pretreating ex vivo peripheral blood mononuclear cells of patients with CHF with RvD1 or RvD2, we found that neither of them was able to modulate the immune response of CD8(+) and CD4(+) T cells in terms of proinflammatory cytokine production, namely TNF-, IFN-, IL-17, and IL-2. Such impaired T-cell responsiveness in patients with CHF was associated with a significant reduction in mRNA and protein expression of RvD1 receptor GPR32, suggesting a defective signaling in the proresolving pathway. We conclude that patients with CHF show alterations in producing proresolving mediator RvD1 and a failure of adaptive immune cells in responding to the anti-inflammatory actions of RvDs that may contribute to the progression of chronic inflammation. Thus, the proresolution pathway might be a potential candidate to design better treatments for CHF aimed at reducing T cell-mediated chronic inflammation.ChiurchiU, V., Leuti, A., Saracini, S., Fontana, D., Finamore, P., Giua, R., Padovini, L., Incalzi, R. A., Maccarrone, M. Resolution of inflammation is altered in chronic heart failure and entails a dysfunctional responsiveness of T lymphocytes
Youth geographies of everyday life. Methodological notes from a project of photographic storytelling in Fez
No full textThe paper presents some methodological notes on a fieldwork in Fez, Morocco. The research involved a group of pupils from two schools belonging to different districts and culminated in the realization of two workshops of “photographic storytelling”. The aim was to verify if and how the everyday lives of the “pupil-inhabitants” had been affected by the urban projects underway in the neighbourhoods. The images and tales by the young students bring to light hidden and invisible geographies which go beyond the simple documentation of the uses, representations or emotions that link young people and space, and reveal a much more significant upshot on the political nature of socio-spatial organization and of urban transformations
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
- …
