1,720,963 research outputs found
Endogenous viral elements in mosquito genomes: current knowledge and outstanding questions
Full text linkIntegrations from non-retroviral RNA viruses (nrEVEs) have been identified across several taxa, including mosquitoes. Amongst all Culicinae species, the viral vectors Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus stand out for their high number of nrEVEs. In addition, Aedes nrEVEs are enriched in piRNA clusters and generate piRNAs that can silence incoming viral genomes. As such, nrEVEs represent a new form of inherited antiviral immunity. To propel this discovery into novel transmission-blocking vector control strategies, a deeper understanding of nrEVE biology and evolution is essential because differences in the landscape of nrEVEs have been identified in wild-caught mosquitoes, the piRNA profile of nrEVEs is not homogeneous and nrEVEs outside piRNA clusters exist and are expressed at the mRNA level. Here we summarise current knowledge on nrEVEs in mosquitoes and we point out the many unanswered questions and potentials of these genomic elements
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
ViR: a tool to solve intrasample variability in the prediction of viral integration sites using whole genome sequencing data
No full textBackground: Several bioinformatics pipelines have been developed to detect sequences from viruses that integrate into the human genome because of the health relevance of these integrations, such as in the persistence of viral infection and/or in generating genotoxic effects, often progressing into cancer. Recent genomics and metagenomics analyses have shown that viruses also integrate into the genome of non-model organisms (i.e., arthropods, fish, plants, vertebrates). However, rarely studies of endogenous viral elements (EVEs) in non-model organisms have gone beyond their characterization from reference genome assemblies. In non-model organisms, we lack a thorough understanding of the widespread occurrence of EVEs and their biological relevance, apart from sporadic cases which nevertheless point to significant roles of EVEs in immunity and regulation of expression. The concomitance of repetitive DNA, duplications and/or assembly fragmentations in a genome sequence and intrasample variability in whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data could determine misalignments when mapping data to a genome assembly. This phenomenon hinders our ability to properly identify integration sites. Results: To fill this gap, we developed ViR, a pipeline which solves the dispersion of reads due to intrasample variability in sequencing data from both single and pooled DNA samples thus ameliorating the detection of integration sites. We tested ViR to work with both in silico and real sequencing data from a non-model organism, the arboviral vector Aedes albopictus. Potential viral integrations predicted by ViR were molecularly validated supporting the accuracy of ViR results. Conclusion: ViR will open new venues to explore the biology of EVEs, especially in non-model organisms. Importantly, while we generated ViR with the identification of EVEs in mind, its application can be extended to detect any lateral transfer event providing an ad-hoc sequence to interrogate
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
Cross talk between viruses and insect cells cytoskeleton
No full textViruses are excellent manipulators of host cellular machinery, behavior, and life cycle, with the host cell cytoskeleton being a primordial viral target. Viruses infecting insects generally enter host cells through clathrin‐mediated endocytosis or membrane fusion mechanisms followed by transport of the viral particles to the corresponding replication sites. After viral replication, the viral progeny egresses toward adjacent cells and reaches the different target tissues. Throughout all these steps, actin and tubulin re‐arrangements are driven by viruses. The mechanisms used by viruses to manipulate the insect host cytoskeleton are well documented in the case of alphabaculoviruses infecting Lepidoptera hosts and plant viruses infecting Hemiptera vectors, but they are not well studied in case of other insect–virus systems such as arboviruses–mosquito vectors. Here, we summarize the available knowledge on how viruses manipulate the insect host cell cytoskeleton, and we emphasize the primordial role of cytoskeleton components in insect virus motility and the need to expand the study of this interaction
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
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