186,238 research outputs found
Imaging Synaptic Vesicle Recycling by Staining and Destaining Vesicles with FM Dyes
The synaptic vesicle is the essential organelle of the synapse. Many approaches for studying synaptic vesicle recycling have been devised, one of which, the styryl (FM) dye, is well suited for this purpose. FM dyes reversibly stain, but do not permeate, membranes; hence they can specifically label membrane-bound organelles. Their quantum yield is drastically higher when bound to membranes than when in aqueous solution. This protocol describes the imaging of synaptic vesicle recycling by staining and destaining vesicles with FM dyes. Nerve terminals are stimulated (electrically or by depolarization with high K+) in the presence of dye, their vesicles are then allowed to recycle, and finally dye is washed from the chamber. In neuromuscular junction (NMJ) preparations, movements of the muscle must be inhibited if imaging during stimulation is desired (e.g., by application of curare, a potent acetylcholine receptor inhibitor). The main characteristics of FM dyes are also reviewed here, as are recent FM dye monitoring techniques that have been used to investigate the kinetics of synaptic vesicle fusion
FM Dye Photoconversion for Visualizing Synaptic Vesicles by Electron Microscopy
The synaptic vesicle is the essential organelle of the synapse. Many approaches for studying synaptic vesicle recycling have been devised, one of which, the styryl (FM) dye, is well suited for this purpose. The FM dyes have a unique set of properties that allows them to selectively label recycling vesicles: They reversibly stain, but do not permeate, membranes; hence they can specifically label membrane-bound organelles. Their quantum yield is drastically higher when bound to membranes than when in aqueous solution. FM dyes can also be used as endocytic markers in electron microscopy (EM) through a procedure termed photoconversion (or photooxidation), as described here. Fluorescent dye molecules generate free radicals (reactive oxygen species) when subjected to strong illumination. These short-lived radicals readily oxidize any molecules found in the immediate vicinity of the fluorophore. When photoconversion of FM dyes is performed while the preparation is bathing in diaminobenzidine (DAB), a dark brown precipitate forms after the DAB is oxidized. Thus, illumination turns FM-labeled organelles into dark electron-dense ones. The technique results in a substantial increase in the resolution of FM dye labeling studies (with the obvious caveat that it is restricted to fixed preparations)
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We 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
We 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
Dr. Edward P. Wimberly, ITC, July 2011
This video is a conversation with Dr. Edward P. Wimberly. Dr. Wimberly talks about his book, "No Shame in Wesley's Gospel: A Twenty-First Century Pastoral Gospel". Brad Ost, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
- …
