1,721,012 research outputs found
Vice-Chancellor's Community Engagement Award
No full textTeam award
Winner: SHINE: An innovative space project for university and high school students
Recipients: Huseyin Sumer, Eddie Brelsford, Elliot Henkel, Alan Duffy, Virginia Kilborn, Rebecca Allen
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Transmembrane delivery of specific recombinant proteins for reprogramming of somatic cells and disease therapy
No full textThe anionic plasma membrane is generally refractory to passive extracellular-to-cytoplasmic transit of proteins. A number of highly regulated endocytotic processes specify which extracellular proteins gain access to the cytosol, and which are excluded. Whilst critical for normal biological function in the natural setting, this property of the cellular plasma membrane represents major impedance to delivery of therapeutic proteins to cells, particularly delivery of large and/or charged proteins. The need to circumvent this membrane impermeability for research, or treatment of disease, led to development of various polycationic peptides (collectively termed cell penetrating/transduction peptides; CPP’s) that are capable of transmembrane transfer without disruption to the lipid bilayer (reviewed Sawant & Torchilin, 2010, and references therein). These were commonly devised from viral surface proteins or viral-host protein-protein interactions shown to be important to infection. The vast majority of CPP’s described to date (eg. Tat peptide, Penetratin; reviewed Deshayes et al., 2005) are non-selective in nature; ie. transmembrane transduction is achieved in most/all cell types. Interaction of CPP’s with lipid raft components/cell surface glycoproteins (often ubiquitously expressed across cell types) mediates cytoplasmic translocation via macropinocytosis, clathrin-mediated endocytosis, and/or caveolae/ lipid raft-mediated endocytosis, often in a concentration-specific manner (Duchardt et al., 2007, and references therein). Since host cell glycoproteins are ubiquitously expressed, many CPPs are non-selective in nature; ie. translocation occurs in most/all cell types (e.g. Tat peptide, Penetratin peptide; reviewed Deshayes et al., 2005). In a landmark study, Takahashi et al., (2006) forced expression of four key transcription factors (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4 and cMyc) in somatic cells to reprogram them to pluripotent, colony-forming phenotype that resemble embryonic stem cells (ES cells) by various criteria. Although this presents an opportunity to derive patient-specific stem cells for human disease therapy, elucidation of the molecular events that characterize the adoption of the pluripotent phenotype is required before their clinical applicability could be realized. I utilized a non-selective CPP to deliver key recombinant proteins to somatic cells in vitro, aimed at deciphering the temporal and molecular events that characterize early somatic cell reprogramming. Specifically, I investigated the concentration and temporal requirements of cMyc in repression of lineage associated genes (,eg. Thy1 in fibroblasts), a requisite biological event that precedes adoption of the pluripotent phenotype (Heffernan et al., 2011, submitted; Chapter 3). I describe construction of recombinant protein expression vectors incorporating (i) an arginine-rich basic domain (49-RKKRRQRRR-57) of HIV trans-activating transcriptional activator (Tat) protein (for transduction across cellular membranes), and (ii) mouse cMyc protein (denoted pTATmcMyc). Purification of semi-soluble/particulate pTAT-mcMyc recombinant protein preceded experiments highlighting contributions of cMyc and other reprogramming factors in repressing Thy1 in fibroblasts, suggesting a ‘cMyc-mediated’ and ‘default (cMyc absent)’ mechanism of Thy1 repression (Chapter 3). In chapters 4 & 5, I propose a theoretical framework for the treatment of multiple sclerosis(MS), a disease characterized by neural demyelination in the central nervous system (CNS). Conceptually, in vivo administration of fusion protein incorporating nonselective CPPs (as outlined Chapter 3) may treat disease that manifests across numerous/all cell types. However the full therapeutic potential of CPP’s will be realized when cell selective CPP’s are devised for cell-specific delivery of therapeutic proteins in vivo.Chapter 4 outlines preliminary development of a glial cell-specific CPP (gCPP), modeled on arenaviral infection of glia, for targeted delivery of therapeutic peptides. A screen of putative gCPPs in vitro highlighted one gCPP (termed ‘TD2.2) that effectively translocated to human glial cells (immature and matured oligodendrocytes, and astrocytes), yet appeared largely incapable of translocating to a non-glial (human) cell line. This tentatively demonstrated glial cell-selectively of the TD2.2 peptide sequence. Time course, sectional confocal microscopy provided further visual evidence for transduction of TD2.2 to human oligodendrocytes in vitro (Chapter 4). Myelin Associated Glycoprotein (MAG) is an oligodendrocyte-derived, periaxonal protein that regulates neural-glial cell signaling, structural/spatial integrity of myelin and Nodes of Ranvier and maintains glialaxonal cell interactions (Yang et al., 1996; Dashiell et al., 2002; Nguyen et al., 2009). The proteolytic cleavage of the periaxonal (extracellular) component of MAG by matrix metalloproteases (MMPs) results in loss of physical and molecular interactions of neural and glial cells, thus contributing to the progressive demyelination and axonal loss characteristic of MS (Sato et al., 1984; Moller et al., 1987; Tang et al., 1997; Stebbins et al., 1997; Milward et al., 2008). The mobile, digested product of MAG is also thought to represent a circulatory auto-antigen, further exacerbating disease. Chapter 5 of this thesis outlines theoretical design and construction of a mutated MAG protein (MAGMUT) capable of evading MMP mediated proteolysis. Following construction of protein expression vectors for expression (in E.coli) of histidinetagged, wildtype MAG (MAGWT) and MAGMUT recombinant protein, technical difficulties were encountered with induction and/or protein purification. In addition, MMP7 digestion experiments with oligodendrocytes expressing retrovirally delivered transgenes comprising EGFP-MAGWT and EGFPMAGMUT fusion protein were also somewhat inconclusive. Thus, validation of the ability of the MAGMUT sequence to evade MMP7-mediated proteolysis in vitro could not be conclusively drawn. In addition to a final discussion of experimental results and a proposal of future research directions, Chapter 6 addresses philosophical concerns if iPS technology and alternative strategies for deriving therapeutic cells (ie. transdifferentiation). Strategies to maximize persistence of recombinant protein in circulation, and functionality of recombinant protein in the cytosol, that could be adopted for in vivo validation of recombinant proteins (Chapters 4 & 5) are also discussed. To conclude, the myriad of possibilities in recombinant protein design, and relative ease of purification for screening of putative peptides, highlight the therapeutic potential of this technology for treatment of human disease. However, the full potential of this technology for human disease therapy will only be realized with concurrent development of strategies for targeted cellular delivery
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