1,721,061 research outputs found
Emerg Infect Dis
No full textIn the United Kingdom, the National Screening Programme for identification of hepatitits B virus (HBV) infection in pregnant women uses HBV e antigen (HBeAg) and antibody to HBeAg (anti-HBe) as markers of infectivity to determine use of immunoglobulin for hepatitis B. Serum samples from 114 HBV-infected women were analyzed. Viral loads correlated with HBeAg/anti-HBe status and viral genotypes. Among 95 mothers whose serum contained anti-HBe, viral loads ranged between undetectable and 8.6 x 10(6) IU/mL (median 228 IU/mL). Ten (10.5%) of these mothers had plasma viral loads >10(4) IU/mL; 6 were infected with genotype E and one each with genotypes A, B, C, and D. All viruses had precore stop codon or basal core promoter mutations. Preponderance of genotypes other than A among antenatal mothers in the United Kingdom reflects increasing globalization and trends in immigration. HBeAg serostatus is no longer sufficiently accurate for inferring potential infectivity of pregnant HBV carriers
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
Production and use of monoclonal antibodies against a conserved epitope of hepatitis B surface antigen
Get PDFThe hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) displays the major neutralising epitope of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) termed the a determinant. As well as its use as an immunogen in vaccines, HBsAg is the primary diagnostic marker for HBV, with its detection in serum being used for routine screening in diagnostic laboratories. Recently, mutations within the a determinant have been described, some of which have been linked to false- negative HBsAg reactions in the serum of HBV infected individuals. The inability of some assays to detect HBsAg mutants will result in the failure to monitor immune responses as well as the transmission of infection through blood or organs as a result of inaccurate diagnosis.
This thesis describes the use of monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to define epitopes present on the wild-type (WT) HBsAg, that are preserved on HBsAg carrying mutations in the a determinant. The MAbs were raised against mutant HBsAg purified from two renal transplant patients. Following the screening process, those hybridomas which recognised the wild type and mutant HBsAg were selected. Characterisation studies using recombinant HBsAg further demonstrated that the MAbs were able to detect mutants ranging from codon 133 to 145. Once formatted into a solid phase radioimmunoassay, the MAbs were used to detect naturally-occurring in vivo mutant-virus infections.
The identification of the conserved epitope in the first loop of the a determinant, using oligopeptides, highlighted possible limitations of the monoclonal antibody which were later demonstrated in a study assessing the prevalence of HBsAg mutants in orthotopic liver transplant patients. Changes associated with natural genetic variation in the first loop resulted in the monoclonal antibody failing to recognise HBsAg in specimens from patients infected with viruses of subtype ayw3 carrying changes in the putative binding site at residues 125 and 127.
An important, although maybe not pan-reactive, epitope has been identified which can be used to improve HBsAg detection assays as well as providing a strategy for studying the prevalence of HBsAg mutants in different populations
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
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