1,720,959 research outputs found
Nanoplasmonic infrared biosensors enabling detection of misfolded protein biomarkers and drug screening for neurodegenerative diseases
Neurodegenerative diseases (NDDs), such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease present a significant global health concern. The misfolding of proteins from native disordered monomeric forms into beta-sheet enriched aggregates of oligomers and fibrils is a core hallmark of NDDs. Novel methods that detect such preclinical structural protein biomarkers are vital for early diagnosis, disease progression monitoring and drug screening. Mid-infrared spectroscopy can provide structural-sensitive detection of proteins by accessing their unique absorption signatures. Plasmonic surface-enhanced infrared absorption (SEIRA) spectroscopy employs nanoplasmonics to advance biosensing capabilities and develop an infrared structural protein biomarker-based biosensor for NDDs.
In the first original contribution of the thesis, the capabilities of plasmonic SEIRA as a diagnostic tool for NDDs are explored. The study introduces a novel sensor - ImmunoSEIRA, an optofluidic nanoplasmonic infrared metasurface sensor that detects alpha-synuclein (aSyn), a structural protein biomarker for NDDs. The sensor performs structural profiling of different aSyn species - monomers, oligomers and fibrils using their unique absorption signatures from minute sample volumes with specificity. The sensor is coupled with artificial intelligence to enable unprecedented quantitative prediction of oligomers and fibrils in their mixture. The sensor also performs multiplexed detection of different NDDs biomarkers simultaneously from the same sample and can retrieve pathological biomarker fingerprints in the presence of complex biomatrix.
The second contribution is developing a novel nanoplasmonic infrared microarray sensor for label-free, high-throughput drug screening based on structural protein biomarkers in NDDs. The sensor features 2D plasmonic metasurface arrays as sensing units for enhanced sensing of secondary structure of proteins and high-throughput detection is enabled by precise micropatterning of polymeric honeycomb-shaped structures enclosing them to form microwells. Versatile sensor designs with 48, 96 and 384 microwells are realized and a detection sensitivity from minute protein samples of 7 nanograms is achieved. The sensor screened 11 drug compounds, evaluating their inhibiting effect on aSyn aggregation by quantitatively identifying different secondary structural forms in the mixture, even when it predominantly contained oligomers, where current assays fail.
Finally, a nanoplasmonic sensor for chemical imaging of ultra-thin tissues by optical photothermal infrared spectroscopy is presented for the diagnostic and mechanistic understanding of diseases like cancer and NDDs. The study designed a 2D plasmonic nanoslit platform to extract the amplified infrared absorption fingerprints from ultra-thin tissue samples by exploiting the near-field enhancement, visualized using O-PTIR tool. A working protocol is realized to prepare and transfer ultra-thin tissues (100 nm) to the sensor using resin embedding and ultramicrotome sectioning. Finally, proof-of-concept retrieval of protein absorption fingerprints from a 100 nm thin model tissue sample with sub-micron resolution using the O-PTIR tool is presented.
The sensors developed in this thesis are the outcomes of interdisciplinary research incorporating versatile technologies, offering promising advancements toward realizing novel methods for the mechanistic understanding, diagnosis and drug screening of NDDs.BIO
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
Variations on the Author
“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
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We 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.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
In Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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