1,720,970 research outputs found
Arterial stiffness and cognition in the elderly with impaired glucose tolerance and microalbuminuria
No full textRats of the Milan hypertensive strain (MHS) are resistant to both hypertensive and diabetic renal disease. Genetically determined hypertrophy of intrarenal arteries has been suggested as the putative mechanism preventing transmission of systemic hypertension to the glomerular microcirculation or diabetes-induced loss of autoregulation, which lead to glomerular hypertension and consequent podocyte injury and proteinuria. This study aimed to investigate glomerular barrier function and structure in ageing and diabetic MHS rats under basal conditions and after injection of 2.5 g of bovine serum albumin (BSA) causing increased workload and possibly removing haemodynamic protection by inducing renal cortical vasodilatation. Genetically related rats of the Milan normotensive strain (MNS) served as a proteinuric counterpart. No change in renal function or structure was detected in diabetic MHS rats, whereas MNS rats developed diabetic nephropathy superimposed on that occurring spontaneously in this strain. Diabetic, but not non-diabetic, MHS rats showed significantly reduced synaptopodin and nephrin expression, though to a lesser extent than non-diabetic and diabetic MNS rats, together with unchanged podocyte number, density and structure and no proteinuria. Agrin expression was significantly altered in diabetic versus non-diabetic MHS animals, whereas collagen I was expressed only in diabetic MHS rats and collagen IV content did not change significantly between the two groups. Upon BSA injection, proteinuria increased markedly and abundant BSA was detected only in kidneys from diabetic MHS rats. BSA injection was associated with changes in intrarenal arteries suggesting vasodilatation, without any influx of inflammatory cells. These data indicate that while MNS rats show marked changes in the glomerular filtration barrier with either age or diabetes, glomerulosclerosis-resistant MHS rats develop only minor diabetes-induced podocyte (and extracellular matrix) alterations, which are not associated with proteinuria unless they are unmasked by an increased workload or removal of the haemodynamic protection
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
Daily plasma glucose excursions and executive functioning in aged patients with type 2 diabetics.
No full textVariations 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
Arterial stiffness and cognition in elderly persons with impaired glucose tolerance and microalbuminuria
No full textAdjuvant electrochemotherapy for the treatment of incompletely excised spontaneous canine sarcomas
No full textElectrochemotherapy (ECT) is a new therapeutical technique that combines the administration of trains of biphasic pulses with the local application of poorly permeant anticancer molecules, thus obtaining increased chemotherapy uptake. The purpose of this study was to prospectively assess the adjuvant potentialities of ECT for the treatment of different incompletely excised canine sarcomas. Twenty-two privately owned dogs with incomplete surgical excision of high grade sarcomas were treated with bleomycin injected within the tumor bed (1.5 IU/mg) followed by the sequential application of trains of biphasic pulses (8 pulses, 1300 V/cm, 50+50 μs duration, 1 Hz frequency). The overall response rate was 95% (21 out of 22 patients) with a mean time to recurrence of 730 days. At the time of writing 11 dogs were still in remission, three dogs had died of unrelated causes, one had local recurrence and the owner declined further treatment, one had limb amputation following recurrence, four had both local recurrence and distant metastases that led to euthanasia, and two were retreated following tumor recurrence and are disease free at 850 and 1947 days. The only observed toxicity was wound dehiscence in three patients. Electrochemotherapy is well tolerated and has effectiveness against incompletely excised sarcomas in companion animals. Further investigations are warranted to improve the currently available protocols
Effects of ubiquitin-proteasome system deregulation on the vascular senescence and atherosclerosis process in elderly patients
No full textThe role of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in the vascular senescence and atherosclerotic progression of elderly patients is unclear. We evaluated ubiquitin-proteasome activity in carotid plaques of asymptomatic elderly and adult patients.
Methods
Plaques were obtained from 28 elderly and 18 adult patients undergoing carotid endarterectomy. Plaques were analyzed for ubiquitin levels, proteasome 20S activity, p16 and p53,nitrotyrosine, matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and collagen content immunohistochemistry and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay). Serial sections were incubated with specific antibodies anti–human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR, anti CD68 and anti-CD3.
Results
Compared to plaques obtained from adult patients, plaques of elderly patients had more ubiquitin levels (257.4 +/- 118.9 ng/mg vs 110 +/- 14.4 ng/mg, p < .001), nitrotyrosine (3.8 +/- 0.55 nmol/pg vs 1.1 +/- 0.19 nmol/pg, p < .001), p53 and p16 staining ( p < .01), and MMP-9 levels (14.6 +/- 2.5 lg/mg vs 3.2 +/- 0.1.8 lg/mg, p < .001), along
with a lesser collagen content (21.9 +/- 4.8% vs 7.1 6 2.8%, p < .05) and less proteasome 20S activity (24.2 +/- 6.9 pmol/mg vs 78.4 +/- 10.3 pmol/mg, p < .001).
Conclusions
Our data suggest that reduction of proteasome activity promotes vascular cell senescence, thereby contributing to the pathogenesis of human atherosclerosis
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
- …
