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Intestinal permeability and Genetic determinants in patients,first degree relatives,and controls in a High incidence area's of Crohn's disease in Southern Italy
No full text1. Am J Gastroenterol. 2005 Dec;100(12):2730-6.
Intestinal permeability and genetic determinants in patients, first-degree
relatives, and controls in a high-incidence area of Crohn's disease in Southern
Italy.
Fries W, Renda MC, Lo Presti MA, Raso A, Orlando A, Oliva L, Giofré MR, Maggio A,
Mattaliano A, Macaluso A, Cottone M.
Dipartimento di Medicina Interna e Terapia Medica, Università di Messina,
Messina, Italy.
OBJECTIVE: A defect of gastrointestinal barrier function is considered to
represent an important step in the pathogenesis of Crohn's disease (CD) but the
mechanisms leading to an increased intestinal permeability (IP) are poorly
understood. Since IP is influenced by pro-inflammatory mediators, it seems likely
that a genetically determined abnormal immune response may lead to a loss of
barrier function.
METHODS: In a geographic area in Southern Italy with high incidence of CD we
investigated IP (lactulose/mannitol testing) together with the three main
mutations of the NOD2/CARD15 and the D299G polymorphism of the toll-like receptor
(TLR)-4 gene in 23 families of CD patients (patients and first-degree relatives).
RESULTS: Forty-eight percent of CD patients and 40% of their healthy relatives
were found to have an abnormal IP compared to 5% of an appropriate control
population (p < 0.0001). IP, however, was not associated with the L1007finsC
mutation of the NOD2/CARD15 or the D299G variant of the TLR-4 gene. Allele
frequency of the only L1007finsC mutation of CARD15 was significantly increased
in patients (8.7%, p < 0.003) and in relatives (8.3%, p < 0.024) compared with
controls (2.4%), whereas the D299G variant of the TLR-4 gene was found to be
increased only in relatives (8.3%, p < 0.022), but not in patients (4.3%)
compared with the control population (1.7%).
CONCLUSIONS: There was no association between IP and genetic markers. Our
findings showed a very high proportion of healthy first-degree relatives to bare
alterations suggested to constitute determinants of CD. Mutations of NOD2/CARD15
or TLR-4, however, do not lead to permeability defects emphasizing the importance
of additional environmental and/or genetic factors for pathogenesis.
PMID: 16393227 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
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
NOD2/CARD15,and intestinal permeability in patients,first degree relatives and controls in high incidence area of Crohn's disease.
No full textA protective effect of the synthetic coumarine derivative Cloricromene against DNB-colitis in the rat
No full textBiologic therapies, namely antibodies against tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) or its receptors, have been recently introduced for the treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In the present study the effects of cloricromene, an agent with known antithrombotic actions and with demonstrated anti-TNF-alpha activity were investigated in a rat model of experimental colitis induced with dinitrobenzenesulphonic acid (DNB)/ethanol.
We investigated three experimental groups: (i) sham-colitis with vehicle-treatment (controls, n = 6), (ii) colitis with vehicle-treatment (saline, 0.1 ml s.c., daily) (DNB-V, n = 7), (iii) colitis with cloricromene-treatment (10 mg/ kg/day s.c.; DNB-C, n = 8). After 7 days, the weight gain, colon wet weight, macroscopic damage score, coagulation parameters, colon mucosal myeloperoxidase activity (MPO), and tissue concentrations of TNF-alpha and of macrophage inhibitory peptide-2 (MIP-2) were assessed.
The macroscopic damage scores, colon wet weights, and tissue MIP-2 levels were significantly increased in untreated and in cloricromene-treated rats compared with controls. Cloricromene treatment was associated with a minor body weight loss (p < 0.025) and significantly reduced tissue concentrations of MPO and TNF-alpha (p < 0.02, both). Blood coagulation parameters were not affected by treatment.
In the DNB-model treatment with cloricromene effectively reduces tissue levels of TNF-alpha and of myeloperoxidase, whereas MIP-2 concentrations were not influenced. Blood coagulation parameters remained unchanged indicating safety of treatment. Since biological therapies frequently fail to improve disease course of IBD, other therapies with similar targets should be further investigated
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
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