1,721,104 research outputs found
Interleukin-6 in aging and chronic disease: a magnificent pathway.
No full textThe human interleukin IL-6 was originally cloned in 1986. In 1993, William Ershler, in his article ‘‘IL-6: A Cytokine for Gerontologists,’’ indicated IL-6 as one of the main signaling pathways modulating the complex relationship between aging and chronic morbidity. Over the last 12 years, our understanding of the role of IL-6 in
human physiology and pathology has substantially grown, although some of the questions originally posed by Ershler are still debated. In this review, we will focus on IL-6 structure, IL-6 signaling, and trans signaling pathways, and the role of IL-6 in geriatric syndromes and chronic disease. In the final section of this review, we dissect the critical elements of the IL-6 signaling pathway and point out targets for intervention that are targeted by emerging drugs, some still on the horizon and others already being tested in clinical trial
A role for cytokines in antigen presentation: IL1 and IL4 induce accessory functions of antigen presenting cells.
No full textThe origins of age-related proinflammatory state
No full textWe hypothesized that the rising levels of inflammatory markers, with aging is explained by cardiovascular risk factors and morbidity becoming progressively more prevalent in older persons. information on inflammatory markers, cardiovascular risk factors, and diseases was collected in 595 men and 748 women sampled from the general population (age, 20-102 years). In both men and women, older age was associated with higher levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1ra), IL-18, C-reactive protein (CRIP), and fibrinogen, while soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6r) increased significantly with age only in men. Adjusting for cardiovascular risk factors and morbidity, the age regression coefficients became substantially smaller in models predicting IL-6, IL-1ra, IL-18, and fibrinogen and larger in the model predicting sIL6r. Adjustment for cardiovascular morbidity substantially reduced the effect of age on CRP in men but not in women. Findings were confirmed in a subgroup of 51 men and 45 women with low risk profile and no cardiovascular morbidity. Part of the "proinflammatory state" in older persons is related to the high prevalence of cardiovascular risk factor and morbidity. (c) 2005 by The American Society of Hematology
Chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST): an efficient tool for detecting molecular information on proteins' behaviour.
No full textA versatile method for assessing protein properties via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) through chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) modality is described. The observed CEST signal changes allow monitoring of protein aggregation processes, protein folding/unfolding steps and interaction with lipid membranes
The frailty syndrome: a critical issue in geriatric oncology
No full textEvidence exists that the geriatric intervention guided by Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has positive effects on a number of important health outcomes in frail older patients. Although a number of observational studies, editorials, special articles and clinical reports, suggest that CGA should be used to guide the assessment and clinical decision-making in older cancer patients, there is limited support to this view in the literature. Older patients that are diagnosed with cancer are usually healthier and less problematic than persons of the same age who are randomly sampled from the general population. In these persons, the cancer dominates the clinical picture and, therefore, instruments especially tuned for the frail elderly may provide little information. The concept of the frailty syndrome, characterized by high susceptibility, low functional reserve and unstable homeostasis, has recently received a lot of attention by the geriatric community. A CGA approach, which also evaluates elements of the frailty syndrome, may be of great interest for those oncologists who want to identify older patients likely to develop severe toxicity and severe side effects in response to aggressive treatment. Improvements in the definition of the frailty syndrome may profit from the clinical experience of oncologists. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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
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