1,720,989 research outputs found
[When history meets molecular medicine: molecular history of human tuberculosis].
No full textTuberculosis represents one of the humankind's most socially devastating diseases. Despite a long history of medical research and the development of effective therapies, this disease remains a global health danger even in the 21st century. Tuberculosis may cause death but infected people with effective immunity may remain healthy for years, suggesting long-term host-pathogen co-existence. Because of its antiquity, a supposed association with human settlements and the tendency to leave typical lesions on skeletal and mummified remains, tuberculosis has been the object of intensive multidisciplinary studies, including paleo-pathological research. During the past 10 years molecular paleo-pathology developed as a new scientific discipline allowing the study of ancient pathogens by direct detection of their DNA. In this work, we reviewed evidences for tuberculosis in ancient human remains, current methods for identifying ancient mycobacterial DNA and explored current theories of Mycobacterium tuberculosis evolution and their implications in the global development of tuberculosis looking into the past and present at the same time
[Water cults on Soratte Mount].
No full textMount Soratte is a limestone ridge that rises on a lonely plateau of Pliocene tuff on the right of the Tiber, about forty kilometers North of Rome. Studies related to human settlements during prehistory in this territory have been sporadic and occasional. The first evidence of prehistoric cults on mount Soratte has been found in the early Fifties when ajar, dating back to Neolithic times, was discovered in the cave of the Meri. The jar was placed in a position to be always filled of water and indicates the existence of ancient practices of worship linked to groundwater. In the Middle Ages, although caves became a step towards the Hell, dripping caves were often associated with the magical-religious and therapeutic aspects of water linked to fertility in the popular imagination. In the cave church of the Saint Romana, on the eastern slope of Mount Soratte close to Meri, there is a small marble basin near the altar and the water drips from the rock above it. This water is taken out for devotion and drunk by mothers who did not get milk from their breasts. Recently, the water of the Saint Romana would have drained as a result of an act of sacrilege, albeit unintentionally, as reported in a oral testimony. Overall, the territory of Mount Soratte is characterized by a sharp and clear karst. This causes the water, that collects on the inside, coming out in many springs all around the valley. This water is collected to supply fountains used years ago by farmers and livestock and nowadays may represent a cultural space of social life with the aim to build a strong link with the territory and a new awareness of the past and history of the countryside around Mount Soratte
[From cellular biology to molecular biology: Golgi apparatus from the discovery to nowadays].
No full textOn April the 9th 1898 Golgi presented the discovery of the Apparato Reticolare Interno or internal reticular apparatus to the Società Medico-Chirurgica in Pavia. The internal reticular apparatus was described as "a fine and elegant network within the cell body" of Purkinje cells. The discovery of this new intracellular structure can be considered a byproduct of Golgi studies devoted to the analysis of the nervous system histology. Golgi and his co-workers detected the internal reticular apparatus in many cell types and described the organelle pleiomorphism due to specific physiological or pathological conditions. However, the real existence of the apparatus was questioned until the organelle was finally identified by electron microscopy in 1954. At this point Golgi apparatus became an actual intracellular structure without any clear function. The involvement in cell secretion processes was verified by using biochemical and molecular investigations from the 1960s. Nowadays, Golgi apparatus is clearly known to be involved in different cell functions as growth, homeostasis and division. The correct execution of these functions lies on the ability to maintain an equilibrated balance between the proteins therein resident. Recently, Golgi apparatus has been involved also in human pathology as mutations in proteins localized in the organelle are linked to some hereditary disorders like the Lowe syndrome. Golgi apparatus has been debated since its discovery. From the Golgi milestones discussed here it is evident that controversies that have arisen were often resolved by information resulting from the application of new technical developments. Indeed the compound dynamic structure and the relevance in cell physiology and in human pathology render Golgi apparatus an open object for future studies. Overall, the history of the Golgi apparatus represents an excellent model not only to follow the transition of the study approaches from cellular biology to molecular cell biology but also to understand the current attention paid to integrate the molecular function and the organelle structure in order to explain what goes wrong in the context of human disease
[Prevention of mediterranean anemia in Latium: Ida Bianco archives].
No full textMediterranean anemia or beta-thalassemia is a hereditary syndrome characterized by a severe defect in haemoglobin production and an altered morphology of red blood cells. Homozygous condition for beta-thalassemia is characterized by short survival. Heterozygous condition is clinically found in adolescence and is characterized by a less aggressive phenotype. Ida Bianco, with her husband Ezio Silvestroni, has conducted a long struggle for beta-thalassemia prevention in Italy. They were the first to draw up an accurate map of the distribution of thalassemia in Italy and to conceive and implement a campaign against this genetic disease by the development of annual screening on at-school teenagers and pre-marriage prevention. Here we focused on the analysis of Ida Bianco's archives concerning screenings conducted on middle-schools in the Latium by the "Centro Studi della Microcitemia" of Rome from 1975 up to today. The results of the thirty-years prevention work in the Latium will be described
Molecular analysis of a colorectal carcinoma from a mummy of the XVth century.
No full text[No abstract available
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
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