1,720,989 research outputs found
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
Role of mirSNP in Multiple Myeloma risk
No full textMultiple myeloma (MM) is a malignancy of plasma cells usually infiltrating the bone marrow, associated with the production of a monoclonal immunoglobulin (M protein) which can be detected in the blood and/or urine. About 63 000 subjects are reported to die from the disease each year, accounting for 0.9% of all cancer deaths and nearly 10% of all haematological neoplastic diseases.
Prognosis is usually unfavourable, with a mean overall survival ranging between 20 and 60 months. It has been shown that MM usually evolves from an asymptomatic premalignant condition termed monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS). In some patients, an intermediate asymptomatic, but more advanced premalignant stage, defined as smouldering multiple myeloma (SMM) could be clinically recognized.
Converging evidence of MM in monozygotic twins and familial aggregation of MM strongly suggest that MM aetiology has a robust genetic component. Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are the major source of genetic variation in humans and thought to be responsible, at least in part, for the individual differences in genetic susceptibility to complex diseases as tumors. In the last ten years several studies have identified SNPs associated with the disease susceptibility.
Genetic polymorphisms in miRNA-binding sites in target genes may alter the strength of miRNA– mRNA interactions, thus deregulating protein levels. This category of SNPs are called miR-SNPs. I analyzed 12 SNPs located in the 3' UTR region of miRNAs target genes, with the aim of testing whether they are associated with MM risk. Those MiR-SNP were previously selected from an in silico genome-wide search for their potential ability to alter binding of miRNAs to their target sequences.
My study population consisted of 1935 controls and 2457 cases recruited from 7 European countries and from Israel and Japan in the context of the IMMEnSE (International Multiple Myeloma rESEarch) consortium. I performed the genotyping with TaqMan technology.
Association between SNPs and multiple myeloma risk was assessed with unconditional logistic regression using allelic, codominant, dominant and recessive inheritance models, adjusting by age, gender, and region of origin. Afterwords I performed a meta-analysis between my data and the data from a previously published genome-wide association study (GWAS). The SNPs rs13409 (located in the 3’UTR of the PUOF5 gene), rs1419881 (CCHCR1), rs1049633, rs1049623 (both in DDR1) have shown significant associations with MM risk, with no heterogeneity between IMMEnSE and the GWAS in most of inheritance models tested
Identification of germline variants in risk and survival of multiple myeloma
No full textMultiple myeloma (MM) is a plasma cell malignancy, originating from the bone marrow. Over the past decades, remarkable progress has been made in the understanding of the biology and pathogenesis of MM which, in turn, led to significant improvements in the disease treatment and patients survival, but most of the patients eventually relapse, making MM still an incurable disease.
A small number of environmental and lifestyle-related risk factors for MM have been identified. Familial aggregation of MM and its precursor monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) suggest that genetic factors play a role in risk of MM as well. Several genetic loci affecting MM risk have been identified so far with both a candidate gene approach and genome-wide analysis, even if they are still considered few comparing with other better studied and more common cancer types. The genetics behind the differences in prognosis of MM patients is still poorly known and only two genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been attempted so far.
The main goal of this project was to discover new variants and new key genes that affect risk and outcome of MM. To achieve it, we performed several association studies in a case-control population, carried out with a candidate gene approach.
The association studies were performed in the context of the IMMEnSE (International Multiple Myeloma rESEarch) consortium and for some studies a replication population was used. In particular, we used data from the InterLymph consortium, the German myeloma group and controls from the ESTHER consortium, for a total of over 3000 cases and 2000 controls. In particular, we investigated: SNPs in genes involved in the DNA repair mechanisms and their relation with both risk and survival of MM patients, expression quantitative traits loci (eQTLs) of genes whose expression is known to affect MM prognosis, SNPs in genes involved in the xenobiotic metabolisms, SNPs known to affect MM risk in association with MM survival. Additionally, we considered genetic variants not only individually but also combined in scores, and explored their performance in predicting risk and outcome of MM.
Regarding MM risk we found a new association with SNPs within genes involved in DNA repair system. We also successfully replicated the 23 risk loci emerged from GWASs that were also significantly associated with MM risk when combined in a polygenic score. In particular carriers of more than 20 risk alleles showed an increased risk of MM of almost 3 fold (OR=2.99, 95% C.I.=2.14-4.18, p=1.58×10-10).
Regarding MM survival with our approaches we found 14 new SNP associations, which were obtained using overall survival as endpoint. Combining those SNPs in a score showed promising results, indeed, we found that carriers of more than 15 “survival alleles” had shorter survival compared with carriers of less than 10 alleles (HR=1.80, 95% C.I=1.27-2.54, p=0.001).
In conclusion, our results contribute to expand the knowledge of the genetic architecture of MM. This will lead to the development of useful tools to facilitate early diagnosis by screening the general population based on their genetic risk, and to stratify patients based on their response to therapy and outcome
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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