1,720,996 research outputs found
Analyses of hemagglutinin (HA) specific antibody responses using different serological assays after three types of influenza vaccine in children and adults
Full text linkInfluenza is a contagious respiratory infection caused by a single-stranded, enveloped RNA viruses, able to cause significant morbidity and mortality all over the world, together with a significant economic burden. Vaccination strategies are the most effective methods of preventing and controlling seasonal influenza epidemics that generally occur during winter season. Every year, the composition of the vaccine has to be revaluated due to the antigenic drift mechanism inherent to the influenza viruses. In order to be licensed in the European Union and declared effective and immunogenic, every new influenza vaccine has to fulfill three criteria (at least one of the assessment should meet the requirements) (CPMP/BWP/214/96), for Haemagglutination-inhibition (HI) and/or Single Radial Haemolysis (SRH) assays. Traditionally, influenza vaccines are inactivated preparations administered as a intramuscular injection containing a standardized amount of HA influenza antigen; an alternative way of administration is the intradermal injection, evaluated in the present study. Another type of influenza vaccine, today licensed and available in Russia, U.S.A and in some European countries like Norway, is the live-attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV), administered as a nasal spray. The actual serological assays, generally used to evaluate the immunogenicity of an influenza vaccine, are the HI and the SRH, for which correlates of protection are established. The Micro-neutralization (MN), although does not present a standardized methodology and approved correlates of protection, is the most sensitive and highest specific assay able to detect functional neutralizing antibody against the HA influenza antigen.
The present work has been divided in three main tasks. The first one is based on the set-up and standardization of a seasonal influenza growth method performed in MDCK-cell culture, with a serum free medium (SF), and a new method for virus titration in MN assay. The second one is a clinical study for the evaluation of the immunogenicity and safety of a quadrivalent intradermal seasonal influenza vaccine conducted in 150 healthy adults. The third one, is a comparative analysis, carried out on a small number of samples, with the aim to assess the difference in the magnitude of HA specific IgG subclass and IgA responses in healthy adults, children (9 years) and health care workers (HCWs) after two different types of seasonal Influenza vaccine: LAIV (Live Cold-Adapted Influenza Vaccine) and IIV (Inactivated Influenza Vaccine). The strain chosen for the purpose of the study is the A/H3N2/Texas/50/2012 seasonal influenza strain (HA1 and HA2).
The intradermal quadrivalent vaccine, results to be comparable, in terms of immunogenicity, to the intramuscular vaccine, confirming the capability of the intradermal injection to elicit a proper immune response. All the CPMP criteria were met for all the four seasonal strains.
Moreover positive correlations were found between the results derived by the three different serological assays able to detect different anti HA-influenza antibodies in serum samples.
The LAIV vaccine was to be able to promote a stronger systemic immune response in children than in adults. In adults, TIV induces better antibody responses compared to LAIV, but comparable antibody response to that induced in LAIV vaccinated children. The different mechanism of action of LAIV versus TIV, may explain the relative efficacy between the two vaccines in children and adults. In children, the avidity of pre-existing serum antibodies plays a role in determining the antibody response to infection. The present results suggest that exposure history and the type of vaccine play a significant role in determining the antibody response
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
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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