1,720,963 research outputs found
Development of an aptamer based lateral flow test strip for a diabetes biomarker
Get PDF>Magister Scientiae - MScDiabetes mellitus is one of the major chronic diseases that poses a significant risk to human
health globally. Current diagnostics for diabetes are based on blood glucose measurements,
which can go unnoticed for years. As such, there is an urgent need for diagnosis of diabetes at
the point-of-care (PoC), and in low-income settings. Recent developments in the field of
nanotechnology, and the use of aptamers show great promise in developing sensitive and
disease-specific assays. Aptamers have high specificity, selectivity, low molecular weight,
nontoxicity, non-immunogenicity, and are easy to produce. The aim of the study was to
characterize and identify dual aptamers for the development of an aptamer-based PoC
diagnostic kit for diabetes.
Retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) and its binding aptamers were identified through in silico
approach. The secondary structures of the selected retinol binding aptamers (RBA) were
predicted by M-fold and Quadruplex forming G-Rich Sequences mapper. Binding affinity of
aptamers to the biomarker was characterized by Surface Plasmon Resonance(SPR),
Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and Enzyme-Linked Aptamer Assay (ELAA)
and the aptamer pairs were evaluated by sandwich-based SPR and ELAA. Gold nanoparticles
(AuNPs) were synthesized using the Turkevich method, and characterized by UV-visible
(UV-vis) spectrophotometry, Zetasizer and Transmission Electron Microscopy. One aptamer
was conjugated to AuNPs and the conjugate was characterized by UV-Vis, Zetasizer, Qubit
assay and gel electrophoresis. The apt-AuNPs were used in the preparation of the lateral flow
test strips and a colorimetric aptasensor for the detection of RBP4
The impact of comorbidities on outcome of patients admitted with Coronavirus disease 2019 infected at Pietersburg Hospital, Polokwane, Limpopo Province
Get PDFThesis (M. Med. (Internal Medicine)) -- University of Limpopo, 2025Background: The emergence of the novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),
causative agent identified as severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus type 2
(SARS-CoV-2), in late 2019 in Wuhan City, has led to a global outbreak of COVID-19
culminating in the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).
As of 2nd of October 2022, the cumulative number of cases have reached the 600
million mark, with just over 6.5 million deaths reported to WHO.
Purpose: To determine the relationship between comorbidities and adverse outcome in patients admitted with COVID-19 infection at Pietersburg Hospital from March 2020 to March 2021.
Methods: This was a retrospective study using secondary data extracted from
DATCOV portal, a web-based disease surveillance system of patients admitted with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 PCR results. Variables extracted from the portal
include demographics and clinical data such as comorbidities, management strategies
and adverse outcomes (need for oxygenation, organ failure, admission to high care or
intensive care unit (ICU) and death). Data was analysed using SSPS 27.0. Variables
were presented as numbers, percentages and cross-tabulations.
Results: There were 446 eligible study participants, 225(50.4%) were females and 221(49,6%) were males, and 311(70%) had comorbidities. The median age of patients
was 57 (13-96) years. The most prevalent comorbidity was hypertension in 208
patients (46%) followed by diabetes in 153 patients (34%).Both hypertension and diabetes largely contributed to the reported adverse outcome of death. A total of 159 (36%) deaths related to COVID-19 infection were reported during the study period.
Using the logistic regression model, the odds of non-survival were significantly
associated with two variables, age and ward setting. An increase in patient’s age by 1
year, increased the odds of dying by 1.09 as compared to being alive (OR 1.094, 95% CI: 1.038-1.153, p-value<0.001). Being admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) was
associated with a higher death rate ( OR 0.020, 95% CI: 0.001-0.292, p-value 0.004).
Conclusion: Hypertension and diabetes (p-values of 0.020 and 0.009 respectively)
appeared to be significantly related to patient’s adverse outcome of non-survival, with hypertension being the common factor in all deaths reported
Development of an aptamer based lateral flow test strip for a diabetes biomarker
No full text>Magister Scientiae - MScDiabetes mellitus is one of the major chronic diseases that poses a significant risk to human
health globally. Current diagnostics for diabetes are based on blood glucose measurements,
which can go unnoticed for years. As such, there is an urgent need for diagnosis of diabetes at
the point-of-care (PoC), and in low-income settings. Recent developments in the field of
nanotechnology, and the use of aptamers show great promise in developing sensitive and
disease-specific assays. Aptamers have high specificity, selectivity, low molecular weight,
nontoxicity, non-immunogenicity, and are easy to produce. The aim of the study was to
characterize and identify dual aptamers for the development of an aptamer-based PoC
diagnostic kit for diabetes.
Retinol binding protein 4 (RBP4) and its binding aptamers were identified through in silico
approach. The secondary structures of the selected retinol binding aptamers (RBA) were
predicted by M-fold and Quadruplex forming G-Rich Sequences mapper. Binding affinity of
aptamers to the biomarker was characterized by Surface Plasmon Resonance(SPR),
Electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) and Enzyme-Linked Aptamer Assay (ELAA)
and the aptamer pairs were evaluated by sandwich-based SPR and ELAA. Gold nanoparticles
(AuNPs) were synthesized using the Turkevich method, and characterized by UV-visible
(UV-vis) spectrophotometry, Zetasizer and Transmission Electron Microscopy. One aptamer
was conjugated to AuNPs and the conjugate was characterized by UV-Vis, Zetasizer, Qubit
assay and gel electrophoresis. The apt-AuNPs were used in the preparation of the lateral flow
test strips and a colorimetric aptasensor for the detection of RBP4
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
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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