1,721,030 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
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
Design and Synthesis of Cyclic Diselenides and Selenenyl Sulfides for Biomimetic Applications
No full textHydrogen peroxide (H2O2) plays important roles in cell signaling and redox reactions. However,
elevated levels of H2O2 and organic peroxides induce oxidative stress, resulting in damage to
biomolecules such as DNA, proteins, and lipids. If not controlled, these damages lead to various
disorders, such as neurodegeneration, HIV activation, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and aging.
Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) is a mammalian selenoenzyme that protects cells from oxidative
damage by mediating the reduction of peroxides utilizing glutathione (GSH) as a cofactor.
Selenium atom is incorporated into the enzyme in the form of Selenocysteine (Sec, U); the 21st
amino acid, and is present in its active site. The catalytic cycle of GPx is believed to involve
three steps. In the first step, the reduced selenolate (ESe−) moiety of Sec residue reduces
peroxides (ROOH) into water or alcohol and itself gets oxidized to selenenic acid (ESeOH),
which upon reaction with one equivalent of GSH generates a selenenyl sulfide (ESeSG)
intermediate. A second equivalent of GSH then attacks at the –Se-S- bond to regenerate the
active site selenolate and thus completes the catalytic cycle.
At high peroxide concentrations or low GSH level, the selenium center may undergo
overoxidation to produce corresponding seleninic acid (ESeO2H) and selenonic acid (ESeO3H).
Although the seleninic acid may be converted to the selenenyl sulfide by reaction with GSH, the
formation of the overoxidized selenonic acid irreversibly inactivates the enzyme, which
decreases the catalytic activity.Thus, in the overall process, two equivalents of GSH are used to
reduce one equivalent of peroxide to water or corresponding alcohol. The intracellular GSH
concentration is maintained by glutathione reductase (GR) that catalyzes the reduction of GSSG
to GSH using NADPH as cofactor.
In this thesis, synthesis, characterization and glutathione peroxidase-like activity of various
selenium-based compounds are reporte
Metallo-β-Lactamase, Phosphotriesterase And Their Functional Mimics
No full textMetallohydrolases with dinuclear-zinc active sites perform many important biological hydrolytic reactions on a variety of substrates. In this regard, metallo-β-lactamases (mβ1, class B) represent a unique subset of zine hydrolases that hydrolyze the β-lactam ring in several antibiotics. The antibiotic resistance that results from this hydrolysis is becoming an increased threat for the clinical community. These metalloenzymes can hydrolyze a wide range of β-lactam substrates, such as cephamycins and imipenem that are generally resistant t the serine-containing β-lactamases. Therefore, the clinical application of the entire range of antibiotics is severely compromised in bacteria that produce mβls. Due to the lack of information on the mechanism of mβls, to-date, no clinically known inhibitors is there for mβls. In this present study, we synthesized several mono and dizinc complexes as models for the mβls and investigated the differences in their hydrolytic properties. This study supports the assumption that the second zinc in the dinuclear enzymes does not directly involve in the catalysis, but may orient the substrates for hydrolysis and the basic amino acid residues such as Asp and His may activate the zinc-bound water molecules, fulfilling the role of the second zinc in the mononuclear enzymes.
The effect of various side chains on the hydrolysis of some commonly used cephalosporin antibiotics by mβl from B.cereus is described. It is shown that the cephalosporins having heterocyclic thiol side chains are more resistance to mβl-mediated hydrolysis than the antibiotics that do not have such side chains. This is partly due to the inhibition of enzyme activity by the thiol moieties eliminated during the hydrolysis. It is also observed that the heterocyclic side chains in pure form inhibit the lactamase activity of mβl as well as its synthetic mimics. The mode of binding of these heterocyclic side chains to the zinc has been analyzed from the crystal structure of the tetranuclear zinc complexes. The theoretical studies suggest that the eliminated heterocyclic thiols undergo a rapid tautomerism to produce the corresponding thiones. These thiones are found to irreversibly inhibit the LPO-catalyzed iodination reaction. The reaction of various thiones with I2 leads to the formation of thione-iodine complexes similar to that of the most commonly used antithyroid drug methimazole(MMI). These observations suggest that some of the latest generation of antibiotics may show negative effects on thyroid gland upon hydrolysis.
Synthetic organophosphorus compounds have been used extensively as pesticides and petroleum additives. These compounds are very toxic to mammals and their widespread use in agriculture leads to serious environmental problems. Therfore, degradation of organophosphorus trimesters and remediation of associated contaminated sites are of worldwide concern. In this regards, the bacterial phsophotriesterase (PTE) enzyme plays an important role in degrading a wide range of organophosphorus esters and the active side of PTE has been shown to be very similar to that of mβl. This identification prompted us to check the hydrolysis of phosphotriesters by the mβl and its mimics. It has been observed that the dinuclear zine(II) complexes that do not allow a strong binding of phosphodiestes would be a better PTE mimics
The Effect of Substituents and Solvents on the Deiodination Reactions of Thyroid Hormones by Iodothyronine Deiodinase Mimics
Get PDFThyroid hormones (THs; T4 and T3), secreted from thyroid gland, play an important role in human growth and development. T3 (3,5,3′-triiodothyronine) is the active hormone and the conversion of T4 (3,3′,5,5′-tetraiodothyronine) to T3 in cells is mediated by iodothyronine deiodinases enzymes (DIOs). DIOs are selenocysteine containing enzymes and are classified into three types (DIO1, DIO2 and DIO3). DIO1 catalyzes the outer-ring deiodination (ORD; T3 formation) and inner-ring deiodination (IRD; rT3 formation) reactions, involving in the activation (T4 to T3 conversion) and inactivation (T4 to rT3 conversion), respectively. DIO2 and DIO3 catalyse the ORD and IRD reactions, respectively. This homeostasis is regulated tightly and any deviation would lead to diseases like hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism. Recently it is of interest to many research groups to develop iodothyronine deiodinase mimics and we have developed naphthalene-based peri-substituted thioselenol pair at 1,8-positions (1.25), which remove iodine selectively from inner-ring of T4. When selenium atom is substituted in place of sulfur (selenol-selenol pair; 1.26), the deiodination activity was ca. 90 times faster than with 1.25. This thesis deals with various aspects of the effect of substituents on the naphthalene-1,8-diselenol and solvent effect on the thyroid hormone deiodination by naphthalene-based iodothyronine deiodinase mimics. Figure 1. (A) Deiodination reactions by DIOs. (B) Chemical structure of 1.25 and 1.26. The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter provides a general overview about sialoproteins, thyroid hormone biosynthesis, thyroid hormone metabolism, halogen bonding, iodothyronine deiodinase mimics and proposed mechanisms for the deidoination of thyroid hormones. This chapter also introduces peri-naphthalene-1,8-diselenol (1.26), which is the key compound in this thesis and discusses about proposed mechanism for the deiodination of thyroxine involving co-operative halogen bonding and chalcogen bonding mechanism. Figure 2. (A) TH action. (B) Proposed mechanism for the deiodination of T4 by 1.26 involving cooperative halogen bonding and chalcogen bonding. Chapter 2 discusses about the synthesis, characterization and deiodination activity of a series of naphthalene-based peri-substituted-1,8-diselenols (Figure 3). These diselenols regioselectivity remove iodine from inner ring of thyroxine and other thyroid hormones, (T3 and 3, 5-T2). Substitution with different groups on the naphthalene ring did not change the regioselectivity of deiodination, indicating that the deiodination activity does not depend on the nature of substituents. Secondary or tertiary amine side chain group attached at the 2nd position of the naphthalene ring showed better activity. It is due to the secondary interaction, which facilitates the iodine removal. It was further confirmed with the substitutions at the 4th position of the ring to discriminate the possibility of electronic effect. The higher deiodination rate owing to the t-butyl group at second position of the ring also suggests that the steric effect may also play a role in the deiodination reaction (Figure 4). It is proposed that peri substituted naphthalene-1,8-diselenols remove iodine from thyroid hormones through halogen bonding-chalcogen bonding mechanism (Figure 2). The investigation of Se···Se bond distance from the crystal structures and through DFT calculation and NMR experiment showed that the stronger chalcogen bond could be the reason for the increase in the reactivity observed with substituted peri-naphthalene-1,8-diselenols. Figure 3. peri-substituted naphthalene-1,8-diselenols used for the study. Figure 4. Relative deiodinase activity of substituted-peri-naphthalene-1,8-diselenols with T4. In Chapter 3, we have discussed about the effect of chalcogen atom substitution in a series of deiodinase mimics on the deiodination of thyroid hormones. Moving from thiol-selenol pair (1.25) to selenol-selenol pair (1.26) in naphthalene based peri-substituted mimics, an increase in the activity was observed. In this chapter, we have shown that substituting with tellurium, as tellurium-thiol pair (3.3) and ditellurol (3.4) increases the reactivity of deiodination to several times and also regioselectivity of deiodination is changed from IRD in the case of 1.26 to both IRD and ORD for 3.3 and 3.4. The presence of two tellurol moieties (3.4) or a thiol-tellurol pair (3.3) can mediate sequential deiodination of T4, to produce all the possible thyroid hormone derivatives under physiologically relevant conditions (Figure 5). This study provided the first experimental evidence that the regioselectivity of the thyroid hormone deiodination is controlled by the nucleophilicity and the strength of halogen bond between the iodine and chalcogen atoms. Figure 5. (A) HPLC chromatograms of deiodination reaction of T4 with 3.3 and 3.4. (B) Chemical structure of 3.3 and 3.4. (C) Sequential deiodination reaction of T4 by 3.3 and 3.4. Chapter 4 describes the effect of alkyl conjugation at 4′-OH position of THs on the deiodination by iodothyronine mimics. In addition to the deiodination, iodothyronines undergo conjugation with sulfate and glucuronic acid group at 4′-hydroxyl position. Conjugation alters the physico-chemical properties of iodothyronines. For example, it is known that sulfate conjugation increases the rate of deiodination to a large extend. We have conjugated alkyl group at 4′-hydroxyl position of iodothyronines and investigated the deiodination reactions with reported peri-substituted naphthalene-1,8-diselenols. We observed that similar to sulfated thyroid hormones O-methylthyroxine also undergoes both phenolic and tyrosyl ring deiodination reactions and overall the rate of deiodination is increased at least by 5 times as compared with T4 under identical conditions. The phenolic iodine removal is favored by conjugation as compared to the tyrosyl ring iodine, which is similar to the observation made for T4S. Interestingly, when the acetamide group is conjugated at 4′-OH position, the regioselectivity of deiodination is changed exclusively to 5′-iodine. DFT calculations show that the positive potential on the iodine increase upon conjugation, which leads to stronger halogen bonding interaction with selenol, might be the reason for the change in the regioselectivity of deiodination. Figure 6. (A) HPLC chromatogram of deiodination reaction of T4(Me) with 1.26. (B) Initial rate comparison of T4 and T4(Me).(C) HPLC chromatogram of deiodination reaction of T4(AA) with 1.26 showing the formation of T3(AA) (ORD product). (D) Electron potential map of T4, T4(Me) and T4(AA) showing the increase in electro positive potential on 5′-iodine upon conjugation. Chapter 5 deals with the solvent effect on the deiodination reactions of THs by iodothyronine deiodinase mimics. As discussed in the earlier chapters, the deiodination reaction of thyroxine by naphthalene based-1,8-diselenols under physiological conditions produce, rT3 (IRD) as the only observable products. Surprisingly, when the deiodination reaction was performed in DMF or DMSO in the presence of 1.26, the regioselectivity of reaction was changed and the formation of both T3 (ORD) and rT3 was observed. In DMF or in DMSO, the deiodination reactivity of 1.26 was found to be 1000 fold higher than the reaction performed in phosphate buffer at pH 7.4. Figure 7. (A) HPLC chromatogram for the deiodination reaction of T4 in DMF by 1.26 showing both IRD and ORD. (B) A comparison of initial rate for the deiodination reactions of T4, T3 and 3,5-T2 in DMF and in DMSO by 1.26. (C) HPLC chromatograms for the deiodination reaction of T4 in DMF by 1.26 in the presence of TEMPO, showing the inhibition of deiodination (i) 0 mM TEMPO (ii) 10 mM of TEMPO (iii) 30 mM TEMPO. (D) HPLC chromatograms for the deiodination reaction of T4 in DMSO by 1.26 in the presence of TEMPO showing the inhibition of deiodination (i) 0 mM TEMPO (ii) 10 mM of TEMPO (iii) 30 mM TEMPO. 3,5-DIT was not denominated under physiological conditions, however, in DMF and in DMSO, 3,5-DIT was deiodinated by 2.4 to produce 3-MIT. We also observed that the control reactions in DMF or DMSO also showed a little deiodination activity. The very high reactivity observed in the presence of DMF or DMSO implied that the mechanism of denomination in these solvents may be different. It has been reported that DMSO or DMF radicals can be formed with small amounts of a base. Reaction mixture consisting of NaBH4 (for generating selenol from diselenide) and NaOH (T4 solution) may facilitate the radical formation. We also performed the reaction in the presence of TEMPO (free radical scavenger) and observed the inhibition of deiodination reaction. However, it is not clear whether the radical pathway could be one of the possible mechanisms of deiodination in these solvents by compounds 1.26 and 2.4. Further studies are required to propose a radical mechanism in different solvents such as DMF and DMSO
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