1,720,994 research outputs found
Reduced diversity of immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements in chronic inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases in dogs.
No full textAbstract
Inflammatory bowel disease has a multifactorial etiology in dogs as it does in humans. Evidence has been accumulated showing an abnormal response of the immune system, mostly represented by lymphocyte infiltration in the lamina propria of the gastrointestinal tract and in the epithelium, likely driven by chronic antigenic stimulation against luminal microorganisms. A relevant role is also ascribed to the genetic predisposition typical of some canine breeds. The role of chronic antigenic stimulation is still under debate. It may be responsible for selective pressure on the lymphoid population, favouring the emergence of some lymphocyte clones. This cross-sectional study is aimed at investigating the immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements in a group of dogs affected by inflammatory bowel disease. The database of a referral Veterinary Laboratory was investigated. Based upon the histological evaluation of the bioptic samples collected during endoscopy, 54 canine cases met the WSAVA criteria for diagnosing IBD and were included in the study. The histological slides were retrieved and the gDNA was purified using protocols for formalin-fixed tissue. The gDNA was PCR amplified using fluorescent-labelled primers specific for canine immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements; the PCR products were analysed with fragment analysis by means of capillary electrophoresis on an automatic sequencer (GeneScanning). In 47/54 (87.3%) cases, it was possible to amplify the gDNA. Twenty-one patients out of 47 (44.7%) showed polyclonal patterns in both the immunoglobulin and the T-cell receptors, 18/47 (38.3%) showed at least one oligoclonal pattern without monoclonal ones while 8/47 (17.0%) cases showed an Ig (7/47; 14.9%) or TCR (1/47: 2.1%) monoclonal pattern. These findings indicate that reduced diversity of the immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor repertoire occurs in canine inflammatory bowel disease. The reduced diversity correlated significantly with the severity of the histological lesions and carried a significantly increased risk of death. Beside its possible role as a reliable ancillary assay, immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor GeneScanning analysis points to the possible role of aberrant chronic antigenic stimulation, leading to clonal expansion of certain lymphocyte subsets in the pathogenesis of canine IBD
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
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