1,721,077 research outputs found
Using codon usage bias to investigate the role of alternative vectors in the spread of Zika alternative
No full textIn the last years, outbreaks of Zika virus (ZIKV) and Dengue have been reported from both endemic and newly invaded areas areas of the world. ZIKV is in general associated with, and is well adapted to, primates and mosquitoes vectors, on which it can complete its cycle. Unfortunately, there is insufficient information regarding other animal reservoirs and amplification hosts, but there's a concrete possibility that ZIKV can infect other species, including domestic animals both from endemic and newly invaded temperate areas; such knowledge is fundamental to properly describe the epidemiology of ZIKV and plan its management. Unfortunately, large scalescreenings of putative alternative vectors, is extremely time and cost consuming. We suggest to employ Codon Usage Bias (CUB, (the adaptive similarity of codon usage ofvirus to that of its hosts), to predict if alternative hosts, in particular those associated with humans, can vehicle ZIKV. This will be performed by contrasting codon usage of ZIKVof hosts deduced from trascriptomes/proteomes, calculating parameters like RSCU (relative synonymous codon usage), CAI (codon adaptation index) and ENC (effective number of codons). Our first results indicate that Zika has putatively poor replication efficiency in Culex Pipiens. Ultimately, we advocate the analyses of CUB to understand evolutionary dynamics of ZIKV and other flaviviruses and better forecast their future outbreaks
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
The complete mitogenome of the European mantis, Mantis religiosa, from Italy: implications for the origin of North American mantis population
Full text linkThe European mantis, Mantis religiosa L. (Mantodea Mantidae), is distributed all over Southern Europe, Africa and Asia, and has been reported as alien species in North America. Here we present the mitogenome sequence of an Italian individual and compare it with previously sequenced Chinese and Canadian samples. The assembled mitogenome has a length of 15,530 nucleotides and in- cludes 13 protein coding genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, 23 tRNA genes (including the additional Arginine tRNA already observed in other M. religiosa mitogenomes), and the control region. Based on the inferred phylogenetic relationships, the Canadian sample is more closely related to the Italian than to the Chinese one, in line with the putative European origin of the North American invasive population. Time-calibrated phylogeny dated the divergence among extant European Mantis lineages at 2.33 million years ago, con- sistent with the first appearance of M. religiosa fossils. Our results support a European origin of the North American M. religiosa population and suggest that selective processes acting on mitogenome may have contributed to its adaptation in the new area
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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