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Glutathione in the nervous system: Roles in neural function and health and implications for neurological disease
No full textThe chapter, "Glutathione in the nervous system: Roles in neural function and health and implications for neurological disease" was written by the listed authors including Reyniel Cruz-Aguado (Douglas College Faculty). Glutathione (γ-l-glutamyl-l-cysteinylglycine, GSH) is the most abundant cellular antioxidant molecule in aerobic cells. In the nervous system, it is found in the millimolar range in both neuronal and nonneuronal cells, arising endogenously by synthesis from its precursor amino acids or taken up from the blood by means of specific transport mechanisms. Glutathione can participate as an antioxidant either as a substrate of glutathione peroxidase (GSHPx) or as an electron donor in spontaneous reactions with reactive oxygen species (ROS). Besides the well-established role of glutathione as an antioxidant, it serves other functions in the nervous system, including neutralization of xenobiotics, participation in amino acid transport, regulation of the activity and conformation of proteins, protection against cysteine and glutamate neurotoxicities, and modulation of glutamatergic transmission. In addition, several lines of evidence suggest that glutathione might act as a neurotransmitter on its own class of receptors. This latter possibility may have significant implications for the possible involvement of GSH in learning and memory processes. Given its ample range of functions in the nervous system, it is not surprising to find significant alterations in glutathione levels and/or glutathione-related enzymes during brain aging and in several neurological conditions including Parkinson's disease (PD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), schizophrenia, and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). -- From publisher description.book chapterPublished
Onko eläimillä oikeuksia? : Eläinkoelainsäädännön kehitys ja nykytila
No full textThe use of animals in scientific experiments tends to arouse strong emotional reactions among the general public, the most essential concern being the pain and suffering they cause. It is felt that suffering inflicted on other beings, including animals, is not morally acceptable. Is the function of a researcher who uses animals morally acceptable and beneficial for humans and animals? May such a researcher him/herself decide what animal experiments he/she can perform or should some outsider have the right to decide what kind of experiments a researcher can or cannot perform?
The research material comprises the legislation of Finland and that of some member and non-member states of the European Union, together with European Union directives and pertinent preparatory parliamentary documents. The author has likewise studied the vast literature on animal rights, both pro and contra writings and opinions. The opinions of philosophers on the moral and legal rights of animals are markedly conflicting. Some strongly support the existence of rights, while others totally refute such an opinion, claiming that the question is only of the moral principles of man himself which imply that animals must be treated in a human manner. Speaking of animal rights only tends to muddle ideas on the one hand in philosophical considerations and in legal analyses on the other.
The development of legislation in Finland and some other member states of the European Union has in principle been similar. In Finland, the positive laws on animal experiments nowadays comply with the EU directive 86/609/EEC. However, there are marked differences between member states in respect of the way they have in practice implemented the principles of the EU directive. No essential alterations have in practice been discernible in the actual performance of animal experiments during the decades when legislation has been developed in different countries. Self-regulation within the scientific community has been markedly more effectual than legislative procedures. Legal regulation has nevertheless clearly influenced the quality of breeding and life conditions of experimental laboratory animals, cages for example being nowadays larger than hitherto.
EU parliament and council have now accepted in September 2010 a new directive on animal experiments which must be implemented in the national legislations by January 1, 2013.Eläinten käyttö tieteellisissä kokeissa on omiaan herättämään voimakkaita tunteita ja kannanottoja suuren yleisön keskuudessa. Keskeisin huolenaihe on kokeiden aiheuttama kipu ja tuska. Kärsimysten aiheuttamista toiselle yksilölle, mukaan luettuna eläimet, pidetään moraalisesti tuomittavana. Onko koe-eläimiä käyttävän tutkijan toiminta moraalisesti hyväksyttävää ja ihmis- ja eläinkunnan kannalta hyödyllistä? Voiko tutkija itse päättää, millainen eläinkoe on tarpeellinen ja hyödyllinen, vai onko joillekin muille ulkopuolisille annettava oikeus päättää, mitä eläinkokeita tutkija saa tehdä ja mitä hän ei saa tehdä?
Tutkimusaineistona on käytetty Suomen eläinsuojelulakeja ja asetuksia, eläinkoelakia ja sen käsittelyn eduskunta-asiakirjoja, Euroopan unionin jäsenvaltioiden eläinkokeita koskevia lakeja ja asetuksia, Euroopan unionin ja neuvoston direktiivejä ja asetuksia sekä niiden valmisteluasiakirjoja. Kirjoittaja on myös tutustunut laajaan ns. eläinten oikeuksia käsittelevään kirjallisuuteen, eläinten oikeuksia puolustaviin kannanottoihin ja niiden vastakirjoituksiin. Eri filosofien käsitykset eläinten moraalisista ja legaalisista oikeuksista ovat vastakkaiset. Toisten mukaan ne ovat olemassa. Toiset ovat sitä mieltä, että kyse on pelkästään ihmisen omista moraalisista käsityksistä, jotka velvoittavat kohtelemaan eläimiä humaanilla tavalla. Eläinten oikeuksista puhuminen sekoittaa käsitteitä, joita käytetään toisaalla filosofisissa pohdiskeluissa ja toisaalla oikeustieteellisissä analyyseissä.
Eläinkoelainsäädäntö on kehittynyt Suomessa ja muissa Euroopan unionin jäsenvaltioissa samansuuntaisesti. Suomessa lakien ja asetusten määräykset ovat nykyään hyvin voimassa olevan eläinkoetoimintaa koskevan EU:n direktiivin 86/609/ETY mukaiset. Kuitenkin Euroopan unionin jäsenvaltioiden välillä on huomattavia eroja siinä, miten ne ovat käytännössä toteuttaneet tämän direktiivin määräyksiä. Olennaisia muutoksia itse eläinkokeiden suorittamisessa ei ole tapahtunut niiden vuosikymmenien aikana, jolloin eläinkoelainsäädäntöä on kehitetty eri maissa. Tiedeyhteisön itsesäätely on ollut ratkaisevasti merkityksellisempää kuin lainsäädännölliset toimenpiteet. Eläinkokeita koskevat lait ja asetukset koe-eläinten kasvatusolosuhteista, kuten kasvatushäkkien koosta ja koe-eläinten yleisestä ylläpidosta, ovat parantaneet koe-eläinten elinoloja.
EU:n parlamentti ja neuvosto ovat nyt hyväksyneet syyskuussa 2010 uuden eläinkoedirektiivin, mikä on implementoitava kansallisiin lainsäädäntöihin 1.1.2013 mennessä.ei saavutettav
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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