1,720,979 research outputs found
Translational tuberculosis research: immune profile as biomarker of tuberculosis infection
Full text linkMtb is able to establish a chronic asintomatically infection mainly in the lung and the balance between host immune response and the mycobacteria plays a fundamental role in the control of the Mtb replication . Although the immune response to Mtb has been deeply studied, as described in the previously chapters, the host factors that leads to the development to active TB disease are not fully understood. However, on the base of immunogical findings on Mtb infection, it is possible to speculate that the containment of the latent Mtb needs an acquired cellular response with specific characteristics of immune surveillance, differently contrasting the replicating Mtb requires effector and cytotoxic proprierty.
Objective of the present study is to take a picture of the immunological status of patients with Mtb infection, characterizing their Mtb specific immune response, in order to find a correlation with the different stages of Mtb infection.
In the chapter 5 it is described the use of several cytometric approaches to evaluate the surface expression of the activation marker CD27 on Mtb-specific CD4+ T-cells, as a tool to diagnose active TB and LTBI.
The chapter 6 is focused on flow cytometric characterization of the specific CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses to Mtb antigens contained within the QuantiFERON®-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus). QFT-Plus is the new generation of QuantiFERON-TB Gold In-Tube test (QFT-GIT) to identify the latent tuberculosis infection, it includes two tubes called TB1 and TB2 tubes which contain selected Mtb peptides designed to stimulate both CD4 and CD8 T-cells. Aim of the study was to analyze if the immune response to TB1 and TB2 stimulation could or not highlight differences between different TB stages.
In the chapter 7, QFT-Plus performance was compared with that one of QFT-GIT in a cross sectional study of individuals with LTBI, active TB or treated for TB in the past. In this study, we wanted also to evaluate if the different ability t
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
QuantiFERON TB Gold Plus for the diagnosis of tuberculosis : a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textEstimated 2017 tuberculosis (TB) incidence is 10 million and mainly depends on the reservoir of individuals with latent TB infection (LTBI). QuantiferonR-TB Gold in-Tube (QFT-GIT) is one of the tests used for LTBI detection. Since 2015 a new version, QuantiferonR-TB Gold Plus (QFT-Plus) is available.
OBJECTIVES:
To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the diagnostic accuracy for TB of QFT-Plus compared to QFT-GIT.
METHODS:
PubMed and Scopus were used to detect records related to predefined strings from 2015 to 2018. Full text articles dealing with the sensitivity and/or specificity of the QFT-Plus vs. QFT-GIT for active-TB and LTBI detection were analyzed. Scientific quality and risk of bias were assessed using QADAS-2.
RESULTS:
We selected 15 articles. Studies were mainly observational and cross-sectional, performed in 8 countries. Sample size differed in the TB group (27 to 164) compared to LTBI group (29 to 1031). Pooled sensitivity of QFT-Plus for active-TB was 0.94 (0.91 and 0.95 for TB1 and TB2, respectively), whereas pooled specificity for healthy status was 0.96. Pooled sensitivity and specificity for LTBI was 0.91 and 0.95, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS:
We show that QFT-Plus is more sensitive compared to QFT-GIT for detecting M. tuberculosis infection, mainly due to TB2 responses
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
