1,721,040 research outputs found
Experimental transplantation of retinal and iris pigment epithelial cells into the subretinal space
No full textA dysfunction of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is the main cause for the development of age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) and visual loss in elderly people. For about 10 years experimental and clinical attempts to transplant RPE cells have been performed. The aims of this study were to elucidate the long term results of RPE allografts, to develop an atraumatic transplantation technique, and to explore the cellular response to RPE allografts, melanin granules, and autologous IPE cells.Surgery was performed on rabbits with a follow-up period of up to six months. After a pars plan vitrectomy, a subretinal bleb was created into which a suspension of RPE/IPE donor cells or melanin granules was injected. Pigmented RPE donor cells or preparations of melanin granules were implanted subretinally in albino rabbits. Pigmented rabbits were used in IPE transplantation. The eyes were monitored with ophthalmoscopy, fundus photography, light microscopy, electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry.Transplantation of suspensions of fresh pigmented RPE cells to the subretinal space in rabbits is feasible and induces virtually no complications when an atraumatic surgical procedure is used. The allograft forms a monolayer in conjunction with the native RPE and persists almost intact up to three months. At six months after transplantation, there was a cellular response exhibiting multilayers of cells, such as RPE and macrophages. Damage to adjacent photoreceptors in combination with melanin granules in the subretinal space indicates graft failure. No infiltration of lymphocytes was seen. Whether the cellular response was due to immunological or non-immunological mechanisms could not be determined from this experiment.Cyclosporine (CsA) could not prevent disintegration of the RPE transplant and graft failure. CsA was not capable of promoting graft survival as compared to the controls. The transplant seems to be disrupted either by immunological mechanisms that are not inhibited by CsA, or by non-immunologic events.Implantation of melanin granules to the subretinal space of albino rabbits induces a considerable phagocytic cellular response involving the host’s RPE, macrophages and glial cells. The migration of pigment-laden cells into the neural retina was frequently associated with focal photoreceptor damage. The cellular response was identical to that ensuing RPE cell transplantation. These findings support the concept that non-immunological events have a considerable influence on the outcome.In order to evaluate the impact of non-immunological mechanisms, a technique of transplanting fresh autologous IPE cells to the subretinal space of the same eye was developed. Grafted IPE cells were seen to survive for six months. There was a remodeling of the compound cellular layers in the subretinal space over time where grafted IPE cells joined the native RPE cells. The cellular response that developed exhibited macrophages, but no lymphocytes, and was in this respect similar to that observed following RPE transplantation.In RPE allografts, the photoreceptors appeared normal on light microscopy at three months, but at six months, the photoreceptors overlying the transplants generally exhibited pathological changes. In autologous IPE grafts, on the other hand, the photoreceptors displayed normal outer segment length and outer nuclear layer on top of grafted IPE cells. Focally, multilayers of both grafted IPE and RPE cells, together with macrophages, induce damage to adjacent photoreceptors as observed at 6 months. Cellular multilayers in the subretinal space, irrespective of genesis, are likely to have adverse effects on photoreceptors. The experiments using autologous IPE grafts show that non-immunogenic mechanisms have a decisive impact on the outcome of the transplant in the subretinal space.</p
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
Sclerosing Wegener's granulomatosis in the orbit
No full textUdgivelsesdato: 2008-DecPURPOSE: To report three cases of sclerosing Wegener's granulomatosis in the orbit and to compare the histopathological morphology with those of other types of sclerosing orbital inflammation. METHODS: We analysed the clinical data along with histopathological specimens from orbital biopsies and from two enucleated eyes. RESULTS: All three patients had longstanding inflammation in the orbit and involvement of the paranasal sinuses. Proptosis, impaired ocular motility and reduced visual acuity dominated the clinical picture. All histopathological specimens featured granulomatous inflammation, tissue necrosis, vasculitis and widespread dense fibrosis. In certain areas of all specimens the fibrous tissue was arranged in characteristic concentric, onionskin-like whorls of collagen around obliterated small blood vessels. CONCLUSIONS: Wegener's granulomatosis may lead to orbital fibrosis and sclerosis. The stromal changes and cellular infiltrate resemble the non-specific orbital inflammation previously termed orbital pseudotumour. We present the first 'onionskin' lesions in association with Wegener's granulomatosis in the orbit. This latter morphology may represent an abnormal fibrotic reaction in inflammatory tissue
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