1,720,970 research outputs found
The potential of obscurin as a therapeutic target in muscle disorders
No full textIntroduction: Obscurin, a giant protein of striated muscles, is emerging as an important player in a wide range of processes including myofibril assembly and maintenance, muscle protein degradation and intracellular signaling. Accordingly, obscurin participates to the mechanisms by which muscles adapt to physiological requirements or to pathological cues associated with cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases. Areas covered: The structure of the different obscurin isoforms identified so far, their tissue distribution and the most recent findings on obscurin in invertebrates and mammals will be reviewed. We will provide a synopsis of known molecular interactions between obscurin and other proteins and the biological relevance of these interactions for striated muscle function. The involvement of obscurin in protein degradation mechanisms and intracellular signaling will be also discussed along with initial evidence of a role of obscurin in the pathophysiology of human diseases. Expert opinion: Although still much remains to be discovered about the role of obscurin either as a structural component of the sarcomere or as a mediator of signaling pathways within muscle cells, it can be envisioned that this protein represents an interesting novel pharmacological target for the prevention and treatment of cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases
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
Organization of junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum proteins in skeletal muscle fibers
No full textThe sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) of striated muscles is specialized for releasing Ca2+ following sarcolemma depolarization in order to activate muscle contraction. To this end, the SR forms a network of longitudinal tubules and cisternae that surrounds the myofibrils and, at the same time, participates to the assembly of the triadic junctional membrane complexes formed by the close apposition of one t-tubule, originated from the sarcolemma, and two SR terminal cisternae. Advancements in understanding the molecular basis of the SR structural organization have identified an interaction between sAnk1, a transmembrane protein located on the longitudinal SR (l-SR) tubules, and obscurin, a myofibrillar protein. The direct interaction between these two proteins results in molecular contacts that have the overall effect to stabilize the l-SR tubules along myofibrils in skeletal muscle fibers. Less known is the structural organization of the sites in the SR that are specialized for Ca2+ release and are positioned at the junctional SR (j-SR), i.e. the region of the terminal cisternae that faces the t-tubule at triads. At the j-SR, several trans-membrane proteins like triadin, junctin, or intra-luminal SR proteins like calsequestrin, are assembled together with the ryanodine receptor, the SR Ca2+ release channel, into a macromolecular complex specialized in releasing Ca2+. At triads, the 12 nm-wide gap between the t-tubule and the j-SR allows the ryanodine receptor on the j-SR to be functionally coupled with the voltage-gated L-type calcium channel on the t-tubule in order to allow the transduction of the voltage-induced signal into Ca2+ release through the ryanodine receptor channels. The muscle-specific junctophilin isoforms (JPH1 and JPH2) are anchored to the j-SR with a trans-membrane segment present at the C-terminus and are capable to bind the sarcolemma with a series of phospholipid-binding motifs localized at the N-terminus. Accordingly, through this dual interaction, JPH1 and JPH2 are responsible for the assembly of the triadic junctional membrane complexes. Recent data indicate that junctophilins seem also to interact with other proteins of the excitation–contraction machinery, suggesting that they may contribute to hold excitation–contraction coupling proteins to the sites where the j-SR is being organized
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
