1,721,110 research outputs found
Recent applications of retro-inverso peptides
Full text linkNatural and de novo designed peptides are gaining an ever-growing interest as drugs against several diseases. Their use is however limited by the intrinsic low bioavailability and poor stability. To overcome these issues retro-inverso analogues have been investigated for decades as more stable surrogates of peptides composed of natural amino acids. Retro-inverso peptides pos-sess reversed sequences and chirality compared to the parent molecules maintaining at the same time an identical array of side chains and in some cases similar structure. The inverted chirality renders them less prone to degradation by endogenous proteases conferring enhanced half-lives and an increased potential as new drugs. However, given their general incapability to adopt the 3D structure of the parent peptides their application should be careful evaluated and investigated case by case. Here, we review the application of retro-inverso peptides in anticancer therapies, in im-munology, in neurodegenerative diseases, and as antimicrobials, analyzing pros and cons of this interesting subclass of molecules
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
Optimizing a kinase assay for IKK.beta. on an HTS station
No full textUsing a commercially available time-resolved fluorescence resonance energy transfer (TR-FRET)—based assay for IKKβ, the authors have automated the assay procedure on a high-throughput screening station to carry out screening campaigns on multiwell plates. They have determined the Z' factor and optimized volumes, times, and time-resolved fluorescence parameters. They have also compared 2 kinases with different fusion tags, the influence of different enzyme/substrate ratios and of DMSO presence at different concentration. The authors found that glutathione S-transferase (GST)—fused IKKβ shows better signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios over the poly-histidine-tagged variant. The substrate can be used at 50 nM with optimal performances when the enzyme is used at 2 nM. DMSO at 0.2% and 1% only slightly affects the S/N ratio, whereas when used at 2%, the final concentration deriving from a 50-fold dilution from a 5-mM stock solution in pure solvent, S/N undergoes a decrease of about 15%. Under the optimized conditions, the assay Z' factor calculated over 192 data points has an optimized value of 0.881 and allows the testing of 94 molecules in quadruplicate in 140 min
A Quantitative and Computer-Aided Thermography-Based Diagnostics for PV Devices—Part II: Platform and Results
Full text linkThis paper, Part II, deals with the software platform that implements the workflow described in Part I, i.e., a thermography-based diagnostics able to provide a detailed, clear, and unambiguous information on the health state of photovoltaic (PV) modules. The methodology, in fact, allows a numerical and qualitative evaluation of each cell of the PV module. In particular, this paper deeply describes the main features of the software platform and introduces the graphical user interface that makes the framework efficiently and effectively adoptable since it leads to the automatic generation of a report. In order to show the manifold features, three cases of study, which have been derived from a real monitoring survey, are discussed, highlighting the critical situations revealed neither with a direct observation of the infrared image nor with its manual processing: The first case in regard to a defected PV module and the second one an almost completely uniform module, while the third one deals with a dishomogeneous module
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
Qualitative and quantitative proteomic profiling of cripto-1- embryonic stem cells by means of accurate mass LC-MS analysis
No full textCripto is one of the key regulators of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) differentiation into cardiomyocites
vs neuronal fate. Cripto-/- murine ESCs have been utilized to investigate the molecular mechanisms
underlying early events of mammalian lineage differentiation. 2D/LC-MS/MS and a label-free LC-MS
approaches were used to qualitatively and quantitatively profile the cripto-/- ESC proteome, providing
an integral view of the alterations induced in stem cell functions by deleting the cripto gene.Cripto is one of the key regulators of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) differentiation into cardiomyocites vs neuronal fate. Cripto-/- murine ESCs have been utilized to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying early events of mammalian lineage differentiation. 2D/LC-MS/MS and a label-free LC-MS approaches were used to qualitatively and quantitatively profile the cripto-/- ESC proteome, providing an integral view of the alterations induced in stem cell functions by deleting the cripto gene. © 2009 American Chemical Society
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
- …
