1,720,988 research outputs found

    The regulatory network of E. coli metabolism as a Boolean dynamical system exhibits both homeostasis and flexibility of response

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    Background: Elucidating the architecture and dynamics of large scale genetic regulatory networks of cells is an important goal in systems biology. We study the system level dynamical properties of the genetic network of Escherichia coli that regulates its metabolism, and show how its design leads to biologically useful cellular properties. Our study uses the database (Covert et al., Nature 2004) containing 583 genes and 96 external metabolites which describes not only the network connections but also the Boolean rule at each gene node that controls the switching on or off of the gene as a function of its inputs. Results: We have studied how the attractors of the Boolean dynamical system constructed from this database depend on the initial condition of the genes and on various environmental conditions corresponding to buffered minimal media. We find that the system exhibits homeostasis in that its attractors, that turn out to be fixed points or low period cycles, are highly insensitive to initial conditions or perturbations of gene configurations for any given fixed environment. At the same time the attractors show a wide variation when external media are varied implying that the system mounts a highly flexible response to changed environmental conditions. The regulatory dynamics acts to enhance the cellular growth rate under changed media. Conclusion: Our study shows that the reconstructed genetic network regulating metabolism in E. coli is hierarchical, modular, and largely acyclic, with environmental variables controlling the root of the hierarchy. This architecture makes the cell highly robust to perturbations of gene configurations as well as highly responsive to environmental changes. The twin properties of homeostasis and response flexibility are achieved by this dynamical system even though it is not close to the edge of chaos

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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

    Statistical physics methods provide the exact solution to a long-standing problem of genetics

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    International audienceAnalytic and computational methods developed within statistical physics have found applications in numerous disciplines. In this letter, we use such methods to solve a long-standing problem in statistical genetics. The problem, posed by Haldane and Waddington [J.B.S. Haldane and C.H. Waddington, Genetics 16, 357-374 (1931)], concerns so-called recombinant inbred lines (RILs) produced by repeated inbreeding. Haldane and Waddington derived the probabilities of RILs when considering 2 and 3 genes but the case of 4 or more genes has remained elusive. Our solution uses two probabilistic frameworks relatively unknown outside of physics: Glauber's formula and self-consistent equations of the Schwinger-Dyson type. Surprisingly, this combination of statistical formalisms unveils the exact probabilities of RILs for any number of genes. Extensions of the framework may have applications in population genetics and beyond

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We 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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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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