1,720,967 research outputs found
Structural vaccinology approaches to enhance efficacy, stability, and delivery of protective antigens
No full textDeveloping safe and effective vaccinations is an active area of pharmaceutical research, and vaccines have become a powerful tool in the fight against infectious disease pandemics. Using inactivated or weakly active microbes characterizes the first generation of “culture-based” vaccines. The safety of this approach could be better, and modern medical procedures need for much more oversight. It was in the late 1800s that naturally occurring antibodies were initially identified. Paul Ehrlich first proposed the idea of “horror autotoxins,” in which pathogenic autoantibodies damage our cells’ structures. Stratis Avrameas initially coined the word “Gnothi seauton” in 1991 to describe the necessity of self-organizations, such as a body’s endogenous antibody collection, for homeostasis. There are limits to structural vaccinology (SV) despite its great potential. To start, there needs to be more structural and immunological knowledge about the host immune responses that the virus induces, which makes this technology susceptible to potential vulnerabilities. For instance, mapping an epitope onto preexisting dengue structures in one known configuration proved that the epitope remained inaccessible. New advancements have proven that vaccinations based on structures can be effective. When traditional approaches fail, structural understanding is necessary to overcome the obstacles. Based on the research that is now available, structural knowledge is necessary for stabilizing antigens that are flexible. The advancement of antibody treatments can also benefit from SV. One possible solution to the cold-chain problem that affects underdeveloped areas on faraway continents is to use SV techniques to make vaccines more thermostable
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
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
Synthetic Biology:Refining Human Health
No full textScientists of various disciplines and backgrounds collaborate to conceive and design revolutionary biomolecular components, networks, and pathways, after which they use these innovations to reorganize and reprogram organisms. These re-engineered organisms will fundamentally change our lives over the next few years by helping to reduce the cost of drugs, using “green” sources of fuel, and aiding in the development of treatments for “superbugs” and various diseases including cancer. The rapidly evolving discipline of synthetic biology is dedicated to discovering entirely new systems of life or totally reworking current systems to use the minimum number of components possible. A number of enabling technologies have contributed to the emergence of synthetic biology, and as a result, a broad field has emerged that encompasses many areas. This chapter is to serve as an introduction to the place and provide a brief look at some of the more noteworthy cases that have occurred so far. It should be noted that DNA assembly and combinatorial variety creation are the fundamental molecular biology approaches utilized in these cases, along with computational modeling to aid in the design of new biological systems
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
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