1,720,959 research outputs found
MAL daylight photodynamic therapy for actinic keratosis: Clinical and imaging evaluation by 3D camera
No full textNon-melanoma skin cancer is the most common skin cancer with an incidence that varies widely worldwide. Among them, actinic keratosis (AK), considered by some authors as in situ squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), are the most common and reflect an abnormal multistep skin cell development due to the chronic ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. No ideal treatment exists, but the potential risk of their development in a more invasive form requires prompt treatment. As patients usually present with multiple AK on fields of actinic damage, there is a need for effective, safe, simple and short treatments which allow the treatment of large areas. To achieve this, daylight photodynamic therapy (DL-PDT) is an innovative treatment for multiple mild actinic keratosis, well tolerated by patients. Patients allocated to the PDT unit, affected by multiple mild-moderate and severe actinic keratosis on sun-exposed areas treated with DL-PDT, were clinically evaluated at baseline and every three months with an Antera 3D, Miravex© camera. Clinical and 3D images were performed at each clinical check almost every three months. In this retrospective study, 331 patients (56.7% male, 43.3% female) were treated with DL-PDT. We observed a full clearance in more than two-thirds of patients with one or two treatments. Different responses depend on the number of lesions and on their severity; for patients with 1-3 lesions and with grade I or II AK, a full clearance was reached in 85% of cases with a maximum of two treatments. DL-PDT in general improved skin tone and erased sun damage. Evaluating each Antera 3D images, hemoglobin concentration and pigmentation, a skin color and tone improvement in 310 patients was observed. DL-PDT appears as a promising, effective, simple, tolerable and practical treatment for actinic damage associated with AK, and even treatment of large areas can be with little or no pain. The 3D imaging allowed for quantifying in real time the aesthetic benefits of DL-PDT’s increasing compliance
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
Smyd3 open & closed lock mechanism for substrate recruitment: The hinge motion of C-terminal domain inferred from μ-second molecular dynamics simulations
No full textBACKGROUND:
The human lysine methyltransferase Smyd3, a member of the SET and MYND domain containing protein family, harbors methylation activity on both histone and non-histone targets in a tightly regulated manner. The mechanism of how Smyd3 dynamically regulates substrate recognition is still not fully unveiled.
METHODS:
Here, we employed molecular dynamics simulations on full length human Smyd3, performed to a total of 1.2 μ-second, in the presence (holo) and absence (apo) of the S-Adenosyl methionine (AdoMet) cofactor. The dynamical features of Smyd3 in apo and holo states have been examined and compared via examining geometrical and electrostatic properties.
RESULTS:
The results show a distinct dynamics of the C-terminal domain (CTD) in the two states. In the apo state, the CTD undergoes a large hinge like motion and samples more opened configurations, thus acting like a loosened clamp and resulting in expanded substrate binding crevice. In the holo state, the CTD exhibits a restricted motion while the overall structure remains compact, mimicking a closed clamp. This leads to a localized increase in the negative potential at the substrate binding cleft. Further, solvent accessibility of critical residues at the target lysine access channel, important for methylation activity, is increased.
CONCLUSIONS:
We postulate that AdoMet cofactor acts like a key and locks Smyd3 in a closed conformation. In effect, the cofactor binding restricts the elasticity of the CTD, presenting a compact substrate binding cleft with high negative potential, which may have implications on substrate recruitment via long range electrostatics.
GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE:
The deletion of the CTD from Smyd3 has been shown to abolish the basal histone methylation activity. Our study highlights the importance of the CTD elasticity in shaping the substrate binding site for recognition and supports the previously proposed role of the CTD in stabilizing the active site for methylation activity
Correlation between plasmatic levels of vitamin D and PASI score
No full textBACKGROUND: Psoriasis is a common, inflammatory, chronic, relapsing skin disease. The pathogenesis is multifactorial and it is involved both innate and acquired immunity. Several studies have shown the important role of vitamin D in the pathogenesis of this disorder. In this study we have evaluated a possible correlation between vitamin D and clinical severity of psoriasis calculated using the Psoriasis Area Severity Score (PASI) score.
METHODS: In this case control study we included 141 Caucasian subjects affected by moderate to severe psoriasis and 62 healthy controls. We have calculated PASI score and serum levels of vitamin D.
RESULTS: Psoriatic patients had significantly lower serum levels of 25(OH)D than healthy controls. Using no parametric Spearman’s coefficient test between serum levels of vitamin D and the PASI score we found a statistical significant correlation. However, the statistical significance was not reached analyzing separately the patients with psoriatic arthritis, while it was confirmed for patients without an articular involvement.
CONCLUSIONS: The present study confirm that serum levels of vitamin D are significantly lower in psoriatic patients and correlate with the clinical severity of psoriasis; these data suggest that psoriatic patients could be screened for vitamin D insufficiency for a more comprehensive management
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
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