1,721,017 research outputs found
Neuroinflammation as common denominator in heart failure associated mental dysfunction:Studies in animal models
Get PDFPatients with cardiovascular disease have a higher risk to develop mental dysfunction, like depression or memory impairment. To better treat this group of patients we need to better understand the causes of this relationship. Previous studies have indicated that inflammation plays a role in both conditions. In our study we have studied (neuro)inflammation and behavioural changes in animal models of heart attack (myocardial infarction, MI). We specifically looked at microglia and the two inflammatory markers tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL). Microglia are immune cells in the brain, we know they are involved in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression. TNF-α is an inflammatory marker that is raised in the blood of patients after MI and also in depression. NGAL is another inflammatory marker that is raised in the blood of patient with heart failure and is associated with symptoms of depression in heart failure patients. In our mouse model of MI we found that TNF-α was raised in the brain after MI, we also found localized activation of microglia. In rats NGAL was raised after MI and NGAL levels were associated with behavioral changes. Microglia activation was also associated with behavioural changes. A final study in a model for abdominal surgery also showed changes in microglia and NGAL, indicating these are not specific for MI, but more likely a general response to physical damage
Pulmonary arterial hypertension : cardiovascular effects of pharmacological intervention
Get PDFElk jaar worden er in Nederland 1500 kinderen met een aangeboren hartafwijking geboren. Zo’n 75 van deze patiënten ontwikkelen pulmonale arteriële hypertensie (PAH). Deze ernstige onbehandelbare aandoening is een belangrijke oorzaak voor de sterfte onder deze kinderen. Bij de ziekte treedt celwoekering in de longvaten op als complicatie van de hoge druk en de hoge longdoorstroming, waaraan de longvaten door de hartafwijking zijn blootgesteld.
De follow-up van kinderen met PAH gebeurt vooral aan de hand van metingen van de bloedbewegingen. Voor de patiënten zijn dit zware onderzoeken. Promovendus Mirjam van Albada onderzocht de waarde van verschillende merkstoffen in het bloed voor de follow-up. Ze ontdekte dat bij kinderen die PAH hebben, screening van NT-proBNP, noradrenaline en urinezuur extra informatie levert over de toestand van het longvaatbed, de inspanningstolerantie en de prognose. In de toekomst zouden deze merkstoffen gebruikt kunnen worden als leidraad voor de behandeling en de noodzaak tot meer invasieve bepalingen overbodig kunnen maken.
Erythropoietin in cardiac ischemia
Get PDFErythropoëtine (EPO) wordt traditioneel gezien als een hormoon dat de aanmaak van rode bloedcellen bevordert. Uit recent onderzoek blijkt echter dat EPO ook verschillende andere cellulaire processen kan beïnvloeden, zoals het ontstaan van schade door onvoldoende doorbloeding (ischemie), nieuwvorming van bloedvaten of stimulatie van stamcellen. Erik Lipšic bestudeerde de effecten van EPO in een (dier)experimenteel model. Uit zijn onderzoek blijkt dat EPO tijdens het acute stadium de celdood remt en de grootte van het infarct reduceert. Bovendien blijkt dat EPO op de langere termijn nieuwe vaatvorming bevordert en helpt de myocardiale structuur en functie te handhaven. Op dit gebied werden recentelijk al veel experimentele onderzoeken verricht. Het tweede deel van dit promotieonderzoek beschrijft de eerste klinische pilotstudy met EPO-behandeling bij patiënten. De resultaten zijn aanleiding geweest tot een grote klinische studie naar de effectiviteit van EPO-toediening aan infarctpatiënten. Dit onderzoek zal dit jaar in verschillende Nederlandse ziekenhuizen beginnen. De resultaten zouden van grote betekenis kunnen zijn voor de behandeling van hart- en vaatziekten, op dit moment de belangrijkste doodsoorzaak in de westerse wereld.
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
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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