186,950 research outputs found

    Interleukin 8 haplotypes drive divergent responses in uterine endometrial cells and are associated with somatic cell score in Holstein-Friesian cattle

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    Interleukin 8 is a proinflammatory chemokine involved in neutrophil recruitment and activation in response to infection and also in the resolution of inflammation. Our previous studies identified a number of genetic polymorphisms in the bovine IL8 promoter region which segregate into two haplotypes, with balanced frequencies in the Holstein-Friesian (HF). We subsequently showed that these haplotypes confer divergent IL8 activity both in vitro in mammary epithelial cells and in vivo in response to LPS. In this study, we hypothesised that the balanced frequency of IL8 haplotype in HF could be explained by divergent selection pressures acting on this locus. To address this hypothesis, an association study was carried out aiming to identify a putative link between the IL8 haplotype and somatic cell score (SCS) in 5746 Holstein-Friesian dairy cows. In addition, the basal and inducible promoter activity of the two IL8 haplotypes was characterised in bovine endometrial epithelial (BEND) cells and in monocyte-derived macrophages. Results showed a significant association between IL8 haplotype 2 (IL8-h2) with increased SCS (P < 0.05). Functional analysis showed that the same haplotype was a more potent inducer of IL8 expression in BEND cells in response to LPS and TNFα stimulation. In contrast, co-transfection of the BEND cells with a DNA construct encoding a bovine herpesvirus 4 antigen, induced significantly higher IL8 expression from IL8-h1. The present study sheds light on the molecular mechanisms underlying selection for SCS and provides evidence that the balanced frequencies of the two IL8 haplotypes in HF cattle may occur as a result of opposing directional selection pressures of both bacterial and viral infection

    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

    Effects of high concentrations of hyaluronan in culture medium on development and survival rates of fresh and frozen-thawed bovine embryos produced in vitro

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    Hyaluronic acid (HA) is the main glycosaminoglycan present in follicular, oviductal and uterine fluids. The main functions of HA include dynamic processes that are mediated through interaction with extracellular matrix components, regulation of gene expression, cell proliferation and cell differentiation. HA increases the viscosity of solutions and also has several physiological functions, including regulation of water distribution and water-binding capacity. The addition of 6 mg HA ml(-1) to synthetic oviduct fluid (SOF; SOF-HA) culture medium on day 5 (IVF = day 0) significantly (P < 0.001) increased the viscosity of the medium in comparison with SOF culture medium containing BSA (SOF-BSA). On day 8, rate of blastocyst development in SOF-HA culture medium was significantly (P < 0.05) higher than in SOF-BSA culture medium (38.2 versus 29.3%). The number of trophectoderm cells and the total number of cells of expanded blastocysts cultured in the presence of HA were significantly (P < 0.01) higher in comparison with expanded blastocysts cultured in the presence of BSA (88.9 +/- 7.3 versus 67.6 +/- 3.0 and 130.1 +/- 10.9 versus 104.8 +/- 2.5, respectively). After freezing and thawing, the percentage of day 8 embryos that re-expanded and hatched when cultured with SOF-HA was greater than that of embryos cultured with SOF-BSA (11.3 and 10.5% versus 75.5 and 36.8%, respectively). After thawing, the ATP contents of in vivo-derived, SOF-HA and SOF-BSA expanded blastocysts were similar. The embryos cultured with HA showed less ultrastructural deviation and de-differentiation after freezing and thawing than the embryos cultured with BSA. This study demonstrates that HA improves the developmental capacity of bovine embryos under in vitro conditions and is warranted as a supplement for in vitro production of bovine embryos, particularly if they are to be cryopreserved.M Stojkovic, S Kolle, S Peinl, P Stojkovic, V Zakhartchenko, JG Thompson, H Wenigerkind, HD Reichenbach, F Sinowatz, and E Wol

    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

    Withdrawn by Author

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    &lt;p&gt;Withdrawn by Author&nbsp;&lt;/p&gt

    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

    Dr. Edward P. Wimberly, ITC, July 2011

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    This video is a conversation with Dr. Edward P. Wimberly. Dr. Wimberly talks about his book, "No Shame in Wesley's Gospel: A Twenty-First Century Pastoral Gospel". Brad Ost, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer

    Author Rights and Scholarly Publishing

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    Originally posted at http://blog.library.gsu.edu/2014/10/24/author-rights-and-scholarly-publishing/</p
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