1,720,973 research outputs found
The effects of social defeat and other stressors on the expression of circadian rhythms
No full textMost biological functions display a 24 h rhythm that, in mammals, is under the control of an endogenous circadian oscillator located in the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus. The circadian system provides an optimal temporal organization for physiological processes and behavior in relation to a cyclic environment imposed upon organisms by the regular alternation of day and night. In line with its function as a clock that serves to maintain a stable phase-relationship between endogenous rhythms and the light-dark cycle, the circadian oscillator appears to be well protected against unpredictable stressful stimuli. Available data do not provide convincing evidence that stress is capable of perturbing the central circadian oscillator in the SCN. However, the shape and amplitude of a rhythm is not determined exclusively by the SCN and certain stressors can strongly affect the output of the clock and the expression of the rhythms. In particular, social stress in rodents has been found to cause severe disruptions of the body temperature, heart rate and locomotor activity rhythms, especially in animals that are subject to uncontrollable stress associated with defeat and subordination. Such rhythm disturbances may be due to effects of stress on sub-oscillators that are known to exist in many tissues, which are normally under the control of the SCN, or due to other effects of stress that mask the output of the circadian system. These disturbances of peripheral rhythms represent an imbalance between normally precisely orchestrated physiological and behavioral processes that may have severe consequence for the health and well being of the organism
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
High corticosterone levels in prenatally stressed rats predict persistent paradoxical sleep alterations.
Full text linkPrenatal stress predisposes rats to long-lasting disturbances that persist throughout adulthood (e.g. high anxiety, dysfunction of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, and abnormal circadian timing). These disturbances parallel to a large extent those found in depressed patients, in which hypercortisolemia and sleep alterations may be related to stress-inducing events. We studied sleep-wake parameters in control and prenatally stressed adult rats (3-4 months old) and examined possible relationships with their corticosterone levels (determined at 2 months of age). Under baseline conditions, prenatally stressed rats showed increased amounts of paradoxical sleep, positively correlated to plasma corticosterone levels. Other changes include increased sleep fragmentation, total light slow-wave sleep time, and a slight decrease in the percentage of deep slow-wave sleep relative to total sleep time. During recovery sleep from acute restraint stress, all sleep changes persisted and were correlated with stress-induced corticosterone secretion. High corticosterone levels under baseline conditions as well as an acute stress challenge may thus predict long-term sleep-wake alterations in rats. Taken together with other behavioral and hormonal abnormalities in prenatally stressed animals, the pronounced changes in sleep-wake parameters that are similar to those found in depressed patients suggest that prenatal stress may be a useful animal model of depression.Journal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
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
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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