1,721,155 research outputs found

    Asparagine: an amide of particular distinction in the regulation of symbiotic nitrogen fixation of legumes

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    Symbiotic nitrogen fixation is tightly regulated by a range of fine processes at the nodule level, over which the host plant has overall control through the whole life of the plant. The operation of this control at the nodule level is not yet fully understood, but greater knowledge will ultimately lead to a better improvement of N-2 fixation through the use of crop legumes and genetic engineering of crop plants for higher performance. It has been suggested that, nodule responses to the nutritional complexity of the rhizosphere environment involve a great deal of coordination of sensing and signal transduction. This regulation can be achieved through several mechanisms, including changes in carbon metabolism, oxygen supply and/or overproduction of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species. Recently, the cycling of amino acids observed between the plant and bacteroid fractions suggests a new and important regulatory mechanism involved in nodule responses. Most of the recent transcriptional findings are consistent with the earlier biochemical and physiological reports. Current research revealed unique advances for nodule metabolism, especially on the regulation of asparagine synthetase gene expression and the control of asparagine (ASN) to N-2 fixing activity. A large amount of ASN is found accumulating in the root nodules of the symbiotic plants under restricted environments, such as drought, salinity and nutrient deficiency. Exceptionally, ASN phloem feeding has resulted in an increased concentration of the ASN amide in nodules followed by a remarkable decrease in nodule activity. In this review, recent progress concerning the possible role of ASN in whole-plant-based down-regulation of symbiotic N-2 fixation will be reviewed

    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

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

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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

    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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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

    Growth and nodulation of symbiotic Medicago truncatula at different levels of phosphorus availability

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    Medicago truncatula is an important model plant for characterization of P deficiency on leguminous plants at the physiological and molecular levels. Growth optimization of this plant with regard to P supply is the first essential step for elucidation of the role of P in regulation of nodulation. Hence, a study was carried out to address the growth pattern of M. truncatula hydroponically grown at different gradual increases in P levels. The findings revealed that M. truncatula had a narrow P regime, with an optimum P level (12 M P) which is relatively close to the concentration that induces P toxicity. The accumulated P concentration (2.7 mg g(1) dry matter), which is normal for other crops and legumes, adversely affected the growth of M. truncatula plants. Under P deficiency, M. truncatula showed a higher symbiotic efficiency with Sinorhizobium meliloti 2011 in comparison with S. meliloti 102F51, partially as a result of higher electron allocation to N-2 versus H. The total composition of free amino acids in the phloem was significantly affected by P deprivation. This pattern was found to be almost exclusively the result of the increase in the asparagine level, suggesting that asparagine might be the shoot-derived signal that translocates to the nodules and exerts the down-regulation of nitrogenase activity. Additionally, P deprivation was found to have a strong influence on the contents of the nodule carbon metabolites. While levels of sucrose and succinate tended to decrease, a higher accumulation of malate was observed. These findings have provided evidence that N-2 fixation of M. truncatula is mediated through an N feedback mechanism which is closely related to nodule carbon metabolism
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