1,720,983 research outputs found

    SCFD1 expression quantitative trait loci in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are differentially expressed

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    Evidence indicates that common variants found in genome-wide association studies increase risk of disease through gene regulation via expression Quantitative Trait Loci. Using multiple genome-wide methods, we examined if Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms increase risk of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis through expression Quantitative Trait Loci, and whether expression Quantitative Trait Loci expression is consistent across people who had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and those who did not. In combining public expression Quantitative Trait Loci data with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis genome-wide association studies, we used Summary-data-based Mendelian Randomization to confirm that SCFD1 was the only gene that was genome-wide significant in mediating Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis risk via expression Quantitative Trait Loci (Summary-data-based Mendelian Randomization beta = 0.20, standard error = 0.04, P-value = 4.29 × 10-6). Using post-mortem motor cortex, we tested whether expression Quantitative Trait Loci showed significant differences in expression between Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (n = 76) and controls (n = 25), genome-wide. Of 20 757 genes analysed, the two most significant expression Quantitative Trait Loci to show differential in expression between Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and controls involve two known Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis genes (SCFD1 and VCP). Cis-acting SCFD1 expression Quantitative Trait Loci downstream of the gene showed significant differences in expression between Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and controls (top expression Quantitative Trait Loci beta = 0.34, standard error = 0.063, P-value = 4.54 × 10-7). These SCFD1 expression Quantitative Trait Loci also significantly modified Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis survival (number of samples = 4265, hazard ratio = 1.11, 95% confidence interval = 1.05-1.17, P-value = 2.06 × 10-4) and act as an Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis trans-expression Quantitative Trait Loci hotspot for a wider network of genes enriched for SCFD1 function and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis pathways. Using gene-set analyses, we found the genes that correlate with this trans-expression Quantitative Trait Loci hotspot significantly increase risk of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (beta = 0.247, standard deviation = 0.017, P = 0.001) and schizophrenia (beta = 0.263, standard deviation = 0.008, P-value = 1.18 × 10-5), a disease that genetically correlates with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. In summary, SCFD1 expression Quantitative Trait Loci are a major factor in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, not only influencing disease risk but are differentially expressed in post-mortem Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. SCFD1 expression Quantitative Trait Loci show distinct expression profiles in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis that correlate with a wider network of genes that also confer risk of the disease and modify the disease's duration

    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

    Characterizing the Relation Between Expression QTLs and Complex Traits: Exploring the Role of Tissue Specificity

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    Measurement of gene expression levels and detection of eQTLs (expression quantitative trait loci) are difficult in tissues with limited sample availability, such as the brain. However, eQTL overlap between tissues might be high, which would allow for inference of eQTL functioning in the brain via eQTLs detected in readily accessible tissues, e.g. whole blood. Applying Stratified Linkage Disequilibrium Score Regression (SLDSR), we quantified the enrichment in polygenic signal of blood and brain eQTLs in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 11 complex traits. We looked at eQTLs discovered in 44 tissues by the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) consortium and two other large representative studies, and found no tissue-specific eQTL effects. Next, we integrated the GTEx eQTLs with regions associated with tissue-specific histone modifiers, and interrogated their effect on rheumatoid arthritis and schizophrenia. We observed substantially enriched effects of eQTLs located inside regions bearing modification H3K4me1 on schizophrenia, but not rheumatoid arthritis, and not tissue-specific. Finally, we extracted eQTLs associated with tissue-specific differentially expressed genes and determined their effects on rheumatoid arthritis and schizophrenia, these analysis revealed limited enrichment of eQTLs associated with gene specifically expressed in specific tissues. Our results pointed to strong enrichment of eQTLs in their effect on complex traits, without evidence for tissue-specific effects. Lack of tissue-specificity can be either due to a lack of statistical power or due to the true absence of tissue-specific effects. We conclude that eQTLs are strongly enriched in GWAS signal and that the enrichment is not specific to the eQTL discovery tissue. Until sample sizes for eQTL discovery grow sufficiently large, working with relatively accessible tissues as proxy for eQTL discovery is sensible and restricting lookups for GWAS hits to a specific tissue for which limited samples are available might not be advisable

    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

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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

    Identification of expression quantitative trait loci associated with schizophrenia and affective disorders in normal brain tissue.

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    Schizophrenia and the affective disorders, here comprising bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, are psychiatric illnesses that lead to significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Whilst understanding of their pathobiology remains limited, large case-control studies have recently identified single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with these disorders. However, discerning the functional effects of these SNPs has been difficult as the associated causal genes are unknown. Here we evaluated whether schizophrenia and affective disorder associated-SNPs are correlated with gene expression within human brain tissue. Specifically, to identify expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs), we leveraged disorder-associated SNPs identified from 11 genome-wide association studies with gene expression levels in post-mortem, neurologically-normal tissue from two independent human brain tissue expression datasets (UK Brain Expression Consortium (UKBEC) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx)). Utilizing stringent multi-region meta-analyses, we identified 2,224 cis-eQTLs associated with expression of 40 genes, including 11 non-coding RNAs. One cis-eQTL, rs16969968, results in a functionally disruptive missense mutation in CHRNA5, a schizophrenia-implicated gene. Importantly, comparing across tissues, we find that blood eQTLs capture 30% of brain-associated eQTLs are significant in tibial nerve. This study identifies putatively causal genes whose expression in region-specific tissue may contribute to the risk of schizophrenia and affective disorders
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