1,720,968 research outputs found
INFLUENCE OF DIETS AND DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES ON MICROBIOTA ASSOCIATED WITH THE INDIAN MEAL MOTH PLODIA INTERPUNCTELLA
Full text linkPlodia interpunctella, also named indian meal moth (IMM), is considered a stored product pest due to its high polyphagous activity on a wide range of human food such as nuts, dry fruits and meat. Due to their ecology these pest can also carry a risk for the human health. However, to date, little is known on the microbial communities associated with this pest and the factors that may influence them. Recent studies highlighted the presence of three potential factors that may influence the bacteria community of moth pests, namely, diet, origin of the populations and the developmental stages. Due to scarcity of studies investigating the microbiota associated with P. interpunctella, I decided to investigate the bacterial community of this moth pest, using NGS approaches (454-pyrosequencing and Illumina platform). The aim of this thesis was to: i) evaluate the impact of different diets on the microbiota associated with P. interpunctella; ii) characterize the microbial community changes across different ontogenetic stages of P. interpunctella. In particular the possible effect of the diet on bacterial community of this pest was investigated by testing different diets (artificial diet, powder of Moringa oleifera leaves and Vicia faba beans for the laboratory reared population; Capsicum annuum chilli and white-black buckwheat for the wild/field populations) and among different life stages as eggs, first and last instar larvae and adults (both males and females). The main result showed that the only factor influencing the bacterial community associated to P. interpunctella was the diet, highlighting the presence of two different bacterial communities (entomotypes) in relation to the different nutrient composition of the diet (etomotype Atopococcus associated to moths reared on artificial diet and white- black buckewheat, entomotype Proprionibacterium associated to IMM reared on V. faba beans, C. annuum chilli and M. oleifera leaves). Moreover, the microbiota do not change among the analysed developmental stages of P. interpunctella and was dominated by the genus Burkholderia.
The results achieved during the PhD program and reported in the present thesis were published as research articles (Evidence of a bacterial core in the stored products pest Plodia interpunctella: the influence of different diets; Evidence for a conserved microbiota across the different developmental stages of Plodia interpunctella and as review (New insights into the microbiota of moth pests)
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
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
Localization and quantification of intracellular symbiont Midichloria mitochondri in organs of Ixodes ricinus ticks
No full textMidichloria mitochondrii is an intracellular bacterium member of the recently described family of the Rickettsiales, Candidatus Midichloriaceae, that encompasses a wide group of intracellular bacteria associated with ticks (Montagna et al., 2013, Appl Environ Microbiol., 79(10):3241-8).
This bacterium has been found in different species of ticks; in particular, in Ixodes ricinus tick, it has been detected in 100% of the examined I. ricinus females across its geographical distribution and in about 50% of males. M. titochondrii has been observed not only in the cell cytoplasm, but also inside the mitochondria, within the intermembrane space (Sacchi et al, 2004, Tissue Cell., 36(1):43-53). Up to now, we know that this symbiont is present in the ovary and salivary glands of the I. ricinus tick (Mariconti et al, 2012, Microbiology, 158(Pt 7):1677-83; Epis et al., 2013, Ticks Tick Borne Dis., 4(1-2):39-45) but no studies have so far investigated whether M. mitochondrii is spread and quantified in other organs of the tick. In particular, taking in consideration indirect evidences that suggest that the bacterium could be transmitted to vertebrates during the blood meal of the tick, the analysis of salivary glands should be of extremely interest. Moreover the localization of M. mitochondrii in the body of the arthropod and its ability to diffusion are unknown.
In this work we investigated the localization/quantification of M. mitochondrii in the body of the tick using immunofluorescence assay with specific anti-FLID antibody for M. mitochiondri detection and quantitative Real-Time PCR in different organs of I. ricinus: Two genes were amplified: the gene of M. mitochondrii gyrB coding for gyrase B and the nuclear gene of I. ricinus cal coding for the protein Calreticulin. Adult female ticks both “semi-engorged” (i.e. a tick at half of its blood meal) and “non-engorged” (i.e. a tick that didn’t start its blood meal yet) were analyzed.
M. mitochondrii was detected in different body organs of the ticks. Furthermore differences in bacterial burden between the two analyzed life cycle period of the tick were found. In fact an increase of M. mitochondrii burden, such as one of classical pathogens transmitted by the tick, can be noticed during the meal in salivary glands and rostrum.
This study thus offered further evidences that M. mitochondrii is transmitted by ticks to vertebrates through saliva. Interestingly each trachea of the analyzed I. ricinus was positive for M. mitochondrii: this suggest that the respiratory tract can be used by M. mitochondrii as a dissemination way in the tick. This datum was described in previous works for organisms belonging to Rickettsia genus; Baldridge and colleagues (2007, J Invertebr Pathol., 94(3):163-74) experimentally infected tick of the specie Ixodes scapularis (a tick with American diffusion) with a cultivable Rickettsia monacensis able to produce the green fluorescence protein (GFP). After experimental infection, fluorescent R. monacensis were found distributed in the respiratory system of ticks; this result allowed the researchers to consider the tracheal system as a way of dissemination of bacteria and a possible "reservoir" during moulting. Similarly, Midichloria may also use the respiratory system as a way to spread within the I. ricinus tick
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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