1,720,987 research outputs found
Soluble interleukin-2 receptor and soluble CD8 molecules in cerebrospinal fluid and serum of patients with multiple sclerosis.
No full textThe purpose of this study was to analyse soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) and soluble CD8 (sCD8) molecules in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum of 18 patients with definite multiple sclerosis (MS) and of 16 with noninflammatory neurologic diseases (NIND). All MS patients suffered from an exacerbation of the relapsing-remitting form of the disease within one month before examination. The mean serum levels of sIL-2R and sCD8 in the MS patients were not significantly different from those of NIND patients. Only one patient with MS had detectable sIL-2R in the CSF. CSF sCD8 was detectable in 10 of 18 MS patients and in 1 of 16 NIND patients. Our data indicate that the CSF and serum sIL-2R concentrations do not correlate with the disease activity. Conversely, increased levels of sCD8 only in the CSF of MS patients support the hypothesis of an intrathecal activation of CD8+ cells in MS. We think that CSF sCD8 can be a useful marker for the presence of activated T cells in the central nervous system
Possible role of transforming growth factor-beta in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.
No full textCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum levels of transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (sICAM-1) were evaluated in ten patients with definite multiple sclerosis (MS) of the relapsing-remitting type. CSF TGF-beta levels of MS patients in remission were significantly (p < 0.01) higher than of MS patients in active phase, and there was a significant inverse correlation (p < 0.05) between TGF-beta and slCAM-1 levels in the CSF of patients in both remitting and relapsing type. This is consistent with a possible down-regulation of TGF-beta on ICAM-1 expression and suggests a possible synthesis in the central nervous system of TGF-beta
Profile of cerebrospinal fluid and serum cytokines in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: a correlation with clinical activity.
No full textLevels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin (IL)-10 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum of 29 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) of the relapsing-remitting type and of 20 controls with other non inflammatory neurological diseases were studied. Sixteen patients were in the active phase of disease and 13 in remission. In CSF, higher IL-10 and TGF-beta concentrations were found in patients with a stable phase of MS, while in the active phase there were elevated levels of TNF-alpha and GM-CSF. These results suggest that a different cytokine pattern could be probably involved in the pathogenesis of relapsing-remitting MS
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
Age-related risk factors for ischemic stroke in Italian men.
No full textWe evaluated the age-related stroke risk factors in 164 Italian male patients with a diagnosis of first-ever ischemic stroke. Based on the age, we divided the patients into two groups: 42 patients ranging in age from 40 to 55 years, and 122 patients ranging in age from 56 to 75 years. For each case, an age-matched control without a history or symptoms indicating vascular disease was randomly selected from hospital patients. Information were obtained on the various risk factors. Univariate analysis showed that for the younger patients high systolic blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, hypertriglyceridemia, smoking and family history of ischemic stroke were significantly related to stroke. In the older patients, high diastolic blood pressure and smoking had a strong association with stroke. Multivariate analysis showed that high systolic blood pressure, hypertriglyceridemia, smoking and family history of stroke remained significantly and independently associated with stroke in patients up to the age of 55 years. Among patients 56 years or older, only high systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and smoking were significant predictors of stroke. In conclusion, the sets of factors associated with the risk of stroke among young and old male patients appear to be different
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
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