1,720,963 research outputs found
Protein Flexibility and Ligand Recognition: Challenges for Molecular Modeling
No full textThe intrinsic dynamics of macromolecules is an essential property to relate the structure of biomolecular systems with their function in the cell. In the field of ligand-receptor recognition, numerous evidences have revealed the limitations of the lock-and-key theory, and the need to elaborate models that take into account the inherent plasticity of biomolecules, such as the induced-fit model or the existence of an ensemble of pre-equilibrated conformations. Depending on the nature of the target system, ligand binding can be associated with small local adjustments in side chains or even the backbone to large-scale motions of structural fragments, domains or even subunits. Reproducing the inherent flexibility of biomolecules has thus become one of the most challenging issues in molecular modeling and simulation studies, as it has direct implications in our understanding of the structure-function relationships, but even in areas such as virtual screening and structure-based drug discovery. Given the intrinsic limitation of conventional simulation tools, only events occurring in short time scales can be reproduced at a high accuracy level through all-atom techniques such as Molecular Dynamics simulations. However, larger structural rearrangements demand the use of enhanced sampling methods relying on modified descriptions of the biomolecular system or the potential surface. This review illustrates the crucial role that structural plasticity plays in mediating ligand recognition through representative examples. In addition, it discusses some of the most powerful computational tools developed to characterize the conformational flexibility in ligand-receptor complexes
Molecular Dynamics: a tool to understand nuclear receptors
No full textNuclear receptors (NRs) are evolutionary conserved proteins whose encoding genes are expressed in the animal kingdom. The wide family of NRs counts more than 150 members, represented by both steroidal and non-steroidal receptors and by a multitude of orphan receptors, acting as intracellular ligand-inducible transcription factors able to respond to endogenous and exogenous chemicals, involved in the regulation of a wide variety of functions and in many related pathologies. NRs are characterized by a significant macro- and microflexibility affecting their structure, their interaction with natural substrates and ligands, and their activity. While experimental techniques are essentially devoted to elucidate the structural features of NRs, computational methodologies might provide valuable insights about the structure-activity relationship. In particular Molecular Dynamics based approaches represent nowadays the technique of choice for investigating the intrinsic dynamics of these molecules and relate the structural features and the conformational alterations of NRs and their ligands to the biological activity. A brief description of the available approaches known to provide the most reliable results and of some applications to real cases will be here provided
Molecular Descriptors for Database Mining. Translating Empirical Chemistry into Mathemathics: Tools for QSAR and In Silico Screening based on the Hydrophobicity of Small Molecules
No full text
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
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