1,720,954 research outputs found
The transcriptome as early marker of diet-related health : evidence in energy restriction studies in humans
No full textBackground: Nutrition research is facing several challenges with respect to finding diet related health effects. The effects of nutrition on health are subtle, show high interindividual variations in response, and can take long before they become visual. Recently, the definition of health has been redefined as an organism’s ability to adapt to challenges and ‘this definition’ can be extended to metabolic health. In the metabolic context the ability to adapt has been named ‘phenotypic flexibility’. A potential new tool to magnify the effects of diet on health is the application of challenge tests. Combined with a comprehensive tool such as transcriptomics, the study of challenge tests before and after an intervention might be able to test a change in phenotypic flexibility. A dietary intervention well-known to improve health through weight loss is energy restriction (ER). ER can be used as a model to examine the potential of challenge tests in combination with transcriptomics to magnify diet-induced effects on health. As opposed to ER, caloric restriction (CR) is a reduction in energy intake aimed at improving health and life span in non-obese subjects and not directly aimed at weight loss. In this thesis, we aimed to investigate the use of the transcriptome as an early and sensitive marker of diet-related health.Methods: First we studied the consequences of age on the effects of CR on the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) transcriptome. For that purpose, we compared the changes in gene expression in PBMCs from old men with the changes in gene expression in PBMCs from young men upon three weeks of 30% CR. To study the effect of a change in dietary composition during ER, we compared the changes in gene expression upon a 12 weeks high protein 25% ER diet with the changes in gene expression upon a 12 weeks normal protein 25% ER diet in white adipose tissue (WAT). Next, we investigated the added value of measuring the PBMC transcriptome during challenge tests compared to measuring the PBMC transcriptome in the fasted state to magnify the effects of ER on health. This was investigated by measuring the changes in gene expression upon an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and upon a mixed meal test (MMT), both before and after 12 weeks of 20% ER. Finally, we determined the differences between a challenge test consisting of glucose alone, the OGTT, or consisting of glucose plus other macronutrients, the MMT, on the PBMC transcriptome in diet-related health.Results: We observed that the transcriptome of PBMCs of healthy young men had a higher responsiveness in immune response pathways compared to the transcriptome of PBMCs of aged men upon CR (chapter 2). Also, we showed that upon a normal protein-ER diet the transcriptome of WAT showed a decrease in pathways involved in immune response and inflammasome, whereas no such effect was found upon a high protein-ER diet. These effect were observed while parameters such as weight loss, glucose, and waist circumference did not change due to the different protein quantities (chapter 3). 12 weeks of 20% ER was shown to increase phenotypic flexibility as reflected by a faster and more pronounced downregulation of OXPHOS, cell adhesion, and DNA replication during the OGTT compared to the control diet (chapter 4). Finally, two challenge tests consisting of either glucose (OGTT) or glucose plus fat and protein (MMT), were shown to result in a larger overlap than difference in the changes in gene expression of PBMCs (chapter 5).Conclusions: Based on the differential changes in gene expression upon CR at different ages, we concluded that age is an important modulator in the response to CR. As a high protein ER diet induced transcriptional changes seemed to reflect less beneficial health effects than a normal protein ER diet we concluded that the diet composition is important in the health-effect of ER as measured by the transcriptome. Based on the faster PBMCs changes in gene expression during an OGTT upon 12 weeks of 20% ER, we concluded that the PBMC transcriptome combined with a challenge test can reflect changes in phenotypic flexibility. This makes challenge tests a suitable tool to study diet-related health effects. Finally, based on the changes in gene expression of the MMT and OGTT, we conclude that glucose in a challenge test is the main denominator of the postprandial changes in gene expression in the first two hours. Overall, these results lead to the conclusion that the transcriptome, especially in combination with challenges test, can be used as an early marker of diet-related health. The direct relation to health still needs to be investigated, but the possibility to use the transcriptome as an early marker of diet-related health gives rise to a better understanding of the effects of nutrition on health
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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