Keele University

About: Keele University is a education organization based out in Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Stars. The organization has 11318 authors who have published 26323 publications receiving 894671 citations. The organization is also known as: Keele University.

RANK, RANKL and osteoprotegerin in bone biology and disease

Abstract: Upon the discovery of RANK, RANKL and OPG in the late 1990s, their importance in the maintenance of the skeletal structure and their dramatic role in bone disease were largely unexpected. In recent years the understanding of these proteins, in particular their regulation, has greatly increased. This review aims to bring the interested reader up to date with the latest news and views on the mechanisms controlling bone resorption in normal and pathological conditions.

The costs of mounting an immune response are reflected in the reproductive fitness of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae

Abstract: We have used Anopheles gambiae, a major vector of malaria in Africa, to test the hypothesis that the operation of a surveillance or immune system against microorganisms and parasites can be costly to the reproductive success of the host. Blood-fed mosquitoes were challenged with an immune elicitor, lipopolysaccharide (LPS), and their resultant antimicrobial activity, accumulation of yolk protein in the ovary and egg production was monitored. Humoral activity against the Gram-positive bacterium Micrococcus luteus was induced by LPS injection in a dose-responsive manner. LPS treatment also caused a concomitant significant reduction in the accumulation of protein in ovaries 24 h after injection and in the production of eggs during the same gonotrophic cycle. Unlike immune stimulation, reduction in reproductive fitness was not dose responsive. Oral administration of LPS also significantly reduced ovarian protein content although we could not detect the presence of anti-M. luteus activity in the gut tissue by using an inhibition zone assay. These findings indicate that immune stimulation imposed reproductive fitness costs on mosquitoes.

Combining empirical results in software engineering

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the techniques used in medical research to combine results from independent empirical studies of a particular phenomenon: meta-analysis and vote-counting. We use an example to illustrate the benefits and limitations of each technique and to indicate the criteria that should be used to guide your choice of technique. Meta-analysis is appropriate for homogeneous studies when raw data or quantitative summary information, e.g. correlation coefficient, are available. It can also be used for heterogeneous studies where the cause of the heterogeneity is due to well-understood partitions in the subject population. In other circumstances, meta-analysis is usually invalid. Although intuitively appealing, vote-counting has a number of serious limitations and should usually be avoided. We suggest that combining study results is unlikely to solve all the problems encountered in empirical software engineering studies, but some of the infrastructure and controls used by medical researchers to improve the quality of their empirical studies would be useful in the field of software engineering.