New 'Alzheimer's mouse' produced

High-impact and transformative science (HITS) metrics: Definition, exemplification, and comparison

Countries, research institutions, and scholars are interested in identifying and promoting high-impact and transformative scientific research. This paper presents a novel set of text- and citation-based metrics that can be used to identify high-impact and transformative works. The 11 metrics can be grouped into seven types: Radical-Generative, Radical-Destructive, Risky, Multidisciplinary, Wide Impact, Growing Impact, and Impact (overall). The metrics are exemplified, validated, and compared using a set of 10,778,696 MEDLINE articles matched to the Science Citation Index ExpandedTM. Articles are grouped into six 5-year periods (spanning 1983-2012) using publication year and into 6,159 fields constructed using comparable MeSH terms, with which each article is tagged. The analysis is conducted at the level of a field-period pair, of which 15,051 have articles and are used in this study. A factor analysis shows that transformativeness and impact are positively related (ρ = .402), but represent distinct phenomena. Looking at the subcomponents of transformativeness, there is no evidence that transformative work is adopted slowly or that the generation of important new concepts coincides with the obsolescence of existing concepts. We also find that the generation of important new concepts and highly cited work is more risky. Finally, supporting the validity of our metrics, we show that work that draws on a wider range of research fields is used more widely.

Presence of hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 10 in amyloid plaques (APs) of Hsiao's APP-Sw transgenic mouse brains, but absence in APs of Alzheimer's disease brains

This immunocytochemical study using two anti-amyloid beta-protein (Abeta) monoclonal antibodies, 4G8 and 6E10, revealed the presence of Abeta in both amyloid plaques (APs) and blood vessels of brains of Hsiao's APP-Sw transgenic mice (also known as Tg2576) and human Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains. Further study using both monoclonal (5F3) and polyclonal (R-228) antibodies to hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 10 (HSD-10) [formerly called SCHAD (short-chain L-3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase); also called ERAB (endoplasmic-reticulum-associated amyloid beta-peptide-binding protein)] indicated that HSD-10 was present in the APs of Tg2576 mice but was absent or immunocytochemically undetectable in the APs of AD brains. Our observations also revealed that HSD-10 was present in the blood vessels of both Tg2576 mice and AD brains. Immunogold electron microscopy also indicated that HSD-10 was present in the amyloid fibers (AFs), mitochondria, nuclear heterochromatin, and nucleolus of Tg2576 mouse brains but was absent in APs of AD brains. These results suggest that the human APP gene transferred to mice may induce overexpression of HSD-10 in mouse APs and in various other cellular components of mouse brains. It is also possible that the human APP gene responsible for HSD-10 deposition in APs of these Tg2576 mice brains is different from that of AD brains. Alternatively, the HSD-10 gene and APP gene may function independently in AD brains. Despite these differences, the Tg2576 mouse, as shown in this study, is a proper animal model for the study of AD and also for the investigation of HSD-10.