1,720,974 research outputs found
LA STIFFNESS EPATICA NELLE MALATTIE EPATICHE CRONICHE: NUOVI SCENARI A CONFRONTO
Full text linkAbstract
Background and aim. Liver stiffness (LS) measured by transient elastography (TE) accurately predicts severity of chronic liver disease (CLD). Point quantification shear-wave elastography (ElastPQ®- pSWE) is a newly developed technique to measure LS incorporated into a conventional ultrasound system. We evaluated feasibility, reproducibility and diagnostic accuracy of both techniques in consecutively recruited CLD patients who concomitantly underwent a liver biopsy.
Methods. Over a two-year period, 186 CLD `patients (116 males, 53 years, 132 viral hepatitis ) consecutively underwent ElastPQ®-pSWE (10 valid measurements) blindly performed by two raters whereas TE was performed by one single operator. Interobserver agreement for ElastPQ®-pSWE was analyzed by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and correlated with histological liver fibrosis by METAVIR. Main determinants of ElastPQ®-pSWE were investigated by a linear regression model.
Results. 372 (100%) reliable measurements were obtained by ElastPQ®-pSWE and 184 by TE (2 failures, 99%). LS was 8.1±4.5 kPa for by ElastPQ®-pSWE with the first rater and 8.0±4.2 with the second one vs 8.8±3.6 kPa by TE. Overall, ElastPQ®-pSWE ICC was 0.89 (95%CI 0.85-0.91) that was not influenced by age, sex, BMI or liver enzymes. However, ICC increased with time , 1st year 0.86, 95% CI 0.81-0.90 vs second year 92, 95%CI 0.87-0.95. Liver fibrosis was the only independent determinant of LS on ElastPQ®-pSWE. AUROCs for diagnosing F≥2, F≥3 and F=4 were 0.77, 0.85 and 0.88 for ElastPQ®-pSWE vs 0.81, 0.88 and 0.94 for TE. However the ElastPQ®-pSWE AUCROCs after one year of training were 0.86, 0.94 and 0.91.
Conclusions. pSWE-ElastPQ reliably and reproducibly evaluates LS, matching for accuracy TE after a learning curve of one year
Decreasing iron-related indexes without anaemia in a patient with genetic haemochromatosis
No full textPresent case report refers to a 48-year-old man with genetic haemochromatosis (C282Y mut/mut) diagnosed at the age of 26. After aggressive iron depleting regimen carried out up to normalization of iron-related indexes, he received a maintenance regimen based on regular phlebotomies for about 20 years. In 2014, a marked reduction of both serum ferritin and transferrin saturation percent, without concomitant anaemia, was noted on two different occasions at 5-month interval. An obscure occult GI bleeding was suspected, but both upper and lower GI tract endoscopy were negative for abnormal findings, as also was a detailed abdominal US scan. The persistence of low iron-related indexes prompted the physicians to perform a videocapsule endoscopy, which showed an ulcerative bleeding lesion in the small bowel, not confirmed however by both anterograde and retrograde double-balloon enteroscopy. Further MRI and PET allowed the identification of a 3.5 cm large lesion, located outside the small bowel wall, suspected to be a gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST). A further laparoscopic procedure allowed the resection of 10 cm of midileum, which included the mass, fully consistent with GIST at pathology
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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