1,720,978 research outputs found
Ocular Behçet's Disease: Changing Patterns Over Time, Complications and Long-Term Visual Prognosis.
No full textPURPOSE:
To investigate demographic, clinical features and complications of Italian patients with ocular Behçet's disease (BD) over time.
METHODS:
Retrospective study of 385 patients examined from 1968 to 2011, 265 of whom had follow-up ≥ 12 months.
RESULTS:
A significant increase in the proportion of females (p = 0.03) and anterior uveitis (p < 0.001), and a decrease in the complete type of BD in all patients (p = 0.003) and in males (p = 0.002), and in hypopyon (p = 0.024) were observed over time. Optic neuropathy (p < 0.0001), maculopathy (p = 0.002), retinal detachment, and retinal neovascularization (p = 0.02) decreased over time, with no difference between genders, concomitant with an increase in the use of immunosuppressive drugs (p = 0.003). Visual acuity ≤1/10 was detected more often in males than females (p = 0.003).
CONCLUSIONS:
A significant shift in clinical manifestations of BD patients was observed over 44 years. Immunosuppressive therapy succeeded in lowering ocular complications. The incidence of ocular BD is increasing in females, but visual prognosis is still worse in males
Cytomegalovirus anterior uveitis: long-term follow-up of immunocompetent patients
No full textBACKGROUND:
We aimed to report on the clinical findings and long-term prognosis of patients with cytomegalovirus (CMV) anterior uveitis.
METHODS:
This was a retrospective observational study on 15 immunocompetent patients with CMV anterior uveitis and a follow-up longer than 24 months (mean: 62.1 ± 28.5 months).
RESULTS:
Uveitis was unilateral and hypertensive in all cases, with acute relapsing having the characteristics of Posner-Schlossman syndrome in nine (60 %) and chronic in nine patients (40 %), three of whom were clinically classified as Fuchs' heterocromic iridocyclitis (20 %). All patients received topical antiviral and corticosteroid therapy, with six patients also receiving systemic therapy with valganciclovir or acyclovir. The mean number of uveitis relapses significantly decreased, before and after anti-CMV therapy, from 0.23 ± 0.17 to 0.03 ± 0.03 (p < 0.001), without significant differences among patients treated with topical therapy alone or combined topical and systemic therapy. Cataracts developed in nine out of 13 patients (69.2 %). A chronic raise in intraocular pressure (IOP) was found in 13 patients (86.6 %), with nine requiring surgery (60 %). At the end of the follow-up, all patients had a quiescent uveitis, with ten of them requiring topical low dose steroid therapy (66.6 %) and combined with systemic acyclovir in four cases. Eight patients (53.3 %) were on antiglaucomatous therapy. The last mean IOP value was 14.9 ± 3.6 mmHg (range 8-21 mmHg), and visual acuity was 0.89 ± 0.21.
CONCLUSIONS:
CMV-associated anterior uveitis has a fairly good long-term visual prognosis. Antiviral therapy can reduce the frequency of relapses, but cataracts and a chronic raise in IOP are frequent complications often requiring a surgical approach
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
Treatment and Prognosis of Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada Disease: Real-Life Experience in Long-Term Follow-Up
Full text linkBackground: Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada (VKH) disease is a form of uveitis that is rare in Western countries. The aim of this study was to report on the long-term real-life treatment and prognosis of VKH in Italy. Methods: The clinical features, complications, and final visual acuity were retrospectively evaluated in 38 patients with VKH (mean follow-up: 120 months) globally, according to oral or intravenous corticosteroid treatment at onset and subsequent immunosuppressive therapy. Results: The mean final visual acuity was 0.13 ± 0.4 logMAR, which was a significant increase from the baseline (p < 0.0001). The patients who received intravenous rather than oral corticosteroids relapsed less (p = 0.026), with fewer relapses/patient/month of follow-up (p < 0.0001), and showed less frequent sunset glow fundus (33.3% versus 55%) and more relapse-free cases after induction therapy (p = 0.007). Delayed immunosuppressive therapy (median: 180 days from the onset of symptoms) reduced the rate of sunset glow fundus. The onset of sunset glow fundus was associated with a worse final visual acuity (p = 0.006). Conclusion: The long-term prognosis of VKH is quite good. Intravenous corticosteroids given at the onset of VKH are more effective than oral corticosteroids. Even if it is not given immediately after symptoms onset, immunosuppressive therapy is able to reduce the incidence of sunset glow fundus and to improve the final visual prognosis
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