130,392 research outputs found
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
Information overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Metabolic and vascular effects of silybin in hypertensive patients with high 1-h post-load plasma glucose
Hypertensive patients with normal glucose tolerance (NGT) but 1-h post-load plasma glucose ≥ 155 mg/dl (1-h high), during an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), show higher insulin resistance and multiple target organ damages. Experimental and clinical studies demonstrate that silybin presents anti-inflammatory and metabolic effects, improving insulin resistance and endothelial dysfunction. This study aims to evaluate the effects of the complex silybin-vitamin E and phospholipids on inflammatory, metabolic and vascular parameters in NGT 1-h high hypertensive patients. This is a pilot, single arm, interventional, longitudinal study enrolling 50 Caucasian NGT 1-h high hypertensive outpatients, 27 men and 23 women, age range 42-60 years (mean + SD = 52 ± 7). After 6 months of silybin intake, there is a significant improvement in metabolic profile. The glucose response during OGTT significantly improves (AUCglucose0-120 309.6 ± 63.4 at baseline vs 254.6 ± 35.5 at the follow-up, ∆ = - 55, 95% CI from - 67 to - 43, p < 0.0001), so as insulin response (AUCinsulin0-120 238.2 ± 99.1 vs 159.3 ± 44.9, ∆ = - 78.9, 95% CI from - 100.0 to - 57.8, p < 0.0001), in accordance with the increase of insulin sensitivity index Matsuda. Silybin intake is associated with a significant reduction of both clinical and central systolic blood pressure, with betterment in clinical and central pulse pressure and reduction of arterial stiffness parameters. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that silybin may improve the metabolic aspect and vascular damage in NGT 1-h high hypertensive patients who are at higher metabolic and cardiovascular risk. Thus, in these patients, silybin might strengthen the effect of antihypertensive drugs giving further cardiovascular protection
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
Both spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We 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
Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #11: The ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund
At the May 2014 talk, you will learn about the ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund--what it is, why we do it, how it works, and how the program is going so far
The R&D Tax Incentives
This article sets out some background information and reflections of the author on the R&D tax incentive schemes included in the Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB) Proposal. In particular the author analyzes the stimulus to private R&D through ad hoc tax incentives included in the CCTB Proposal and dives into the actual provisions included in the Proposal highlighting the most relevant issues connected with their design and interpretation. Moreover, the author explores the interaction between the CCTB Proposal and the granting by Member States of domestic R&D tax incentives
One-hour post-load plasma glucose and IGF-1 in hypertensive patients
In normoglucose-tolerant subjects (NGT), 1-h post-load plasma glucose value ≥155 mg/dL, during an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), is associated with an increased risk of type-2 diabetes (T2D) and subclinical organ damage. Insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) is involved in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance (IR) and T2D. Moreover, hypertensives have different degrees of IR and different levels of IGF-1. Actually, there are no data supporting the association between post-load glucose and IGF-1; thus, the aim of the study was to investigate this relationship.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
We enrolled 1126 never-treated hypertensive subjects who underwent an OGTT and clinical characterization. Insulin sensitivity was assessed by the Matsuda index. IGF-1 was measured by a sensitive immunoradiometric assay.
RESULTS:
Among participants, 764 had NGT, 263 had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and 99 had T2D. According to the 1-h post-load plasma glucose cut-off point of 155 mg/dL, we divided NGT subjects into NGT < 155 mg/dL and NGT ≥ 155 mg/dL. NGT ≥ 155 in comparison with NGT < 155 had significantly reduced insulin sensitivity and IGF-1 levels. At multiple regression analysis, IGF-1 was the major determinant of 1-h post-load glucose in NGT ≥ 155 subjects, IGT and diabetics, accounting for 20·9%, 17·7% and 15·5% of its variation in the respective models.
CONCLUSIONS:
In hypertensive NGT ≥ 155 subjects, IGF-1 results strongly associated with 1-h post-load glucose, similarly to that observed in IGT and diabetics. This finding has clinical relevance because both low IGF-1 levels and 1-h post-load glucose in NGT subjects are associated with subclinical organ damage, an independent predictor of cardiovascular events
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