1,721,144 research outputs found
Update of drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment guidelines: A turning point
Full text linkIn December 2022 World Health Organization released a new treatment for multidrug-resistant/rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis (MDR/RR-TB) guideline. The main novelty of this update is two new recommendations (i) a 6-month treatment regimen composed of bedaquiline, pretomanid, linezolid (600 mg), and moxifloxacin (BPaLM) is recommended in place of the 9-month or longer (18-month) regimens in MDR/RR-TB patients, now including extensive pulmonary TB and extrapulmonary TB (except TB involving central nervous system, miliary TB and osteoarticular TB); (ii) the use of the 9-month all-oral regimen rather than longer (18-months) regimen is suggested in patients with MDR/RR-TB and in whom resistance to fluoroquinolones has been excluded. Longer (18-month) treatments remain a valid option in all cases in which shorter regimens cannot be implemented due to intolerance, drug-drug interactions, extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, extensive forms of extrapulmonary TB, or previous failure. The new guidelines represent a milestone in MDR/RR-TB treatment landscape, setting the basis for a shorter, all-oral, more acceptable, equitable, and patient-centered model for MDR/RR-TB management. However, some challenges remain to be addressed to allow full implementation of the new recommendations
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
Tuberculosis and its sequelae: Diagnostic, epidemiological and therapeutic studies
Full text linkTuberculose (TB) veroorzaakt wereldwijd nog altijd veel ziekte en sterfte. TB is een infectieziekte veroorzaakt door Mycobacterium tuberculosis, of soms, M. bovis. De kweekproef vergt tijd, en een genetische test, de PCR methode, kan de diagnose versnellen. We vergeleken de diagnostische gevoeligheid van verschillende PCR testen onderling. Kleine genetische verschillen tussen bacteriestammen – fingerprints – worden gebruikt om verspreidingspatronen van TB in de bevolking te bestuderen; wij hebben zo’n techniek nader onderzocht. We hebben ook gekeken naar immunologische testen bij besmettingen met TB veroorzaakt door M. bovis. Multiresistente TB (MDR-TB) vereist behandeling met een selectie van zogenaamde tweedelijns TB middelen waarvoor de bacterie in de kweek nog gevoelig is. Veel van deze geneesmiddelen behoren tot de groep 5 middelen (WHO): ze hebben een onduidelijke of nog onbewezen effectiviteit. We weten vaak ook nog niets over de concentraties van deze geneesmiddelen ter plaatse van de infectie. We pleiten voor meer onderzoek naar MDR-TB, om de overleving te verbeteren en blijvende gevolgen (sequelae) te verminderen. Veel patiënten die TB overleven houden sequelae over; vaak zijn dat bronchiëctasieën, deformaties met verwijde luchtwegen waarin vaak weer andere infecties ontstaan, met ophoesten van veel vies slijm en soms bloed. Een belangrijke behandeling bij deze luchtweginfecties bij bronchiëctasieën is het inhaleren van bepaalde antibiotica, zoals tobramycine. We beschrijven een model om bloedspiegels en daarmee de algemene toxiciteit te voorspellen na inhalatie van deze antibiotica. Tenslotte hebben we de effecten bestudeerd van het inhaleren van tobramycine door middel van een nieuw inhalatie apparaat
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
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