1,720,954 research outputs found
Exploring fluoride safe water drinking habits in the African Rift Valley
Full text linkThe relationship between naturally fluoridated groundwater and dental fluorosis has been receiving attention. However, despite recognition that several factors influence this relationship, there is a lack of systematic studies analyzing results from across the world. To fill such a gap, this global systematic review and meta-analysis try to understand what and how several factors influence this relationship. The studies were selected by searching Web of Science, PubMed, Google Scholar and Scopus databases with keywords and Boolean operators between 2007 and 2017. Meta-regression was performed based on information collected with systematic review. The systematic review show that dental fluorosis affects individuals of all ages, with the highest prevalence below 11, while the impact of other factors (gender, environmental conditions, diet and dental caries) was not clear. Meta-regressions indicate that fluoride in drinking water and temperature negatively influences dental fluorosis. Meta-analysis also suggests possible publication bias. In synthesis, results of this study highlight the negative impact of fluoride in drinking water on physical health, especially in developing countries. Technological innovation to reduce fluoride below WHO recommendation (<1.5 mg/L) can provide health benefits to affected people through interdisciplinary research
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Insights to promote safe drinking water behavioural changes in zones affected by fluorosis in the East-African Rift Valley
Full text linkThe presence of fluoride in drinking water can have beneficial effects in reducing the incidence of dental caries when its concentration lies in the optimal range of 0.5-0.7 mg/l. However, fluoride intake below and above this range can have negative effects on tooth enamel and skeletal fluorosis in case of prolonged exposure to high concentrations. Unfortunately, in some areas of the world, such as rural communities of the East-African Rift Valley (EARV), water is dramatically contaminated by fluoride which may cause dental and skeletal fluorosis because its concentration is often well above the maximum threshold of 1.5 mg/L recommended by the World Health Organisation.
To tackle this problem experts and policy makers have attempted to introduce defluoridation techniques that, as well as being cost-effective, allow end users to drastically reduce the level of fluoride below the above-mentioned threshold. However, the adoption of these techniques remains quite low because behavioural factors influencing people’s safer water consumption in these areas of the world is poorly understood. To fill such a gap in this study we explore how these factors can influence the adoption of a new defluoridator in Kenyan and Tanzanian rural communities of the EARV. To achieve this objective 75 people belonging to Maasai and Meru ethnic groups were interviewed running nine focus groups where these factors were investigated using the RANAS (Risk, Attitude, Norm, Ability, Self-Regulation) model.
Results show that the drinking behaviour of people living in the EARV is dramatically affected by contextual factors and exacerbated by the high level of fluoride naturally contained in drinking and cooking water. Behavioural insights into how policy makers and marketers could reverse this unhealthy drinking behaviour introducing technological devices that can cut the quantity of fluoride contained naturally are discussed arguing in favour of the possibility of using different behaviour changing techniques
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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