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Impact of corneal collagen cross-linking on vision-related quality of life measured with the keratoconus outcomes research questionnaire (KORQ) in patients with keratoconus
No full textPurpose
To assess the impact of corneal collagen cross-linking on self-reported vision-related quality of life (VR-QoL) in keratoconus patients by means of the Keratoconus Outcomes Research Questionnaire (KORQ), a new disease-specific patient reported outcomes measures (PROMs) tool.
Methods
Patients with progressive keratoconus undergoing corneal collagen cross-linking were consecutively enrolled. Patients completed the KORQ before and after the treatment, at 1, 3 and 6 months. Data were collected regarding the visual acuity and the topographic, aberrometric and pachymetric parameters of both eyes. Patients were also asked to quantify their eye rubbing behavior on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) from 0 to 10, before and 6 months after treatment.
The KORQ scores were associated with the visual acuity, topographic, aberrometric and pachymetric data by means of the Spearman correlation coefficient.
Results
The Activity Limitation (AL) subscale score was higher after surgery. Preoperatively, negative correlations were observed between the KORQ AL score and Best Corrected Visual Acuity (logMAR), maximum keratometry, flattest keratometry, steepest keratometry, symmetry index front and higher order aberrations (HOA) of the treatment eye. Postoperatively, we observed a shift toward the fellow eye, with stronger correlation of the KORQ scores with the fellow eye parameters. The Symptoms subscale score correlated with the aberrometric parameters of both eyes at various time points. Statistically significant correlations were observed between the change in KORQ scores and the change in aberrometric parameters. A statistically significant reduction in the eye rubbing behavior was detected (p < 0,0001).
Conclusions
These results suggest that the corneal cross-linking treatment is effective both in improving the subjective perception of the disease by the patient and in stabilizing the objective indicators of disease progression. Keratometric, aberrometric and visual acuity values showed a significant impact on self-reported VR-QoL. Corneal cross-linking, by halting the worsening of these parameters, may bear a beneficial effect on VR-QoL
The Italian version of the Keratoconus Outcomes Research Questionnaire (KORQ): Translation and validation of psychometric properties
No full textPurpose: To develop and validate the Italian version of the Keratoconus Outcomes Research Questionnaire (KORQ).
Methods: Cross-sectional validation study. Keratoconus patients with routine appointments at the outpatient clinic were consecutively enrolled in conjunction with a sample of non-keratoconus controls for comparison. The Italian translation from the original English version of the KORQ was administered to the patients together with the Italian version of the 25-item version of the National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI VFQ-25). The reliability and validity of the Italian KORQ were assessed using standardized internationally accepted methods for cultural adaptation and validation of health-related quality of life measures.
Results: One hundred patients were deemed eligible and completed the questionnaires. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for internal consistency ranged from 0.71 to 0.956 across the subscales. Spearman correlation coefficient and intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.98 showed excellent test-retest reliability. The control group had better scores on every subscale. Statistically significant correlations were found between the KORQ and analogous domain of the NEI VFQ-25 and with disease severity indicators, such as visual acuity, maximum keratometry, and steepest keratometry, thus demonstrating good construct and concurrent validity.
Conclusion: The Italian version of the KORQ exhibited excellent internal consistency, test-retest reliability, validity, discriminatory power, and psychometric properties comparable with those of the original English version, and thus may be adopted as a powerful vision-targeted quality of life assessment tool for Italian keratoconus patients
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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