1,721,224 research outputs found

    Ten-year trends in major lifestyle risk factors using an ongoing population surveillance system in Australia

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    BACKGROUND: Understanding how risk factors (tobacco, alcohol, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol) change over time is a critical aim of public health. The associations across the social gradient over time are important considerations. Risk factor surveillance systems have a part to play in understanding the epidemiological distribution of the risk factors so as to improve preventive measures and design public health interventions for reducing the burden of disease. METHODS: Representative, cross-sectional data were collected in South Australia using telephone interviews, conducted on a minimum of 600 randomly selected people (of all ages) each month. Data were collected from January 2004 to December 2013. Unadjusted prevalence over time, the relative percentage change over the 10 years, and the absolute change of the risk factors with sex, age group, and socio-economic status (SES) estimates are presented. RESULTS: In total 55,548 adults (≥18 years) were interviewed (mean age = 47.8 years, 48.8% male). Decreases were apparent for insufficient physical activity, inadequate fruit and vegetables, smoking, and soft drink consumption of ≥500 ml/day. Increases were found over the 10 years for obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, and for those with no risk factors. Apparent differences were noticeable by different sex, age, and SES categories. While increases in physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption and decreases in smoking prevalence and multiple risk factors are to be expected in 2020-2021, the prevalence of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes are expected to increase. CONCLUSIONS: Public health efforts in increasing the proportion of the population undertaking appropriate risk factor behavior are showing signs of success, with data from 2004 to 2013 showing encouraging trends. Deriving comparable trends over time by key demographics and SES variables provides evidence for policymakers and health planners to encourage interventions aimed at preventing chronic disease.Anne W Taylor, Eleonora Dal Grande, Jing Wu, Zumin Shi and Stefano Campostrin

    The use of fish oil in the community: results of a population-based study

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    Copyright © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved.Catherine Hill, Tiffany K. Gill, Sarah Appleton, Leslie G. Cleland, Anne W. Taylor and Robert J. Adam

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    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

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

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    We 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

    Rice intake, weight change and metabolic syndrome

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    Rice is the main staple food for more than half of the world’s population, mostly in Asian countries. In recent years, concerns have been raised regarding the potential effect of high glycemic-index white rice on diabetes. Existing studies suggest rice intake is inversely associated with obesity, blood pressure, and triglycerides (TG), but positively associated with elevated blood glucose and abnormal high density lipoprotein (HDL). Overall, there seems to be no association between rice consumption and metabolic syndrome. However, there are few studies that have examined the association between rice consumption and weight change and metabolic syndrome, and only one cohort study in this area; hence more prospective research is needed.Zumin Shi, Anne W. Taylor, Gary A. Witter

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    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

    Beware the pitfalls of ill-placed questions - revisiting questionnaire ordering

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    Anne W Taylor, Eleonora Dal Grande, Tiffany Gil
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