1,720,957 research outputs found
A positive effect of a short period stay in Alpine environment on lung function in asthmatic children
Get PDFLung function is a central issue in diagnosis and determination of asthma severity and asthma control has been previously reported to improve after a stay in mountain environment for at least 2 weeks. No data are available for shorter periods of stay, in particular for small airways during a stay at altitude. The aim of this study is to focus on changes in respiratory function, regarding both the central airways and the peripheral airways in the first 2 weeks of stay in a mountain environment in asthmatic children. In this study, 66 asthmatic children (age: 14 ± 2.8 years) were evaluated through spirometric and oscillometric tests at the time of arrival at the Istituto Pio XII, Misurina (BL), Italy, 1756 m above sea level (T0), after 24 h (T1), and 168 h (T2) of stay. FEV1%, FEF25%–75%, and FEV1/FVC increased significantly from T0 value both at T1 and T2 (respectively, p = 0.0002, p < 0.0001, p = 0.0002). Oscillometry showed a significant improvement in R5, R20, and R5–20 at both T1 and T2 as compared to T0 (respectively, p = 0.0001, p = 0.0002, and p = 0.049). Reactance at 5 Hz (X5) improved significantly at T2 versus T0, p = 0.0022. The area under reactance curve between Fres and 5 Hz (AX) was significantly reduced (p = 0.0001) both at T1 and T2 as compared to T0. This study shows an improvement in respiratory indices as soon as after 24 h of stay at altitude, persisting in the following week
Use of 6-min and 12-min walking test for assessing the efficacy of formoterol in COPD
No full textExercise tolerance is an important outcome measure in patients with COPD, mostly because there is evidence that exercise testing is superior to other functional measurements obtained at rest in demonstrating the positive effect of a specific intervention. We assessed the effect of a 5-day treatment with formoterol 12 mu g twice daily on lung function, exercise capacity and dyspnea in 22 stable COPD patients, and compared 6-MWT with 12-MWT in evaluating formoterol efficacy. All subjects entered a crossover design. They underwent 6-MWT or 12-MWT in a randomised order and soon after started the 5-day treatment. After a 3-day washout, patients who had first performed 6-MWT, underwent 12-MWT, and the contrary. Formoterol induced a progressively significant increase in pre-drug FEV1 and IC and also significant changes in these parameters 2 h after its inhalation at each test day. Moreover, it increased the walked distance by 53.6 m at the end of 6-MWT and 59.9 m at the end of 12-MWT. Formoterol also induced a significant change in Borg score for dyspnea caused by the 6-MWT when compared with the pre-treatment values, whereas it significantly changed dyspnea induced by 12-MWT only after the first dose. Our study not only strengthens the importance of walking tests as a useful tool for evaluating the impact of a bronchodilator on some COPD patient-centred outcomes, but also indicates that 6-MWT seems to be a more appropriate instrument than 12-MWT for assessing the exercise response to a bronchodilator in COPD. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Energy expenditure and impact of bronchodilators in COPD patients.
No full textEnergy expenditure and impact of bronchodilators in COPD patient
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