186,221 research outputs found

    What to Do and What Not to Do in the Management of Cancer Pain: A Physician Survey and Expert Recommendations

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    Paolo Bossi,1 Andrea Antonuzzo,2 Grazia Armento,3 Francesca Consoli,1 Jacopo Giuliani,4 Raffaele Giusti,5 Maurizio Lucchesi,6 Aurora Mirabile,7 Loredana Palermo,8 Sarah Scagliarini9 1Department of Medical Oncology, ASST-Spedali Civili, Brescia, Italy; 2Medical Oncology Unit 1 SSN, Oncology Center, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, Italy; 3Department of Medical Oncology, Campus Bio-Medico University Hospital, Rome, Italy; 4Unit Department Medical Oncology, Mater Salutis, Hospital, Legnago, Italy; 5Unit Department Medical Oncology, Sant ‘Andrea University Hospital, Rome, Italy; 6Pneumology Unit - Thoracic Oncology Service, Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, Italy; 7Department of Oncology, San Raffaele University Hospital, Milan, Italy; 8Unit Department Medical Oncology, IRCCS Giovanni Paolo, Bari, Italy; 9Unit Department Medical Oncology, AORN Cardarelli, Napoli, ItalyCorrespondence: Paolo BossiDepartment of Medical Oncology, ASST-Spedali Civili, Brescia, 1, Brescia, 25123, ItalyTel +39 0303998969Fax +39 0303995072Email [email protected]: Despite the prevalence of pain among patients with cancer and the availability of pertinent guidelines, the clinical management of oncological pain is decisively insufficient. To address this issue, we evaluated current trends in clinical practice and subsequently generated a list of ten corrective actions—five things to do and five things not to do—for the diagnosis, management, and monitoring of cancer pain.Methods: The survey included 18 questions about clinical practice surrounding background pain and breakthrough cancer pain (BTcP). Survey questions were developed by a scientific board of 10 physician experts and communicated via email to an expanded panel of physicians in Italy. Responses were tabulated descriptively for analysis.Results: Of 51 invited physicians, 32 (63%) provided complete survey responses. The responses revealed several incongruencies with current guideline recommendations: physicians did not always diagnose or monitor pain using diagnostically validated or disease-specific instruments; frequently based clinical decision-making on time availability or convenience; and pharmacological therapy was often inappropriate (eg, prescribing NSAIDs or corticosteroids for BTcP). The list of corrective actions generated by the scientific board favored a guideline-oriented approach that systematically characterizes oncological pain and implements treatment based on pain characteristics (eg, fast-acting transmucosal opioids for BTcP) and evidence-based recommendations.Conclusion: Oncologists require better education and training about the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of oncological pain. Physicians should be aware of current guideline recommendations as well as available pharmacological tools for BTcP.Keywords: cancer pain, pain management, precision medicine, digital medicin

    Comparison of numerical models of two debris flows in the Cortina d'Ampezzo area, Dolomites, Italy

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    The accurate prediction of runout distances, velocities and the knowledge of flow rheology can reduce the casualties and property damage produced by debris flows, providing a means to delineate hazard areas, to estimate hazard intensities for input into risk studies and to provide parameters for the design of protective measures. The application of most of models that describe the propagation and deposition of debris flow requires detailed topography, rheological and hydrological data that are not always available for the debris-flow hazard delineation and estimation. In the Cortina d’Ampezzo area, Eastern Dolomites, Italy, most of the slope instabilities are represented by debris flows; 325 debris-flow prone watersheds have been mapped in the geomorphological hazard map of this area. We compared the results of simulations of two well-documented debris flows in the Cortina d’Ampezzo area, carried on with two different single-phase, non-Newtonian models, the one-dimensional DAN-W and the twodimensional FLO-2D, to test the possibility to simulate the dynamic behaviour of a debris flow with a model using a limited range of input parameters. FLO-2D model creates a more accurate representation of the hazard area in terms of flooded area, but the results in terms of runout distances and deposits thickness are similar to DAN-Wresults. Using DAN-W, the most appropriate rheology to describe the debrisflow behaviour is the Voellmy model. When detailed topographical, rheological and hydrological data are not available, DAN-W, which requires less detailed data, is a valuable tool to predict debris-flow hazard. Parameters obtained through back-analysis with both models can be applied to predict hazard in other areas characterized by similar geology, morphology and climate

    Failure mechanisms and runout behaviour of three rock avalanches in thye North-Eastern Italian Alps

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    The nature of the physical processes that trigger rockslope insatbility is, today, understood even if with some difficulties and simplifying hypothesis, but the striking mobility of the flow of these rock masses remains in a large part inexplicable. Three major rock avalanches in the Italian alps have been studied focusing in particular on aspects relating to the fragmentation and deposition processes. Studies have focused on grain size distribution of samples taken at different distances and elevation and on the morphology of the ground surface of the deposits. Image analysis technique was useful to complete the cumulative grain size curves to include larger particles. In none of the three cases the significant parameters of the grain size distribution and of the particles moprphology have shown any relationships with the distance from the center of the failed mass and with the height of the taken sample on the base of the deposits. The roundness of particles is practically the same within the whole deposit and even between different depositsfor which travel distances and thicknesses are different. The morphology of the three deposits gave some information on the dynamics of the phenomenon and, in particular, on the progressive thinning of the moving debris

    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

    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

    Withdrawn by Author

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    <p>Withdrawn by Author </p&gt

    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

    Dr. Edward P. Wimberly, ITC, July 2011

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    This video is a conversation with Dr. Edward P. Wimberly. Dr. Wimberly talks about his book, "No Shame in Wesley's Gospel: A Twenty-First Century Pastoral Gospel". Brad Ost, AUC Woodruff Library, is the interviewer
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