1,720,956 research outputs found
The BALM framework of clinical excellence: an adoptable model for sub-Saharan Africa.
No full textClinical excellence is the ability to provide rigorous, evidence-based, and rewarding care to the right patients. The BALM (brilliance, attitude, leadership, and materials) framework is a novel model for adjudicating clinical excellence. There are a few models and frameworks for evaluating clinical excellence, but each has its flaws and does not consider the peculiarities of economically-challenged regions such as sub-Saharan Africa. Coincidentally, such low-resource areas have an urgent need for a framework to assess clinical excellence because of their low health-related indices. The five-step mode of professional excellence is a well-recognised tool and was the model upon which the BALM framework was built.
So, the BALM framework determines to what extent, using the five-step stages of novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert, a clinician has achieved in each of the four critical domains, namely brilliance, attitude, leadership and materials. Therefore, a clinician, who strives for excellence, aims to be an “expert” in each of the domains of the BALM framework. The framework is concise, practical, easy to use, and multidimensional, although it still needs to be applied widely to assess its reproducibility
Insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a review of the pathophysiology and the potential targets for drug actions
No full textInsulin resistance refers to the reduced physiological effects of insulin on various tissues. Insulin resistance has been implicated in the pathophysiology of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is a spectrum of diseases ranging from hepatic steatosis on one end to steatohepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma on the other end. In most parts of the developed world, it is now the most commoncause of chronic liver disease and the most commonindication for liver transplantation. A similar findingis emerging in the developing world due to the rising prevalence of obesity and widespread adoption of Western lifestyles. Despite these epidemiological data, there are no universally approved medications for the treatment of NAFLD. The pathophysiological mechanisms of NAFLD essentially include adipose tissue insulin resistance, hepatic insulin resistance, inflammation and fibrosis. At the subcellular level, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative changes and endoplasmic reticulum dysfunction have been documented. Several drugs have been tested in vitro and in animal studies to target these pathophysiological mechanisms. Some are presently going through clinical trials, while others have already gone through clinical trials with variable results. Other potential target sites of drug development for the treatment of NAFLD are based on the complex pathophysiology of the disease. Insulin resistance plays an important role in the development of NAFLD. There are potential targets in the pathophysiology of NAFLD that can be explored in the development of medications for the disease
Clinical Profiles of Thyroid Dermopathy: A Dermato-Endocrinological Perspective
No full textThyroid disorders sometimes have extra-thyroidal manifestations. Hyperthyroidism is a clinical syndrome resulting from excessive secretion of thyroid hormones. The most common cause is Graves’ disease. About 0.5–4.3% of patients with Graves’ disease have an infiltrative dermopathy called thyroid dermopathy, which is due to excessive deposition of glycosaminoglycans from activated fibroblasts. Skin fibroblasts are activated by thyroid stimulating hormone receptor antibodies the whole process being initiated by T lymphocytes. Rarely, thyroid dermopathy is also found in other thyroid disorders such as Hashimoto thyroiditis. The diffuse non-pitting edema variant is the most common clinical presentation. Other variants include the nodular, plaque, mixed, and elephantiasis types. Usually, the main concerns of the patients are cosmetic, discomfort, and difficulty in wearing shoes. Thyroid dermopathy usually presents after the diagnosis of Graves’ disease, but it may also present together or sometime after this condition. Rarely, thyroid dermopathy presents before the diagnosis of Graves’ disease is made. Apart from the shin and feet, other sites that can be affected include the arms, forearms, back, thighs, pinna, and nose. The management is multidisciplinary, involving dermatologists and endocrinologists. Usually, controlling the thyroid dysfunction does not translate into regression of the skin lesions. However, many patients have their thyroid dermopathy regress spontaneously, while others usually require local therapy. Other therapeutic options include systemic therapy such as pentoxifylline, compressive physiotherapy, and surgery
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
No full text“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
No full textWe 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
No full textWe 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
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