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Effect of subthalamic nucleus stimulation on the functional status of patients with advanced Parkinson's disease: a two year follow-up controlled study
No full textFunctional improvement after subthalamic stimulation in Parkinson’s disease: a non-equivalent controlled study with 12-24 month follow-up
Full text linkObjective: This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of chronic bilateral STN-S in improving the
functional status of PD patients compared with patients treated with drugs alone.
Methods: Controlled study of disability index changes over 12 and 24 month chronic STN stimulation. Of
39 patients with advanced PD meeting CAPSIT criteria for STN-S, 23 underwent surgery; 16 patients
decided against surgery and continued on drug schedule adjustments. Functional status was measured
using the Activities of Daily Living section of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-ADL),
Brown’s Disability Scale, and Functional Independence Measure. UPDRS motor score and subscores for
selected items, levodopa equivalent daily dose, and Beck Depression Inventory scores were also
monitored.
Results: T12 follow up data were available for all 39 patients and T24 data for 13 STN-S and 8 control
subjects. Compared with controls, STN-S patients experienced significant or highly significant
improvements in all independence measures at both 12 and 24 months (time 6 treatment effect T12:
F = 19.5, p = 0.00008; T24: F = 6.2, p = 0.005). Forward stepwise regression for independent predictors
of the yearly rate of UPDRS-ADL score modification in the entire sample showed that treatment was the
only factor significantly associated with functional status change (beta coefficient 20.54, t value 22.5,
p = 0.02), whereas other variables—UPDRS motor score, BDI, and age at disease onset and enrolment—
were not in the equation.
Conclusion: STN-S is an effective therapeutic option in advanced PD. It induced a consistent improvement
of functional abilities over two years to an extent that was not achieved with drug therapy alone
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
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