1,721,013 research outputs found

    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

    Tachykinin activation of human monocytes from patients with rheumatoid arthritis: in vitro and ex-vivo effects of cyclosporin A

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    Three types of tachykinin receptors, namely NK1, NK2 and NK3, are known to preferentially interact with substance P (SP), neurokinin A (NKA) and neurokinin B (NKB), respectively. We previously demonstrated that NK1 and NK2 receptors are present on human monocytes, SP and NKA inducing superoxide anion production and tumor necrosis factor- alpha (TNF-alpha) mRNA expression. NK2 receptor stimulation also triggered an enhanced respiratory burst in monocytes isolated from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. This study was aimed to evaluate the in vitro and ex-vivo effects of cyclosporin A (CsA) on tachykinins-evoked TNF-alpha release from monocytes of healthy donors and RA patients. CsA (100 ng/ml) potently inhibited phorbol ester- and tachykinin-evoked TNF-alpha secretion. In RA patients treated with CsA (Sandimmun(R) Neoral(R)) 2.5 mg/kg/die, a significant time-dependent reduction in TN F-or secretion from monocytes was measured. This may contribute to the CsA therapeutic activity in RA

    Patient education in peritoneal dialysis: an observational study in Italy

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    This observational study describes the characteristics of the education programmes used in Italian PD-centres, evaluating a possible relationship between programmes and peritonitis rates. The survey involved 150 non-paediatric public dialysis centres in Italy. The data were collected by a questionnaire and evaluated with SPSS software. Descriptive statistics of synthesis were calculated, Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon's test were used to verify the differences in the replies, and association between variables was tested with Pearson correlation and Pearson's chi2 test. 120 dialysis centres took part in the survey and reported a median incidence of peritonitis of 1/29 months. Training occurs in all the centres, while pre-dialysis education, home visits and re-training take place in 38.3%, 50% and 44.2% respectively. A lower peritonitis rates proves to be correlated to these activities rather than to presence of specialised personnel, to ratio nurses-patients or training time

    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
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