1,721,040 research outputs found
Multimorbidity pattern and risk of dementia in later life: an 11-year follow-up study using a large community cohort and linked electronic health records
Full text linkBackground: Several long-term chronic illnesses are known to be associated with an increased risk of dementia independently, but little is known how combinations or clusters of potentially interacting chronic conditions may influence the risk of developing dementia. Methods: 447 888 dementia-free participants of the UK Biobank cohort at baseline (2006-2010) were followed-up until 31 May 2020 with a median follow-up duration of 11.3 years to identify incident cases of dementia. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify multimorbidity patterns at baseline and covariate adjusted Cox regression was used to investigate their predictive effects on the risk of developing dementia. Potential effect moderations by C reactive protein (CRP) and Apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype were assessed via statistical interaction. Results: LCA identified four multimorbidity clusters representing Mental health, Cardiometabolic, Inflammatory/autoimmune and Cancer-related pathophysiology, respectively. Estimated HRs suggest that multimorbidity clusters dominated by Mental health (HR=2.12, p<0.001, 95% CI 1.88 to 2.39) and Cardiometabolic conditions (2.02, p<0.001, 1.87 to 2.19) have the highest risk of developing dementia. Risk level for the Inflammatory/autoimmune cluster was intermediate (1.56, p<0.001, 1.37 to 1.78) and that for the Cancer cluster was least pronounced (1.36, p<0.001, 1.17 to 1.57). Contrary to expectation, neither CRP nor APOE genotype was found to moderate the effects of multimorbidity clusters on the risk of dementia. Conclusions: Early identification of older adults at higher risk of accumulating multimorbidity of specific pathophysiology and tailored interventions to prevent or delay the onset of such multimorbidity may help prevention of dementia
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
Non-communicable diseases in public sector primary care clinics in South Africa: multimorbidity, control, treatment, socioeconomic associations, and evaluation of educational outreach with a clinical management tool
Full text linkThis thesis uses experience gained from a large implementation trial in two rural districts of the Western Cape, South Africa, to address the needs of patients with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and depression, and to identify solutions to those needs. The Primary Care 101 intervention supports and expands nurses' role in integrated care, in particular for NCDs. It comprises a comprehensive clinical management tool implemented in primary care services using educational outreach training. It was evaluated using a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial: 38 clinics in the Eden and Overberg districts of the Western Cape were randomised to receive the intervention or to continue with usual care. 4393 Patients were enrolled and four cohorts identified: hypertension, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease and depression. Patients were re-interviewed once, 14 months later. Primary outcomes for the trial were treatment intensification for the hypertension, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease cohorts, and case detection for the depression cohort. Multimorbidity, NCD care and their socioeconomic associations were assessed on the whole trial cohort (combining intervention and control arms) at baseline and follow-up. The results are presented in published papers. Baseline data revealed considerable multimorbidity and unmet treatment needs (Paper 1). Socioeconomic indicators such as education, and modifiable clinic-level factors such as adequate staffing and communitybased chronic medication collection services were associated with blood pressure control (Paper 2) and depression management (Paper 3). The intervention was shown to be feasible and safe but none of the four primary outcomes showed significant improvement (Paper 4). The thesis addresses the public health challenge of providing integrated chronic disease primary care in South Africa by: • Providing original evidence for high levels of NCD multimorbidity and unmet treatment needs. • Identifying modifiable factors that could improve care for these diseases. • Providing new evidence from South Africa to support the bidirectional relationship between poverty and depression. • Reporting evidence of the effectiveness of a novel intervention aimed at improving NCD care. The findings point to the need for improved strategies for NCD care, including equipping primary health care providers to manage the complexities of multimorbidity
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
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
Progression of diabetes retinal status within community screening programs and potential implications for screening intervals
Full text linkOBJECTIVE: This study aimed to follow the natural progression of retinal changes in patients with diabetes. Such information should inform decisions with regard to the screening intervals for such patients.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: An observational study was undertaken linking the data from seven diabetes retinal screening programs across the U.K. for retinal grading results between 2005 and 2012. Patients with absent or background retinopathy were followed up for progression to the end points referable retinopathy and treatable retinopathy (proliferative retinopathy).RESULTS: In total 354,549 patients were observed for up to 4 years during which 16,196 patients progressed to referable retinopathy. Of patients with no retinopathy in either eye for two successive screening episodes at least 12 months apart, the conditions of between 0.3% (95% CI 0.3-0.8%) and 1.3% (1.0-1.6%) of patients progressed to referable retinopathy, and rates of treatable eye disease were <0.3% at 2 years. The corresponding progression rates for patients with bilateral background retinopathy in successive screening episodes were 13-29% and up to 4%, respectively, in the different programs.CONCLUSIONS: It may be possible to stratify patients for risk, according to baseline retinal criteria, into groups with low and high risk of their conditions progressing to proliferative retinopathy. Screening intervals for such diverse groups of patients could safely be modified according to their risk.</p
- …
