1,720,967 research outputs found
Therapeutic strategies for primary heart involvement in systemic sclerosis
Full text link: Primary heart involvement (pHI) is frequent in systemic sclerosis (SSc), even though often underdiagnosed. SSc-pHI has been recently defined as cardiac abnormalities that are predominantly attributable to SSc rather than other causes and/or complications. SSc-pHI represents a major determinant of mortality in SSc, accounting alone for about 12% of disease-related deaths; its early recognition and promptly therapeutic interventions are therefore crucial. Both perfusion defects and myocardial inflammation contribute to the occurrence of myocardial fibrosis that precipitates myocardial remodeling, potentially leading to heart failure and arrhythmic complications. To date, clear evidence and guidelines for effectively managing SSc pHI are not established yet, resulting in a lack of a defined therapeutic algorithm. In this review we summarize the most recent scientific literature on the prevailing therapeutic strategies and interventions to manage SSc-pHI, with particular focus on therapeutic strategies to counteract the 3 major pathogenic events of the disease, i.e. microvascular damage, myocardial inflammation and myocardial fibrosis
One-year mepolizumab for Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis: Focus on steroid sparing effect and markers of response
No full textmepolizumab in abp
Is mild asthma truly mild? The patients' real-life setting
No full textObjectives: Asthma exacerbations and, more rarely, fatal asthma attacks have been reported in mild asthma patients, suggesting poor disease control and awareness of its potential burden. Our study aimed to explore outside the hospital/specialist setting the perspective and disease treatment behavior of patients self-reporting a mild asthma diagnosis. Methods: Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) technique was used to investigate the identified study population. Questions about diagnosis, symptoms, comorbidities, treatment strategy, ongoing assessments, and quality of life were administered. Results: Overall, 258 patients were considered for the analysis. As the most relevant results, 22% of them reported severe respiratory symptoms, 52% experienced at least one exacerbation/year, and 7% needed Emergency Room care. Sixty-six percent of the respondents assumed as needing short-acting bronchodilators only. Of note, 22% of patients were using oral steroids (OCS) intermittently and 72% of them considered their quality of life unsatisfying. Conclusion: Outside the hospital/specialist setting, mild asthma burden is still not negligible and the treatment approach is not correct. In particular, the reported OCS use is disproportionate. Our data suggest that mild asthma, especially when self-assessed might be other than mild, suggesting that efforts to increase disease awareness, improve the disease control limiting the OCS abuse are required
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
Oral health in asthmatic patients: a review: Asthma and its therapy may impact on oral health
No full textAsthma and its therapy may impact on oral healt
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