1,720,976 research outputs found
Feasibility of a home-based action observation training for children with unilateral cerebral palsy: an explorative study
Get PDFUnilateral Cerebral Palsy (UCP), the most frequent form of Cerebral Palsy, usually affects more the upper limb (UL) than the lower limb. Rehabilitation programs are addressed to improve manual abilities and UL use. In recent years, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been introduced in rehabilitation to increase treatment opportunities for patients, and also in home-based intervention. Moreover, the discovery of the Mirror Neuron System allowed to insert a new paradigm of treatment that is the Action Observation Training (AOT). The aim of the present study was to investigate the feasibility of a new rehabilitative home-based approach, called Tele-UPCAT (Tele-monitored UPper Limb Children Action Observation Training), based on the principles of AOT, in a group of Italian children and adolescents with UCP. This investigation was to provide information about the possibility of introducing ICT in telerehabilitation field. Twenty-nine children aged 11.73 ± 3.65 years (range 6.00–18.75) with a diagnosis of UCP participated in the study. They carried out 15 days of training based on the AOT paradigm with Tele-UPCAT system while wearing Actigraphs on both wrists. The feasibility of both training and study design and procedures was assessed through nine criteria taken from existent literature and from a questionnaire designed and realized ad hoc for the purpose, based on standard items of usability and acceptability. All feasibility criteria were met: 80% of training sessions were completed in the planned time and no significant technical issues were found. From the questionnaire, total scores were all above 82.15%, while the four sections obtained the following scores: (i) customization of exercises 80.00%; (ii) acceptability at home, 77.50%; (iii) required effort 80.00%; and (iv) suitability of manual and software 95.00%. No differences were found for age and sex. Tele-UPCAT demonstrated to be feasible as a home-based AOT for children and adolescents with UCP. Trial registration NCT03094455
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Feasibility and usability of technological upper limb children action observation training (Tele-UPCAT) system for action observation training in children with unilateral cerebral palsy
No full textUpper limb children action observation training (UP‐CAT), based on action observation training (AOT), shows promising results for upper limb rehabilitation in children with unilateral cerebral palsy (CP). Recently, we designed and developed a technological system, named Tele‐UPCAT, for delivering AOT at home in children with unilateral CP and we are performing a randomized controlled trial study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03094455). In this work we have preliminarily evaluated feasibility, usability, and acceptability of the Tele‐UPCAT system by interviewing the enrolled children with unilateral CP
Effects of CareToy early intervention on parents-infant interaction: preliminary findings
No full textEarly intervention (EI) programmes are reported to have an impact on parent‐child interaction. CareToy System (CT) is a new technological tool for an intensive, individualized, home‐based and family‐centred EI in preterm infants. The present study aims to evaluate the effects of CT training in stimulating the caregiver‐infant interaction in a pilot study of the RCT (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01990183). We developed an ad hoc questionnaire with the aim of exploring, before CT training, parents’ expectations on the trial and the abilities of their infants and, after the CT training period of four weeks, their opinion about CT System use and the changes in infant's development and their interaction. Eight families so far have filled in the questionnaire. The majority of them (6/8) expected a significant improvement of child development. After CT training all families (8/8) judged CT experience as positive, evaluating as simple (6/8) or rather simple (2/8) the system management. Training activities were considered as well personalized (3/8) or enough personalized (5/8) for infants’ needs. Parents reported positive changes in their interaction with the infants (6/8), increasing the verbal and non‐verbal features, as smile and eye‐eye contact. Parents also described an increased time spent in sharing play‐time (4/8 largely, 3/8 a bit) and to have learned new playing activities (6/8), with positive effects on interaction. CT training seems to be effective in promoting parents‐infant interaction. This work was supported by the CareToy EU project (GA: 287932; 7FP, ICT‐2011‐7)
CareToy C: a new set-up for the assessment of visual attention and audio-visual integration in the first year of age
No full textThe visual function is one of the first skills that develop in newborns and it has a key role in the perceptual, cognitive and psychomotor development. The purpose of the present study is to quantitatively analyse infants’ horizontal eye movements using a non‐invasive system. We developed a new set‐up, CareToy C, composed of 5 monitors, one in the center and two at 60° and 30° on the two sides, an eyetracker (SmartEye, 6 cameras sampling at 60Hz) and a dedicated software. Measurements of gaze movements for visual and audio‐visual stimuli in a control sample of 9 healthy infants (age range: 4 and 10 months) were carried out to assess the feasibility. The orientation to stimuli at 60° is executed with a similar movement of head and eyes (27.73°/24.51°), while at 30° the larger movement is done by the eyes (21.75°/5.64°). The synchronous association between a sound and a visual stimulus reduces in both components of the gaze the latency value and the time of movement, both at 30° and 60°. The strategies of the orientation to the visual stimuli at 30°/60° are different and the sound accelerates the response time. This approach is promising to provide, with a larger sample of term and preterm infants, normative values for the study of the typical development of visual function and to be applied as secondary outcome measure for the ongoing CareToy clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01990183)
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