1,721,094 research outputs found
Eisenmenger Syndrome A Clinical Perspective in a New Therapeutic Era of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension
No full textEisenmenger syndrome (ES), the most advanced form of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) associated with congenital heart disease, is a devastating condition that has a considerable impact on patients' lives. Patients who develop ES typically exhibit 1 or more of a range of cardiac defects, including ventricular septal defects, atrial septal defects, and patent ductus arteriosus. The nature of the congenital defect underlying ES is important because it has prognostic implications. Although ES shares similar morphological findings with idiopathic PAH, clinical differences exist between the 2 etiologies. Adults with ES exhibit increased survival and more favorable hemodynamics than those with idiopathic PAH. Treatment options for patients with ES have historically been limited; however, recent successes have been achieved with the use of therapies targeted against the pathophysiological pathways that underlie PAH. The dual endothelin receptor antagonist bosentan was demonstrated to improve hemodynamics and exercise capacity without compromising oxygen saturation, both in the short and long term. Improvements in hemodynamics also have been observed with the single endothelin receptor antagonist sitaxsentan. The phosphodiesterase type V inhibitor sildenafil may improve functional class, oxygen saturation, and hemodynamics in patients with ES, and beneficial effects of prostacyclin and prostacyclin analogs in patients with ES have been reported. The treatment of patients with PAH with the use of combinations of targeted therapies is becoming increasingly commonplace and may offer an alternative option for treatment of patients with ES. The authors of future studies may seek to investigate whether the pulmonary vascular remodeling in ES can be targeted and reversed
Can "inoperable" congenital heart defects become operable in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension? Dream or reality?
No full textAbstract: The decision whether to repair congenital heart defects in patients with raised pulmonary vascular resistance to alleviate pulmonary hypertension is a complex one. The degree of pulmonary vascular disease is of paramount importance. Operating on patients with pulmonary vascular resistance above a certain threshold runs the risk of postoperative persistent pulmonary hypertension and a worse long-term prognosis. This review focuses on patients deemed borderline inoperable or inoperable due to pulmonary vascular disease and asks whether they can be converted to an operable status with pulmonary arterial hypertension-specific drugs that potentially modify the pulmonary vascular lesions and resista
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
Atrial septal defects versus ventricular septal defects in BREATHE-5, a placebo-controlled study of pulmonary arterial hypertension related to Eisenmenger's syndrome: a subgroup analysis.
No full textAbstract
Background: Eisenmenger's syndrome (ES) is the most advanced form of pulmonary arterial hypertension related to congenital heart disease. Evolution of pulmonary vascular disease differs markedly between patients with atrial septal defects (ASD) versus ventricular septal defects (VSD), potentially affecting response to treatment. We compared the effects of bosentan and placebo in patients with isolated ASD (ASD subgroup) versus patients with isolated VSD or both defects (VSD subgroup). Methods: Post-hoc analysis of a 16-week, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was performed. Fifty-four patients (13: ASDs, 36: VSDs, 5: VSD + ASD) were randomized to bosentan 62.5-mg bid for four weeks (uptitrated to 125-mg bid thereafter) or placebo. Main outcome measures were: indexed pulmonary vascular resistance (PVRi), exercise capacity, mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP), pulmonary blood flow index (Qpi), and changes in oxygen saturation (SpO2). Results: Placebo-corrected median (95% CI) treatment effects on PVRi were - 544.0-dyn·s·cm- 5 (- 1593.8, 344.7) and - 436.4 dyn·s·cm- 5 (- 960.0, 167.0) in the ASD and VSD subgroups, respectively. Effects of bosentan on exercise capacity and mPAP were similar in both subgroups. No changes in SpO2 or Qpi were observed in either bosentan or placebo subgroups. Conclusions: Improvements in exercise capacity and cardiopulmonary hemodynamics, without desaturation, were observed in ES patients with both ASDs and VSDs. Although not reaching statistical significance, improvements were similar to those in the BREATHE-5 analyses, suggesting that the location of septal defects is not a key determinant of treatment response. These data further support the use of bosentan for the treatment of ES, independent of shunt location
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
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