1,720,980 research outputs found
Cost–utility analysis of topical intranasal steroids for otitis media with effusion based on evidence from the GNOME Trial
Full text linkObjectives
To estimate the cost-effectiveness of topical intranasal steroids for the treatment of otitis media with effusion (OME) in primary care from the perspective of the UK National Health Service.
Methods
An economic evaluation was conducted based on evidence from the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled GPRF [General Practice Research Framework] Nasal Steroids for Otitis Media with Effusion (GNOME) trial. Participants comprised 217 children aged 4–11 years who had at least one episode of otitis media or related ear problem in the previous 12 months and had tympanometrically confirmed bilateral OME. Children were randomly allocated to receive either mometasone furoate 50 µg or placebo spray once daily into each nostril for 3 months. The main outcome measure was the incremental cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained for topical steroids compared with placebo. The nonparametric bootstrap method was used to present cost-effectiveness acceptability curves at alternative willingness to pay thresholds.
Results
Children receiving topical steroids accrued nonsignificantly higher costs (incremental cost/child: £11, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −£199 to £222) and nonsignificantly fewer QALYs (incremental QALY gain/child: −0.0166, 95% CI: −0.0652 to 0.0320) than those receiving placebo. Topical steroids had a 24.19% probability of being cost-effective at a £20,000 per QALY gained threshold, a 23.82% probability of being more effective and a 46.25% probability of being less costly. Sensitivity and subgroup analyses showed incremental costs and benefits to be highly sensitive to the methods used and the patient group considered, although differences between groups did not reach statistical significance in any analysis.
Conclusions
Topical steroids are unlikely to be a cost-effective treatment for OME in general practice
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
Acute sinusitis: which factors do FPs believe are most diagnostic and best predict antibiotic efficacy?
No full textAcute sinusitis is almost always a self-limiting condition involving the maxillary sinuses. About half of cases are free of bacterial infection, and 70% to 80% of patients will be symptom-free by 2 weeks, with or without antibiotics.1,2 Only a small proportion develop chronic sinusitis (>12 weeks),3 characterized by low-grade symptoms.4However, unlike other upper respiratory infections, acute sinusitis is still over-treated with antibiotics by primary care physicians—85% to 98% of sinusitis patients in the US receive antibiotic prescriptions,5 92% in the UK,6 80% in Norway,7 and 67% in the Netherlands.8 Why is this so, given the self-limiting nature of sinusitis, the very real threat of increasing antibiotic resistance, and the estimated annual treatment costs of £10 million in the UK and $2.4 billion in the US?4Our study aimed to establish criteria used by family doctors to diagnose acute sinusitis, and to determine the most important factors affecting doctors’ decisions to prescribe antibiotics.<br/
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
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
