1,720,974 research outputs found
Sex beyond cardiovascular risk factors and clinical biomarkers of cardiovascular disease
Full text link: In recent years, increasing attention has been reserved to the analysis of sex-related differences in pathophysiology and prognosis of ischemic heart disease (IHD). The traditional conventional cardiovascular risk factors (hypertension, hypercholesteremia, diabetes mellitus and cigarette smoking) are still considered the major risk factors for IHD in both sexes. Nevertheless, recent studies show that they may interact with male and female coronary anatomy in a different manner. The path to sex-specific risk stratification of IHD is also supported by differences in inflammation and necrosis biomarkers (such as C-reactive protein and troponins, respectively). Indeed, large cohort studies often show different mean values of these markers in men and women. The current review summarizes the state-of-art knowledge on sex-related differences in cardiovascular risk factors and cardiac biomarkers with a prognostic value
Vasospastic angina and its relationship with the coronary microcirculation
No full textVasospastic angina is an import cause of chest pain due to coronary artery vasospasm that is related with poor quality of life and can lead to myocardial infarction, arrhythmias and death. Since its first description as "Prinzmetal or variant angina" which was believed to be a focal spam that occurred in non-obstructed epicardial coronary arteries, physician and researchers were gradually, confronted with the clinical reality, and came to the conclusion that the coronary artery vasospasm was considerably more polymorphic than initially described. Although mechanism leading to vasospastic angina are not completely understood today the medical community acknowledges that it exhibit a large variability in clinical practice ranging from focal to diffuse epicardial vasospasm. Main proposed mechanism are impairment of parasympathetic activity, coronary vascular and microvascular dysfunction due to blunted response to nitric oxide endothelium-dependent coronary vasodilatation, increased release of vasoconstricts, and oxidative stress
Takotsubo Syndrome: Does the Octopus Trap Hide Dangers?
Full text linkTakotsubo syndrome (TTS) is a recently identified acute heart syndrome, characterized by regional wall motion abnormalities not justified by the presence of significant coronary artery obstruction. Clinically, TTS closely resembles acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and therefore differential diagnosis may be an important obstacle for its correct clinical management. The prevalence of TTS is estimated to be around 2% of acute myocardial infarctions, and the number of diagnoses has increased in recent years, possibly reflecting our growing understanding of this condition. Given the similarities between TTS and ACS, clinical presentation in these patients is equivocal. However, numerous peculiar traits have been observed, such as the greater prevalence in postmenopausal women and the presence of stressful triggers. Many pathogenetic hypotheses for TTS, such as catecholamine overload and microvascular dysfunction, have been proposed. None of these have been capable of independently explaining the underlying mechanisms. The diagnostic criteria proposed by the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology represent a novel attempt to introduce semiquantitative parameters, yet further scientific validation is needed. Contrary to previous opinions, TTS is not always benign, considering the relatively high prevalence of acute complications, an estimated in-hospital mortality similar to that of acute myocardial infarction (1–8%), and a significant rate of recurrences and persistence of symptoms. Clinical management of TTS has been largely based on empirical experience related to ACS, and therefore pharmacological strategies are partially overlapping. An issue of the utmost importance is the lack of randomized prospective data validating diagnostic criteria, risk stratification, and specific therapeutic approaches
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
Effects of Statin Treatment on Patients with Angina and Normal or Nearly Normal Angiograms
Full text linkThis article offers an updated and comprehensive overview of major findings on the effects of statin treatment in patients with chronic angina but without any epicardial coronary artery with obstructive lesion
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
- …
