1,720,974 research outputs found
Urbanisation and childhood asthma in a developing region of Latin-America: a cross-sectional analysis in northeastern Ecuador
Get PDFAsthma is becoming increasingly frequent in children in urban and rural areas of low and middle-income countries (LMICs), with a high prevalence in urban centres. The urbanisation process has been suggested as a possible explanation for this temporal increase and urban-rural differences in asthma prevalence. This thesis aims to explore the influence of urbanisation on asthma prevalence in a developing region of Latin-America in which the rural-urban transition is occurring rapidly. A systematic review evaluated how epidemiological studies have assessed the associations between asthma and urbanisation in LMICs. To understand better the relationship between urbanisation and wheeze/asthma in transitional areas, four cross-sectional studies were conducted in northwest Ecuador. In the first of these, the level of urbanicity at census ward level was quantified for children living in diverse urban and rural localities and urbanicity level was associated with asthma. The second and third study explored how internal migration, an important element of the urbanisation process, is associated with the prevalence of current wheeze in urban and rural populations, respectively. The fourth analysis identified lifestyle domains in urban and rural populations based on socioeconomic and behavioural characteristics and explored how these characteristics could explain the prevalence of wheeze in a transitional region. This thesis provide evidence that even small-scale increases in levels of urbanicity are associated with a higher prevalence of wheeze/asthma. Analysis of internal migration showed that in urban areas, rural to urban migration was associated with an increase in the prevalence of wheeze while in rural areas the absence of the child’s mother at home, through temporary or permanent migration, was associated with an increase in prevalence of wheeze, rhinitis and eczema. Finally, an analysis of lifestyle factors showed that living in substandard housing and a high level of sedentarism were associated with a greater prevalence of wheeze
Co-circulating Arboviruses in Latin America: Zika Virus, Chikungunya Virus and Dengue Virus
Get PDFChikungunya (CHIKV), Dengue (DENV) and Zika (ZIKV) viruses have been of growing public health concern in Latin America. Increasing incidence of new infections alongside the continuing lack of licenced antivirals or vaccines have contributed to a rising burden of disease in populations and cost for healthcare systems. These burdens are further exacerbated due to the difficulty of achieving accurate diagnosis in settings where these viruses co-circulate. Thus, the aim of this research was to study co-circulating CHIKV, DENV and ZIKV in Latin America, particularly in relation to co-infections and the accurate identification of specific arbovirus infections. First, a systematic review of the published literature on ZIKV co-infections was conducted, assessing the co-infection frequency among ZIKV infected cases and the impact of co-infection on the clinical presentation of ZIKV. Second, the co-circulation of CHIKV and ZIKV in a cohort of pregnant women in Recife, Brazil from 2015-2017 was described and the potential to differentiate between infections at symptom presentation was assessed. The systematic review's main findings showed that the most frequent ZIKV co-infections occurred with CHIKV and DENV, and in some circumstances occurred in up to half of the ZIKV infections. Additionally, co-infection did not seem to affect the mild clinical presentation of ZIKV infections. However, the review was not able to assess a potential increase of complications associated with ZIKV co-infections compared to ZIKV mono-infections. Furthermore, the analysis of the cohort study showed that CHIKV and ZIKV infection were distinguishable upon clinical presentation in pregnant women. Our findings on ZIKV co-infections and the clinical presentation of ZIKV and CHIKV infected pregnant women contribute to improved patient management in settings of arbovirus co-circulation, through aiming to facilitate clinical diagnosis and guide laboratory testing, in order to administer appropriate follow up if needed, and consequently to reduce complications associated with arbovirus infection
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
Symptomatic dengue and adverse pregnancy outcomes: a population-based record linkage study
Get PDFDengue stands out from other viral mosquito borne diseases because it is the most common; its incidence is growing and it is reaching new geographical areas and spreading worldwide. Indeed, reported cases of negative pregnancy outcomes after dengue infection is not new, however, the evidence of the association between maternal dengue and adverse pregnancy outcomes is limited, controversial and mostly supported by cases reports. The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between pregnancy outcome and symptomatic maternal dengue. I conducted a population-based study using routinely-collected Brazilian data from 2006-2012. These data have the information required to expand the existing knowledge on birth outcomes from women with dengue acquired during pregnancy. The linkage process imposed complex challenges, and the final linked data showed a low sensitivity. However, it is unlikely that the linkage error introduced bias on the final analysis since it occurred randomly between cases and the comparison group. Our main findings showed that dengue during pregnancy is associated with adverse maternal and birth outcomes. The effect was higher in the acute disease period (first 10/20 days) and severe disease increased the magnitude of the association. Therefore in areas where dengue virus is circulating, the health of pregnant women should be not only a public health priority, but health professionals attending pregnant women with dengue should more closely observe these patients to be able to intervene in a timely way and avoid adverse outcomes
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
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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