1,720,964 research outputs found
The incidence of sexually acquired reactive arthritis: a systematic literature review
No full textReactive arthritis (ReA) is an inflammatory spondyloarthritis occurring after infection at a distant site. Chlamydia trachomatis is proposed to be the most common cause of ReA, yet the incidence of sexually acquired ReA (SARA) has not been well established. We therefore carried out a systematic literature review to collate and critically evaluate the published evidence regarding the incidence of SARA. MEDLINE and EMBASE databases were searched using free-text and MeSH terms relating to infection and ReA. The title and abstract of articles returned were screened independently by two reviewers and potentially relevant articles assessed in full. Data was extracted from relevant articles and a risk of bias assessment carried out using a validated tool. Heterogeneity of study methodology and results precluded meta-analysis. The search yielded a total of 11,680 articles, and a further 17 were identified from review articles. After screening, 55 papers were assessed in full, from which 3 met the relevant inclusion criteria for the review. The studies reported an incidence of SARA of 3.0–8.1 % and were found to be of low to moderate quality. More studies are required to address the lack of data regarding the incidence of SARA. Specific and sensitive classification criteria must be developed in order for consistent classification and valid conclusions to be drawn. In clinical practice, it is recommended clinicians discuss the possibility of ReA developing at the time of STI diagnosis and to encourage patients to return if they experience any relevant symptoms
Healthcare-seeking behaviour of people with sexually transmitted infection symptoms attending a Sexual Health Clinic in New Zealand
No full textBackground: untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can lead to serious health complications and may be transmitted to uninfected individuals. Therefore, the early detection and subsequent management of STIs is crucial to control efforts. Time to presentation for STI symptoms and risk of transmission in this period has not been assessed in New Zealand to date.Methods: all new clients presenting to an urban sexual health clinic (SHC) were invited to complete a questionnaire, which included demographic information, sexual health history, and details about the clinic visit.Results: of 331 people approached, 243 (73.4%) agreed to complete the questionnaire. Four incomplete questionnaires were excluded, leaving 239 participants (47.3% female and 52.7% male, 43.8% under the age of 25). The most common reason for seeking healthcare was experiencing symptoms (39.4%) and 41.7% of people with symptoms waited more than seven days to seek healthcare. Around a third (30.6%) of people with symptoms had sex after they first thought they may need to seek healthcare. Infrequent condom use was reported more often by people who had sex with existing partners (84.6%) than by people who had sex with new partners (10.0%).Conclusions: this is the first study to quantify healthcare-seeking behaviour for STI in New Zealand. Delayed healthcare-seeking (defined as waiting more than seven days) was common and almost a third of people reported engaging in sex while symptomatic. Enabling prompt healthcare-seeking is crucial to minimise transmission risk. Structural barriers such as the financial cost of STI tests must be removed and education around symptom recognition and healthcare system navigation should be provided.<br/
Barriers to sexually transmitted infection testing in New Zealand: a qualitative study
No full textObjective: to investigate the barriers that prevent or delay people seeking a sexually transmitted infection (STI) test.Methods: qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with 24 university students, who are a group prone to behaviours putting them at risk of STIs, to understand the factors that had prevented or delayed them from going for an STI test in the past. Resulting data were thematically analysed employing a qualitative content analysis method, and a final set of themes identified.Results: there were three main types of barrier to STI testing. These were: personal (underestimating risk, perceiving STIs as not serious, fear of invasive procedure, self-consciousness in genital examination and being too busy); structural (financial cost of test and clinician attributes and attitude); and social (concern of being stigmatised).Conclusions and implications for public health: these data will help health providers and policy-makers provide services that minimise barriers and develop effective strategies for improving STI testing rates. The results of this study suggest a holistic approach to encouraging testing is required, which includes addressing personal beliefs, working with healthcare providers to minimise structural barriers and developing initiatives to change social views about STIs
What influences university students to seek sexually transmitted infection testing?: A qualitative study in New Zealand
No full textObjective: Untreated sexually transmitted infections (STIs) can lead to serious health complications, increase susceptibility to contracting further STIs including human immunodefiniceny virus (HIV), and can be transmitted to others. The early diagnosis and treatment of STIs is therefore central to comprehensive STI management and prevention, but this relies on those at risk of STIs presenting for testing. In order to understand STI testing behaviours in view of their improvement, this study aimed to elucidate why people seek STI testing. Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 university students who had recently had an STI test. Resulting data were analysed employing a qualitative thematic analysis method to produce a final set of themes. Results: Five drivers for STI testing were identified from the data: crisis, partners, clinicians, routines, and previous knowledge. The final driver, previous knowledge, intersected with the previous four, particularly in relation to routines. Many participants acknowledged that the more they knew about STIs the more likely they were to undertake routine tests. However, at the same time, many participants felt they did not have a good knowledge base and that their school-based sex education had been lacking. Conclusion: This study highlights important drivers for STI testing, which may aid the design of public health campaigns. It also underlines that school-based education could provide stronger foundations with regards to STIs and their prevention.</p
Regulation of Expression of Cell-Adhesion Molecule H-Cadherin
No full textH-cadherin is a member of the cadherin superfamily of Ca2+ dependent cell adhesion molecules, the members of which are involved in diverse cellular processes. H-cadherin is an unusual member of the family that lacks a cytoplasmic domain, instead binding to the cell membrane via a glycophosphatidyl-inositol moiety. H-cadherin may mediate cell adhesion via a mechanism that is distinct from that of the classical cadherins. Few convincing studies exist that examine the mechanisms and factors capable of controlling H-cadherin expression. The present study describes the first reliable investigation into changes in H-cadherin mRNA and protein expression, and examines the structure of the promoter region of the gene. Studies of the 5' untranslated sequence identified two new transcription start sites, and confirmed the promoter activity of this region with luciferase reporter assays. These data suggested the presence of enhancer elements, and putative transcription factor binding sites in the sequence were screened for. Elements capable of binding estradiol (E2), progesterone (P4) and glucocorticoid receptors, as well as factors known to respond to epidermal growth factor (EGF) were identified and selected for further study. The regulation of H-cadherin expression was studied in the Hu09 human osteosarcoma cell line. H-cadherin has been implicated in bone development and fracture healing, and has been shown to be a prognostic marker in osteosarcoma. A novel two-step real-time quantitative RT-PCR (QRT-PCR) assay was developed and validated for use in measuring changes in H-cadherin mRNA levels, in response to physiological stimuli. A new commercially-available antibody was optimised for use in semi-quantitative Western blotting of cell lysates from cells treated with the same stimuli. These techniques provided data that suggest that serum contains positive regulators capable of upregulating transcription and translation of H-cadherin. In support of these results, P4 was found to upregulate H-cadherin transcription (P<0.02), and similarly for EGF, may alter localization and trafficking of protein. E2 is a positive regulator of translation of H-cadherin protein, but has differential effects in the presence of P4 (P<0.01). Together E2 and P4 act to upregulate both transcription and translation of H-cadherin as do EGF (P<0.03) and the synthetic steroid dexamethasone (P<0.04). From the above investigation, it was concluded that H-cadherin is regulated by hormones, glucocorticoids and EGF in a complex manner indicative of a role for this cell adhesion molecule in hormone and drug-induced changes in bone morphology and pathology
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
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