1,720,972 research outputs found
A review on the treatment of relapsed/metastatic head and neck cancer
No full textThe efficacy of traditional chemotherapy in inducing objective responses and prolonging survival in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer has been disappointing. More recent drugs have not proven superior to the classic regimen of cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil. Anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies, either as single agents or associated to chemotherapy, have been shown to be active and little toxic. Among them, cetuximab has proven to be the most promising. Indeed the Extreme study, which compared the classic couple cisplatin (CDDP) 5-fluorouracil with the same regimen plus cetuximab, has constituted a remarkable innovation. The results of that trial seem to indicate a third agent added to CDDP and 5-fluorouracil improved both progression-free survival and overall survival in the recurrent or metastatic setting. Unfortunately, the results obtained with the tyrosine kinase inhibitors are less impressive, and additional studies are needed to explore the potentiality of this class of drug. As far as antiangiogenetics are concerned, the research is insufficient for any conclusion to be drawn in terms of efficacy. It is hoped that, in the near future, the most active combination between biological agents and traditional chemotherapy will be found, so that the path successfully taken in other neoplastic diseases may be retraced
Pediatric norovirus infection
No full textNoroviruses (NoVs) are among the most frequent causes of acute pediatric gastroenteritis. Although the disease is often self-limiting and recovery is the rule, it constitutes an important health problem because of its highly contagious nature and the high rate of morbidity. NoVs are responsible for 47-96 % of outbreaks of acute pediatric gastroenteritis, and 5-36 % of sporadic cases. NoV-induced gastroenteritis is a frequent cause of hospitalization, and severe and sometimes fatal cases have been reported in immunocompromised children. The increasing recognition of NoVs as the cause of pediatric disease and the limited success in preventing outbreaks have led to consideration of vaccines. However, while awaiting the development of a vaccine, there is an urgent need for more epidemiological data concerning childhood NoV infection, including the impact of NoVs on different age groups, the possible etiological role of NoVs in infections other than gastroenteritis, and the socioeconomic impact of NoVs on households
Autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA) : clues and pitfalls in the pediatric background
No full textThe development and increasing diffusion of new vaccinations and global immunization protocols have aroused burning debates about safety of adjuvants and their immunogenicity-enhancing effect in vaccines. Shoenfeld and Agmon-Levin have grouped under the term “autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants” (ASIA) a complex of variable signs and symptoms that may occur after a previous exposure to different adjuvants and also external environmental triggers, even eliciting specific overt immune-mediated disorders. This entity subsumes five medical conditions: post-vaccination phenomena, gulf war syndrome, macrophagic myofasciitis syndrome, siliconosis, and sick building syndrome, but the relevance and magnitude of the syndrome in the pediatric age is fundamentally limited to post-vaccination autoimmune or inflammatory disorders. The occurrence of vaccine-triggered phenomena represents a diagnostic challenge for clinicians and a research conundrum for many investigators. In this paper, we will analyze the general features of ASIA and focus on specific post-vaccination events in relation with the pediatric background. In the presence of a favorable genetic background, many autoimmune/inflammatory responses can be triggered by adjuvants and external factors, showing how the man himself might breach immune tolerance and drive many pathogenetic aspects of human diseases. Nonetheless, the elective application of ASIA diagnostic criteria to the pediatric population requires further assessment and evaluations. Additional studies are needed to help clarify connections between innate or adaptive immunity and pathological and/or protective autoantibodies mostly in the pediatric age, as children and adolescents are mainly involved in the immunization agendas related to vaccine-preventable diseases
Prolonged survival of an HIV-infected subject with severe lymphoproliferative disease and rhinocerebral mucormycosis
No full textGoing 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
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
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