1,721,154 research outputs found
Cancer mortality in an Italian rubber factory
No full textThe purpose of the study was to describe the mortality experience of an Italian cohort of rubber workers and an attempt was made to identify any occupational cancer hazards that might currently be affecting men employed in this type of work. A total of 4917 male workers who first started working in a large rubber factory between 1962 and 1972 have been followed up until 31 January 1983. The number of deaths from all causes and from malignant neoplasms was determined and compared with the expected number of deaths calculated from mortality rates for the province in which the population of the plant lived. Mortality from all causes was 85% of that expected. A slight overall excess of deaths from cancer (SMR = 119) was found; this was entirely due to the excess mortality in the 35-44 age group. In order further to evaluate the possible existence of a cancer risk SMRs were analysed by duration of exposure, time since first exposure, and for specific sites of cancer. A trend in SMR with duration of exposure was found for employees with 10 years of follow up or more. A high risk for some tumour sites emerged
The Italian version of the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire: translation, validity, and reliability.
No full textTo test the Italian adaptation of the 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ 25) and to investigate its validity and reliability.This prospective observational study enrolled nonhospitalized patients with 1 of 5 chronic eye diseases, and a reference sample of subjects without eye diseases. Eligible participants had to be cognitively able to respond to a health status interview and be affected by 1 of the following eye conditions: senile cataract, age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, and cytomegalovirus retinitis or low vision. A control group was composed of subjects with no evidence of underlying eye diseases. The Italian self-administered versions of Medical Outcomes Study Short Form and of the NEI-VFQ 25 were administered to all participants. Reliability and validity of the Italian translation of the NEI-VFQ 25 were tested using statistical methods.Statistical analysis points out that the Italian version of the NEI-VFQ 25 has good validity, discriminatory power, internal consistency, and reliability.This Italian version of the NEI-VFQ 25 shows psychometric properties comparable to those of the American version, and thus can be used in clinical research as a specific measure of quality of life in patients with chronic eye diseases
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
[A computerized database for managing otorhinolaryngologic oncology patients].
No full textIn recent years the management and interdisciplinary treatment of oncological patients has become extremely complex due to the progress made in diagnosis and therapy. As a result, the knowledge required to treat patients can no longer be simply memorized or manually filed. Computer technology provides the ideal instrument for organizing, saving and analyzing data from head and neck tumor patients. The authors have prepared a computerized database to meet the following needs: ease of use, even for non computer savvy users; minimal ambiguity for data entry; use for both clinical and scientific purposes; possibility to create a network with similar database at other Centers; possibility to expand to include image management. The archive is based on a personal computer with an INTEL 80486 microprocessor, 40 Mb RAM, DOS 6.0. and Windows 3.1. The software includes four main routines: a) formulation and management of tables where oncological data are gathered; b) entry and management of patient-related clinical data; c) statistical processing for epidemiological and oncological research and; d) management of basic computer services. In clinical practice the database allows the following: a) preparation of a monthly chart of check-ups, b) rapid tracking of patients lost to followup, c) printout of a summary of the clinical history of each patient at the time of check-up and rapid updating at the end of the examination, d) automatic production of forms such as discharge letters and reports to be shared with related services (i.e. medical oncology, radiotherapy). In addition, the database is a powerful, versatile research tool which can promptly provide all sorts of oncological data and can automatically prepare tables, diagrams, correlations, survival curves. The system was developed from 1993 to 1995 and has been operative, with a few minor modifications and updates, since 1995. Today the database contains more than 1200 oncological cases and the system is used daily by medical and paramedical personnel alike. Approximately 15 new cases are entered a month and 80 cases updated after follow-up
An Analysis of Incremental Assistant Capabilities of Software Evolution Expert System
No full textListing code is not the optimal representation of a sofiware
system for maintenance purposes. The maintainer need:
(1) more information than the code contains, and
(2) an understandable presentation of that igormation.
The implication of (I) is that if informalion is not
originally present in the code, then it cannot be recovered
from the code alone. Consequently, to perform maintenance
effectively we need additional "views" on the software
system. We propose to do maintenance using an enhanced
view of the software system under evolution, that is, the
Software System Model (SSM) that provides the
maintainer with a number of alternative views of the code.
To address (2) the expert system must offer information
system capabilities, such as semantic retrieval and
intelligent indexing. An analysis of the capabilities and the
degrees of assistance of a Software Evolution Expert
System (SEES) 'is given in an incremental framework
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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