1,720,970 research outputs found
Multiple Sclerosis and Occupational Exposures: A Case-Control Study
No full textOBJECTIVE: To assess possible relationships between occupational exposures and risk of multiple
sclerosis (MS).
BACKGROUND: MS is recognized as a multi-factorial disease, in which genetic and environmental factors
could act together. The exposure to substances spreading in work environment and potentially neurotoxic
could be one of the co-factors involved in MS etiology, but there are very few studies about the association
between occupational status and MS.
DESIGN/METHODS: We carried out a case-control study, where cases were patients included in the MS
Register of the Province of Pavia, Northern Italy, and controls, 1:2 matched by sex and age, were randomly
selected from the National Health Service population files. The occupational histories were obtained from the
Italian Institute for Social Providence (INPS) archives by automatic linkage using Italian Occupational Cancer
Monitoring (OCCAM) method, that estimate the risk of specific occupational diseases, by geographic area
and industrial sector.
RESULTS: We included 660 MS patients (411 F, 249 M; mean age 49.1 years; mean disease duration 16.7
years) and 1320 controls. The risk of MS turned out to be higher in workers of mechanic industry (OR 17.4,
90% CI 5-60.6, p < 0.001), leather industry (OR 11.5, 90% CI 4.9-26.9, p < 0.001), and agriculture (OR 19.1,
90% CI 4.2-87.6, p < 0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: The case-control study design with OCCAM approach appears to be a useful and low-cost
method, not only for occupational cancer surveillance, but also for the study of diseases, like MS, whose
etiology is not well defined yet. Our findings indicate that solvent exposures could be related to the risk of
MS, as both shoe/leather workers and mechanic industry workers are exposed to organic solvents. A major
risk of MS was also found among workers engaged in agriculture, suggesting a role of pesticides, whose
neurotoxic effect is well known
[Female breast cancer and occupational sectors: a preliminary study in the provinces of Lombardy, Italy].
No full textBackground. The role of occupational exposures in
breast cancer development is still uncertain. A recent paper
showed increased risks in some occupational sectors in
Lombardy, Italy. We deepened this analysis at the level of singleprovinces of the same Italian region.
Methods. Based on administrative data, a case-control study was
carried out recruiting all incident cases of female breast cancer in the period 2002-2009, aged between 35 and 69 years, residing in Lombardy, Italy. Controls were randomly sampled from all women residing in Lombardy as of December 31, 2005.
Occupational histories, including blue collar status, were
available from 1974 through record linkage with a social security
pension database, and were obtained for 11188 cases and 25329 controls. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 90% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using multiple
unconditional logistic regression models. Analyses were
performed also by single provinces of Lombardy, Italy.
Multiple comparisons were accounted for according to the
Benjamini-Hochberg method.
Results. The ORs for female breast cancer were modestly
but significantly increased for employment in electrical
manufacturing (OR 1.12, 90% CI 1.04-1.21), textile (OR 1.08,
90% CI 1.02-1.15), paper (OR 1.25, 90% CI 1.06-1.46) and rubber
(OR 1.26, 90% CI 1.03-1.54) industries. Analysis by province
showed significantly increased ORs for electrical manufacturing
in the Milano province. After adjustment for multiple
comparisons no estimates remained statistically significant,
except OR for electrical manufacturing in the Milano province.
Conclusions. Although with several limitations, our results point
to a possible role of exposures in electrical manufacturing,
textile, paper and rubber industries in the process leading to
breast cancer. An in-dept study for the electrical manufacturing industry has been already planned in Milano province
Female Breast Cancer and Electrical Manufacturing: Results of a Nested Case-Control Study.
Full text linkBackground: A previous explorative record-linkage study suggested a putative role of employment in electrical manufacturing in increasing female breast cancer risk in the Province of Milan (Italy). We deepened the understanding of this possible association in a single large electrical manufacturing plant located in Lombardy in the Province of Milan. Methods: We carried out a nested case-control study within a cohort of women employed in a large electrical manufacturing plant. All incident cases during 2002 to 2009 of female breast cancer in individuals who worked at least a 1 year in the factory and resided in Lombardy, Italy, were selected. Controls were randomly sampled from all women who worked in the same plant and resided in Lombardy as of December 31, 2005. Odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using multiple logistic regression models, taking into consideration only female workers as ever/never exposed to physical/chemical agents and their longest occupational period. ORs were adjusted for several potential confounders, namely, other known risk factors. Results: The ORs for female breast cancer were significantly increased for exposure to chlorinated solvents (OR 1.65, 95% CI 1.04−2.62), and there was a twofold increase (OR 2.10, 95% CI 1.21−3.66) among women exposed for at least 10 years. We found no other significantly increased OR by exposure or job title
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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