1,721,240 research outputs found
Risk factors for new onset and persistence of multi-site musculoskeletal pain in a longitudinal study of workers in Crete
No full textOBJECTIVES: To explore occupational and psychological risk factors for the incidence and persistence of multi-site musculoskeletal pain.METHODS: We conducted a longitudinal investigation of three occupational groups in Crete, Greece. Baseline information was obtained at interview about pain in the past year at each of six anatomical sites, and about possible risk factors for subsequent symptoms. Twelve months later, subjects were re-interviewed about pain at the same anatomical sites in the past month. Pain at two or more sites was classed as multi-site. Associations with new development and persistence of multi-site pain at follow-up were assessed by logistic regression.RESULTS: Analysis was based on 518 subjects (87% of those originally selected for study). At follow-up, multi-site pain persisted in 217 (62%) of those who had experienced it in the year before baseline, and was newly developed in 27 (17%) of those who had not. Persistence of multi-site pain was significantly related to physical loading at work, somatising tendency and beliefs about work as a cause of musculoskeletal pain, with OR (95% CI) for the highest relative to the lowest exposure categories of 2.3 (1.0 to 5.6), 2.6 (1.5 to 4.6) and 1.9 (1.1 to 3.3) respectively. Development of new multi-site pain was most strongly associated with working for ?40 h per week (OR 5.0, 95% CI 1.1 to 24.0).CONCLUSIONS: Our findings confirm the importance of both physical loading at work and somatising tendency as risk factors for multi-site pain, and suggest that persistence of pain is also influenced by adverse beliefs about work causation.<br/
Work related and psychological determinants of multi-site musculoskeletal pain
No full textObjective Musculoskeletal pain is associated with occupational physical activities and psychosocial risk factors. We evaluated the relative importance of work-related and psychological determinants of the number of anatomical sites affected by musculoskeletal pain in a cross-sectional survey. Methods The survey focused on musculoskeletal pain in six body regions (low-back, neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist-hand, and knee) among 224 nurses, 200 office workers and 140 postal clerks in Crete, Greece (response rate 95%). Information was collected about demographic characteristics, occupational physical load, psychosocial aspects of work, perceptions about the causes of pain, mental health, somatization, and experience of pain in the past 12 months. We used Poisson regression to assess associations of risk factors with the number of painful anatomical sites and explored interactions using classification and regression trees (CART). Results Two-thirds of the study sample reported pain in ?2 body sites during the past 12 months, and in 23%, >3 sites were affected. The number of painful anatomical sites was strongly related to both physical load at work and somatization (with relative risks increased 5-fold or more for frequent and disabling multisite pain) and was also significantly associated with work-related psychosocial factors and beliefs about work causation. The CART analysis suggested that somatization was the leading determinant of the number of painful body sites. Conclusion In the population studied, pain at multiple anatomical sites was common and strongly associated with somatization, which may have a more important influence on multisite pain than pain that is limited to a single anatomical site
Dietary exposure to persistent organic pollutants during pregnancy and child health
No full textIntroduction Diet is the main source of exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including dioxins and PCBs. During pregnancy the fetus is exposed to POPs which can lead to adverse health effects. The research hypothesis of this thesis is that maternal diet, as a source of prenatal exposure to POPs, may be linked to impaired fetal growth and endocrine disruptive effects. Methods This thesis included 604 mother-child pairs from the European NewGeneris project, 50,651 mother-child pairs from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort (MoBa) and 707 mother-child pairs from the Rhea and the Hmar studies. Dietary data were collected during pregnancy by food frequency questionnaires. Three approaches were used to derive dietary estimates of prenatal exposure, either related to levels of POPs in maternal and cord blood or in food. Birth outcome information was obtained by medical registries. Anogenital distance measurements were collected and used as a marker of endocrine disruptive effects. Main predictors of anogenital distance were assessed and a reliability study was conducted. Results In the NewGeneris project, a dioxin-diet characterized by high maternal intakes of meat and fish was positively related to dioxins and dioxin-like compounds in maternal blood. High adherence to the dioxin-diet was associated with a reduction of -115g in birth weight. In the MoBa study, an inverse dose-response association was found between dietary dioxins and PCBs intakes during pregnancy and birth size. The negative association remained even for intakes lower than the tolerable weekly intake. In the Rhea and Hmar studies, anogenital distances were related to growth, tracked through early life and were highly reliable anthropometric measurements. A high-fat diet score during pregnancy was positively related to POPs in maternal blood and was associated with 15% reduction in anogenital distance of newborn boys. Conclusions Diet during pregnancy can influence maternal and fetal body burden of POPs. Prenatal exposure to POPs, through maternal diet, may lead to impaired fetal growth and endocrine disruptive effects, even in populations with low background exposures to POPs.Introducció La dieta és la principal font d'exposició als contaminants orgànics persistents (COP), com les dioxines i els PCBs. Durant l'embaràs el fetus està exposat als COPs, que poden donar lloc a efectes adversos per a la salut. La hipòtesi principal d'aquesta tesi és que la dieta materna, com una font d'exposició prenatal als COPs, podria estar relacionada amb alteracions en el creixement fetal i efectes endocrins perjudicials. Mètodes En aquesta tesi es van incloure 604 parelles mare-fill del projecte europeu NewGeneris, 50.651 parelles mare-fill de la cohort noruega (MOBA) i 707 parells de mares i fills dels estudis RHEA (Grècia) i Hmar (Catalunya). Les dades dietètiques es van recollir durant l'embaràs mitjançant qüestionaris de freqüència d'aliments. Tres mètodes s'han aplicat per derivar estimacions de l'exposició dietètica prenatal, ja sigui en relació als nivells de COP en la sang materna i del cordó o en els aliments. Informació sobre el naixement va ser obtinguda pels registres mèdics. Mesures de les distàncies anogenitals es van recollir i s'han utilitzat com marcadors d'efectes endocrins pertorbadors. Els determinants principals de la distància anogenital van ser avaluats i es va fer un estudi de fiabilitat de les mesures. Resultats En el projecte NewGeneris, una dieta alta en dioxines es caracteritza per una alta ingesta materna de carn i peix, i estava positivament relacionada amb dioxines i compostos similars a les dioxines a la sang materna. Alta adherència a una dieta alta en dioxines es va associar amb una reducció de 115 g de pes al néixer. En l'estudi Moba, es va trobar una relació de dosi-resposta inversa entre la ingesta de dioxines i PCBs durant l'embaràs i el pes en néixer. L'associació es va mantenir fins i tot per una ingesta inferior al límit de ingesta tolerable. En els estudis Rhea i Hmar, les distàncies anogenitals estan relacionades amb el pes al néixer, les mesures al naixement s’associaven amb aquestes dels primers anys de vida, i les mesures antropomètriques van ser altament fiables. Una dieta alta en greixos durant l'embaràs va ser positivament relacionada amb els COP en la sang materna i es va associar amb un 15% de reducció en la distància anogenital dels nounats. Conclusions La dieta durant l'embaràs pot influir en la càrrega corporal materna i fetal dels COP. L'exposició prenatal als COP, a través de la dieta materna, pot conduir a alteracions en el creixement fetal i als efectes pertorbadors endocrins, fins i tot en poblacions amb exposicions sota els límits d’ingesta estipulats.Programa de doctorat en Biomedicin
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
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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