100,322 research outputs found
Letter, [Author unclear] to Paulina T. Merritt
No full textHandwritten letter to Paulina Merritt from an unknown author, October 1, 1876.
The diagnostic accuracy of HbA , compared to the oral glucose tolerance test, for screening for type 2 diabetes mellitus in Africa-a systematic review and meta-analysis.
No full textTo assess the diagnostic accuracy of HbA , compared to fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), in screening for type 2 diabetes (T2D) in Africa. We systematically searched databases for studies that compared the HbA to either the OGTT, or the FPG for T2D diagnosis were included. The QUADAS 2 tool was used for assessing the quality of included studies. We used the split component synthesis (SCS) method for the meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies to pool the studies for meta-analysis of sensitivity and specificity, primarily at the HbA ≥48mmol/mol (6.5%) cut-off and at other cut-offs. We assessed heterogeneity using the I statistic and publication bias using Doi plots. Eleven studies, from seven African countries, with 12925 participants, were included. Against the OGTT, HbA ≥48mmol/mol (6.5%) had a pooled sensitivity of 57.7% (95%CI 43.4-70.9) and specificity of 92.3% (95%CI 83.9 - 96.5). Against the FPG, HbA ≥48mmol/mol (6.5%) had a pooled sensitivity of 64.5% (95%CI 50.5 - 76.4) and specificity of 94.3% (95%CI 87.9 - 97.5). The highest sensitivity for HbA , against the OGTT, was at the 42mmol/mol (6.0%) cut off. In Africa, the HbA ≥48mmol/mol (6.5%) cut-off may miss almost half of the individuals with T2D based on blood glucose measures
High prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and insulin resistance 6 years after hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy in Cape Town, South Africa
No full textObjective: To investigate the prevalence and associated cardiovascular risk factors 6 years after hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy (HFDP) in Cape Town, South Africa.
Research design and methods: Data were collected during the index pregnancy from all women diagnosed with HFDP at a major referral hospital in Cape Town. Participants were evaluated 6 years later using a cross-sectional study. At follow-up participants had a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, fasting lipogram, blood pressure and anthropometric measurements, and a fieldworker administered the questionnaire. We used the Adult Treatment Panel III criteria for the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome and individual risk factors. Insulin resistance was assessed using the homeostatic model of insulin resistance.
Results: At follow-up 220 women were reviewed. Their mean age at follow-up was 37.2 (SD 6.0) years. The prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors was 60.9% (95% CI 54.3 to 67.2) for metabolic syndrome, 75% (95% CI 65.9 to 82.3) for insulin resistance, 62.3% (95% CI 55.6 to 68.5) for dysglycemia, 41.4% (95% CI 35.0 to 48.0) for raised blood pressure, and 74.6% (95% CI 683 to 79.9) for dyslipidemia. Women with diabetes in pregnancy compared with those with gestational diabetes during the index pregnancy had a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome (74.3% vs 54.7%, p=0.010) and dysglycemia (88.6% vs 50.0%, p<0.001) at follow-up. Lower school education attainment, having a subsequent pregnancy, waist circumference at follow-up, and fasting blood glucose at HFDP diagnosis were associated with metabolic syndrome.
Conclusion: We found a high prevalence of CVD risk factors in South African women within 6 years of HFDP, which highlights the need to develop and evaluate interventions optimizing the cardiometabolic health of this vulnerable group. The main limitations of our research are the lack of a comparative group of women without HFDP and that we did not assess for CVD risk factors before HFDP
Progression to type 2 diabetes mellitus and associated risk factors after hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy: A cross-sectional study in Cape Town, South Africa
No full textGlobal data indicate that women with a history of hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy (HFDP) are at up to 7 times risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) compared with their counterparts who have pregnancies that are not complicated by hyperglycemia. However, there are no data from the sub-Saharan African region, which has the highest projected rise in diabetes prevalence globally. The aim of this study was to determine the proportion of women who progress to T2DM and associated risk factors 5 to 6 years after HFDP in Cape Town, South Africa
Defining the exit meta-Analysis
No full textIntroduction: In recent decades, clinical research has seen significant advancements, both in the generation and synthesis of evidence through meta-Analyses. Despite these methodological advancements, there is a growing concern about the accumulation of repetitive and redundant literature, potentially contributing to research waste. This highlights the necessity for a mechanism to determine when a meta-Analysis has conclusively addressed a research question, signaling no further need for additional studies-a concept we term an "exit"meta-Analysis. Methods: We introduced a convergence index, the Doi-Abdulmajeed Trial Stability (DAts) index, and a convergence plot to determine the exit status of a meta-Analysis. The performance of DAts was examined through simulation and applied to two real-world meta-Analyses. Results: The DAts index and convergence plot demonstrate highly effective discriminative ability across varying study scenarios. This represents the first attempt to define an exit meta-Analysis using a quantitative measurement of stability (as opposed to sufficiency) and its corresponding plot. The application to real-world scenarios further validated the utility of DAts and the convergence plot in identifying a conclusive (exit) meta-Analyses. Conclusion: The new development of DAts and the convergence plot provide a promising tool for investigating the conclusiveness of meta-Analyses. By identifying an exit status for meta-Analysis, the scientific community may be equipped to make better-informed decisions on the continuation of research on a specific topic, thereby preventing research waste and focusing efforts on areas with unresolved questions.This work was made possible by Program Grant #NPRP-BSRA01-0406-210030 from the Qatar National Research Fund
Handwritten biographical information on Paulina T. McClung Merritt
No full textA handwritten biography of Paulina T. McClung Merritt by an unknown author, 1892.
Heterogeneous and tissue-specific regulation of effector T cell responses by IFN-gamma during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection.
No full textIFN-γ and T cells are both required for the development of experimental cerebral malaria during Plasmodium berghei ANKA infection. Surprisingly, however, the role of IFN-γ in shaping the effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cell response during this infection has not been examined in detail. To address this, we have compared the effector T cell responses in wild-type and IFN-γ(-/-) mice during P. berghei ANKA infection. The expansion of splenic CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells during P. berghei ANKA infection was unaffected by the absence of IFN-γ, but the contraction phase of the T cell response was significantly attenuated. Splenic T cell activation and effector function were essentially normal in IFN-γ(-/-) mice; however, the migration to, and accumulation of, effector CD4(+) and CD8(+) T cells in the lung, liver, and brain was altered in IFN-γ(-/-) mice. Interestingly, activation and accumulation of T cells in various nonlymphoid organs was differently affected by lack of IFN-γ, suggesting that IFN-γ influences T cell effector function to varying levels in different anatomical locations. Importantly, control of splenic T cell numbers during P. berghei ANKA infection depended on active IFN-γ-dependent environmental signals--leading to T cell apoptosis--rather than upon intrinsic alterations in T cell programming. To our knowledge, this is the first study to fully investigate the role of IFN-γ in modulating T cell function during P. berghei ANKA infection and reveals that IFN-γ is required for efficient contraction of the pool of activated T cells
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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
Pelevin’s Trinity in the novel “t”: author – protagonist – reader
No full textThe article attempts to interpret Pelevin's artistic strategy in the novel "T" by exploring its subject organization and addressing the key problems of the author, the protagonist, and the reader as they are seen by the researcher. The article analyzes the peculiarities of constructing the narrative reality in the novel "T", and goes on to discuss Pelevin's philosophic models of the development of the humankind, and the emergence of his new anthropology
Measuring industry-science links through inventor-author relations: A profiling method
No full textIn this pilot study we examine the performance of text-based profiling in recovering a set of validated inventor-author links. In a first step we match patents and publications solely based on their similarity in content. Next, we compare inventor and author names on the highest ranked matches for the occurrence of name matches. Finally, we compare these candidate matches with the names listed in a validated set of inventor-author names. Our text-based profile methodology performs significantly better than a random matching of patents and publications, suggesting that text-based profiling is a valuable complementary tool to the name searches used in previous studies.innovation; industry-science links; text-based profiling;
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