1,720,969 research outputs found
Adjusting hospital reimbursements to the onset of a new disease: Lesson from Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic represented a significant shock to healthcare systems, which faced substantial challenges on multiple fronts. In addition to organizational and clinical issues, one important challenge that required attention was adapting hospital service reimbursement systems to address a new disease with initially unknown costs and consequences. In this paper, we quantify the gap between DRG tariffs and the actual hospitalization costs of COVID-19 cases, through a comparison with pre-COVID-19 cases of respiratory tract infections, at San Martino Polyclinic Hospital, Genoa, Italy. We collected and analyzed a unique administrative dataset comprising Hospital Discharge Records (HDRs). We used propensity score matching to compare health outcomes and hospitalization costs of patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia and patients in a control group of pre-COVID-19 patients with similar characteristics. We found that COVID-19 infection leads to a higher probability of being admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and death, fewer days of hospitalization, increased hospital services, and increased costs of these services. Factors that increased hospitalization costs included female gender, age group 65–74 years, being admitted to ICU, death, increased length of stay (LOS), and the association between mechanical respiration DRGs and COVID-19 infection. In the period examined, DRG reimbursements were underestimated in severe COVID-19 cases requiring mechanical respiration. Knowledge of the factors that influence COVID-19 hospitalization costs may lead to a more comprehensive DRG tariff and, overall, to more effective management of financial resources in the event of future similar outbreaks
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
Study on the impact of sexually transmitted infections on Quality of Life, mood and sexual function
BACKGROUND: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) may impact on the patient's physical, psychological and sexual health and negatively influence their Quality of Life (QOL). Studies on this topic are scarce. This study aimed to assess the impact of STIs different from HIV on QOL, mood and sexual functioning in the patients attending our STIs center in comparison with patients affected by chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD).METHODS: An anonymous questionnaire was provided. It included 3 validated questionnaires: the European Quality of Life 5 dimensions 5 levels; the Beck Depression Inventory-II for depressive symptoms; the Changes in Sexual Functioning Questionnaire (CSFQ) for sexual functioning.RESULTS: Seventy-three STIs patients and 51 IBD patients participated in the study. The mean EQ-5D-5L questionnaire scores were 86.72 in STIs and 89.21 in IBD patients, without statistically significant difference between the two groups. Symptoms of depression were more common and severe in STIs patients compared to IBD patients. Sexual functioning was slightly worse in STIs patients than in IBD patients.CONCLUSIONS: This is one the very few studies focused on the impact of STIs on patient's physical, psychological and sexual health. Physicians dealing with STIs should consider the possible psychological consequences of the disease
Variations on the Author
“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
We 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
We 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
We 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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