1,720,975 research outputs found
Twenty-four-week safety and tolerability of nevirapine vs. abacavir in combination with zidovudine/lamivudine as first-line antiretroviral therapy: a randomized double-blind trial (NORA).
No full textOBJECTIVE: To compare the safety/tolerability of abacavir and nevirapine in HIV-infected adults starting antiretroviral (ARV) therapy in Uganda. METHODS: Twenty-four-week randomized double-blind trial conducted with 600 symptomatic ARV-naive adults with CD4 <200 cells/mm(3) allocated to zidovudine/lamivudine plus 300 mg abacavir (A) and nevirapine placebo (n = 300) or 200 mg nevirapine (N) and abacavir placebo (n = 300) twice daily. The primary endpoint was any serious adverse event (SAE) definitely/probably or uncertain whether related to blinded nevirapine/abacavir. Secondary endpoints were adverse events leading to permanent discontinuation of blinded nevirapine/abacavir, and grade 4 events. RESULTS: Seventy-two per cent participants were women; 19% had WHO stage 4 disease; the median age was 37 years (range 18-66); the median baseline CD4 count was 99 cells/mm(3) (1-199). Ninety-five per cent completed 24 weeks: 4% died and 1% were lost to follow-up. Thirty-seven SAEs occurred on blinded drug in 36 participants. Twenty events [6 (2.0%) abacavir, 14 (4.7%) nevirapine participants] were considered serious adverse reactions definitely/probably/uncertain whether related to blinded abacavir/nevirapine [HR = 0.42 (95% CI 0.16-1.09) P = 0.06]. Only 2.0% of abacavir participants [six patients (0.7-4.3%)] experienced a suspected hypersensitivity reaction (HSR). In total 14 (4.7%) abacavir and 30 (10.0%) nevirapine participants discontinued blinded abacavir/nevirapine (P = 0.02): because of toxicity (6A, 15N; P = 0.07, all rash/possible HSR and/or hepatotoxicity), anti-tuberculosis therapy (6A, 13N), or for other reasons (2A, 2N). CONCLUSIONS: There was a trend towards a lower rate of serious adverse reactions in Ugandan adults with low CD4 starting ARV regimens with abacavir than with nevirapine. This suggests that abacavir could be used more widely in resource-limited settings without major safety concerns
Fixed duration interruptions are inferior to continuous treatment in African adults starting therapy with CD4 cell counts < 200 cells/microl.
No full textBACKGROUND: Structured treatment interruption (STI) of antiretroviral therapy (ART) could potentially reduce cost and toxicity, but clinical efficacy requires evaluation. METHODS: An assessment of fixed-duration STI was nested in DART, a multicentre trial comparing strategies for monitoring ART in Uganda and Zimbabwe (ISCRTN 13968779). Of 3316 ART-naive symptomatic adults with CD4 cell count or = 300 cells/microl after 48 or 72 weeks underwent a second randomization to either STI, cycles of 12 weeks on/off (408), or continuous ART (CT; 405). RESULTS: Median age at STI/CT randomization was 37 years (range, 19-67) and CD4 cell count 358 cells/microl (range, 300-1054). A second review terminated the STI/CT randomisation on 15 March 2006, and participants changed to CT. Median follow-up was 51 weeks (range, 0-85): 99% and 50% of time was spent on ART in CT and STI, respectively. First new World Health Organization (WHO) stage 4 events or death occurred more frequently in STI (24; 6.4/100 person-years) than CT (9; 2.4/100 person-years) (hazard ratio, 2.73; 95% confidence interval, 1.27-5.88; P = 0.007); oesophageal candidiasis being the most frequent event (STI, 13; CT, 3). Nine (1%) participants died (STI, 5; CT, 4). There was no difference in time to first serious adverse event (P = 0.78), although ART change owing to toxicity occurred more with CT (10; 2.6/100 person-years) than with STI (2; 0.5/100 person-years) (P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Although absolute rates of WHO stage 4 events/death were low, 12 week STIS initiated at a CD4 cell count >/= 300 cells/microl resulted in a greater than twofold increased relative rate of disease progression compared with continuous therapy in adult Africans initiating ART with advanced disease, and cannot be recommended
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Phenotypic and genotypic analyses to guide selection of reverse transcriptase inhibitors in second-line HIV therapy following extended virological failure in Uganda.
Get PDFWe investigated phenotypic and genotypic resistance after 2 years of first-line therapy with two HIV treatment regimens in the absence of virological monitoring
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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