1,720,988 research outputs found
Utility and prognostic significance of leukocyte ratios in dogs with Primary Immune-Mediated Hemolytic Anemia
No full textCanine immune-mediated hemolytic anemia (IMHA) is a life-threatening condition that is commonly associated with neutrophilia and monocytosis. Leukocyte ratios have been found to have prognostic value in humans and animals affected by a range of inflammatory, infectious, and neoplastic disorders. We hypothesized that in primary IMHA, neutrophil to lymphocyte (NLR), neutrophil to monocyte (NMR), band neutrophil to segmented neutrophil (BNR) and monocyte to lymphocyte (MLR) ratios would be higher in dogs that did not survive to discharge. Medical records of dogs diagnosed with IMHA at two veterinary teaching hospitals were retrospectively reviewed. Twenty-three of the 72 included dogs did not survive to discharge. NLR, NMR, BNR and MLR ratios were compared between dogs that survived to discharge and dogs that died or were euthanized. None of the ratios were significantly different between survivors and non-survivors (P = 0.14–0.99). Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve for prediction of non-survival ranged from 0.5 (95% confidence interval 0.38–0.62) for MLR to 0.61 (0.49–0.72) for NMR and was not significantly different from 0.5 for any ratio (P = 0.29–0.99). After exclusion of 31 dogs that received one or both immunosuppressive medications and blood transfusion before presentation, the area under the ROC curve for prediction of survival was significantly different from 0.5 for MLR (0.78, P = 0.01) and NMR (0.78, P = 0.0002). This study suggests that lower MLR and higher NMR may predict poorer prognosis in untreated dogs with IMHA
Pitfalls in anaphylaxis
No full textAnaphylaxis is an acute medical emergency characterized by sudden presentation of life-threatening respiratory and cardiovascular symptoms. Rapid diagnosis of anaphylaxis is crucial to implement an appropriate treatment and management plan. However, mistakes in the diagnosis of anaphylaxis may occur because of the limited time during which the diagnosis must be made, the stressful environment of the emergency room, the often aspecific or incomplete clinical features of early anaphylaxis and the lack of useful laboratory markers
Leishmania Infection during Chemotherapy in a Dog Diagnosed with Multicentric Large B-Cell Lymphoma—A Diagnostic Challenge
Full text linkDogs with lymphoma are at risk of developing clinical complications due to immunosuppression and side effects of chemotherapy. Clinical reports of concurrent lymphoma and leishmaniasis are rare and confined to single cases of comorbidity at presentation. Herein, we describe a case of lymphoma during maintenance chemotherapy in which bone marrow cytology showed myelodysplasia associated with leishmaniasis. The dog was a seven-year-old intact female Parson Russel Terrier with a two-week history of generalized lymphadenopathy. Diagnosis of multicentric high-grade B-cell lymphoma stage Va was carried out with cytological and cytofluorimetric assays of external lymph nodes, abdominal ultrasound, chest radiology, and lymphoid blasts blood smear examination. The dog lived and had traveled in endemic areas of Leishmania with uninterrupted prevention against sand fly bites by an insecticide-impregnated collar and presented seronegativity to Leishmania at presentation. Chemotherapy for lymphoma was successful and the patient achieved complete remission. Approximately eight months after the diagnosis, a persistent pancytopenia was assessed. Unexpectedly, Leishmania amastigotes were identified in the bone marrow. Combined treatment rounds were administered with antileishmanial and antineoplastic drugs for approximately eight months. Eventually, lymphoma relapsed and became unresponsive to chemotherapy, and the dog was euthanatized. Canine lymphoma overlapping with subsequent Leishmania infection as a complication is rare and lacks specific clinical manifestations. A delayed diagnosis of leishmaniasis may occur. We suggest considering leishmaniasis as part of the differential diagnosis of persistent pancytopenia in dogs with lymphoma, particularly in dogs who reside or travel to endemic areas, when treatment fails or abnormal laboratory findings are present
Flow mediated dilation shows impaired endothelial function in patients with mastocytosis
No full textMastocytosis is a rare disease characterized by clonal proliferation of mast cells in different organs. Clinical manifestations of mastocytosis are mostly due to the release of mediators from mast cells and, in many cases such as urticaria, flushing, angioedema and anaphylaxis, are expression of biological effects of mediators on endothelial cells. Chronic secretion of mediators in patients with mastocytosis may lead to alteration of endothelial function
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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