1,721,159 research outputs found
Schizophrenia and suicide: systematic review of risk factors
No full textBACKGROUND: Suicide risk is greatly increased in schizophrenia. Detection of those at risk is clinically important. AIMS: To identify risk factors for suicide in schizophrenia. METHOD: The international literature on case-control and cohort studies of patients with schizophrenia or related conditions in which suicide was reported as an outcome was systematically reviewed. Studies were identified through searching electronic databases and reference lists, and by consulting experts. RESULTS: Twenty-nine eligible studies were identified. Factors with robust evidence of increased risk of suicide were previous depressive disorders (OR=3.03, 95% CI 2.06-4.46), previous suicide attempts (OR=4.09, 95% CI 2.79-6.01), drug misuse (OR=3.21, 95% CI 1.99-5.17), agitation or motor restlessness (OR=2.61, 95% CI 1.54-4.41), fear of mental disintegration (OR=12.1, 95% CI 1.89-81.3), poor adherence to treatment (OR=3.75, 95% CI 2.20-6.37) and recent loss (OR=4.03, 95% CI 1.37-11.8). Reduced risk was associated with hallucinations (OR=0.50, 95% CI 0.35-0.71). CONCLUSIONS: Prevention of suicide in schizophrenia is likely to result from treatment of affective symptoms, improving adherence to treatment, and maintaining special vigilance in patients with risk factors, especially after losses
Systematic reviews of diagnostic tests in cancer: review of methods and reporting
No full textObjectives To assess the methods and reporting of systematic reviews of diagnostic tests. Data sources Systematic searches of Medline, Embase, and five other databases identified reviews of tests used in patients with cancer. Of these, 89 satisfied our inclusion criteria of reporting accuracy of the test compared with a reference test, including an electronic search, and published since 1990. Review methods All reviews were assessed for methods and reporting of objectives, search strategy, participants, clinical setting, index and reference tests, study design, study results, graphs, meta-analysis, quality, bias, and procedures in the review. We assessed 25 randomly selected reviews in more detail. Results 75% (67) of the reviews stated inclusion criteria, 49% (44) tabulated characteristics of included studies, 40% (36) reported details of study design, 17% (15) reported on the clinical setting, 17% (15) reported on the severity of disease in participants, and 49% (44) reported on whether the tumours were primary, metastatic, or recurrent. Of the 25 reviews assessed in detail, 68% (17) stated the reference standard used in the review, 36% (9) reported the definition of a positive result for the index test, and 56% (14) reported sensitivity, specificity, and sample sizes for individual studies. Of the 89 reviews, 61% (54) attempted to formally synthesise results of the studies and 32% (29) reported formal assessments of study quality. Conclusions Reliability and relevance of current systematic reviews of diagnostic tests is compromised by poor reporting and review methods. <br/
Improved diagnostic evaluation of suspected tuberculosis
No full textBackground: The role of new T-cell–based blood tests for tuberculosis in the diagnosis of active tuberculosis is unclear.Objective: To compare the performance of 2 interferon-? assays and tuberculin skin testing in adults with suspected tuberculosis.Design: Prospective study conducted in routine practice.Setting: 2 urban hospitals in the United Kingdom.Patients: 389 adults, predominantly of South Asian and black ethnicity, with moderate to high clinical suspicion of active tuberculosis.Intervention: Tuberculin skin testing, the enzyme-linked immunospot assay (ELISpot) incorporating early secretory antigenic target-6 and culture filtrate protein-10 (standard ELISpot), and ELISpot incorporating a novel antigen, Rv3879c (ELISpotPLUS) were performed during diagnostic assessment by independent persons who were blinded to results of the other test.Measurements: Sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and likelihood ratios.Results: 194 patients had a final diagnosis of active tuberculosis, of which 79% were culture-confirmed. Sensitivity for culture confirmed and highly probable tuberculosis was 89% (95% CI, 84% to 93%) with ELISpotPLUS, 85% (CI, 79% to 90%) with standard ELISpot, 79% (CI, 72% to 85%) with 15-mm threshold tuberculin skin testing, and 83% (CI, 77% to 89%) with stratified thresholds of 15 and 10 mm in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients, respectively. The ELISpotPLUS assay was more sensitive than tuberculin skin testing with 15-mm cutoff points (P = 0.01) but not with stratified cutoff points (P = 0.10). The ELISpotPLUS assay had 4% higher diagnostic sensitivity than standard ELISpot (P = 0.02). Combined sensitivity of ELISpotPLUS and tuberculin skin testing was 99% (CI, 95% to 100%), conferring a negative likelihood ratio of 0.02 (CI, 0 to 0.06) when both test results were negative.Limitations: Local standards for tuberculin skin testing differed from others used internationally. The study sample included few immunosuppressed patients.Conclusion: The ELISpotPLUS assay is more sensitive than standard ELISpot and, when used in combination with tuberculin skin testing, enables rapid exclusion of active infection in patients with moderate to high pretest probability of tuberculosis
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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