1,721,009 research outputs found
Natalizumab in spinal multiple sclerosis in a daily clinical setting
No full textObjective: We aimed to investigate the influence of natalizumab (NTZ) treatment on multiple sclerosis course in patients with and without spinal involvement.Methods: Annualized relapse rate (ARR), disability progression and occurrence of new brain and spinal T2 lesions (N2TL) in 68 spinal (S-P) versus 68 non-spinal matched patients (NS-P) were retrospectively collected and compared between before (2 years) and after NTZ treatment using multivariate regression models.Results: Mean duration of NTZ treatment was 31.3 ± 16.3 months in S-P and 32.1 ± 15.1 months in N-SP (p = 0.56). The mean ARR after NTZ treatment was similarly reduced in both S-P (0.07 ± 0.19) and N-SP (0.07 ± 0.16) (p < 0.001 for both). Disability progression after NTZ start was similarly low in S-P and NS-P. However, when compared to before NTZ start, disability progression was significantly reduced in S-P (p = 0.017), but not in NS-P (p = 0.68). This was largely mediated by a higher disability progression before NTZ start in S-P than N-SP. The risk of developing N2TL during NTZ was not different between S-P and NS-P (p = 0.10).Conclusions: NTZ similarly reduced the occurrence of relapses and NT2L in S-P and NS-P, whereas the effect on disability progression was particularly evident in the presence of spinal involvement. NTZ appears to be a treatment of high efficacy in both S-P and NS-P
Monitoring of safety and effectiveness of cladribine in multiple sclerosis patients over 50 years
No full textClinical trial data regarding efficacy and safety of cladribine in MS are limited to young individuals, and the overall risk-benefit profile does not necessarily applies to elderly patients. We investigated effectiveness and safety outcomes in MS patients initiating cladribine at ≥50 years (n=35) and <50 years (n=62), over a median follow-up of 12.4 months. There were no differences in time to evidence of disease activity (HR=0.73, 95%CI=0.18-2.91, p=0.657), post-treatment lymphocyte counts (β=0.24, p=0.825) or occurrence of adverse events (OR=0.84, 95%CI=0.24-2.93, p=0.791) between age groups. Female sex and greater disability were associated with higher risk of adverse events (especially infections). These limited data do not suggest safety concerns regarding use of cladribine in elderly MS
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
Adherence to Medication in Neurogeriatric Patients: Insights from the NeuroGerAd Study
Full text linkNonadherence to medication is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs, especially in older adults with higher chances of multimorbidity. However, comprehensive data on factors influencing adherence in this patient group are rare. Thus, data for 910 patients were acquired, including demographic data, nonadherence (Stendal Adherence to Medication), depression (Beck Depression Inventory), cognition (Montreal Cognitive Assessment), personality (Big Five Inventory), satisfaction with healthcare (Health Care Climate Questionnaire), quality of life (36-item Short Form Survey), mobility, diagnoses, and medication. Elastic net regularization was used to analyze the predictors of adherence. Principal component and general estimation equations were calculated to analyze the underlying patterns of adherence. Only 21.1% of patients were fully adherent. Nonadherence was associated with male gender, higher number of medications, diagnosis, depression, poor patient–physician relationship, personality, impaired cognition, and impaired mobility. Nonadherence was classified into three sub-factors: forgetting (46.2%), missing knowledge about medication (29%), and intentional modification of medication (24.8%). While depression exerted the strongest influence on modification, a high number of medications was associated with missing knowledge. The different patterns of nonadherence (i.e., modification, missing knowledge, and forgetting) are influenced differently by clinical factors, indicating that specific approaches are needed for interventions targeting adherence
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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