1,721,053 research outputs found
Survey and audit of the standard of care of diabetic patients in the community of east Dorset
No full textResults: 51 practices in East Dorset were approached about this project. 45 (88%) agreed to complete the structure questionnaire. Of these, 37 (i.e. 72.5% of the original 51) agreed to a practice visit. A total of 3974 diabetic patients' notes were reviewed, out of 4130 diabetics identified. Overall prevalence of diabetes was 1.61%. 14.2% of patients were over 80. Male: female ratio was 1.2:1, overall. Average duration of the disease was about 9 years, at the time of review. The structure questionnaire showed deficiencies in audit facilities, particularly; also in the completeness of diabetic registers, and in the use of optometrists and chiropodists. Process criteria analysis, (for GP follow-up patients only), showed that, within the last 13 months, 44% of patients had a record of a full eye examination, 25% a serum cholesterol measurement, 50% smoking status, and 57% some foot inspection. Over 75% of patients had their glycaemic control (blood glucose, HbA1c/fructosamine) and their blood pressure measured. Outcome criteria analysis was done for all diabetic patients, including those under hospital follow-up. This showed that, in those patients in which the measurement has been done, average HbA1c was 8.07%, any degree of retinopathy to be present in 17.3%, hypertension in 27%, and hypercholesterolaemia in 33%. Tests for statistical association, at a practice level, showed evidence of an association between the presence of a detailed diabetic register and some process criteria, but not with any outcome criteria. Practices with higher percentages of process measurements done were not statistically associated with better average outcome.These results compare well with other published surveys of diabetic care. Nonetheless, there are some follow-up criteria that need special attention, (e.g. control of blood pressure and cholesterol). There is a lack of correlation between the highly organised practices and better outcome criteria.</p
Association between dementia and infectious disease: evidence from a case-control study
No full textInflammation plays a part in the etiology of dementia. Whether this is the primary pathogenesis, or a secondary reaction is unclear. We postulate that since systemic infection can provoke the enhanced synthesis of inflammatory mediators in the brain, such diseases may promote the onset of dementia.We carried out a nested case-control study using the General Practice Research Database. Cases were patients with incident dementia, and controls without such a diagnosis. Infectious episodes in the four years preceding diagnosis were counted using diagnostic codes, or prescription codes for anti-infective drugs. We considered age, sex, smoking, diabetes mellitus, and frequency of consultation as potential confounders.There were 9954 valid cases, and 9374 valid controls. Cases were on average older, more likely to be female, to smoke and to have diabetes, than the controls. There was an increased risk of diagnosis of dementia in those patients older than 84 with infections (OR for 2 or more infections compared with 0 or 1 = 1.4, 95% CI 1.2 to 1.7). Smoking and diabetes mellitus were also shown to markedly increase the risk of diagnosis of dementia.We have shown a positive association between episodes of infection and increased likelihood of diagnosis of dementia in the very elderly. Smoking and diabetes mellitus are associated with onset of dementia in the elderly. The evidence from this study may represent cause and effect, since there is a credible biologic explanation
Cardiovascular Problems
No full textCardiovascular Problems is just one of the titles from the Oxford General Practice Library. This unique series of pocketbooks provides GPs with comprehensive coverage of specific topics in general practice which are linked directly to the requirements of the new GP Contract, and explains how GPs can maximize their salaries. For each book in this groundbreaking series, the authors have expanded on a major section from the bestselling Oxford Handbook of General Practice , adding a host of useful feature
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
Figure 4 in Elasmobranch diversity across a remote coral reef atoll revealed through environmental DNA metabarcoding
No full textFigure 4. Venn diagram showing the overlap of shark species detected in previous UVC and BRUVS surveys in the MPA and the eDNA samples from around Diego Garcia analysed in this study.Published as part of Dunn, Nicholas, Savolainen, Vincent, Weber, Sam, Andrzejaczek, Samantha, Carbone, Chris & Curnick, David, 2022, Elasmobranch diversity across a remote coral reef atoll revealed through environmental DNA metabarcoding, pp. 593-607 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 196 (2) on page 602, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlac014, http://zenodo.org/record/718444
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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