1,721,001 research outputs found
Embryo and fetal pathology in routine diagnostics : what has changed and what needs to be changed
No full textThe Authors have focused on the most important feto-neonatal and placental diseases in order to develop modern diagnostic tools which can meet the needs of clinicians (obstetricians, gynecologists, and neonatologists) for the best possible management of both the mother and the newborn. Although far from being operational instructions, it should be intended as a programmatic document providing a guideline on the issues that have cropped up in eight years of work of the APEFA group, as well as during several residential and practical classes. First of all, a synopsis is provided of the main issues concerning placental diagnosis in the newborn, as well as in case of fetal loss. A reasoned review is then provided of the main diagnostic criteria in placental pathology, in the light of therapeutical measures toward the mother (monitoring of future pregnancies) and the newborn (management of newborns at risk or with infectious disease). Legal issues in case of fetal distress at the end of pregnancy, neonatal damage and peripartum death have also been discussed with particular attention. Early and late miscarriages have also been separately examined, as well as fetal deaths. For each of these categories, a critical analysis is presented of current issues, followed by some considerations on the development of diagnostic methods and technology, and a modern diagnostic process is then outlined. Reference tables are also provided for diagnostic, auxological parameters, as well as on essential procedures. Issues concerning legal abortions and terminations of pregnancies have also been considered, with particular reference to tests and supplemental genetic and ultrasound examinations, diagnostic questions about malformations and forensic medicine assessments that are often involved with these specific categories. Malformations, fetal distress and growth retardation, sudden fetal and neonatal death, as well as embryo-pathology are all briefly dealt with also with synoptic tables. Diagnostic criteria are thus optimized and specially aimed at solving "human reproduction pathology" issues
Sudden Intrauterine Unexplained Death (SIUD) «Gray Zone» or borderline
No full textWe report a total of 9 fetuses (3 females and 6 males, ranging in age from 34 to 41 gestational weeks) that died suddenly and unexpectedly, and presented brainstem and cardiac conduction system lesions together with abnormalities of the fetal adnexa. A complete autopsy was performed in each case. Histological examination of the fetal adnexa disclosed the presence of chorioamnionitis (7 cases), an abnormally short umbilical cord (1 case), and placental infection by parvovirus (1 case). These lesions were associated with brainstem lesions, i.e., hypoplasia of the arcuate nucleus, inflammatory infiltrates in the brainstem, hypoplasia of the raphe obscurus nucleus, hypoplasia of the parabrachial Kölliker-Fuse complex, hypoplasia of the pre-Bötzinger complex, agenesis of the facial/parafacial complex, as well as conduction system lesions, i.e., dispersion or septation of the atrio-ventricular junction (9 cases), islands of the conduction system inside the central fibrous body (5 cases) resorptive degeneration (4 cases), cartilaginous meta-hyperplasia (2 cases), Mahaim fibers (1 case). The SIUD «gray zone» are hereby described as those cases in which the lesions of the fetal adnexa alone might not have accounted for the sudden deaths, had it not been for the concomitant presence of brainstem and cardiac conduction lesions. Our cases are consistent with the triple-risk model, a hypothesis introduced for SIDS postulating an underlying biological vulnerability to exogenous stressors or triggering factors in a critical developmental period
Studio preliminare delle mummie naturali di Ferentillo: esame istologico ed immunoistochimico della cute
No full textAbsolute shortness of the umbilical cord and hypoplasia of the arcuate nucleus and of the parabrachial/Kölliker-Fuse complex in a case of sudden intrauterine fetal death
No full textObjective – This work intends to describe a case of sudden unexplained late fetal death at 41+4 gestational weeks, following physiological pregnancy, in which alterations of fetal adnexa were observed in association with congenital alterations of brainstem nuclei.
Study design - The victim was subjected to in-depth anatomopathological examination, particularly of the central autonomic nervous system and of the placenta, following specific guidelines.
Results - The histopahological study of the brainstem revealed hypoplasia of the arcuate nucleus in the medulla oblongata and hypoplasia of the parabrachial/Kölliker-Fuse complex in the pons/mesencephalon. The macroscopic examination of fetal adnexa showed absolute shortness of the umbilical cord (length 30 cm, maximum diameter 1.7 cm, minimum diameter 1 cm).
Conclusion - The abnormally short umbilical cord observed in this case, although not enough to lead to sudden death, is likely to have triggered malignant effects, when coupled with severe developmental defects of the arcuate nucleus and of the parabrachial/Kölliker-Fuse comple
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
Chorioamnionitis and congenital abnormalities of the brainstem (arcuate nucleus and pre-Bötzinger complex hypoplasia) in a case of late unexplained stillbirth
No full textBackground: Fetal death (stillbirth), that occurs every 100-200 pregnancies in industrialized countries, has not significantly decreased in recent years, mostly because of scarce research activities in this field. Fetal death is often, in up to 60-80% of cases, unexplainable, even after routine diagnostic examinations.
Objectives: This work aims to stress the importance of in-depth histopathological investigations of both the autonomic nervous system and the placenta, in sudden fetal death.
Methods: In a case of late fetal death at 40+3 weeks of pregnancy an in-depth histopathological examination of the brainstem and of the placenta was performed.
Results: The case investigated in this work showed severe hypoplasia of the arcuate nucleus as well as of the reticular formation and particularly of the pre-Bötzinger complex. Pulmonary hypoplasia was also present, associated with a picture of severe (grade 3) chorioamnionitis, with inflammatory, mostly granulocytic, infiltrate, vasculitis of the umbilical vein and amniochorionic vessels.
Conclusions: The chorioamnionitis can allegedly contribute to stillbirth, through cytokine release, enhancing any chemoreceptor neuronal dysfunction
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
- …
