1,721,012 research outputs found
Contrast media in cardiovascular magnetic resonance
No full textAmong the available imaging techniques. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is gaining an increasing role in the cardiologic setting because its specific properties such as the use of non ionising energies, the natural strong contrast between different tissues, the absence of spatial limitations, the good spatial and temporal resolution, the reduced operator dependency. To further improve the images quality and the histopathologic characterisation of tissues the use of contrast media (molecules containing gadolinium, manganese, iron, dysprosium ions) has been proposed both in the experimental and in the clinical settings. Among these ions gadolinium, which having 7 odd electrons in the external orbit has a strong magnetic momentum, is the most used. Gadolinium by itself is extremely toxic but once it is linked with a chelanting agent such as DTPA (Dietilen-Triamin-Penta-Acetic acid) the resulting complex shows a very low toxicity. The number of Gadolinium based compound is growing together with the use of contrast agents in MRI. These contrast agents are routinely used to perform Magnetic Resonance Angiography (MRA) and to a better definition of several cardiac diseases such as the presence of a intra- or paracardiac mass, the evaluation of myocardial perfusion and the evaluation of viability. Both the latter applications have relevant clinical implications. In fact the assessment of myocardial perfusion is one of the most used approach for detecting inducible myocardial ischemia due to major coronary artery disease or to assess the presence of a microvascular disease. The presence and the extent of viable myocardium is deeply modifying the clinical decision making as this viable tissue can recruit a normal function spontaneously or after revascularisation. Furthermore, the extent of viable myocardium has a strong correlation with negative prognosis. Clinical events are also time related to the detection of viable tissue. These evidences imply that the diagnostic procedure needs the highest level of accuracy. Either in the case of myocardial perfusion and in that of myocardial viability the advantages of MRI with respect to the others techniques are the use of non ionising radiations, the superior spatial resolution, an overall cost/beriefit favourable ratio which explains the growing interest among cardiologists toward this new diagnostic tool. © 2005 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd
Evaluation of left ventricular diastolic function with a dedicated cadmium-zinc-telluride cardiac camera: Comparison with Doppler echocardiography
No full textAims: To evaluate the relationships between measures of left ventricular (LV) filling dynamics at cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) imaging and indexes of LV diastolic function at transthoracic echocardiography. Methods and results: Two hundred and forty-seven patients underwent myocardial perfusion imaging at rest and after stress with a low-dose CZT protocol and a baseline transthoracic echocardiography study. All patients were submitted to invasive or computed coronary angiography. The peak filling rate (PFR) and the time to PFR (TPFR) were derived from gated CZT images as measures of LV filling dynamics. LV diastolic function was also evaluated at echocardiography and the presence of significantly increased LV filling pressures determined. Increased LV filling pressures at transthoracic echocardiography were evident in 103 (42%) patients. Interestingly, independently from the presence of coronary artery disease, therewasa strict correlation between the presence and severity of LV diastolic dysfunction at echocardiography and CZT-derived measures of filling dynamics, i.e. PFR (P = 0.001) and TPFR (P = 0.001). At receiving operating characteristic analysis, a composite index of reduced PFR (≤2.11 end-diastolic volumes -1) and increased TPFR (>234 ms) showed a sensitivity of 84% and a specificity of 67% in unmasking the presence of elevated LV filling pressures at echocardiography. Conclusions: CZT-derived measures of LV filling dynamics correlate with echocardiographic parameters of diastolic function and may identify the presence of increased LV filling pressures. © The Author 2014
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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