1,721,052 research outputs found
Polypharmacy and Nutraceuticals in veterans: 1 partners in crime?
No full textMulti-morbidity and resulting polypharmacy are very common in veterans and represent a clinical patient safety issue. In fact, if on one hand a suitable polypharmacy can extend life expectancy and maintain the quality of life, on the other hand it can be associated with a high probability of prescribing a potentially detrimental drug. The most worrisome consequence of polypharmacy is the occurrence of therapeutic failures, adverse drug withdrawal events and drug-drug interactions. Despite the efficacy of herbal preparations and nutraceuticals remains controversial, users who are in favor of personal health control often have strong beliefs that herbal preparations and dietary supplements are natural and with fewer side effects. Actually, US data indicate that potential interactions can occur in case of co-administration of drugs and herbal/nutritional supplements or mineral-fortified foods and fruit juices. Veterans who receive primary care in the Veterans Affairs health system have a high burden of chronic disease, with a high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and clinical risk factors, such as obesity. Facilitating healthy diets, physical activity and weight management in the veteran population is an important public health challenge. Although the Mediterranean Pyramid could be the basis for integrative medicine for veterans with disabilities, patient-centred and interprofessional approaches (including physical medicine and rehabilitation clinicians, pharmacologists and nutritionists) and interventions are needed in order to prevent malnutrition, self-prescription of CAM and food-drug and/or nutraceutical-drug interactions and to achieve optional rehabilitation
Micronucleus test for radiation biodosimetry in mass casualty events: Evaluation of visual and automated scoring
No full textIn the case of a large-scale nuclear or radiological incidents a reliable estimate of dose is an essential tool for providing timely assessment of radiation exposure and for making life-saving medical decisions. Cytogenetics is considered as the "gold standard" for biodosimetry. The dicentric analysis (DA) represents the most specific cytogenetic bioassay. The micronucleus test (MN) applied in interphase in peripheral lymphocytes is an alternative and simpler approach. A dose-effect calibration curve for the MN frequency in peripheral lymphocytes from 27 adult donors was established after in vitro irradiation at a dose range 0.15-8 Gy of 137Cs gamma rays (dose rate 6 Gy min-1). Dose prediction by visual scoring in a dose-blinded study (0.15-4.0 Gy) revealed a high level of accuracy (R = 0.89). The scoring of MN is time consuming and requires adequate skills and expertise. Automated image analysis is a feasible approach allowing to reduce the time and to increase the accuracy of the dose estimation decreasing the variability due to subjective evaluation. A good correlation (R = 0.705) between visual and automated scoring with visual correction was observed over the dose range 0-2 Gy. Almost perfect discrimination power for exposure to 1-2 Gy, and a satisfactory power for 0.6 Gy were detected. This threshold level can be considered sufficient for identification of sub lethally exposed individuals by automated CBMN assay. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
Lab on a chip genotyping for <it>Brucella </it>spp. based on 15-loci multi locus VNTR analysis
No full textAbstract Background Brucellosis is an important zoonosis caused by the genus Brucella. In addition Brucella represents potential biological warfare agents due to the high contagious rates for humans and animals. Therefore, the strain typing epidemiological tool may be crucial for tracing back source of infection in outbreaks and discriminating naturally occurring outbreaks versus bioterroristic event. A Multiple Locus Variable-number tandem repeats (VNTR) Analysis (MLVA) assay based on 15 polymorphic markers was previously described. The obtained MLVA band profiles may be resolved by techniques ranging from low cost manual agarose gels to the more expensive capillary electrophoresis sequencing. In this paper a rapid, accurate and reproducible system, based on the Lab on a chip technology was set up for Brucella spp. genotyping. Results Seventeen DNA samples of Brucella strains isolated in Sicily, previously genotyped, and twelve DNA samples, provided by MLVA Brucella VNTR ring trial, were analyzed by MLVA-15 on Agilent 2100. The DNA fragment sizes produced by Agilent, compared with those expected, showed discrepancies; therefore, in order to assign the correct alleles to the Agilent DNA fragment sizes, a conversion table was produced. In order to validate the system twelve unknown DNA samples were analyzed by this method obtaining a full concordance with the VNTR ring trial results. Conclusion In this paper we described a rapid and specific detection method for the characterization of Brucella isolates. The comparison of the MLVA typing data produced by Agilent system with the data obtained by standard sequencing or ethidium bromide slab gel electrophoresis showed a general concordance of the results. Therefore this platform represents a fair compromise among costs, speed and specificity compared to any conventional molecular typing technique.</p
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
Spontaneous immunogenicity of ribosomal P0 protein in patients with benign and malignant breast lesions and delay of mammary tumor growth in P0-vaccinated mice
No full textA common carboxyl-terminal epitope (C-22 P0) of the ribosomal P proteins (P0, P1 and P2) was shown to elicit autoantibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and in head and neck cancer patients. In this report we provide evidence for the in vivo immunogenicity of the P0 protein in breast cancer patients. Using recombinant P proteins, we demonstrated that sera from breast carcinoma patients (8/75) displayed significant reactivity to P0 protein when compared with healthy donor sera (0/45). Four out of the eight sera showed simultaneous reactivity to all P proteins. Breast benign tumor (3/17) and mammary hyperplasia (3/17) patient sera also showed significant reactivity to P proteins, thus suggesting that the occurrence of P protein autoantibodies might reveal mammary cell cycle dysregulation. Patient sera reacting with all P proteins recognized C-22 P0. Anti-P0 autoantibodies did not correlate with prognostic parameters of breast carcinomas. High level expression of C-22 P0 was found in mammary carcinomas compared with normal adjacent epithelium and benign lesions. To determine the antitumor activity of P0 as an immunogen, BALB-neuT transgenic mice displaying age-related breast cancer progression were vaccinated using xenogeneic P0 at the stage of mammary atypical hyperplasia. P0 vaccination significantly delayed the onset of mouse mammary tumors that overexpressed C-22 P0. Sera from P0 vaccinated mice recognized C-22 P0. Evidence for immunity to the P0 protein, its overexpression in carcinomas and its peculiar surface localization on cancer cells, along with its antitumor activity as an immunogen might be relevant for the use of P0 protein in monitoring cancer progression and in planning immunotherapeutic strategies. © 2010 Japanese Cancer Association
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
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