177,027 research outputs found

    Radiotherapy and Brachytherapy for Unresectable Cholangiocarcinoma

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    ABSTRACT Cholangiocarcinoma is a rare cancer arising from the bile ducts and carrying a poor prognosis. Radical surgery is the gold standard treatment and the only potential cure for this cancer but less than half of the tumours are resectable at the time of diagnosis. The role of radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy remains undefined due to the lack of randomized phase three trials. The only randomized study on chemoradiation versus chemotherapy was a phase II trial comparing chemotherapy (gemcitabine plus oxaliplatin) with chemoradiation (50 Gy plus concurrent 5-fluorouracil plus cisplatin) in locally advanced biliary tract cancer. Unfortunately, the trial was closed before completion due to slow recruitment. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy and/or chemoradiation can be used in patients with non-resectable disease in an attempt to downstage the tumour, palliate symptoms and extend survival. Further studies are needed to better define the role of radiotherapy in the setting of advanced biliary cancers

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We 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

    Stereotactic radiotherapy of pancreatic cancer: a systematic review on pain relief

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    Milly Buwenge,1 Gabriella Macchia,2 Alessandra Arcelli,1 Rezarta Frakulli,3 Lorenzo Fuccio,4 Sara Guerri,1 Elisa Grassi,1 Silvia Cammelli,1 Francesco Cellini,5 Alessio G Morganti1 1Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine – DIMES, University of Bologna, S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy; 2Radiation Oncology Unit, Research and Care Foundation “Giovanni Paolo II”, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Campobasso, Italy; 3Radiation Oncology Unit, Bellaria Hospital, Bologna, Italy; 4Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences – DIMEC, University of Bologna, S. Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Bologna, Italy; 5Department of Radiotherapy, “A. Gemelli” Hospital, Catholic University, Rome, Italy Abstract: Locally advanced pancreatic carcinoma (LAPC) has a poor prognosis and the purpose of treatment is survival prolongation and symptom palliation. Radiotherapy has been reported to reduce pain in LAPC. Stereotactic RT (SBRT) is considered as an emerging radiotherapy technique able to achieve high local control rates with acceptable toxicity. However, its role in pain palliation is not clear. To review the impact on pain relief with SBRT in LAPC patients, a literature search was performed on PubMed, Scopus, and Embase (January 2000–December 2017) for prospective and retrospective articles published in English. Fourteen studies (479 patients) reporting the effect of SBRT on pain relief were finally included in this analysis. SBRT was delivered with both standard and/or robotic linear accelerators. The median prescribed SBRT doses ranged from 16.5 to 45 Gy (median: 27.8 Gy), and the number of fractions ranged from 1 to 6 (median: 3.5). Twelve of the 14 studies reported the percentage of pain relief (in patients with pain at presentation) with a global overall response rate (complete and partial response) of 84.9% (95% CI, 75.8%–91.5%), with high heterogeneity (Q2 test: P<0.001; I2=83.63%). All studies reported toxicity data. Acute and late toxicity (grade ≥3) rates were 3.3%–18.0% and 6.0%–8.2%, respectively. Reported gastrointestinal side effects were duodenal obstruction/ulcer, small bowel obstruction, duodenal bleeding, hemorrhage, and gastric perforation. SBRT achieves pain relief in most patients with pancreatic cancer with an acceptable gastrointestinal toxicity rate. Further prospective studies are needed to define optimal dose/fractionation and the best systemic therapies modality integration to reduce toxicity and improve the palliative outcome. Finally, the quality of life and, particularly, pain control should be considered as an endpoint in all future trials on this emerging treatment technique. Keywords: radiotherapy, pancreatic neoplasms, systematic review, palliative, pai

    "Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"

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    Both spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

    Letter from R. R. Zellick, Assistant Trust Officer, Anglo California National Bank of San Francisco, to Joseph R. Goodman, October 2, 1942

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    Letter from R. R. Zellick, Assistant Trust Officer at The Anglo California National Bank of San Francisco, to Joseph R. Goodman, regarding property owned by Dave Tatsuno. Zellick mentions a dispute between current tenants and Tatsuno, and that Tatsuno has asked Goodman to help locate trustworthy tenants.Personal correspondence, organizational records, government documents, publications, and other papers created or collected by Joseph R. Goodman documenting the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, as well as organized resistance to incarceration. Included in the collection are records of the Japanese Young Men's Christian Association and the Japanese American Citizens' League in San Francisco, including papers of the Japanese YMCA's executive secretary Lincoln Kanai; Sakai family papers; Goodman's correspondence to and from Japanese American incarcerees, organizations opposing forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans, the War Relocation Authority, and others; publications, photographs, and ephemera from the Topaz Relocation Center, where Goodman taught high school; War Relocation Authority records and publications; and newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and reports about forced removal and incarceration created by various government, religious, and civic organizations, in California and nationwide

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We 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

    Radiotherapy of pancreatic cancer in older patients: A systematic review

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    Pancreatic cancer (PaC) will soon be one of the main causes of cancer mortality. Furthermore, its incidence is higher in the older population and radiotherapy (RT) represents a treatment option. The aim of this review was to evaluate feasibility and outcome of RT in older patients with PaC. A systematic literature review of patients aged ≥65 years with PaC treated with RT was performed using the PRISMA methodology. Eleven papers (1830 patients) fulfilled our inclusion criteria and were analyzed. RT was prescribed either alone or as an adjuvant treatment. Prescribed RT dose ranged from 22.0 to 70.0 Gy with conventional fractionation or hypo-fractionated schedule and delivered by three-dimensional conformal RT, intensity modulated RT or stereotactic body RT. Grade ≥ 3 acute and grade ≥ 2 late toxicity rates ranged between 0.0% and 52.6% (median: 0.5%) and between 0.0% and 15.0% (median: 0%), respectively. Median overall survival and two-year survival rate were 11.3 months (range: 6.4-69.0 months) and 49.0% (range 6.6-75.5%), respectively. RT in older patients seems to be tolerable and safe particularly in terms of late toxicity irrespective of the treatment settings. Therefore, RT can represent a treatment option in PaC even in an older population. Further analyses and prospective trials enrolling older patients are needed to better define the risk/benefit ratio in different treatment settings

    Liftings for noncomplete probability spaces

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    The current state of knowledge concerning liftings for noncomplete probability spaces is discussed. This is a somewhat expanded version of the author's talk given at the 1991 Summer Conference on General Topology and Applications in Honor of Mary Ellen Rudin and Her Work.PT: S; CR: BURKE MR, IN PRESS P AM MATH S BURKE MR, 1991, ISRAEL J MATH, V73, P33 BURKE MR, 1992, ISRAEL J MATH, V79, P289 CARLSON T, THEOREM LIFTING CHRISTENSEN JPR, 1974, TOPOLOGY BOREL STRUC FREMLIN DH, 1989, HDB BOOLEAN ALGEBRAS, P877 INOESCUTULCEA A, 1966, 5TH P BERK S MATH ST, V2 IONESCUTULCEA A, 1967, CONTRIBUTIONS PROB 1, P63 IONESCUTULCEA A, 1969, TOPICS THEORY LIFTIN JECH TJ, 1978, SET THEORY JOHNSON RA, 1980, P AM MATH SOC, V80, P234 JUST W, IN PRESS T AM MATH S KUPKA J, 1983, INDIANA U MATH J, V32, P717 LOSERT V, 1983, LNM, V1080, P95 MAHARAM D, 1958, P AM MATH SOC, V9, P987 SHELAH S, 1983, ISRAEL J MATH, V45, P90 TALAGRAND M, 1982, P AM MATH SOC, V84, P379 VONNEUMANN J, 1931, CRELLES J MATH, V165, P109; NR: 18; TC: 0; J9: ANN N Y ACAD SCI; PG: 4; GA: BZ86BSource type: Electronic(1

    Hansen, Lee (Lee R.). Union, non-union, and managerial pay plan state employees, 2008-2019

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    1 online resource (2 pages)"July 1, 2021."Provides the number of union and non-union state employees in each of the last 14 years. Also provides the number of state employees paid under the state's managerial pay plan during each of those years. Updates OLR research report 2019-R-011
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