1,720,962 research outputs found
Muscle wasting as an independent predictor of survival in patients with chronic heart failure
Background:
Skeletal muscle wasting is an extremely common feature in patients with heart failure, affecting approximately 20% of ambulatory patients with even higher values during acute decompensation. Its occurrence is associated with reduced exercise capacity, muscle strength, and quality of life. We sought to investigate if the presence of muscle wasting carries prognostic information.
Methods:
Two hundred sixty‐eight ambulatory patients with heart failure (age 67.1 ± 10.9 years, New York Heart Association class 2.3 ± 0.6, left ventricular ejection fraction 39 ± 13.3%, and 21% female) were prospectively enrolled as part of the Studies Investigating Co‐morbidities Aggravating Heart Failure. Muscle wasting as assessed using dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry was present in 47 patients (17.5%).
Results
During a mean follow‐up of 67.2 ± 28.02 months, 95 patients (35.4%) died from any cause. After adjusting for age, New York Heart Association class, left ventricular ejection fraction, creatinine, N‐terminal pro‐B‐type natriuretic peptide, and iron deficiency, muscle wasting remained an independent predictor of death (hazard ratio 1.80, 95% confidence interval 1.01–3.19, P = 0.04). This effect was more pronounced in patients with heart failure with reduced than in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
Conclusions:
Muscle wasting is an independent predictor of death in ambulatory patients with heart failure. Clinical trials are needed to identify treatment approaches to this co‐morbidity
Approximation of Baker domains and convergence of Julia sets.
Der Ziel dieser Arbeit ist der Hausdorff Konvergenz der Juliamengen zu beweisen, als wir eine Familie von ganzen transzendenten Funktionen, die ein einziges Bakergebiet enthalten, approximieren. Als erstes geben wir eine vollständige dynamische Beschreibung der approximierenden transzendenten Funktionen und zeigen die Existenz von invarianten Gebiete unter der Iterierte. Insbesondere besitzen die approximierenden Funktionen ein Attraktionsgebiet, das gegen das Bakergebiet als Kernel im Sinn von Carathéodory konvergiert. Letztlich beweisen wir Hausdorff Konvergenz auf zwei Wege. Einerseits zeigen wir unter bestimmten Bedingungen der Fatoumenge der Grenzfunktion die Hausdorff Konvergenz der Juliamengen. Anderseits zeigen wir unter verschiedenen Bedingungen der Fatoumenge der Grenzfunktion die Hausdorff Konvergenz der ausgefüllten Juliamengen, die bezüglich der Bakergebiet oder der Attraktionsgebiet definiert sind.The goal of this thesis is to prove the Hausdorff convergence of Julia sets as we approximate a family of transcendental entire functions featuring a unique Baker domain. At first, we give a dynamical description of the approximating transcendental functions and show the existence of invariant structures in the Fatou set under iterates. In particular, the approximating functions have a basin of attraction converging to the Baker domain as kernels in the sense of Carathéodory. Finally, we prove Hausdorff convergence in two different ways. On the one hand, given certain conditions on the Fatou set of the limit functions we obtain Hausdorff convergence of the Julia sets. On the other hand, using different conditions on the Fatou set we obtain convergence of the filled Julia sets, which are defined with respect to the Baker domains or the approximating basin of attraction
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
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
Variations on the Author
“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
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
Inpatient cardiology consultation for COVID-19: What are cardiologists' diagnostic approaches?
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
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
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