1,721,001 research outputs found
Gout, urate-lowering drugs, and risk of cardiovascular disease: can we clinically trust in the adjusted real-life data?
No full textUric acid (UA) is the final product of purine metabolism and its increase in the circulating blood defines the presence of hyperuricaemia usually considered as a concentration of uric acid in serum above the threshold level of 7 mg/dL (416 μmol/L) in men and >6 mg/dL (357 μmol/L) in women.1 The typical consequence of elevated UA levels is the development of gout, a relatively common inflammatory arthritis affecting from 2% to 4% of the population with a significant increase in prevalence in patients with renal dysfunction as well as cardiac and metabolic diseases.
In addition to its effects at the articular level, there is mixed evidence to support gout (and hyperuricaemia) as independent risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD)
Nephrotic Range Proteinuria and Acute Heart Failure
No full textCase presentation: A 66-year-old woman with mild obesity, systemic hypertension and no history of previous treatment presented to our emergency department (ED) because of progressive exertional dyspnea and bilateral lower limbs swelling. At admission in the ED, arterial pressure was 188/86 mmHg, heart rate was 84 bpm and oxygen blood saturation was 96%. Physical examination confirmed bilateral symmetrical lower limbs pitting edema and bilateral rales at thoracic auscultation. Both laboratory and imaging findings were suggestive of acute decompensated heart failure (HF): BNP was 421 pg/mL and chest X-rays showed signs of congestion, mild pleural effusion and an enlarged cardiac shadow. Cardiac ultrasound revealed left ventricular concentric hypertrophy, mild left atrial enlargement and mild–moderate diastolic dysfunction (LVEF 60%, E/A 0.81, E/Eʹ 17, PAPS 30–40 mmHg). The patient was, thus, treated with intra-venous Furosemide and admitted to our Internal Medicine department with a diagnosis of “acute heart failure with preserved ejection fraction”
Diagnosi dell'infezione da Helicobacter pylori
No full textL’infezione da Helicobacter pylori interessa più della metà della popolazione mondiale ed è la principale causa di ulcera peptica, gastrite cronica e cancro gastrico. Test diagnostici accurati sono necessari per rilevare la presenza dell’infezione e determinare il corretto management pre- e post-eradicazione. Tutti i test utilizzati presentano differenti sensibilità e specificità, per questo motivo le Linee Guida Europee raccomandano l’utilizzo di almeno due test. Questi ultimi si dividono in invasivi (endoscopia con biopsia, relativo esame istologico, colturale e test rapido all’ureasi su campione bioptico) e non invasivi (urea breath test, test fecale e sierologia). L’utilizzo di metodiche invasive è limitato a pazienti selezionati, nei quali l’esame endoscopico si impone per la presenza di sintomi di allarme. Per diagnosticare l’infezione in maniera non invasiva, le uniche due metodiche che consentono di avere dei valori di sensibilità e specificità > 90% sono rappresentate dal 13C-urea breath test e dalla ricerca dell’antigene fecale con anticorpi monoclonali. Nuovi test diagnostici (come il dosaggio degli anticorpi urinari o la cosiddetta endoscopia chimica) potranno rappresentare promettenti metodiche alternative
Comparison of two technologies in 3D surveying of real estate assets and cultural heritage
No full textAccurate three-dimensional (3D) data from indoor spaces holds significant importance in various fields like real estate management, industrial archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Villa Maraffa complex, located near Ravenna (Italy), served as a case study for employing and comparing advanced technology and sensors in surveying these contexts. To acquire data, the sensors used were Matterport Pro 2 and Leica RTC360. The first one, mainly developed for real estate surveys, has been chosen because of the efficiency and cost-effectiveness in generating point clouds, although with lower precision compared to the Leica RTC360 Laser Scanner, the other sensor employed in this study. The focus of the paper is on assessing the point cloud's quality, with an analysis of the Matterport data, including global and specific evaluations. Potential issues like incomplete data and misalignment are identified by comparing coordinates from the Leica scanner. The results are examined to find an optimal solution for a prompt, precise, and well-timed survey, enabling a complete digital reconstruction of the object
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
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