1,720,959 research outputs found
A Conceptual Framework Encompassing the Psychoneuroimmunoendocrinological Influences of Listening to Music in Patients With Heart Failure
No full textPatients with heart failure have been traditionally treated with a pharmacology-based approach, diet, exercise, and rehabilitation for reducing symptoms, hospitalizations, and mortality. We have developed a solid conceptual framework for music listening-based protocols, showing how music may have a broad range of positive effects on cardiovascular health through psychoneuroimmunoendocrinological pathways
A randomized controlled trial of listening to recorded music for heart failure patients. Study protocol
No full textAims. To describe a conceptual framework and to test the effectiveness of a recorded music-listening protocol on symptom burden and quality of life in heart failure (HF) patients. Background. Heart failure is an important public health problem. Many HF patients experience symptoms burden and poor quality of life, even with current improvements in pharmacological treatments. Recorded music listening has been shown to improve outcomes in cardiovascular patients, but it has never been tested on HF patients and with a specific music protocol and a randomized controlled trial methodology. Methods. This study is a multicenter blinded randomized controlled trial that will involve 150 patients. Eligible patients will have a diagnosis of HF, in New York Heart Association functional classification of I to III, and will be recruited from 3 large hospitals in Northern Italy. Patients will be randomly allocated in a 1:1 ratio to receive recorded music-listening intervention with or without standard care for 3 months. Data will be collected at baseline and at the end of the first, second, and third month during the intervention, and at 6 months for follow-up. The following variables will be collected from HF patients with validated protocols: quality of life (primary endpoint), use of emergency services, rehospitalization rates, all cause mortality, self-care, somatic symptoms, quality of sleep, anxiety and depression symptoms, and cognitive function. Discussion. This study will examine the effect of recorded music listening on HF patients and will inform clinical practice. If the findings are found to be positive, the protocol could be used as a tool for evidence-based applications of recorded music in HF patients. The framework developed in this study may be helpful for future research focused on the effects of music in HF patients
The effects of recombinant human growth hormone on skin, muscle and nerve
Full text linkThis study has investigated the mechanism of growth hormone (GH) action in the skin and its innervation as well as in skeletal muscle. Two main issues have been addressed: (1) To what extent are GH effects on extrahepatic targets the result of direct actions of this hormone, or, indirect effects mediated by local production of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I)? (2) Can GH, acting either directly or indirectly, be regarded as a key mediator of neurotrophic functions? These issues have been examined using three approaches: i) Muscle biopsies were taken from adult growth hormone-deficient patients before and after six to twelve months of recombinant human growth hormone (r-hGH) treatment, as part of a double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial. These patients exhibit reductions in muscle bulk and strength which can be reversed with r-hGH treatment. Muscle fibre types and fibre size were examined by light microscopy for an influence of r-hGH therapy. IGF-I message was localised to muscle fibre cytoplasm and fibre-type specific mRNA was quantified by combined non-radioactive in situ hybridisation with computerised image analysis. Circulating IGF-I levels were also assayed, making it possible to compare morphological changes in muscle fibre size with changes in circulating and muscle-derived IGF-I. The results obtained are consistent with a direct effect of GH on skeletal muscle resulting in generation of IGF-I by the muscle fibres. However, the influence of circulating IGF-I could not be dismissed from this scheme. ii) The innervation, morphology and function of eccrine sweat glands was examined in GH-deficient subjects who display reduced sweating, in patients with acromegaly (a GH hypersecretory state with excessive sweating) and in control subjects. Pilocarpine iontophoresis sweat tests were used to assess changes in sweating. An increase in the cholinergic innervation accompanied restoration of sweat rates in r-hGH treated subjects, whilst acromegalics displayed hypertrophy of sweat glands and elevated sweat gland innervation. These data imply an effect of GH on the sweat glands with repercussions for their innervation. A GH-mediated influence on neurotrophic support to the sweat gland nerves can thus be envisaged. iii) Aged rats were utilised to investigate direct effects of r-hGH administration in the vicinity of the footpad eccrine sweat glands, with the aim of minimising the confounding influence of serum IGF-I. Ageing is a state of relative GH deficiency and sweat glands are believed to be targets for GH action. Further aged rats display reductions in sweat gland size and innervation. An immunohistochemical method was utilised to stain for nerves and neurotrophin receptor sites around sweat glands. Due to injection-induced inflammatory effects, the results from this study were not clear, aside from an increase in sweat gland acinar size on r-hGH administration and the demonstration of parallel alterations in neurotrophin receptor expression and periacinar nerve density. These results allow the hypothesis of a direct effect of GH on target tissues to be advanced, resulting in local generation of IGF-I and, perhaps, of other target-derived neurotrophic factors
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
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