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Cancer expected relative survival in Italian regions and provinces: comparison between regional and provincial models based on socio-economic variables and health resources
No full textINTRODUCTION -The ISES Working Group built models for calculating regional and provincial expected relative survival in Italy using demographic, socio-economic and health resources variables (SEH).
OBJECTIVES - The aim is to compare the contents of provincial and regional SERTS models in terms of variables which influence the expected relative survival for the main considered cancer sites and to validate the results.
MATERIALS AND METHODS - The 5-years relative survival (RS-5%) of 1995-1999 patients’ cohorts was considered for all
cancers (but non melanoma skin cancers) and the most levant sites (e.g. colon-rectum, prostate, breast). The SEH are collected at the regional and provincial levels for 1995-2005 period. The principal components factor analysis on SEH extracted two groups of factors, used in multiple linear regression models to compute expected RS-5% at the regional and provincial levels.
RESULTS - The extraction of two groups of factors (composed by different SEH) developed the 86% of variance at the egional level and the 73% at the provincial one. The two groups have produced two sets of regression factorial models for each of the considered cancer sites at both geographical levels. The models present good correlations, particularly for all cancers and colon-rectum, stomach, lung, kidney and NHL in both sexes, prostate in men and breast, cervix and melanoma in women. The models allow the calculation of expected RS-5% very similar to the observed RS-5% of the same area. The homogeneity between provincial expected RS-5% and the one of the same region seems to validate the results. The comparison between the observed and expected provincial survival in the regions completely covered by CRs (Veneto, Friuli Venezia-Giulia, Romagna, Umbria) will be the next validation step.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS - The differences in the groups of factors express the different role in deciding of the regional and provincial administrative levels in allocating and using resources for diagnosis and treatment. The calculation of expected RS-5% seems to produce encouraging results and can explain the differences in outcome and the characteristics of resources management, allowing the calculation even in those areas where no CR works
Use of SERTS (Socio-Economic, health Resources and Technologic Supplies) models to estimate cancer survival at provincial geographical level.
No full textAbstract
AIM: The main aim of this work is to compute expected cancer survival for Italian provinces by Socio-Economic and health Resources and Technologic Supplies (SERTS) models, based on demographic, socioeconomic variables and information describing the health care system (SEH).
METHODS: Five-year age-standardised relative survival rates by gender for 11 cancer sites and all cancers combined of patients diagnosed in 1995-1999, were obtained from the Italian Association of Cancer Registries (CRs) database. The SEH variables describe at provincial level macro-economy, demography, labour market, health resources in 1995-2005. A principal components factor analysis was applied to the SEH variables to control their strong mutual correlation. For every considered cancer site, linear regression models were estimated considering the 5-RS% as dependent variable and the principal components factors of the SEH variables as independent variables.
RESULTS: The model composition was correlated to the characteristics of take in charge of patients. SEH factors were correlated with the observed survival for all cancer combined and colon-rectum in both sexes, prostate, kidney and non Hodgkin's lymphomas in men, breast, corpus uteri and melanoma in women (R(2) from 40% to 85%). In the provinces without any CR the survival was very similar with that of neighbouring provinces with analogous social, economic and health characteristics.
CONCLUSIONS: The SERTS models allowed us to interpret the survival outcome of oncologic patients with respect to the role of the socio-economic and health related system characteristics, stressing how the peculiarities of the take in charge at the province level could address the decisions regarding the allocation of resources
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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