121,776 research outputs found
Is Menstrual Dysphonia Associated with Greater Disability and Lower Quality of Life?
No full textObjectives The aim of the present study had been to examine the relationships between menstrual dysphonia and measures of psychosocial distress, in a sample of female professional voice users. Design and Methods This is a prospective study of 52 consecutive professional voice users, aged 18-40 years, affected by transient dysphonia related to the menstrual cycle and recruited in the Division of Phoniatrics and Audiology of the Second University of Naples, from April 2011 to September 2014. The following evaluation protocol was used: videoendoscopy, the GIRBAS scale, the Voice Handicap Index, and the determination of sexual hormonal plasma levels both during the menstrual and the luteal phase of the cycle. Furthermore, we measured, in all patients, the levels of perceived disability and quality of life during and after the dysphonia episodes by means of the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life and the Sheehan disability scale. Results Laryngoscopic evaluation revealed that only minor morphologic changes were present during the first days of the follicular phase, usually returning to normal morphology after the menstrual period was over. However, we found that dysphonia episodes of varying degree were present in most evaluated subjects; women with a moderate degree of dysphonia also had a lower quality of life and greater overall disability, during menses. Conclusions Despite minimal morphologic signs of laryngeal pathology, menstrual dysphonia might represent a disease which is frequent among female professional voice users, which in turn is associated with a certain degree of disability and lower quality of life during premenstrual and menstrual phases
IS MENSTRUAL DYSPHONIA ASSOCIATED WITH GREATER DISABILITY AND LOWER QUALITY OF LIFE?
No full textThe aim of the present study had been to examine the relationships between menstrual dysphonia and measures of psychosocial distress, in a sample of female professional voice users.
DESIGN AND METHODS:
This is a prospective study of 52 consecutive professional voice users, aged 18-40 years, affected by transient dysphonia related to the menstrual cycle and recruited in the Division of Phoniatrics and Audiology of the Second University of Naples, from April 2011 to September 2014. The following evaluation protocol was used: videoendoscopy, the GIRBAS scale, the Voice Handicap Index, and the determination of sexual hormonal plasma levels both during the menstrual and the luteal phase of the cycle. Furthermore, we measured, in all patients, the levels of perceived disability and quality of life during and after the dysphonia episodes by means of the Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life and the Sheehan disability scale.
RESULTS:
Laryngoscopic evaluation revealed that only minor morphologic changes were present during the first days of the follicular phase, usually returning to normal morphology after the menstrual period was over. However, we found that dysphonia episodes of varying degree were present in most evaluated subjects; women with a moderate degree of dysphonia also had a lower quality of life and greater overall disability, during menses.
CONCLUSIONS:
Despite minimal morphologic signs of laryngeal pathology, menstrual dysphonia might represent a disease which is frequent among female professional voice users, which in turn is associated with a certain degree of disability and lower quality of life during premenstrual and menstrual phases
Total thyroidectomy for differentiated thyroid cancer
No full textFrom March 1987 through March 1996, a total thyroidectomy ('IT) has been performed on 258 patients treated in our centre. Of them 39 TT have been performed on cancer patients (29 female, 10 male, mean age 66.5) 19
for papillary tumours, 9 for follicular carcinomas, 9 for mixed papillary follicular carcinomas, 1 for an indifferentiated cancer and 1 for a lymphoma.
By total thyroidectomy we mean a total extracapsular intervention. The morbidity rate for this intervention has been: I patient had a temporary recurrent nerve palsy, 2 patients had a transitory hypocalcemia, while only
one patient suffered from permanent hypoealcemia.
We support TT as the right approach in patients suffering from differentiated thyroid cancer for the following reasons:
i) In patients in whom a preoperative diagnosis of differentiated thyroid cancer has been clearly obtained, TT allows a good ontological radicality and an accurate surgical evaluation of neck lymph-nodes metastases. Moreover if
distant micrometastases are detected, postoperative radioactive iodine therapy may be successfully used.
ii) In patients with an unclear preoperative evaluation due to undetermined cytology or frozen section, for whom the literature reports a frequency of carcinoma ranging from 20 to 60%, TT avoids the need for a re-intervention
to remove additional thyroid tissue.
iii) In trained hands TT gives a low rate of complications that in addition to the advantages above explained makes this surgical approach to be preferred to less invasive interventions
10-year experience of total thyroidectomy with special reference to 85 thyroid cancers in one Italian centre.
No full textThe ideal surgical approach for differentiated thyroid carcinomas (DTC) is a matter for debate. Total (TT) or near total (NT) thyroidectomy on one side, and lobectomy (LL) or lobo-isthmusectomy (LI) on the other side are the options. Extended (TT, NT) resections are preferable for several reasons, and LL or LI are preferred by some groups. Our 10-year experience indicates that the post-operative complications percentage may be low enough to make TT the preferred surgical option
A Multi-Language Comparison of Influences on Author Verification using Character N-Grams
No full textWe create a new multi-language corpus for author verification based on Wikipedia talkpages, and evaluate the influence that differences in topic and time have on character n-gram author profiles. Topic alignment between two texts is found to increase author verification precision, and an authors writing style is found to change over time, but not more significantly after 3 years than after 1 year.Information ArchitectureWISElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
Hypocalcemia following thyroid surgery: incidence and risk factors. A longitudinal multicenter study comprising 2,631 patients.
No full textBackground
Postoperative hypocalcemia is the most frequent complication of total thyroidectomy. It may have a delayed onset, and therefore delays the discharge from the hospital,
requiring calcium replacement therapy to alleviate clinical symptoms.
Methods
During a 7-months period, 2631 consecutive patients undergoing primary or completion thyroidectomy were prospectively followed up and underwent analysis
regarding postoperative hypoparathyroidism. Data were prospectively collected by questionnaires from 39 Italian endocrine surgery units affiliated to the Italian Endocrine
Surgery Units Association (Club delle Unità di EndocrinoChirurgia - UEC), where thyroid surgery is routinely performed.
Results
The incidence of hypoparathyroidism was 28,8% (757 patients), including transient hypocalcemia (27,9%) and permanent hypocalcemia (0,9%). The rate of asymptomatic
hypocalcemia was 70,80%. The incidence of permanent hypocalcemia was higher in the symptomatic hypocalcemia group (7,5%) than in asymptomatic one (1,5%). Female
patients experienced a transient postoperative hypocalcemia more frequently than male patients (29.7% and 21.2% respectively; p <.0001). The percentage developing
hypocalcemia in patients in which parathyroid glands were intraoperatively identified and preserved was higher than in the patients in which the identification of parathyroid
glands was not achived (29,2% versus 18,7%, p<0.01).
Conclusions
This prospective study confirmed the main risk factors for postoperative hypocalcemia: thyroid cancer, nodal dissection and female gender. It farther showed that identifying
parathyroids has an important role to prevent permanent hypocalcemia though with a higher risk of transient hypocalcemia. In order to a proper information of patient this issues have to be addressed in a suitable informed consent
The vanishing author in computer-generated works: a critical analysis of recent Australian case law
No full textAbstract
The use of software is ubiquitous in the creation of many copyright works, yet the requirement in copyright law that every work have a human author who engages in independent intellectual effort means that its use may prevent copyright subsistence. Several recent Australian cases have refocused attention on authorship as an essential criterion of copyright subsistence, and these cases suggest that much computer-produced output may be authorless and thus lack copyright protection. This article, the first in a two-part series, analyses how each case deals with the question of authorship of computer-produced works and why the use of software diminishes copyright protection for a significant number of computer-generated works. The article critiques the application of conventional notions of human authorship developed in the pre-computer age to modern productions and suggests alternative approaches to authorship that satisfy both the major objectives of copyright policy and the need to adapt to the computer age. The article argues that, without a broader judicial approach to authorship of computer-generated works, Parliament must remedy the lacuna in protection for these ‘authorless’ works. Possible solutions for reform are suggested. In a forthcoming article, the author comprehensively examines those reform proposals
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