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Traditional acupuncture does not modulate the endothelial dysfunction induced by mental stress
No full textAcupuncture is a useful tool to treat many diseases, including cardiovascular disorders, but its modulation of stress-related responses is still debated. Aim of this study was to estimate whether the traditional Chinese acupuncture affected the transient impairment of the brachial artery flow-mediated dilation (FMD) produced by acute mental stress. In addition, since a high susceptibility to hypnosis attenuates the endothelial dysfunction elicited by mental calculation, the possible interaction between acupuncture and hypnotizability was investigated. Five low-to-medium and five medium-to-high hypnotizable healthy subjects joined two experimental sessions, for real and sham acupuncture. FMD and heart rate were measured in three conditions: baseline (PRE), after the real or sham acupuncture (ACU) and after mental calculation (MS). Needles were inserted into specific acupoints for real acupuncture and into non-acupoints, corresponding to the same spinal segment, for sham acupuncture. Results showed that the stress-related endothelial dysfunction was not modulated by acupuncture, but influenced by hypnotizability. In fact, highly hypnotizable subjects did not present any dysfunction, at variance with non-susceptible individuals that exhibited the expected stress-related FMD reduction (Mean +/- SD; PRE, 12.10 +/- 2.59; ACU, 10.73 +/- 3.45; MS, 6.48 +/- 1.72). Thus, hypnotizability appears more effective than acupuncture in contrasting the stress effects on the endothelial function. In conclusion, our study indicates the importance of patients' psychological evaluation in order to choose proper relaxation techniques and to evaluate therapeutic results and the necessity to integrate the alternative medicine practice with scientific research
Does hypnotizability modulate the stress-related endothelial dysfunction?
No full textPrevious studies suggest that hypnotizability represents a protective factor against the cardiac effects of cognitive stress and that hypnosis
prevents vascular stress-induced modifications in highly hypnotizable individuals. The aim of the experiment was to investigate whether a
similar effect at vascular level is present in awake subjects with a high (Highs) and a low (Lows) hypnotic susceptibility. Thus, brachial
artery post-ischaemic flow-mediated vascular dilation (FMD) was evaluated non-invasively by ultrasound methodology during cognitive
stress (mental computation) in Highs and Lows. Results showed that Highs, similarly to that previously observed in hypnotized Highs and in
contrast with Lows, did not exhibit any stress-related endothelial dysfunction (FMD decrement). Thus, hypnotizability should be considered
a protective factor against vascular disease
B-lines quantify the lung water content: A lung ultrasound versus lung gravimetry study in acute lung injury
No full textB-lines (also termed ultrasound lung comets) obtained with lung ultrasound detect experimental acute lung injury (ALI) very early and before hemogasanalytic changes, with a simple, noninvasive, nonionizing and real-time method. Our aim was to estimate the correlation between B-lines number and the wet/dry ratio of the lung tissue, measured by gravimetry, in an experimental model of ALI.Seventeen Na-pentobarbital anesthetized, cannulated (central vein and carotid artery) minipigs were studied: five sham-operated animals served as controls and, in 12 animals, ALI was induced by injection of oleic acid (0.1 mL/kg) via the central venous catheter. B-lines were measured by echographic scanner in four predetermined chest scanning sites in each animal. At the end of each experiment, both lungs were dissected, weighed and dried to determine wet/dry weight ratio by gravimetry. After the injection of oleic acid, B-lines number increased over time. A significant correlation was found between the wet/dry ratio and B-lines number (r = 0.91, p < 0.001). These data suggest that in an experimental pig model of ALI/ARDS, B-lines assessed by lung ultrasound provide a simple, semiquantitative, noninvasive index of lung water accumulation, strongly correlated to invasive gravimetric assessment. © 2010 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology
Hypnotic modulation of flow-mediated endothelial response to mental stress
No full textPost-ischaemic flow mediated dilation of peripheral arteries (FMD) is transiently reduced during mental stress. This
experiment was aimed at assessing whether hypnosis, which is a powerful relaxation technique, modulated the FMD response
to mental stress in subjects with different hypnotic susceptibility. Results showed that hypnotic relaxation prevented the expected stress-related reduction of FMD only in highly hypnotizable subjects, suggesting a protective role of hypnotisability against vascular damage
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
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