1,721,043 research outputs found
Understanding unmet need and addressing access to eye health services in Aotearoa New Zealand
No full textBackground
The leading causes of vision impairment have effective interventions, but differential access to eye health services mean some population groups experience worse eye health. Inequity in eye health has historically received little attention in New Zealand.
Aim
The overarching aim was to assess vision impairment and access to eye health services in New Zealand.
Methods
Four complementary mixed-methods studies were undertaken. First, a systematic scoping review summarised the extent of evidence on vision impairment and access to eye health services in New Zealand. The remaining studies were within a project that provided cost-subsidised eye examinations and treatment to adults from an underserved community. The second study explored eye health and previous eye health service use of this cohort. The third evaluated the impact of spectacle correction on vision related quality of life at three and 12-months after spectacle correction. Lastly, a qualitative study explored barriers and facilitators of accessing eye care.
Results
The scoping review highlighted that most evidence on access to eye health services in New Zealand focused on cataract or diabetic retinopathy, with Māori and Pacific people consistently underserved; few studies focused on uncorrected refractive error. A total of 242 adults (63% female, median age 64 years) participated in the community-based study (60% Pacific people, 25% Māori), most of whom had distance or near vision impairment and half of whom (53%) reported never previously accessing optometry care. Most vision impairment was caused by uncorrected refractive error (85%), yet three-quarters of participants reported never having had custom-made spectacles (73%). Among the 207 people dispensed spectacles, quality of life was significantly higher at three-months, and this was maintained at 12-months. Cost was a major barrier to accessing eye care, while patient-provider communication was an important facilitator.
Conclusion
Ethnic disparity in access to eye care is evident in New Zealand. This research uncovered considerable unmet need for refractive error correction in an underserved community, largely due to prohibitive cost of seeking care, while correcting this refractive error significantly improved quality of life. Equity-focused strategies are required to achieve universal health coverage for eye health, including financial protection for those unable to access eye care
Computational study for temperature distribution in ArF excimer laser corneal refractive surgeries using different beam delivery techniques
No full text4 figures.Refractive errors are the most common causes of vision impairment worldwide and laser refractive surgery is one of the most frequently performed ocular surgeries. Clinical studies have reported that approximately 10.5% of patients need an additional procedure after the surgery. The major complications of laser surgery are over/under correction and dry eye. An increase in temperature may be a cause for these complications. The purpose of this study was to estimate the increase in temperature during laser refractive surgery and its relationship with the complications observed for different surgical techniques. In this paper, a finite element model was applied to investigate the temperature distribution of the cornea when subjected to ArF excimer laser at a single spot using various beam delivery systems (broad beam, scanning slit, and flying spot). The Pennes bio-heat equation was used to predict the temperature values at different laser pulse energies and frequencies. The maximum temperature increase by ArF laser (500Hz frequency and 0.5J pulse energy) at a single spot was 33.94∘C,15.86∘C,12.48∘C for 6 diopter correction (65.4μm of ablation of corneal stroma) using broad beam, scanning slit, and flying spot beam delivery approaches respectively. The peak temperature due to a single pulse was estimated to be 234.14∘C. Although the peak temperature (sufficient energy to break intermolecular bonds) exists for a very short time (10−30ns) compared to the thermal relaxation time (2000−10,000μs), there is some thermal energy exchange between corneal tissues during a laser refractive surgery. Heating may cause collagen denaturation, collagen shrinkage, and more evaporation and hence proposed to be a risk factor for over/under correction and dry eye.Peer reviewe
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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