1,720,966 research outputs found
Do Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors Have A Role In Improving Cognitive Impairment In Patients With Schizophrenia?
No full textAt present, there are no really efficacious tools available to counteract cognitive deficits in patients with schizophrenia: even though new atypical antipsychotic drugs represent an advance compared with typical antipsychotic drugs, the results obtained with this class of drugs are actually partial. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) that have been proven to be effective on psychiatric symptoms, behavioural abnormalities and cognitive dysfunction of patients with dementia may be effective on cognitive deficit in patients with schizophrenia, and may also improve their psychopathology and behaviour. In the present paper we review the use of AChEIs in the treatment of schizophrenia. Although these AChEIs have different action mechanisms (donepezil only inhibits acetylcholinesterase; rivastigmine also inhibits butyryl-cholinesterase; galantamine also interacts with nicotinic acetylcholine receptors), they have similar clinical effects. We have observed no or mild effects on cognitive deficits and symptoms in double-blind studies, a dramatic effect on a patient's subjective well-being and ability to cope and subjective judgement of psychiatrists in the case reports and open studies. The question remains as to how we can accurately measure a patient's capacity to feel, to cope and his/her desire to live with other people - aspects very different from intelligence and cognitive function. Further double-blind placebo studies are required to determine the role of AChEIs in the improvement of quality of life for patients affected by schizophreni
Atypical antipsychotics: Drop-out as efficacy indicator
No full textIntroduction. The drop-out rate studies can be considered among the most reliable methods to estimate the effectiveness of drugs in everyday clinical practice. Aim. Estimation of effectiveness of the atypical antipsychotics through the study of drop-out rates; examination of the causes of drop-out and response predictors. Material and Method. The data concerning 793 patients who have benefited from the direct distribution of atypical antipsychotics at the Mental Health Department (DSM) of Massa Carrara from the 01/01/2000 to the 31/12/2002. Results. The data of 56 patients in treatment with clozapine, 339 with risperidone, 289 with olanzapine and 109 to you with quetiapine was examined. 40.9% of the patients have interrupted the treatment. The patients treated with quetiapine and clozapine have demonstrated the lowest drop-out rate. In patients treated with olanzapine, quetiapine and risperidone the onset age was lower in the drop-out group. The level of instruction was more elevated in the drop-out group of patients treated with olanzapine and risperidone. The bipolar patients continue the therapy with olanzapine and risperidone for longer, while quetiapine and clozapine result more effective in patients affected by disorders of schizophrenic spectrum. The percentage of ulterior interruptions of therapy for specific side-effects are similar in the four groups. Conclusions. The tallied differences, given the heterogeneity of the sample, the absence of standardized data collection systems, can only be sprones for hypotheses that need confirmation. Anyhow this research, carried out in authentic conditions, outside of the rigid protocols of the randomized clinical research, has supplied new information on profile of effectiveness and tolerability of atypical antipsychotics
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
- …
