1,720,958 research outputs found
Longterm clinical outcomes in 420 patients with psoriatic arthritis taking anti-tumor necrosis factor drugs in real-world settings
Full text linkObjective.An observational study to evaluate the longterm clinical outcomes of adalimumab (ADA), etanercept (ETN), and infliximab (IFX) in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA), in real-world settings. Methods. From a prospective cohort we studied 420 biologic-naive patients with PsA who had peripheral arthritis and were beginning a treatment with ADA, ETN, or IFX. Drug survival was evaluated by Kaplan-Meier life analysis, and baseline predictors of drug discontinuation were assessed by Cox regression analysis. The frequency of concomitant glucocorticoids and the daily mean dosage were compared by chi-square test and ANOVA repeated measures across 4 years. Results. After 4 years the overall survival of the first anti-tumor necrosis factor-a (anti-TNF) was 51.0%, but significantly higher for ETN (58.9%) than ADA (43.9%) or IFX (44.0%; p = 0.003). Patients taking ETN also had the lowest HR of drug discontinuation (HR 0.57, 95% CI 0.34-0.93, p = 0.02). The strongest predictor of drug interruption was female sex (HR 2.02, 95% CI 1.28-3.20, p = 0.002). The disease duration was inversely correlated with drug discontinuation (HR 0.96, 95% CI 0.93-0.99, p = 0.02). The average daily dose of prednisone significantly decreased from baseline: 5.6 ± 2.5 to 4.7 ± 1.9 at 1 year (p = 0.01) to 4.0 ± 1.8 at 4 years (p = 0.001). Additionally, compared to baseline (49.6%), a significant reduction of patients taking glucocorticoids was detected at 2 years (36.5%, p < 0.05), 3 years (29.9%, p < 0.01), and 4 years (22.6%, p < 0.01). Conclusion. In real-world settings, TNF inhibitors showed a high rate of drug survival at 4 years. Further, the need for glucocorticoids for controlling active PsA was lowered with time
Two-year survival rates of anti-TNF-α therapy in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with either polyarticular or oligoarticular PsA
No full textObjectives: To evaluate the 2-year drug survival rates of the tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha blockers adalimumab, etanercept, and infliximab in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients with either oligoarticular (oligo-PsA) or polyarticular PsA (poly-PsA).
Method: We studied a prospective cohort of 328 PsA patients with peripheral arthritis (213 with poly-PsA and 115 with oligo-PsA), beginning their first ever anti-TNF-alpha treatment with adalimumab, etanercept, or infliximab. The aim of the study was to evaluate the drug survival rates and possible baseline predictors at 2 years.
Results: After 24 months, persistence in therapy with the first anti-TNF-alpha blocker was not statistically different in the oligo-PsA (70.4%) and poly-PsA (65.7%) subsets. Predictors of drug discontinuation were female sex [hazard ratio (HR) 1.63, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00-2.68, p = 0.04] and starting the therapy in years 2003-8 (HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.330.80, p = 0.003). In poly-PsA, the persistence of etanercept (68.3%) was significantly higher than that of adalimumab (51.9%, p = 0.01), whereas in oligo-PsA no significant difference was detected. In poly-PsA, the period 2003-8 was a negative predictor (HR 0.36, 95% CI 0.21-0.62, p = 0.0001) whereas in oligo-PsA female gender was a positive predictor of drug discontinuation (HR 2.08, 95% CI 1.02-4.24, p = 0.04). With regard to clinical outcomes, the best responses in terms of European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) 'good' response or Disease Activity Score (DAS28) remission, crude or adjusted according to the LUND Efficacy indeX (LUNDEX), were seen in patients on etanercept or infliximab.
Conclusions: Our study provides some evidence that anti-TNF-alpha drugs may perform differently in PsA, and that the analysis of clinical disease subsets may improve our knowledge and promote better management of PsA
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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