130,650 research outputs found
Evidence update on prevention of surgical site infection
No full textPurpose of review: surgical site infection (SSI) is a common health care associated infection and complicates up to 10-20% of operations with considerable health care resources. Apart from the widely adopted use of appropriate hair removal, antibiotic prophylaxis, avoidance of hypothermia and peri-operative glycaemic control to reduce SSIs this review has considered new research and systematic reviews, and whether their findings should be included in guidelines.
Recent findings: The efficacy of preoperative bathing/showering, antibiotic prophylaxis for clean surgery and perioperative oxygen supplementation to reduce the risk of SSI is still in doubt. By contrast, the use of 2% chlorhexidine in alcohol skin preparation, postoperative negative pressure wound therapy and antiseptic surgical dressings do show promise. Antimicrobial sutures in independent meta-analyses were found to reduce the risk of SSI after all classes of surgery (except dirty) whereas the use of wound guards, or diathermy skin incision (compared with scalpel incision), did not.
Summary: The incidence of SSI after surgery is not falling. Based on this review of published trials and evidence-based systematic reviews some advances might be included into these care bundles. More research is needed together with improved compliance with care bundles
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
Growth factors and interactive dressings in wound repair
No full textThe work of Winter in the 1960s established the concept of ‘moist wound healing. This principle has contributed to the development of the plethora of products that are currently available, among which are hydrogels, hydrocolloids, alginates, and foams or films. Some of these products also incorporate antiseptics in their delivery systems.
However, it has become evident that ‘moist wound healing’ along may not be sufficient to improve wound healing outcomes. This is because each wound type can have different barriers to healing. Closure of surgical wounds is inhibited by poor perfusion and infection. Delay in healing of a chronic wound, can result from pressure, venous hypertension, poorly controlled diabetes, inadequacy of arterial inflow, vasculitis, repeated trauma or failure to debride necrotic tissue
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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
Scholarly Communication and Publishing Lunch and Learn Talk #11: The ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund
No full textAt the May 2014 talk, you will learn about the ULS Open Access Author Fee Fund--what it is, why we do it, how it works, and how the program is going so far
The R&D Tax Incentives
No full textThis article sets out some background information and reflections of the author on the R&D tax incentive schemes included in the Common Corporate Tax Base (CCTB) Proposal. In particular the author analyzes the stimulus to private R&D through ad hoc tax incentives included in the CCTB Proposal and dives into the actual provisions included in the Proposal highlighting the most relevant issues connected with their design and interpretation. Moreover, the author explores the interaction between the CCTB Proposal and the granting by Member States of domestic R&D tax incentives
Women Are More Likely Than Men to Use Tentative Language, Aren’t They? A Meta-Analysis Testing for Gender Differences and Moderators
No full text Robin Lakoff proposed that women are more likely than men to use tentative speech forms (e.g., hedges, qualifiers/disclaimers, tag questions, intensifiers). Based on conflicting results from research testing Lakoff’s claims, a meta-analysis of studies testing gender differences in tentative language was conducted. The sample included 29 studies with 39 independent samples and a combined total sample of 3,502 participants. Results revealed a statistically significant but small effect size ( d = .23), indicating that women were somewhat more likely than men to use tentative speech. In addition, methodological moderators (operational definition, observation length, recording method, author gender, and year of study) and contextual moderators (gender composition, familiarity, student status, group size, conversational activity, and physical setting) were tested. Effect sizes were significantly larger in studies that (a) observed longer (vs. shorter) conversations, (b) sampled undergraduates (vs. other adults), (c) observed groups (vs. dyads), and (d) occurred in research labs (vs. other settings). The moderator effects are interpreted as supporting proposals that women's greater likelihood of tentative language reflects interpersonal sensitivity rather than a lack of assertiveness. In addition, the influence of self-presentation concerns in the enactment of gender-typed behavior is discussed. </jats:p
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