1,720,955 research outputs found
Un’intossicazione acuta da metadone: l’analisi metabolomica come strumento per l’identificazione del meccanismo della morte
No full textViene presentato il caso recentemente pubblicato1 della morte di un infante dell’età di 49 giorni, sospetto per una sindrome da morte improvvisa del lattante (SIDS). Il dato circostanziale e gli elementi oggettivi patologici macroscopici ed istopatologici erano coerenti con un'insufficienza respiratoria acuta e, pertanto, compatibili in astratto con una SIDS. Le analisi tossicologiche hanno rilevato nel sangue la presenza di metadone ad una concentrazione (570 ng/ml) compatibile con quelle descritte in letteratura nei casi mortali. Non essendo soddisfatta la criteriologia per la diagnosi di SIDS, la morte è stata quindi attribuita ad un’insufficienza respiratoria acuta secondaria ad un'intossicazione da metadone.
Oltre all'approccio tossicologico routinario, un campione urinario prelevato durante l’esame autoptico è stato studiato con un approccio metabolomico con piattaforma spettroscopica (1H NMR). Al fine di testare l’ipotesi che il metabolismo cellulare tende ad adattarsi alle diverse cause di ipossia/anossia in maniera similare, il profilo metabolomico identificato è stato confrontato mediante Analisi MultiVariata con una coorte rappresentata dai profili ottenuti da 10 neonati affetti da asfissia perinatale e da un gruppo di controllo di 16 neonati sani.
Il profilo metabolomico urinario del neonato intossicato da metadone ha presentato notevoli analogie con quello dei neonati con asfissia perinatale (giacendo in contiguità con questi nello spazio euclideo identificato dalla MVA) e, in particolare, con quel sotto cluster rappresentato dai tre neonati che erano deceduti nella prima settimana di vita e che quindi avevano subito l’insulto ipossico/anossico più grave nel peripartum.
Pur con l’evidente limitazione del singolo caso e del ristretto gruppo di controllo, i risultati ottenuti offrono importanti indicazioni su un possibile squilibrio metabolico condiviso tra i diversi meccanismi di asfissia/ipossia. Al meglio della conoscenza degli autori, questo è il primo caso pubblicato in letteratura specialistica internazionale dell'utilizzo di un approccio metabolomico in un caso patologico forense, in cui l’analisi traslazionale proposta offre informazioni addizionali riguardo al meccanismo della morte rispetto alle metodiche routinarie.
1 Chighine A, Porcu M, Ferino G, Lenigno N, Trignano C, d'Aloja E, Locci E. Infant urinary metabolomic profile in a fatal acute methadone intoxication. Int J Legal Med. 2022 Mar;136(2):569-575. doi: 10.1007/s00414-021-02772-z
COMMOTIO CORDIS. DESCRIZIONE DI UN CASO E REVISIONE DELLA LETTERATURA
No full textDescrizione di un caso e revisione della letteratura
La concussione cardiaca, nota anche come commotio cordis, è un’entità relativamente
rara, frequente soprattutto nei bambini e negli adolescenti, causata da
un brusco ed improvviso colpo in regione toracica che altera la normale attività
elettrica del cuore e che provoca una fibrillazione ventricolare e/o una morte improvvisa,
in assenza di segni lesivi rilevanti a carico delle strutture scheletriche
viscerali ed in particolare assenza di pregresse alterazioni cardiache anatomiche
e strutturali. Gli Autori descrivono il caso di un bambino, di 19 mesi, caduto da
un terrazzino dopo averne scavalcato o attraversato la ringhiera, da un’altezza di
metri 3,42, sottesa tra il bordo superiore della ringhiera medesima ed il piano di
impatto. Il quadro anatomo-istopatologico osservato nel caso di specie, unitamente
ai dati del sopralluogo criminalistico, portavano a ricostruire la dinamica
dell’evento come conseguente allo scavalcamento da parte del bimbo della ringhiera
sovrastante un parapetto che lo stesso era riuscito a scalare grazie alla presenza
di intermedi punti d’appoggio, precipitando cosí nel vuoto per 3,42 m. L’impatto
avveniva con l’emisoma sn. Nessuna frattura o versamento emorragico significativo
veniva reperito all’esame autoptico, né lesioni viscerali tali da giustificare
il decesso, se non –attraverso un criterio di esclusione – quello di una commotio
cordis. Evento ben noto e segnalato in letteratura, caratterizzato da una assoluta
negatività e significatività dei reperti anatomo-isto-patologici
Infant urinary metabolomic profile in a fatal acute methadone intoxication
Full text linkA case report suspicious for a Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is here described. Pathological findings were consistent with an acute respiratory failure while toxicological analysis revealed an elevated blood methadone concentration. Death was then ascribed to an acute methadone intoxication. In addition to the routinary approach, the urinary sample collected at autopsy was investigated with a 1H NMR metabolomic approach and the identified metabolomic profile was challenged with the urinary metabolomic profiles previously obtained from 10 newborns who experienced perinatal asphyxia and 16 healthy control newborns. Intriguingly, the urinary profile of the methadone intoxicated infant was very similar to those belonging to the perinatal asphyxia newborns, especially to those belonging to the newborns characterised by the worst outcome. The results offer several hints on a shared metabolic derangement between different mechanisms of asphyxia/hypoxia. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first report of the use of a metabolomic approach in a pathological case, in which metabolomics offers useful additional information regarding the mechanism and the cause of death
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
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