1,721,046 research outputs found
Does intensive follow-up of lung cancer patients improve survival?: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textWhat is the best way to follow-up lung cancer patients? Findings from a systematic review and the development of a new model of care
No full textBackground: The burden of illness is high for lung cancer patients, carers and society. Follow-up interventions may be able to support patients living with lung cancer and improve survival. The aim of this review was to examine the evidence for the effectiveness of intensive follow-up of patients with lung cancer. This review is the first step in the development of a new model of service delivery for lung cancer patients utilising the Medical Research Council (UK) guidance for the development of complex interventions.
Material and Methods: Data sources: English language observational studies and randomised clinical trials (RCTs) were retrieved from electronic databases (Ovid Medline, Embase, PsychINFO, CINAHL, British Nursing
Index, Cochrane Library and National Research Register). If there was more than one study with like populations, interventions and outcomes, the relevant data were statistically synthesised. Time to event data were
synthesised using hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals.
Results: Nine studies that examined the role of intensive follow-up for lung cancer patients were included in the review (eight observational studies and one RCT). This meta-analysis shows that there is a trend for intensive
follow-up to improve survival in patients with lung cancer, although this result is not statistically significant for the curative treatment intent group
(HR 0.82, CI 0.64−1.05) or the palliative treatment group (HR 0.69, CI 0.46−1.04). There is a statistically significant difference in survival for patients with potentially resectable NSCLC with asymptomatic recurrence
(HR 0.59, CI 0.48−0.72), although this is complicated by lead time bias.
Conclusion: There is no evidence that intensive follow-up of lung cancer patients improves survival compared to standard or less intensive follow-up. However, because this finding is based on observational studies with potential for bias, further evidence, ideally from RCTs, is needed. The review identified limited reporting of patient centered outcomes. Further research is required to explore patient-centered outcomes of follow-up such as quality of life and satisfaction. The second phase of this research is underway exploring patients', professionals' and carers' views of follow-up care to develop an intervention that can be tested in a clinical trial. The findings of this review will be discussed in the context of this ongoing research and the development of a new nurse led intervention for the follow-up of lung cancer patients
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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