1,720,964 research outputs found
Clinical Management Of Crohn's Disease In The Elderly
No full textINTRODUCTION: Crohn's Disease (CD) occurs in the elderly in 5 - 25% of cases. Aim of our study: to define the features of clinical presentation, diagnostic tools and therapy of CD in old age.
METHODS: In the last ten years we observed in our Department 47 patients affected by CD. We divided them into two groups: A (42 patients < 65 years old) and B (5 patients ≥ 65 years old). A retrospective survey evaluated the clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatments with relative outcomes.
RESULTS: Group A: 23/42 patients (54,76%) were operated on. The most important indication for surgery was intestinal obstruction (15/42 pts, 65,2%). Small bowel resection was the most frequent surgical procedure (13/42 pts, 56,2%). Overall, 2/23 (8,7%) of the patients developed postoperative complications. There was no postoperative mortality. 8 pts (34,7 %) developed recrudescence of CD. Group B: 3 of 5 pts were operated on. Intestinal obstruction was the indication for surgery in all cases (100%). Two patients underwent small bowel resection (66,6%) and the third patient was submitted to an ileo-colic resection (33,3%). There was no mortality in the aftermath of surgery. In 2/3 operated patients (66,6%) recurrence occurred. All operations in the old patients were performed in urgency.
CONCLUSIONS: Surgery of CD in the elderly appears in our experience to have the same indications and procedures as in young patients. The postoperative morbidity, mortality and recurrence rates are similar in two groups even if we observed slightly higher postoperative morbidity rates in elderly due to the presence of comorbidity
Tyre parameter identification from road tests on a complete vehicle
No full textVehicle manufacturers notice a difference between the tyre behaviour observed in road tests with a complete vehicle and the behaviour of the tyre as provided by the tyre manufacturers. To improve the tyre characterization and avoid appointing its behaviour each time using trial-and-error, Centro Ricerche Fiat requests the development of an application that can identify the tyre parameters consistently and automatically. This thesis describes the process of developing the TyreEstimator, the application written for the identification of the tyre parameters. The application is built to minimize the difference between the vehicle model data and the experimental data using an optimization algorithm. Two vehicle models are implemented to identify the tyre parameters. The tyre behaviour is described using the Magic Formula tyre model. Due to the sensitivity of the optimization problem, the application is constructed to cope with different options for finding the tyre parameters. Afterwards an empirical analysis, using the TyreEstimator, is performed. This results in an option set for each vehicle model, which approaches the tyre behaviour best.Precision and Microsystems EngineeringMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
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
Is primary surgery for locally advanced/metastatic breast cancer a better choice than chemotherapic treatment?
No full textINTRODUCTION:
A part of the literature supports the undoubtful advantage of neoadjuvant chemotherapy on the overall survival and for the possibility of surgical conservative treatment in locally advanced tumours after downstaging. Other authors report that primitive tumour's surgical removal at first, improves survival in cases with locally advanced /metastatic disease. The advantages were improvement of patient's health status, removal of a reservoir of neoplastic cell neoangiogenic cytokines and growth factors,and cytoreduction.
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
Aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness on the survival of a primary surgical treatment of the locally advanced tumours comparing two homogeneous groups. In the first group (GROUP 1) 40 patients were enrolled with stage III A, III B,IV tumours and were treated with primary surgery. The second group (GROUP 2) was made up of 40 patients with similar stage treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The surgical treatment had the intention to remove the entire primary tumour.
RESULTS:
After a median follow up of 48,2 months,22,5 % of GROUP 1 died and 30 % of GROUP 2. The average survival of patients in GROUP 1 was 27,1 months while in GROUP 2 there was an average survival of 16,8 months.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion surgical treatment plays a key role in the treatment of advanced/metastatic disease and is an independent factor associated with survival
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
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