1,720,992 research outputs found
CURRENT TRENDS IN CARDIAC SURGERY: CLINICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE TREATMENT OF MEDIASTINITIS WITH STERNAL WOUND INFECTION THROUGH NEGATIVE PRESSURE THERAPY
Full text linkIntroduction: During the last decades, a general amelioration of clinical outcomes has been reported because of the evolution
of cardiac surgery techniques. However, infective complications as mediastinitis still represent a major problem in terms of morbidity and mortality in cardiac surgery, with severe suffering of the patient. Furthermore, the incidence of this complication has remained stable over the last three decades and this condition also determines a significant prolongation of hospitalization with an increase in costs. The procedures used for the treatment of mediastinitis have undergone deep modifications over the years but, in despite of these improvements, mortality has remained high. Over the last years, the negative pressure therapy (ie the Vacuum Assisted Closure-Therapy) is taking over all the other treatments.
Materials and method: From January 2010 to December 2015, at University of Bari Cardiac Surgery Center have been performed
3123 median sternotomy for cardiac surgery. Deep sternal wound infection occurred in 35 patients (1.1207%). In all of these
patients was performed vacuum therapy.
Results: The duration of vacuum treatment was 14.4 ± 6.7days. Inflammatory indexes showed a marked decline. At the end of
vacuum therapy, in some cases, the reconstruction of the wound was carried out with plastic reconstruction by means of a pectoral flap. No deaths for mediastinitis were recorded, neither any relapse or treatment-related complication. Hospital stay was 30.4 ± 13.5 days from the beginning of treatment.
Conclusion: The results obtained in our center with vacuum therapy are much more better than those obtained with classic procedures used in the past. Based on our experience and from analysis of literature, vacuum therapy should be the procedure of choice for the treatment of post-sternotomy mediastinitis. Furthermore, this approach has shown satisfactory results in terms of hospital stay time and costs
Erratum: Man, A., et al. Antimicrobial Activity of Six Essential Oils Against a Group of Human Pathogens: A Comparative Study. Pathogens 2019, 8, 15
Full text linkThe authors would like to make the following corrections to the published paper [...]
Health Threats From Contamination of Spices Commercialized In Romania: Risks of Fungal And Bacterial Infections
No full textThe study of fungal contamination in food and mycotoxicoses is a priority today, both internationally and nationally. The purpose of this study is to have a general view over the quality of the most common spices that are sold in Romanian markets, by assessing the degree of fungal, bacterial and mycotoxin contamination in pepper and chili powders. Methods: we tested four types of spices: white pepper, black pepper, sweet and hot chili powders from 12 different distributing companies, summing a total of 35 sample types. The fungal and bacterial load was assessed by Standard Plate Count, while the mycotoxin content by High-performance liquid chromatography. Environmental conditions (humidity, pH) and the selling price for each product were also followed. Results: Fungi were observed in 72.7% of black pepper samples, 33.3% in white pepper, 30% in sweet chili and 25% in hot chili products. The most common isolated fungus was Aspergillus spp., while Rhizopus, Mucor, Fusarium, Penicillium, Absidia species were found, in smaller percent. Four producers (44.4%) presented fungal contamination of over 10 3 CFU/g and two producers (22.2%) presented no fungal contamination in their products. Bacterial contamination was found in 85.7% of the tested products, consisting mostly in Bacillus spp. Aflatoxin B1 was present in all the tested products, mostly in black pepper (mean value 126.3 ng/g); Ochratoxin A was present in sweet chili (mean value 328 ng/g) and Zearalenone in hot chili (mean value 604 ng/g) and sweet chili (mean value 382 ng/g). Conclusions: all spices presented either fungal contamination, mycotoxin contamination, or both. The high humidity and the high pH of spices represent favorable conditions for fungal growth. The selling price was partly related to the physic-chemical conditions and microbiological quality of the spices
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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