124,784 research outputs found
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
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
Neonatal diseases severity scoring systems
No full textIllness severity scores have become widely used in neonatal intensive care. Primarily this has been to adjust the mortality observed in a particular hospital or population for the morbidity of their infants, and hence allow standardised comparisons to be performed. However, although risk correction has become relatively commonplace in relation to audit and research involving groups of infants, the use of such scores in giving prognostic information to parents, about their baby, has been much more limited. The strengths and weaknesses of the existing methods of disease severity correction in the newborn are presented in this review.</p
Antenatal umbilical Doppler abnormalities: an independent risk factor for early onset neonatal necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants
No full textBackground: necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is the most common gastrointestinal (GI) emergency seen in neonatal units. Many factors have been considered as potentially important aetiologically, including gut ischaemia, sepsis and feeding. However, evidence remains equivocal. Objective: this study investigated whether preterm babies born to mothers with abnormal antenatal umbilical Dopplers (absent or reversed end diastolic flow - AREDF), that is exposed to antenatal gut ischaemia, are at an identical risk of developing NEC early in life, compared to babies born to mothers with normal Dopplers. Methods: all preterm (≤32 + 6 week gestation) babies with no congenital anomaly, born to mothers resident in the county of Leicestershire in United Kingdom in 2001 and 2002 were identified using the Trent Neonatal Survey (TNS). Clinical data including the presence and severity of any NEC were extracted from the notes. Results: two hundred forty-three preterm babies who met the criteria were identified during the period. Babies in whom umbilical Dopplers were not available and babies that died in the first 48 h were excluded. Complete data was thus available for 206 of these babies. A strong relation between AREDF and subsequent development of NEC was noted in these babies (OR: 5.88, 95% CI: 2.41 to 14.34, p < 0.0001). This association still held after adjustment for gestational age at birth (OR: 7.64, 95% CI: 2.96 to 19.70, p < 0.0001) and after adjustment for birthweight for gestational age z-score (OR: 6.72, 95% CI: 2.23 to 20.25, p = 0.0007). Conclusions: this study, based on a neonatal cohort, indicates that AREDF is an important independent risk factor for the production of NEC.</p
Pragmatic Case Studies as a Source of Unity in Applied Psychology
No full textTo unify or not to unify applied psychology: that is the question. In this article we review pendulum swings in the historical efforts to answer this question—from a comprehensive, positivist, “top-down,” deductive yes between the 1930s and the early 60s, to a postmodern no since then. A rationale and proposal for a limited, “bottom-up,” inductive yes in applied psychology is then presented, employing a case-based paradigm that integrates both positivist and postmodern themes and components. This paradigm is labeled “pragmatic psychology” and, its specific use of case studies, the “Pragmatic Case Study Method” (“PCS Method”). We call for the creation of peer-reviewed journal-databases of pragmatic case studies as a foundational source of unifying applied knowledge in our discipline. As one example, the potential of the PCS Method for unifying different angles of theoretical regard is illustrated in an area of applied psychology, psychotherapy, via the case of Mrs. B. The article then turns to the broader historical and epistemological arguments for the unifying nature of the PCS Method in both applied and basic psychology.Peer reviewe
Dr. Edwin Wright Collection: Author Unknown
No full textNotes - The author relates several short stories about his neighbours including Alex McDonell, homesteading and life around Meanook and Athabasca (1 page
Socioeconomic inequalities in very preterm birth rates
No full textAims: To investigate the extent of socioeconomic inequalities in the incidence of very preterm birth over the past decade. Methods: Ecological study of all 549 618 births in the former Trent health region, UK, from 1 January 1994 to 31 December 2003. All singleton births of 22+0 to 32+6 weeks gestation (7 185 births) were identified from population surveys of neonatal services and stillbirths. Poisson regression was used to calculate incidence of very preterm birth (22-32 weeks) and extremely preterm birth (22-28 weeks) by year of birth and decile of deprivation (child poverty section of the Index of Multiple Deprivation). Results: Incidence of very preterm singleton birth rose from 11.9 per 1000 births in 1994 to 13.7 per 1000 births in 2003. Those from the most deprived decile were at nearly twice the risk of very preterm birth compared with those from the least deprived decile, with 16.4 per 1000 births in the most deprived decile compared with 8.5 per 1000 births in the least deprived decile (incidence rate ratio 1.94; 95% CI (1.73 to 2.17)). This deprivation gap remained unchanged throughout the 10-year period. The magnitude of socioeconomic inequalities was the same for extremely preterm births (22-28 weeks incidence rate ratio 1.94; 95% CI (1.62 to 2.32)). Conclusions: This large, unique dataset of very preterm births shows wide socio-economic inequalities that persist over time. These findings are likely to have consequences on the burden of long-term morbidity. Our research can assist future healthcare planning, the monitoring of socio-economic inequalities and the targeting of interventions in order to reduce this persistent deprivation gap.</p
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
Virulence and Evolutionary Ecology in the Entomopathogen Bacillus thuringiensis
No full textBacillus thuringiensis is an entomopathogen in the Bacillus cereus species group, and has been used as a biopesticide for over 50 years. Despite extensive use of B. thuringiensis, there remain questions over its specific ecology compared to other members of the B. cereus group which poses problems for its continued applied use. Tying entomopathogenic ecology to a specific clade within the B. cereus group will limit confusion between B. thuringiensis used in agriculture and more harmful strains. Better understanding of B. thuringiensis ecology can also be used to combat resistance in pest species through selective passaging. The ecology of B. thuringiensis was explored through competitions in Plutella xylostella (diamondback moth) larvae, which showed clade 2 B. thuringiensis have improved fitness in insects compared to clade 1 strains. Additionally, growth rates were compared in vitro, giving different thermal profiles for the two clades. Growth media preference was assessed for B. cereus group species with all favouring protein media over soil-based ones. Selective passaging explored the effects of relatedness and host background on virulence evolution. For relatedness, B. thuringiensis subsp. aizawai was passaged for five rounds in P. xylostella larvae with none, one or two bottlenecking events. These treatments failed to produce any increase in virulence. In the second, B. thuringiensis subsp. entomocidus was passaged either in Cry1Ac-resistant, Cry1Ac-susceptible, alternating rounds of each or coevolved P. xylostella, with all containing a mutagenesis step with ethyl methanesulfonate. Virulence increased in the resistant and coevolved treatments, confirming that resistance is best overcome by passaging in harder-to-kill hosts. The ecological and genetic distinctiveness of clade 2 B. thuringiensis suggests the species should be reclassified to solely this clade, which will limit safety concerns. Selective passaging can improve the virulence of strains, even if the underlying interactions are unknown; it can also provide insight into virulence evolution which would be lost when improving only at the protein level.Leverhulme Trus
Measurement of the ratio of branching fractions B(B0→K∗0γ )/B(B0s→φγ ) and the directCP asymmetry inB 0→K∗0γ
No full textThe ratio of branching fractions of the radiative B decays B0→K⁎0γ and B0s→ϕγ has been measured using an integrated luminosity of 1.0 fb−1 of pp collision data collected by the LHCb experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=7TeV. The value obtained is
B(B0→K⁎0γ)B(B0s→ϕγ)=1.23±0.06(stat.)±0.04(syst.)±0.10(fs/fd),
where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is the experimental systematic uncertainty and the third is associated with the ratio of fragmentation fractions fs/fd. Using the world average value for B(B0→K⁎0γ), the branching fraction B(B0s→ϕγ) is measured to be (3.5±0.4)×10−5.
The direct CP asymmetry in B0→K⁎0γ decays has also been measured with the same data and found to be
ACP(B0→K⁎0γ)=(0.8±1.7(stat.)±0.9(syst.))%.
Both measurements are the most precise to date and are in agreement with the previous experimental results and theoretical expectations
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