1,720,965 research outputs found
The Paradox of the Low Prevalence of Current Smokers Among COVID-19 Patients Hospitalized in Nonintensive Care Wards: Results From an Italian Multicenter Case-Control Study
No full textIntroduction: COVID-19, a respiratory illness due to SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, was first described in December 2019 in Wuhan, rapidly evolving into a pandemic. Smoking increases the risk of respiratory infections; thus, cessation represents a huge opportunity for public health. However, there is scarce evidence about if and how smoking affects the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection.Methods: We performed an observational case-control study, assessing the single-day point prevalence of smoking among 218 COVID-19 adult patients hospitalized in seven Italian nonintensive care wards and in a control group of 243 patients admitted for other conditions to seven COVID-19-free general wards. We compared proportions for categorical variables by using the chi(2) test and performed univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses to identify the variables associated with the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19.Results: The percentages of current smokers (4.1% vs 16%, p= .00003) and never smokers (71.6% vs 56.8%, p = .0014) were significantly different between COVID-19 and non-COVID 19 patients. COVID-19 patients had lower mean age (69.5 vs 74.2 years, p= .00085) and were more frequently males (59.2% vs 44%, p = .0011). In the logistic regression analysis, current smokers were significantly less likely to be hospitalized for COVID-19 compared with nonsmokers (odds ratio = 0.23; 95% confidence interval, 0.11-0.48, p< .001), even after adjusting for age and gender (odds ratio = 0.14; 95% confidence interval, 0.06-0.31, p < .001).Conclusions: We reported an unexpectedly low prevalence of current smokers among COVID-19 patients hospitalized in nonintensive care wards.The meaning of these preliminary findings, which are in line with those currently emerging in literature, is unclear; they need to be confirmed by larger studies
Effect of iloprost on plasma asymmetric dimethylarginine and plasma and platelet serotonin in patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease
No full textBackground
Iloprost, a prostacyclin analogue, is used in the treatment of peripheral arterial occlusive disease at Leriche–Fontaine stages III–IV, through intravenous infusion for at least 21 days. Recently, iloprost has been shown to be safe and effective in critical limb ischemia patients when administered per 7 days. We investigated in patients at Leriche–Fontaine stages III–IV the effect of 1-week treatment with iloprost on plasma asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), plasma and platelet serotonin, and on clinical response.
Methods and results
Twenty-four critical limb ischemia patients (16 men and 8 women, mean age 76 ± 9.7 years) were included in the study and treated with intravenous iloprost (titrated from 0.5 up to 1.5 ng/kg/min) for 16 h a day for seven consecutive days. Blood samples were drawn before infusion on days 1, 4 and 8 of treatment, under the same conditions. Clinical assessment was performed by clinical evaluation, ankle/brachial pressure index and treadmill exercise test. During treatment with iloprost patients clinically improved and plasma levels of ADMA significantly decreased (p < 0.001). We also observed a significant increase of serotonin (p < 0.01) in platelets and a significant decrease of serotonin (p < 0.001) in plasma. Similar variations of ADMA and serotonin were found in two subgroups of patients, diabetics and non-diabetics.
Conclusions
One-week treatment with iloprost in critical limb ischemia patients induced changes of peripheral markers of endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis, such as ADMA and serotonin, associated to a clinical improvement
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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