1,720,988 research outputs found
Comparison of employment among people with Multiple Sclerosis across Europe
No full textBACKGROUND: People with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS) suffer from an increased risk of unemployment during the course of the disease. In recent years progress has been made in increasing the time until patients have to leave the workforce permanently. Such a retirement is often associated with MS but the driving factors including disability progression, support measures at the workplace, and societal aspects are not yet fully understood. METHODS: We consolidated data from four European MS databases from Germany, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, which were able to provide data on working status, disability progression and quality of life in accordance with the data harmonization framework of the EUReMS (European Registry in Multiple Sclerosis) project. RESULTS: Factors strongly associated with unemployment are disability progression, low quality of life and being close to the statutory retirement age. Overall, highest employment rate (77%) and lowest effects of gender and disease duration were found in Sweden. CONCLUSIONS: We found remarkable differences between the European registers and the countries studied, which may indicate inequalities at European level. Furthermore, our findings suggest that it is feasible and useful to combine data from different MS registers in Europe, albeit the data structures are heterogeneous
Patient-reported outcomes in multiple sclerosis: a prospective registry cohort study
Full text linkRegistries have the potential to tackle some of the current limitations in determining the longterm impact of multiple sclerosis (MS). Online assessments using patient-reported outcomes
(PROs) can streamline follow-up enabling large-scale, long-term, cost-effective, home-based,
and patient-focused data collection. However, registry data are sparsely sampled and the
sensitivity of PROs relative to clinician-reported scales is unknown, making it hard to fully
leverage their unique scope and scale to derive insights.
This retrospective and prospective cohort study over 11 years involved 15,976 patients with
multiple sclerosis from the United Kingdom Multiples Sclerosis Register. Primary outcomes
were changes in two PROs: Multiple Sclerosis Impact Scale (MSIS-29) motor component, and
Multiple Sclerosis Walking Scale (MSWS-12). First, we investigated their validity in
measuring the impact of physical disability in multiple sclerosis, by looking at their sensitivity
to disease subtype and duration. We grouped the available records (91,351 for MSIS-29 and
68,092 for MSWS-12) by these two factors, and statistically compared the resulting groups
using a novel approach based on Monte Carlo permutation analysis that was designed to cope
with the intrinsic sparsity of registry data. Next, we used the PROs to draw novel insights into
the developmental time course of subtypes; in particular, the period preceding the transition
from relapsing to progressive forms.
We report a robust main effect of disease subtype on the PROs and interactions of disease
subtype with duration (all p<0.0001). Specifically, PROs worsen with disease duration for all
subtypes (all p<0.0001) apart from Benign MS (MSIS-29 motor: p=0.796; MSWS-12:
p=0.983). Furthermore, the PROs of each subtype are statistically different from those of the
other subtypes at all time bins (MSIS-29 motor: all p<0.05; MSWS-12: all p<0.01) except
when comparing Relapsing Remitting MS with Benign MS and Primary Progressive MS with
Secondary Progressive MS. Notably, there were statistically significant differences between relapsing and progressive subtypes at disease onset. Critically, the PROs are sensitive to future
transitions to progressive subtypes, with individuals who transition presenting with higher
PROs in their relapsing phase compared to individuals who don’t transition since onset (all
p<0.0001).
PROs capture different patterns of physical worsening over disease length and across subtypes;
therefore, they are a valid tool to measure the physical impact of multiple sclerosis over the
long-term and cost-effectively. Furthermore, more advanced physical disability manifests
years prior to clinical detection of progressive subtypes, adding evidence to the presence of a
multiple sclerosis prodrome
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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