1,720,968 research outputs found
Quality of reproductive health services at primary health centres in an urban area of Iran : Emphasis on family planning [Elektronisk resurs]
No full textBackground: Detailed knowledge of the present situation is needed in order to design and implement quality improvement programmes to achieve the national goal of planned and safe fertility for all in Iran. An understanding of the perspectives and views of clients and providers are also much needed. When this study was initiated there was a lack of studies on the quality of family planning and other primary reproductive health services in the country. Aim: To describe and explore the quality of public primary reproductive health care services, especially family planning, in an urban area of Iran, in order to identify areas and measures for improvement. Methods: Structured observations of 469 client-provider interactions and some clinical procedures at 34 health facilities, and exit interviews with 416 of the observed clients. Quality of services was assessed using pre-defined indicators (study I). In the qualitative studies (II, III), content analysis was performed on material from nine focus group discussions (FGDs) with 53 married women of reproductive age (study II) and four FGDs with 20 midwives or other family health providers at the facilities (study III). In study IV, an educational programme on family planning services was applied at a regular monthly meeting with half of the in-charges after random selection of the total of 74 family health units (intervention group). The other half constituted the control group. The educated in-charges were requested to carry out a similar kind of programme with all peers at their health facilities within one month. All in-charges received one self-administered questionnaire one month (follow-up I) and 27 months (follow-up II) after the education. Such tests were also performed by the peers at their workplace within one month after the in-charges tests. Findings: The providers treated the clients respectfully in more than 80% of the consultations and discussed a return visit in 89%. Privacy was not assured in one-third of the cases. Over two-thirds of the clients were not encouraged to ask questions or raise concerns, and 54% were not satisfied with the amount of information given. The use of educational audio-visual and printed materials was very infrequent. Most new clients received their preferred contraceptive method, but were informed about neither other available methods, nor common side effects and warning symptoms related to the chosen method (study I). The women in the FGDs appreciated the public services for being generally accessible, but important shortcomings were identified. A need for improved privacy, a wider choice of contraceptive methods and clear information about side effects were stressed. Marital counselling was raised as a major unmet need. The women s sense of having the right to make autonomous reproductive health choices and to be treated with dignity and respect emerged as the main theme. A second, cross-cutting theme was their wish to get their husbands more strongly involved in family planning and sexual counselling (study II). The most satisfying for the providers was working with clients. A dominant theme in all FGDs was the providers frustration about a number of factors, most of which were beyond their control. There were five categories of system and organisational barriers: multiplicity of tasks and incompatibility with the providers own basic training; suboptimal supervision and management; too little time for clients; lack of privacy and appropriate materials for education and counselling; and inadequate opportunities for continuing education (study III). The health centres and health posts located in low-income areas on average had the highest workload for family planning and the highest turnover of staff. Knowledge (percent of maximal possible score) was significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group, both at follow-up I (63%) and at follow-up II (57%); with a difference of 16 and 5 percentage units, respectively. Two of the nine reported items were performed at a significantly higher level among the non in-charges in the intervention group at follow-up II compared with the control group. Conclusions: There is a gap between the national policy and the reality in the public primary health facilities with regard to the quality of reproductive health services. Multifaceted interventions are recommended to improve performance of the providers, and quality and responsiveness of the services to ensure women s reproductive health needs and rights. Special attention should be paid to interactive communication, information given to clients, privacy and confidentiality. Interven-tions should also address needs-based in-service education, including on-site peer education, supportive supervision and management, provision of educational materials, simplifying record management, and appointing more staff in socio-economically deprived areas. Research is needed to identify the best ways to integrate the services without overloading and deskilling health workers and impairing their ability to deliver high quality services, as well as to find the most effective way of meeting the providers continuing educational needs
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
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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