1,721,114 research outputs found
PCSK9 Inhibitor Therapy. A systematic review and meta-analysis of metabolic and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with diabetes
No full textAims: Pro-protein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors bring about a wide reduction in low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, greater than that of other lipid-lowering agents. The aim of this metanalysis was assessment of the effects of PCSK9 inhibitors on glucose metabolism, LDL cholesterol, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in individuals with and without diabetes. Materials and methods: A Medline and Clinicaltrials.gov search for eligible studies published before 1 December 2017 was performed. All randomized trials comparing PCSK-9 inhibitors with placebo or active drugs were included. Primary endpoints included (a) incident diabetes, fasting glucose and HbA1c, (b) LDL cholesterol at endpoint in patients with diabetes and in the total sample, and (c) major cardiovascular events (MACE) and mortality in individuals with and without diabetes. Results: A total of 38 trials was identified. The risk of incident diabetes was not increased by PCSK-9 inhibitors, vs placebo or any comparator. The reduction in LDL cholesterol vs placebo in patients with diabetes was 52.6 [41.3;63.8] mg/dL; the corresponding figure for all patients was 66.9 [62.4;71.3] mg/dL. Meta-regression analysis showed an inverse correlation between proportion of patients with diabetes and drug effect on LDL cholesterol in trials vs ezetimibe, but not in those vs placebo. In studies reporting data on MACE and mortality separately for individuals with and without diabetes, the effect of PCSK-9 did not appear to be affected by diabetes. Conclusion: PCSK-9 inhibitors do not affect glucose metabolism. Their efficacy on LDL cholesterol and MACE in patients with diabetes does not seem to be very dissimilar to that observed in non-diabetic participants
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
Attending Diabetes Clinics is associated with a lower all-cause mortality. A meta-analysis of observational studies performed in Italy
Full text linkObjective: The epidemiological explosion of diabetes is a challenge for Health Systems and the identification of the most appropriate models of care are warranted. The inclusion of primary care physicians in the models is unquestioned whereas the role played by secondary and tertiary care (Diabetes Clinic) is often debated. However, studies focusing on hard endpoints and comparing Diabetes Clinic attendance vs. no attendance are scant.Research design and methods: A meta-analysis was performed including all observational cohort studies performed in Italy, reporting crude and/or adjusted estimates of all-cause mortality in patients with diabetes attending or not attending Diabetes Clinics. Attendance was defined by prescriptions and reimbursement of specialist visits by the National Health System.Results: Three studies enrolling 191,847 subjects with diabetes were included in the analysis, and about half of them had at least one visit in the Diabetes Clinic per year. During the follow-up, ranging 1-11 years, 9653 subjects died. Mortality was remarkably lower in subjects attending Diabetes Clinic (MH-OR 0.70, 95% CI 0.55-0.88, p = 0.002). Results were confirmed after adjusting for confounders (MH-OR 0.81, 95% CI 0.69-0.95, p = 0.009).Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest that attending Diabetes Clinics is associated with a lower all-cause mortality. This finding might be instrumental to implement the best models of care for persons with diabetes. (C) 2018 The Italian Society of Diabetology, the Italian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition, and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved
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
- …
