1,720,968 research outputs found
Manual Therapy for Non-Specific Thoracic Pain in adults - Review of the Literature
No full textObjective: The aims of this work are to evaluate the validity and reliability of manual assessment and treatment, and
the effectiveness of manual therapy for non-specific adult thoracic pain.
Data sources: Review of the literature. Databases consulted: PubMed, Embase, CINAHL, PEDro, and the Cochrane Library.
Study selection: Articles were selected if they concerned the thoracic spine and rib cage, and outcome measures were within the
scope of manual therapy practice.
Data extraction: Studies about diagnostic tests were excluded if the study population was less than 10 subjects, and Cohen’s
Kappa scores or Pearson’s Correlation Coefficients or Intraclass Correlation Coefficients were not calculated. Studies about
treatment were excluded if the PEDro score was less than 4/10.
Data synthesis: Studies concerning physical examination procedures have shown a good intrarater, but poor interrater reliability.
Studies of the mechanical effects of manipulation have given discordant results, while those on the clinical effects of manipulation
have given positive results.
Conclusions: Procedures of physical examination did not show sufficient interexaminer reliability. Manipulative treatment seems
to be clinically effective, but whether manual treatment is more effective than non-treatment, other treatments or placebo, cannot
be established
Low back pain in adolescent gymnasts. Prevalence and risk factors
No full textObjective - To evaluate the prevalence, determinants and risk factors for Low back pain (LBP) in club-level competitive adolescent gymnasts compared to the general adolescent population. Design - A cohort study. Setting - School of Physiotherapy - University of Bologna (Italy). Participants - ninety-one gymnasts aged 11-14 years were selected for this study and three-hundred and seventy-five age-matched general adolescents were used as a control. Assessment of risk factors - A questionnaire concerning back pain, physical activity, social-behavioral factors, and the measurement of anthropometric parameters and lumbar range of motion were used. Main outcome measurement - The prevalence of LBP. Results - Low-level LBP was reported by 46% of the gymnasts and 60% of the students in the control group; medium/high level LBP was reported by 26% of the gymnasts and 36% of the control group. In both groups, the risk of LBP was higher in females, in adolescents with parents or siblings suffering from LBP and in children who spent more time in a sedentary position. For the gymnasts, an increased or reduced lumbar three-direction ROM and certain psychosocial factors seemed to be risk factors for LBP. No significant relationship emerged between LBP and height, weight, BMI, number of training hours, type of training, or years of sport practice. Conclusions - The results are in line with other studies on similar populations (adolescent and medium agonistic level), but they differ from the findings of research carried out on elite or Olympic athletes. LBP prevalence is lower in competitive, club-level adolescent gymnasts than in adolescent non-gymnasts
Sistemi nazionali di sorveglianza delle infezioni correlate all'assistenza
No full textIn Italy a national system for the surveillance of healthcare acquired infections has not been implemented, since
recently. However, some Italian regions have started continuous surveillance systems in high risk units, such as
surgical departments and intensive care units, or have conducted regional prevalence surveys.
In 2006, the National Center for the Diseases Prevention and Control (Centro Nazionale per la Prevenzione e Controllo delle
Malattie (CCM)) has supported and granted an inter-regional project, aimed at the prevention and control of healthcare
acquired infections (“Prevenzione e controllo delle infezioni associate all’assistenza sanitaria e socio-sanitaria. Progetto-
INF-OSS”), through the adoption of common surveillance and control tools among the Italian regions.
An objective of the project was to harmonize the surveillance systems adopted across the Italian regions and to build
a national epidemiological database on healthcare acquired infections.
In the first two years of activity, several standardized protocols have been developed and agreed among all the
participating regions (surgical site infections surveillance and intensive care units infections surveillance – both
protocols are compatible with the European surveillance protocols developed by HELICS; prevalence surveys; alert
organisms surveillance). Moreover, a national surveillance system on surgical site infections have been set up: until
May 2008, 13 regions/autonomous provinces (128 Health Authorities overall ) have agreed to participate
University education of health professionals: "Core Values" as a valid instrument for evaluating performance values in future practice.
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
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