130,963 research outputs found
Urinary estrogen metabolites and prostate cancer : a case-control study and meta-analysis
No full textObjective: To investigate prostate cancer (Pca) risk in relation to estrogen metabolism, expressed as urinary 2-hydroxyestrone (2-OHE1), 16α-hydroxyestrone (16α-OHE1) and 2-OHE1 to 16α-OHE1 ratio.
Methods: We conducted a case-control study within the Western New York Health Cohort Study (WNYHCS) from 1996 to 2001. From January 2003 through September 2004, we completed the re-call and follow-up of 1092 cohort participants. Cases (n = 26) and controls (n = 110) were matched on age, race and recruitment period according to a 1:4 ratio. We used the unconditional logistic regression to compute crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) and 95% confident interval (CI) of Pca in relation to 2-OHE1, 16αOHE1 and 2-OHE1 to 16α-OHE1 by tertiles of urine concentrations (stored in a biorepository for an average of 4 years). We identified age, race, education and body mass index as covariates. We also conducted a systematic review of the literature which revealed no additional studies, but we pooled the results from this study with those from a previously conducted case-control study using the DerSimonian-Laird random effects method.
Results: We observed a non-significant risk reduction in the highest tertile of 2-OHE1 (OR 0.72, 95% CI 0.25-2.10). Conversely, the odds in the highest tertile of 16α-OHE1 showed a non-significant risk increase (OR 1.76 95% CI 0.62-4.98). There was a suggestion of reduced Pca risk for men in the highest tertile of 2-OHE1 to 16α-OHE1 ratio (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.19-1.68). The pooled estimates confirmed the association between an increased Pca risk and higher urinary levels of 16α-OHE1 (third vs. first tertile: OR 1.82, 95% CI 1.09-3.05) and the protective effect of a higher 2-OHE 1 to 16α-OHE1 ratio (third vs. first tertile: OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.31-0.90).
Conclusion: Our study and the pooled results provide evidence for a differential role of the estrogen hydroxylation pathway in Pca development and encourage further study
Le conflittualità indotte dalla funzione turistica in un bacino lacuale: il caso del lago di Como
No full textIl tema della conflittualità è centrale in sistemi antropogeografici complessi come quelli lacuali. In ambito turistico le conflittualità possono sussistere fra diverse tipologie di turisti; fra turisti e abitanti del luogo; fra abitanti del luogo ed istituzioni; fra istituzioni. Il rischio di una privatizzazione dell’organizzazione e della pianificazione del territorio è concreto. La soluzione è complessa e non può prescindere da una gestione integrata del sistema turistico territoriale che coinvolga a pieno titolo anche la popolazione locale
Oxidative stress, maternal diabetes, and autism spectrum disorders
No full textAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are a group of early-onset neurodevelopmental conditions characterized by alterations in brain connectivity with cascading effects on neuropsychological functions. To date, in the framework of an increasing interest about environmental conditions which could interact with genetic factors in ASD pathogenesis, many authors have stressed that changes in the intrauterine environment at different stages of pregnancy, such as those linked to maternal metabolic pathologies, may lead to long-term conditions in the newborn. In particular, a growing number of epidemiological studies have highlighted the role of obesity and maternal diabetes as a risk factor for developing both somatic and psychiatric disorders in humans, including ASD. While literature still fails in identifying specific etiopathological mechanisms, a growing body of evidence is available about the presence of a relationship between maternal immune dysregulation, inflammation, oxidative stress, and the development of ASD in the offspring. In this framework, results from high-fat diet animal models about the role played by oxidative stress in shaping offspring neurodevelopment may help in clarifying the pathways through which maternal metabolic conditions are linked with ASD. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of literature about the effects of early life insults linked to oxidative stress which may be involved in ASD etiopathogenesis and how this relationship can be explained in biological terms
Molecular Aspects of Mind–Body Interaction: Do Mind–Body Therapies Influence Low-Grade Chronic Inflammation and Cardiovascular Disease Risk?
No full textMeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Sexualization and female objectification in images posted on Instagram: The role of influencers
No full textIl presente studio si è posto l’obiettivo di esplorare il fenomeno della sessualizzazione in Instagram. In particolare, è stato misurato il livello di sessualizzazione delle immagini postate (aprile-maggio 2018) da 7 top influencer internazionali. Per classificare le immagini è stata utilizzata la scala di Hatton e Trautner (2011). I punteggi espressi da tre giudici indipendenti (l’accordo tra loro è stato valutato mediante l’indice multivariato iota) hanno permesso di classificare le foto analizzate in: non-sessualizzate, sessualizzate, iper-sessualizzate. I risultati evidenziano che la categoria di foto maggiormente condivise dalle influencer appartiene alla tipologia di immagini sessualizzate in linea con precedenti studi condotti su giornali e TV
Symbiont diversity is not involved in depth acclimation in the Mediterranean symbiotic sea whip Eunicella singularis.
No full textSymbiont diversity is not involved in depth acclimation in the Mediterranean symbiotic sea whip Eunicella singularis.
No full textGoing Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Are R&D subsidies a substitute or a complement to privately funded R&D? Evidence from France using propensity score methods for non- experimental data
No full textThis study examines the effect of research and development subsidies on the private funding of R&D in France. We address this issue from the annual R&D survey over 1985-1997, which provides information about the R&D subsidies given by all the ministries to the firms having at least one full-time person working on R&D. In order to determine whether the supported firms would have invested the same amount of private R&D without the subsidies, we use matching methods. We show that the use of these methods is important because the global evaluations, in this paper, more often give a potential effect among the non-supported firms than a real effect among the supported firms. We first study the probability to get a subsidy. We find that this probability is increasing with size, the debt ratio and the importance of privately funded R&D. In a second step, controlling for the past public support the firms benefited from, we find that, on average, public funds add to private funds, so that there would be no significant crowding out effect.propensity score, non-experimental data, policy evaluation, research and development, subsidies
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