1,720,954 research outputs found
Comparison of combination therapies in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis :leflunomide-anti-TNF-alfa versus methotrexate-anti-TNF-alfa
No full textTo compare the efficacy and safety of leflunomide (LEF)-anti-TNF-alpha combination therapy to methotrexate (MTX)-anti-TNF-alpha combination therapy in a group of patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We have recruited 120 patients with RA with a high disease activity despite being treated with MTX (15 mg/week) or LEF (20 mg/die) for 3 months, without side effects. In each of these patients, therapy with either MTX or LEF was continued and randomly combined with an anti-TNF-alpha drug: etanercept, infliximab, or adalimumab. Patients were assessed at study entry and at 4, 12, and at 24 weeks. The efficacy endpoints included variations in the DAS28-ESR and the ACR20, ACR50, and ACR70 responses. At each visit, any side-effect was recorded. There were no statistically significant differences in the DAS28 variations and in the ACR responses between the two groups or among the six subgroups. The number of discontinuation due to the appearance of serious side effects was higher, but not statistically significant, in the LEF-anti-TNF-alpha group than in the MTX-anti-TNF-alpha group. Other adverse events that did not necessitate the discontinuation of therapy occurred much more frequently in patients treated with MTX than in those treated with LEF. Anti-TNF-alpha drugs can be used in combination not only with MTX, but also with LEF, with the same probability of achieving significant clinical improvement in RA patients and without a significantly greater risk of serious adverse events. In contrast, it seems that combination therapy with LEF-anti-TNF-alpha is more readily tolerated than combination therapy with MTX-anti-TNF-alpha
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
Livello sierico della COMP (Cartilage Oligomeric Matrix Protein): Uso potenziale come marker di progressione del danno articolare nei pazienti con "Early Rheumatoid Arthritis"
No full textBackground. Recent studies advice that the serum concentration of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a marker of progression of cartilage destruction. Nevertheless, even though these evidences, the practical use of this biochemical marker to predict tissue destruction is still limited. The aim of the work was to study the possible contribution of COMP in the valuation of the level of the progression of structural damage, estimated by contrast RMN, in patients with RA in the first year of disease. Methods. 16 patients with RA were studied, according with ACR criteria of the 1988; the onset of the disease was less than 6 months ago. Out of each patient, the age, the sex, and the disease duration from the start of the articular symptoms were established at the beginning and after 6 months. A clinic-biohumoral and instrumental evaluation was also effected and registered. Serum samples were collected twice to perform the hematologic and serum routine, and to measure COMP levels with commercial kit "COMP ELISA" (AnaMar Medical, Lund, Sweden). Results. The patients studied were divided in two groups according to the presence/absence of early erosion. The 75% of the patients showed already erosive lesions at the RMN at the beginning of the disease. The basal serum level of COMP was higher in the group with early erosion. The correlation between the basal serum level of COMP and the RMN score about the bone erosions was significant statistically at the beginning and after 6 months. The correlation between the variations of serum levels of COMP was also significant statistically (δ RMN erosions 6 months vs basal) (r = 0,63; p = 0,0079). There were not correlations between the variations of RMN erosive score and the variations of clinical-biohumural parameters of inflammation. Conclusions. From our study seems that the absence of an increase of serum level of COMP in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis, independent of variation of inflammatory, clinical, and biohumural markers, guarantees from the progression of the structural articular damage. Therefore we could suppose the future use of this marker to evaluate an individual answer at the pharmacological treatment, inducing to choose "aggressive" therapeutic plans in the patients with high risk of cartilage destruction
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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