1,721,123 research outputs found
Incidence and Clinical Relevance of Abnormal Complete Blood Counts in Survivors of Childhood Cancer
Get PDFBACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence and clinical significance of abnormal complete blood counts (CBCs) obtained during follow-up of childhood cancer survivors.
METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on 193 survivors, diagnosed between 1970-1986, who have been followed in our center's After Cancer Experience Program and are participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. Of these patients, 49% were female and 25% were racial/ethnic minorities. The primary outcome was determination of the cumulative percentage of patients having an abnormal CBC by 2 or 3 standard deviations (SDs). Four components of the CBC were examined and employed to define an abnormal CBC: low white blood cell count (WBC), high mean corpuscular volume (MCV), low platelet count, and low hemoglobin concentration. Association of treatment exposures to abnormal values was assessed with a multi-level logistic model.
RESULTS: There were 1,376 patient visits during 1,437 person-years of follow-up. The mean number of visits per survivor was 7.2 (SD 4.5). The cumulative percentage of subjects with at least one abnormal CBC was 70%. The cumulative percent of subjects with a value abnormal by 2 SD was WBC=23%, MCV=33%, platelets=9%, hemoglobin=49%. For values abnormal by 3 SD, the frequencies were WBC=3%, MCV=18%, platelets=1%, hemoglobin=27%. None of the patients developed myelodysplastic syndrome or a secondary leukemia during the follow-up period. Exposure to epipodophyllotoxins was associated with an increased risk of having abnormally high MCV values.
CONCLUSIONS: Mildly abnormal CBC values are common in survivors of childhood cancer. Abnormal values are often of questionable significance but seem to persist over time. Epipodophyllotoxin therapy was found to be associated with increased frequency of high MCV levels
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
Statistical Analysis of Proposed Pediatric Asthma Screening Survey
No full textBACKGROUND: Poor asthma control is responsible for considerable morbidity and mortality among children (1). Current pharmacotherapy can suppress exacerbations of asthma symptoms. Thus, proper treatment of asthma is imperative in limiting the toll of this disease process on individuals as well as society. Treatment protocols tend to be based on measurement of asthma severity (3), but there are currently no widely accepted guidelines defining efficacy of treatment (i.e.- asthma control).
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the construct validity and reliability of an asthma survey among a group of known asthmatics. Furthermore, we intended to determine the level of correlation between survey responses and asthma severity amongst survey participants as well as to discern the ability of the survey to discriminate between mild persistent, moderate persistent and severe persistent asthma.
METHODS: Surveys from 207 parents/guardians of children aged 5-17 with physician-diagnosed asthma were evaluated for construct validity using Principal Components Factor Analysis. Reliability was assessed via Cronbach's alpha coefficient scale. Severity/response correlations were tested by Chi-square exact tests and the strength of each relationship was assessed using Spearman's correlation. Discriminating ability was analyzed by ROC curve, sensitivity, specificity and odds ratio.
RESULTS: Construct validity testing showed that the scale is unidimensional with a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.8076, indicating a high degree of reliability. Significant associations between asthma severity and each question were found, indicating that more severe asthmatics reported significantly greater symptom frequency (p-value range <0.001 - 0.019, Spearman's range = 0.152 - 0.396). ROC analysis yielded an area under the curve of 0.728. Analysis of the ROC curve indicated an optimal cutoff score of =6 to indicate moderate-to-severe asthma. This cutoff yielded a sensitivity and specificity of 65.2% and 70.2%, respectively. Odds ratio was 4.407 (95% CI of 2.366 - 8.207).
CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that, among asthmatics, the survey is valid and reliable. We also noted more frequent symptoms as severity increased, indicating sub-optimal control among more severe asthmatics. Finally, the ability of the survey to predict asthma severity is not supported as the survey seems to assess asthma control, with higher scores indicating poorer control
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
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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