1,720,961 research outputs found
Estrogen receptor classification for hepatocellular carcinoma: Comparison with clinical staging systems
No full textPurpose: Several scoring systems to evaluate patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) exist. A good scoring system should provide information on prognosis and guide therapeutic decisions. The presence of variant liver estrogen receptor (ER) transcripts in the tumor has been shown to be the strongest negative predictor of survival in HCC. The aim of this study was to compare the predictive value of the commonly applied clinical scoring systems for survival of patients with HCC with that of the evaluation of ER in patients with HCC (molecular scoring system). Materials and Methods: HCC was staged according to the Okuda classification, Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer classification, Italian classification system (CLIP), French classification, and ER status in 96 patients. Analysis of survival was performed according to the Kaplan-Maier test and was made for each classification system and ER. A comparison between classifications was made by univariate and multivariate analysis. Results: Among the clinical classification systems, only the CLIP was able to identify patient populations with good, intermediate, and poor prognosis. On multivariate analysis, ER classification was shown to be the best predictive classification for survival of patients with HCC (P < .0001). This difference was the result of a better allocation of patients with ominous prognosis (variant ER) having nevertheless good clinical score. Conclusion: The evaluation of the presence of wild-type or variant ER transcripts in the tumor is the best predictor of survival in patients with HCC. Its accuracy in discriminating patients with good or unfavorable prognosis is significantly greater than that of the commonly used scoring systems for the staging of HCC
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
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
Natural history of inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma: Estrogen receptors' status in the tumor is the strongest prognostic factor for survival
No full textClinical course in hepatocellular carcinoma may be very different. We prospectively evaluated 96 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma unsuitable For radical therapy to investigate Factors that could influence survival. Clinical, pathologic, and molecular data of patients were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis. The overall actuarial probability of survival at year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 was 72%, 41%, 38%, 24%, 20%, and 9%. At univariate analysis, alphafetoprotein (AFP) (P = .0082); alkaline phosphatase (P = .0281); bilirubin (P = .0076); etiology (P = .0001); increment of turner mass at month 3 (P = .0051); type of estrogen receptor (ER) in the tumor (P = .0000); prothrombin time (P = .0003); and portal vein thrombosis (P = .0000) had prognostic significance. At multivariate analysis, only type of ER (P = .0000) and bilirubin (P = .0030) showed independent predictive value for mortality. Survival was significantly longer in patients with wild-type estrogen receptors (P = .0000). Cumulative probability of survival at year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 was 94%, 66%, 52%, 43%, 35%, and 18% for wild-type and 51%, 21%, 16%, and 9% for variant estrogen receptors (no patients alive after 4 years). Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive patients with variant ERs had a median survival of 8 months versus 45 months in antihepatitis C virus-positive patients with wild-type ERs (P = .0001). In conclusion, (1) the presence of variant liver ER transcripts in the tumor was the strongest negative predictor of survival in inoperable hepatocellular carcinoma; (2) their presence was associated with spontaneous survival significantly worse than in patients with wild-type estrogen receptors; and (3) HBsAg-positive patients with variant receptors were characterized by the worst survival
Type of estrogen receptor determines response to antiestrogen therapy
No full textFailure of tamoxifen treatment for unresectable hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) might be caused by variant estrogen receptors (ERs) in some of these tumors. We therefore planned a study in which antihormonal therapy was done with 80 mg/day tamoxifen or 160 mg/day megestrol according to the presence of wild-type or exon 5-deleted variant ER transcripts. Growth rate (evaluated by MRI) of HCCs characterized by variant ER transcripts was 4 times more rapid than that of HCCs with wild-type ERs. Tumor volume in all patients with wild-type ERs was halved after 9 months of tamoxifen treatment, whereas megestrol in patients with variant ERs only slowed down tumor growth. Choosing antihormonal treatment according to the presence of wild-type or variant ERs in the tumor definitely improves the response rate to tamoxifen; in patients with tumors bearing variant ERs, megestrol causes only a temporary inhibition of tumor growth
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