1,720,963 research outputs found

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

    Role of nasal valve in the surgically corrected nasal respiratory obstruction: evaluation through rhinomanometry

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    The aim of this study was to evaluate the improvement of nasal flow and the fall of nasal resistance in 50 patients that underwent rhinoseptoplasty in our department and discuss the relative importance of valvular and septal deformities in nasal airway obstruction. Fifty consecutive patients underwent rhinoseptoplasty to improve nasal obstruction caused by severe septal deviation, external or internal valvular incompetence, or any combination of the three. We excluded patients with minor septal curvatures, septal perforations, or turbinate hypertrophy. Preoperative and postoperative rhinomanometry was performed on all 50 patients. In all 50 patients, septal and/or valvular surgery lowered nasal resistance in 90% of cases. Septoplasty alone with medial and basal osteotomies did not improve nasal flow (p < 0.4), whereas the correction of valvular obstruction alone increased nasal airflow in a statistically significant way (p < 0.0001). Moreover, patients with both valvular incompetence and septal deviation represented the group in which the greatest preoperative obstruction and the greatest postoperative improvement occurred. Nasal valvular function should be assessed with rhinomanometry in all preoperative rhinoplasty patients with airway obstruction. In many cases, valvular effects may surpass septal deviation as the primary cause of nasal airflow obstruction

    Variations on the Author

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    “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

    [Post-parotidectomy Frey's syndrome. Treatment with botulinum toxin type A].

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    The Frey's syndrome, manifest after parotid trauma, is characterized by head and neck hyperemia and abundant sweating of the hyperemic skin in response to gustatory stimuli. The use of the botulin toxin to treat the symptoms in patients with Frey's syndrome has been described in numerous studies. For some time up until now our Center has achieved excellent results using the group A botulin toxin to overcome the hypertonus of the cricopharyngeal muscle in patients who had undergone laryngectomy and were rehabilitated with voice button. We have sought to extend the use of this toxin to Frey's syndrome, a relatively frequent complication of parotidectomy. A total of 86 patients participated in the study: 41 males (47.6%) and 45 females (52.4%) ranging in age from 25 to 77 years (average age 51 years). Of these patients 7 (8.1%) had undergone post-operative radiotherapy. Of the 86 patients studied, 18 referred significant symptoms in terms of abundance and frequency. The syndrome was considered severe if the symptoms were present at each meal and if the patient indicated a significant worsening of his quality of life. Intermittent episodes were indicated by 22 patients. The remaining 46 (43.5%) did not complain of any symptoms. The exact extension of the cervicofacial gustatory sweating was evaluated using the Minor test and the involved region was divided into 1 square centimeters sections. The amount of skin surface involved ranged from 10 to 80 square centimeters. The type A neurotoxin was frozen and was reconstituted with a sterile saline solution at a final concentration of 2.5 UI/0.1 ml. The intracutaneous infiltration was performed without anesthesia, infiltrating 0.1 ml of solution, containing 2.5 UI of toxin into the center of each 1 square centimeters section. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the potential relationship between how long the treatment was effective, incidence of recurrence, seriousness of the crises and the following variables: age, sex, histology, cutaneous surface involved, injected dose of botulin toxin and post-operative radiotherapy. In the group of 18 patients with severe symptoms (20.9%) the benefit was immediate in all cases although the recurrence rate was 50%. The Frey's syndrome symptoms disappeared within 7 days of infiltration. In the group of 22 patients with less severe involvement (25.5%), the treatment gave positive, definitive results in 16 patients (72.7%). Those patients whose symptoms persisted were treated a second time with an infiltration of 2.5 UI per square centimeters. We feel that the use of the type A botulin toxin is the most appropriate treatment for the Frey's syndrome. In fact, such treatment offers the following advantages: it is effective within 7 days, has limited side effects, can be applied on an outpatient basis, is inexpensive and is positively considered by the patients

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We 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

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    We 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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