1,720,986 research outputs found
Prescription Advice Based on Data of Drug-Drug-Gene Interaction of Patients with Polypharmacy
Full text linkPURPOSE: Pharmacogenetic counselling is a complex task and requires the efforts of an interdisciplinary team, which cannot be implemented in most cases. Therefore, simple rules could help to minimize the risk of medications incompatible with each other or with frequent genetic variants. PATIENTS AND METHODS: One hundred and eighty-four multi-morbid Caucasian patients suffering from side effects or inefficient therapy were enrolled and genotyped. Their medication was analyzed by a team of specialists using Drug-PIN(®) (medication support system) and individual recommendations for 34 drug classes were generated. RESULTS: In each of the critical drug classes, 50% of the drugs cannot be recommended to be prescribed in typical drug cocktails. PPIs and SSRI/SNRIs represent the most critical drug classes without showing a single favorable drug. Among the well-tolerated drugs (not recommended for less than 5% of the patients) are metamizole, celecoxib, olmesartan and famotidine. For each drug class, a ranking of active ingredients according to their suitability is presented. CONCLUSION: Genotyping and its profound analysis are not available in many settings today. The consideration of frequent alterations of metabolic elimination routes and drug–drug–gene interactions by using simple rankings can help to avoid many incompatibilities, side effects and inefficient therapies
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
Recognizing and preventing unacknowledged prescribing errors associated with polypharmacy
Full text linkBackground: Prescribing errors put an enormous burden on health and the economy, claiming implementation of effective methods to prevent/reduce them. Polypharmacy regimens (five or more drugs) are highly prone to unacknowledged prescribing errors, since the complex network of drug-drug interactions, guidelines and contraindications is challenging to be adequately evaluated in the prescription phase, especially if different doctors are involved. Clinical decision support systems aimed at polypharmacy evaluation may be crucial to recognize and correct prescribing errors. Methods: A commercial clinical decision support system (Drug-PIN®) was applied to estimate the frequency of unrecognized prescribing errors in a group of 307 consecutive patients accessing the hospital pre-admission service of the Sant'Andrea Hospital of Rome, Italy, in the period April-June 2023. Drug-PIN® is a two-step system, first scoring the risk (low, moderate or high) associated with a certain therapy-patient pair, then allowing therapy optimization by medications exchanges. We defined prescribing errors as cases where therapy optimization could achieve consistent reduction of the Drug-PIN® calculated risk. Results: Polypharmacy was present in 205 patients, and moderate to high risk for medication harm was predicted by Drug-PIN® in 91 patients (29.6%). In 58 of them (63.7%), Drug-PIN® guided optimization of the therapy could be achieved, with a statistically significant reduction of the calculated therapy-associated risk score. Patients whose therapy cannot be improved have a statistically significant higher number of used drugs. Considering the overall study population, the rate of avoidable prescribing errors was 18.89%. Conclusions: Results suggest that computer-aided evaluation of medication-associated harm could be a valuable and actionable tool to identify and prevent prescribing errors in polypharmacy. We conducted the study in a Hospital pre-admission setting, which is not representative of the general population but represents a hotspot to intercept fragile population, where a consistent fraction of potentially harmful polypharmacy regimens could be promptly identified and corrected by systematic use of adequate clinical decision support tools
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
consideration of receptors, individual co-medication and relevant genetic polymorphisms
No full textDie Systembiologie bedient sich eines ganzheitlichen Ansatzes und integriert
dabei ‚omics’-Daten verschiedener Ebenen in Computermodellen. Neue Ansätze
sind darauf gerichtet, diese Methoden für medizinische Fragestellungen nutzbar
zu machen. Zahnschmerz ist ein komplexes Geschehen, dessen Therapie die
Integration individueller Daten erfordert. Eine Reihe von Rezeptoren – in der
Regel Ionenkanäle – sind für die unmittelbare Schmerzvermittlung zuständig. Je
nach betroffenem Gewebe sind andere Rezeptoren, deren 3D-Strukturen zunehmend
bekannt sind, verantwortlich, was sich aus Expressionsanalysen ableiten lässt.
Daraus lassen sich die jeweils geeigneten Therapeutika ableiten bzw. neue
entwickeln. Häufig bekommen die Patienten allerdings weitere Medikamente,
wodurch die Wirkung der Schmerzmedikamente beeinträchtigt sein kann bzw.
unerwünschte Nebenwirkungen auftreten. Durch eine umfassende Analyse des
Stoffwechsels des gesamten Medikamenten-Cocktails kann eine optimierte
medikamentöse Therapie erreicht werden. Leider gehören die CYPs zu den
besonders polymorphen Enzymen, so dass die Berücksichtigung verschiedener
Allele mittlerweile bei der Gabe diverser Medikamente obligatorisch ist. Die
Analysen des 1000-Genom-Projektes und weiterer Datenbanken zeigen, dass die
Variabilität noch größer ist als bisher angenommen. Neben einem online
verfügbaren Schema zum Medikamentenersatz bei CYP-Mutationen konnte im Rahmen
dieser Arbeit durch eine Expressionsanalyse von 50 humanen Geweben aus jeweils
100 Patienten aufklären, in welchen Zielgeweben welches CYP stark exprimiert
wird – ein Aspekt, der bisher kaum betrachtet wurde. Medikamente werden in
drei Phasen des Stoffwechsels transformiert, wobei die CYPs nur die erste
Phase katalysieren – es folgt die Konjugations- und die Transport-Phase. Nur
die Gesamtbetrachtung – einschließlich Halbwertzeit, renaler Exkretion etc. –
ermöglicht eine fundierte Drug-Cocktail-Optimierung. Die Praxis zeigte, dass
darüber hinaus die Berücksichtigung bestimmter Nahrungsmittel von Bedeutung
ist, was in das Computer-Modell integriert wurde. Die entwickelten Modelle
sind online verfügbar, werden von 100 Nutzern täglich verwendet und finden
aufgrund ihrer Allgemeingültigkeit nicht nur Verwendung in der Zahnmedizin.Systems biology uses a holistic approach, integrating ,omics' data of various
levels in computer models. New approaches are dedicated to make these methods
available in medicine. Dental pain is a complex process requiring the
integration of individual data. A number of receptors - usually ion channels -
are responsible for pain mediation. Depending on the affected tissue other
receptors are involved, which can be derived from expression analyses und
their 3D structures are increasingly known. Hence, new therapeutics for the
treatment of pain can be developed. However, patients receive more medication,
whereby the effect may be impaired or undesirable side effects occur. Through
a comprehensive analysis of the metabolism of the drug cocktails, drug
therapies can be optimized. Unfortunately, CYPs belong to the most polymorphic
enzymes, so a consideration of different variants is now mandatory for the
administration of some drugs. The analysis of the 1,000 Genome Project and
other databases shows that the variability is even greater than expected. In
addition to an online available database for drug-cocktail-optimization, an
expression analysis of 50 human tissues from 100 patients was performed and
revealed, in which target tissues CYPs are highly expressed. This aspect has
rarely been considered yet. Drugs are transformed into three phases of
metabolism, wherein the CYPs catalyze only the first phase - it is followed by
the conjugation and the transport phase. A sufficient drug-cocktail-
opitmization has to consider all phases, as well as elimination half-life,
renal excretion etc. Additionally, the inclusion of certain foods is
important, which has been incorporated into the computer model. The developed
models are freely available online, used by 100 users daily and can be used in
all fields of medicine
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
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