1,720,993 research outputs found
Effect of ursodeoxycholic acid on serum enzymes and liver histology in patients with chronic active hepatitis. A 12-month double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
No full textAbstract: A reduction in serum enzymes has been already observed by administering ursodeoxycholic acid to patients with chronic active hepatitis. The aim of this study was to assess whether the Liver histological activity of inflammation was modified by a 12-month treatment with ursodeoxycholic acid. Thirty-six patients with chronic active hepatitis, fulfilling the inclusion criteria, were admitted to the trial. Patients were randomly allocated to receive double blind either 600 mg/day of ursodeoxycholic acid (Group A: 18 patients) or placebo (Group B: 18 patients). Clinical and biochemical follow-up was performed at 3-month intervals. A percutaneous liver biopsy was performed before and after 1 year of treatment. Histological hepatitis activity was assessed using Knodell's numerical scoring system, while biliary damage was evaluated by an appropriate scoring system. Sixteen and 12 patients in Groups A and B, respectively, completed the clinical and biochemical follow-up. Although a reduction in serum enzymes was found in both groups, multifactorial covariance analysis showed that the reductions in alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and gamma glutamyl transpeptidase were significantly higher in Group A than in Group B. Biochemical remission was not observed in either group. Histological analysis showed a dichotomy between the results from the hepatitis and the biliary components of the disease process. No differences were found in the two groups before or after treatment in histological activity index, which measures the ''hepatitic'' component. Nor were there any significant differences in baseline values. Furthermore, no relationship was found between changes in biochemical parameters and the histological activity indices. In contrast, the ''biliary'' component showed significant improvement after ursodeoxycholic acid treatment for certain cholestatic parameters: ductular metaplasia, bile duct damage and phenotypic cytokeratin changes. These changes were significantly associated with changes in gamma glutamyl transpeptidase serum levels. This study has confirmed that ursodeoxycholic acid administration in patients with chronic active hepatitis reduces transaminases and gamma glutamyl transpeptidase. The morphological substrate of this biochemical improvement can be traced to the biliary component of the process. (C) Journal of Hepatology
Genetic and phenotypical analysis of presenilin genes-linked Familial Alzheimer’s disease in Italian kindreds
No full textCSF/serum matrix metallopeptidase‐9 ratio discriminates neuro Behçet from multiple sclerosis
No full textIn neuro Behçet disease with multiple sclerosis‐like features, diagnosis could be challenging. Here, we studied the cerebrospinal fluid and serum inflammatory profile of 11 neuro Behçet and 21 relapsing‐remitting multiple sclerosis patients. Between the soluble factors analyzed (MMP9, TNFα, IL6, CXCL13, CXCL10, CXCL8, IFNγ, IL10, IL17, IL23, and others) we found MMP9 increased in neuro Behçet serum compared to multiple sclerosis and decreased in cerebrospinal fluid. Furthermore, neuro Behçet analysis of circulating natural killer CD56DIM subset suggests their potential involvement in increased MMP9 production. We believe that these findings may have a translational utility in clinical practice
Absence of association between intronic polymorphism in PS-1 gene and Alzheimer’s disease in Italian patients
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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
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