1,721,008 research outputs found
Morte e diritto. Riflessioni sulla fine della vita dell'uomo postmoderno
Get PDFThe research focuses on the relationship between death and law, with particular reference to the legal definition of death introduced by Law 578/1993 and the legal and ethical philosophical implications connected to it. In fact it appears that by shifting from a cardiovascular to a neurologic criterion of death, the legislator made a clear ideological choice according to which the most significant element that connotes a person is the encephalic element (more or less extensively considered).
With this regard, on the first part of the essay, I retraced the path that led to the affirmation of the concept of brain death and its acceptance in the Italian legal system, focusing also on the three different meanings in which said concept can be interpreted.
The research aims to verify if the legal definition of death provided by the legislator in 1993 should still be considered “valid” or if, de facto, it was replaced by the recent jurisprudence that, on the so-called borderline cases relates the concept of death only to the high-brain death concept.
The second part focuses on the analysis of the case law in order to highlight the divergences between the jurisprudence and the choice made by the legislator. In this regard, I tried to show how the consideration of the person, that undoubtedly must be considered essential, risks to become only a façon de parler, when it is downsized to the pure ability to show some functions, in particular the volition and the consciousness governed by the upper part of the encephalon. I believe that the loss of an holistic view of the human being typical of modernity, that the definition of death in neurological terms helped to stir up, risks to lead to an empiricists and reductionist attitude in which the person, instead of being the target of the protection, results excluded by such protection each time it could not be still considered as a person, being it deprived of said functions or even impaired.
Therefore, in the last part of the essay the matter is analyzed from a philosophical point of view in order to verify which is the anthropological conception underlying the different thesis and the implications deriving from each of them. In order to do so, I utilized three figures that I believe can be considered emblematic of the debate past and present: Hans Jonas, Peter Singer and Robert Spaemann
Development and validation of a composite disease activity score for juvenile dermatomyositis
No full textObjective. To develop the first composite disease activity score for juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM) and provide preliminary
evidence of its validity.
Methods. The Juvenile DermatoMyositis Activity Index (JDMAI) is composed of four items: physician’s global assessment of
overall disease activity; parent’s/child’s global assessment of child’s wellbeing; measurement of muscle strength; and assessment
of skin disease activity. The score of the JDMAI is the arithmetic sum of the scores of each individual component. Six preliminary
versions of the JDMAI were tested, which differed in the tools used to assess the third and fourth items. Validation procedures
were conducted using three large multinational patient samples including a total of 627 patients. Furthermore, a preliminary
longitudinal validation was conducted on 57 patients enrolled at disease onset or at a follow-up visit in standard clinical care.
Results. The JDMAI was found to possess face and content validity, good construct validity, satisfactory internal consistency
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.58-0.89), fair responsiveness to clinically important change (standardized response mean = 0.82-3.12
among patients improved) and strong capacity to discriminate patients judged as being in the state of inactive disease or low,
moderate or high disease activity by the physician (P<0.001) or whose parents were satisfied or not satisfied with the course of
their child’s illness (P<0.001). Similar results were obtained in the sample of patients prospectively enrolled for the aim of the
study. Overall, the six versions of the JDMAI showed similar metrological performances in validation analyses.
Conclusion. The JDMAI was found to possess good measurement properties in a large population of patients with a wide range
of disease activity, and is, therefore, suitable for use in both clinical and research settings. The final version of the JDMAI will be
selected after its large-scale prospective validation
Is macrophage activation syndrome in Kawasaki disease underrecognized?
No full textKawasaki disease (KD) is an acute vasculitis of unknown etiology that predominantly affects children < 5 years of age. It is now the leading cause of acquired heart disease in the pediatric age in developed countries1
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
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
Treat-to-Target in Pediatric Rheumatic Diseases
No full textPurpose of ReviewTo summarize the current evidence on the adoption of the treat-to-target (T2T) strategy in pediatric rheumatic diseases (PRD).Recent FindingsThe recent advances in the management of PRD have markedly increased the ability to achieve disease remission. Complete disease quiescence is regarded as the ideal therapeutic goal because its attainment leads to lesser long-term damage and physical disability, and to optimization of quality of life. Studies in adult rheumatic diseases have shown that patient outcomes are improved if complete suppression of the inflammatory process is aimed for by frequent adjustments of therapy according to quantitative indices. This approach, which underlies the T2T concept, has been applied in strategic trials in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Furthermore, recommendations for the T2T have been issued for RA and other adult rheumatic diseases. There is currently a growing interest for the introduction of T2T in PRD, and recommendations for treating juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) to target were promulgated. A similar initiative has been undertaken for childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus. Preliminary therapeutic studies have explored the T2T design in JIA.The T2T strategy is a modern therapeutic approach that holds the promise of improving the outcomes in patients with PRD
Open issues in the assessment and management of pain in juvenile idiopathic arthritis
No full textPain is the major symptom of children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) and its reduction is a key goal of treatment. It is widely agreed that assessment of pain is a fundamental component of the rheumatology evaluation and should be carried out at each clinic visit. However, so far there has been insufficient attention to the impact and causes of pain in children with chronic arthritis in both clinical practice and research. Quantitative measures of pain are seldom used regularly in daily care and pain assessment has not been incorporated in the most popular composite outcome measures for JIA, including the criteria employed to measure improvement in therapeutic trials. A recent advance in the development of pain tools involves mobile devices, particularly smartphones, and the internet to collect real-time self-reported data via electronic diaries. Concern has been raised by the recent observations of persistence of pain in some children with JIA despite adequate treatment with the modern biologic medications and good disease controls. These findings underscore the need of large-scale studies of the prevalence and determinants of pain in patients treated with contemporary care. In addition, the reasons that explain the persistence of pain after the resolution of the inflammatory process should be investigated through research on neurobiological mechanisms of pain and by addressing the role of factors external to the disease, such as mood, anxiety, and pain sensitisation and coping
- …
