1,720,955 research outputs found
Childhood focal compressive mononeuropathies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Buenos Aires, Argentina
No full textIntroduction/aims: Focal peripheral neuropathies are infrequently seen in pediatric patients. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted normal life for many people, including complete lockdowns and school closing for long periods of time in many countries, which prompted children to stay at home. Our aim is to assess whether there has been an increased incidence of focal compressive peripheral neuropathies in the pediatric population during COVID-19-associated lockdown.
Methods: Clinical, electrophysiological, and imaging characteristics were reviewed for patients referred to the electrodiagnostic (EDx) laboratory with suspicion of a focal neuropathy. The incidence of focal compressive peripheral neuropathies seen during the period of March to September 2020 was compared with the same time period in 2019.
Results: An increased incidence of focal neuropathies was seen in 2020 (31%) compared with 2019 (6.8%). During 2020, 7 fibular (peroneal) mononeuropathies and 2 ulnar neuropathies were diagnosed. Most patients with focal neuropathies were underweight and acknowledged prolonged screen time periods. Electrophysiological findings consisted of mostly demyelinating lesions with an overall good clinical outcome.
Discussion: In this study we raise awareness about a possible increased incidence of focal compressive peripheral neuropathies in children during COVID-19-associated lockdown, which may be prevented with changing positions during sedentary activities.Fil: Brand, Patricio. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología; Argentina.Fil: Cejas, Claudia Patricia. Fleni. Departamento de Diagnóstico por Imágenes; Argentina.Fil: Rivero, Alberto Daniel. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Neurofisiología Clínica; Argentina
Volumetric Analysis and Densitiy of Extraocular Muscles in patients with Myasthenia Gravis (P5.4-036)
No full textObjective: To analyze the volumetric and density characteristics of the extraocular muscles (EOM) in patients with Myasthenia Gravis (MG).
Background: MG is an autoimmune disease that mainly involves EOM. Myopathies affecting extraocular muscles (MEOM) are a common differential diagnosis. Frequently, complementary methods are required to differentiate between them. There are no published data from the volumetric and density characteristics of the EOM in these pathologies.
Design/Methods: Case-control study in adult patients, evaluated in FLENI between 2017/2018, with diagnosis of MG and MEOM, compared with healthy controls adjusted for age and sex.
Orbit CT scan was obtained in primary position of the gaze. Manual segmentation of the EOMs of both eyes was done using the ITK.SNAP Software.
Volume (mm3) and average density (Hounsfield Unit) of each EOM were evaluated. References of tendon density of the superior oblique muscle (SO) and intraorbital fat were taken.
Results: We included 18 patients with MG, 7 with MEOM and 18 controls.
No differences were observed in the individual and total muscle volume between patients with MG and controls. Patients with MEOM showed lower volume in all the EOM compared to MG and controls (p<0.0001).
The muscle density of patients with MG was significantly lower (p<0.001) regarding the controls; muscle density in the MEOM was lower than the MG group and controls (p<0.001 respectively).
No differences were observed in SO tendon density and intraorbital fat among the 3 groups.
Conclusions: Volumetric and density analysis of the EOM by CT has been shown to be a feasible procedure and an interesting approach towards neuromuscular diagnosis in cases of MG and MEOM. In our experience, it allows to demonstrate differences in the muscular density of patients with MG with respect to MEOM and controls. In the same way, MEOM present differences in volume and muscle density with respect to MG and healthy controls.Fil: Köhler, Alejandro Alfredo. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología; Argentina.Fil: Farez, Mauricio Franco. Fleni. Centro para la Investigación de Enfermedades Neuroinmunológicas; Argentina.Fil: Rivero, Alberto Daniel. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Neurofisiología Clínica; Argentina
Re-emergent tremor provocation
No full textINTRODUCTION:
Rest and re-emergent tremor (RET) in Parkinson's disease (PD) are known to be markedly variable. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of tremor provocation on RET latency and variability.
METHODS:
We performed a prospective observational study in 21 PD patients with RET. Evaluations were conducted by accelerometric analysis of hand movements with and without provocation by counting out loud backwards from 100, in the OFF state. Differences in RET pause duration, tremor power at peak frequency, root mean square (RMS) and slope of return of the tremor after the pause was measured. Inter- and intra-subject variability were also calculated.
RESULTS:
RET pause duration showed a 75% decrease after provocation (p < 0.001), which led to zero in 52% of cases, as compared to 9% in unprovoked measurements (p < 0.001). Provocation also led to a 2.57 time increase in tremor power (p < 0.001), 1.37 time increase in RMS (p < 0.001) and 2.47 time increase in slope (p < 0.001). A significant decrease in inter-subject variability was also observed (p = 0.001).
CONCLUSION:
Tremor provocation led to RET amplitude increase, pause shortening, and variability decrease. Therefore, while provocation can be recommended for the evaluation of rest tremor in clinical practice, it might well annul its value for identifying the pause prior to re-emergent tremor.Fil: Wilken, Miguel. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Movimientos Anormales; Argentina.Fil: Rossi, Malco. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Movimientos Anormales; Argentina.Fil: Rivero, Alberto Daniel. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Neurofisiología Clínica; Argentina.Fil: Hallett, Mark. National Institutes of Health. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Medical Neurology Branch. Human Motor Control Section; Estados Unidos.Fil: Merello, Marcelo. Fleni. Departamento de Neurología. Servicio de Movimientos Anormales; Argentin
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
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