1,721,057 research outputs found
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
Antimicrobial stewardship programs in a hospital setting : development of quality indicators and implementation of interventions
Get PDFHealth care is challenged by the emergence of antibiotic resistance and the slow pipeline of new antibiotics, especially against Gram negative multi-resistant bacteria. The most important cause of emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance has been a massive overuse of antibiotics worldwide across all ecosystems over the past decades, including humans, animals, aquaculture, and agriculture.
Antimicrobial resistance may lead to more difficult to treat infections and may hence be associated with increased patient mortality, longer hospital stays, and increased healthcare costs. Up to 30% of antimicrobial regimens in hospitals are considered inappropriate. An effective approach to improving antimicrobial use in hospitals is an organised antimicrobial stewardship program.
In this thesis we tried to develop and validate quality indicators in order to monitor antimicrobial stewardship programs in a hospital setting. Furthermore we evaluated key components of an antimicrobial stewardship program to optimize antimicrobial prescribing. With a multidisciplinary panel from four European countries we developed 57 structure indicators from which ten indicators were identified as a minimal set of key indicators. A validation survey in eleven European hospitals showed a significant heterogeneity with regard to their scoring for structural components of effective antibiotic stewardship. We concluded that potential structure indicators examined in this study, with focus on the top-ten indicators, could be used for regular assessment of the extent and strength of hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs.
The feasibility and clinical relevance of measuring a process indicator for appropriate iv use of highly bioavailable antimicrobial drugs, allowing early IV to oral switch, was evaluated revealing a substantial heterogeneity of the performance gap. Absence of an iv-to-po switch programme was associated with more inappropriate prescribing. The results of this study indicated that the iv-to-po quality indicator is widely applicable and could be a tool to evaluate compliance with iv-to-po switch guidelines.
Optimizing antibiotic dosing regimens is a core activity within an antimicrobial stewardship program. Extended and continuous infusions with betalactam antibiotics have been suggested as a means of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic optimisation of antimicrobial therapy. A survey was undertaken to investigate the recommendations on extended and continuous infusions of ceftazidime, cefepime, piperacillin–tazobactam, meropenem and vancomycin by the local antibiotic management teams (AMTs) in Belgian acute hospitals. This survey showed that extended and continuous infusions are widely implemented in Belgian hospitals but revealed significant variation in the recommended dosing regimens.
Two interventional studies were performed to optimize antimicrobial prescribing. These focused on appropriate timing of the initiation of an antimicrobial treatment for presumed infections in the emergency ward and on parenteral to oral conversion of fluoroquinolone antibiotics. We showed that the implementation of merely persuasive interventions such as hospital-wide publication of guidelines in the local drug letter and educational interactive sessions towards nurses and physicians only resulted in limited improvement. However, a pro-active intervention by a clinical pharmacist to stimulate parenteral to oral conversion resulted in a significant reduction of the duration of the intravenous treatment, as well as in treatment cost.
Finally we assessed the functioning of a multidisciplinary infectious diseases team (MIT), which is an example of educational outreach intervention. The MIT formulated a daily average of 5 interventions for non-critically ill adult patients in a teaching hospital. Following bedside assessment by junior staff, diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations were communicated by phone and by notes towards prescribers in the electronic patient file resulting in high acceptance rates, in particular for therapeutic recommendations.
In general this thesis provides indicators to the AMT’s to evaluate their antimicrobial stewardship activities. Proactive interventions on an individual patient level are needed to optimize antimicrobial prescribing
Clinical and economic value of in-hospital clinical pharmacy activities form a health care perspective
No full textEconomic evaluations have become increasingly important in health care systems. Scarce resources necessitate to consider both outcomes and costs to guide decision-making. This dissertation explores the return on investment of pharmaceutical recommendations in a hospital setting ('a clinical pharmacy service'). Subsequently the clinical added value of clinical pharmacy, the methodology to evaluate a clinical pharmacy program and the studied cost benefit are presented. In a last part this work explores the role of information technology in reducing the pharmacist workload
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe 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
Detection and prevention of drug related problems in older hospitalized patients: the challenge for the clinical pharmacist
Get PDFkoamabayili/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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