1,721,023 research outputs found
Usefulness of a compendium of respiratory standard questionnaires for adults (CORSQ)
No full textQuestionnaires are the most commonly used subjective instrument of measurement in respiratory epidemiology. The quality of the data collected by questionnaires is quantitatively expressed by validity and reliability, and may be reduced by bias. Validity, expressed as sensitivity and specificity, is assessed by comparing a questionnaire's results with independent measurements, while reliability, expressed as consistency, is measured by the agreement of responses between two administrations of the same questionnaire. Sources of potential bias include the mode of administration (e.g. by interviewer, self-administered), and the questionnaire itself (e.g. wording, back-translation). The standardization of the questionnaire aims at limiting bias, and maximizing validly and reliability. Most of the European and American respiratory standard questionnaires derive from the British Medical Research Council (BMRC) questionnaire, originally developed in the 1950s to investigate the epidemiology of chronic bronchitis and chronic airway obstruction. Among those, the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), the Questionnaire for respiratory diseases recommended by the American Thoracic Society and the Division of Lung Diseases for use in epidemiology research of adults and children (ATS-DLS-78), and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases (IUATLD) questionnaire are included. Within the Concerted Action on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (CA-COPD) a Compendium of Respiratory Standard Questionnaires for adults (CORSQ) was developed, with the purpose of making available a synthetic reference of validated standard questions. The CORSQ, covering 18 topics, from general information to early life events, through respiratory symptoms and diseases, is intended as a reference of existing validated questions, and an example for possible new questions to be used in respiratory epidemiology
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
Bronchitic symptoms in Italy and Sweden - Prevalence and risk factors
No full textAs a part of the European Community BioMed 1 concerted action on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), prevalence and risk factors for symptoms related to COPD were analysed from pooled data from studies performed in Po River Delta in Northern Italy (1988-1991) and in the province of Norrbotten in Northern Sweden (1985-1987). The Italian study sample consisted of a stratified cluster sample of 2,337 subjects aged 20-73 yrs. The Swedish sample comprised 5,698 subjects, or 86% of all people aged 35-36, 50-51, and 65-66 yrs in 1986 living in eight representative areas of the province. Both areas were, and still are, relatively minimally polluted. Questions about symptoms with similar wording were used in the analyses. The prevalence rates of sputum production and longstanding cough in Northern Sweden were 20 and 18%, respectively, while the corresponding prevalences in the Po River Delta were 16 and 13%. Also, the prevalence of chronic productive cough was higher in the Swedish area, 12%, than in the Italian area, 7%. These differences in prevalence rates between the areas were statistically significant, while wheezing was equally prevalent. The prevalence of occasional wheeze was 15% in both areas, while the prevalence of persistent wheeze was 6% in the Italian versus 4% in the Swedish. Risk-factor analyses were performed by multiple logistic regression analysis. Smoking, increasing age, family history of obstructive airway disease, and in Italy also male sex, were significant risk factors for the bronchitic symptoms and wheezing in both areas. Socioeconomic status or occupational exposure related to manual work tended to be associated with an increased risk for bronchitic symptoms. A synergistic effect on chronic productive cough was caused by smoking and a family history of obstructive airway disease. When subjects who had been diagnosed as having asthma were excluded from the analysis, the influence of smoking and increasing age generally became greater, while the role of family history of obstructive airway disease as a risk factor for the symptoms decreased
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
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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