1,721,138 research outputs found
Genetic influences on Asthma Severity.
No full textIn recent years asthma-related morbidity and mortality has increased globally. In the northern area of Spain the average total annual asthma–derived cost was estimated at US 6,393 per patient in the case of severe asthma [1]. Given the social and economic impact of severe asthma, it is essential that the underlying determinants of asthma severity are understood. It is well established that there is a strong genetic component underlying susceptibility to asthma, but few studies have addressed whether there are genetic factors that modify severity of disease. While there is some evidence that severity of asthma is heritable, and association between measures of severity and polymorphism in candidate genes have been identified, the identification of genetic factors contributing to asthma severity has been hampered by the lack of clear, easily applied, accurate phenotype definitions for asthma severity that distinguish between underlying severity and level of therapeutic control. The development of such phenotypes in conjunction with more extensive studies of the genetics of asthma severity may allow identification of at risk individuals, and targeting of prophylactic therapy
The genetic basis of atopic asthma
No full textAsthma is a respiratory disease characterized by recurrentrespiratory symptoms, reversible variable airway obstruction,airway inflammation and increased airway responsiveness. Atopy is a disorder involving immunoglobulin E(IgE) antibody responses to ubiquitous allergens, and iscommonly associated with asthma. Because of its complexclinical phenotype, the genetic basis of asthma can bestudied using intermediate or surrogate phenotypes thatcan be measured objectively, such as the presence ofatopy or bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR), althoughthese are not specific to asthma. Furthermore, despite theclose relationship between atopy, bronchial hyperresponsivenessand asthma, they are not interchangeable:most asthmatics are atopic, but atopic subjects may not havebronchial hyperresponsiveness or asthma symptoms andsubjects with bronchial hyperresponsiveness may not beatopic or asthmatic. The phenotype can bedefined in several ways ranging from subjective measures(e.g. symptoms), objective measures (e.g. BHR or serumIgE level) or both. It is this lack of a clear definition ofasthmatic phenotypes that presents the biggest problemwhen reviewing studies of the genetic basis of asthma andatopy, with multiple definitions of the same intermediatephenotype being used in different studies
Cyclical Mechanical Stretch Enhances the Proinflammatory but not Profibrotic Responses of Asthmatic Fibroblasts
No full text
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
Fatal asthma attack during an inhalation challenge with ultrasonically nebulized distilled water.
No full textA 22-year-old man had a history of asthma that was well controlled by regular treatment with inhaled steroids and β-agonists, until a fatal attack occurred during an inhalation challenge in the laboratory with ultrasonically nebulized distilled water
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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