1,720,959 research outputs found
Morbid obesity and hypertension: The role of perirenal fat
No full textAccumulation of fat in renal sinus and hilum is associated with hypertension development. We evaluated the relationship between perirenal fat and hypertension in a population of morbidly obese patients and the potential variations after sleeve-gastrectomy. Two hundred and eighty-four morbidly obese patients were included in the study, and 126 underwent sleeve-gastrectomy. At baseline and 10-12 months after surgery, we evaluated anthropometric parameters, blood pressure, glycometabolic, and lipidic assessment, and performed an ultrasonographic evaluation of visceral fat area and perirenal fat thickness. The perirenal fat thickness in hypertensive obese was higher than in nonhypertensive (13.6 ± 4.8 vs 11.6 ± 4.1, P = 0.001). It showed a significant direct correlation with age, waist circumference, BMI, systolic blood pressure (SBP), insulinemia, HOMA-IR, glycated hemoglobin, and creatinine. The independent predictors (R2 = 0.129) of SBP were perirenal fat thickness (β = 0.160, P = 0.022) and age (β = 0.175, P = 0.011). After surgery, perirenal fat thickness significantly decreased (from 13 ± 4 to 9 ± 4 mm, P <0.001). In the 89 hypertensive obese patients who underwent sleeve-gastrectomy, we observed a significant decrease in antihypertensive medications needed. Sixteen patients suspended therapy. The perirenal fat thickness in obese patients could be a valuable tool to define the risk of developing hypertension, providing the clinician with an additional parameter to define those who need a more aggressive treatment and could benefit most from bariatric surgery
Stroke in patients with tuberculous meningitis in a low TB endemic country: an increasing medical emergency?
No full textStroke due to brain vascular disease is a serious complication of tuberculous meningitis (TBM). This study evaluated the frequency, clinical characteristics, risk factors and outcomes of patients with TBM complicated by stroke admitted to the Infectious Disease Clinic, University of Perugia Hospital, Italy from 1971 to 2010. Over four decades, 419 patients were admitted with tuberculosis, of these 30 (7.1%) were diagnosed with TBM: 20 definite, one probable and nine possible. Twenty-six were evaluable for stroke and six (23%) had stroke. The latter six had advanced stages of meningitis, two tested HIV positive, three HIV negative and in one HIV was not performed. Of seven patients without stroke tested for HIV, only one resulted positive. No differences were found regarding CSF cell count, sugar, protein, microscopy or growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis among patients with or without stroke. The overall survival rate at discharge was 83% in patients with stroke and 95% in those without stroke. It was found that stroke can be frequent among patients with TBM and the presence of HIV infection might be associated with a higher rate of stroke. Further research is needed on these findings, especially in low TB endemic countries.Stroke due to brain vascular disease is a serious complication of tuberculous meningitis (TBM). This study evaluated the frequency, clinical characteristics, risk factors and outcomes of patients with TBM complicated by stroke admitted to the Infectious Disease Clinic, University of Perugia Hospital, Italy from 1971 to 2010.Over four decades, 419 patients were admitted with tuberculosis, of these 30 (7.1%) were diagnosed with TBM: 20 definite, one probable and nine possible. Twenty-six were evaluable for stroke and six (23%) had stroke. The latter six had advanced stages of meningitis, two tested HIV positive, three HIV negative and in one HIV was not performed. Of seven patients without stroke tested for HIV, only one resulted positive. No differences were found regarding CSF cell count, sugar, protein, microscopy or growth of Mycobacterium tuberculosis among patients with or without stroke. The overall survival rate at discharge was 83% in patients with stroke and 95% in those withou..
Facing Morbid Obesity: How to Approach It
No full textObesity is a major public health problem, with a prevalence of 10% to 20% in Western Europe. Morbid obesity, characterized by body mass index >40 kg/m(2), showed an increased prevalence in the last 30 years. Obesity is associated with reduced economic and social opportunities, reduced quality of life, and is a determinant of several "intermediate risk factors," leading to an increased mortality and a loss in life expectancy. The rising prevalence of morbid obesity increased the demand for bariatric surgery, also called "metabolic surgery": after these interventions, there is a decrease in metabolic comorbidities, cardiovascular (CV) risk, and total mortality. In this review, we update the evaluation of morbid obese patients from the physical examination to the metabolic, CV and respiratory assessments in order to correctly stratify the CV risk and provide the best treatment. To obtain these achievements, multidisciplinary work has to be carried out with a team involving several experts with different skills
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
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