1,720,980 research outputs found
Laparoscopic versus open hepatic resections for benign and malignant neoplasms - a meta-analysis
No full textBackground. Laparoscopic surgery for hepatic neoplasms aims to provide curative resection while minimizing complications. The present study compared. laparoscopic versus open surgery for Patients with hepatic neoplasms with regard to short-term outcomes. Methods. Comparative studies published between 1998 and 2005 were included. Evaluated endpoints were operative, functional, and adverse events. A random-effects model was used and sensitivity analysis performed to account for bias in patient selection. Results. Eight nonrandomized studies were included, reporting on 409 resections of hepatic neoplasms, of which 165 (40.3%) were laparoscopic and 244 (59.7%) were open. Operative blood loss (weighted mean difference = -123 mL; confidence interval = -179, -67 mL) and duration of hospital stay (weighted mean difference = -2.6 days; confidence interval -3.8, -1.4 days) were significantly reduced after laparoscopic surgery. These findings remained consistent when considering studies matched for the presence of malignancy and segment resection. There was no difference in postoperative adverse events and extent of oncologic clearance. Conclusions. Laparoscopic resection results in reduced operative blood loss and earlier recovery with oncologic clearance comparable with open surgery. When performed by experienced surgeons in selected patients it may be a safe and feasible option. Because of the potential of significant bias arising from the included studies, further randomized controlled trials should be undertaken to confirm this bias and to assess long-term, survival rate
Do We Need to Change the Legislation to a System of Presumed Consent to Address Organ Shortage?
No full textOrgan transplantation significantly improves the health, quality of life and life-expectancy of people whose organs have failed. Most patients in the UK cannot enjoy the benefits of a transplant because of an extreme shortage of organs. This paper demonstrates the magnitude of the problem of organ shortage and identifies possible causes. The current UK legislation regarding consent to organ transplantation is analysed and compared with other jurisdictions. The hypothesis of changing the legislation to a system of presumed consent in order to address the organ shortage is explored. The main issues surrounding a change in the legislation are considered, and the effects on society and the individual are discussed. This paper argues that there is not enough convincing evidence to support a change in the legislation to a system of presumed consent at this time. Instead, an increase in organ donations could be achieved by improving the effectiveness of the current system of organ donation, and by improving the public's awareness and understanding of organ transplantation issues
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
Ileal pouch salvage, pouch failure and redo surgery
Full text linkRates of pouch failure can vary between 3.5% and 17% in the described literature. The most common causes for failure are sepsis, poor function and sepsis. In some situations revisional surgery is required and this chapter aims to describe the causation of pouch failure, revisional surgery and the functional outcomes of revisional surgery
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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