1,720,962 research outputs found

    Group Behavioural Activation for Depression: Predicting and Reducing ‘Stasis’ Outcomes

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    Depression is a widely prevalent, debilitating disorder that causes significant suffering for those affected. Behavioural activation (BA) is an evidence-based psychological treatment for depression. The evidence base for BA is largely grounded in individual delivery, with far less known about BA delivered in groups. Given rising demand for treatment, groups represent an attractive delivery strategy for services. Despite good rates of treatment outcomes for evidenced-based psychological treatments, considerable numbers of patients do not benefit and remain in a state of depression ‘stasis’ (i.e., their symptoms are relatively unchanged, despite receiving treatment). This thesis sought to investigate the effectiveness and efficacy of group BA, the reasons why stasis might occur and also how stasis can be reduced. First, a meta-analysis (Chapter 2) of group BA depression outcomes in trial (efficacy) and naturalistic (effectiveness) contexts is presented, to clarify the treatment effect of group-based BA interventions. Group BA is shown to be superior to controls (Hedges g effect size = 0.72) and equivalent to other active therapies (g = 0.14) at treatment completion. Chapter 3 provides an overview of depression stasis after evidence-based treatment. The chapter highlights the difficulties in identifying stasis outcomes, the extent of the problem (up to ~60% of patients treated) and the paucity of evidence about associated factors. As a result, a stasis metric is defined for use in the subsequent Chapters. An analysis of BA treatment response (Chapter 4) then investigates the effect of intervention intensity, format and duration on stasis outcomes. BA is seen to be effective at reducing depression (in 4-9 sessions) regardless of format, with larger effects seen for more intensive versions. ‘Stasis patients’ are distinguishable from ‘improvers’ after 2 sessions. Risk of a BA stasis outcome was predicted by attending fewer sessions, greater impaired functioning prior to treatment, and less severe depression. Building on these findings, Chapter 5 then tests an augmented group BA treatment to determine whether drop-out and stasis outcomes can be reduced. Whilst treatment retention remains stable, significantly fewer patients experience a stasis outcome after the augmented treatment, due to increased rates of improvement. Lastly, a mediation study (Chapter 6) evaluates whether increasing behaviour in accordance with life values (valued living) is a BA change mechanism. Discrepancies in valued-living were not related to depression severity, nor did valued-living increase as a result of group BA. Exploratory analyses showed valued living does not mediate reductions in depression symptom clusters (somatic or affective) during group BA therapy. Finally, the overall theoretical, clinical, organisational and research implications are discussed in Chapter 7, with recommendations outlined for future investigation into depression stasis and treatment

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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

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    We 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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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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