1,720,997 research outputs found
The Effect of Aging on Memory for Recent and Remote Egocentric and Allocentric Information
No full textBackground: The present study explores recent and well-consolidated spatial memory within the egocentric and allocentric frames of reference in young and elderly people. Methods: The research included young and old participants, within the range of normality. All the participants were tested on four spatial tasks requiring allocentric and egocentric judgments, based on recent as well as remote spatial information, using a Multivariate Regression Analysis. Results: An age effect on both egocentric and allocentric tasks was present in recently learned spatial information. The age effect was not present in tasks regarding well-consolidated spatial information. Finally, sex influenced the performance in allocentric tasks regarding both recent and well-consolidated memory. Conclusion: These data were discussed according to the Multiple Trace Theory, supporting the idea that the magnitude of difference between egocentric and allocentric judgments in aging is somewhat attributable to the characteristic of spatial tasks. In general, a lower difference between the performance of young and elderly participants is shown in tasks based on well-consolidated information when compared with tasks based on episodic information. Well-consolidated information seemed to be better preserved in memory and less prone to the impairment
Cognitive functioning, subjective memory complaints and risky behaviour predict minor home injuries in elderly
No full textIntroduction: Home accidents are one of the major causes of death, particularly in older people, young children and women. Aims: The first aim of this study was to explore the role of subjective memory complaints, cognitive functioning and risky behaviour as predictors of home injuries occurred in a year in a sample of healthy Italian older adults. The second aim was to investigate the role of risky behaviour as a mediator in the relationship between subjective and objective cognitive functioning and home injuries. Methods: One hundred thirty-three community-dwelling older people from southern Italy were administered a battery of tests to evaluate cognitive functioning, subjective memory complaints, and risky behaviour during home activities. Risky behaviour was evaluated using the Domestic Behaviour Questionnaire, created specifically for this purpose. The number of home injuries was recorded for a year throughout monthly telephone interviews. A path analysis was performed to test the following model: cognitive functioning and subjective memory complaints directly influence risky behaviour and number of accidents over a year; risky behaviour mediates the impact of cognitive functioning and subjective memory on number of accidents over a year. Results: Path analysis confirmed the model tested except the role of risky behaviour as a mediator between cognitive functioning and home accidents. Discussion: Risky behaviour could represent a further risk factor in cognitively intact older adults with subjective memory complaints. Conclusions: The assessment of both cognition and behaviour in elderly can make a valuable contribution in preventing home accidents in elderly
The impact of urban green and grey spaces on mental health: insights from the inhabitants of Rome
No full textThis study, conducted within the framework of the Rome Longitudinal Study, explores the intricate relationship between urban greenness and mental health, offering groundbreaking insights into how different environmental elements influence mental health-related outcomes. The study distinguishes itself by employing both 2D and 3D indicators to evaluate the impact of green and grey spaces on the mental health of a substantial population-based cohort. The data set encompasses 593,894 Italian adults aged 30 years and above. The mental health outcomes were meticulously defined using two primary sources: prescription records (encompassing a range of psychiatric medications such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilisers including lithium, and anxiolytics, hypnotics, and sedatives) and hospitalization records (specifically focusing on conditions like schizophrenia spectrum disorder, depression, anxiety, stress-related and somatoform disorders, and substance use disorders). The study's innovative approach involved the use of varied indicators of environmental exposure, including the 2D indicators (e.g. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, NDVI) and 3D indicators derived from LiDAR data (green and grey volume, tree count, and the Normalized Difference Green-Grey Volume Index), all measured in the vicinities of the participants’ residences. The conclusions drawn from this study underscore the significant impact of urban green spaces in mitigating the use of drugs for psychiatric conditions. Conversely, greater exposure to urban grey spaces is linked to an increased usage of such medications. These findings highlight the critical need for accurate characterisation and understanding of green and grey spaces within urban environments, using novel and comprehensive exposure indicators
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
Beyond the cutoffs
No full textThe Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a widespread and concise screening tool for the assessment of cognitive impairment that has had a significant impact on the evaluation of age-related cognitive decline. Since 2010 there have been a great number of national validations of the MoCA. The most important contribution of this huge corpus of research has been the indication of special cutoff values to be used in clinical practice for detecting patients with dementia and mild cognitive impairment. The present chapter aims to describe the most widely disseminated uses of the MoCA in aging clinical practice and a cutting-edge approach to using the MoCA in the assessment of minor and major neurocognitive disorders based on Bayesian statistics
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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