1,720,969 research outputs found
Autonomic modulation of heart rate during obstructive versus central apneas in patients with sleep-disordered breathing
No full textIntense tacrolimus ointment therapy in children with serious atopic eczema dermatitis syndrome
No full textno abstract availabl
Changes in sputum counts and airway hyperresponsiveness after budesonide: monitoring anti-inflammatory response on the basis of surrogate markers of airway inflammation
No full textBackground: Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) to pharmacologic stimuli and sputum eosinophils might be useful in the individual adjustment of long-term asthma management. However, it is not clear whether inhaled glucocorticosteroids (GCSs) provide greater protection against specific surrogate markers of airways inflammation than other means. In addition, detailed longitudinal assessment of changes in airway response with inhaled GCSs has never been carried out. Objectives: We compared changes in AHR to inhaled methacholine and adenosine 5?-monophosphate (AMP) after budesonide treatment in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study of patients with mild-to-moderate asthma. Subsequently, we undertook a separate study to examine the time course of the changes in AHR in more detail and the changes in sputum cell counts in relation to budesonide treatment. Methods: In the phase 1 of the study, patients undertook bronchial provocation studies with increasing doubling concentrations of methacholine (0.06 to 16 mg/mL) and AMP (3.125 to 800 mg/mL) before and after budesonide 0.8 mg/daily for 3 weeks. The bronchial responses to the inhaled agonists were expressed as the provocative concentration causing a 20% decline in FEV1 (PC20). In phase 2 of the study, patients attended the laboratory on 12 separate occasions to investigate changes in PC20 methacholine, PC20 AMP, and sputum cell counts before, during, and after withdrawal of therapy with inhaled budesonide 0.8 mg/daily for 6 weeks. Results: Budesonide treatment for 3 weeks significantly attenuated the constrictor response by 0.8 ± 0.3 doubling doses for methacholine and by 2.6 ± 0.5 doubling doses for AMP. These changes were significantly different from each other (P = .003). Significant variation in PC20 methacholine (P < .05) value, PC20 AMP (P < .001) value, percentage of sputum eosinophils (P < .001), and percentage of sputum epithelial cells (P < .001) were observed throughout the longitudinal assessment of changes in airway response to budesonide. Compared with the other surrogate markers, PC20 AMP appears to be useful in promptly detecting early inflammatory changes of the asthmatic airways; a significant change of 1.6 ± 0.3, 2.2 ± 0.3, and 2.8 ± 0.3 doubling doses of PC20 AMP was observed at 1, 4, and 6 weeks, respectively, in the course of budesonide treatment. Conclusions: The present findings underline the exquisite selectivity of diverse surrogate markers of airway inflammation in response to inhaled budesonide. When compared with that to the other markers, AHR to inhaled AMP is an early and sensitive indicator of the beneficial anti-inflammatory effects of topical GCSs
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
Granuloma annulare as first clinical manifestation of diabetes mellitus in children: A case report
No full textGranuloma annulare has been widely described in adults in association with systemic diseases such as type 1 diabetes mellitus. However in childhood this relationship remains unclear. We report the case of an 8-year-old girl, with multiple granuloma annulare as first clinical manifestation of type one diabetes mellitus. © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd
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