1,720,961 research outputs found
Investigating the potential of reported cattle mortality data in Switzerland for syndromic surveillance
No full textSystems for the identification and registration of cattle have gradually been receiving attention for use in syndromic surveillance, a relatively recent approach for the early detection of infectious disease outbreaks. Real or near real-time monitoring of deaths or stillbirths reported to these systems offer an opportunity to detect temporal or spatial clusters of increased mortality that could be caused by an infectious disease epidemic. In Switzerland, such data are recorded in the "Tierverkehrsdatenbank" (TVD). To investigate the potential of the Swiss TVD for syndromic surveillance, 3 years of data (2009-2011) were assessed in terms of data quality, including timeliness of reporting and completeness of geographic data. Two time-series consisting of reported on-farm deaths and stillbirths were retrospectively analysed to define and quantify the temporal patterns that result from non-health related factors. Geographic data were almost always present in the TVD data; often at different spatial scales. On-farm deaths were reported to the database by farmers in a timely fashion; stillbirths were less timely. Timeliness and geographic coverage are two important features of disease surveillance systems, highlighting the suitability of the TVD for use in a syndromic surveillance system. Both time series exhibited different temporal patterns that were associated with non-health related factors. To avoid false positive signals, these patterns need to be removed from the data or accounted for in some way before applying aberration detection algorithms in real-time. Evaluating mortality data reported to systems for the identification and registration of cattle is of value for comparing national data systems and as a first step towards a European-wide early detection system for emerging and re-emerging cattle diseases
Development of a syndromic surveillance system to enhance early detection of emerging and re-emerging animal diseases
Full text linkAnimal health surveillance plays an important role in protecting animal health, production and welfare, public health and trade from the negative impacts of disease. To address the challenges posed by new, exotic or re-emerging diseases as well as the limitations of traditional surveillance, new approaches, including syndromic surveillance (SyS) and modern communication technologies have been developed to improve early disease detection. SyS is based on the continuous monitoring of unspecific pre-diagnostic health data in order to detect an unusual increase in counts which may indicate a health hazard in a timely manner. An increasing number of studies has been investigating different types of animal health data for a possible use in SyS. Although the potential of cattle mortality data routinely collected in national cattle registers for use in a SyS system was highlighted, the performance of aberration-detection algorithms applied to such data has not yet been investigated. Furthermore, knowledge about the impact of delayed reporting of these data on outbreak detection performance is limited. Clinical observations made by veterinary practitioners reported in real-time using web- and mobile-based communication tools may improve the timeliness of outbreak detection. The willingness of practitioners to report their observations is essential for the successful implementation of such systems. A lack of knowledge about factors that motivate or hinder practitioners to participate in surveillance was found.
The aim of this work was to contribute to the development of a national surveillance system for the early detection of emerging and re-emerging animal diseases in Switzerland, focusing on two Swiss data sources: cattle mortality data routinely reported by farmers to the Swiss system for individual identification and registration of cattle (Tierverkehrsdatenbank TVD); clinical data voluntarily reported by veterinary practitioners to Equinella, an electronic reporting and information system for the early detection of infectious equine diseases in Switzerland.
Time series of on-farm and perinatal cattle deaths, extracted from the TVD, were analysed with regard to data quality and explainable temporal patterns, e.g. day-of-week effect or seasonality. A set of three temporal aberration detection algorithms (Shewhart, CuSum, EWMA) was retrospectively applied to these data to assess their performance in detecting varying simulated disease outbreak scenarios. The effect of reporting delay on outbreak detection was investigated in a Bayesian framework. Participation of veterinary practitioners during the first 12 months of the new internet-based reporting platform of Equinella was assessed. Telephone interviews were conducted to gain insights into factors that motivate or hinder practitioners to participate in a voluntary surveillance system offering non-monetary incentives. Furthermore, the suitability of mobile devices such as smartphones for collecting health data was investigated.
The TVD provided timely cattle mortality data with comprehensive geographical information, making it a valuable data source for Sys. Mortality time series exhibited temporal patterns, associated with non-health related factors, that had to be considered before applying aberration detection algorithms. The three evaluated control chart algorithms adequately performed under specific outbreak conditions, but none of them was superior in detecting outbreak signals across multiple evaluation metrics. Combining algorithms outputs according to different rules did not satisfactorily increase the system’s overall performance, further illustrating the difficulty in finding a balance between a high sensitivity and a manageable number of false alarms. The Bayesian approach performed similarly well in the scenario where delayed reporting was accounted for to the (ideal) scenario where it was absent.
Non-monetary incentives were attractive to sentinel practitioners and overall participation was experienced positive. Insufficient understanding of the reporting system and of its relevance, as well as concerns over the electronic dissemination of health data were identified as potential challenges to sustainable reporting. Mobile devices were sporadically used during the first year and an awareness of the advantages of mobile-based surveillance was yet lacking among practitioners, indicating that they may require some time to become accustomed to novel reporting methods.
This work highlighted the value of routinely collected cattle mortality data for use in SyS, but also the need to carefully optimise aberration detection algorithms for a particular data stream. Alternative methods to the binary alarm system may be chosen for a prospective use of cattle mortality data in a SyS system. The value of evidence framework may be suitable for surveillance systems with multiple syndromes and delayed reporting of data. Before integrating these data into a national surveillance system for the early detection of new, exotic or re-emerging diseases, health authorities need to define response protocols enabling investigation of the data that triggered a statistical alarm and to identify the underlying cause. Possibilities for improving sensitivity and specificity were identified that may be addressed when implementing a future SyS system. In addition, the potential of voluntary reporting surveillance system based on non-monetary incentives was shown. Many of the identified barriers to reporting can be addressed in the future, making the outcome of the pilot project favourable. Continued information feedback loops within voluntary sentinel networks will be important to ensure sustainable participation. Combining reporting of syndromic data and mobile devices in a One Health context has the potential to benefit animal and public health as well as to enhance interdisciplinary collaboration
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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