1,720,965 research outputs found
PEG placement in patients with ALS
No full textIntroduction: Percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy is one of the most common techniques to guarantee enteral nutrition in patients who are not able to eat. This procedure is an important therapeutic tool to treat dysphagia in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Materials and methods: From January 2005 to December 2010, 47 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were referred to the Artificial Nutrition Unit, University Hospital, Siena for percutaneous en-doscopic gastrostomy. These study participants included 24 women and 23 men with a mean age of 68.5 years (range 39-85 years). Results: The total number of days of enteral nutrition by percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy was 23,608, with a mean of 491 days (range 1-1,836). In 9 patients the treatment lasted less than 100 days. In all patients nutritional indexes and body mass index improved 3 months after treatment compared to baseline. Conclusions: We also observed that the decision for percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy placement should be taken early in the course of the disease as restricted pulmonary function will reduce the chance of successful placement. © 2012 SINPE-GASAPE
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
Is sleeve gastrectomy a therapeutic procedure for all obese patients?
No full textBackground: Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) is a worldwide surgical procedure for morbid obesity. However patients selection is still anecdotal. The aim of this study is to analyse clinical and anthropometric parameters correlated with LSG and to check the validity of this procedure for different categories of obese patients. Methods: Two-hundred one consecutive patients were submitted to LSG as a primary bariatric procedure between 2008 and 2014. One year follow-up was completed in 159 patients. Smaller groups of patients completed 2 and 3 years follow-up (78, 46 patients respectively). Median preoperative body mass index (BMI) was 45.4 kg/m2 (range: 34.8-73.8); 135 patients (80%) had one or more comorbidities. Potential correlations between age, gender, preoperative BMI, preoperative excess weight, early excess weight loss (EWL) and 1 and 3 year-EWL were investigated. Results: All procedures were regularly completed with laparoscopic approach without conversion to laparotomy. Postoperative complications occurred in six patients (3.7%); no postoperative mortality was observed. Median one-year BMI and EWL were 32.8 kg/m2 and 55.34%, respectively. Three year-EWL was significantly influenced by age, and early EWL. A complete normalization of glycemic levels after the three-year follow-up was also observed in high percentage of diabetic patients. In patients with preoperative BMI>50 kg/m2 we observed most failure cases in terms of EWL and the worst metabolic results. Conclusions: Our experience indicates that LSG is a safe procedure with satisfactory three-year late weight loss in patients with preoperative BMI <50 kg/m2. Promising results, in terms of improvements of comorbidities, were also observed. These results make LSG one of the most attractive first stage surgical procedure for morbid obesity
Acute lithiasic cholecystitis in Rett syndrome: Discussion on a complication
No full textBACKGROUND: The laparoscopic cholecystectomy becoming the gold standard in the treatment of lithiasic cholecystitis. At present, the complications range between 0.25% and 0.74% for the major lesions and between 0.28% and 1.7% for the minor lesions. In this study, we describe a clinical picture of biliary peritonitis in a RTT patient after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The cause of lesion is not always easily identifiable and the multiple factors promoting a lesion can be involved, such as those ones related to anatomy of hepatic pedicle, abnormalities of cystic duct, inflammatory alterations and finally factors related to the expertise of surgical teams. In addition, the factors related to patients, such as obesity, cirrhosis, precedent surgeries and anatomical abnormalities, should always be considered. METHODS: Among the 250 patients operated on for acute lithiasic cholecystitis from January 2009 to February 2014 at the "Istituto di Chirugia II" of the Siena University Hospital, we have observed 12 cases (circa 5% of the population) of RTT patients (mean age: 29.0±years, range 22-36, all female). RESULTS: After twenty days the patients were released, of note, one RTT patient showed a clinical picture of biliary peritonitis.The presence of subhepatic fluid collection and extravasated contrast medium near the cystic duct stump and the common hepatic duct. The abdominal computerized tomography (CT) with contrast agent confirmed the biliary peritonitis. On an emergency laparotomy, bile duct injuries at the level of the right hepatic duct and cystic duct have been revealed. CONCLUSIONS: Our experience suggests that these risks are increased in RTT patients and therefore necessitate a more accurate pre-and postoperative assessment, both in terms clinical-Anaesthesiological and instrumental, in order to make early diagnosis and thereby prevent possible complications
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
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