1,720,958 research outputs found
Influence of quality of care and individual patient characteristics on quality of life and return to work in survivors of the acute respiratory distress syndrome: protocol for a prospective, observational, multi-centre patient cohort study (DACAPO)
No full textAbstract Background Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and return to work are important outcomes in critical care medicine, reaching beyond mortality. Little is known on factors predictive of HRQoL and return to work in critical illness, including the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), and no evidence exists on the role of quality of care (QoC) for outcomes in survivors of ARDS. It is the aim of the DACAPO study (“Surviving ARDS: the influence of QoC and individual patient characteristics on quality of life”) to investigate the role of QoC and individual patient characteristics on quality of life and return to work. Methods/Design A prospective, observational, multi-centre patient cohort study will be performed in Germany, using hospitals from the “ARDS Network Germany” as the main recruiting centres. It is envisaged to recruit 2400 patients into the DACAPO study and to analyse a study population of 1500 survivors. They will be followed up until 12 months after discharge from hospital. QoC will be assessed as process quality, structural quality and volume at the institutional level. The main outcomes (HRQoL and return to work) will be assessed by self-report questionnaires. Further data collection includes general medical and ARDS-related characteristics of patients as well as sociodemographic and psycho-social parameters. Multilevel hierarchical modelling will be performed to analyse the effects of QoC and individual patient characteristics on outcomes, taking the cluster structure of the data into account. Discussion By obtaining comprehensive data at patient and hospital level using a prospective multi-centre design, the DACAPO-study is the first study investigating the influence of QoC on individual outcomes of ARDS survivors
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Characteristics and provision of care of patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome: descriptive findings from the DACAPO cohort baseline and comparison with international findings
No full textBackground: Little is known about the characteristics and real world life circumstances of ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) patient populations. This knowledge is essential for transferring evidence-based therapy into routine healthcare. The aim of this study was to report socio-demographic and clinical characteristics in an unselected population of ARDS patients and to compare these results to findings from other large ARDS cohorts. Methods: A German based cross-sectional observational study was carried out. A total of 700 ARDS patients were recruited in 59 study sites between September 2014 and January 2016. Socio-demographic, disease and care related variables were recorded. Additionally, characteristics of other large ARDS cohorts identified by a systematic literature search were extracted into evidence tables. Results: Median age of ARDS patients was 58 years, 69% were male. Sixty percent had no employment, predominantly due to retirement. Seventy-one percent lived with a partner. The main cause of ARDS was a pulmonary 'direct' origin (79%). The distribution of severity was as follows: mild (14%), moderate (48%), severe (38%). Overall ICU mortality was calculated to be 34%. The observed prevalence of critical events (hypoxemia, hypoglycemia, re-intubation) was 47%. Supportive measures during ICU-treatment were applied to 60% of the patients. Other ARDS cohorts revealed a high heterogeneity in reported concomitant diseases, but sepsis and pneumonia were most frequently reported. Mean age ranged from 54 to 71 years and most patients were male. Other socio-demographic factors have been almost neglected. Conclusions: The proportion of patients suffering of mild ARDS was lower compared to the only study identified, which also applied the Berlin definition. The frequency of critical events during ICU treatment was high and the implementation of evidence-based therapy (prone positioning, neuro-muscular blockers) was limited. More evidence on socio-demographic characteristics and further studies applying the current diagnostic criteria are desirable
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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