1,720,955 research outputs found
Cognitive profiles and clinical factors in type III spinal muscular atrophy: a preliminary study
No full textCognitive abilities are often affected in progressive neurodegenerative disorders, but there is a lack of understanding about whether spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) patients experience cognitive deficits and, if so, whether they are associated with clinical factors. A sample of 22 type III SMA patients and 22 healthy controls completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, including tests in memory, executive function, language, visuospatial, and global cognitive functioning. Clinical severity was assessed using the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale, the Revised Upper Limb Module and the Six Minute Walk Test. SMA patients showed poorer performance in visuospatial abilities, executive functions and language as compared to healthy controls. In the SMA sample, patients with greater motor difficulties had lower performance in attention, but higher performance in measures of language, verbal fluency, and memory. In men, but not women, cognitive test performance was associated with motor functioning. Our findings showing cognitive changes in SMA type III may reflect the presence of intrinsic brain pathology and cognitive adaptation mechanisms following physical dysfunction, which may be mediated by other factors, such as sex
Teoria della Mente nella Malattia di Parkinson: Ruolo della terapia dopaminergica
No full textIl termine Teoria della Mente (ToM) si riferisce alla capacità di rappresentarsi i propri e gli altrui stati mentali, inclusi pensieri, credenze, conoscenze, emozioni, intenzioni e desideri, e come questi stati influenzano il comportamento. La ToM riconosce due componenti distinte: una emotiva, l’ altra cognitiva. E’ possibile riscontrare alterazioni della ToM in molte patologie sia di tipo neurologico che psichiatrico: Autismo, Schizofrenia, Malattia di Alzheimer e Corea di Huntington. Numerosi sono stati gli studi che hanno indagato le caratteristiche della ToM nei pazienti affetti da Malattia di Parkinson(MP) nelle diverse fasi di malattia; molti di questi studi, seppur utilizzando differenti test, hanno dimostrato la compromissione prevalente della componente cognitiva della ToM nei pazienti in stadio precoce (stadi I e II di Hoen e Yahr), a dispetto dell’ integrità della componente affettiva. Negli stadi più avanzati di malattia invece (stadi III e IV di Hoen e Yahr) si riscontrano più frequentemente alterazioni in entrambe le componenti della TOM.
L’obiettivo del presente studio è quello di indagare la TOM in pazienti con MP in fase iniziale ed il ruolo che la terapia dopaminergica svolge sulla ToM. Per fare questo abbiamo arruolato 29 pazienti: 18 con MP in fase precoce e 11 controlli sani. I 29 pazienti dello studio sono stati sottoposti a diversi test per valutare la ToM: i pazienti con MP sono stati valutati prima e dopo l’inizio della terapia dopaminergica e successivamente abbiamo confrontato le loro performance in base alla terapia e rispetto ai controlli sani. I test scelti per indagare i vari aspetti della ToM sono stati i Faux Pas Tasks, il Picture Sequencing Task Capture Story, il Test di attribuzione delle emozioni verbali, lo Strange Stories task, e il Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces Test (KDEF Test, una variante del Reading in The Mind Test). Dalla nostra casistica è emerso che i pazienti con MP presentano peggiori performance rispetto ai controlli sani in alcuni test della TOM che indagano aspetti cognitivi, e, dopo aver intrapreso la terapia, migliorano in tali test , tanto da compensare l’ iniziale deficit. Si può inoltre osservare nel gruppo di pazienti con MP, un miglioramento dopo terapia dopaminergica anche in uno dei test eseguiti per esplorare la componente affettiva, pur in assenza di differenze significative rispetto ai controlli sani prima della terapia
Subjective Sleep Quality as it Relates to Cognitive and Physical Function in Spinal Muscular Atrophy Patients
Full text linkSleep quality and its association with cognition has been widely studied in some neurodegenerative diseases, but less is known about this association in spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). In adult SMA (n = 21) patients and age-matched controls (n = 23), we assessed subjectively measured sleep quality and daytime somnolence. Cognition was assessed with a multi-domain neuropsychological battery. Further, we investigated the association between clinical functional scores and sleep questionnaire scores. Among SMA patients, better motor and limb function was associated with better subjective sleep quality (p's < 0.05). Clinicians should consider sleep quality in patient care and future studies are needed to better understand these relationships
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
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