1,721,010 research outputs found
The importance of inhaler devices in the treatment of COPD
Full text linkChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) represents a socio-economic burden and requires regular and
ongoing treatment. Inhalation therapy is recommended at all stages of the disease and allows the delivery of active
molecules directly to the target site of action, whilst minimising adverse side-effects. Inhalers therefore play a crucial
role in the effective management of patients with COPD and their choice is as important as that of the drug. The
three most important factors that influence inhaled drug deposition within the airways are the patient’s inhalation
flow, the aerosol velocity, and the inhaled drug particle size. These ultimately impact on the amount of drug
reaching the target site and therefore the functional and clinical responses of the patient. Furthermore, patients’
training and education in the use of inhalers have been shown to be directly related to the efficacy of the therapy.
However, in daily clinical practice, too little consideration is given to the features of the different inhalers and to
the ability of patients to properly handle the device, and precise recommendations are greatly needed to help
healthcare professionals to advise and prescribe the most ‘appropriate’ inhaled drug/device product. The present
review aims to provide the latest evidence on the importance of the inhaler device in the management of
patients with COPD
Asthma and gender. The female lung
No full textAsthma is a common chronic disease that affects over 300 million people worldwide, resulting in a
considerable socio-economic burden.
Literature data suggest that asthma has a higher incidence in females, particularly at certain stages of
pubertal development. Moreover, women seem to experience more asthma symptoms than men and to
use more rescue medications, resulting in a reduced quality of life.
Although several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these differences, there are not yet final
data available in the literature on the role of gender in the pathogenesis of asthma and different behavior
in females.
Some study suggested a more prevalent hyper-responsiveness in women than in men. Nevertheless,
in the literature definitive data on a possible different response to drugs used for asthma between males
and females are not described.
Understanding the mechanisms that underlie these gender differences in clinical history of asthma
patients could give inspiration to new areas of research to obtain a more specific diagnostic and therapeutic approach gender-oriented
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
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