1,721,019 research outputs found
Sex chromosome rearrangements leading to partial aneuploidies and mosaicisms: use of QF-PCR for detection and quantification of the involved cell lines
No full textCostruzione e validazione di un questionario rivolto a Medici in formazione specialistica in Igiene e Medicina Preventiva, riguardante opinioni e conoscenze relative al DL 73/2017 = Design and validation of a questionnaire for assessing Public Health residents' opinions and knowledge regarding the new mandatory vaccination law in Italy (DL 73/2017)
No full textObiettivi: Le vaccinazioni, pur rappresentando un importante strumento di contrasto alle malattie infettive, risultano essere vittime del loro stesso successo. Fenomeno dimostrato da un preoccupante calo delle coperture tanto in Europa, quanto in Italia. Per tale ragione in Italia, attraverso l’approvazione della Legge 31 luglio 2017, n. 119, è stato reintrodotto l’obbligo vaccinale. Obiettivo del presente lavoro è costruire e validare un questionario utile a indagare le opinioni e conoscenze dei medici in formazione specialistica in Igiene e Medicina Preventiva, circa l’obbligatorietà vaccinale.
Metodo: Il questionario è stato redatto da un team selezionato di specializzandi. Il processo di validazione si è svolto mediante somministrazione del questionario a un panel di 10 specializzandi interni al gruppo di lavoro Vaccini e Vaccine Hesitancy della Consulta degli Specializzandi della Società Italiana di Igiene e Medicina Preventiva. I test statistici adoperati sono stati l’alpha di Cronbach e il Kappa di Cohen.
Risultati: Gli items inclusi nella versione finale del questionario risultano essere 23. Dal processo di validazione si evince un elevato livello di consistenza
interna al questionario con alpha= 0,82. Anche il grado di concordanza risulta essere sostanziale con k= 0,75 ± 0,07. Infine, l’analisi di fattibilità mostra una buona validità, poiché l’80% dei rispondenti dichiara che le domande sono poste in modo chiaro e semplice.
Conclusioni: Gli elevati livelli di alpha di Cronbach e K di Cohen raggiunti permettono di considerare il questionario uno strumento valido ed efficace
Assessment of the healthcare managerial skills offered by the Italian post-graduate schools of public health
Get PDFBackground. The Italian National Health Service (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale, SSN) is facing relevant challenges due to decreased financing and increased healthcare costs (1). In this complex framework, most of the Italian Medical Doctors, after obtaining their Specialization degree in Public Health, develop their careers in organizational and managerial roles in public and private health organizations, i.e. hospitals, local health units, health districts or national and international agencies (1, 2). Public health technical competencies, in particular policy and management, are of crucial importance to develop, run and support healthcare services. However, some gaps exist between current public health needs and the extent to which Public Health Residents are trained in the above fields (3, 4). Study design. The study is a cross-sectional cognitive survey carried out through a questionnaire sent by e-mail to Residents and Directors of the Italian Schools of Public Health, from May to November 2018. The questionnaire was sent only to the accredited Schools which had all four years of the course running. Methods. The questionnaire investigated 35 managerial topics divided into 4 macro-areas. It was sent to both Directors of the SPHs and the Residents of 32 Schools. The latter were asked to provide a single collective answer per School. Respondents could assign a score from 1 (topic not addressed at all) to 4 (topic addressed extensively and linked to other related topics) to each item, also taking into account the skills acquired through internships, seminars, etc. that involved all the Residents. Results. Answers were received from the Residents of 30/32 (93.8%) SPHs and from 15/32 (46.9%) of the Directors. Scores given by the Directors were higher than the ones of the Residents for every topic, and for 17 out of 35 items (48.6%) a statistically significant difference has been obtained. In the overall score of 3 macro-areas out of 4 (General issues, Managerial tools and macro-organisational Models) there are statistically significant differences. In Soft skills macro-area, the single scores of all topics are generally low for both Directors and Residents. Conclusion. The study shows that the Residents declare a strong need for training improvement in the field pf healthcare organization and management: the median score is equal to or greater than 3 (topic addressed extensively) in only a few answers. The comparison between Directors’ and Residents’ scores highlights a different perception of the training offered in these areas. The study results could be pivotal for the improvement of the managerial skills provided to the Residents in Public Health of the Country
Two additional reports of deletion on the short arm of the Y chromosome
No full textDeletions on the short arm of the Y chromosome involving the amelogenin Y gene (AMELY), located on Yp11.2, can be misleading for sex typing with serious consequences in forensic applications and prenatal diagnosis. In this study, we describe two AMELY null cases concerning two unrelated Italian males from Northeast Italy. PCR amplification of short tandem repeats on the Y chromosome (Y-STRs) showed a lack of AMELY and DYS458 markers. The presence of all the other markers located on the Y chromosome and of the SRY gene in both samples led us to conclude that a deletion had occurred in a portion of the short arm of the Y chromosome. Twenty-three Y-specific sequence tagged sites (STSs) were chosen to delineate the deletion's length, which was estimated to be in the range of 3.35-3.87Mb for one sample and 1.51-2.58Mb for the other. These and previous findings suggest that in all cases where potential AMELY drop out has occurred, it should be used additional specific Y chromosome markers or human DNA quantification methods that specifically quantify male DNA using target male genomic markers, which not being located within the deletion regions, allow an accurate sex identification
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
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
Amplification failure of the amelogenin gene (AMELX) caused by a primer binding site mutation.
No full textIn Quantitative Fluorescent Polymerase Chain Reaction
(QF-PCR), genetic identification of sex and detection
of chromosome X and Y major numerical disorders
is routinely performed analyzing PCR products generated
from the amplification of the amelogenin gene, in
conjunction with other sex-typing markers and short tandem
repeat (STR) loci (Cirigliano et al., 1999). The
amelogenin gene is located in the pseudoautosomal
region of the sex chromosomes, on Xp22.3 and on
Yp11.2, respectively; sequence differences between the
two homologs have been commonly used to differentiate
males from females. In particular, PCR products generated
from the X- (AMELX) and Y- (AMELY) chromosome
can be discriminated from one another using
primers flanking a 6 bp deletion in the first intron of
the X chromosome (Sullivan et al., 1993). Almost all
QF-PCR assays have implemented primer sets of variable
amplicon size targeting this deletion. However, the
reliability of the amelogenin test in prenatal diagnosis
may sometimes be challenged, mainly because of occasional
amplification failure of AMELY in normal males,
possibly leading to false gender identification, because
of different Yp deletions encompassing the amelogenin
locus. Several types of rare nonrecurrent deletions have
been observed in Caucasians, whereas a single recurrent
deletion is particularly frequent in the Indian subcontinent,
involving about 2–8% of males (Jobling et al.,
2007). In contrast, PCR drop-out of the X-homologue of
the amelogenin gene, remaining undetected in females
carrying a heterozygous genotype and thus not affecting
DNA-based sex tests, have rarely been reported in the
literature, and always as a consequence of point mutations
in the PCR primers binding sites (Shadrach et al.,
2004; Alves et al., 2006)
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
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