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Is the Serum N Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide the Best Candidate Biomarker for Long-term Prognosis in Patients with Prosthesis-patient Mismatch after Mitral Valve Replacement?
No full textAGE8. Is the Serum N Terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide the
Best Candidate Biomarker for Long-term Prognosis in Patients with
Prosthesis-patient Mismatch after Mitral Valve Replacement?
C. R. Balistreri1, C. Pisano1, R. Franchino1, S.R. Vacirca1, F. Crapanzano1,
O. F. Triolo1, C. Palmeri1, G. Ruvolo1
1University Of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Background: Natriuretic peptides (NPs) are released from the heart in
response to pressure and volume overload. Among these, B-NP and Nterminal-
proBNP (NT-proBNP) have become important diagnostic tools for
the management of heart failure. However, B-NP and NT-proBNP levels
reflect complications of systolic and diastolic function as well as alteration
of right ventricular and valvular function. In addition, their serum levels
have a prognostic value in multiple clinical settings. Based on these
observations, we sought to evaluate the relationship between prosthesis
patient mismatch (PPM) and serum NT-pro-BNP levels after mitral valve
replacement (MVR). PPM following MVR has been less investigated and it
seems to mediate deleterious effects on long-term survival, even if
contrasting opinions and data exist in the literature.
Methods: A total of 100 patients that have undergone this surgical
treatment will be enrolled, and opportune clinical data and peripheral
blood samples will be collected. Blood samples are utilized to analyze
clinical conditions and serum NT-proBNP levels. Evaluation of
hemodynamic performances before or under dobutamine infusion is also
being assessed.
Results: The preliminary data on the serum NT-proBNP levels obtained
seem to be interesting and promising, as well as their correlations with
hemodynamic performances.
Conclusions: The demonstration of negative effects on tricuspid valve
and pulmonary hypertension and consequently on survival induced by
PPM after MVR through the serum quantification of NT-proBNP levels
might lead to consider it as an optimal biomarker to evaluate patients’
long-term prognosis and optimize surgical recommendations (i.e. tricuspid
valve repair during mitral valve surgery in patients with moderate-severe
mismatch)
The Role of the Patient-Prosthesis Mismatch after Aortic Valve Replacement: The Prognostic Significance
Full text linkState of the art in term of aortic patient-prosthesis mismatc
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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