1,720,961 research outputs found
Erratum: Effect of magnesium supplementation on glucose metabolism in people with or at risk of diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of double-blind randomized controlled trials (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, (2016), 70, 12, (1354-1359), 10.1038/ejcn.2016.154)
No full textCorrection to: European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication 17 August 2016; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2016.154 Since the publication of this article, the authors have noticed that the author name ‘S Watutantrige-Fernando’ was displayed incorrectly. The PDF and the online versions have been amended
Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma in Pediatric Age: Genetic and Clinical Scenario
Get PDFntroduction: Follicular-derived differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) is the most common endocrine and epithelial malignancy in children. The differences in the clinical and pathological features of pediatric vs. adult DTC could relate to a different genetic profile. Few studies are currently available in this issue, however, and most of them involved a limited number of patients and focused mainly on radiation-exposed populations. Materials and Methods: We considered 59 pediatric patients who underwent surgery for DTC between 2000 and 2017. RET/PTC rearrangement was investigated with fluorescent in situ hybridization and real-time polymerase chain reaction. Sequencing was used to analyze mutations in the BRAF, NRAS, PTEN, PIK3CA genes, and the TERT promoter. The pediatric patients' clinical and molecular features were compared with those of 178 adult patients. Results: In our pediatric sample, male gender and age <15 years coincided with more extensive disease and more frequent lymph node and distant metastases. Compared with adults, the pediatric patients were more likely to have lymph node and distant metastasis, and to need second treatments (p<0.01). In all, 44% of the pediatric patients were found to carry molecular alterations. RET/PTC rearrangement was confirmed as the most frequent genetic alteration in childhood DTC (24.6%) and correlated with aggressive features. BRAFV600E was only identified in 16% of the pediatric DTCs, while NRASQ61R, NRASQ61K, and TERTC250T mutations were very rare. Conclusions: Pediatric DTC is more aggressive at diagnosis and more likely to recur than its adult counterpart. Unlike the adult disease, point mutations have no key genetic role
Effect of magnesium supplementation on glucose metabolism in people with or at risk of diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of double-blind randomized controlled trials
Get PDFAlthough higher dietary intakes of magnesium (Mg) seem to correspond to lower diabetes incidence, research concerning Mg supplementation in people with or at risk of diabetes is limited. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effect of oral Mg supplementation on glucose and insulin-sensitivity parameters in participants with diabetes or at high risk of diabetes compared with placebo. A literature search in PubMed, EMBASE, SCOPUS, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Clinicaltrials.gov without language restriction, was undertaken. Eligible studies were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effect of oral Mg supplementation vs placebo in patients with diabetes or at high risk of diabetes. Standardized mean differences (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used for summarizing outcomes with at least two studies; other outcomes were summarized descriptively. Eighteen RCTs (12 in people with diabetes and 6 in people at high risk of diabetes) were included. Compared with placebo (n=334), Mg treatment (n=336) reduced fasting plasma glucose (studies=9; SMD=-0.40; 95% CI: -0.80 to -0.00; I(2)=77%) in people with diabetes. In conditions in people at high risk of diabetes (Mg: 226; placebo=227 participants), Mg supplementation significantly improved plasma glucose levels after a 2 h oral glucose tolerance test (three studies; SMD=-0.35; 95% CI: -0.62 to -0.07; I(2)=0%) and demonstrated trend level reductions in HOMA-IR (homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance; five studies; SMD=-0.57; 95% CI: -1.17 to 0.03; I(2)=88%). Mg supplementation appears to have a beneficial role and improves glucose parameters in people with diabetes and also improves insulin-sensitivity parameters in those at high risk of diabetes.European Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication, 17 August 2016; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2016.154
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
Bone turnover markers, BMD and TBS after short-term, high-dose glucocorticoid therapy in patients with Graves’ orbitopathy: a small prospective pilot study
No full textPURPOSE:
Chronic GC administration has numerous side effects, but little is known about the side effects of their short-term use (< 3 months)-particularly, when high doses are involved, as in the treatment of Graves' orbitopathy (GO). We investigated the effects of short-term, high-dose GC on bone turnover markers, bone mineral density (BMD), and trabecular bone scores (TBS).
METHODS:
Eleven patients (10 females and 1 male; median age 56 years) with active GO who were candidates for treatment with intravenous (iv) methylprednisone were consecutively enrolled. All patients were pretreated with a loading dose of 300,000 units of cholecalciferol, then given a median cumulative dose of 4.5 g (range 1.5-5.25 g) iv methylprednisone. Biochemical parameters of bone metabolism (25OHD3, PTH, P1NP, CTX and bALP) were measured at the baseline, and then 1 week and 1, 3, 6 and 12 months. BMD and TBS were obtained by X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) at the baseline and at 6 and 12 months. On DXA image, morphometric vertebral fracture assessment (VFA) was done.
RESULTS:
There were no significant changes in PTH, bALP or P1NP. A significant drop in CTX was seen at 1 month (down Δ49.31% from the baseline, p = 0.02), with a return to the baseline at the 3-month measurement. There was a moderate (not significant), but persistent reduction in P1NP. No changes in BMD or TBS came to light. No vertebral fractures were documented.
CONCLUSIONS:
Short-term, high-dose GC treatment caused a rapid, transient suppression of bone resorption, with no effects on BMD or bone micro-architecture (TBS)
Programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) as a novel prognostic marker for papillary thyroid carcinoma
Get PDFBackground: The primary goal of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) management was to stratify patients at pre- and post-surgical level to identify the small proportion of cases with potentially aggressive disease. Purpose: The aim of our study is to evaluate the possible role of programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) and BRAF status as prognostic markers in PTC. Patients and methods: We investigate programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4) immunohistochemical expression in 125 consecutive PTCs with median follow-up of 75.3 months (range, 15–98 months) to verify the possible correlation between BRAF status and correlate the classical clinicopathological prognostic factors and PTC outcome with PDCD4 expression. To further support the data, miR-21 expression was tested (by quantitative real-time PCR and in situ hybridization) in a different series of 30 cases (15 PTCs BRAFwt and 15 PTCs BRAFV600E). Moreover, we validated our results using TGCA thyroid carcinoma dataset. Results: We found that 59.8% of the patients showed low-grade PDCD4 nuclear expression and low-grade expression correlated with BRAF V600E. Compared with BRAF 15 wild-type tissue samples, a significant miR-21 up-regulation was associated with BRAF V600E mutations. Lowgrade PDCD4 resulted, and was associated with aggressive histological variants, higher cancer size, extra-thyroidal extension, multifocality, lymph-node metastasis and lymph nodal ratio at the diagnosis. Concerning the outcome, the low-grade PDCD4 expression correlated at univariate and multivariate analysis, with lower levels of recurrence-free survival rate (RFS) and with poor outcome. Moreover, there was significant association between BRAF V600E patients with PDCD4 nuclear loss and lower RFS, whilet here was significant association between BRAF wild-type patients with PDCD4 nuclear expression and better outcome. Conclusion: These results showed that PDCD4 could predict PTC outcome and that the sum of PDCD4 and BRAF alterations increases the prognostic power of BRAF mutation alone
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
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