1,720,955 research outputs found
Interferon beta-1b in treatment-naïve paediatric patients with relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis: Two-year results from the BETAPAEDIC study
No full textBackground and objective Study evaluating Betaferon(R)'s safety and tolerability in paediatric patients with multiple sclerosis (BETAPAEDIC) is a prospective, open-label observational multicentre study to assess the safety and effectiveness of interferon beta-1b in paediatric patients with relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis. Methods Treatment-naïve patients (12–16 years) scheduled to start interferon beta-1b were enrolled with follow-up visits every six months for two years. Effectiveness was evaluated by annualised relapse rate, Expanded Disability Status Scale progression, cranial magnetic resonance imaging and cognitive testing. Fatigue was assessed by the Fatigue Severity Scale. Results Sixty-eight patients were screened and 67 enrolled, with mean (standard deviation) age 14.2 (1.3) years ( n=65 in the effectiveness analysis). Mean disease duration was 11 months before study enrolment; at baseline, mean (standard deviation) Expanded Disability Status Scale was 0.6 (1.0); T2 lesion number 18.3 (15.1). Mean annualised relapse rate during the study was 0.7 ( n=57), 28/57 patients (49.1%) had no relapses and for 40/52 (76.9%) no Expanded Disability Status Scale progression was observed; 23/56 (41.1%) were relapse- and progression-free to last follow-up. Neuropsychological test and fatigue scores were within normal ranges (baseline and last follow-up). Eighteen patients had fatigue at some point. New T2 and gadolinium-enhancing (Gd+) lesions were seen in 43/55 (66.2%) and 29/55 (52.7%) patients respectively. Most frequent adverse events were influenza-like illness, headache, injection-site reactions and elevated liver enzymes. Conclusion Interferon beta-1b is an effective treatment with a favourable safety profile for paediatric patients. </jats:sec
Cognitive deficits including executive functioning in relation to clinical parameters in paediatric MS patients
No full textBackgroundA number of studies have investigated cognitive impairment in paediatric patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) but deficits regarding executive functions have not been comprehensively assessed up to now. This study was meant to explore cognitive impairment in German paediatric MS patients with a focus on deficits in executive functions and relate these to clinical disease parameters.Methods and findingsForty paediatric MS patients, which presented at the German centre for MS in childhood and adolescence, were assessed for cognitive deficits applying a very comprehensive battery of cognitive tests including the Wechsler Intelligence scale and subtests of the D-KEFS for executive functions. The performance of MS patients was compared with a group of age and sex matched healthy controls using between-subjects ANOVAs. Paediatric MS patients performed worse in tests assessing verbal comprehension and fluency, processing speed, memory, calculation skills and other executive functions. Arranged by the cognitive domain, group differences were most pronounced regarding verbal comprehension and fluency for the WISC subtests Comprehension (p = 0.000), Vocabulary (p = 0.003) and Information (p = 0.005); regarding processing speed for the written SDMT (p = 0.001) and the WISC subtest Coding (p = 0.005); regarding memory for the VLMT training (p = 0.007) and the BASIC MLT pattern learning training (p = 0.009); regarding executive functions including working memory for the WISC subtest Arithmetics (p = 0.002), the D-KEFS Design Fluency (p = 0.003) and the Corsi block tapping backward task (p = 0.003). Fluid reasoning was largely intact. Relations of cognitive performance and clinical parameters were assessed in MS patients. Disease duration was associated with a reduced performance in tests belonging to the domains verbal comprehension and fluency (WISC Vocabulary: p = 0.034, WISC Information: p = 0.015) and fluid reasoning (WISC Picture Completion: p = 0.003) as well as the WISC Working Memory Index (p = 0.047). Patients with a disease onset between 11 and 14 years performed better in fluid reasoning (WISC matrix reasoning: p = 0.024) than patients with a disease onset at an age above 14. The number of relapses negatively influenced the visual spatial memory performance (BASIC MLT pattern learning training: p = 0.009).ConclusionsThe distribution of cognitive deficits in a representative group German of paediatric MS patients was similar to the pattern known from other European and North-American cohorts. Paediatric MS patients do have cognitive deficits in executive functions and key qualities necessary for successful school performance. Disease duration, age of onset and the number of relapses influence cognitive performance. Cognitive screenings should be implemented on a regular basis for paediatric MS patients, enabling early intervention.</div
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
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
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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