1,720,992 research outputs found
Editorial. Malnutrition in hospitals
No full textMalnutrition is a common cause and consequence of illness, particularly in older people. The number of malnourished people leaving NHS hospitals in England has risen by 85% over the past 10 years. It is still rising and reached almost 140 000 in 2006-7.1 Surveys elsewhere consistently find that about 20% of patients in general hospitals are malnourished (body mass index <18.5 (the World Health Organization 1995 cut off for malnutrition), or thin and losing weight, or both). Figures are higher if specific nutrient deficiencies or functional indications of malnutrition are included. Despite the frequency of malnutrition, it is undiagnosed in up to 70% of patients. This is partly because of the lack of simple laboratory tests, and because biochemical tests for nutritional status are difficult to interpret, particularly as they are often influenced by acute phase responses to inflammation in sick patients
Nutrition and cancer: Prevention and survival
No full textCancer is increasing worldwide. Patterns of cancer are also changing. The evidence is summarised in the 2018 World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research report Diet, Nutrition, Physical Activity and Cancer: a Global Perspective. The plasticity of cancer patterns implicates environmental factors as determinants of cancer, and nutrition influences key cellular and molecular processes that characterise cancer. Epidemiology identifies associations between aspects of diet, nutrition, and physical activity with one or more cancers; there is evidence for plausible mechanisms that imply that these are causal. Some nutritional exposures (alcohol and processed meat) are likely causal factors, but no singular factor protects against cancer (except dietary fibre for colorectal cancer). Cancer protection mainly derives from a systemic metabolic environment that promotes healthy cell replication and tissue integrity. Such a nutritional state reflects avoiding excess adiposity through healthy dietary patterns rich in plant foods (legumes, wholegrains, pulses, vegetables and fruits), with modest meat, fish and dairy, low in alcohol and salt preserved foods, and an active way of life, avoiding sedentary behaviours. Less is known about the impact of nutritional interventions in people with a diagnosis of cancer, but nutrition including adiposity and physical activity predict breast cancer outcome. Promoting healthy ways of life requires public information and education, but alone these do not generate change; a socio-political and cultural environment that is conducive to adopting healthy behaviours is needed. Uncertainties in the evidence offer promising directions for future research, but sufficient is known to act as a basis for public policy and clinical practice.</p
ICONIC: an international task force supporting collaboration in nutrition and cancer globally
No full textBackground: Cancer represents a major cause of mortality globally and by 2050 will be the major cause of ill health and death across the world, most particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). For forty years, there has been increasing recognition of the need to better understand how the modifiable factors related to diet, nutrition and physical activity can influence the risk of cancer, responses to treatment, and survival. Scope and approach: The International Collaboration on Nutrition in relation to Cancer (ICONIC) - a task force of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences (IUNS) - was established in 2018, as a development from the UK NIHR Cancer and Nutrition Collaboration and as a mechanism to bring together wider international expressions of interest in nutrition and cancer. Key findings: ICONIC has engaged in a range of activities, with a current focus of effort in three main areas: 1) building wider capability and stronger capacity for excellence in research and practice in Africa, with the longer-term ambition to develop a high quality, context-specific research programme in this region, 2) facilitating international collaboration and developing activities in the area of childhood cancers, and 3) developing an agenda for prehabilitation (personalised management of exercise, nutrition and psychological support before the start of definitive treatment) for cancer. Conclusions: ICONIC's ambition is to build an international nutrition and cancer community - spanning research, education and training, in clinical and public health practice – to create coherence and common language across the two communities, and promote improved care and outcomes for those affected by cancer.</p
Tackling the obesity crisis: how do we 'measure up'?
No full textBackgroundIn early 2013, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) published the latest of several reports from various bodies over decades addressing aspects of the rising prevalence of obesity in the UK.1 Their report ‘Measuring Up’ made 10 recommendations targeted at the healthcare professions, at the obesogenic environment and towards making healthy choices the easy choices (box 1). The report made no claim to originality in describing the scale of the problem or in its selection of recommendations, derived from a wide ranging consultative process. It was, however, unusual in declaring the report to be the start of a campaign, and in its wide franchise in representing all the Medical Royal Colleges, and so indirectly virtually all medical practitioners in the UK. It is worth examining the contribution this particular report might make as part of its called-for campaign to solving what has up to now been a seemingly intractable problem
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
No full text“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
No full textWe 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
No full textWe 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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