Quality issues in co-authorship data of a national scientific community

A stream of research on co-authorship, used as a proxy of scholars’ collaborative behavior, focuses on members of a given scientific community defined at discipline and/or national basis for which co-authorship data have to be retrieved. Recent literature pointed out that international digital libraries provide partial coverage of the entire scholar scientific production as well as under-coverage of the scholars in the community. Bias in retrieving co-authorship data of the community of interest can affect network construction and network measures in several ways, providing a partial picture of the real collaboration in writing papers among scholars. In this contribution, we collected bibliographic records of Italian academic statisticians from an online platform (IRIS) available at most universities. Even if it guarantees a high coverage rate of our population and its scientific production, it is necessary to deal with some data quality issues. Thus, a web scraping procedure based on a semi-automatic tool to retrieve publication metadata, as well as data management tools to detect duplicate records and to reconcile authors, is proposed. As a result of our procedure, it emerged that collaboration is an active and increasing practice for Italian academic statisticians with some differences according to the gender, the academic ranking, and the university location of scholars. The heuristic procedure to accomplish data quality issues in the IRIS platform can represent a working case report to adapt to other bibliographic archives with similar characteristics

Improving co-authorship network structures by combining multiple data sources: evidence from Italian academic statisticians

The aim of the present contribution is to merge bibliographic data for members of a bounded scientific community in order to derive a complete unified archive, with top-international and nationally oriented production, as a new basis to carry out network analysis on a unified co-authorship network. A two-step procedure is used to deal with the identification of duplicate records and the author name disambiguation. Specifically, for the second step we strongly drew inspiration from a well-established unsupervised disambiguation method proposed in the literature following a network-based approach and requiring a restricted set of record attributes. Evidences from Italian academic statisticians were provided by merging data from three bibliographic archives. Non-negligible differences were observed in network results in the comparison of disambiguated and not disambiguated data sets, especially in network measures at individual level

Physiological effects of intravenous fructose 1.6-diphosphate on diaphragmatic function in malnourished patients with COPD

Background. A low body mass index is one of the strongest predictors of mortality in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients. Under-nutrition is often associated with skeletal muscle wasting and hypophosphatemia. Aim and Methods. In a pilot, randomised, doubleblind placebo-controlled study, we assessed the physiological effects of phosphorous administration in 17 stable undernourished COPD patients, on diaphragmatic function, breathing pattern, neuromuscular drive (P0.1) and dyspnea score. Fructose 1.6-diphosphate (FDP) or placebo was administered i.v. for 7 consecutive days. Results. FDP administration was associated with a marked increase in inspiratory time (Ti) that induced a significant rise (p<0.05) in the Pressure Time Product of the diaphragm per breath (PTPdi/b). However, since breathing frequency also decreased, the Pressure Time Product per minute of the diaphragm (PTPdi/min), index of diaphragmatic energy expenditure was markedly reduced. The efficiency of the respiratory pump in clearing CO2 was also improved, although not significantly, in the FDP group (p=0.09) as well as the maximal transdiaphragmatic pressure during the sniff manoeuvre (Pdi,sniff). Conclusions. This pilot physiological study showed that phosphorus replacement in undernourished, stable COPD patients, may be associated with a complex modification in respiratory pattern and diaphragmatic functions, leading to a marked although not significant reduction in PTPdi/min

Nitrogen fertiliser value of digested dairy cow slurry, its liquid and solid fractions, and of dairy cow slurry

An understanding of crop availability of livestock slurry nitrogen (N) is necessary to maximise crop N use efficiency and to minimise environmental losses. Results from field and laboratory incubation experiments suggest that first-year crop availability of slurry N comes mainly from its ammonium fraction because net mineralisation of organic N is often negligible in the short term. A two-year field experiment during 2011 and 2012 in northern Italy was undertaken with several aims: to estimate the N fertiliser value of raw dairy cow slurry, digested dairy cow slurry, and the liquid and solid fractions of the digested slurry, and to verify if applied ammonium recovery was similar both among slurries and between slurries and inorganic N fertiliser (ammonium sulphate). Different fertilisers were applied before silage maize cultivation followed by an unfertilised Italian ryegrass crop. The results showed that ammonium recovery was significantly higher in mineral-fertilised (75%) versus slurry-fertilised (30%) treatments, except in digested slurry (65%). This indicates that ammonium applied with organic materials is less efficient than when applied with mineral fertiliser. For the digested slurry and its liquid fraction, most of the applied ammonium was available to the maize during its application year (55%) due to a low carbon (C)/organic N ratio. The apparent N recovery of the raw slurry and digested slurry solid fraction increased substantially between the first (-1.4%) and second (20%) years, as these materials had high C/organic N ratios; they likely immobilised N for several months post application, producing residual effects during the Italian ryegrass and next maize crops

Physiological effects of intravenous fructose 1.6-diphosphate on diaphragmatic function in malnourished patients with COPD

Background. A low body mass index is one of the strongest predictors of mortality in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients. Under-nutrition is often associated with skeletal muscle wasting and hypophosphatemia. Aim and Methods. In a pilot, randomised, doubleblind placebo-controlled study, we assessed the physiological effects of phosphorous administration in 17 stable undernourished COPD patients, on diaphragmatic function, breathing pattern, neuromuscular drive (P0.1) and dyspnea score. Fructose 1.6-diphosphate (FDP) or placebo was administered i.v. for 7 consecutive days. Results. FDP administration was associated with a marked increase in inspiratory time (Ti) that induced a significant rise (p<0.05) in the Pressure Time Product of the diaphragm per breath (PTPdi/b). However, since breathing frequency also decreased, the Pressure Time Product per minute of the diaphragm (PTPdi/min), index of diaphragmatic energy expenditure was markedly reduced. The efficiency of the respiratory pump in clearing CO2 was also improved, although not significantly, in the FDP group (p=0.09) as well as the maximal transdiaphragmatic pressure during the sniff manoeuvre (Pdi,sniff). Conclusions. This pilot physiological study showed that phosphorus replacement in undernourished, stable COPD patients, may be associated with a complex modification in respiratory pattern and diaphragmatic functions, leading to a marked although not significant reduction in PTPdi/min

A Software System in Support of Quality of Degree Programmes

We present a software system aimed at providing support to the management of processes for the self evaluation of the quality of degree programmes. The system was developed for quality management at the University of Salerno, Italy. Its main functionalities include: monitoring of the process status, scheduling of meetings, document management, support for working groups. With the help of some screenshots, the main features will be described in the context of scenarios that commonly arise in the management of processes of self-assessment of quality

Il farmaco: ricerca, sviluppo e applicazione in terapia

[Italiano]:Il farmaco: ricerca, sviluppo e applicazione in terapia si propone l’obiettivo di offrire una panoramica sul processo di Ricerca e Sviluppo che un farmaco compie a partire dal momento in cui viene progettato fino alla sua pratica utilizzazione. Quando una molecola è ritenuta potenzialmente adatta per creare un medicinale, si attiva un lungo percorso che ha come traguardo la realizzazione di un nuovo mezzo terapeutico e la sua approvazione per l’immissione in commercio. Un percorso scandito dalla rigorosa osservanza di regolamenti e leggi che si sono evoluti nel tempo di pari passo con il progresso scientifico e tecnologico, ma spesso anche a seguito di reazioni avverse o eventi dannosi irreversibili che hanno innescato processi di revisione delle norme e dei protocolli sperimentali. Questo libro parte con una densa ricognizione sulla storia della farmacologia occidentale, al fine di agevolare la comprensione del coacervo di vicende e circostanze che nel tempo hanno fatto da sfondo a tutte quelle dinamiche attraverso cui il processo di Ricerca e Sviluppo si è gradualmente affermato e consolidato. Notevole attenzione è stata poi dedicata ad alcuni risvolti divenuti oramai cruciali all’interno dell’articolato universo normativo in cui il farmaco è collocato, quali le terapie avanzate e i nuovi approcci per la ricerca clinica. Inoltre, gli autori si sono concentrati sulla prescrizione dei cosiddetti off-label e sulle tematiche di farmacoutilizzazione e farmacovigilanza che, nel giro di pochi decenni, sono assurte a sfere di conoscenza sempre più significative e influenti nelle prospettive presenti e future, non solo delle scienze farmaceutiche ma dell’intera società. Lo sforzo compiuto per redigere questo volume trova la sua ragion d’essere proprio nel voler mettere a disposizione dei lettori uno sguardo d’insieme sul farmaco e sulle complesse sfide che ancora lo attendono./ [English]:“The drug: research, development and application in therapy” is an in-depth study on the Research and Development process that a drug performs from the moment it is designed up to its practical use. When a molecule is considered suitable for a medicine, a long process is activated which has as its goal the creation of a new therapeutic tool and its approval for marketing. A path marked by the strict observance of regulations and laws that have evolved over time in step with scientific and technological progress. A path that however has often been determined also by tragic events following damaging adverse reactions that have triggered processes of revision of the norms and experimental protocols. This book starts with a summary on the history of Western pharmacology, written to allow the reader to understand the circumstances that have been the background to those dynamics through which the Research and Development process has gradually consolidated. An important part of the book is dedicated to some aspects that are crucial in the normative universe in which the drug is placed, such as the advanced therapies and new approaches for clinical research. The authors also focused on the prescriptions of off-label drugs and on the issues of pharmacoutilization and pharmacovigilance, two disciplines that, in a few years, have become increasingly influential in the present and future perspectives, not only of the pharmaceutical sciences but of the entire society