Gender inequity in the provision of care for hip disease: population-based cross-sectional study

Objectives To examine gender differences along the care pathway to total hip replacement. Methods We conducted a population-based cross-sectional study of 26,046 individuals aged 35 years and over in Avon and Somerset. Participants completed a questionnaire asking about care provision at five milestones on the pathway to total hip replacement. Those reporting hip disease were invited to a clinical examination. We estimated odds ratios (ORs) [95% confidence intervals (CI)] for provision of care to women compared with men. Results 3169 people reported hip pain, 2018 were invited for clinical examination, and 1405 attended (69.6%). After adjustment for age and disease severity, women were less likely than men to have consulted their general practitioner (OR 0.78, 95%-CI 0.61–1.00), as likely as men to have received drug therapy for hip pain in the previous year (OR 0.96, 95%-CI 0.74–1.24), but less likely to have been referred to specialist care (OR 0.53, 95%-CI 0.40–0.70), to have consulted an orthopaedic surgeon (OR 0.50, 95%-CI 0.32–0.78), or to be on a waiting list for total hip replacement (OR 0.41, 95%-CI 0.20–0.87). Differences remained in the 746 people who had sought care from their general practitioner, and after adjustment for willingness and fitness for surgery. Conclusions There are gender inequalities in provision of care for hip disease in England, which are not fully accounted for by gender differences in care seeking and treatment preferences. Differences in referral to specialist care by general practitioners might unwittingly contribute to this inequity. Accurate information about availability, benefits and risks of hip replacement for providers and patients, and continuing education to ensure that clinicians interpret and correct patients' assumptions could help reduce inequalities.

Long-term outcomes of dental implants with a titanium plasma-sprayed surface: a 20-year prospective case series study in partially edentulous patients

BACKGROUND Long-term studies of ≥10 years are important milestones to get a better understanding of potential factors causing implant failures or complications. PURPOSE The present study investigated the long-term outcomes of titanium dental implants with a rough, microporous surface (titanium plasma sprayed [TPS]) and the associated biologic and technical complications in partially edentulous patients with fixed dental prostheses over a 20-year follow-up period. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty-seven patients, who received 95 implants in the 1980s, were examined with well-established clinical and radiographic parameters. Based on these findings, each implant was classified as either successful, surviving, or failed. RESULTS Ten implants in nine patients were lost during the observation period, resulting in an implant survival rate of 89.5%. Radiographically, 92% of the implants exhibited crestal bone loss below 1 mm between the 1- and 20-year follow-up examinations. Only 8% yielded peri-implant bone loss of >1 mm and none exhibited severe bone loss of more than 1.8 mm. During the observation period, 19 implants (20%) experienced a biologic complication with suppuration. Of these 19 implants, 13 implants (13.7%) had been treated and were successfully maintained over the 20-year follow-up period. Therefore, the 20-year implant success rate was 75.8 or 89.5% depending on the different success criteria. Technical complications were observed in 32%. CONCLUSION The present study is the first to report satisfactory success rates after 20 years of function of dental implants with a TPS surface in partially edentulous patients.

Recent developments and open questions in the field of semantic roles

This introductory chapter briefly introduces a few milestones in the voluminous previous literature on semantic roles, and charts the territory in which the papers of this volume aim to make a contribution. This territory is characterized by fairly disparate conceptualizations of semantic roles and their status in theories of grammar and the lexicon, as well as by diverse and probably complementary ways of deriving or identifying them based on linguistic data. Particular attention is given to the question of how selected roles appear to relate to each other, and we preliminarily address the issue of how roles, subroles, and role complexes are best thought of in general.

Children's deliberate memory development: The contribution of strategies and metacognitive processes

This chapter focus is laid on the development of memory skills when children are confronted with a task or a situation in which learning or remembering certain target information is crucial. It presents important milestones toward self-regulated learning skills. The chapter discusses precursors of later strategic behaviors and metacognitive skills, the distinct research methods suitable to assessing early indicators of deliberate memory skills, as well as their importance for the emerging memory skills. It outlines the challenges arising from the application of deliberate memory skills in naturalistic, complex task contexts. The chapter adopted an explicit developmental perspective of memory strategies and metacognition in deliberate memory situations.

The Hundred Most-Cited Publications in Orthopaedic Knee Research

BACKGROUND: Despite its limitations, citation analysis remains one of the best currently available tools for quantifying the impact of articles. Bibliometric studies list the "best-sellers" in a single location, and they have been published frequently in many fields during recent years. The purpose of the present study was to report the qualities and characteristics of citation classics in orthopaedic knee research. METHODS: The database of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was utilized for identification of articles published from 1945 to March 2014. All knee articles that had been published in sixty-five orthopaedic and twenty-nine rheumatology journals and that had been cited at least 200 times were identified. The top 100 were selected for further analysis of authorship, source journal, number of citations, citation rate (both since publication and in 2013), geographic origin, article type, and level of evidence. RESULTS: The publication dates of the 100 most-cited articles ranged from 1948 to 2007, with the greatest number of articles published in the 1980s. Citations per article ranged from 2640 to 287. All articles were published in eleven of the ninety-four journals. The leading countries of origin were the U.S. followed by the U.K. and Sweden. The two main focus areas were sports traumatology and degenerative disease. The number of citations per article was also greatest for articles published in the 1980s. Basic research articles were cited more quickly, but not more often, than clinical articles. Most articles represented Level-IV evidence, followed by Levels II, III, and I. CONCLUSIONS: This bibliometric study is likely to include a list of intellectual milestones in orthopaedic knee research. It is apparent that a high level of evidence is not mandatory for an article to gain a large number of citations. Bibliometric reports provide a reflection of the quality of cited research published in a specific field and should therefore provoke thinking within the scientific community.

Conservation of the Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus in Spain (1966–2011): a bibliometric review of threats, research and adaptive management

Detecting and quantifying threats and researching and implementing management actions are key to improving the conservation status of endangered species. Bibliometric analysis can constitute a useful tool for the evaluation of such questions from a long-term perspective. Taking as a case study the Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus in Spain, we tested relationships between population dynamics, research efforts, existing threats and conservation milestones. The population growth of the species (from 206 pairs in 1976 to 2,068 in 2011) was parallelled by the increase in the total number of publications, the number of articles in SCI journals and the number of published works dealing with aspects of conservation, threats and management. These results are discussed in terms of cause-effect relationships taking into account that the influence of other non-mutually exclusive factors could also probably explain such associations. Similarly, we analysed the trend of the Cinereous Vulture breeding population with respect to different threats and indices of food availability, obtaining a positive correlation with the increase in big-game hunting bags in Spain. With respect to conservation milestones, we concluded that the current situation is positive in terms of the protection of the species and its habitat, with the situation in relation to food availability being unclear. Finally, we reviewed the main conservation actions that have been taken for the species in Spain and how these have been progressively modified based on new scientific and technical evidence, as an example of adaptive management applied to conservation.

Achievements and Challenges 20 Years after Beijing: A View from Switzerland

Despite being one of the world’s wealthiest countries and most modern economies, in Switzerland gender equality remains an elusive challenge. Paid maternity leave, legal abortion and an increase in women’s educational attainment are some of the milestones achieved since 1995, when the country was one of 189 states to adopt the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women. But while legal gender equality may be nearly achieved, much remains to be done to achieve gender equality in practice. Rigid gender stereotypes, wage discrimination, women’s heavy care burden, segregation in the workplace, violence against women, under-representation of women in political and economic decision making, and structural obstacles to reconciling family duties with employment still stand in the way of gender equality. In order to realize gender equality, government, employers, politicians and civil society all need to take concrete and coordinated actions. These range from changes in the educational sector, in the labour market and in the social security system to an active foreign policy that promotes women’s human rights.

The 100 Most Influential Publications in Cervical Spine Research

STUDY DESIGN Bibliometric study of current literature. OBJECTIVE To identify and analyze the 100 most cited publications in cervical spine research. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The cervical spine is a dynamic field of research with many advances made within the last century. However, the literature has never been comprehensively analyzed to identify and compare the most influential articles as measured by the number of citations. METHODS All databases of the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge were utilized in a two-step approach. First, the 150 most cited cervical spine studies up to and including 2014 were identified using four keywords. Second, all keywords related to the cervical spine found in the 150 studies (n = 38) were used to conduct a second search of the database. The top 100 most cited articles were hereby selected for further analysis of current and past citations, authorship, geographic origin, article type, and level of evidence. RESULTS Total citations for the 100 studies identified ranged from 173 to 879. They were published in the time frame 1952 to 2008 in a total of 30 different journals. Most studies (n = 42) were published in the decade 1991 - 2000. Level of evidence ranged from 1 to 5 with 39 studies in the level 4 category. 13 researchers were first author more than once and 9 researchers senior author more than once. The two step approach with a secondary widening of search terms yielded an additional 27 studies, including the first ranking article. CONCLUSIONS This bibliometric study is likely to include some of the most important milestones in the field of cervical spine research of the last 100 years. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 3.