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Flux balance analysis and constraint based modeling have been successfully used in the past to elucidate the metabolism of single cellular organisms. However, limited work has been done with multicellular organisms and even less with humans. The focus of this paper is to present a novel use of this technique by investigating human nutrition, a challenging field of study. Specifically, we present a steady state constraint based model of skeletal muscle tissue to investigate amino acid supplementation's effect on protein synthesis. We implement several in silico supplementation strategies to study whether amino acid supplementation might be beneficial for increasing muscle contractile protein synthesis. Concurrent with published data on amino acid supplementation's effect on protein synthesis in a post resistance exercise state, our results suggest that increasing bioavailability of methionine, arginine, and the branched-chain amino acids can increase the flux of contractile protein synthesis. The study also suggests that a common commercial supplement, glutamine, is not an effective supplement in the context of increasing protein synthesis and thus, muscle mass. Similar to any study in a model organism, the computational modeling of this research has some limitations. Thus, this paper introduces the prospect of using systems biology as a framework to formally investigate how supplementation and nutrition can affect human metabolism and physiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oxytocin (Oxt) and vasopressin (Avp) magnocellular neurons (MCNs) in the hypothalamus are the only neuronal phenotypes that are present in the supraoptic nucleus (SON), and are characterized by their robust and selective expression of either the Oxt or Avp genes. In this paper, we take advantage of the differential expression of these neuropeptide genes to identify and isolate these two individual phenotypes from the rat SON by laser capture microdissection (LCM), and to analyze the differential expression of several of their transcription factor mRNAs by qRT-PCR. We identify these neuronal phenotypes by stereotaxically injecting recombinant Adeno-Associated Viral (rAAV) vectors which contain cell-type specific Oxt or Avp promoters that drive expression of EGFP selectively in either the Oxt or Avp MCNs into the SON. The fluorescent MCNs are then dissected by LCM using a novel Cap Road Map protocol described in this paper, and the purified MCNs are extracted for their RNAs. qRT-PCR of these RNAs show that some transcription factors (RORA and c-jun) are differentially expressed in the Oxt and Avp MCNs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The confirmatory diagnosis of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) requires invasive, commonly bone biopsy, time consuming and destructive methods. This paper proposes an alternative method using a combination of two-photon excitation fluorescence (TPEF) and second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopies from easily obtained human skin biopsies. We show that this method can distinguish subtypes of human OI. Methodology/Principal Findings: Different aspects of collagen microstructure of skin fresh biopsies and standard H&E-stained sections of normal and OI patients (mild and severe forms) were distinguished by TPEF and SHG images. Moreover, important differences between subtypes of OI were identified using different methods of quantification such as collagen density, ratio between collagen and elastic tissue, and gray-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) image-pattern analysis. Collagen density was lower in OI dermis, while the SHG/autofluorescence index of the dermis was significantly higher in OI as compared to that of the normal skin. We also showed that the energy value of GLCM texture analysis is useful to discriminate mild from severe OI and from normal skin. Conclusions/Significance: This work demonstrated that nonlinear microscopy techniques in combination with image-analysis approaches represent a powerful tool to investigate the collagen organization in skin dermis in patients with OI and has the potential to distinguish the different types of OI. The procedure outlined in this paper requires a skin biopsy, which is almost painless as compared to the bone biopsy commonly used in conventional methods. The data presented here complement existing clinical diagnostic techniques and can be used as a diagnostic procedure to confirm the disease, evaluate its severity and treatment efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In second language acquisition research, the critical period hypothesis (cph) holds that the function between learners' age and their susceptibility to second language input is non-linear. This paper revisits the indistinctness found in the literature with regard to this hypothesis's scope and predictions. Even when its scope is clearly delineated and its predictions are spelt out, however, empirical studies–with few exceptions–use analytical (statistical) tools that are irrelevant with respect to the predictions made. This paper discusses statistical fallacies common in cph research and illustrates an alternative analytical method (piecewise regression) by means of a reanalysis of two datasets from a 2010 paper purporting to have found cross-linguistic evidence in favour of the cph. This reanalysis reveals that the specific age patterns predicted by the cph are not cross-linguistically robust. Applying the principle of parsimony, it is concluded that age patterns in second language acquisition are not governed by a critical period. To conclude, this paper highlights the role of confirmation bias in the scientific enterprise and appeals to second language acquisition researchers to reanalyse their old datasets using the methods discussed in this paper. The data and R commands that were used for the reanalysis are provided as supplementary materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial light at night can be harmful to the environment, and interferes with fauna and flora, star visibility, and human health. To estimate the relative impact of a lighting device, its radiant power, angular photometry and detailed spectral power distribution have to be considered. In this paper we focus on the spectral power distribution. While specific spectral characteristics can be considered harmful during the night, they can be considered advantageous during the day. As an example, while blue-rich Metal Halide lamps can be problematic for human health, star visibility and vegetation photosynthesis during the night, they can be highly appropriate during the day for plant growth and light therapy. In this paper we propose three new indices to characterize lamp spectra. These indices have been designed to allow a quick estimation of the potential impact of a lamp spectrum on melatonin suppression, photosynthesis, and star visibility. We used these new indices to compare various lighting technologies objectively. We also considered the transformation of such indices according to the propagation of light into the atmosphere as a function of distance to the observer. Among other results, we found that low pressure sodium, phosphor-converted amber light emitting diodes (LED) and LED 2700 K lamps filtered with the new Ledtech’s Equilib filter showed a lower or equivalent potential impact on melatonin suppression and star visibility in comparison to high pressure sodium lamps. Low pressure sodium, LED 5000 K-filtered and LED 2700 K-filtered lamps had a lower impact on photosynthesis than did high pressure sodium lamps. Finally, we propose these indices as new standards for the lighting industry to be used in characterizing their lighting technologies. We hope that their use will favor the design of new environmentally and health-friendly lighting technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender disparities appear to be decreasing in academia according to a number of metrics, such as grant funding, hiring, acceptance at scholarly journals, and productivity, and it might be tempting to think that gender inequity will soon be a problem of the past. However, a large-scale analysis based on over eight million papers across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities reveals a number of understated and persistent ways in which gender inequities remain. For instance, even where raw publication counts seem to be equal between genders, close inspection reveals that, in certain fields, men predominate in the prestigious first and last author positions. Moreover, women are significantly underrepresented as authors of single-authored papers. Academics should be aware of the subtle ways that gender disparities can occur in scholarly authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2005, there were outbreaks of febrile polyarthritis due to Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in the Comoros Islands. CHIKV then spread to other islands in the Indian Ocean: La Réunion, Mauritius, Seychelles and Madagascar. These outbreaks revealed the lack of surveillance and preparedness of Madagascar and other countries. Thus, it was decided in 2007 to establish a syndrome-based surveillance network to monitor dengue-like illness. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the use of capillary blood samples blotted on filter papers for molecular diagnosis of CHIKV infection. Venous blood samples can be difficult to obtain and the shipment of serum in appropriate temperature conditions is too costly for most developing countries. Methodology and principal findings: Venous blood and dried-blood blotted on filter paper (DBFP) were collected during the last CHIKV outbreak in Madagascar (2010) and as part of our routine surveillance of dengue-like illness. All samples were tested by real-time RT-PCR and results with serum and DBFP samples were compared for each patient. The sensitivity and specificity of tests performed with DBFP, relative to those with venous samples (defined as 100%) were 93.1% (95% CI:[84.7–97.7]) and 94.4% (95% CI:[88.3–97.7]), respectively. The Kappa coefficient 0.87 (95% CI:[0.80–0.94]) was excellent. Conclusion: This study shows that DBFP specimens can be used as a cost-effective alternative sampling method for the surveillance and monitoring of CHIKV circulation and emergence in developing countries, and probably also for other arboviruses. The loss of sensitivity is insignificant and involved a very small number of patients, all with low viral loads. Whether viruses can be isolated from dried blood spots remains to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have dramatically advanced in various industries, especially medicine. AI describes computational programs that mimic and simulate human intelligence, for example, a person's behavior in solving problems or his ability for learning. Furthermore, ML is a subset of artificial intelligence. It extracts patterns from raw data automatically. The purpose of this paper is to help researchers gain a proper understanding of machine learning and its applications in healthcare. In this paper, we first present a classification of machine learning-based schemes in healthcare. According to our proposed taxonomy, machine learning-based schemes in healthcare are categorized based on data pre-processing methods (data cleaning methods, data reduction methods), learning methods (unsupervised learning, supervised learning, semi-supervised learning, and reinforcement learning), evaluation methods (simulation-based evaluation and practical implementation-based evaluation in real environment) and applications (diagnosis, treatment). According to our proposed classification, we review some studies presented in machine learning applications for healthcare. We believe that this review paper helps researchers to familiarize themselves with the newest research on ML applications in medicine, recognize their challenges and limitations in this area, and identify future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of an experimental study to evaluate the possibility of using SLM additive technology to produce structures with specific surface morphological features. Qualitative and quantitative tests were conducted on samples fabricated by 3D printing from titanium (Ti6Al4V)-powder-based material and analysed in direct relation to the possibility of their use in medicine for the construction of femoral stem and models with a specific degree of porosity predicted by process-control in the self-decision-making 3D printing machine. This paper presents the results of the study, limitations of the method, recommendations that should be used in the design of finished products, and design proposals to support the fabrication process of 3D printers. Furthermore, the study contains an evaluation of how the printing direction affects the formation of certain structures on the printed surface. The research can be used in the development of 3D printing standardization, particularly in the consideration of process control and surface control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malaria prevalence remains high in many African countries despite massive scaling-up of insecticide treated nets (ITN) and indoor residual spraying (IRS). This paper evaluates the protective effect of pyrethroid IRS and ITNs in relation to risk factors for malaria based on a study conducted in North-West Tanzania, where IRS has been conducted since 2007 and universal coverage of ITNs has been carried out recently. In 2011 community-based cross-sectional surveys were conducted in the two main malaria transmission periods that occur after the short and long rainy seasons. These included 5,152 and 4,325 children aged 0.5–14 years, respectively. Data on IRS and ITN coverage, household demographics and socio-economic status were collected using an adapted version of the Malaria Indicator Survey. Children were screened for malaria by rapid diagnostic test. In the second survey, haemoglobin density was measured and filter paper blood spots were collected to determine age-specific sero-prevalence in each community surveyed. Plasmodium falciparum infection prevalence in children 0.5–14 years old was 9.3% (95%CI:5.9–14.5) and 22.8% (95%CI:17.3–29.4) in the two surveys. Risk factors for infection after the short rains included households not being sprayed (OR = 0.39; 95%CI:0.20–0.75); low community net ownership (OR = 0.45; 95%CI:0.21–0.95); and low community SES (least poor vs. poorest tertile: OR = 0.13, 95%CI:0.05–0.34). Risk factors after the long rains included household poverty (per quintile increase: OR = 0.89; 95%CI:0.82–0.97) and community poverty (least poor vs. poorest tertile: OR = 0.26, 95%CI:0.15–0.44); household IRS or high community ITN ownership were not protective. Despite high IRS coverage and equitable LLIN distribution, poverty was an important risk factor for malaria suggesting it could be beneficial to target additional malaria control activities to poor households and communities. High malaria prevalence in some clusters and the limited protection given by pyrethroid IRS and LLINs suggest that it may be necessary to enhance established vector control activities and consider additional interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Debate is intensifying about how to assess the full range of impacts from medical research. Complexity increases when assessing the diverse funding streams of funders such as Asthma UK, a charitable patient organisation supporting medical research to benefit people with asthma. This paper aims to describe the various impacts identified from a range of Asthma UK research, and explore how Asthma UK utilised the characteristics of successful funding approaches to inform future research strategies. Methods: We adapted the Payback Framework, using it both in a survey and to help structure interviews, documentary analysis, and case studies. We sent surveys to 153 lead researchers of projects, plus 10 past research fellows, and also conducted 14 detailed case studies. These covered nine projects and two fellowships, in addition to the innovative case studies on the professorial chairs (funded since 1988) and the MRC-Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma (the 'Centre') which together facilitated a comprehensive analysis of the whole funding portfolio. We organised each case study to capture whatever academic and wider societal impacts (or payback) might have arisen given the diverse timescales, size of funding involved, and extent to which Asthma UK funding contributed to the impacts. Results: Projects recorded an average of four peer-reviewed journal articles. Together the chairs reported over 500 papers. All streams of funding attracted follow-on funding. Each of the various categories of societal impacts arose from only a minority of individual projects and fellowships. Some of the research portfolio is influencing asthmarelated clinical guidelines, and some contributing to product development. The latter includes potentially major breakthroughs in asthma therapies (in immunotherapy, and new inhaled drugs) trialled by university spin-out companies. Such research-informed guidelines and medicines can, in turn, contribute to health improvements. The role of the chairs and the pioneering collaborative Centre is shown as being particularly important. Conclusions: We systematically demonstrate that all types of Asthma UK's research funding assessed are making impacts at different levels, but the main societal impacts from projects and fellowships come from a minority of those funded. Asthma UK used the study's findings, especially in relation to the Centre, to inform research funding strategies to promote the achievement of impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the fact that today is conducted a number of scientific research works in the field of medicine, it is necessary to define the steps by which it is carried out to make it universal and to have scientific value. This paper describes the research methods, study design, the way in which one should be written, and why it is important to publicize the same. Special emphasis is placed on scientometrics as the science that evaluates scientific papers and their citation in the selected sample of journals. The paper also answers why scientific research works should be carried out and what kind of satisfaction they provide to the researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying metaphorical language-use (e.g., sweet child) is one of the challenges facing natural language processing. This paper describes three novel algorithms for automatic metaphor identification. The algorithms are variations of the same core algorithm. We evaluate the algorithms on two corpora of Reuters and the New York Times articles. The paper presents the most comprehensive study of metaphor identification in terms of scope of metaphorical phrases and annotated corpora size. Algorithms’ performance in identifying linguistic phrases as metaphorical or literal has been compared to human judgment. Overall, the algorithms outperform the state-of-the-art algorithm with 71% precision and 27% averaged improvement in prediction over the base-rate of metaphors in the corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Climate change is likely to be one of the most important threats to public health in the coming years. Yet despite the large number of papers considering the health impact of climate change, few have considered what public health interventions may be of most value in reducing the disease burden. We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of public health interventions to reduce the disease burden of high priority climate sensitive diseases. Methods and Findings: For each disease, we performed a systematic search with no restriction on date or language of publication on Medline, Web of Knowledge, Cochrane CENTRAL and SCOPUS up to December 2010 to identify systematic reviews of public health interventions. We retrieved some 3176 records of which 85 full papers were assessed and 33 included in the review. The included papers investigated the effect of public health interventions on various outcome measures. All interventions were GRADE assessed to determine the strength of evidence. In addition we developed a systematic review quality score. The interventions included environmental interventions to control vectors, chemoprophylaxis, immunization, household and community water treatment, greening cities and community advice. For most reviews, GRADE showed low quality of evidence because of poor study design and high heterogeneity. Also for some key areas such as floods, droughts and other weather extremes, there are no adequate systematic reviews of potential public health interventions. Conclusion: In conclusion, we found the evidence base to be mostly weak for environmental interventions that could have the most value in a warmer world. Nevertheless, such interventions should not be dismissed. Future research on public health interventions for climate change adaptation needs to be concerned about quality in study design and should address the gap for floods, droughts and other extreme weather events that pose a risk to health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Differing approaches to menstrual hygiene management (MHM) have been associated with a wide range of health and psycho-social outcomes in lower income settings. This paper systematically collates, summarizes and critically appraises the available evidence. Methods: Following the PRISMA guidelines a structured search strategy was used to identify articles investigating the effects of MHM on health and psycho-social outcomes. The search was conducted in May 2012 and had no date limit. Data was extracted and quality of methodology was independently assessed by two researchers. Where no measure of effect was provided, but sufficient data were available to calculate one, this was undertaken. Meta-analysis was conducted where sufficient data were available. Results: 14 articles were identified which looked at health outcomes, primarily reproductive tract infections (RTI). 11 articles were identified investigating associations between MHM, social restrictions and school attendance. MHM was found to be associated with RTI in 7 papers. Methodologies however varied greatly and overall quality was low. Meta-analysis of a subset of studies found no association between confirmed bacterial vaginosis and MHM (OR: 1.07, 95% CI: 0.52–2.24). No other substantial associations with health outcomes were found. Although there was good evidence that educational interventions can improve MHM practices and reduce social restrictions there was no quantitative evidence that improvements in management methods reduce school absenteeism. Conclusion: The management of menstruation presents significant challenges for women in lower income settings; the effect of poor MHM however remains unclear. It is plausible that MHM can affect the reproductive tract but the specific infections, the strength of effect, and the route of transmission, remain unclear. There is a gap in the evidence for high quality randomised intervention studies which combine hardware and software interventions, in particular for better understanding the nuanced effect improving MHM may have on girls’ attendance at school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background & Aims: Dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper have been successfully used to diagnose and monitor several infectious diseases. The aim was to investigate the performance of DBS in hepatitis B virus (HBV) diagnosis using commercial tests in comparison to standard methods. Methods: Paired DBS and plasma samples were collected from 200 patients: 100 patients with HBsAg negative status and 100 patients with HBsAg positive status. In the latter patient, HBeAg reactivity was tested. Ten samples of anti-HBs were collected from people vaccinated against HBV. We also studied 50 patients with positive HBV DNA viral load in plasma and 10 HBV DNA negative patients. HBV genotypes and gene polymerase mutations were determined in 10 randomly selected HBV-infected patients. The DBS sample consisted of 50 µL of whole blood, i.e. a 12-mm paper card. Results: The sensitivity thresholds of HBsAg and anti-HBs antibody were 0.30±0.08 IU/mL and 18.11±6.05 IU/mL, respectively, for DBS with 98% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Sensitivity was 98% and specificity 100% for the detection of HBV DNA on a blotter, considering an HBV DNA threshold of 914.1±157.8 IU/ml. Ten patients had an HBeAg positive status in plasma, all were detected positive using DBS. HBV genotyping and mutation detection were successfully performed on DBS, with full concordance between the 10 paired DBS and plasma samples. Conclusion: This study shows DBS is a reliable alternative to plasma specimens for quantifying and detecting HBsAg, anti-HBs, HBeAg and genotyping. DBS may increase the opportunities for HBV testing and treatment follow-up in hard-to-reach individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient reported outcomes (PROs) are increasingly assessed in clinical trials, and guidelines are available to inform the design and reporting of such trials. However, researchers involved in PRO data collection report that specific guidance on ‘in-trial’ activity (recruitment, data collection and data inputting) and the management of ‘concerning’ PRO data (i.e., data which raises concern for the well-being of the trial participant) appears to be lacking. The purpose of this review was to determine the extent and nature of published guidelines addressing these areas. Methods and Findings: Systematic review of 1,362 articles identified 18 eligible papers containing ‘in-trial’ guidelines. Two independent authors undertook a qualitative content analysis of the selected papers. Guidelines presented in each of the articles were coded according to an a priori defined coding frame, which demonstrated reliability (pooled Kappa 0.86–0.97), and validity (<2% residual category coding). The majority of guidelines present were concerned with ‘pre-trial’ activities (72%), for example, outcome measure selection and study design issues, or ‘post-trial’ activities (16%) such as data analysis, reporting and interpretation. ‘In-trial’ guidelines represented 9.2% of all guidance across the papers reviewed, with content primarily focused on compliance, quality control, proxy assessment and reporting of data collection. There were no guidelines surrounding the management of concerning PRO data. Conclusions: The findings highlight there are minimal in-trial guidelines in publication regarding PRO data collection and management in clinical trials. No guidance appears to exist for researchers involved with the handling of concerning PRO data. Guidelines are needed, which support researchers to manage all PRO data appropriately and which facilitate unbiased data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In recent years an increasing number of public investments and policy changes have been made to improve the availability, affordability and quality of medicines available to consumers in developing countries, including anti-malarials. It is important to monitor the extent to which these interventions are successful in achieving their aims using quantitative data on the supply side of the market. There are a number of challenges related to studying supply, including outlet sampling, gaining provider cooperation and collecting accurate data on medicines. This paper provides guidance on key steps to address these issues when conducting a medicine outlet survey in a developing country context. While the basic principles of good survey design and implementation are important for all surveys, there are a set of specific issues that should be considered when conducting a medicine outlet survey. Methods: This paper draws on the authors' experience of designing and implementing outlet surveys, including the lessons learnt from ACTwatch outlet surveys on anti-malarial retail supply, and other key studies in the field. Key lessons and points of debate are distilled around the following areas: selecting a sample of outlets; techniques for collecting and analysing data on medicine availability, price and sales volumes; and methods for ensuring high quality data in general Results and conclusions: The authors first consider the inclusion criteria for outlets, contrasting comprehensive versus more focused approaches. Methods for developing a reliable sampling frame of outlets are then presented, including use of existing lists, key informants and an outlet census. Specific issues in the collection of data on medicine prices and sales volumes are discussed; and approaches for generating comparable price and sales volume data across products using the adult equivalent treatment dose (AETD) are explored. The paper concludes with advice on practical considerations, including questionnaire design, field worker training, and data collection. Survey materials developed by ACTwatch for investigating anti-malarial markets in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia provide a helpful resource for future studies in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the discussions held during the First IEEE Life Sciences Grand Challenges Conference, held on October 4–5, 2012, at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, and the grand challenges identified by the conference participants. Despite tremendous efforts to develop the knowledge and ability that are essential in addressing biomedical and health problems using engineering methodologies, the optimization of this approach toward engineering the life sciences and healthcare remains a grand challenge. The conference was aimed at high-level discussions by participants representing various sectors, including academia, government, and industry. Grand challenges were identified by the conference participants in five areas including engineering the brain and nervous system; engineering the cardiovascular system; engineering of cancer diagnostics, therapeutics, and prevention; translation of discoveries to clinical applications; and education and training. A number of these challenges are identified and summarized in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective: This paper focuses on the research groups registered in the Colciencias platform from January 2005 to April 2012 in order to analyze their ability to conduct research on the social determinants of health (SDH) as well as the opinion of the coordinators of such groups. Methodology: a descriptive observational study focusing on the Colciencias Scienti platform (which holds information on Colombian research groups) and particularly on aspects such as the groups, the researchers and the SDH-related research products. The study was complemented with questionnaires, focus groups and a study on the national system for research. In addition, researchers signed an informed consent form before participating in the study. Results: the 65 groups registered in Colciencias' Health Sciences Program (6%) have published 123 products in the form of scientific papers written in Spanish (48%). Moreover, the predominant studies are those conducted with demographically relevant populations, focusing on health systems, health inequity and prevalent diseases, and based on empirical and analytical methods, as well as the network projects of national scope. The difficulties identified were: scarce political and institutional support for local and national research on the SDH and reduced interaction with policy makers and with other groups speaking other languages. Conclusions: studies based on the approach proposed by the Commission on Social Determinants of Health in 2005 were predominant. Recommendations: it is essential to strengthen the ability to conduct research on the SDH using different approaches-particularly the Latin American approaches-; likewise collaborative network projects should be developed and collective actions should be taken which affect the health research policies for equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomedical industry is in continuous growth in the last few years. Low profile compact antennas are crucial in the development of wearable human biomedical systems. The polarization of the proposed antenna may be linear or dual polarized. Design considerations, computational results and measured results on the human body of several compact wideband microstrip antennas with high efficiency at 434~MHz\pm 5\% are presented in this paper. The compact dual polarized antenna dimensions are 5\,\times\,5\,\times\,0.05 cm. The antenna beam width is around 100^\circ. The antennas gain is around 0 to 2 dBi. The proposed antenna may be used in Medicare RF systems. The antennas S11 results for different belt thickness, shirt thickness and air spacing between the antennas and human body are presented in this paper. If the air spacing between the new dual polarized antenna and the human body is increased from 0 mm to 5 mm the antenna resonant frequency is shifted by 5%. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pulsed electric fields have recently been the focus of considerable attention because of their potential application in biomedicine. However, their practical clinical applications are limited by poor understanding of the interaction mechanism between pulsed electric fields and cells, particularly in the process of electroporation and its effect on parameter selection. This paper established a multishelled dielectric model based on finite elements to simulate and analyze the processes involved in electroporation. In particular, the processes include the dynamic development of the pore radius and electroporation region: the distribution of recoverable, nonrecoverable, and nonelectroporation areas on the cell; and the influence of pulse parameters on varying degrees of electroporation. Results showed that membrane conductivity, pore density, transmembrane potential, and distribution of pore radii are functions of time and position on the cell. The electroporation areas were divided into recoverable, nonrecoverable, and no-electroporation pores. For 10~\mu \texts , 1.5-kV/cm pulse was observed in the regions exposed to sufficiently high transmembrane voltage (1 V), electroporation occurred, membrane conductivity and pore density (up to 10^\mathrm 16/\textm^\mathrm 2) rapidly increased with time, and electroporation areas increased gradually and were mainly distributed in the range 0°–70° (recoverable pore [0°, 35°], nonrecoverable pore [35°, 70°], and no-electroporation pore [70°, 90°]). Electric field strength was the major factor that induced electroporation, particularly in the recoverable pore, but it had minimal effect on pore expansion. However, pulse duration affects the nonrecoverable pore, such that the high-intensity wide pulse is more useful in the field of irreversible electroporation. The high-intensity short pulse can increase permeability and maintain cell viability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salmonella encompasses a vast and highly related population of clinically and veterinary significant pathogens. The genus is responsible for an array of diseases such as typhoid fever and salmonellosis (a variety of illnesses including gastroenteritis), which cause public health issues globally. Even with the global recognition of Salmonella as a significant human and veterinary pathogen, the highly complex and evolving nomenclature system of Salmonella is problematic for clinicians, veterinarians, and microbiologists to comprehend. The present paper offers a review of the ever developing nomenclature for this bacterial species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zirconia is an important material for both medical science and chemical industry, and numerous studies on zirconia have been published. It is of great importance to summarize the study trend of zirconia for further studies. In the present paper, articles published during five years, i.e. from April 2009 to April 2014, were collected from the Pubmed database for statistical analysis, and the current situation and research advances of zirconia are summarized and analysed. It is found that an increasing number of articles concerning zirconia have been published every year especially in zirconia as dental materials. Authors are mainly from developed countries and regions, and a developing country such as China is playing an increasing role in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the framework of the development of historical Turkic languages, the medical texts were first documented in the language of Old Uyghur. Following this period, these texts appeared again particularly in Old Anatolian Turkish. The quantity of the works on medicine later increased in Ottoman Turkish. Ottoman Turkish, which is the descendant of Old Anatolian Turkish, included studies on a wide range of subjects such as astronomy, geography, physics, chemistry, agriculture, and medicine. This paper aims to present a lexical and scientific analysis of Terceme-i Risāle-i Bīih-i Çīnī (Translation of the treatise on sarsaparilla), based on the critical edition of the manuscript that was translated by Muslih al-Dīn Mustāfā Surūrī, who was one of the most important commentators and translators of the XVIth century Ottoman literature. As far as it can be determined, there are three copies of Terceme-i Risāle-i Bīh-i Çīnī, one of which is in Köprülü Library in Istanbul and the other two are in Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul. This article will make a comparative analysis of these three copies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of Dan’e-fukang soft extract in endometriosis treatment. Method. PubMed, CNKI, Wanfang Database, VIP, SinoMed, and Cochrane Library were searched. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the efficacy of Dan’e-fukang soft extract and conventional western medicines for endometriosis treatment were included. The data were extracted independently by two people and analyzed using RevMan 5.2.0 software. The relative risk (RR) and mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence intervals were considered as effective outcome indicators. Results. Thirty-nine papers including 5442 patients with endometriosis were included in this study. A meta-analysis revealed that Dan’e-fukang soft extract was more efficient than gestrinone in the treatment of endometriosis (RR = 1.08, 95% CI = 1.03 to 1.15, I2 = 71%, REM, 18 trials) and its efficacy was comparable to that of danazol and mifepristone. Dan’e-fukang soft extract was also as effective as gestrinone and mifepristone in terms of relapse rate and relieving dysmenorrhea. The incidence of adverse reactions was lower than that of conventional western medicines. Conclusions. The results of this study showed that Dan’e-fukang soft extract offers certain advantages in endometriosis treatment, but rigorously designed, strictly implemented RCTs are needed to further validate its efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the process through which ayurveda is historicized as the classical tradition of Kerala (and India), at the cost of a variety of practices or ayurvedas. By the twentieth century, medical practice gained a respectful status and became an earning profession. The negotiation and competition to control a commonly shared public space of medicine led to various public interventions. Individual body became a social body and an object of knowledge around which a variety of debates begin to occur. These formations, along with print culture, changing economic relations, new associations and institutional frameworks emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth century India acted as an umbrella space for the intermingling of a range of practices in their renegotiation with knowledge and power. In these processes ayurveda attained the role of a professional classical tradition with various kinds of validations or accepted conditions to become a knowledge system while adhering to its own tenets. Some others such as nattuvaidyam got pushed to the margin as folk medical practices. The analysis is done by reading the first indigenous health magazine, Dhanwantari published from the British Malabar from 1903 onwards for a span of twenty three years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) form the foundational background of modern medical practice. They are considered the highest quality of evidence, and their results help inform decisions concerning drug development and use, preventive therapies, and screening programs. However, the inputs that justify an RCT to be conducted have not been studied.Methods: We reviewed the MEDLINE and EMBASE databases across six specialties (Ophthalmology, Otorhinolaryngology (ENT), General Surgery, Psychiatry, Obstetrics-Gynecology (OB-GYN), and Internal Medicine) and randomly chose 25 RCTs from each specialty except for Otorhinolaryngology (20 studies) and Internal Medicine (28 studies). For each RCT, we recorded information relating to the justification for conducting RCTs such as average study size cited, number of studies cited, and types of studies cited. The justification varied widely both within and between specialties.Results: For Ophthalmology and OB-GYN, the average study sizes cited were around 1100 patients, whereas they were around 500 patients for Psychiatry and General Surgery. Between specialties, the average number of studies cited ranged from around 4.5 for ENT to around 10 for Ophthalmology, but the standard deviations were large, indicating that there was even more discrepancy within each specialty. When standardizing by the sample size of the RCT, some of the discrepancies between and within specialties can be explained, but not all. On average, Ophthalmology papers cited review articles the most (2.96 studies per RCT) compared to less than 1.5 studies per RCT for all other specialties.Conclusions: The justifications for RCTs vary widely both within and between specialties, and the justification for conducting RCTs is not standardized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Participant selection for first-in-human (FIH) trials involves complex decisions. The trial design makes it unlikely that participants will receive clinically relevant therapeutic benefit, but they are likely to experience risks of various magnitudes and types. The aim of the present paper was to describe and discuss the views of investigators and ethics committee members about the choice of trial participants for FIH trials in cancer nanomedicine. Methods We drew insights from an exploratory qualitative study involving thematic analysis of 46 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders in Europe and North America involved in FIH nanomedicine trials. The present work draws on subset of 21 interviews with investigators and ethics committee members who have either conducted or reviewed a FIH cancer nanomedicine trial or are planning one. Results Investigators and ethics committee members are aware of the ethics standards for recruiting patients with end-stage cancer into FIH trials, but they nonetheless question the practice and provide reasons against it. Conclusions Although it is a standard and ethically accepted practice to enrol patients with end-stage cancer and no treatment options into FIH trials of investigational chemotherapeutic molecules, doing so can threaten the validity and generalizability of the trials, thereby weakening translational research. Another possibility is to stratify and include patients with less advanced disease who demonstrate certain biomarkers or cancer genotypes and who have a disease profile similar to that tested in preclinical studies. The latter approach could be a step toward personalized medical research and targeted drug development. Such a patient selection approach requires multi-stakeholder discussion to reach scientific and ethics consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There are interwoven personal, professional and organisational relationships to be navigated in maternity in all regions. In rural regions relationships are integral to safe maternity care. Yet there is a paucity of research on how relationships influence safety and nurture satisfying experiences for rural maternity care providers and mothers and families in these regions. This paper draws attention to how these relationships matter. Methods: This research is informed by hermeneutic phenomenology drawing on Heidegger and Gadamer. Thirteen participants were recruited via purposeful sampling and asked to share their experiences of rural maternity care in recorded unstructured in-depth interviews. Participants were women and health care providers living and working in rural regions. Recordings were transcribed and data interpretively analysed until a plausible and trustworthy thematic pattern emerged. Results: Throughout the data the relational nature of rural living surfaced as an interweaving tapestry of connectivity. Relationships in rural maternity are revealed in myriad ways: for some optimal relationships, for others feeling isolated, living with discord and professional disharmony. Professional misunderstandings undermine relationships. Rural maternity can become unsustainable and unsettling when relationships break down leading to unsafeness. Conclusions: This study reveals how relationships are an important and vital aspect to the lived-experience of rural maternity care. Relationships are founded on mutual understanding and attuned to trust matter. These relationships are forged over time and keep childbirth safe and enable maternity care providers to work sustainably. Yet hidden unspoken pre-understandings of individuals and groups build tension in relationships leading to discord. Trust builds healthy rural communities of practice within which everyone can flourish, feel accepted, supported and safe. This is facilitated by collaborative learning activities and open respectful communication founded on what matters most (safe positive childbirth) whilst appreciating and acknowledging professional and personal differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Descartes repeatedly refers to a "principle of life" and appears to make grand claims for its role in his natural philosophy. These claims have been taken at face value in the literature. This paper argues that there is no single principle underlying the operation of the Cartesian body. I show that Descartes's account of physiology explains the operation of the living body through multiple interdependent systems, with no one system more fundamental than any other. As such, Cartesian physiology is incompatible with a hierarchical conception of a body whose operations are driven by a single underlying principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many diseases are associated with changes in the concentrations of the metal ions from the tissues or body fluids. Complex control systems supervise and maintain the metalic ions in normal concentrations in the body. Influencing the systems responsible for the control of metal ions leads to illnesses sometimes with a genetic trait. In the papers are presented aspects the biological role of the metal ions and the possible applications of the biometals in medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Redundant hierarchical relations refer to such patterns as two paths from one concept to another, one with length one (direct) and the other with length greater than one (indirect). Each redundant relation represents a possibly unintended defect that needs to be corrected in the ontology quality assurance process. Detecting and eliminating redundant relations would help improve the results of all methods relying on the relevant ontological systems as knowledge source, such as the computation of semantic distance between concepts and for ontology matching and alignment. Results: This paper introduces a novel and scalable approach, called FEDRR - Fast, Exhaustive Detection of Redundant Relations - for quality assurance work during ontological evolution. FEDRR combines the algorithm ideas of Dynamic Programming with Topological Sort, for exhaustive mining of all redundant hierarchical relations in ontological hierarchies, in O(c · ∣V∣ + ∣E∣) time, where ∣V∣ is the number of concepts, ∣E∣ is the number of the relations, and c is a constant in practice. Using FEDRR, we performed exhaustive search of all redundant is-a relations in two of the largest ontological systems in biomedicine: SNOMED CT and Gene Ontology (GO). 372 and 1609 redundant is-a relations were found in the 2015-09-01 version of SNOMED CT and 2015-05-01 version of GO, respectively. We have also performed FEDRR on over 190 source vocabularies in the UMLS - a large integrated repository of biomedical ontologies, and identified six sources containing redundant is-a relations. Randomly generated ontologies have also been used to further validate the efficiency of FEDRR. Conclusions: FEDRR provides a generally applicable, effective tool for systematic detecting redundant relations in large ontological systems for quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the later famous psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) was called to the University of Dorpat/Tartu at the age of 30, he probably did not busy himself much with the multicultural situation that he found there. Like many of his academic contemporaries, he regarded this Baltic university, then still German-speaking and one of the most important in the Russian Empire, as a kind of exile or at least only a way station for his career, which he hoped to pursue within the German Empire. He brought his research programme for the upcoming discipline of psychiatry with him, as the author of the compendium which, in the course of several editions, became a multi-volume, influential textbook. But at his new venue he found not only a complicated situation of (university) politics caught between negotiation processes among the various cultural groups, but also students from many regions and with different mother tongues, who had to adapt to the official language of instruction. In addition, he took over a recently founded university psychiatric clinic, where all parts of the population were represented, but with whom he could communicate only in a rudimentary manner, as far as the non-German-speaking population groups were concerned. But how did the patients from such different language families manage to make themselves heard in the world of university clinics headed by mostly German-speaking physicians, especially in psychiatry, a discipline particularly dependent upon language? What translation processes were performed by whom over the working therapeutic day, and what were the effects of this partial loss of speech on clinical research? What opportunities resulted from precisely this multi-lingual situation in a contact zone between Western Europe and Russia for psychiatric science and practice? This paper attempts to provide some preliminary answers to these questions, using already known and newly discovered sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores ChristianWolff's attempt to introduce his scientific method in the life sciences and medicine. As one can expect in the light of recent scholarship, Wolff firmly relies on experience and shares Pitcairne's conviction that physicians should imitate astronomers in basing their claims on observations. However, Wolff's rational foundation of medicine also highlights the heuristic value of hypotheses, the use of a priori explanations in pathology, the teleological character and metaphysical import of physiological and medical concepts. Thus, his epistemological attitude towards living beings represents an interesting alternative to the purely empirical trend in early modern medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gout is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis. It is associated with substantial co-morbidity and often managed in primary care. A greater understanding of the communication process between patients and healthcare professionals provides one way of improving the management of this condition. This paper describes communication about gout medicines and treatment between patients and primary care health professionals during routine consultations. Methods: Video-recordings of 31 individual healthcare consultations between patients and a range of primary care practitioners (general practitioners, practice nurses, podiatrists, dietitians) from an archived database were reviewed. Consultations that encompassed any discussion about gout medicines and treatment were included (n = 27) and were not solely restricted to those where gout was the presenting complaint. Themes were derived from an inductive qualitative analysis, from clinical and linguistic perspectives, based on the conversation between patients and practitioners about medicines and visual observation of these interactions. Results: A number of factors were identified that had the potential to impact on the optimal management of gout in primary care. These included level of patient knowledge, patient attitudes to medicines, and the attributes of practitioner communication with patients. The latter related to the style of delivery and content of the information provided, and the ability of practitioners to make use of opportunities that arose to discuss these issues. Conclusions: Patients with gout communicate at varying levels of complexity with a diverse range of primary care healthcare professionals about the treatment of their condition. It is important that all practitioners engaging with gout patients in this setting are knowledgeable about the current management of gout, provide clear, consistent and accurate messages, remain aware that these messages may need repeating over time, and are supportive of patients’ medicine-taking preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2nd World War, large numbers of allied military personnel in south-east Asia became prisoners-of-war (POWs) of the Japanese. During their internment of three and a half years, they suffered undernutrition, exposure to tropical diseases and frequently overwork. Perhaps the harshest POW experience was the construction of the railway between Thailand and Burma. This paper explores the medical conditions during Far East imprisonment, and in particular on the Thai-Burma Railway, as well as the long-term health effects in post-war decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore some possible sources of Francis Bacon's peculiar way of relating idolatry, natural history and the medicine of the mind. In the first section, I argue that Bacon's strategy of internalizing idolatry is not unlike that of some of the leading Calvinist reformers. If in using natural history as a therapy against the idolatrous mind Bacon departed from Calvin, this departure, I claim, was not unlike the road taken earlier by another important reformer, Pierre Viret (1511-1571). In elaborating a form of spiritual medicine, Pierre Viret gave prominence to the empirical and the "anatomical" study of nature. In the second part of my paper, I focus on a particular kind of Calvinist writings against idolatry: the French "Neo- Stoic" Calvinism of the late sixteenth century. I discuss the ways in which the Neo-Stoic Huguenots (and their English followers) used an empirical, anti-dogmatic and "literal" study of the Book of Nature--under the name of "natural history"--as a weapon in the war against the idols of the mind. In particular, I compare Bacon's form of natural historical "therapy" with the one advocated by Pierre de la Primaudaye (1546-1619). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the differences between English and Croatian views of early modem medicine through the respective Renaissance plays. As Renaissance made no particular distinction between arts and sciences, plays of that time provide a very common source of medical narrative. During Renaissance both languages produced high literary achievements, which makes them exemplars among their Germanic and Slavic counterparts, and justifies this comparison, regardless of their significant differences. One should bear in mind that while England was a unified kingdom, with London as the major cultural centre, Croatia's division among the neighbouring powers produced several prominent cultural centres such as Zadar, Šibenik, Split, Hvar, Korčula, and the most important one, Dubrovnik. One should also bear in mind that the golden age of Croatian Renaissance plays had finished as early as 1567 with the death of Marin Držić, before it even started in England with the foundation of the first permanent theatrical companies in 1576. Along these lines, this paper compares their early modern attitudes toward medicine in general and men and women practitioners in particular. In this respect, it evaluates the influences of the origin, patronage, and religion of their authors. Special attention is given to William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Marin Držić (1508-1567) as the exemplars of English and Croatian Renaissance literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Over time, methods for the development of clinical decision support (CDS) systems have evolved from interpretable and easy-to-use scoring systems to very complex and non-interpretable mathematical models. In order to accomplish effective decision support, CDS systems should provide information on how the model arrives at a certain decision. To address the issue of incompatibility between performance, interpretability and applicability of CDS systems, this paper proposes an innovative model structure, automatically leading to interpretable and easily applicable models. The resulting models can be used to guide clinicians when deciding upon the appropriate treatment, estimating patient-specific risks and to improve communication with patients. Methods and Findings:We propose the interval coded scoring (ICS) system, which imposes that the effect of each variable on the estimated risk is constant within consecutive intervals. The number and position of the intervals are automatically obtained by solving an optimization problem, which additionally performs variable selection. The resulting model can be visualised by means of appealing scoring tables and color bars. ICS models can be used within software packages, in smartphone applications, or on paper, which is particularly useful for bedside medicine and home-monitoring. The ICS approach is illustrated on two gynecological problems: diagnosis of malignancy of ovarian tumors using a dataset containing 3,511 patients, and prediction of first trimester viability of pregnancies using a dataset of 1,435 women. Comparison of the performance of the ICS approach with a range of prediction models proposed in the literature illustrates the ability of ICS to combine optimal performance with the interpretability of simple scoring systems. Conclusions: The ICS approach can improve patient-clinician communication and will provide additional insights in the importance and influence of available variables. Future challenges include extensions of the proposed methodology towards automated detection of interaction effects, multi-class decision support systems, prognosis and high-dimensional data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are medical classification systems good for? Taking this question as a starting point, this paper argues that different answers have to be given depending on the scope of application of the classification system. While the use of restricted and specialised classification systems can be described rather well with the existing scientific taxonomy account, this account falls short to make sense of the function that systems play that are heterogeneous and imprecise but broadly applied, such as the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health-Related Problems (ICD). Given that the causal complexity and inter-individual heterogeneity of disease manifestation and progression challenge obtaining unambiguous, universally applicable definitions of the units of classification, this paper aims to introduce a pluralist account that relies on the concept of "epistemic hubs." This epistemic hub account stresses that classification systems used in different settings by a variety of actors can mediate between them and thus provide important opportunities for exchange of information and integration of causal explanations. Therefore, broadly applied classifications have to be connective and compatible with additional use-specific epistemic strategies in order to facilitate interactions between different methodological approaches to diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By declaring biomedicine as its apolitical counter-discourse, social theory, including disability studies, experiences problems discussing bodies and their ailments. This paper explores possibilities to ‘bring bodies back in’ in politically relevant ways, while avoiding reducing bodies to singular, natural ‘givens’. This is done by exploring some of the practices in which people with severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) attempt to live with their chronic disease and together with others. It becomes clear that what they experience as important physico-social problems are the invisibility of their disease, combined with the visibility of the aids used to deal with its problems. This combination leads to behaviour that is incomprehensible to others. It is demonstrated that some form of presence of the disease is needed to create social positions that allow patients to live with others in an acceptable way. The paper continues by exploring ways in which bodies are made present in useful ways. These are found where the people with COPD: (1) create communities of shared bodies that allow for a multitude of visible and invisible presences of COPD; (2) develop ways to educate their bodies in different ways to create new presences; (3) use their bodies as sources of knowledge about living with breathlessness; and (4) create transportable bodies to take COPD presences elsewhere, by using the argument of ‘demonstration by numbers’, the workings of time and by playing out the exceptional characteristics of their bodies and situations. The paper concludes with a discussion of the relatively unexplored possibilities for creating and sharing ‘patient knowledge’ and the areas this opens up for a new politics of social inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In medicine, racial differences are frequently presented as part of the best explanation of differences in the risk of diseases. The problem of using racial classification in biomedical research has become important because of its ethical consequences in society. However, the biological relevance of the concept of race cannot be established by any ethical argument and the epistemological role of racial categorisation requires clarification. In this paper, different issues related to the concept of race are considered. This paper analyses the semantic problem concerning the definition of race, considers the ontological problem of race, drawing attention to the biological evidence for genetic differences among human groups, and presents a promising epistemological approach to the problem of race. The purpose of the paper is to examine whether, or when, racial categories belong in biological explanations. It shows that the concept of race cannot be justified in biology because it does not lead to successful predictions, and that genetic discontinuities are sufficient to explain differences in diseases but not needed in the explanation. The biomedical field should search for genetic patterns related to diseases, and should not assume racial discontinuities among human groups and use racial clusters as proxies for undetected genetic patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces methods used to communicate with participants in the 'Biobank Japan Project (BBJP)', which is a disease-focused biobanking project. The methods and their implications are discussed in the context of the ethical conduct of the biobanking project. Informed consent, which ensures the autonomous decisions of participants, is believed to be practically impossible for the biobanking project in general. Consequently, the concept of 'trust', which is 'judgement and action in conditions of less than perfect information', has been suggested to compensate for this limitation. As a means to maintain the trust participants feel for the project, this paper proposes communication with participants after receiving their consent. After describing the limitations of informed consent within the BBJP, based on a survey we conducted, we introduce our attempts to communicate with participants, discussing their implications as a means to compensate for the limitations of informed consent at the biobanking project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The overall goal of the BioCreative Workshops is to promote the development of text mining and text processing tools which are useful to the communities of researchers and database curators in the biological sciences. To this end BioCreative I was held in 2004, BioCreative II in 2007, and BioCreative II.5 in 2009. Each of these workshops involved humanly annotated test data for several basic tasks in text mining applied to the biomedical literature. Participants in the workshops were invited to compete in the tasks by constructing software systems to perform the tasks automatically and were given scores based on their performance. The results of these workshops have benefited the community in several ways. They have 1) provided evidence for the most effective methods currently available to solve specific problems; 2) revealed the current state of the art for performance on those problems; 3) and provided gold standard data and results on that data by which future advances can be gauged. This special issue contains overview papers for the three tasks of BioCreative III. Results: The BioCreative III Workshop was held in September of 2010 and continued the tradition of a challenge evaluation on several tasks judged basic to effective text mining in biology, including a gene normalization (GN) task and two protein-protein interaction (PPI) tasks. In total the Workshop involved the work of twenty-three teams. Thirteen teams participated in the GN task which required the assignment of EntrezGene IDs to all named genes in full text papers without any species information being provided to a system. Ten teams participated in the PPI article classification task (ACT) requiring a system to classify and rank a PubMed® record as belonging to an article either having or not having "PPI relevant" information. Eight teams participated in the PPI interaction method task (IMT) where systems were given full text documents and were required to extract the experimental methods used to establish PPIs and a text segment supporting each such method. Gold standard data was compiled for each of these tasks and participants competed in developing systems to perform the tasks automatically. BioCreative III also introduced a new interactive task (IAT), run as a demonstration task. The goal was to develop an interactive system to facilitate a user's annotation of the unique database identifiers for all the genes appearing in an article. This task included ranking genes by importance (based preferably on the amount of described experimental information regarding genes). There was also an optional task to assist the user in finding the most relevant articles about a given gene. For BioCreative III, a user advisory group (UAG) was assembled and played an important role 1) in producing some of the gold standard annotations for the GN task, 2) in critiquing IAT systems,. 3) in providing guidance for a future more rigorous evaluation of IAT systems. Six teams participated in the IAT demonstration task and received feedback on their systems from the UAG group. Besides innovations in the GN and PPI tasks making them more realistic and practical and the introduction of the IAT task, discussions were begun on community data standards to promote interoperability and on user requirements and evaluation metrics to address utility and usability of systems. Conclusions: In this paper we give a brief history of the BioCreative Workshops and how they relate to other text mining competitions in biology. This is followed by a synopsis of the three tasks GN, PPI, and IAT in BioCreative III with figures for best participant performance on the GN and PPI tasks. These results are discussed and compared with results from previous BioCreative Workshops and we conclude that the best performing systems for GN, PPIACT and PPI-IMT in realistic settings are not sufficient for fully automatic use. This provides evidence for the importance of interactive systems and we present our vision of how best to construct an interactive system for a GN or PPI like task in the remainder of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper presents a novel approach to the problem of hedge detection, which involves identifying so-called hedge cues for labeling sentences as certain or uncertain. This is the classification problem for Task 1 of the CoNLL-2010 Shared Task, which focuses on hedging in the biomedical domain. We here propose to view hedge detection as a simple disambiguation problem, restricted to words that have previously been observed as hedge cues. As the feature space for the classifier is still very large, we also perform experiments with dimensionality reduction using the method of random indexing. Results: The SVM-based classifiers developed in this paper achieves the best published results so far for sentence-level uncertainty prediction on the CoNLL-2010 Shared Task test data. We also show that the technique of random indexing can be successfully applied for reducing the dimensionality of the original feature space by several orders of magnitude, without sacrificing classifier performance. Conclusions: This paper introduces a simplified approach to detecting speculation or uncertainty in text, focusing on the biomedical domain. Evaluated at the sentence-level, our SVM-based classifiers achieve the best published results so far. We also show that the feature space can be aggressively compressed using random indexing while still maintaining comparable classifier performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By looking at the fierce debates in the city of Carlsbad in Bohemia around the fabrication of medical salt by a local doctor, David Becher, from 1763 to 1784, the paper examines the interactions between different spheres or levels of circulation of knowledge in the Habsburg Empire. The dispute crystallized around the definition of the product, about its medical qualities and its relation with the water of the local mineral spring. The city’s inhabitants contested the vision of the medical experts, fearing that the extraction of the medical salt from the spring water and its sale outside the town would have a negative effect on the number of visitors to the spa. Their vision implied a more or less ‘popularized’ form of alchemical thinking as it identified the mineral water with the extracted ‘salt’, conceived as the ‘essence’ of the water, produced by evaporation. The Carlsbad salt dispute highlights the complex interactions among the different networks in which knowledge circulated through the Habsburg Empire in the eighteenth century. The different actors relied on specific networks with different logics of discourse and different modes of circulation. In each case the relation between the local, the regional and the imperial had to be negotiated. The paper thus sketches out the different geographies of knowledge in the Habsburg Empire but also its localization in and around Carlsbad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Laughter is employed in social interaction to construct meaning, identities, and relationships. Although studies have begun to examine humour within the medical workplace, none have employed observational methods to study laughables/laughter within the learning triad of the bedside teaching encounter (BTE). This paper focuses on this gap by exploring the novel question: How do students, patients, and doctors construct and co-construct power, identity and gender through laughter within BTEs? In this paper, we focus on the disaffiliative function of laughables/laughter across BTEs. Most of the laughables presented can be construed as teases: fallibility, frustration, cynicism and/or sexual teasing; and this teasing was accompanied by a competitive rather than collaborative play frame. Teasing and laughter was employed by participants to maintain or subvert existing power asymmetries, to construct identities, for example, as individuals who are intelligent, witty and powerful, and to construct gender by performing masculinity or femininity. Further research with a larger and more diverse sample of participants (including more female doctors, male students and female patients) is now essential to explore more fully the co-construction of power, identities and gender through laughter within medical workplace learning encounters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the attitude of the society towards the medical profession, which was torn between high social expectations and ideals and medical practice confronted with real-life obstacles. In the 19th century, the physician's position was still precarious and called for a renegotiation in the community. Physician's work was faced with people's distrust and resistance, superstitions and prejudices, folk medicine and religion. Even such ideal qualities as dignity, conscientiousness, and courage, would quickly be called into question by events such as epidemics. Particularly in 19th century rural areas, the physician's position was far from acknowledged and official medicine had yet to win people's trust. This paper explores the polyvalent attitude of people towards medicine and health. It investigates the discourse used to describe health and medicine in daily press, professional and popular literature, as well as in official medical documents of the time. It shows a long struggle of public health care to gain people's approval. During cholera epidemics, which apart from presenting serious threat to human life were an opportunity for medicine to win people's trust and obedience, the attitude towards health gradually began to change. To some extent this was a result of medical advances, new scientific discoveries, and increasing success in abating the epidemics. At the same time, as the society became more secular, medicine slowly gained people's trust and gradually replaced the healing methods of folk medicine. Health was less and less understood as a result of God's will and mercy, and the attitude towards disease began to evolve from passive resignation to an active battle for health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]