Term Relevance Feedback and Mediated Database Searching: Implications for Information Retrieval Practice and Systems Design.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Spink, Amanda

1995-01-01

This study uses the human approach to examine the sources and effectiveness of search terms selected during 40 mediated interactive database searches and focuses on determining the retrieval effectiveness of search terms identified by users and intermediaries from retrieved items during term relevance feedback. (Author/JKP)

Landmark vs. Geometry Learning: Explaining Female Rats' Selective Preference for a Landmark

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Torres, Marta N.; Rodríguez, Clara A.; Chamizo, V. D.; Mackintosh, N. J.

2014-01-01

Rats were trained in a triangular-shaped pool to find a hidden platform, whose location was defined in terms of two sources of information, a landmark outside the pool and a particular corner of the pool. Subsequent test trials without the platform pitted these two sources of information against one another. In Experiment 1 this test revealed a…

Quantum Information Science

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-02-01

group velocity matched temporal compensator crystal assembly to increase the usable range of entangled photon sources, and (vi) the development and...characterization of a new multipli- entangled photon source that increased the usable number of photon pairs by a factor of six. 15. SUBJECT TERMS...compensated crystal assembly ....................................................................................... 17 3.7 Entangled photon sources

Air Pollution Manual, Part 1--Evaluation. Second Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Giever, Paul M., Ed.

Due to the great increase in technical knowledge and improvement in procedures, this second edition has been prepared to update existing information. Air pollution legislation is reviewed. Sources of air pollution are examined extensively. They are treated in terms of natural sources, man-made sources, metropolitan regional emissions, emission…

Acoustic constituents of prosodic typology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Komatsu, Masahiko

Different languages sound different, and considerable part of it derives from the typological difference of prosody. Although such difference is often referred to as lexical accent types (stress accent, pitch accent, and tone; e.g. English, Japanese, and Chinese respectively) and rhythm types (stress-, syllable-, and mora-timed rhythms; e.g. English, Spanish, and Japanese respectively), it is unclear whether these types are determined in terms of acoustic properties, The thesis intends to provide a potential basis for the description of prosody in terms of acoustics. It argues for the hypothesis that the source component of the source-filter model (acoustic features) approximately corresponds to prosody (linguistic features) through several experimental-phonetic studies. The study consists of four parts. (1) Preliminary experiment: Perceptual language identification tests were performed using English and Japanese speech samples whose frequency spectral information (i.e. non-source component) is heavily reduced. The results indicated that humans can discriminate languages with such signals. (2) Discussion on the linguistic information that the source component contains: This part constitutes the foundation of the argument of the thesis. Perception tests of consonants with the source signal indicated that the source component carries the information on broad categories of phonemes that contributes to the creation of rhythm. (3) Acoustic analysis: The speech samples of Chinese, English, Japanese, and Spanish, differing in prosodic types, were analyzed. These languages showed difference in acoustic characteristics of the source component. (4) Perceptual experiment: A language identification test for the above four languages was performed using the source signal with its acoustic features parameterized. It revealed that humans can discriminate prosodic types solely with the source features and that the discrimination is easier as acoustic information increases. The series of studies showed the correspondence of the source component to prosodic features. In linguistics, prosodic types have not been discussed purely in terms of acoustics; they are usually related to the function of prosody or phonological units such as phonemes. The present thesis focuses on acoustics and makes a contribution to establishing the crosslinguistic description system of prosody.

The Effect of Bilingual Term List Size on Dictionary-Based Cross-Language Information Retrieval

DTIC Science & Technology

2006-01-01

The Effect of Bilingual Term List Size on Dictionary -Based Cross-Language Information Retrieval Dina Demner-Fushman Department of Computer Science... dictionary -based Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR), in which the goal is to find documents written in one natural language based on queries that...in which the documents are written. In dictionary -based CLIR techniques, the princi- pal source of translation knowledge is a translation lexicon

What do popular Spanish women's magazines say about caesarean section? A 21-year survey.

PubMed

Torloni, M R; Campos Mansilla, B; Merialdi, M; Betrán, A P

2014-04-01

Caesarean section (CS) rates are increasing worldwide and maternal request is cited as one of the main reasons for this trend. Women's preferences for route of delivery are influenced by popular media, including magazines. We assessed the information on CS presented in Spanish women's magazines. Systematic review. Women's magazines printed from 1989 to 2009 with the largest national distribution. Articles with any information on CS. Articles were selected, read and abstracted in duplicate. Sources of information, scientific accuracy, comprehensiveness and women's testimonials were objectively extracted using a content analysis form designed for this study. Accuracy, comprehensiveness and sources of information. Most (67%) of the 1223 selected articles presented exclusively personal opinion/birth stories, 12% reported the potential benefits of CS, 26% mentioned the short-term and 10% mentioned the long-term maternal risks, and 6% highlighted the perinatal risks of CS. The most frequent short-term risks were the increased time for maternal recovery (n = 86), frustration/feelings of failure (n = 83) and increased post-surgical pain (n = 71). The most frequently cited long-term risks were uterine rupture (n = 57) and the need for another CS in any subsequent pregnancy (n = 42). Less than 5% of the selected articles reported that CS could increase the risks of infection (n = 53), haemorrhage (n = 31) or placenta praevia/accreta in future pregnancies (n = 6). The sources of information were not reported by 68% of the articles. The portrayal of CS in Spanish women's magazines is not sufficiently comprehensive and does not provide adequate important information to help the readership to understand the real benefits and risks of this route of delivery. © 2014 The Authors. BJOG An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

What do popular Spanish women's magazines say about caesarean section? A 21-year survey

PubMed Central

Torloni, MR; Campos Mansilla, B; Merialdi, M; Betrán, AP

2014-01-01

Objectives Caesarean section (CS) rates are increasing worldwide and maternal request is cited as one of the main reasons for this trend. Women's preferences for route of delivery are influenced by popular media, including magazines. We assessed the information on CS presented in Spanish women's magazines. Design Systematic review. Setting Women's magazines printed from 1989 to 2009 with the largest national distribution. Sample Articles with any information on CS. Methods Articles were selected, read and abstracted in duplicate. Sources of information, scientific accuracy, comprehensiveness and women's testimonials were objectively extracted using a content analysis form designed for this study. Main outcome measures Accuracy, comprehensiveness and sources of information. Results Most (67%) of the 1223 selected articles presented exclusively personal opinion/birth stories, 12% reported the potential benefits of CS, 26% mentioned the short-term and 10% mentioned the long-term maternal risks, and 6% highlighted the perinatal risks of CS. The most frequent short-term risks were the increased time for maternal recovery (n = 86), frustration/feelings of failure (n = 83) and increased post-surgical pain (n = 71). The most frequently cited long-term risks were uterine rupture (n = 57) and the need for another CS in any subsequent pregnancy (n = 42). Less than 5% of the selected articles reported that CS could increase the risks of infection (n = 53), haemorrhage (n = 31) or placenta praevia/accreta in future pregnancies (n = 6). The sources of information were not reported by 68% of the articles. Conclusions The portrayal of CS in Spanish women's magazines is not sufficiently comprehensive and does not provide adequate important information to help the readership to understand the real benefits and risks of this route of delivery. PMID:24467797

Use of Online Sources of Information by Dental Practitioners: Findings from The Dental Practice-Based Research Network

PubMed Central

Funkhouser, Ellen; Agee, Bonita S.; Gordan, Valeria V.; Rindal, D. Brad; Fellows, Jeffrey L.; Qvist, Vibeke; McClelland, Jocelyn; Gilbert, Gregg H.

2013-01-01

Objectives Estimate the proportion of dental practitioners who use online sources of information for practice guidance. Methods From a survey of 657 dental practitioners in The Dental Practice Based Research Network, four indicators of online use for practice guidance were calculated: read journals online, obtained continuing education (CDE) through online sources, rated an online source as most influential, and reported frequently using an online source for guidance. Demographics, journals read, and use of various sources of information for practice guidance in terms of frequency and influence were ascertained for each. Results Overall, 21% (n=138) were classified into one of the four indicators of online use: 14% (n=89) rated an online source as most influential and 13% (n=87) reported frequently using an online source for guidance; few practitioners (5%, n=34) read journals online, fewer (3%, n=17) obtained CDE through online sources. Use of online information sources varied considerably by region and practice characteristics. In general, the 4 indicators represented practitioners with as many differences as similarities to each other and to offline users. Conclusion A relatively small proportion of dental practitioners use information from online sources for practice guidance. Variation exists regarding practitioners’ use of online source resources and how they rate the value of offline information sources for practice guidance. PMID:22994848

Watershed nitrogen and phosphorus balance: The upper Potomac River basin

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jaworski, N.A.; Groffman, P.M.; Keller, A.A.

1992-01-01

Nitrogen and phosphorus mass balances were estimated for the portion of the Potomac River basin watershed located above Washington, D.C. The total nitrogen (N) balance included seven input source terms, six sinks, and one 'change-in-storage' term, but was simplified to five input terms and three output terms. The phosphorus (P) baance had four input and three output terms. The estimated balances are based on watershed data from seven information sources. Major sources of nitrogen are animal waste and atmospheric deposition. The major sources of phosphorus are animal waste and fertilizer. The major sink for nitrogen is combined denitrification, volatilization, andmore » change-in-storage. The major sink for phosphorus is change-in-storage. River exports of N and P were 17% and 8%, respectively, of the total N and P inputs. Over 60% of the N and P were volatilized or stored. The major input and output terms on the budget are estimated from direct measurements, but the change-in-storage term is calculated by difference. The factors regulating retention and storage processes are discussed and research needs are identified.« less

What Is Information Design?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Redish, Janice C. (Ginny)

2000-01-01

Defines two meanings of information design: the overall process of developing a successful document; and the way the information is presented on the screen (layout, typography, color, and so forth). Discusses the future importance of both of these meanings of information design, in terms of design for the web and single-sources (planning…

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gydesen, S.P.

The purpose of this letter report is to reconstruct from available information that data which can be used to develop daily reactor operating history for 1960--1964. The information needed for source team calculations (as determined by the Source Terms Task Leader) were extracted and included in this report. The data on the amount of uranium dissolved by the separations plants (expressed both as tons and as MW) is also included in this compilation.

A functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation of short-term source and item memory for negative pictures.

PubMed

Mitchell, Karen J; Mather, Mara; Johnson, Marcia K; Raye, Carol L; Greene, Erich J

2006-10-02

We investigated the hypothesis that arousal recruits attention to item information, thereby disrupting working memory processes that help bind items to context. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we compared brain activity when participants remembered negative or neutral picture-location conjunctions (source memory) versus pictures only. Behaviorally, negative trials showed disruption of short-term source, but not picture, memory; long-term picture recognition memory was better for negative than for neutral pictures. Activity in areas involved in working memory and feature integration (precentral gyrus and its intersect with superior temporal gyrus) was attenuated on negative compared with neutral source trials relative to picture-only trials. Visual processing areas (middle occipital and lingual gyri) showed greater activity for negative than for neutral trials, especially on picture-only trials.

Leveraging terminological resources for mapping between rare disease information sources.

PubMed

Rance, Bastien; Snyder, Michelle; Lewis, Janine; Bodenreider, Olivier

2013-01-01

Rare disease information sources are incompletely and inconsistently cross-referenced to one another, making it difficult for information seekers to navigate across them. The development of such cross-references established manually by experts is generally labor intensive and costly. To develop an automatic mapping between two of the major rare diseases information sources, GARD and Orphanet, by leveraging terminological resources, especially the UMLS. We map the rare disease terms from Orphanet and ORDR to the UMLS. We use the UMLS as a pivot to bridge between the rare disease terminologies. We compare our results to a mapping obtained through manually established cross-references to OMIM. Our mapping has a precision of 94%, a recall of 63% and an F1-score of 76%. Our automatic mapping should help facilitate the development of more complete and consistent cross-references between GARD and Orphanet, and is applicable to other rare disease information sources as well.

Ancient Glass: A Literature Search and its Role in Waste Management

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Strachan, Denis M.; Pierce, Eric M.

2010-07-01

When developing a performance assessment model for the long-term disposal of immobilized low-activity waste (ILAW) glass, it is desirable to determine the durability of glass forms over very long periods of time. However, testing is limited to short time spans, so experiments are performed under conditions that accelerate the key geochemical processes that control weathering. Verification that models currently being used can reliably calculate the long term behavior ILAW glass is a key component of the overall PA strategy. Therefore, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory was contracted by Washington River Protection Solutions, LLC to evaluate alternative strategies that can be usedmore » for PA source term model validation. One viable alternative strategy is the use of independent experimental data from archaeological studies of ancient or natural glass contained in the literature. These results represent a potential independent experiment that date back to approximately 3600 years ago or 1600 before the current era (bce) in the case of ancient glass and 106 years or older in the case of natural glass. The results of this literature review suggest that additional experimental data may be needed before the result from archaeological studies can be used as a tool for model validation of glass weathering and more specifically disposal facility performance. This is largely because none of the existing data set contains all of the information required to conduct PA source term calculations. For example, in many cases the sediments surrounding the glass was not collected and analyzed; therefore having the data required to compare computer simulations of concentration flux is not possible. This type of information is important to understanding the element release profile from the glass to the surrounding environment and provides a metric that can be used to calibrate source term models. Although useful, the available literature sources do not contain the required information needed to simulate the long-term performance of nuclear waste glasses in a near-surface or deep geologic repositories. The information that will be required include 1) experimental measurements to quantify the model parameters, 2) detailed analyses of altered glass samples, and 3) detailed analyses of the sediment surrounding the ancient glass samples.« less

Method for gathering and summarizing internet information

DOEpatents

Potok, Thomas E.; Elmore, Mark Thomas; Reed, Joel Wesley; Treadwell, Jim N.; Samatova, Nagiza Faridovna

2010-04-06

A computer method of gathering and summarizing large amounts of information comprises collecting information from a plurality of information sources (14, 51) according to respective maps (52) of the information sources (14), converting the collected information from a storage format to XML-language documents (26, 53) and storing the XML-language documents in a storage medium, searching for documents (55) according to a search query (13) having at least one term and identifying the documents (26) found in the search, and displaying the documents as nodes (33) of a tree structure (32) having links (34) and nodes (33) so as to indicate similarity of the documents to each other.

System for gathering and summarizing internet information

DOEpatents

Potok, Thomas E.; Elmore, Mark Thomas; Reed, Joel Wesley; Treadwell, Jim N.; Samatova, Nagiza Faridovna

2006-07-04

A computer method of gathering and summarizing large amounts of information comprises collecting information from a plurality of information sources (14, 51) according to respective maps (52) of the information sources (14), converting the collected information from a storage format to XML-language documents (26, 53) and storing the XML-language documents in a storage medium, searching for documents (55) according to a search query (13) having at least one term and identifying the documents (26) found in the search, and displaying the documents as nodes (33) of a tree structure (32) having links (34) and nodes (33) so as to indicate similarity of the documents to each other.

Method for gathering and summarizing internet information

DOEpatents

Potok, Thomas E [Oak Ridge, TN; Elmore, Mark Thomas [Oak Ridge, TN; Reed, Joel Wesley [Knoxville, TN; Treadwell, Jim N [Louisville, TN; Samatova, Nagiza Faridovna [Oak Ridge, TN

2008-01-01

A computer method of gathering and summarizing large amounts of information comprises collecting information from a plurality of information sources (14, 51) according to respective maps (52) of the information sources (14), converting the collected information from a storage format to XML-language documents (26, 53) and storing the XML-language documents in a storage medium, searching for documents (55) according to a search query (13) having at least one term and identifying the documents (26) found in the search, and displaying the documents as nodes (33) of a tree structure (32) having links (34) and nodes (33) so as to indicate similarity of the documents to each other.

Search wide, dig deep: literature searching for qualitative research. An analysis of the publication formats and information sources used for four systematic reviews in public health.

PubMed

Stansfield, Claire; Brunton, Ginny; Rees, Rebecca

2014-06-01

When literature searching for systematic reviews, it is good practice to search widely across different information sources. Little is known about the contributions of different publication formats (e.g. journal article and book chapter) and sources, especially for studies of people's views. Studies from four reviews spanning three public health areas (active transport, motherhood and obesity) were analysed in terms of publication formats and the information sources they were identified from. They comprised of 229 studies exploring people's perceptions, beliefs and experiences ('views studies') and were largely qualitative. Although most (61%) research studies were published within journals, nearly a third (29%) were published as research reports and 5% were published in books. The remainder consisted of theses, conference papers and raw datasets. Two-thirds of studies (66%) were located in a total of 19 bibliographic databases, and 15 databases provided studies that were not identified elsewhere. PubMed was a good source for all reviews. Supplementary information sources were important for identifying studies in all publication formats. Undertaking sensitive searches across a range of information sources is essential for locating views studies in all publication formats. We discuss some benefits and challenges of utilising different information sources. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Hiring in a Hobbesian World. Social Infrastructure and Employers' Use of Information.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Miller, Shazia Rafiullah; Rosenbaum, James E.

1997-01-01

Interviews of 51 employers showed they do not use transcripts or teacher recommendations in hiring. They mistrust applicant information from most sources, emphasizing interviews and "gut instinct," which often gives invalid results. They tend to use information from other employees or long-term social networks. (SK)

Growth, productivity, and scientific impact of sources of HIV/AIDS research information, with a focus on eastern and southern Africa.

PubMed

Bosire Onyancha, Omwoyo

2008-05-01

As channels of communicating HIV/AIDS research information, serial publications and particularly journals are increasingly used in response to the pandemic. The last few decades have witnessed a proliferation of sources of HIV/AIDS-related information, bringing many challenges to collection-development librarians as well as to researchers. This study uses an informetric approach to examine the growth, productivity and scientific impact of these sources, during the period 1980 to 2005, and especially to measure performance in the publication and dissemination of HIV/AIDS research about or from eastern or southern Africa. Data were collected from MEDLINE, Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Ulrich's Periodical Directory. The analysis used Sitkis version 1.5, Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft Office Excel, Bibexcel, and Citespace version 2.0.1. The specific objectives were to identify the number of sources of HIV/AIDS-related information that have been published in the region, the coverage of these in key bibliographic databases, the most commonly used publication type for HIV/AIDS research, the countries in which the sources are published, the sources' productivity in terms of numbers of papers and citations, the most influential sources, the subject coverage of the sources, and the core sources of HIV/AIDS-information.

48 CFR 27.401 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... term includes technical data and computer software. The term does not include information incidental to.... For computer software it means data identifying source, functional characteristics, and performance... the software. Limited rights means the rights of the Government in limited rights data as set forth in...

48 CFR 27.401 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... term includes technical data and computer software. The term does not include information incidental to.... For computer software it means data identifying source, functional characteristics, and performance... the software. Limited rights means the rights of the Government in limited rights data as set forth in...

48 CFR 27.401 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... term includes technical data and computer software. The term does not include information incidental to.... For computer software it means data identifying source, functional characteristics, and performance... the software. Limited rights means the rights of the Government in limited rights data as set forth in...

48 CFR 27.401 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... term includes technical data and computer software. The term does not include information incidental to.... For computer software it means data identifying source, functional characteristics, and performance... the software. Limited rights means the rights of the Government in limited rights data as set forth in...

48 CFR 27.401 - Definitions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... term includes technical data and computer software. The term does not include information incidental to.... For computer software it means data identifying source, functional characteristics, and performance... the software. Limited rights means the rights of the Government in limited rights data as set forth in...

Modernization and new technologies: Coping with the information explosion

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blados, Walter R.; Cotter, Gladys A.

1993-01-01

Information has become a valuable and strategic resource in all societies and economies. Scientific and technical information is especially important in developing and maintaining a strong national science and technology base. The expanding use of information technology, the growth of interdisciplinary research, and an increase in international collaboration are changing characteristics of information. This modernization effort applies new technology to current processes to provide near-term benefits to the user. At the same time, we are developing a long-term modernization strategy designed to transition the program to a multimedia, global 'library without walls'. Notwithstanding this modernization program, it is recogized that no one information center can hope to collect all the relevant data. We see information and information systems changing and becoming more international in scope. We are finding that many nations are expending resources on national systems which duplicate each other. At the same time that this duplication exists, many useful sources of aerospace information are not being collected to cover expanded sources of information. This paper reviews the NASA modernization program and raises for consideration new possibilities for unification of the various aerospace database efforts toward a cooperative international aerospace database initiative, one that can optimize the cost/benefit equation for all participants.

Boosting probabilistic graphical model inference by incorporating prior knowledge from multiple sources.

PubMed

Praveen, Paurush; Fröhlich, Holger

2013-01-01

Inferring regulatory networks from experimental data via probabilistic graphical models is a popular framework to gain insights into biological systems. However, the inherent noise in experimental data coupled with a limited sample size reduces the performance of network reverse engineering. Prior knowledge from existing sources of biological information can address this low signal to noise problem by biasing the network inference towards biologically plausible network structures. Although integrating various sources of information is desirable, their heterogeneous nature makes this task challenging. We propose two computational methods to incorporate various information sources into a probabilistic consensus structure prior to be used in graphical model inference. Our first model, called Latent Factor Model (LFM), assumes a high degree of correlation among external information sources and reconstructs a hidden variable as a common source in a Bayesian manner. The second model, a Noisy-OR, picks up the strongest support for an interaction among information sources in a probabilistic fashion. Our extensive computational studies on KEGG signaling pathways as well as on gene expression data from breast cancer and yeast heat shock response reveal that both approaches can significantly enhance the reconstruction accuracy of Bayesian Networks compared to other competing methods as well as to the situation without any prior. Our framework allows for using diverse information sources, like pathway databases, GO terms and protein domain data, etc. and is flexible enough to integrate new sources, if available.

An Examination of the Relationships among Perceived Risk, Perceived Knowledge, and Student College Search Behavior

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mun, Yukyong

2014-01-01

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationships among perceived risk, perceived knowledge, education, age, and international students' external information search behavior in terms of extent of information search, types of information searched, and types of information sources used during the search phase of the college choice process. A…

Federated Access to Heterogeneous Information Resources in the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF)

PubMed Central

Gupta, Amarnath; Bug, William; Marenco, Luis; Qian, Xufei; Condit, Christopher; Rangarajan, Arun; Müller, Hans Michael; Miller, Perry L.; Sanders, Brian; Grethe, Jeffrey S.; Astakhov, Vadim; Shepherd, Gordon; Sternberg, Paul W.; Martone, Maryann E.

2009-01-01

The overarching goal of the NIF (Neuroscience Information Framework) project is to be a one-stop-shop for Neuroscience. This paper provides a technical overview of how the system is designed. The technical goal of the first version of the NIF system was to develop an information system that a neuroscientist can use to locate relevant information from a wide variety of information sources by simple keyword queries. Although the user would provide only keywords to retrieve information, the NIF system is designed to treat them as concepts whose meanings are interpreted by the system. Thus, a search for term should find a record containing synonyms of the term. The system is targeted to find information from web pages, publications, databases, web sites built upon databases, XML documents and any other modality in which such information may be published. We have designed a system to achieve this functionality. A central element in the system is an ontology called NIFSTD (for NIF Standard) constructed by amalgamating a number of known and newly developed ontologies. NIFSTD is used by our ontology management module, called OntoQuest to perform ontology-based search over data sources. The NIF architecture currently provides three different mechanisms for searching heterogeneous data sources including relational databases, web sites, XML documents and full text of publications. Version 1.0 of the NIF system is currently in beta test and may be accessed through http://nif.nih.gov. PMID:18958629

Federated access to heterogeneous information resources in the Neuroscience Information Framework (NIF).

PubMed

Gupta, Amarnath; Bug, William; Marenco, Luis; Qian, Xufei; Condit, Christopher; Rangarajan, Arun; Müller, Hans Michael; Miller, Perry L; Sanders, Brian; Grethe, Jeffrey S; Astakhov, Vadim; Shepherd, Gordon; Sternberg, Paul W; Martone, Maryann E

2008-09-01

The overarching goal of the NIF (Neuroscience Information Framework) project is to be a one-stop-shop for Neuroscience. This paper provides a technical overview of how the system is designed. The technical goal of the first version of the NIF system was to develop an information system that a neuroscientist can use to locate relevant information from a wide variety of information sources by simple keyword queries. Although the user would provide only keywords to retrieve information, the NIF system is designed to treat them as concepts whose meanings are interpreted by the system. Thus, a search for term should find a record containing synonyms of the term. The system is targeted to find information from web pages, publications, databases, web sites built upon databases, XML documents and any other modality in which such information may be published. We have designed a system to achieve this functionality. A central element in the system is an ontology called NIFSTD (for NIF Standard) constructed by amalgamating a number of known and newly developed ontologies. NIFSTD is used by our ontology management module, called OntoQuest to perform ontology-based search over data sources. The NIF architecture currently provides three different mechanisms for searching heterogeneous data sources including relational databases, web sites, XML documents and full text of publications. Version 1.0 of the NIF system is currently in beta test and may be accessed through http://nif.nih.gov.

No Longer Conveyor but Creator: Developing an Epistemology of the World Wide Web.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Trombley, Laura E. Skandera; Flanagan, William G.

2001-01-01

Discusses the impact of the World Wide Web in terms of epistemology. Topics include technological innovations, including new dimensions of virtuality; the accessibility of information; tracking Web use via cookies; how the Web transforms the process of learning and knowing; linking information sources; and the Web as an information delivery…

The future of meat: a qualitative analysis of cultured meat media coverage.

PubMed

Goodwin, J N; Shoulders, C W

2013-11-01

This study sought to explore the informational themes and information sources cited by the media to cover stories of cultured meat in both the United States and the European Union. The results indicated that cultured meat news articles in both the United States and the European Union commonly discuss cultured meat in terms of benefits, history, process, time, livestock production problems, and skepticism. Additionally, the information sources commonly cited in the articles included cultured meat researchers, sources from academia, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), New Harvest, Winston Churchill, restaurant owners/chefs, and sources from the opposing countries (e.g. US use some EU sources and vice versa). The implications of this study will allow meat scientists to understand how the media is influencing consumers' perceptions about the topic, and also allow them to strategize how to shape future communication about cultured meat. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Leveraging Terminological Resources for Mapping between Rare Disease Information Sources

PubMed Central

Rance, Bastien; Snyder, Michelle; Lewis, Janine; Bodenreider, Olivier

2015-01-01

Background Rare disease information sources are incompletely and inconsistently cross-referenced to one another, making it difficult for information seekers to navigate across them. The development of such cross-references established manually by experts is generally labor intensive and costly. Objectives To develop an automatic mapping between two of the major rare diseases information sources, GARD and Orphanet, by leveraging terminological resources, especially the UMLS. Methods We map the rare disease terms from Orphanet and ORDR to the UMLS. We use the UMLS as a pivot to bridge between the rare disease terminologies. We compare our results to a mapping obtained through manually established cross-references to OMIM. Results Our mapping has a precision of 94%, a recall of 63% and an F1-score of 76%. Our automatic mapping should help facilitate the development of more complete and consistent cross-references between GARD and Orphanet, and is applicable to other rare disease information sources as well. PMID:23920611

GP trainees' in-consultation information-seeking: associations with human, paper and electronic sources.

PubMed

Magin, Parker; Morgan, Simon; Wearne, Susan; Tapley, Amanda; Henderson, Kim; Oldmeadow, Chris; Ball, Jean; Scott, John; Spike, Neil; McArthur, Lawrie; van Driel, Mieke

2015-10-01

Answering clinical questions arising from patient care can improve that care and offers an opportunity for adult learning. It is also a vital component in practising evidence-based medicine. GPs' sources of in-consultation information can be human or non-human (either hard copy or electronic). To establish the prevalence and associations of GP trainees' in-consultation information-seeking, and to establish the prevalence of use of different sources of information (human, hard copy and electronic) and the associations of choosing particular sources. A cross-sectional analysis of data (2010-13) from an ongoing cohort study of Australian GP trainees' consultations. Once each 6-month training term, trainees record detailed data of 60 consecutive consultations. The primary outcome was whether the trainee sought in-consultation information for a problem/diagnosis. Secondary outcomes were whether information-seeking was from a human (GP, other specialist or other health professional) or from a non-human source (electronic or hard copy), and whether a non-human source was electronic or hard copy. Six hundred forty-five trainees (response rate 94.3%) contributed data for 84,723 consultations including 131,583 problems/diagnoses. In-consultation information was sought for 15.4% (95% confidence interval=15.3-15.6) of problems/diagnoses. Sources were: GP in 6.9% of problems/diagnoses, other specialists 0.9%, other health professionals 0.6%, electronic sources 6.5% and hard-copy sources 1.5%. Associations of information-seeking included younger patient age, trainee full-time status and earlier training stage, longer consultation duration, referring the patient, organizing follow-up and generating learning goals. Associations of choosing human information sources (over non-human sources) were similar, but also included the trainee's training organization. Associations of electronic rather than hard-copy information-seeking included the trainee being younger, the training organization and information-seeking for management rather than diagnosis. Trainee information-seeking is mainly from GP colleagues and electronic sources. Human information-sources are preferentially sought for more complex problems, even by these early-career GPs who have trained in the 'internet era'. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Prescribers prefer people: The sources of information used by doctors for prescribing suggest that the medium is more important than the message

PubMed Central

McGettigan, P; Golden, J; Fryer, J; Chan, R; Feely, J

2001-01-01

Aims The sources of prescribing information are legion but there is little knowledge about which are actually used in practice by doctors when prescribing. The aims of this study were to determine the sources of prescribing information considered important by doctors, establish which were used in practice, and investigate if hospital and primary care physicians differed in their use of the sources. Methods Two hundred general practitioners (GPs) and 230 hospital doctors were asked to rate information sources in terms of their importance for prescribing ‘old’ and ‘new’ drugs, and then to name the source from which information about the last new drug prescribed was actually derived. Results Among 108 GPs, the Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin and medical journal articles were most frequently rated as important for information on both old and new drugs while pharmaceutical representatives and hospital/consultant recommendations were more important for information on new drugs, as opposed to old. In practice, information on the last new drug prescribed was derived from pharmaceutical representatives in 42% of cases and hospital/consultant recommendations in 36%, with other sources used infrequently. Among 118 hospital doctors, the British National Formulary (BNF) and senior colleagues were of greatest theoretical importance. In practice, information on the last new drug prescribed was derived from a broad range of sources: colleagues, 29%; pharmaceutical representatives, 18%; hospital clinical meetings, 15%; journal articles, 13%; lectures, 10%. GPs and hospital doctors differed significantly in their use of pharmaceutical representatives (42% vs 18%) and colleagues (7% vs 29%) as sources of prescribing information (P < 0.0001 for both). Conclusions The sources most frequently rated important in theory were not those most used in practice, especially among GPs. Both groups under-estimated the importance of pharmaceutical representatives. Most importantly, the sources of greatest practical importance were those involving the transfer of information through the medium of personal contact. PMID:11259994

Comparing different types of source memory attributes in dementia of Alzheimer's type.

PubMed

Mammarella, Nicola; Fairfield, Beth; Di Domenico, Alberto

2012-04-01

Source monitoring (SM) refers to our ability to discriminate between memories from different sources. Twenty healthy high-cognitive functioning older adults, 20 healthy low-cognitive functioning older adults, and 20 older adults with dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT) were asked to perform a series of SM tasks that varied in terms of the to-be-remembered source attribute (perceptual, spatial, temporal, semantic, social, and affective details). Results indicated that older DAT adults had greater difficulty in SM compared to the healthy control groups, especially with spatial and semantic details. Data are discussed in terms of the SM framework and suggest that poor memory for some types of source information may be considered as an important indicator of clinical memory function when assessing for the presence and severity of dementia.

Towards A Topological Framework for Integrating Semantic Information Sources

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Joslyn, Cliff A.; Hogan, Emilie A.; Robinson, Michael

2014-09-07

In this position paper we argue for the role that topological modeling principles can play in providing a framework for sensor integration. While used successfully in standard (quantitative) sensors, we are developing this methodology in new directions to make it appropriate specifically for semantic information sources, including keyterms, ontology terms, and other general Boolean, categorical, ordinal, and partially-ordered data types. We illustrate the basics of the methodology in an extended use case/example, and discuss path forward.

Bayesian source term determination with unknown covariance of measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Belal, Alkomiet; Tichý, Ondřej; Šmídl, Václav

2017-04-01

Determination of a source term of release of a hazardous material into the atmosphere is a very important task for emergency response. We are concerned with the problem of estimation of the source term in the conventional linear inverse problem, y = Mx, where the relationship between the vector of observations y is described using the source-receptor-sensitivity (SRS) matrix M and the unknown source term x. Since the system is typically ill-conditioned, the problem is recast as an optimization problem minR,B(y - Mx)TR-1(y - Mx) + xTB-1x. The first term minimizes the error of the measurements with covariance matrix R, and the second term is a regularization of the source term. There are different types of regularization arising for different choices of matrices R and B, for example, Tikhonov regularization assumes covariance matrix B as the identity matrix multiplied by scalar parameter. In this contribution, we adopt a Bayesian approach to make inference on the unknown source term x as well as unknown R and B. We assume prior on x to be a Gaussian with zero mean and unknown diagonal covariance matrix B. The covariance matrix of the likelihood R is also unknown. We consider two potential choices of the structure of the matrix R. First is the diagonal matrix and the second is a locally correlated structure using information on topology of the measuring network. Since the inference of the model is intractable, iterative variational Bayes algorithm is used for simultaneous estimation of all model parameters. The practical usefulness of our contribution is demonstrated on an application of the resulting algorithm to real data from the European Tracer Experiment (ETEX). This research is supported by EEA/Norwegian Financial Mechanism under project MSMT-28477/2014 Source-Term Determination of Radionuclide Releases by Inverse Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling (STRADI).

What is What in the Nanoworld: A Handbook on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Borisenko, Victor E.; Ossicini, Stefano

2004-10-01

This introductory, reference handbook summarizes the terms and definitions, most important phenomena, and regulations discovered in the physics, chemistry, technology, and application of nanostructures. These nanostructures are typically inorganic and organic structures at the atomic scale. Fast progressing nanoelectronics and optoelectronics, molecular electronics and spintronics, nanotechnology and quantum processing of information, are of strategic importance for the information society of the 21st century. The short form of information taken from textbooks, special encyclopedias, recent original books and papers provides fast support in understanding "old" and new terms of nanoscience and technology widely used in scientific literature on recent developments. Such support is indeed important when one reads a scientific paper presenting new results in nanoscience. A representative collection of fundamental terms and definitions from quantum physics, and quantum chemistry, special mathematics, organic and inorganic chemistry, solid state physics, material science and technology accompanies recommended second sources (books, reviews, websites) for an extended study of a subject. Each entry interprets the term or definition under consideration and briefly presents main features of the phenomena behind it. Additional information in the form of notes ("First described in: ?", "Recognition: ?", "More details in: ?") supplements entries and gives a historical retrospective of the subject with reference to further sources. Ideal for answering questions related to unknown terms and definitions of undergraduate and Ph.D. students studying the physics of low-dimensional structures, nanoelectronics, nanotechnology. The handbook provides fast support, when one likes to know or to remind the essence of a scientific term, especially when it contains a personal name in its title, like in terms "Anderson localization", "Aharonov-Bohm effect", "Bose-Einstein condensate", e.t.c. More than 1000 entries, from a few sentences to a page in length.

The application of foraging theory to the information searching behaviour of general practitioners.

PubMed

Dwairy, Mai; Dowell, Anthony C; Stahl, Jean-Claude

2011-08-23

General Practitioners (GPs) employ strategies to identify and retrieve medical evidence for clinical decision making which take workload and time constraints into account. Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT) initially developed to study animal foraging for food is used to explore the information searching behaviour of General Practitioners. This study is the first to apply foraging theory within this context.Study objectives were: 1. To identify the sequence and steps deployed in identifiying and retrieving evidence for clinical decision making. 2. To utilise Optimal Foraging Theory to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of General Practitioner information searching. GPs from the Wellington region of New Zealand were asked to document in a pre-formatted logbook the steps and outcomes of an information search linked to their clinical decision making, and fill in a questionnaire about their personal, practice and information-searching backgrounds. A total of 115/155 eligible GPs returned a background questionnaire, and 71 completed their information search logbook. GPs spent an average of 17.7 minutes addressing their search for clinical information. Their preferred information sources were discussions with colleagues (38% of sources) and books (22%). These were the two most profitable information foraging sources (15.9 min and 9.5 min search time per answer, compared to 34.3 minutes in databases). GPs nearly always accessed another source when unsuccessful (95% after 1st source), and frequently when successful (43% after 2nd source). Use of multiple sources accounted for 41% of searches, and increased search success from 70% to 89%. By consulting in foraging terms the most 'profitable' sources of information (colleagues, books), rapidly switching sources when unsuccessful, and frequently double checking, GPs achieve an efficient trade-off between maximizing search success and information reliability, and minimizing searching time. As predicted by foraging theory, GPs trade time-consuming evidence-based (electronic) information sources for sources with a higher information reward per unit time searched. Evidence-based practice must accommodate these 'real world' foraging pressures, and Internet resources should evolve to deliver information as effectively as traditional methods of information gathering.

Boosting Probabilistic Graphical Model Inference by Incorporating Prior Knowledge from Multiple Sources

PubMed Central

Praveen, Paurush; Fröhlich, Holger

2013-01-01

Inferring regulatory networks from experimental data via probabilistic graphical models is a popular framework to gain insights into biological systems. However, the inherent noise in experimental data coupled with a limited sample size reduces the performance of network reverse engineering. Prior knowledge from existing sources of biological information can address this low signal to noise problem by biasing the network inference towards biologically plausible network structures. Although integrating various sources of information is desirable, their heterogeneous nature makes this task challenging. We propose two computational methods to incorporate various information sources into a probabilistic consensus structure prior to be used in graphical model inference. Our first model, called Latent Factor Model (LFM), assumes a high degree of correlation among external information sources and reconstructs a hidden variable as a common source in a Bayesian manner. The second model, a Noisy-OR, picks up the strongest support for an interaction among information sources in a probabilistic fashion. Our extensive computational studies on KEGG signaling pathways as well as on gene expression data from breast cancer and yeast heat shock response reveal that both approaches can significantly enhance the reconstruction accuracy of Bayesian Networks compared to other competing methods as well as to the situation without any prior. Our framework allows for using diverse information sources, like pathway databases, GO terms and protein domain data, etc. and is flexible enough to integrate new sources, if available. PMID:23826291

Children's Use of Lexical and Non-Lexical Information in Responding to Commands.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilcox, Stephen; Palermo, David S.

1982-01-01

Research results indicated that children were able to use information from a number of sources in interpreting commands in which the relational terms were replaced by nonsense. Linguistic and nonlinguistic context and prior repetition presented constraints to children's responses. (Author/JB)

MAIL LOG, program theory, volume 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Harris, D. K.

1979-01-01

Information relevant to the MAIL LOG program theory is documented. The L-files for mail correspondence, design information release/report, and the drawing/engineering order are given. In addition, sources for miscellaneous external routines and special support routines are documented along with a glossary of terms.

40 CFR 35.3555 - Intended Use Plan (IUP).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... description of the financial planning process undertaken for the Fund and the impact of funding decisions on the long-term financial health of the Fund. (4) Financial status. The IUP must describe the sources... project; the expected terms of financial assistance based on the best information available at the time...

Is there more to communications technology than just information transfer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaltschmidt, H.

1980-02-01

In the present paper, communications is discussed in terms of information transfer among people, among automata, and among people and automata. Communications is treated as a cybernetics problem involving information sources and sinks. The principal signals and components of a communications system are examined, along with frequency- and time-multiplexing, optimal detection, correlators, etc.

Portrayal of caesarean section in Brazilian women’s magazines: 20 year review

PubMed Central

Daher, Silvia; Betrán, Ana Pilar; Widmer, Mariana; Montilla, Pilar; Souza, Joao Paulo; Merialdi, Mario

2011-01-01

Objective To assess the quality and comprehensiveness of the information on caesarean section provided in Brazilian women’s magazines. Design Review of articles published during 1988-2008 in top selling women’s magazines. Setting Brazil, one of the countries with the highest caesarean section rates in the world. Data sources Women’s magazines with the largest distribution during the study period, identified through the official national media indexing organisations. Selection criteria Articles with objective scientific information or advice, comments, opinions, or the experience of ordinary women or celebrities on delivery by caesarean section. Main outcome measures Sources of information mentioned by the author of the article, the accuracy and completeness of data presented on caesarean section, and alleged reasons why women would prefer to deliver though caesarean section. Results 118 articles were included. The main cited sources of information were health professionals (78% (n=92) of the articles). 71% (n=84) of the articles reported at least one benefit of caesarean section, and 82% (n=97) reported at least one short term maternal risk of caesarean section. The benefits most often attributed to delivery by caesarean section were reduction of pain and convenience for family or health professionals. The most frequently reported short term maternal risks of caesarean section were increased time to recover and that it is a less natural way of giving birth. Only one third of the articles mentioned any long term maternal risks or perinatal complications associated with caesarean section. Fear of pain was the main reported reason why women would prefer to deliver by caesarean section. Conclusions Most of the articles published in Brazilian women’s magazines do not use optimal sources of information. The portrayal of caesarean section is mostly balanced, not explicitly in favour of one or another route of delivery, but incomplete and may be leading women to underestimate the maternal/perinatal risks associated with this route of delivery. PMID:21266421

Modernization and unification: Strategic goals for NASA STI program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blados, W.; Cotter, Gladys A.

1993-01-01

Information is increasingly becoming a strategic resource in all societies and economies. The NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Program has initiated a modernization program to address the strategic importance and changing characteristics of information. This modernization effort applies new technology to current processes to provide near-term benefits to the user. At the same time, we are developing a long-term modernization strategy designed to transition the program to a multimedia, global 'library without walls.' Notwithstanding this modernization program, it is recognized that no one information center can hope to collect all the relevant data. We see information and information systems changing and becoming more international in scope. We are finding that many nations are expending resources on national systems which duplicate each other. At the same time that this duplication exists, many useful sources of aerospace information are not being collected because of resource limitations. If nations cooperate to develop an international aerospace information system, resources can be used efficiently to cover expanded sources of information. We must consider forming a coalition to collect and provide access to disparate, multidisciplinary sources of information, and to develop standardized tools for documenting and manipulating this data and information. In view of recent technological developments in information science and technology, as well as the reality of scarce resources in all nations, it is time to explore the mutually beneficial possibilities offered by cooperation and international resource sharing. International resources need to be mobilized in a coordinated manner to move us towards this goal. This paper reviews the NASA modernization program and raises for consideration new possibilities for unification of the various aerospace database efforts toward a cooperative international aerospace database initiative that can optimize the cost/benefit equation for all participants.

Confusion between Odds and Probability, a Pandemic?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fulton, Lawrence V.; Mendez, Francis A.; Bastian, Nathaniel D.; Musal, R. Muzaffer

2012-01-01

This manuscript discusses the common confusion between the terms probability and odds. To emphasize the importance and responsibility of being meticulous in the dissemination of information and knowledge, this manuscript reveals five cases of sources of inaccurate statistical language imbedded in the dissemination of information to the general…

Certification of Public Librarians in the United States. A Detailed Summary of Legally Mandated and Voluntary Certification Plans for Public Librarians Based on Information Supplied by the Various Certificating State Agencies or Other Appropriate Sources. 3rd Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coe, Mary J., Ed.

This report contains summaries of legally mandated and voluntary certification plans for public librarians in the United States based on information supplied by the various certifying state agencies or other appropriate sources in April 1979. Each plan is identified by the descriptive terms "mandatory" (certification required by law--23 states),…

The effect of different information sources on the anxiety level of pregnant women who underwent invasive prenatal testing.

PubMed

Çakar, Mehmet; Tari Kasnakoglu, Berna; Ökem, Zeynep Güldem; Okuducu, Ümmühan; Beksaç, M Sinan

2016-12-01

The goal is to explore the effects of age, education, obstetric history and information sources on the (Beck) anxiety levels of pregnant women attending invasive prenatal testing. Questionnaire results from 152 pregnant women are utilized. Results are analyzed through an independent samples t-test and a two-step cluster analysis attempting to categorize patients in terms of the chosen variables. t-Tests reveal that age, education and bad obstetric history do not significantly affect anxiety levels. Descriptive statistics indicate that almost 60% of patients feel anxious mostly because of the fear of receiving bad news, followed by the fear of miscarriage, the fear of pain and the fear of hurting the baby. According to the cluster analysis, patients who use doctors or nurses as information sources have significantly lower anxiety levels, while those who do not receive information from any source have the second lowest level of anxiety. Patients who receive information from personal sources (i.e. friends and family) have the highest level of anxiety. Anxiety levels do not change according to test type. Doctors and nurses should allocate enough time for providing information about prenatal diagnosis before the procedure. This will reduce the anxiety level as well as the felt necessity to search for information from other sources, such as personal or popular which will further increase the level of anxiety.

Mission informed needed information: discoverable, available sensing sources (MINI-DASS): the operators and process flows the magic rabbits must negotiate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kolodny, Michael A.

2017-05-01

Today's battlefield space is extremely complex, dealing with an enemy that is neither well-defined nor well-understood. Adversaries are comprised of widely-distributed, loosely-networked groups engaging in nefarious activities. Situational understanding is needed by decision makers; understanding of adversarial capabilities and intent is essential. Information needed at any time is dependent on the mission/task at hand. Information sources potentially providing mission-relevant information are disparate and numerous; they include sensors, social networks, fusion engines, internet, etc. Management of these multi-dimensional informational sources is critical. This paper will present a new approach being undertaken to answer the challenge of enhancing battlefield understanding by optimizing the utilization of available informational sources (means) to required missions/tasks as well as determining the "goodness'" of the information acquired in meeting the capabilities needed. Requirements are usually expressed in terms of a presumed technology solution (e.g., imagery). A metaphor of the "magic rabbits" was conceived to remove presumed technology solutions from requirements by claiming the "required" technology is obsolete. Instead, intelligent "magic rabbits" are used to provide needed information. The question then becomes: "WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU NEED THE RABBITS TO PROVIDE YOU?" This paper will describe a new approach called Mission-Informed Needed Information - Discoverable, Available Sensing Sources (MINI-DASS) that designs a process that builds information acquisition missions and determines what the "magic rabbits" need to provide in a manner that is machine understandable. Also described is the Missions and Means Framework (MMF) model used, the process flow utilized, the approach to developing an ontology of information source means and the approach for determining the value of the information acquired.

American Indian Health Careers Handbook. Second Edition, 1975.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jennings, Don, Ed.

Prepared by the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP), this handbook provides information relative to American Indian health careers in terms of need, opportunity, preparation, and information sources. Designed to encourage American Indian youth to seek careers in the health professions, this handbook describes the enormous need for…

Information sources in biomedical science and medical journalism: methodological approaches and assessment.

PubMed

Miranda, Giovanna F; Vercellesi, Luisa; Bruno, Flavia

2004-09-01

Throughout the world the public is showing increasing interest in medical and scientific subjects and journalists largely spread this information, with an important impact on knowledge and health. Clearly, therefore, the relationship between the journalist and his sources is delicate: freedom and independence of information depend on the independence and truthfulness of the sources. The new "precision journalism" holds that scientific methods should be applied to journalism, so authoritative sources are a common need for journalists and scientists. We therefore compared the individual classifications and methods of assessing of sources in biomedical science and medical journalism to try to extrapolate scientific methods of evaluation to journalism. In journalism and science terms used to classify sources of information show some similarities, but their meanings are different. In science primary and secondary classes of information, for instance, refer to the levels of processing, but in journalism to the official nature of the source itself. Scientists and journalists must both always consult as many sources as possible and check their authoritativeness, reliability, completeness, up-to-dateness and balance. In journalism, however, there are some important differences and limits: too many sources can sometimes diminish the quality of the information. The sources serve a first filter between the event and the journalist, who is not providing the reader with the fact, but with its projection. Journalists have time constraints and lack the objective criteria for searching, the specific background knowledge, and the expertise to fully assess sources. To assist in understanding the wealth of sources of information in journalism, we have prepared a checklist of items and questions. There are at least four fundamental points that a good journalist, like any scientist, should know: how to find the latest information (the sources), how to assess it (the quality and authoritativeness), how to analyse and filter it (selection), how to deal with too many sources of information, sometimes case biased by conflicting interests (balance). The journalist must, in addition, know how to translate it to render it accessible and useful to the general public (dissemination), and how to use it best.

The Funding of Long-Term Care in Canada: What Do We Know, What Should We Know?

PubMed

Grignon, Michel; Spencer, Byron G

2018-06-01

ABSTRACTLong-term care is a growing component of health care spending but how much is spent or who bears the cost is uncertain, and the measures vary depending on the source used. We drew on regularly published series and ad hoc publications to compile preferred estimates of the share of long-term care spending in total health care spending, the private share of long-term care spending, and the share of residential care within long-term care. For each series, we compared estimates obtainable from published sources (CIHI [Canadian Institute for Health Information] and OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development]) with our preferred estimates. We conclude that using published series without adjustment would lead to spurious conclusions on the level and evolution of spending on long-term care in Canada as well as on the distribution of costs between private and public funders and between residential and home care.

Personal values, marketing attitudes and nutrition trust are associated with patronage of convenience food outlets in the Asia-Pacific region: a cross-sectional study.

PubMed

De Jong, Breanna; Worsley, Anthony; Wang, Wei Chun; Sarmugam, Rani; Pham, Quynh; Februhartanty, Judhiastuty; Ridley, Stacey

2017-02-16

An online cross-sectional survey examined the relationships between the demographic characteristics, personal values, trust in sources of nutrition information and the use of convenience food outlets among middle-class household food providers in the Asia-Pacific region. The survey was administered to 3945 household food providers in Melbourne, Singapore, Shanghai, Vietnam and Indonesia in late 2013. Information about demographics, personal values, trust in sources of nutrition information and use of convenience food outlets was elicited. Exploratory factor analysis, two-step clustering and logistic regression were employed. The analyses found that the use of convenience food outlets was positively related to hedonist values and trust in food industry sources of nutrition information. However, lesser use of convenience food outlets and trust in health sources of nutrition information was associated with traditional (community-oriented) values. Further replication and extension of these findings would be useful. However, they suggest that improvements in the quality of foods sold in convenience food outlets combined with stronger regulation of food marketing and long-term food education are required.

Information consumerism on the World Wide Web: implications for dermatologists and patients.

PubMed

Travers, Robin L

2002-09-01

The World Wide Web (WWW) is continuing to grow exponentially both in terms of numbers of users and numbers of web pages. There is a trend toward the increasing use of the WWW for medical educational purposes, both among physicians and patients alike. The multimedia capabilities of this evolving medium are particularly relevant to visual medical specialties such as dermatology. The origins of information consumerism on the WWW are examined, and the public health issues surrounding dermatologic information and misinformation, and how consumers navigate through the WWW are reviewed. The economic realities of medical information as a "capital good," and the impact this has on dermatologic information sources on the WWW are also discussed.Finally, strategies for guiding consumers and ourselves toward credible medical information sources on the WWW are outlined.

Bayesian inverse modeling and source location of an unintended 131I release in Europe in the fall of 2011

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tichý, Ondřej; Šmídl, Václav; Hofman, Radek; Šindelářová, Kateřina; Hýža, Miroslav; Stohl, Andreas

2017-10-01

In the fall of 2011, iodine-131 (131I) was detected at several radionuclide monitoring stations in central Europe. After investigation, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was informed by Hungarian authorities that 131I was released from the Institute of Isotopes Ltd. in Budapest, Hungary. It was reported that a total activity of 342 GBq of 131I was emitted between 8 September and 16 November 2011. In this study, we use the ambient concentration measurements of 131I to determine the location of the release as well as its magnitude and temporal variation. As the location of the release and an estimate of the source strength became eventually known, this accident represents a realistic test case for inversion models. For our source reconstruction, we use no prior knowledge. Instead, we estimate the source location and emission variation using only the available 131I measurements. Subsequently, we use the partial information about the source term available from the Hungarian authorities for validation of our results. For the source determination, we first perform backward runs of atmospheric transport models and obtain source-receptor sensitivity (SRS) matrices for each grid cell of our study domain. We use two dispersion models, FLEXPART and Hysplit, driven with meteorological analysis data from the global forecast system (GFS) and from European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) weather forecast models. Second, we use a recently developed inverse method, least-squares with adaptive prior covariance (LS-APC), to determine the 131I emissions and their temporal variation from the measurements and computed SRS matrices. For each grid cell of our simulation domain, we evaluate the probability that the release was generated in that cell using Bayesian model selection. The model selection procedure also provides information about the most suitable dispersion model for the source term reconstruction. Third, we select the most probable location of the release with its associated source term and perform a forward model simulation to study the consequences of the iodine release. Results of these procedures are compared with the known release location and reported information about its time variation. We find that our algorithm could successfully locate the actual release site. The estimated release period is also in agreement with the values reported by IAEA and the reported total released activity of 342 GBq is within the 99 % confidence interval of the posterior distribution of our most likely model.

An exploratory analysis of the nature of informal knowledge underlying theories of planned action used for public health oriented knowledge translation.

PubMed

Kothari, Anita; Boyko, Jennifer A; Campbell-Davison, Andrea

2015-09-09

Informal knowledge is used in public health practice to make sense of research findings. Although knowledge translation theories highlight the importance of informal knowledge, it is not clear to what extent the same literature provides guidance in terms of how to use it in practice. The objective of this study was to address this gap by exploring what planned action theories suggest in terms of using three types of informal knowledge: local, experiential and expert. We carried out an exploratory secondary analysis of the planned action theories that informed the development of a popular knowledge translation theory. Our sample included twenty-nine (n = 29) papers. We extracted information from these papers about sources of and guidance for using informal knowledge, and then carried out a thematic analysis. We found that theories of planned action provide guidance (including sources of, methods for identifying, and suggestions for use) for using local, experiential and expert knowledge. This study builds on previous knowledge translation related work to provide insight into the practical use of informal knowledge. Public health practitioners can refer to the guidance summarized in this paper to inform their decision-making. Further research about how to use informal knowledge in public health practice is needed given the value being accorded to using informal knowledge in public health decision-making processes.

40 CFR 63.5610 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... Requirements and Information § 63.5610 What definitions apply to this subpart? (a) For all affected sources... and paragraph (g) of this section. (b) For all affected sources complying with the closed-vent system... the heat exchanger system requirements in § 63.104, the terms used in this subpart and in subpart F of...

National Air Toxic Assessments (NATA) Results

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The National Air Toxics Assessment was conducted by EPA in 2002 to assess air toxics emissions in order to identify and prioritize air toxics, emission source types and locations which are of greatest potential concern in terms of contributing to population risk. This data source provides downloadable information on emissions at the state, county and census tract level.

YouTube as a source of health information: Analysis of sun protection and skin cancer prevention related issues.

PubMed

Ruppert, Linda; Køster, Brian; Siegert, Anna Maria; Cop, Christian; Boyers, Lindsay; Karimkhani, Chante; Winston, Helena; Mounessa, Jessica; Dellavalle, Robert P; Reinau, Daphne; Diepgen, Thomas; Surber, Christian

2017-01-15

Although social media ubiquitously supplementstraditional information sources such as newspapers,magazines, radio, and television, investigation of onlinehealth information related to sun protection and skincancer prevention has been scarce and largely limitedto English language sources. Using the search terms"sun protection," "sunscreen," "skin cancer prevention,"tanning bed" and "vitamin D," we investigated 281YouTube videos presented in 6 languages: English,German, French, Spanish, Swedish, and Danish. Foreach video, we used a four-sectioned checklist toassess general information, popularity, expert drivenmeasures, and heuristic driven measures. Differencesbetween languages were detected: English languagevideos were most frequently viewed (median numberof views: 5488 compared to 248 -1591 in otherlanguages). Approximately 60% of videos revealednegative effects of solar ultraviolet (UV)-exposure.The majority of videos (75%) targeted adults. Videoson tanning beds and sunscreen contained false ormisleading information 40% and 20% of the time,respectively. We confirm observations made withrespect to other medical disciplines that the generalquality of YouTube contributions is often inferiorand does not deliver sustainable information. Othersources of information should be included whensearching for health information online.

Z39.50 and GILS model. [Government Information Locator Service

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Christian, Eliot

1994-01-01

The Government Information Locator System (GILS) is a component of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) which provides electronic access to sources of publicly accessible information maintained throughout the Federal Government. GILS is an internetworking information resource that identifies other information resources, describes the information available in the referenced resources, and provides assistance in how to obtain the information either directly or through intermediaries. The GILS core content which references each Federal information system holding publicly accessible data or information is described in terms of mandatory and optional core elements.

A hierarchical modeling approach to estimate regional acute health effects of particulate matter sources

PubMed Central

Krall, J. R.; Hackstadt, A. J.; Peng, R. D.

2017-01-01

Exposure to particulate matter (PM) air pollution has been associated with a range of adverse health outcomes, including cardiovascular disease (CVD) hospitalizations and other clinical parameters. Determining which sources of PM, such as traffic or industry, are most associated with adverse health outcomes could help guide future recommendations aimed at reducing harmful pollution exposure for susceptible individuals. Information obtained from multisite studies, which is generally more precise than information from a single location, is critical to understanding how PM impacts health and to informing local strategies for reducing individual-level PM exposure. However, few methods exist to perform multisite studies of PM sources, which are not generally directly observed, and adverse health outcomes. We developed SHARE, a hierarchical modeling approach that facilitates reproducible, multisite epidemiologic studies of PM sources. SHARE is a two-stage approach that first summarizes information about PM sources across multiple sites. Then, this information is used to determine how community-level (i.e. county- or city-level) health effects of PM sources should be pooled to estimate regional-level health effects. SHARE is a type of population value decomposition that aims to separate out regional-level features from site-level data. Unlike previous approaches for multisite epidemiologic studies of PM sources, the SHARE approach allows the specific PM sources identified to vary by site. Using data from 2000–2010 for 63 northeastern US counties, we estimated regional-level health effects associated with short-term exposure to major types of PM sources. We found PM from secondary sulfate, traffic, and metals sources was most associated with CVD hospitalizations. PMID:28098412

Source inventory for Department of Energy solid low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities: What it means and how to get one of your own

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Smith, M.A.

1991-12-31

In conducting a performance assessment for a low-level waste (LLW) disposal facility, one of the important considerations for determining the source term, which is defined as the amount of radioactivity being released from the facility, is the quantity of radioactive material present. This quantity, which will be referred to as the source inventory, is generally estimated through a review of historical records and waste tracking systems at the LLW facility. In theory, estimating the total source inventory for Department of Energy (DOE) LLW disposal facilities should be possible by reviewing the national data base maintained for LLW operations, the Solidmore » Waste Information Management System (SWIMS), or through the annual report that summarizes the SWIMS data, the Integrated Data Base (IDB) report. However, in practice, there are some difficulties in making this estimate. This is not unexpected, since the SWIMS and the IDB were not developed with the goal of developing a performance assessment source term in mind. The practical shortcomings using the existing data to develop a source term for DOE facilities will be discussed in this paper.« less

Communicating Science to Impact Learning? A Phenomenological Inquiry into 4th and 5th Graders' Perceptions of Science Information Sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gelmez Burakgazi, Sevinc; Yildirim, Ali; Weeth Feinstein, Noah

2016-04-01

Rooted in science education and science communication studies, this study examines 4th and 5th grade students' perceptions of science information sources (SIS) and their use in communicating science to students. It combines situated learning theory with uses and gratifications theory in a qualitative phenomenological analysis. Data were gathered through classroom observations and interviews in four Turkish elementary schools. Focus group interviews with 47 students and individual interviews with 17 teachers and 10 parents were conducted. Participants identified a wide range of SIS, including TV, magazines, newspapers, internet, peers, teachers, families, science centers/museums, science exhibitions, textbooks, science books, and science camps. Students reported using various SIS in school-based and non-school contexts to satisfy their cognitive, affective, personal, and social integrative needs. SIS were used for science courses, homework/project assignments, examination/test preparations, and individual science-related research. Students assessed SIS in terms of the perceived accessibility of the sources, the quality of the content, and the content presentation. In particular, some sources such as teachers, families, TV, science magazines, textbooks, and science centers/museums ("directive sources") predictably led students to other sources such as teachers, families, internet, and science books ("directed sources"). A small number of sources crossed context boundaries, being useful in both school and out. Results shed light on the connection between science education and science communication in terms of promoting science learning.

Building Large Collections of Chinese and English Medical Terms from Semi-Structured and Encyclopedia Websites

PubMed Central

Xu, Yan; Wang, Yining; Sun, Jian-Tao; Zhang, Jianwen; Tsujii, Junichi; Chang, Eric

2013-01-01

To build large collections of medical terms from semi-structured information sources (e.g. tables, lists, etc.) and encyclopedia sites on the web. The terms are classified into the three semantic categories, Medical Problems, Medications, and Medical Tests, which were used in i2b2 challenge tasks. We developed two systems, one for Chinese and another for English terms. The two systems share the same methodology and use the same software with minimum language dependent parts. We produced large collections of terms by exploiting billions of semi-structured information sources and encyclopedia sites on the Web. The standard performance metric of recall (R) is extended to three different types of Recall to take the surface variability of terms into consideration. They are Surface Recall (), Object Recall (), and Surface Head recall (). We use two test sets for Chinese. For English, we use a collection of terms in the 2010 i2b2 text. Two collections of terms, one for English and the other for Chinese, have been created. The terms in these collections are classified as either of Medical Problems, Medications, or Medical Tests in the i2b2 challenge tasks. The English collection contains 49,249 (Problems), 89,591 (Medications) and 25,107 (Tests) terms, while the Chinese one contains 66,780 (Problems), 101,025 (Medications), and 15,032 (Tests) terms. The proposed method of constructing a large collection of medical terms is both efficient and effective, and, most of all, independent of language. The collections will be made publicly available. PMID:23874426

Building large collections of Chinese and English medical terms from semi-structured and encyclopedia websites.

PubMed

Xu, Yan; Wang, Yining; Sun, Jian-Tao; Zhang, Jianwen; Tsujii, Junichi; Chang, Eric

2013-01-01

To build large collections of medical terms from semi-structured information sources (e.g. tables, lists, etc.) and encyclopedia sites on the web. The terms are classified into the three semantic categories, Medical Problems, Medications, and Medical Tests, which were used in i2b2 challenge tasks. We developed two systems, one for Chinese and another for English terms. The two systems share the same methodology and use the same software with minimum language dependent parts. We produced large collections of terms by exploiting billions of semi-structured information sources and encyclopedia sites on the Web. The standard performance metric of recall (R) is extended to three different types of Recall to take the surface variability of terms into consideration. They are Surface Recall (R(S)), Object Recall (R(O)), and Surface Head recall (R(H)). We use two test sets for Chinese. For English, we use a collection of terms in the 2010 i2b2 text. Two collections of terms, one for English and the other for Chinese, have been created. The terms in these collections are classified as either of Medical Problems, Medications, or Medical Tests in the i2b2 challenge tasks. The English collection contains 49,249 (Problems), 89,591 (Medications) and 25,107 (Tests) terms, while the Chinese one contains 66,780 (Problems), 101,025 (Medications), and 15,032 (Tests) terms. The proposed method of constructing a large collection of medical terms is both efficient and effective, and, most of all, independent of language. The collections will be made publicly available.

Income Tax Organizer. The CIRcular: Consumer Information Report 9.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bank of America NT & SA, San Francisco, CA.

Designed as an aid in preparing federal income tax returns, this report explains terms, provides a worksheet, and describes sources of tax help. The importance of keeping tax records is discussed along with strategies for recordkeeping, types of records to keep, and how long to keep them. Explanations of the following terms are provided along with…

Public Understanding of Plant Biology: Voices from the Bottom of the Garden

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watts, Mike

2015-01-01

Many household gardeners accumulate considerable knowledge of plant biology through a range of informal learning sources. This knowledge seldom relates to school biology and is driven by interest, keen motivation and what is termed here "vital relevance." A small opportunity sample of 12 gardeners (6 M, 6 F) is interviewed in terms of…

Public Sector/Private Sector Interaction in Providing Information Services. Report to the NCLIS from the Public Sector/Private Sector Task Force.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, Washington, DC.

The results of a 2-year study on the interactions between government and private sector information activities are presented in terms of principles and guidelines for federal policy to support the development and use of information resources, products, and services, and to implement the principles. Discussions address sources of conflict between…

MICROBIAL LABORATORY GUIDANCE MANUAL FOR THE ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

The Long-Term 2 Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule Laboratory Instruction Manual will be a compilation of all information needed by laboratories and field personnel to collect, analyze, and report the microbiological data required under the rule. The manual will provide laboratories with a single source of information that currently is available from various sources including the latest versions of Methods 1622 and 1623, including all approved, equivalent modifications; the procedures for E.coli methods approved for use under the LT2ESWTR; lists of vendor sources; data recording forms; data reporting requirements; information on the Laboratory Quality Assurance Evaluation Program for the Analysis of Cryptosporidium in Water; and sample collection procedures. Although most of this information is available elsewhere, a single, comprehensive compendium containing this information is needed to aid utilities and laboratories performing the sampling and analysis activities required under the LT2 rule. This manual will serve as an instruction manual for laboratories to use when collecting data for Crypto, E. coli and turbidity.

Promotional literature: how do we critically appraise?

PubMed

Shetty, V V; Karve, A V

2008-01-01

There has been a tremendous increase in the number of new and generic drugs coming into the market. The busy practitioner obtains the information from various sources, of which promotional literature forms an important source. The promotional literature provided by the pharmaceutical companies cannot be entirely relied upon; moreover, very few physicians are equipped with the skills of critically appraising it. The new drug should be relevant to the clinician's practice in terms of population studied, the disease and the need for new treatment. The methodology of the study should be carefully judged to determine the authenticity of the evidence. The new drug should be preferred over the existing one if it offers clear advantages in terms of safety, tolerability, efficacy and price. Critical appraisal of promotional literature can provide valuable information to the busy physician to practice evidence-based medicine.

High-Energy, High-Pulse-Rate Light Sources for Enhanced Time-Resolved Tomographic PIV of Unsteady and Turbulent Flows

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-07-31

Report: High-Energy, High-Pulse-Rate Light Sources for Enhanced Time -Resolved Tomographic PIV of Unsteady & Turbulent Flows The views, opinions and/or...reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching...High-Energy, High-Pulse-Rate Light Sources for Enhanced Time -Resolved Tomographic PIV of Unsteady & Turbulent Flows Report Term: 0-Other Email

Information Communication using Knowledge Engine on Flood Issues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Demir, I.; Krajewski, W. F.

2012-04-01

The Iowa Flood Information System (IFIS) is a web-based platform developed by the Iowa Flood Center (IFC) to provide access to and visualization of flood inundation maps, real-time flood conditions, flood forecasts both short-term and seasonal, and other flood-related data for communities in Iowa. The system is designed for use by general public, often people with no domain knowledge and poor general science background. To improve effective communication with such audience, we have introduced a new way in IFIS to get information on flood related issues - instead of by navigating within hundreds of features and interfaces of the information system and web-based sources-- by providing dynamic computations based on a collection of built-in data, analysis, and methods. The IFIS Knowledge Engine connects to distributed sources of real-time stream gauges, and in-house data sources, analysis and visualization tools to answer questions grouped into several categories. Users will be able to provide input based on the query within the categories of rainfall, flood conditions, forecast, inundation maps, flood risk and data sensors. Our goal is the systematization of knowledge on flood related issues, and to provide a single source for definitive answers to factual queries. Long-term goal of this knowledge engine is to make all flood related knowledge easily accessible to everyone, and provide educational geoinformatics tool. The future implementation of the system will be able to accept free-form input and voice recognition capabilities within browser and mobile applications. We intend to deliver increasing capabilities for the system over the coming releases of IFIS. This presentation provides an overview of our Knowledge Engine, its unique information interface and functionality as an educational tool, and discusses the future plans for providing knowledge on flood related issues and resources.

Solar radiation data sources, applications, and network design

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

None

A prerequisite to considering solar energy projects is to determine the requirements for information about solar radiation to apply to possible projects. This report offers techniques to help the reader specify requirements in terms of solar radiation data and information currently available, describes the past and present programs to record and present information to be used for most requirements, presents courses of action to help the user meet his needs for information, lists sources of solar radiation data and presents the problems, costs, benefits and responsibilities of programs to acquire additional solar radiation data. Extensive background information is provided aboutmore » solar radiation data and its use. Specialized information about recording, collecting, processing, storing and disseminating solar radiation data is given. Several Appendices are included which provide reference material for special situations.« less

How do informal information sources influence women's decision-making for birth? A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.

PubMed

Sanders, Ruth A; Crozier, Kenda

2018-01-10

Women approach birth using various methods of preparation drawing from conventional healthcare providers alongside informal information sources (IIS) outside the professional healthcare context. An investigation of the forms in which these informal information sources are accessed and negotiated by women, and how these disconnected and often conflicting elements influence women's decision-making process for birth have yet to be evaluated. The level of antenatal preparedness women feel can have significant and long lasting implications on their birth experience and transition into motherhood and beyond. The aim of this study was to provide a deeper understanding of how informal information sources influence women's preparation for birth. Seven electronic databases were searched with predetermined search terms. No limitations were imposed for year of publication. English language studies using qualitative methods exploring women's experiences of informal information sources and their impact upon women's birth preparation were included, subject to a quality appraisal framework. Searches were initiated in February 2016 and completed by March 2016. Studies were synthesised using an interpretive meta-ethnographic approach. Fourteen studies were included for the final synthesis from Great Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. Four main themes were identified: Menu Birth; Information Heaven/Hell; Spheres of Support; and Trust. It is evident that women do not enter pregnancy as empty vessels devoid of a conceptual framework, but rather have a pre-constructed embodied knowledge base upon which other information is superimposed. Allied to this, it is clear that informal information was sought to mitigate against the widespread experience of discordant information provided by maternity professionals. Women's access to the deluge of informal information sources in mainstream media during pregnancy have significant impact on decision making for birth. These informal sources redefine the power dynamic between women and maternal healthcare providers, simultaneously increasing levels of anxiety and challenging women's pre-existing ideations and aspirations of personal birth processes. A lack of awareness by some professionals of women's information seeking behaviours generates barriers to women-centred support, leaving an experience expectation mismatch unchecked. CRD42016041491 17/06/16.

When and where in aging: the role of music on source monitoring.

PubMed

Palumbo, Rocco; Mammarella, Nicola; Di Domenico, Alberto; Fairfield, Beth

2018-06-01

Difficulties in source monitoring (SM) tasks observed in healthy older adults may be linked to associative memory deficits since SM requires individuals to correctly bind and later remember these bound features to discriminate the origin of a memory. Therefore, focusing attention on discriminating factors that may attenuate older adults' difficulties in attributing contextual information to memories is necessary. We investigated the effect of affective information on source monitoring in younger and older adults by manipulating the type of affective information (pictures and music) and assessing the ability to remember spatial and temporal source details for affective pictures encoded while listening to classical music. Older and younger adults viewed a series of affective IAPS pictures presented on the left or right side of the computer screen in two different lists. At test, participants were asked to remember if the picture was seen (right/left), in which list (list1/list2) or whether it was new. Results showed that spatial information was attributed better than temporal information and emotional pictures were attributed better than neutral pictures in both younger and older adults. In addition, although music significantly increased source memory performance in both younger and older participants compared to the white noise condition, the pleasantness of music differentially affected memory for source details. The authors discuss findings in terms of an interaction between music, emotion and cognition in aging.

Inverse modelling of radionuclide release rates using gamma dose rate observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamburger, Thomas; Stohl, Andreas; von Haustein, Christoph; Thummerer, Severin; Wallner, Christian

2014-05-01

Severe accidents in nuclear power plants such as the historical accident in Chernobyl 1986 or the more recent disaster in the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in 2011 have drastic impacts on the population and environment. The hazardous consequences reach out on a national and continental scale. Environmental measurements and methods to model the transport and dispersion of the released radionuclides serve as a platform to assess the regional impact of nuclear accidents - both, for research purposes and, more important, to determine the immediate threat to the population. However, the assessments of the regional radionuclide activity concentrations and the individual exposure to radiation dose underlie several uncertainties. For example, the accurate model representation of wet and dry deposition. One of the most significant uncertainty, however, results from the estimation of the source term. That is, the time dependent quantification of the released spectrum of radionuclides during the course of the nuclear accident. The quantification of the source terms of severe nuclear accidents may either remain uncertain (e.g. Chernobyl, Devell et al., 1995) or rely on rather rough estimates of released key radionuclides given by the operators. Precise measurements are mostly missing due to practical limitations during the accident. Inverse modelling can be used to realise a feasible estimation of the source term (Davoine and Bocquet, 2007). Existing point measurements of radionuclide activity concentrations are therefore combined with atmospheric transport models. The release rates of radionuclides at the accident site are then obtained by improving the agreement between the modelled and observed concentrations (Stohl et al., 2012). The accuracy of the method and hence of the resulting source term depends amongst others on the availability, reliability and the resolution in time and space of the observations. Radionuclide activity concentrations are observed on a relatively sparse grid and the temporal resolution of available data may be low within the order of hours or a day. Gamma dose rates on the other hand are observed routinely on a much denser grid and higher temporal resolution. Gamma dose rate measurements contain no explicit information on the observed spectrum of radionuclides and have to be interpreted carefully. Nevertheless, they provide valuable information for the inverse evaluation of the source term due to their availability (Saunier et al., 2013). We present a new inversion approach combining an atmospheric dispersion model and observations of radionuclide activity concentrations and gamma dose rates to obtain the source term of radionuclides. We use the Lagrangian particle dispersion model FLEXPART (Stohl et al., 1998; Stohl et al., 2005) to model the atmospheric transport of the released radionuclides. The gamma dose rates are calculated from the modelled activity concentrations. The inversion method uses a Bayesian formulation considering uncertainties for the a priori source term and the observations (Eckhardt et al., 2008). The a priori information on the source term is a first guess. The gamma dose rate observations will be used with inverse modelling to improve this first guess and to retrieve a reliable source term. The details of this method will be presented at the conference. This work is funded by the Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz BfS, Forschungsvorhaben 3612S60026. References Davoine, X. and Bocquet, M., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 1549-1564, 2007. Devell, L., et al., OCDE/GD(96)12, 1995. Eckhardt, S., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 8, 3881-3897, 2008. Saunier, O., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 13, 11403-11421, 2013. Stohl, A., et al., Atmos. Environ., 32, 4245-4264, 1998. Stohl, A., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 5, 2461-2474, 2005. Stohl, A., et al., Atmos. Chem. Phys., 12, 2313-2343, 2012.

US Residents' Perceptions of Dog Welfare Needs and Canine Welfare Information Sources.

PubMed

Bir, Courtney; Croney, Candace C; Widmar, Nicole J Olynk

2018-06-08

The extent to which welfare needs of breeding dogs are met in commercial dog-breeding kennels is a potential point of controversy. This analysis sought to understand US residents' perceptions and priorities related to dog welfare : by investigating (a) perceptions of breeding-dog welfare needs and (b) perceptions of various nonhuman animal welfare information sources. Using best/worst-choice experiments conducted in an online survey, respondents' choices for most and least important breeding-dog welfare needs (n = 508) and most/least trusted canine welfare information sources (n = 508) were analyzed. The survey sample was targeted to be representative of the US population in terms of gender, age, region of residence, income, and education. The largest preference shares (relatively most important) for breeding-dog welfare needs were for "availability of food and water" (39.2%) and health/veterinary care (18.1%). The largest preference shares (relatively most trusted sources) for welfare information were American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a veterinarian, and American Veterinary Medical Association, with 25.1%, 16.4%, and 14.1% shares, respectively.

An object-oriented design for automated navigation of semantic networks inside a medical data dictionary.

PubMed

Ruan, W; Bürkle, T; Dudeck, J

2000-01-01

In this paper we present a data dictionary server for the automated navigation of information sources. The underlying knowledge is represented within a medical data dictionary. The mapping between medical terms and information sources is based on a semantic network. The key aspect of implementing the dictionary server is how to represent the semantic network in a way that is easier to navigate and to operate, i.e. how to abstract the semantic network and to represent it in memory for various operations. This paper describes an object-oriented design based on Java that represents the semantic network in terms of a group of objects. A node and its relationships to its neighbors are encapsulated in one object. Based on such a representation model, several operations have been implemented. They comprise the extraction of parts of the semantic network which can be reached from a given node as well as finding all paths between a start node and a predefined destination node. This solution is independent of any given layout of the semantic structure. Therefore the module, called Giessen Data Dictionary Server can act independent of a specific clinical information system. The dictionary server will be used to present clinical information, e.g. treatment guidelines or drug information sources to the clinician in an appropriate working context. The server is invoked from clinical documentation applications which contain an infobutton. Automated navigation will guide the user to all the information relevant to her/his topic, which is currently available inside our closed clinical network.

Glossary of Frequent Terms in the Loading Tool | ECHO | US ...

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

ECHO, Enforcement and Compliance History Online, provides compliance and enforcement information for approximately 800,000 EPA-regulated facilities nationwide. ECHO includes permit, inspection, violation, enforcement action, and penalty information about facilities regulated under the Clean Air Act (CAA) Stationary Source Program, Clean Water Act (CWA) National Pollutant Elimination Discharge System (NPDES), and/or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Information also is provided on surrounding demographics when available.

DRUG ABUSE, A SOURCE BOOK AND GUIDE FOR TEACHERS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

HILL, PATRICIA J.; KITZINGER, ANGELA

THIS SOURCEBOOK CONTAINS INFORMATION TO HELP TEACHERS INSTRUCT ABOUT DRUGS AND DISCOURAGE DRUG ABUSE. THE INFORMATION IS APPLICABLE TO ANY GROUP OR GRADE LEVEL BUT IT IS PRIMARILY DIRECTED AT A K-12 PROGRAM. THE CONTENT HAS BEEN SELECTED, ORGANIZED, AND PRESENTED IN TERMS OF PRESUMED TEACHER NEED AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR DIRECT PUPIL USE.…

Automated Text Markup for Information Retrieval from an Electronic Textbook of Infectious Disease

PubMed Central

Berrios, Daniel C.; Kehler, Andrew; Kim, David K.; Yu, Victor L.; Fagan, Lawrence M.

1998-01-01

The information needs of practicing clinicians frequently require textbook or journal searches. Making these sources available in electronic form improves the speed of these searches, but precision (i.e., the fraction of relevant to total documents retrieved) remains low. Improving the traditional keyword search by transforming search terms into canonical concepts does not improve search precision greatly. Kim et al. have designed and built a prototype system (MYCIN II) for computer-based information retrieval from a forthcoming electronic textbook of infectious disease. The system requires manual indexing by experts in the form of complex text markup. However, this mark-up process is time consuming (about 3 person-hours to generate, review, and transcribe the index for each of 218 chapters). We have designed and implemented a system to semiautomate the markup process. The system, information extraction for semiautomated indexing of documents (ISAID), uses query models and existing information-extraction tools to provide support for any user, including the author of the source material, to mark up tertiary information sources quickly and accurately.

Information theoretic approach for assessing image fidelity in photon-counting arrays.

PubMed

Narravula, Srikanth R; Hayat, Majeed M; Javidi, Bahram

2010-02-01

The method of photon-counting integral imaging has been introduced recently for three-dimensional object sensing, visualization, recognition and classification of scenes under photon-starved conditions. This paper presents an information-theoretic model for the photon-counting imaging (PCI) method, thereby providing a rigorous foundation for the merits of PCI in terms of image fidelity. This, in turn, can facilitate our understanding of the demonstrated success of photon-counting integral imaging in compressive imaging and classification. The mutual information between the source and photon-counted images is derived in a Markov random field setting and normalized by the source-image's entropy, yielding a fidelity metric that is between zero and unity, which respectively corresponds to complete loss of information and full preservation of information. Calculations suggest that the PCI fidelity metric increases with spatial correlation in source image, from which we infer that the PCI method is particularly effective for source images with high spatial correlation; the metric also increases with the reduction in photon-number uncertainty. As an application to the theory, an image-classification problem is considered showing a congruous relationship between the fidelity metric and classifier's performance.

Profile of e-patients: analysis of their cancer information-seeking from a national survey.

PubMed

Kim, Kyunghye; Kwon, Nahyun

2010-10-01

Researchers have yet to fully understand how competent e-patients are in selecting and using health information sources, or, more importantly, who e-patients are. This study attempted to uncover how cancer e-patients differ from other cancer information seekers in terms of their sociodemographic background, social networks, information competence, and selection of cancer information sources. We analyzed data from the National Cancer Institute's 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey, and a series of chi-square tests showed that factors that distinguished cancer e-patients from other cancer information seekers were age, gender, education, employment status, health insurance, and membership in online support groups. They were not different in the other factors measured by the survey. Our logistic regression analysis revealed that the e-patients were older and talked about their health issues with friends or family more frequently compared with online health information seekers without cancer. While preferring information from their doctors over the Internet, e-patients used the Internet as their primary source. In contrast to previous literature, we found little evidence that e-patients were savvy health information consumers who could make informed decisions on their own health. The findings of this study addressed a need for a better design and delivery of health information literacy programs for cancer e-patients.

English-Russian, Russian-English glossary of coal-cleaning terms

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pekar, J.

1987-09-01

The document is an English-Russian, Russian-English glossary of coal-cleaning terms, compiled as a joint U.S./Soviet effort. The need for the glossary resulted from the growing number of language-specific terms used during information exchanges within the framework of the U.S./U.S.S.R. Working Group on Stationary Source Air Pollution Control Technology, under the U.S./U.S.S.R. Agreement of Cooperation in the Field of Environmental Protection.

Informal Taxation*

PubMed Central

Olken, Benjamin A.; Singhal, Monica

2011-01-01

Informal payments are a frequently overlooked source of local public finance in developing countries. We use microdata from ten countries to establish stylized facts on the magnitude, form, and distributional implications of this “informal taxation.” Informal taxation is widespread, particularly in rural areas, with substantial in-kind labor payments. The wealthy pay more, but pay less in percentage terms, and informal taxes are more regressive than formal taxes. Failing to include informal taxation underestimates household tax burdens and revenue decentralization in developing countries. We discuss various explanations for and implications of these observed stylized facts. PMID:22199993

Depolarization on Earth-space paths

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1981-01-01

Sources of depolarization effects on the propagation paths of orthogonally-polarized information channels are considered. The main sources of depolarization at millimeter wave frequencies are hydrometeor absorption and scattering in the troposphere. Terms are defined. Mathematical formulations for the effects of the propagation medium characteristics and antenna performance on signals in dual polarization Earth-space links are presented. Techniques for modeling rain and ice depolarization are discussed.

Source Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks with Randomly Distributed Elements under Multipath Propagation Conditions

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-03-01

IN WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS WITH RANDOMLY DISTRIBUTED ELEMENTS UNDER MULTIPATH PROPAGATION CONDITIONS by Georgios Tsivgoulis March 2009...COVERED Engineer’s Thesis 4. TITLE Source Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks with Randomly Distributed Elements under Multipath Propagation...the non-line-of-sight information. 15. NUMBER OF PAGES 111 14. SUBJECT TERMS Wireless Sensor Network , Direction of Arrival, DOA, Random

Using Satellite Observations to Evaluate the AeroCOM Volcanic Emissions Inventory and the Dispersal of Volcanic SO2 Clouds in MERRA

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hughes, Eric J.; Krotkov, Nickolay; da Silva, Arlindo; Colarco, Peter

2015-01-01

Simulation of volcanic emissions in climate models requires information that describes the eruption of the emissions into the atmosphere. While the total amount of gases and aerosols released from a volcanic eruption can be readily estimated from satellite observations, information about the source parameters, like injection altitude, eruption time and duration, is often not directly known. The AeroCOM volcanic emissions inventory provides estimates of eruption source parameters and has been used to initialize volcanic emissions in reanalysis projects, like MERRA. The AeroCOM volcanic emission inventory provides an eruptions daily SO2 flux and plume top altitude, yet an eruption can be very short lived, lasting only a few hours, and emit clouds at multiple altitudes. Case studies comparing the satellite observed dispersal of volcanic SO2 clouds to simulations in MERRA have shown mixed results. Some cases show good agreement with observations Okmok (2008), while for other eruptions the observed initial SO2 mass is half of that in the simulations, Sierra Negra (2005). In other cases, the initial SO2 amount agrees with the observations but shows very different dispersal rates, Soufriere Hills (2006). In the aviation hazards community, deriving accurate source terms is crucial for monitoring and short-term forecasting (24-h) of volcanic clouds. Back trajectory methods have been developed which use satellite observations and transport models to estimate the injection altitude, eruption time, and eruption duration of observed volcanic clouds. These methods can provide eruption timing estimates on a 2-hour temporal resolution and estimate the altitude and depth of a volcanic cloud. To better understand the differences between MERRA simulations and volcanic SO2 observations, back trajectory methods are used to estimate the source term parameters for a few volcanic eruptions and compared to their corresponding entry in the AeroCOM volcanic emission inventory. The nature of these mixed results is discussed with respect to the source term estimates.

Physical and emotional health information needs and preferences of long-term prostate cancer survivors.

PubMed

Zhou, Eric S; Bober, Sharon L; Nekhlyudov, Larissa; Hu, Jim C; Kantoff, Philip W; Recklitis, Christopher J

2016-12-01

Many men diagnosed with prostate cancer (PC) will experience physical and psychosocial late effects of treatment. Their interest/preferences for receiving information about addressing common sequelae is not well understood. We examined long-term PC survivors' level of interest, whether this differed based upon symptomatology, and their preferred coping information source. N=615 PC survivors (3-8 years post-diagnosis) completed a survey on physical and psychological health and their information interests and preferences related to late effects of cancer treatment. Over half of PC survivors reported interest in information about late effects of treatment or sexual health, while approximately a quarter were interested in emotional health information. Survivors preferred to receive information about late effects of treatment from their oncologists, sexual health information from their primary care providers (PCP), oncologist, or written/online resources, and emotional health information from their PCP. Information needs were more commonly reported among men with poorer domain-specific health functioning. Long-term PC survivors report significant interest in receiving information about their physical, sexual, and emotional health. Medical providers caring for these men should inquire about survivors' information needs and future intervention efforts should consider who delivers the information, dependent upon the type of dysfunction reported. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Can I help you? Information sharing in online discussion forums by people living with a long-term condition.

PubMed

Bond, Carol S; Ahmed, Osman Hassan

2016-11-10

Peer-to-peer health care is increasing, especially amongst people living with a long-term condition. How information is shared is, however, sometimes of concern to health care professionals. This study explored what information is being shared on health-related discussion boards and identified the approaches people used to signpost their peers to information. This study was conducted using a qualitative content analysis methodology to explore information shared on discussion boards for people living with diabetes. Whilst there is debate about the best ethical lens to view research carried out on data posted on online discussion boards, the researchers chose to adopt the stance of treating this type of information as "personal health text", a specific type of research data in its own right. Qualitative content analysis and basic descriptive statistics were used to analyse the selected posts. Two major themes were identified: 'Information Sharing from Experience' and 'Signposting Other Sources of Information'.Conclusions People were actively engaging in information sharing in online discussion forums, mainly through direct signposting. The quality of the information shared was important, with reasons for recommendations being given. Much of the information sharing was based on experience, which also brought in information from external sources such as health care professionals and other acknowledged experts in the field.With the rise in peer-to-peer support networks, the nature of health knowledge and expertise needs to be redefined. People online are combining external information with their own personal experiences and sharing that for others to take and develop as they wish.

YouTube as a source of information on rhinosinusitis: the good, the bad and the ugly.

PubMed

Biggs, T C; Bird, J H; Harries, P G; Salib, R J

2013-08-01

YouTube is an internet-based repository of user-generated content. This study aimed to determine whether YouTube represented a valid and reliable patient information resource for the lay person on the topic of rhinosinusitis. The study included the first 100 YouTube videos found using the search term 'sinusitis'. Videos were graded on their ability to inform the lay person on the subject of rhinosinusitis. Forty-five per cent of the videos were deemed to provide some useful information. Fifty-five per cent of the videos contained little or no useful facts, 27 per cent of which contained potentially misleading or even dangerous information. Videos uploaded by medical professionals or those from health information websites contained more useful information than those uploaded by independent users. YouTube appears to be an unreliable resource for accurate and up to date medical information relating to rhinosinusitis. However, it may provide some useful information if mechanisms existed to direct lay people to verifiable and credible sources.

Inferring the nature of anthropogenic threats from long-term abundance records.

PubMed

Shoemaker, Kevin T; Akçakaya, H Resit

2015-02-01

Diagnosing the processes that threaten species persistence is critical for recovery planning and risk forecasting. Dominant threats are typically inferred by experts on the basis of a patchwork of informal methods. Transparent, quantitative diagnostic tools would contribute much-needed consistency, objectivity, and rigor to the process of diagnosing anthropogenic threats. Long-term census records, available for an increasingly large and diverse set of taxa, may exhibit characteristic signatures of specific threatening processes and thereby provide information for threat diagnosis. We developed a flexible Bayesian framework for diagnosing threats on the basis of long-term census records and diverse ancillary sources of information. We tested this framework with simulated data from artificial populations subjected to varying degrees of exploitation and habitat loss and several real-world abundance time series for which threatening processes are relatively well understood: bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) and Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) (exploitation) and Red Grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotica) and Eurasian Skylark (Alauda arvensis) (habitat loss). Our method correctly identified the process driving population decline for over 90% of time series simulated under moderate to severe threat scenarios. Successful identification of threats approached 100% for severe exploitation and habitat loss scenarios. Our method identified threats less successfully when threatening processes were weak and when populations were simultaneously affected by multiple threats. Our method selected the presumed true threat model for all real-world case studies, although results were somewhat ambiguous in the case of the Eurasian Skylark. In the latter case, incorporation of an ancillary source of information (records of land-use change) increased the weight assigned to the presumed true model from 70% to 92%, illustrating the value of the proposed framework in bringing diverse sources of information into a common rigorous framework. Ultimately, our framework may greatly assist conservation organizations in documenting threatening processes and planning species recovery. © 2014 Society for Conservation Biology.

Portrayal of caesarean section in Brazilian women's magazines: 20 year review.

PubMed

Torloni, Maria Regina; Daher, Silvia; Betrán, Ana Pilar; Widmer, Mariana; Montilla, Pilar; Souza, Joao Paulo; Merialdi, Mario

2011-01-25

To assess the quality and comprehensiveness of the information on caesarean section provided in Brazilian women's magazines. Review of articles published during 1988-2008 in top selling women's magazines. Brazil, one of the countries with the highest caesarean section rates in the world. Women's magazines with the largest distribution during the study period, identified through the official national media indexing organisations. Articles with objective scientific information or advice, comments, opinions, or the experience of ordinary women or celebrities on delivery by caesarean section. Sources of information mentioned by the author of the article, the accuracy and completeness of data presented on caesarean section, and alleged reasons why women would prefer to deliver though caesarean section. 118 articles were included. The main cited sources of information were health professionals (78% (n=92) of the articles). 71% (n=84) of the articles reported at least one benefit of caesarean section, and 82% (n=97) reported at least one short term maternal risk of caesarean section. The benefits most often attributed to delivery by caesarean section were reduction of pain and convenience for family or health professionals. The most frequently reported short term maternal risks of caesarean section were increased time to recover and that it is a less natural way of giving birth. Only one third of the articles mentioned any long term maternal risks or perinatal complications associated with caesarean section. Fear of pain was the main reported reason why women would prefer to deliver by caesarean section. Most of the articles published in Brazilian women's magazines do not use optimal sources of information. The portrayal of caesarean section is mostly balanced, not explicitly in favour of one or another route of delivery, but incomplete and may be leading women to underestimate the maternal/perinatal risks associated with this route of delivery.

Evaluation of Long-term Performance of Enhanced Anaerobic Source Zone Bioremediation using mass flux

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Haluska, A.; Cho, J.; Hatzinger, P.; Annable, M. D.

2017-12-01

Chlorinated ethene DNAPL source zones in groundwater act as potential long term sources of contamination as they dissolve yielding concentrations well above MCLs, posing an on-going public health risk. Enhanced bioremediation has been applied to treat many source zones with significant promise, but long-term sustainability of this technology has not been thoroughly assessed. This study evaluated the long-term effectiveness of enhanced anaerobic source zone bioremediation at chloroethene contaminated sites to determine if the treatment prevented contaminant rebound and removed NAPL from the source zone. Long-term performance was evaluated based on achieving MCL-based contaminant mass fluxes in parent compound concentrations during different monitoring periods. Groundwater concertation versus time data was compiled for 6-sites and post-remedial contaminant mass flux data was then measured using passive flux meters at wells both within and down-gradient of the source zone. Post-remedial mass flux data was then combined with pre-remedial water quality data to estimate pre-remedial mass flux. This information was used to characterize a DNAPL dissolution source strength function, such as the Power Law Model and the Equilibrium Stream tube model. The six-sites characterized for this study were (1) Former Charleston Air Force Base, Charleston, SC; (2) Dover Air Force Base, Dover, DE; (3) Treasure Island Naval Station, San Francisco, CA; (4) Former Raritan Arsenal, Edison, NJ; (5) Naval Air Station, Jacksonville, FL; and, (6) Former Naval Air Station, Alameda, CA. Contaminant mass fluxes decreased for all the sites by the end of the post-treatment monitoring period and rebound was limited within the source zone. Post remedial source strength function estimates suggest that decreases in contaminant mass flux will continue to occur at these sites, but a mass flux based on MCL levels may never be exceeded. Thus, site clean-up goals should be evaluated as order-of-magnitude reductions. Additionally, sites may require monitoring for a minimum of 5-years in order to sufficiently evaluate remedial performance. The study shows that enhanced anaerobic source zone bioremediation contributed to a modest reduction of source zone contaminant mass discharge and appears to have mitigated rebound of chlorinated ethenes.

Sparse reconstruction for quantitative bioluminescence tomography based on the incomplete variables truncated conjugate gradient method.

PubMed

He, Xiaowei; Liang, Jimin; Wang, Xiaorui; Yu, Jingjing; Qu, Xiaochao; Wang, Xiaodong; Hou, Yanbin; Chen, Duofang; Liu, Fang; Tian, Jie

2010-11-22

In this paper, we present an incomplete variables truncated conjugate gradient (IVTCG) method for bioluminescence tomography (BLT). Considering the sparse characteristic of the light source and insufficient surface measurement in the BLT scenarios, we combine a sparseness-inducing (ℓ1 norm) regularization term with a quadratic error term in the IVTCG-based framework for solving the inverse problem. By limiting the number of variables updated at each iterative and combining a variable splitting strategy to find the search direction more efficiently, it obtains fast and stable source reconstruction, even without a priori information of the permissible source region and multispectral measurements. Numerical experiments on a mouse atlas validate the effectiveness of the method. In vivo mouse experimental results further indicate its potential for a practical BLT system.

The validity of open-source data when assessing jail suicides.

PubMed

Thomas, Amanda L; Scott, Jacqueline; Mellow, Jeff

2018-05-09

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' Deaths in Custody Reporting Program is the primary source for jail suicide research, though the data is restricted from general dissemination. This study is the first to examine whether jail suicide data obtained from publicly available sources can help inform our understanding of this serious public health problem. Of the 304 suicides that were reported through the DCRP in 2009, roughly 56 percent (N = 170) of those suicides were identified through the open-source search protocol. Each of the sources was assessed based on how much information was collected on the incident and the types of variables available. A descriptive analysis was then conducted on the variables that were present in both data sources. The four variables present in each data source were: (1) demographic characteristics of the victim, (2) the location of occurrence within the facility, (3) the location of occurrence by state, and (4) the size of the facility. Findings demonstrate that the prevalence and correlates of jail suicides are extremely similar in both open-source and official data. However, for almost every variable measured, open-source data captured as much information as official data did, if not more. Further, variables not found in official data were identified in the open-source database, thus allowing researchers to have a more nuanced understanding of the situational characteristics of the event. This research provides support for the argument in favor of including open-source data in jail suicide research as it illustrates how open-source data can be used to provide additional information not originally found in official data. In sum, this research is vital in terms of possible suicide prevention, which may be directly linked to being able to manipulate environmental factors.

An Evaluation Methodology for Longitudinal Studies of Short Term Cancer Research Training Programs

PubMed Central

Padilla, Luz A.; Venkatesh, Raam; Daniel, Casey L.; Desmond, Renee A.; Brooks, C. Michael; Waterbor, John W.

2014-01-01

The need to familiarize medical students and graduate health professional students with research training opportunities that cultivate the appeal of research careers is vital to the future of research. Comprehensive evaluation of a cancer research training program can be achieved through longitudinal tracking of program alumni to assess the program’s impact on each participant’s career path and professional achievements. With advances in technology and smarter means of communication, effective ways to track alumni have changed. In order to collect data on the career outcomes and achievements of nearly 500 short-term cancer research training program alumni from 1999–2013, we sought to contact each alumnus to request completion of a survey instrument online, or by means of a telephone interview. The effectiveness of each contact method that we used was quantified according to ease of use and time required. The most reliable source of contact information for tracking alumni from the early years of the program was previous tracking results; and for alumni from the later years, the most important source of contact information was university alumni records that provided email addresses and telephone numbers. Personal contacts with former preceptors were sometimes helpful, as were generic search engines and people search engines. Social networking was of little value for most searches. Using information from two or more sources in combination was most effective in tracking alumni. These results provide insights and tools for other research training programs that wish to track their alumni for long-term program evaluation. PMID:25412722

Term Coverage of Dietary Supplements Ingredients in Product Labels.

PubMed

Wang, Yefeng; Adam, Terrence J; Zhang, Rui

2016-01-01

As the clinical application and consumption of dietary supplements has grown, their side effects and possible interactions with prescribed medications has become a serious issue. Information extraction of dietary supplement related information is a critical need to support dietary supplement research. However, there currently is not an existing terminology for dietary supplements, placing a barrier for informatics research in this field. The terms related to dietary supplement ingredients should be collected and normalized before a terminology can be established to facilitate convenient search on safety information and control possible adverse effects of dietary supplements. In this study, the Dietary Supplement Label Database (DSLD) was chosen as the data source from which the ingredient information was extracted and normalized. The distribution based on the product type and the ingredient type of the dietary supplements were analyzed. The ingredient terms were then mapped to the existing terminologies, including UMLS, RxNorm and NDF-RT by using MetaMap and RxMix. The large gap between existing terminologies and ingredients were found: only 14.67%, 19.65%, and 12.88% of ingredient terms were covered by UMLS, RxNorm and NDF-RT, respectively.

Seventh Graders' Perceptions of College and Career Aspiration Supports in Two Urban Charter Middle Schools

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berardi-Demo, Linda

2012-01-01

College and career aspirations are important to the development of students' short and long term educational and personal goals. Although students rely on information they receive and are influenced by experiences in which they engage in a variety of settings, for many, school is an important source of college and career information. How…

Emerging Trends on the Topic of Information Technology in the Field of Educational Sciences: A Bibliometric Exploration

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

González-Valiente, Carlos Luis

2015-01-01

The paper presents a bibliometric analysis on the topic of Information Technology (IT) in the field of Educational Sciences, aimed at envisioning the research emerging trends. The ERIC database is used as a consultation source; the results were subjected to productivity by authors, journals, and term co-occurrence analysis indicators for the…

PHENOstruct: Prediction of human phenotype ontology terms using heterogeneous data sources.

PubMed

Kahanda, Indika; Funk, Christopher; Verspoor, Karin; Ben-Hur, Asa

2015-01-01

The human phenotype ontology (HPO) was recently developed as a standardized vocabulary for describing the phenotype abnormalities associated with human diseases. At present, only a small fraction of human protein coding genes have HPO annotations. But, researchers believe that a large portion of currently unannotated genes are related to disease phenotypes. Therefore, it is important to predict gene-HPO term associations using accurate computational methods. In this work we demonstrate the performance advantage of the structured SVM approach which was shown to be highly effective for Gene Ontology term prediction in comparison to several baseline methods. Furthermore, we highlight a collection of informative data sources suitable for the problem of predicting gene-HPO associations, including large scale literature mining data.

Organizational structure and operation of defense/aerospace information centers in the United States of America

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sauter, H. E.; Lushina, L. N.

1983-01-01

U.S. Government aerospace and defense information centers are addressed. DTIC and NASA are described in terms of their history, operational authority, information services provided, user community, sources of information collected, efforts under way to improve services, and external agreements regarding the exchange of documents and/or data bases. Contents show how DTIC and NASA provide aerospace/defense information services in support of U.S. research and development efforts. In a general introduction, the importance of scientific and technical information and the need for information centers to acquire, handle, and disseminate it are stressed.

Rainfall-runoff response informed by exact solutions of Boussinesq equation on hillslopes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bartlett, M. S., Jr.; Porporato, A. M.

2017-12-01

The Boussinesq equation offers a powerful approach forunderstanding the flow dynamics of unconfined aquifers. Though this nonlinear equation allows for concise representation of both soil and geomorphological controls on groundwater flow, it has only been solved exactly for a limited number of initial and boundary conditions. These solutions do not include source/sink terms (evapotranspiration, recharge, and seepage to bedrock) and are typically limited to horizontal aquifers. Here we present a class of exact solutions that are general to sloping aquifers and a time varying source/sink term. By incorporating the source/sink term, they may describe aquifers with both time varying recharge over seasonal or weekly time scales, as well as a loss of water from seepage to the bedrock interface, which is a common feature in hillslopes. These new solutions shed light on the hysteretic relationship between streamflow and groundwater and the behavior of the hydrograph recession curves, thus providing a robust basis for deriving a runoff curves for the partition of rainfall into infiltration and runoff.

Hand Gesture Data Collection Procedure Using a Myo Armband for Machine Learning

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-01

instructions, searching existing data sources , gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection information...data using a Myo armband. The source code for this work is included as an Appendix. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Myo, Machine Learning, Classifier, Data...development in multiple platfonns (e.g., Windows, iOS, Android , etc.) and many languages (e.g. , Java, C++, C#, Lua, etc.). For the data collection

Contralateral delay activity tracks object identity information in visual short term memory.

PubMed

Gao, Zaifeng; Xu, Xiaotian; Chen, Zhibo; Yin, Jun; Shen, Mowei; Shui, Rende

2011-08-11

Previous studies suggested that ERP component contralateral delay activity (CDA) tracks the number of objects containing identity information stored in visual short term memory (VSTM). Later MEG and fMRI studies implied that its neural source lays in superior IPS. However, since the memorized stimuli in previous studies were displayed in distinct spatial locations, hence possibly CDA tracks the object-location information instead. Moreover, a recent study implied the activation in superior IPS reflected the location load. The current research thus explored whether CDA tracks the object-location load or the object-identity load, and its neural sources. Participants were asked to remember one color, four identical colors or four distinct colors. The four-identical-color condition was the critical one because it contains the same amount of identity information as that of one color while the same amount of location information as that of four distinct colors. To ensure the participants indeed selected four colors in the four-identical-color condition, we also split the participants into two groups (low- vs. high-capacity), analyzed late positive component (LPC) in the prefrontal area, and collected participant's subjective-report. Our results revealed that most of the participants selected four identical colors. Moreover, regardless of capacity-group, there was no difference on CDA between one color and four identical colors yet both were lower than 4 distinct colors. Besides, the source of CDA was located in the superior parietal lobule, which is very close to the superior IPS. These results support the statement that CDA tracks the object identity information in VSTM. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Source Credibility in Tobacco Control Messaging

PubMed Central

Schmidt, Allison M.; Ranney, Leah M.; Pepper, Jessica K.; Goldstein, Adam O.

2016-01-01

Objectives Perceived credibility of a message’s source can affect persuasion. This paper reviews how beliefs about the source of tobacco control messages may encourage attitude and behavior change. Methods We conducted a series of searches of the peer-reviewed literature using terms from communication and public health fields. We reviewed research on source credibility, its underlying concepts, and its relation to the persuasiveness of tobacco control messages. Results We recommend an agenda for future research to bridge the gaps between communication literature on source credibility and tobacco control research. Our recommendations are to study the impact of source credibility on persuasion with long-term behavior change outcomes, in different populations and demographic groups, by developing new credibility measures that are topic- and organization-specific, by measuring how credibility operates across media platforms, and by identifying factors that enhance credibility and persuasion. Conclusions This manuscript reviews the state of research on source credibility and identifies gaps that are maximally relevant to tobacco control communication. Knowing first whether a source is perceived as credible, and second, how to enhance perceived credibility, can inform the development of future tobacco control campaigns and regulatory communications. PMID:27525298

Effects of argument quality, source credibility and self-reported diabetes knowledge on message attitudes: an experiment using diabetes related messages.

PubMed

Lin, Tung-Cheng; Hwang, Lih-Lian; Lai, Yung-Jye

2017-05-17

Previous studies have reported that credibility and content (argument quality) are the most critical factors affecting the quality of health information and its acceptance and use; however, this causal relationship merits further investigation in the context of health education. Moreover, message recipients' prior knowledge may moderate these relationships. This study used the elaboration likelihood model to determine the main effects of argument quality, source credibility and the moderating effect of self-reported diabetes knowledge on message attitudes. A between-subjects experimental design using an educational message concerning diabetes for manipulation was applied to validate the effects empirically. A total of 181 participants without diabetes were recruited from the Department of Health, Taipei City Government. Four group messages were manipulated in terms of argument quality (high and low) × source credibility (high and low). Argument quality and source credibility of health information significantly influenced the attitude of message recipients. The participants with high self-reported knowledge participants exhibited significant disapproval for messages with low argument quality. Effective health information should provide objective descriptions and cite reliable sources; in addition, it should provide accurate, customised messages for recipients who have high background knowledge level and ability to discern message quality. © 2017 Health Libraries Group Health Information & Libraries Journal.

Describing knowledge encounters in healthcare: a mixed studies systematic review and development of a classification.

PubMed

Hurst, Dominic; Mickan, Sharon

2017-03-14

Implementation science seeks to promote the uptake of research and other evidence-based findings into practice, but for healthcare professionals, this is complex as practice draws on, in addition to scientific principles, rules of thumb and a store of practical wisdom acquired from a range of informational and experiential sources. The aims of this review were to identify sources of information and professional experiences encountered by healthcare workers and from this to build a classification system, for use in future observational studies, that describes influences on how healthcare professionals acquire and use information in their clinical practice. This was a mixed studies systematic review of observational studies. OVID MEDLINE and Embase and Google Scholar were searched using terms around information, knowledge or evidence and sharing, searching and utilisation combined with terms relating to healthcare groups. Studies were eligible if one of the intentions was to identify information or experiential encounters by healthcare workers. Data was extracted by one author after piloting with another. Studies were assessed using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). The primary outcome extracted was the information source or professional experience encounter. Similar encounters were grouped together as single constructs. Our synthesis involved a mixed approach using the top-down logic of the Bliss Bibliographic Classification System (BC2) to generate classification categories and a bottom-up approach to develop descriptive codes (or "facets") for each category, from the data. The generic terms of BC2 were customised by an iterative process of thematic content analysis. Facets were developed by using available theory and keeping in mind the pragmatic end use of the classification. Eighty studies were included from which 178 discreet knowledge encounters were extracted. Six classification categories were developed: what information or experience was encountered; how was the information or experience encountered; what was the mode of encounter; from whom did the information originate or with whom was the experience; how many participants were there; and where did the encounter take place. For each of these categories, relevant descriptive facets were identified. We have sought to identify and classify all knowledge encounters, and we have developed a faceted description of key categories which will support richer descriptions and interrogations of knowledge encounters in healthcare research.

Group long-term care insurance: decision-making factors and implications for financing long-term care.

PubMed

Stum, Marlene S

2008-01-01

This study proposes and tests a systemic family decision-making framework to understand group long-term care insurance (LTCI) enrollment decisions. A random sample of public employees who were offered group LTCI as a workplace benefit were examined. Findings reveal very good predictive efficacy for the overall conceptual framework with a pseudo R2 value of .687, and reinforced the contributions of factors within the family system. Enrollees were more likely to have discussed the decision with others, used information sources, and had prior experience when compared to non-enrollees. Perceived health status, financial knowledge, attitudes regarding the role of private insurance, risk taking, and coverage features were additional factors related to enrollment decisions. The findings help to inform policymakers about the potential of LTCI as one strategy for financing long-term care.

Assessment of YouTube videos as a source of information on medication use in pregnancy.

PubMed

Hansen, Craig; Interrante, Julia D; Ailes, Elizabeth C; Frey, Meghan T; Broussard, Cheryl S; Godoshian, Valerie J; Lewis, Courtney; Polen, Kara N D; Garcia, Amanda P; Gilboa, Suzanne M

2016-01-01

When making decisions about medication use in pregnancy, women consult many information sources, including the Internet. The aim of this study was to assess the content of publicly accessible YouTube videos that discuss medication use in pregnancy. Using 2023 distinct combinations of search terms related to medications and pregnancy, we extracted metadata from YouTube videos using a YouTube video Application Programming Interface. Relevant videos were defined as those with a medication search term and a pregnancy-related search term in either the video title or description. We viewed relevant videos and abstracted content from each video into a database. We documented whether videos implied each medication to be "safe" or "unsafe" in pregnancy and compared that assessment with the medication's Teratogen Information System (TERIS) rating. After viewing 651 videos, 314 videos with information about medication use in pregnancy were available for the final analyses. The majority of videos were from law firms (67%), television segments (10%), or physicians (8%). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were the most common medication class named (225 videos, 72%), and 88% of videos about SSRIs indicated that they were unsafe for use in pregnancy. However, the TERIS ratings for medication products in this class range from "unlikely" to "minimal" teratogenic risk. For the majority of medications, current YouTube video content does not adequately reflect what is known about the safety of their use in pregnancy and should be interpreted cautiously. However, YouTube could serve as a platform for communicating evidence-based medication safety information. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Teaching about Transportation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Paine, Carolyn; Arnold, Anne Jurmu

1983-01-01

A teaching unit on transportation compares the costs of various modes of transportation--private automobile, bus, and bicycle--in terms of energy efficiency and air pollution. Class projects on transportation are suggested, along with sources of further information and a reading list for children. (PP)

Infovigilance: reporting errors in official drug information sources.

PubMed

Fusier, Isabelle; Tollier, Corinne; Husson, Marie-Caroline

2005-06-01

The French drug database Thériaque (http://www.theriaque.org) developed by the (Centre National Hospitalier d'Information sur le Médicament) (CNHIM), is responsible for the dissemination of independent information about all drugs available in France. Each month the CNHIM pharmacists report problems due to inaccuracies in these sources to the French drug agency. In daily practice we devised the term "infovigilance": "Activity of error or inaccuracy notification in information sources which could be responsible for medication errors". The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of CNHIM infovigilance on the contents of the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPCs). The study was a prospective study from 09/11/2001 to 31/12/2002. The problems related to the quality of information were classified into four types (inaccuracy/confusion, error/lack of information, discordance between SPC sections and discordance between generic SPCs). (1) Number of notifications and number of SPCs integrated into the database during the study period. (2) Percentage of notifications for each type: with or without potential patient impact, with or without later correction of the SPC, per section. 2.7% (85/3151) of SPCs integrated into the database were concerned by a notification of a problem. Notifications according to type of problem were inaccuracy/confusion (32%), error/lack of information (13%), discordance between SPC sections (27%) and discordance between generic SPCs (28%). 55% of problems were evaluated as 'likely to have an impact on the patient' and 45% as 'unlikely to have an impact on the patient'. 22 of problems which have been reported to the French drug agency were corrected and new updated SPCs were published with the corrections. Our efforts to improve the quality of drug information sources through a continuous "infovigilance" process need to be continued and extended to other information sources.

Topographic Information Requirements and Computer-Graphic Display Techniques for Nap-of-the-Earth Flight.

DTIC Science & Technology

1979-12-01

required of the Army aviator. The successful accomplishment of many of these activities depends upon the aviator’s ability to extract information from maps...Cruise NOE VBI Determine Position VB2 Crew Coordination (Topographic) VB3 Radio Communication VI . TERM4INATION C. Post-Flight VIC1 Debriefing 11LA 1I...NOE FUNCTION: VBI DETERMINE POSITION INFORMATION REQUIREMENT SPECIFICS SOURCE COMMENTS See Function IIIAl ! FUNCTION: VB2 CREW COORDINATION

Repeat immigration: A previously unobserved source of heterogeneity?

PubMed

Aradhya, Siddartha; Scott, Kirk; Smith, Christopher D

2017-07-01

Register data allow for nuanced analyses of heterogeneities between sub-groups which are not observable in other data sources. One heterogeneity for which register data is particularly useful is in identifying unique migration histories of immigrant populations, a group of interest across disciplines. Years since migration is a commonly used measure of integration in studies seeking to understand the outcomes of immigrants. This study constructs detailed migration histories to test whether misclassified migrations may mask important heterogeneities. In doing so, we identify a previously understudied group of migrants called repeat immigrants, and show that they differ systematically from permanent immigrants. In addition, we quantify the degree to which migration information is misreported in the registers. The analysis is carried out in two steps. First, we estimate income trajectories for repeat immigrants and permanent immigrants to understand the degree to which they differ. Second, we test data validity by cross-referencing migration information with changes in income to determine whether there are inconsistencies indicating misreporting. From the first part of the analysis, the results indicate that repeat immigrants systematically differ from permanent immigrants in terms of income trajectories. Furthermore, income trajectories differ based on the way in which years since migration is calculated. The second part of the analysis suggests that misreported migration events, while present, are negligible. Repeat immigrants differ in terms of income trajectories, and may differ in terms of other outcomes as well. Furthermore, this study underlines that Swedish registers provide a reliable data source to analyze groups which are unidentifiable in other data sources.

A dictionary server for supplying context sensitive medical knowledge.

PubMed

Ruan, W; Bürkle, T; Dudeck, J

2000-01-01

The Giessen Data Dictionary Server (GDDS), developed at Giessen University Hospital, integrates clinical systems with on-line, context sensitive medical knowledge to help with making medical decisions. By "context" we mean the clinical information that is being presented at the moment the information need is occurring. The dictionary server makes use of a semantic network supported by a medical data dictionary to link terms from clinical applications to their proper information sources. It has been designed to analyze the network structure itself instead of knowing the layout of the semantic net in advance. This enables us to map appropriate information sources to various clinical applications, such as nursing documentation, drug prescription and cancer follow up systems. This paper describes the function of the dictionary server and shows how the knowledge stored in the semantic network is used in the dictionary service.

Orthogonal strip HPGe planar SmartPET detectors in Compton configuration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Boston, H. C.; Gillam, J.; Boston, A. J.; Cooper, R. J.; Cresswell, J.; Grint, A. N.; Mather, A. R.; Nolan, P. J.; Scraggs, D. P.; Turk, G.; Hall, C. J.; Lazarus, I.; Berry, A.; Beveridge, T.; Lewis, R.

2007-10-01

The evolution of Germanium detector technology over the last decade has lead to the possibility that they can be employed in medical and security imaging. The potential of excellent energy resolution coupled with good position information that Germanium affords removes the necessity for mechanical collimators that would be required in a conventional gamma camera system. By removing this constraint, the overall dose to the patient can be reduced or the throughput of the system can be increased. An additional benefit of excellent energy resolution is that tight gates can be placed on energies from either a multi-lined gamma source or from multi-nuclide sources increasing the number of sources that can be used in medical imaging. In terms of security imaging, segmented Germanium gives directionality and excellent spectroscopic information.

Modeling individual differences in working memory performance: a source activation account

PubMed Central

Daily, Larry Z.; Lovett, Marsha C.; Reder, Lynne M.

2008-01-01

Working memory resources are needed for processing and maintenance of information during cognitive tasks. Many models have been developed to capture the effects of limited working memory resources on performance. However, most of these models do not account for the finding that different individuals show different sensitivities to working memory demands, and none of the models predicts individual subjects' patterns of performance. We propose a computational model that accounts for differences in working memory capacity in terms of a quantity called source activation, which is used to maintain goal-relevant information in an available state. We apply this model to capture the working memory effects of individual subjects at a fine level of detail across two experiments. This, we argue, strengthens the interpretation of source activation as working memory capacity. PMID:19079561

Household food waste separation behavior and the importance of convenience.

PubMed

Bernstad, Anna

2014-07-01

Two different strategies aiming at increasing household source-separation of food waste were assessed through a case-study in a Swedish residential area (a) use of written information, distributed as leaflets amongst households and (b) installation of equipment for source-segregation of waste with the aim of increasing convenience food waste sorting in kitchens. Weightings of separately collected food waste before and after distribution of written information suggest that this resulted in neither a significant increased amount of separately collected food waste, nor an increased source-separation ratio. After installation of sorting equipment in households, both the amount of separately collected food waste as well as the source-separation ratio increased vastly. Long-term monitoring shows that results where longstanding. Results emphasize the importance of convenience and existence of infrastructure necessary for source-segregation of waste as important factors for household waste recycling, but also highlight the need of addressing these aspects where waste is generated, i.e. already inside the household. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Room temperature single photon source using fiber-integrated hexagonal boron nitride

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vogl, Tobias; Lu, Yuerui; Lam, Ping Koy

2017-07-01

Single photons are a key resource for quantum optics and optical quantum information processing. The integration of scalable room temperature quantum emitters into photonic circuits remains to be a technical challenge. Here we utilize a defect center in hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) attached by Van der Waals force onto a multimode fiber as a single photon source. We perform an optical characterization of the source in terms of spectrum, state lifetime, power saturation and photostability. A special feature of our source is that it allows for easy switching between fiber-coupled and free space single photon generation modes. In order to prove the quantum nature of the emission we measure the second-order correlation function {{g}(2)}≤ft(τ \\right) . For both fiber-coupled and free space emission, the {{g}(2)}≤ft(τ \\right) dips below 0.5 indicating operation in the single photon regime. The results so far demonstrate the feasibility of 2D material single photon sources for scalable photonic quantum information processing.

Insights Gained from Forensic Analysis with MELCOR of the Fukushima-Daiichi Accidents.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Andrews, Nathan C.; Gauntt, Randall O.

Since the accidents at Fukushima-Daiichi, Sandia National Laboratories has been modeling these accident scenarios using the severe accident analysis code, MELCOR. MELCOR is a widely used computer code developed at Sandia National Laboratories since ~1982 for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Insights from the modeling of these accidents is being used to better inform future code development and potentially improved accident management. To date, our necessity to better capture in-vessel thermal-hydraulic and ex-vessel melt coolability and concrete interactions has led to the implementation of new models. The most recent analyses, presented in this paper, have been in support of themore » of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Nuclear Energy Agency’s (OECD/NEA) Benchmark Study of the Accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (BSAF) Project. The goal of this project is to accurately capture the source term from all three releases and then model the atmospheric dispersion. In order to do this, a forensic approach is being used in which available plant data and release timings is being used to inform the modeled MELCOR accident scenario. For example, containment failures, core slumping events and lower head failure timings are all enforced parameters in these analyses. This approach is fundamentally different from a blind code assessment analysis often used in standard problem exercises. The timings of these events are informed by representative spikes or decreases in plant data. The combination of improvements to the MELCOR source code resulting from analysis previous accident analysis and this forensic approach has allowed Sandia to generate representative and plausible source terms for all three accidents at Fukushima Daiichi out to three weeks after the accident to capture both early and late releases. In particular, using the source terms developed by MELCOR, the MACCS software code, which models atmospheric dispersion and deposition, we are able to reasonably capture the deposition of radionuclides to the northwest of the reactor site.« less

The Utilization of Social Media in the Hearing Aid Community.

PubMed

Choudhury, Moumita; Dinger, Zoë; Fichera, Elena

2017-03-01

This study investigated the utilization of social media by the hearing aid (HA) community. The purpose of this survey was to analyze the participation of HA community in the social media websites. A systematic survey of online HA-related social media sources was conducted. Such sources were identified using appropriate search terms. Social media participation was quantified on the basis of posts and "likes." Five hundred fifty-seven social media sources were identified, including 174 Twitter accounts, 172 YouTube videos, 91 Facebook pages, 20 Facebook groups, 71 blogs, and 29 forums. Twitter and YouTube platforms showed the highest level of activity among social media users. The HA-related community used social media sources for advice and support, information sharing, and service-related information. HA users, other individuals, and organizations interested in HAs leave their digital footprint on a wide variety of social media sources. The community connects, offers support, and shares information on a variety of HA-related issues. The HA community is as active in social media utilization as other groups, such as the cochlear implant community, even though the patterns of their social media use are different because of their unique needs.

The effect of search term on the quality and accuracy of online information regarding distal radius fractures.

PubMed

Dy, Christopher J; Taylor, Samuel A; Patel, Ronak M; Kitay, Alison; Roberts, Timothy R; Daluiski, Aaron

2012-09-01

Recent emphasis on shared decision making and patient-centered research has increased the importance of patient education and health literacy. The internet is rapidly growing as a source of self-education for patients. However, concern exists over the quality, accuracy, and readability of the information. Our objective was to determine whether the quality, accuracy, and readability of information online about distal radius fractures vary with the search term. This was a prospective evaluation of 3 search engines using 3 different search terms of varying sophistication ("distal radius fracture," "wrist fracture," and "broken wrist"). We evaluated 70 unique Web sites for quality, accuracy, and readability. We used comparative statistics to determine whether the search term affected the quality, accuracy, and readability of the Web sites found. Three orthopedic surgeons independently gauged quality and accuracy of information using a set of predetermined scoring criteria. We evaluated the readability of the Web site using the Fleisch-Kincaid score for reading grade level. There were significant differences in the quality, accuracy, and readability of information found, depending on the search term. We found higher quality and accuracy resulted from the search term "distal radius fracture," particularly compared with Web sites resulting from the term "broken wrist." The reading level was higher than recommended in 65 of the 70 Web sites and was significantly higher when searching with "distal radius fracture" than "wrist fracture" or "broken wrist." There was no correlation between Web site reading level and quality or accuracy. The readability of information about distal radius fractures in most Web sites was higher than the recommended reading level for the general public. The quality and accuracy of the information found significantly varied with the sophistication of the search term used. Physicians, professional societies, and search engines should consider efforts to improve internet access to high-quality information at an understandable level. Copyright © 2012 American Society for Surgery of the Hand. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glossary of CERCLA, RCRA and TSCA related terms and acronyms. Environmental Guidance

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1993-10-01

This glossary contains CERCLA, RCRA and TSCA related terms that are most often encountered in the US Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Restoration and Emergency Preparedness activities. Detailed definitions are included for key terms. The CERCLA definitions included in this glossary are taken from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), as amended and related federal rulemakings. The RCRA definitions included in this glossary are taken from the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and related federal rulemakings. The TSCA definitions included in this glossary are taken from the Toxic Substances and Control Act (TSCA) and related federalmore » rulemakings. Definitions related to TSCA are limited to those sections in the statute and regulations concerning PCBs and asbestos.Other sources for definitions include additional federal rulemakings, assorted guidance documents prepared by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), guidance and informational documents prepared by the US Department of Energy (DOE), and DOE Orders. The source of each term is noted beside the term. Terms presented in this document reflect revised and new definitions published before July 1, 1993.« less

Backward renormalization-group inference of cortical dipole sources and neural connectivity efficacy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amaral, Selene da Rocha; Baccalá, Luiz A.; Barbosa, Leonardo S.; Caticha, Nestor

2017-06-01

Proper neural connectivity inference has become essential for understanding cognitive processes associated with human brain function. Its efficacy is often hampered by the curse of dimensionality. In the electroencephalogram case, which is a noninvasive electrophysiological monitoring technique to record electrical activity of the brain, a possible way around this is to replace multichannel electrode information with dipole reconstructed data. We use a method based on maximum entropy and the renormalization group to infer the position of the sources, whose success hinges on transmitting information from low- to high-resolution representations of the cortex. The performance of this method compares favorably to other available source inference algorithms, which are ranked here in terms of their performance with respect to directed connectivity inference by using artificially generated dynamic data. We examine some representative scenarios comprising different numbers of dynamically connected dipoles over distinct cortical surface positions and under different sensor noise impairment levels. The overall conclusion is that inverse problem solutions do not affect the correct inference of the direction of the flow of information as long as the equivalent dipole sources are correctly found.

Management of Ultimate Risk of Nuclear Power Plants by Source Terms - Lessons Learned from the Chernobyl Accident

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Genn Saji

2006-07-01

The term 'ultimate risk' is used here to describe the probabilities and radiological consequences that should be incorporated in siting, containment design and accident management of nuclear power plants for hypothetical accidents. It is closely related with the source terms specified in siting criteria which assures an adequate separation of radioactive inventories of the plants from the public, in the event of a hypothetical and severe accident situation. The author would like to point out that current source terms which are based on the information from the Windscale accident (1957) through TID-14844 are very outdated and do not incorporate lessonsmore » learned from either the Three Miles Island (TMI, 1979) nor Chernobyl accident (1986), two of the most severe accidents ever experienced. As a result of the observations of benign radionuclides released at TMI, the technical community in the US felt that a more realistic evaluation of severe reactor accident source terms was necessary. In this background, the 'source term research project' was organized in 1984 to respond to these challenges. Unfortunately, soon after the time of the final report from this project was released, the Chernobyl accident occurred. Due to the enormous consequences induced by then accident, the one time optimistic perspectives in establishing a more realistic source term were completely shattered. The Chernobyl accident, with its human death toll and dispersion of a large part of the fission fragments inventories into the environment, created a significant degradation in the public's acceptance of nuclear energy throughout the world. In spite of this, nuclear communities have been prudent in responding to the public's anxiety towards the ultimate safety of nuclear plants, since there still remained many unknown points revolving around the mechanism of the Chernobyl accident. In order to resolve some of these mysteries, the author has performed a scoping study of the dispersion and deposition mechanisms of fuel particles and fission fragments during the initial phase of the Chernobyl accident. Through this study, it is now possible to generally reconstruct the radiological consequences by using a dispersion calculation technique, combined with the meteorological data at the time of the accident and land contamination densities of {sup 137}Cs measured and reported around the Chernobyl area. Although it is challenging to incorporate lessons learned from the Chernobyl accident into the source term issues, the author has already developed an example of safety goals by incorporating the radiological consequences of the accident. The example provides safety goals by specifying source term releases in a graded approach in combination with probabilities, i.e. risks. The author believes that the future source term specification should be directly linked with safety goals. (author)« less

Diuretics.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on diuretics is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are then provided.…

HISTORICAL COASTAL WETLANDS OF PRUDENCE ISLAND

EPA Science Inventory

Historical maps are useful tools to assess long-term change. The topographic surveys (T-charts) produced by the U.S. Coast and Geodedetic Survey, predecessor of the U.S.Geologic Survey (USGS), provide a rich source of information on historical environmental features dating back t...

Administering Eye Medications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morris, Sara; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on administering eye medications is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. A brief discussion follows of…

Antidiabetic Agents.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on antidiabetic agents is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are then…

Multiple Sclerosis.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on multiple sclerosis is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are then…

Antineoplastic Drugs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Morris, Sara; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on antineoplastic drugs is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are then…

Northern Nutrition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Northwest Territories Dept. of Education, Yellowknife.

This guide contains nutrition information and nutrition education strategies aimed at residents of the Canadian Arctic. Section I: (1) defines nutrition terms; (2) describes the sources and functions of essential nutrients; (3) explains Canada's food guide and special considerations for the traditional northern Native diet and for lactose…

The Internet as a source of health information among Singaporeans: prevalence, patterns of health surfing and impact on health behaviour.

PubMed

Siow, T R; Soh, I P; Sreedharan, S; Das De, S; Tan, P P; Seow, A; Lun, K C

2003-11-01

The Internet is an increasingly popular source of healthcare information. This study describes the prevalence of health surfers in Singapore and their health-surfing patterns. It also assesses their confidence in online health information and the impact the Internet has on health-seeking behaviour. A cross-sectional survey using a standardised questionnaire was carried out among residents aged 13 to 55 years in 1852 units in Bishan North. These units were selected by single-stage simple random cluster sampling method. The household response rate was 51% (n = 950) and the individual response rate was 69% (n = 1646). Responding and non-responding households were similar in terms of ethnicity and housing type. Of the responders, 62.9% surfed the Internet and 37.7% have surfed for health information. Health surfers tended to be younger (20 to 39 years) and have higher education status. Indians were also more likely than other ethnic groups to surf for health. Professional health-related sites comprised the majority (68%) of sites visited, and the most common search keywords concern chronic degenerative diseases, e.g. hypertension. The top preferred sources of health information were doctors (25.9%), the Internet (25.3%) and the traditional mass media (20.5%). Almost half (45.1%) considered online health information trustworthy if it was from a professional source or if the website displayed the source, while 10.6% trusted the information if it concurred with the doctors' advice. The vast majority (91.7%) had taken some action in response to the information. The Internet is being used as an accessible source of health information by a substantial proportion of the lay public. While this can facilitate greater partnership in healthcare, it underlines the need for doctors to be pro-active in the practice of evidence-based medicine, and for guidelines to enable patients to use this tool in a discerning manner.

Cockpit display of hazardous weather information

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hansman, R. John, Jr.; Wanke, Craig

1990-01-01

Information transfer and display issues associated with the dissemination of hazardous weather warnings are studied in the context of windshear alerts. Operational and developmental windshear detection systems are briefly reviewed. The July 11, 1988 microburst events observed as part of the Denver Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) operational evaluation are analyzed in terms of information transfer and the effectiveness of the microburst alerts. Information transfer, message content and display issues associated with microburst alerts generated from ground based sources are evaluated by means of pilot opinion surveys and part task simulator studies.

Cockpit display of hazardous weather information

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hansman, R. John, Jr.; Wanke, Craig

1989-01-01

Information transfer and display issues associated with the dissemination of hazardous-weather warnings are studied in the context of wind-shear alerts. Operational and developmental wind-shear detection systems are briefly reviewed. The July 11, 1988 microburst events observed as part of the Denver TDWR operational evaluation are analyzed in terms of information transfer and the effectiveness of the microburst alerts. Information transfer, message content, and display issues associated with microburst alerts generated from ground-based sources (Doppler radars, LLWAS, and PIREPS) are evaluated by means of pilot opinion surveys and part-task simulator studies.

The quality and readability of internet information regarding clavicle fractures.

PubMed

Zhang, Dafang; Schumacher, Charles; Harris, Mitchel Byron

2016-03-01

The internet has become a major source of health information for patients. However, there has been little scrutiny of health information available on the internet to the public. Our objectives were to evaluate the quality and readability of information available on the internet regarding clavicle fractures and whether they changed with academic affiliation of the website or with complexity of the search term. Through a prospective evaluation of 3 search engines using 3 different search terms of varying complexity ("broken collarbone," "collarbone fracture," and "clavicle fracture"), we evaluated 91 website hits for quality and readability. Websites were specifically analyzed by search term and by website type. Information quality was evaluated on a four-point scale, and information readability was assessed using the Flesch-Kincaid score for reading grade level. The average quality score for our website hits was low, and the average reading grade level was far above the recommended level. Academic websites offered significantly higher quality information, whereas commercial websites offered significantly lower quality information. The use of more complex search terms yielded information of higher reading grade level but not higher quality. Current internet information regarding clavicle fractures is of low quality and low readability. Higher quality information utilizing more accessible language on clavicle fractures is needed on the internet. It is important to be aware of the information accessible to patients prior to their presentation to our clinics. Patients should be advised to visit websites with academic affiliations and to avoid commercial websites. Copyright © 2015 The Japanese Orthopaedic Association. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Seismic hazard assessment over time: Modelling earthquakes in Taiwan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chan, Chung-Han; Wang, Yu; Wang, Yu-Ju; Lee, Ya-Ting

2017-04-01

To assess the seismic hazard with temporal change in Taiwan, we develop a new approach, combining both the Brownian Passage Time (BPT) model and the Coulomb stress change, and implement the seismogenic source parameters by the Taiwan Earthquake Model (TEM). The BPT model was adopted to describe the rupture recurrence intervals of the specific fault sources, together with the time elapsed since the last fault-rupture to derive their long-term rupture probability. We also evaluate the short-term seismicity rate change based on the static Coulomb stress interaction between seismogenic sources. By considering above time-dependent factors, our new combined model suggests an increased long-term seismic hazard in the vicinity of active faults along the western Coastal Plain and the Longitudinal Valley, where active faults have short recurrence intervals and long elapsed time since their last ruptures, and/or short-term elevated hazard levels right after the occurrence of large earthquakes due to the stress triggering effect. The stress enhanced by the February 6th, 2016, Meinong ML 6.6 earthquake also significantly increased rupture probabilities of several neighbouring seismogenic sources in Southwestern Taiwan and raised hazard level in the near future. Our approach draws on the advantage of incorporating long- and short-term models, to provide time-dependent earthquake probability constraints. Our time-dependent model considers more detailed information than any other published models. It thus offers decision-makers and public officials an adequate basis for rapid evaluations of and response to future emergency scenarios such as victim relocation and sheltering.

Dancing Bees Improve Colony Foraging Success as Long-Term Benefits Outweigh Short-Term Costs

PubMed Central

Schürch, Roger; Grüter, Christoph

2014-01-01

Waggle dancing bees provide nestmates with spatial information about high quality resources. Surprisingly, attempts to quantify the benefits of this encoded spatial information have failed to find positive effects on colony foraging success under many ecological circumstances. Experimental designs have often involved measuring the foraging success of colonies that were repeatedly switched between oriented dances versus disoriented dances (i.e. communicating vectors versus not communicating vectors). However, if recruited bees continue to visit profitable food sources for more than one day, this procedure would lead to confounded results because of the long-term effects of successful recruitment events. Using agent-based simulations, we found that spatial information was beneficial in almost all ecological situations. Contrary to common belief, the benefits of recruitment increased with environmental stability because benefits can accumulate over time to outweigh the short-term costs of recruitment. Furthermore, we found that in simulations mimicking previous experiments, the benefits of communication were considerably underestimated (at low food density) or not detected at all (at medium and high densities). Our results suggest that the benefits of waggle dance communication are currently underestimated and that different experimental designs, which account for potential long-term benefits, are needed to measure empirically how spatial information affects colony foraging success. PMID:25141306

Dancing bees improve colony foraging success as long-term benefits outweigh short-term costs.

PubMed

Schürch, Roger; Grüter, Christoph

2014-01-01

Waggle dancing bees provide nestmates with spatial information about high quality resources. Surprisingly, attempts to quantify the benefits of this encoded spatial information have failed to find positive effects on colony foraging success under many ecological circumstances. Experimental designs have often involved measuring the foraging success of colonies that were repeatedly switched between oriented dances versus disoriented dances (i.e. communicating vectors versus not communicating vectors). However, if recruited bees continue to visit profitable food sources for more than one day, this procedure would lead to confounded results because of the long-term effects of successful recruitment events. Using agent-based simulations, we found that spatial information was beneficial in almost all ecological situations. Contrary to common belief, the benefits of recruitment increased with environmental stability because benefits can accumulate over time to outweigh the short-term costs of recruitment. Furthermore, we found that in simulations mimicking previous experiments, the benefits of communication were considerably underestimated (at low food density) or not detected at all (at medium and high densities). Our results suggest that the benefits of waggle dance communication are currently underestimated and that different experimental designs, which account for potential long-term benefits, are needed to measure empirically how spatial information affects colony foraging success.

Determining the perceived value of information when combining supporting and conflicting data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hanratty, Timothy; Heilman, Eric; Richardson, John; Mittrick, Mark; Caylor, Justine

2017-05-01

Modern military intelligence operations involves a deluge of information from a large number of sources. A data ranking algorithm that enables the most valuable information to be reviewed first may improve timely and effective analysis. This ranking is termed the value of information (VoI) and its calculation is a current area of research within the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL). ARL has conducted an experiment to correlate the perceptions of subject matter experts with the ARL VoI model and additionally to construct a cognitive model of the ranking process and the amalgamation of supporting and conflicting information.

Spinoza's error: memory for truth and falsity.

PubMed

Nadarevic, Lena; Erdfelder, Edgar

2013-02-01

Two theoretical frameworks have been proposed to account for the representation of truth and falsity in human memory: the Cartesian model and the Spinozan model. Both models presume that during information processing a mental representation of the information is stored along with a tag indicating its truth value. However, the two models disagree on the nature of these tags. According to the Cartesian model, true information receives a "true" tag and false information receives a "false" tag. In contrast, the Spinozan model claims that only false information receives a "false" tag, whereas untagged information is automatically accepted as true. To test the Cartesian and Spinozan models, we conducted two source memory experiments in which participants studied true and false trivia statements from three different sources differing in credibility (i.e., presenting 100% true, 50% true and 50% false, or 100% false statements). In Experiment 1, half of the participants were informed about the source credibility prior to the study phase. As compared to a control group, this precue group showed improved source memory for both true and false statements, but not for statements with an uncertain validity status. Moreover, memory did not differ for truth and falsity in the precue group. As Experiment 2 revealed, this finding is replicated even when using a 1-week rather than a 20-min retention interval between study and test phases. The results of both experiments clearly contradict the Spinozan model but can be explained in terms of the Cartesian model.

Prisoners' perception of informing to the authorities: an analysis in terms of functional moral judgment.

PubMed

Wolf, Yuval; Addad, Moshe; Arkin, Nilly

2003-12-01

A series of functional measurement experiment show that prisoners modulate their moral judgments of violations of their in-group regulations. The participants were 67 women and 80 men, sentenced for at least three years for murder, robbery, drug-traffic or white collar offenses. Each was asked, individually, to imagine a series of incidents where incriminating information on in-group or out-group inmates is delivered to the prison authorities or to an ingroup source and to rate the deserved denigration of the informer, who was characterized as a leader or not and as a drug-addict or not who had a prison-leave or not. An assignment of approximately equal weight for social status, drug use and prison leave was found, beyond gender and type of offense. In line with the hypothesis of judgmental modularity, informing to an out-group source was judged much more severely than informing to in-group arbiter and than informing on an out-group inmate.

Semiotic foundation for multisensor-multilook fusion

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Myler, Harley R.

1998-07-01

This paper explores the concept of an application of semiotic principles to the design of a multisensor-multilook fusion system. Semiotics is an approach to analysis that attempts to process media in a united way using qualitative methods as opposed to quantitative. The term semiotic refers to signs, or signatory data that encapsulates information. Semiotic analysis involves the extraction of signs from information sources and the subsequent processing of the signs into meaningful interpretations of the information content of the source. The multisensor fusion problem predicated on a semiotic system structure and incorporating semiotic analysis techniques is explored and the design for a multisensor system as an information fusion system is explored. Semiotic analysis opens the possibility of using non-traditional sensor sources and modalities in the fusion process, such as verbal and textual intelligence derived from human observers. Examples of how multisensor/multimodality data might be analyzed semiotically is shown and discussion on how a semiotic system for multisensor fusion could be realized is outlined. The architecture of a semiotic multisensor fusion processor that can accept situational awareness data is described, although an implementation has not as yet been constructed.

Access to safe water in rural Artibonite, Haiti 16 months after the onset of the cholera epidemic.

PubMed

Patrick, Molly; Berendes, David; Murphy, Jennifer; Bertrand, Fabienne; Husain, Farah; Handzel, Thomas

2013-10-01

Haiti has the lowest improved water and sanitation coverage in the Western Hemisphere and is suffering from the largest cholera epidemic on record. In May of 2012, an assessment was conducted in rural areas of the Artibonite Department to describe the type and quality of water sources and determine knowledge, access, and use of household water treatment products to inform future programs. It was conducted after emergency response was scaled back but before longer-term water, sanitation, and hygiene activities were initiated. The household survey and source water quality analysis documented low access to safe water, with only 42.3% of households using an improved drinking water source. One-half (50.9%) of the improved water sources tested positive for Escherichia coli. Of households with water to test, 12.7% had positive chlorine residual. The assessment reinforces the identified need for major investments in safe water and sanitation infrastructure and the importance of household water treatment to improve access to safe water in the near term.

Evaluation of long-term community recovery from Hurricane Andrew: sources of assistance received by population sub-groups.

PubMed

McDonnell, S; Troiano, R P; Barker, N; Noji, E; Hlady, W G; Hopkins, R

1995-12-01

Two three-stage cluster surveys were conducted in South Dade County, Florida, 14 months apart, to assess recovery following Hurricane Andrew. Response rates were 75 per cent and 84 per cent. Sources of assistance used in recovery from Hurricane Andrew differed according to race, per capita income, ethnicity, and education. Reports of improved living situation post-hurricane were not associated with receiving relief assistance, but reports of a worse situation were associated with loss of income, being exploited, or job loss. The number of households reporting problems with crime and community violence doubled between the two surveys. Disaster relief efforts had less impact on subjective long-term recovery than did job or income loss or housing repair difficulties. Existing sources of assistance were used more often than specific post-hurricane relief resources. The demographic make-up of a community may determine which are the most effective means to inform them after a disaster and what sources of assistance may be useful.

Operational Earthquake Forecasting: Proposed Guidelines for Implementation (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jordan, T. H.

2010-12-01

The goal of operational earthquake forecasting (OEF) is to provide the public with authoritative information about how seismic hazards are changing with time. During periods of high seismic activity, short-term earthquake forecasts based on empirical statistical models can attain nominal probability gains in excess of 100 relative to the long-term forecasts used in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). Prospective experiments are underway by the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP) to evaluate the reliability and skill of these seismicity-based forecasts in a variety of tectonic environments. How such information should be used for civil protection is by no means clear, because even with hundredfold increases, the probabilities of large earthquakes typically remain small, rarely exceeding a few percent over forecasting intervals of days or weeks. Civil protection agencies have been understandably cautious in implementing formal procedures for OEF in this sort of “low-probability environment.” Nevertheless, the need to move more quickly towards OEF has been underscored by recent experiences, such as the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake sequence and other seismic crises in which an anxious public has been confused by informal, inconsistent earthquake forecasts. Whether scientists like it or not, rising public expectations for real-time information, accelerated by the use of social media, will require civil protection agencies to develop sources of authoritative information about the short-term earthquake probabilities. In this presentation, I will discuss guidelines for the implementation of OEF informed by my experience on the California Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, convened by CalEMA, and the International Commission on Earthquake Forecasting, convened by the Italian government following the L’Aquila disaster. (a) Public sources of information on short-term probabilities should be authoritative, scientific, open, and timely, and they need to convey the epistemic uncertainties in the operational forecasts. (b) Earthquake probabilities should be based on operationally qualified, regularly updated forecasting systems. All operational procedures should be rigorously reviewed by experts in the creation, delivery, and utility of earthquake forecasts. (c) The quality of all operational models should be evaluated for reliability and skill by retrospective testing, and the models should be under continuous prospective testing in a CSEP-type environment against established long-term forecasts and a wide variety of alternative, time-dependent models. (d) Short-term models used in operational forecasting should be consistent with the long-term forecasts used in PSHA. (e) Alert procedures should be standardized to facilitate decisions at different levels of government and among the public, based in part on objective analysis of costs and benefits. (f) In establishing alert procedures, consideration should also be made of the less tangible aspects of value-of-information, such as gains in psychological preparedness and resilience. Authoritative statements of increased risk, even when the absolute probability is low, can provide a psychological benefit to the public by filling information vacuums that can lead to informal predictions and misinformation.

Creating Services for the Digital Library.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crane, Dennis J.

The terms "virtual library,""digital library," and "electronic library" have received growing attention among professional librarians, researchers, and users of information over the past decade. The confluence of exploding sources of data, expanding technical capability, and constrained time and money will quickly move these concepts from…

Urinary Tract Infections.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on urinary tract infections is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are…

Drugs Used in COPD.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on drugs used in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first.…

Investigating the Use of Google Translate in "Terms and Conditions" in an Airline's Official Website: Errors and Implications

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vidhayasai, Tya; Keyuravong, Sonthida; Bunsom, Thanis

2015-01-01

In the era of globalization, the Internet is regarded as one of the most popular sources of information given the number of on-line browsers who have access to websites. The tourism industry, be it hotels or airlines, in the 21st century relies heavily on the provision of information via its official websites. Thus, it is crucial that the…

Ragweed (Ambrosia) pollen source inventory for Austria.

PubMed

Karrer, G; Skjøth, C A; Šikoparija, B; Smith, M; Berger, U; Essl, F

2015-08-01

This study improves the spatial coverage of top-down Ambrosia pollen source inventories for Europe by expanding the methodology to Austria, a country that is challenging in terms of topography and the distribution of ragweed plants. The inventory combines annual ragweed pollen counts from 19 pollen-monitoring stations in Austria (2004-2013), 657 geographical observations of Ambrosia plants, a Digital Elevation Model (DEM), local knowledge of ragweed ecology and CORINE land cover information from the source area. The highest mean annual ragweed pollen concentrations were generally recorded in the East of Austria where the highest densities of possible growth habitats for Ambrosia were situated. Approximately 99% of all observations of Ambrosia populations were below 745m. The European infection level varies from 0.1% at Freistadt in Northern Austria to 12.8% at Rosalia in Eastern Austria. More top-down Ambrosia pollen source inventories are required for other parts of Europe. A method for constructing top-down pollen source inventories for invasive ragweed plants in Austria, a country that is challenging in terms of topography and ragweed distribution. Crown Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

#nowplaying Madonna: a large-scale evaluation on estimating similarities between music artists and between movies from microblogs.

PubMed

Schedl, Markus

2012-01-01

Different term weighting techniques such as [Formula: see text] or BM25 have been used intensely for manifold text-based information retrieval tasks. Their use for modeling term profiles for named entities and subsequent calculation of similarities between these named entities have been studied to a much smaller extent. The recent trend of microblogging made available massive amounts of information about almost every topic around the world. Therefore, microblogs represent a valuable source for text-based named entity modeling. In this paper, we present a systematic and comprehensive evaluation of different term weighting measures , normalization techniques , query schemes , index term sets , and similarity functions for the task of inferring similarities between named entities, based on data extracted from microblog posts . We analyze several thousand combinations of choices for the above mentioned dimensions, which influence the similarity calculation process, and we investigate in which way they impact the quality of the similarity estimates. Evaluation is performed using three real-world data sets: two collections of microblogs related to music artists and one related to movies. For the music collections, we present results of genre classification experiments using as benchmark genre information from allmusic.com. For the movie collection, we present results of multi-class classification experiments using as benchmark categories from IMDb. We show that microblogs can indeed be exploited to model named entity similarity with remarkable accuracy, provided the correct settings for the analyzed aspects are used. We further compare the results to those obtained when using Web pages as data source.

Exploiting semantic linkages among multiple sources for semantic information retrieval

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, JianQiang; Yang, Ji-Jiang; Liu, Chunchen; Zhao, Yu; Liu, Bo; Shi, Yuliang

2014-07-01

The vision of the Semantic Web is to build a global Web of machine-readable data to be consumed by intelligent applications. As the first step to make this vision come true, the initiative of linked open data has fostered many novel applications aimed at improving data accessibility in the public Web. Comparably, the enterprise environment is so different from the public Web that most potentially usable business information originates in an unstructured form (typically in free text), which poses a challenge for the adoption of semantic technologies in the enterprise environment. Considering that the business information in a company is highly specific and centred around a set of commonly used concepts, this paper describes a pilot study to migrate the concept of linked data into the development of a domain-specific application, i.e. the vehicle repair support system. The set of commonly used concepts, including the part name of a car and the phenomenon term on the car repairing, are employed to build the linkage between data and documents distributed among different sources, leading to the fusion of documents and data across source boundaries. Then, we describe the approaches of semantic information retrieval to consume these linkages for value creation for companies. The experiments on two real-world data sets show that the proposed approaches outperform the best baseline 6.3-10.8% and 6.4-11.1% in terms of top five and top 10 precisions, respectively. We believe that our pilot study can serve as an important reference for the development of similar semantic applications in an enterprise environment.

A dictionary server for supplying context sensitive medical knowledge.

PubMed Central

Ruan, W.; Bürkle, T.; Dudeck, J.

2000-01-01

The Giessen Data Dictionary Server (GDDS), developed at Giessen University Hospital, integrates clinical systems with on-line, context sensitive medical knowledge to help with making medical decisions. By "context" we mean the clinical information that is being presented at the moment the information need is occurring. The dictionary server makes use of a semantic network supported by a medical data dictionary to link terms from clinical applications to their proper information sources. It has been designed to analyze the network structure itself instead of knowing the layout of the semantic net in advance. This enables us to map appropriate information sources to various clinical applications, such as nursing documentation, drug prescription and cancer follow up systems. This paper describes the function of the dictionary server and shows how the knowledge stored in the semantic network is used in the dictionary service. PMID:11079978

ASSESSMENT OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION ON MEDICATION USE IN PREGNANCY

PubMed Central

Hansen, Craig; Interrante, Julia D; Ailes, Elizabeth C; Frey, Meghan T; Broussard, Cheryl S; Godoshian, Valerie J; Lewis, Courtney; Polen, Kara ND; Garcia, Amanda P; Gilboa, Suzanne M

2015-01-01

Background When making decisions about medication use in pregnancy, women consult many information sources, including the Internet. The aim of this study was to assess the content of publicly-accessible YouTube videos that discuss medication use in pregnancy. Methods Using 2,023 distinct combinations of search terms related to medications and pregnancy, we extracted metadata from YouTube videos using a YouTube video Application Programming Interface. Relevant videos were defined as those with a medication search term and a pregnancy-related search term in either the video title or description. We viewed relevant videos and abstracted content from each video into a database. We documented whether videos implied each medication to be ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ in pregnancy and compared that assessment with the medication’s Teratogen Information System (TERIS) rating. Results After viewing 651 videos, 314 videos with information about medication use in pregnancy were available for the final analyses. The majority of videos were from law firms (67%), television segments (10%), or physicians (8%). Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were the most common medication class named (225 videos, 72%), and 88% percent of videos about SSRIs indicated they were ‘unsafe’ for use in pregnancy. However, the TERIS ratings for medication products in this class range from ‘unlikely’ to ‘minimal’ teratogenic risk. Conclusion For the majority of medications, current YouTube video content does not adequately reflect what is known about the safety of their use in pregnancy and should be interpreted cautiously. However, YouTube could serve as a valuable platform for communicating evidence-based medication safety information. PMID:26541372

SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP) 7: Finding systematic reviews

PubMed Central

2009-01-01

This article is part of a series written for people responsible for making decisions about health policies and programmes and for those who support these decision makers. Systematic reviews are increasingly seen as a key source of information in policymaking, particularly in terms of assisting with descriptions of the impacts of options. Relative to single studies they offer a number of advantages related to understanding impacts and are also seen as a key source of information for clarifying problems and providing complementary perspectives on options. Systematic reviews can be undertaken to place problems in comparative perspective and to describe the likely harms of an option. They also assist with understanding the meanings that individuals or groups attach to a problem, how and why options work, and stakeholder views and experiences related to particular options. A number of constraints have hindered the wider use of systematic reviews in policymaking. These include a lack of awareness of their value and a mismatch between the terms employed by policymakers, when attempting to retrieve systematic reviews, and the terms used by the original authors of those reviews. Mismatches between the types of information that policymakers are seeking, and the way in which authors fail to highlight (or make obvious) such information within systematic reviews have also proved problematic. In this article, we suggest three questions that can be used to guide those searching for systematic reviews, particularly reviews about the impacts of options being considered. These are: 1. Is a systematic review really what is needed? 2. What databases and search strategies can be used to find relevant systematic reviews? 3. What alternatives are available when no relevant review can be found? PMID:20018114

Experiences with nutrition-related information during antenatal care of pregnant women of different ethnic backgrounds residing in the area of Oslo, Norway.

PubMed

Garnweidner, Lisa M; Sverre Pettersen, Kjell; Mosdøl, Annhild

2013-12-01

to explore experiences with nutrition-related information during routine antenatal care among women of different ethnical backgrounds. individual interviews with seventeen participants were conducted twice during pregnancy. Data collection and analysis were inspired by an interpretative phenomenological approach. participants were purposively recruited at eight Mother and Child Health Centres in the area of Oslo, Norway, where they received antenatal care. participants had either immigrant backgrounds from African and Asian countries (n=12) or were ethnic Norwegian (n=5). Participants were pregnant with their first child and had a pre-pregnancy Body Mass Index above 25 kg/m(2). participants experienced that they were provided with little nutrition-related information in antenatal care. The information was perceived as presented in very general terms and focused on food safety. Weight management and the long-term prevention of diet-related chronic diseases had hardly been discussed. Participants with immigrant backgrounds appeared to be confused about information given by the midwife which was incongruent with their original food culture. The participants were actively seeking for nutrition-related information and had to navigate between various sources of information. the midwife is considered a trustworthy source of nutrition-related information. Therefore, antenatal care may have considerable potential to promote a healthy diet to pregnant women. Findings suggest that nutrition communication in antenatal care should be more tailored towards women's dietary habits and cultural background, nutritional knowledge as well as level of nutrition literacy. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Single colloidal quantum dots as sources of single photons for quantum cryptography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pisanello, Ferruccio; Qualtieri, Antonio; Leménager, Godefroy; Martiradonna, Luigi; Stomeo, Tiziana; Cingolani, Roberto; Bramati, Alberto; De Vittorio, Massimo

2011-02-01

Colloidal nanocrystals, i.e. quantum dots synthesized trough wet-chemistry approaches, are promising nanoparticles for photonic applications and, remarkably, their quantum nature makes them very promising for single photon emission at room temperature. In this work we describe two approaches to engineer the emission properties of these nanoemitters in terms of radiative lifetime and photon polarization, drawing a viable strategy for their exploitation as room-temperature single photon sources for quantum information and quantum telecommunications.

Bayesian Inference for Source Term Estimation: Application to the International Monitoring System Radionuclide Network

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-10-01

de l’exactitude et de la précision), comparativement au modèle de mesure plus simple qui n’utilise pas de multiplicateurs. Importance pour la défense...3) Bayesian experimental design for receptor placement in order to maximize the expected information in the measured concen- tration data for...applications of the Bayesian inferential methodology for source recon- struction have used high-quality concentration data from well- designed atmospheric

Two years of near real-time chemical composition of submicron aerosols in the region of Paris using an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) and a multi-wavelength Aethalometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Petit, J.-E.; Favez, O.; Sciare, J.; Crenn, V.; Sarda-Estève, R.; Bonnaire, N.; Močnik, G.; Dupont, J.-C.; Haeffelin, M.; Leoz-Garziandia, E.

2015-03-01

Aerosol mass spectrometer (AMS) measurements have been successfully used towards a better understanding of non-refractory submicron (PM1) aerosol chemical properties based on short-term campaigns. The recently developed Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM) has been designed to deliver quite similar artifact-free chemical information but for low cost, and to perform robust monitoring over long-term periods. When deployed in parallel with real-time black carbon (BC) measurements, the combined data set allows for a quasi-comprehensive description of the whole PM1 fraction in near real time. Here we present 2-year long ACSM and BC data sets, between mid-2011 and mid-2013, obtained at the French atmospheric SIRTA supersite that is representative of background PM levels of the region of Paris. This large data set shows intense and time-limited (a few hours) pollution events observed during wintertime in the region of Paris, pointing to local carbonaceous emissions (mainly combustion sources). A non-parametric wind regression analysis was performed on this 2-year data set for the major PM1 constituents (organic matter, nitrate, sulfate and source apportioned BC) and ammonia in order to better refine their geographical origins and assess local/regional/advected contributions whose information is mandatory for efficient mitigation strategies. While ammonium sulfate typically shows a clear advected pattern, ammonium nitrate partially displays a similar feature, but, less expectedly, it also exhibits a significant contribution of regional and local emissions. The contribution of regional background organic aerosols (OA) is significant in spring and summer, while a more pronounced local origin is evidenced during wintertime, whose pattern is also observed for BC originating from domestic wood burning. Using time-resolved ACSM and BC information, seasonally differentiated weekly diurnal profiles of these constituents were investigated and helped to identify the main parameters controlling their temporal variations (sources, meteorological parameters). Finally, a careful investigation of all the major pollution episodes observed over the region of Paris between 2011 and 2013 was performed and classified in terms of chemical composition and the BC-to-sulfate ratio used here as a proxy of the local/regional/advected contribution of PM. In conclusion, these first 2-year quality-controlled measurements of ACSM clearly demonstrate their great potential to monitor on a long-term basis aerosol sources and their geographical origin and provide strategic information in near real time during pollution episodes. They also support the capacity of the ACSM to be proposed as a robust and credible alternative to filter-based sampling techniques for long-term monitoring strategies.

Fatty acid signatures of stomach oil and adipose tissue of northern fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) in Alaska: Implications for diet analysis of Procellariiform birds

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wang, S.W.; Iverson, S.J.; Springer, A.M.; Hatch, Shyla A.

2007-01-01

Procellariiforms are unique among seabirds in storing dietary lipids in both adipose tissue and stomach oil. Thus, both lipid sources are potentially useful for trophic studies using fatty acid (FA) signatures. However, little is known about the relationship between FA signatures in stomach oil and adipose tissue of individuals or whether these signatures provide similar information about diet and physiology. We compared the FA composition of stomach oil and adipose tissue biopsies of individual northern fulmars (N = 101) breeding at three major colonies in Alaska. Fatty acid signatures differed significantly between the two lipid sources, reflecting differences in dietary time scales, metabolic processing, or both. However, these signatures exhibited a relatively consistent relationship between individuals, such that the two lipid sources provided a similar ability to distinguish foraging differences among individuals and colonies. Our results, including the exclusive presence of dietary wax esters in stomach oil but not adipose tissue, are consistent with the notion that stomach oil FA signatures represent lipids retained from prey consumed during recent foraging and reflect little metabolic processing, whereas adipose tissue FA signatures represent a longer-term integration of dietary intake. Our study illustrates the potential for elucidating short- versus longer-term diet information in Procellariiform birds using different lipid sources. ?? 2007 Springer-Verlag.

Using the internet to understand angler behavior in the information age

USGS Publications Warehouse

Martin, Dustin R.; Pracheil, Brenda M.; DeBoer, Jason A.; Wilde, Gene R.; Pope, Kevin L.

2012-01-01

Declining participation in recreational angling is of great concern to fishery managers because fishing license sales are an important revenue source for protection of aquatic resources. This decline is frequently attributed, in part, to increased societal reliance on electronics. Internet use by anglers is increasing and fishery managers may use the Internet as a unique means to increase angler participation. We examined Internet search behavior using Google Insights for Search, a free online tool that summarizes Google searches from 2004 to 2011 to determine (1) trends in Internet search volume for general fishing related terms and (2) the relative usefulness of terms related to angler recruitment programs across the United States. Though search volume declined for general fishing terms (e.g., fishing, fishing guide), search volume increased for social media and recruitment terms (e.g., fishing forum, family fishing) over the 7-year period. We encourage coordinators of recruitment programs to capitalize on anglers’ Internet usage by considering Internet search patterns when creating web-based information. Careful selection of terms used in web-based information to match those currently searched by potential anglers may help to direct traffic to state agency websites that support recruitment efforts.

Path spectra derived from inversion of source and site spectra for earthquakes in Southern California

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Klimasewski, A.; Sahakian, V. J.; Baltay, A.; Boatwright, J.; Fletcher, J. B.; Baker, L. M.

2017-12-01

A large source of epistemic uncertainty in Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) is derived from the path term, currently represented as a simple geometric spreading and intrinsic attenuation term. Including additional physical relationships between the path properties and predicted ground motions would produce more accurate and precise, region-specific GMPEs by reclassifying some of the random, aleatory uncertainty as epistemic. This study focuses on regions of Southern California, using data from the Anza network and Southern California Seismic network to create a catalog of events magnitude 2.5 and larger from 1998 to 2016. The catalog encompasses regions of varying geology and therefore varying path and site attenuation. Within this catalog of events, we investigate several collections of event region-to-station pairs, each of which share similar origin locations and stations so that all events have similar paths. Compared with a simple regional GMPE, these paths consistently have high or low residuals. By working with events that have the same path, we can isolate source and site effects, and focus on the remaining residual as path effects. We decompose the recordings into source and site spectra for each unique event and site in our greater Southern California regional database using the inversion method of Andrews (1986). This model represents each natural log record spectra as the sum of its natural log event and site spectra, while constraining each record to a reference site or Brune source spectrum. We estimate a regional, path-specific anelastic attenuation (Q) and site attenuation (t*) from the inversion site spectra and corner frequency from the inversion event spectra. We then compute the residuals between the observed record data, and the inversion model prediction (event*site spectra). This residual is representative of path effects, likely anelastic attenuation along the path that varies from the regional median attenuation. We examine the residuals for our different sets independently to see how path terms differ between event-to-station collections. The path-specific information gained from this can inform development of terms for regional GMPEs, through understanding of these seismological phenomena.

Total energy management for nursing homes and other long-term care institutions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1977-01-01

The purpose of this publication is to provide the basic instruction needed to implement the most effective form of energy conservation--Total Energy Management, or TEM--in your long-term care facility. The effort required is worthwhile for many different reasons: TEM is self-paying; TEM promotes energy conservation without negative impact on health care services; and energy costs will continue to escalate. Following the introductory chapter, chapters are titled: Understanding Energy Consumption; Initiating a Total Energy Management Program; Developing Energy Consumption Data; Conducting the Facility Survey; Developing and Implementing the Basic Plan; Communication and Motivation; Monitoring Your Program and Keeping It Effective; andmore » Guidelines for Energy Conservation. Two appendices furnish information on building information for TEM and sources of information for energy management. (MCW)« less

Toward a Mechanistic Source Term in Advanced Reactors: A Review of Past U.S. SFR Incidents, Experiments, and Analyses

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bucknor, Matthew; Brunett, Acacia J.; Grabaskas, David

In 2015, as part of a Regulatory Technology Development Plan (RTDP) effort for sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs), Argonne National Laboratory investigated the current state of knowledge of source term development for a metal-fueled, pool-type SFR. This paper provides a summary of past domestic metal-fueled SFR incidents and experiments and highlights information relevant to source term estimations that were gathered as part of the RTDP effort. The incidents described in this paper include fuel pin failures at the Sodium Reactor Experiment (SRE) facility in July of 1959, the Fermi I meltdown that occurred in October of 1966, and the repeated meltingmore » of a fuel element within an experimental capsule at the Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II) from November 1967 to May 1968. The experiments described in this paper include the Run-Beyond-Cladding-Breach tests that were performed at EBR-II in 1985 and a series of severe transient overpower tests conducted at the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) in the mid-1980s.« less

Toward a common language for biobanking.

PubMed

Fransson, Martin N; Rial-Sebbag, Emmanuelle; Brochhausen, Mathias; Litton, Jan-Eric

2015-01-01

To encourage the process of harmonization, the biobank community should support and use a common terminology. Relevant terms may be found in general thesauri for medicine, legal instruments or specific glossaries for biobanking. A comparison of the use of these sources has so far not been conducted and would be a useful instrument to further promote harmonization and data sharing. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the preference of definitions important for sharing biological samples and data. Definitions for 10 terms -[human] biobank, sample/specimen, sample collection, study, aliquot, coded, identifying information, anonymised, personal data and informed consent-were collected from several sources. A web-based questionnaire was sent to 560 European individuals working with biobanks asking to select their preferred definition for the terms. A total of 123 people participated in the survey, giving a response rate of 23%. The result was evaluated from four aspects: scope of definitions, potential regional differences, differences in semantics and definitions in the context of ontologies, guided by comments from responders. Indicative from the survey is the risk of focusing only on the research aspect of biobanking in definitions. Hence, it is recommended that important terms should be formulated in such a way that all areas of biobanking are covered to improve the bridges between research and clinical application. Since several of the terms investigated here within can also be found in a legal context, which may differ between countries, establishing what is a proper definition on how it adheres to law is also crucial.

The availability of health information system for decision-making with evidence-based medicine approach-a case study: Kermanshah, Iran.

PubMed

Safari, Ameneh; Safari, Yahya

2018-08-01

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is defining proper and wise use of the best evidence in clinical decision for patient׳s care. This study have done with the aim of evaluating health information system for decision-making with EBM approach in educational hospital of Kermanshah city. The statistical population include all the specialist and specialty, and also head nurses of educational hospitals in Kermanshah city. The data collected by researcher made questionnaire. The content validities of the questionnaire were confirmed by experts to complete the questions of the questionnaire. Then, the reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated using the Cronbach׳s alpha coefficient. The results have showed that the accessibility rate to the internet sources is in desirable level. The results have showed that there was a significant difference at least in one group between the availability of hospital information system EBM establishment in terms of accessing to the internet based data, according to the academic major ( P = 0.021 ). The sufficiency of hospital information system in evidence-based medicine establishment in terms of necessary knowledge for implementing it according to the educational major have showed a significant statistical difference at least in one group ( P = 0.001 ). Kermanshah׳s hospital have a desirable condition in terms of accessibility to the internet sources, knowledge of EBM and its implementation which this have showed the availability of desirable platform for decision-making with the EBM approach. However, it is better to implement regulate educational periods for educating the doctors and nurses in order to reach practical implementation of the EBM approach.

Semantic Annotations and Querying of Web Data Sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hornung, Thomas; May, Wolfgang

A large part of the Web, actually holding a significant portion of the useful information throughout the Web, consists of views on hidden databases, provided by numerous heterogeneous interfaces that are partly human-oriented via Web forms ("Deep Web"), and partly based on Web Services (only machine accessible). In this paper we present an approach for annotating these sources in a way that makes them citizens of the Semantic Web. We illustrate how queries can be stated in terms of the ontology, and how the annotations are used to selected and access appropriate sources and to answer the queries.

Temporal and visual source memory deficits among ecstasy/polydrug users.

PubMed

Fisk, John E; Gallagher, Denis T; Hadjiefthyvoulou, Florentia; Montgomery, Catharine

2014-03-01

We wished to investigate whether source memory judgements are adversely affected by recreational illicit drug use. Sixty-two ecstasy/polydrug users and 75 non ecstasy users completed a source memory task, in which they tried to determine whether or not a word had been previously presented and if so, attempted to recall the format, location and temporal position in which the word had occurred. While not differing in terms of the number of hits and false positive responses, ecstasy/polydrug users adopted a more liberal decision criterion when judging if a word had been presented previously. With regard to source memory, users were less able to determine the format in which words had been presented (upper versus lower case). Female users did worse than female nonusers in determining which list (first or second) a word was from. Unexpectedly, the current frequency of cocaine use was negative associated with list and case source memory performance. Given the role that source memory plays in everyday cognition, those who use cocaine more frequently might have more difficulty in everyday tasks such as recalling the sources of crucial information or making use of contextual information as an aid to learning.

Coordinated Home Care Training Manual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor. Home Care Training Center.

This manual is intended as a source of information and assistance in the planning, organization, implementation, and evaluation of home care programs. There are ten major sections: (1) Introduction (review of the history of home care and definition of pertinent terms), (2) Program Planning, (3) Organizational Structure, (4) Coordination and…

Education and Human Resources Sector Assessment Manual.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pigozzi, Mary Joy; Cieutat, Victor J.

This manual endorses and adopts the sector-assessment approach for planning and managing the allocation of educational resources. Chapter 1 presents the manual's goals. Chapter 2 describes the manual's content and information sources, explains the term "sector assessment," identifies the groups that benefit from recommendations made by…

Energy: Options and Issues.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Walker, Harry O.

This book is intended to provide basic information about energy. The first three chapters describe energy supply and demand, uses and sources, and common energy terms. The next two chapters explain environmental and biological effects of energy systems. Twelve chapters that follow outline past history and technological knowledge of the following…

ARSENIC REMOVAL FROM DRINKING WATER BY IRON REMOVAL PLANTS

EPA Science Inventory

This report documents a long term performance study of two iron removal water treatment plants to remove arsenic from drinking water sources. Performance information was collected from one system located in midwest for one full year and at the second system located in the farwest...

A Tight Squeeze

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ramaswami, Rama

2008-01-01

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) does not mince words when describing the looming data storage problem. In its 2007 report, "Solving the Coming Archive Crisis--the 100-Year Dilemma," the trade group asserts that the volume of disparate digital information sources being kept online for long-term preservation is overwhelming and…

Tube Feedings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy

This module on tube feedings is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who work in long-term care. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first. The module goal and objectives are then provided. A brief discussion follows…

Quality of Health Information on the Internet for Urolithiasis on the Google Search Engine.

PubMed

Chang, Dwayne T S; Abouassaly, Robert; Lawrentschuk, Nathan

2016-01-01

Purpose . To compare the quality of health information on the Internet for keywords related to urolithiasis, to assess for difference in information quality across four main Western languages, and to compare the source of sponsorship in these websites. Methods . Health On the Net (HON) Foundation principles were utilised to determine quality information. Fifteen keywords related to urolithiasis were searched on the Google search engine. The first 150 websites were assessed against the HON principles and the source of sponsorship determined. Results . A total of 8986 websites were analysed. A proportion of HON-accredited websites for individual search terms range between 2.5% and 12.0%. The first 50 websites were more likely to be HON-positive compared to websites 51-100 and 101-150. French websites searched were more likely to be HON-positive whereas German websites were less likely to be HON-positive than English websites. There was no statistically significant difference between the rate of HON-positive English and Spanish websites. The three main website sponsors were from government/educational sources (40.2%), followed by commercial (29.9%) and physician/surgeon sources (18.6%). Conclusions . Health information on most urolithiasis websites was not validated. Nearly one-third of websites in this study have commercial sponsorship. Doctors should recognise the need for more reliable health websites for their patients.

Software Tool for Researching Annotations of Proteins (STRAP): Open-Source Protein Annotation Software with Data Visualization

PubMed Central

Bhatia, Vivek N.; Perlman, David H.; Costello, Catherine E.; McComb, Mark E.

2009-01-01

In order that biological meaning may be derived and testable hypotheses may be built from proteomics experiments, assignments of proteins identified by mass spectrometry or other techniques must be supplemented with additional notation, such as information on known protein functions, protein-protein interactions, or biological pathway associations. Collecting, organizing, and interpreting this data often requires the input of experts in the biological field of study, in addition to the time-consuming search for and compilation of information from online protein databases. Furthermore, visualizing this bulk of information can be challenging due to the limited availability of easy-to-use and freely available tools for this process. In response to these constraints, we have undertaken the design of software to automate annotation and visualization of proteomics data in order to accelerate the pace of research. Here we present the Software Tool for Researching Annotations of Proteins (STRAP) – a user-friendly, open-source C# application. STRAP automatically obtains gene ontology (GO) terms associated with proteins in a proteomics results ID list using the freely accessible UniProtKB and EBI GOA databases. Summarized in an easy-to-navigate tabular format, STRAP includes meta-information on the protein in addition to complimentary GO terminology. Additionally, this information can be edited by the user so that in-house expertise on particular proteins may be integrated into the larger dataset. STRAP provides a sortable tabular view for all terms, as well as graphical representations of GO-term association data in pie (biological process, cellular component and molecular function) and bar charts (cross comparison of sample sets) to aid in the interpretation of large datasets and differential analyses experiments. Furthermore, proteins of interest may be exported as a unique FASTA-formatted file to allow for customizable re-searching of mass spectrometry data, and gene names corresponding to the proteins in the lists may be encoded in the Gaggle microformat for further characterization, including pathway analysis. STRAP, a tutorial, and the C# source code are freely available from http://cpctools.sourceforge.net. PMID:19839595

Multisource geological data mining and its utilization of uranium resources exploration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jie-lin

2009-10-01

Nuclear energy as one of clear energy sources takes important role in economic development in CHINA, and according to the national long term development strategy, many more nuclear powers will be built in next few years, so it is a great challenge for uranium resources exploration. Research and practice on mineral exploration demonstrates that utilizing the modern Earth Observe System (EOS) technology and developing new multi-source geological data mining methods are effective approaches to uranium deposits prospecting. Based on data mining and knowledge discovery technology, this paper uses multi-source geological data to character electromagnetic spectral, geophysical and spatial information of uranium mineralization factors, and provides the technical support for uranium prospecting integrating with field remote sensing geological survey. Multi-source geological data used in this paper include satellite hyperspectral image (Hyperion), high spatial resolution remote sensing data, uranium geological information, airborne radiometric data, aeromagnetic and gravity data, and related data mining methods have been developed, such as data fusion of optical data and Radarsat image, information integration of remote sensing and geophysical data, and so on. Based on above approaches, the multi-geoscience information of uranium mineralization factors including complex polystage rock mass, mineralization controlling faults and hydrothermal alterations have been identified, the metallogenic potential of uranium has been evaluated, and some predicting areas have been located.

Sources of Information and Behavioral Patterns in Online Health Forums: Observational Study

PubMed Central

Friede, Tim; Grabowski, Jens; Koschack, Janka; Makedonski, Philip; Himmel, Wolfgang

2014-01-01

Background Increasing numbers of patients are raising their voice in online forums. This shift is welcome as an act of patient autonomy, reflected in the term “expert patient”. At the same time, there is considerable concern that patients can be easily misguided by pseudoscientific research and debate. Little is known about the sources of information used in health-related online forums, how users apply this information, and how they behave in such forums. Objective The intent of the study was to identify (1) the sources of information used in online health-related forums, and (2) the roles and behavior of active forum visitors in introducing and disseminating this information. Methods This observational study used the largest German multiple sclerosis (MS) online forum as a database, analyzing the user debate about the recently proposed and controversial Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI) hypothesis. After extracting all posts and then filtering relevant CCSVI posts between 01 January 2008 and 17 August 2012, we first identified hyperlinks to scientific publications and other information sources used or referenced in the posts. Employing k-means clustering, we then analyzed the users’ preference for sources of information and their general posting habits. Results Of 139,912 posts from 11,997 threads, 8628 posts discussed or at least mentioned CCSVI. We detected hyperlinks pointing to CCSVI-related scientific publications in 31 posts. In contrast, 2829 different URLs were posted to the forum, most frequently referring to social media, such as YouTube or Facebook. We identified a total of 6 different roles of hyperlink posters including Social Media Fans, Organization Followers, and Balanced Source Users. Apart from the large and nonspecific residual category of the “average user”, several specific behavior patterns were identified, such as the small but relevant groups of CCSVI-Focused Responders or CCSVI Activators. Conclusions The bulk of the observed contributions were not based on scientific results, but on various social media sources. These sources seem to contain mostly opinions and personal experience. A small group of people with distinct behavioral patterns played a core role in fuelling the discussion about CCSVI. PMID:24425598

A study of comprehension and use of weather information by various agricultural groups in Wisconsin

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Smith, J. L.

1972-01-01

An attempt was made to determine whether current techniques are adequate for communicating improved weather forecasts to users. Primary concern was for agricultural users. Efforts were made to learn the preferred source of weather forecasts and the frequency of use. Attempts were also made to measure knowledge of specific terms having to do with weather and comprehension of terms less often used but critical to varying intensities of weather.

What can the drivers' own description from combined sources provide in an analysis of driver distraction and low vigilance in accident situations?

PubMed

Tivesten, Emma; Wiberg, Henrik

2013-03-01

Accident data play an important role in vehicle safety development. Accident data sources are generally limited in terms of how much information is provided on driver states and behaviour prior to an accident. However, the precise limitations vary between databases, due to differences in analysis focus and data collection procedures between organisations. If information about a specific accident can be retrieved from more than one data source it should be possible to combine the available information sets to facilitate data from one source to compensate for limitations in the other(s). To investigate the viability of such compensation, this study identified a set of accidents recorded in two different data sources. The first data source investigated was an accident mail survey and the second data source insurance claims documents consisting predominantly of insurance claims completed by the involved road users. An analysis of survey variables was compared to a case analysis including word data derived from the same survey and filed insurance claims documents. For each accident, the added value of having access to more than one source of information was assessed. To limit the scope of this study, three particular topics were investigated: available information on low vigilance (e.g., being drowsy, ill); secondary task distraction (e.g., talking with passengers, mobile phone use); and distraction related to the driving task (e.g., looking for approaching vehicles). Results suggest that for low vigilance and secondary task distraction, a combination of the mail survey and insurance claims documents provide more reliable and detailed pre-crash information than survey variables alone. However, driving related distraction appears to be more difficult to capture. In order to gain a better understanding of the above issues and how frequently they occur in accidents, the data sources and analysis methods suggested here may be combined with other investigation methods such as in-depth accident investigations and pre-crash data recordings. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Cockpit display of hazardous weather information

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hansman, R. John, Jr.; Wanke, Craig

1991-01-01

Information transfer and display issues associated with the dissemination of hazardous weather warnings are studied in the context of wind shear alerts. Operational and developmental wind shear detection systems are briefly reviewed. The July 11, 1988 microburst events observed as part of the Denver Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) operational evaluation are analyzed in terms of information transfer and the effectiveness of the microburst alerts. Information transfer, message content and display issues associated with microburst alerts generated from ground based sources (Doppler Radar, Low Level Wind Shear Alert System, and Pilot Reports) are evaluated by means fo pilot opinion surveys and part task simulator studies.

Maximizing the spatial representativeness of NO2 monitoring data using a combination of local wind-based sectoral division and seasonal and diurnal correction factors.

PubMed

Donnelly, Aoife; Naughton, Owen; Misstear, Bruce; Broderick, Brian

2016-10-14

This article describes a new methodology for increasing the spatial representativeness of individual monitoring sites. Air pollution levels at a given point are influenced by emission sources in the immediate vicinity. Since emission sources are rarely uniformly distributed around a site, concentration levels will inevitably be most affected by the sources in the prevailing upwind direction. The methodology provides a means of capturing this effect and providing additional information regarding source/pollution relationships. The methodology allows for the division of the air quality data from a given monitoring site into a number of sectors or wedges based on wind direction and estimation of annual mean values for each sector, thus optimising the information that can be obtained from a single monitoring station. The method corrects for short-term data, diurnal and seasonal variations in concentrations (which can produce uneven weighting of data within each sector) and uneven frequency of wind directions. Significant improvements in correlations between the air quality data and the spatial air quality indicators were obtained after application of the correction factors. This suggests the application of these techniques would be of significant benefit in land-use regression modelling studies. Furthermore, the method was found to be very useful for estimating long-term mean values and wind direction sector values using only short-term monitoring data. The methods presented in this article can result in cost savings through minimising the number of monitoring sites required for air quality studies while also capturing a greater degree of variability in spatial characteristics. In this way, more reliable, but also more expensive monitoring techniques can be used in preference to a higher number of low-cost but less reliable techniques. The methods described in this article have applications in local air quality management, source receptor analysis, land-use regression mapping and modelling and population exposure studies.

A Standard-Driven Data Dictionary for Data Harmonization of Heterogeneous Datasets in Urban Geological Information Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, G.; Wu, C.; Li, X.; Song, P.

2013-12-01

The 3D urban geological information system has been a major part of the national urban geological survey project of China Geological Survey in recent years. Large amount of multi-source and multi-subject data are to be stored in the urban geological databases. There are various models and vocabularies drafted and applied by industrial companies in urban geological data. The issues such as duplicate and ambiguous definition of terms and different coding structure increase the difficulty of information sharing and data integration. To solve this problem, we proposed a national standard-driven information classification and coding method to effectively store and integrate urban geological data, and we applied the data dictionary technology to achieve structural and standard data storage. The overall purpose of this work is to set up a common data platform to provide information sharing service. Research progresses are as follows: (1) A unified classification and coding method for multi-source data based on national standards. Underlying national standards include GB 9649-88 for geology and GB/T 13923-2006 for geography. Current industrial models are compared with national standards to build a mapping table. The attributes of various urban geological data entity models are reduced to several categories according to their application phases and domains. Then a logical data model is set up as a standard format to design data file structures for a relational database. (2) A multi-level data dictionary for data standardization constraint. Three levels of data dictionary are designed: model data dictionary is used to manage system database files and enhance maintenance of the whole database system; attribute dictionary organizes fields used in database tables; term and code dictionary is applied to provide a standard for urban information system by adopting appropriate classification and coding methods; comprehensive data dictionary manages system operation and security. (3) An extension to system data management function based on data dictionary. Data item constraint input function is making use of the standard term and code dictionary to get standard input result. Attribute dictionary organizes all the fields of an urban geological information database to ensure the consistency of term use for fields. Model dictionary is used to generate a database operation interface automatically with standard semantic content via term and code dictionary. The above method and technology have been applied to the construction of Fuzhou Urban Geological Information System, South-East China with satisfactory results.

Estimating air emissions from ships: Meta-analysis of modelling approaches and available data sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miola, Apollonia; Ciuffo, Biagio

2011-04-01

Maritime transport plays a central role in the transport sector's sustainability debate. Its contribution to air pollution and greenhouse gases is significant. An effective policy strategy to regulate air emissions requires their robust estimation in terms of quantification and location. This paper provides a critical analysis of the ship emission modelling approaches and data sources available, identifying their limits and constraints. It classifies the main methodologies on the basis of the approach followed (bottom-up or top-down) for the evaluation and geographic characterisation of emissions. The analysis highlights the uncertainty of results from the different methods. This is mainly due to the level of uncertainty connected with the sources of information that are used as inputs to the different studies. This paper describes the sources of the information required for these analyses, paying particular attention to AIS data and to the possible problems associated with their use. One way of reducing the overall uncertainty in the results could be the simultaneous use of different sources of information. This paper presents an alternative methodology based on this approach. As a final remark, it can be expected that new approaches to the problem together with more reliable data sources over the coming years could give more impetus to the debate on the global impact of maritime traffic on the environment that, currently, has only reached agreement via the "consensus" estimates provided by IMO (2009).

Introduction to Agricultural Marketing.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Futrell, Gene; And Others

This marketing unit focuses on the importance of forecasting in order for a farm family to develop marketing plans. It describes sources of information and includes a glossary of marketing terms and exercises using both fundamental and technical methods to predict prices in order to improve forecasting ability. The unit is organized in the…

Additional Evidence for the Accuracy of Biographical Data: Long-Term Retest and Observer Ratings.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Shaffer, Garnett Stokes; And Others

1986-01-01

Investigated accuracy of responses to biodata questionnaire using a test-retest design and informed external observers for verification. Responses from 237 subjects and 200 observers provided evidence that many responses to biodata questionnaire were accurate. Assessed sources of inaccuracy, including social desirability effects, and noted…

Characteristics of Resources Represented in the OCLC CORC Database.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Connell, Tschera Harkness; Prabha, Chandra

2002-01-01

Examines the characteristics of Web resources in Online Computer Library Center's (OCLC) Cooperative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) in terms of subject matter, source of content, publication patterns, and units of information chosen for representation in the database. Suggests that the ability to successfully use a database depends on…

Medications Used in the Treatment of Ischemic Heart Disease.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Plummer, Nancy; Michael, Nancy, Ed.

This module on medications used in the treatment of ischemic heart disease is intended for use in inservice or continuing education programs for persons who administer medications in long-term care facilities. Instructor information, including teaching suggestions, and a listing of recommended audiovisual materials and their sources appear first.…

Section summary: Remote sensing

Treesearch

Belinda Arunarwati Margono

2013-01-01

Remote sensing is an important data source for monitoring the change of forest cover, in terms of both total removal of forest cover (deforestation), and change of canopy cover, structure and forest ecosystem services that result in forest degradation. In the context of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), forest degradation monitoring requires information...

Bayesian source term estimation of atmospheric releases in urban areas using LES approach.

PubMed

Xue, Fei; Kikumoto, Hideki; Li, Xiaofeng; Ooka, Ryozo

2018-05-05

The estimation of source information from limited measurements of a sensor network is a challenging inverse problem, which can be viewed as an assimilation process of the observed concentration data and the predicted concentration data. When dealing with releases in built-up areas, the predicted data are generally obtained by the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, which yields building-resolving results; however, RANS-based models are outperformed by large-eddy simulation (LES) in the predictions of both airflow and dispersion. Therefore, it is important to explore the possibility of improving the estimation of the source parameters by using the LES approach. In this paper, a novel source term estimation method is proposed based on LES approach using Bayesian inference. The source-receptor relationship is obtained by solving the adjoint equations constructed using the time-averaged flow field simulated by the LES approach based on the gradient diffusion hypothesis. A wind tunnel experiment with a constant point source downwind of a single building model is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, which is compared with that of the existing method using a RANS model. The results show that the proposed method reduces the errors of source location and releasing strength by 77% and 28%, respectively. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Towards democracy in spatial planning through spatial information built by communities: The investigation of spatial information built by citizens from participatory mapping to volunteered geographic information in Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yudono, Adipandang

2017-06-01

Recently, crowd-sourced information is used to produce and improve collective knowledge and community capacity building. Triggered by broadening and expanding access to the Internet and cellular telephones, the utilisation of crowd-sourcing for policy advocacy, e-government and e-participation has increased globally [1]. Crowd-sourced information can conceivably support government’s or general social initiatives to inform, counsel, and cooperate, by engaging subjects and empowering decentralisation and democratization [2]. Crowd-sourcing has turned into a major technique for interactive mapping initiatives by urban or rural community because of its capability to incorporate a wide range of data. Continuously accumulated spatial data can be sorted, layered, and envisioned in ways that even beginners can comprehend with ease. Interactive spatial visualization has the possibility to be a useful democratic planning tool to empower citizens participating in spatial data provision and sharing in government programmes. Since the global emergence of World Wide Web (WWW) technology, the interaction between information providers and users has increased. Local communities are able to produce and share spatial data to produce web interfaces with territorial information in mapping application programming interfaces (APIs) public, such as Google maps, OSM and Wikimapia [3][4][5]. In terms of the democratic spatial planning action, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is considered an effective voluntary method of helping people feel comfortable with the technology and other co-participants in order to shape coalitions of local knowledge. This paper has aim to investigate ‘How is spatial data created by citizens used in Indonesia?’ by discussing the characteristics of spatial data usage by citizens to support spatial policy formulation, starting with the history of participatory mapping to current VGI development in Indonesia.

Online Health Information Regarding Male Infertility: An Evaluation of Readability, Suitability, and Quality.

PubMed

Robins, Stephanie; Barr, Helena J; Idelson, Rachel; Lambert, Sylvie; Zelkowitz, Phyllis

2016-10-21

Many men lack knowledge about male infertility, and this may have consequences for their reproductive and general health. Men may prefer to seek health information online, but these sources of information vary in quality. The objective of this study is to determine if online sources of information regarding male infertility are readable, suitable, and of appropriate quality for Internet users in the general population. This study used a cross-sectional design to evaluate online sources resulting from search engine queries. The following categories of websites were considered: (1) Canadian fertility clinics, (2) North American organizations related to fertility, and (3) the first 20 results of Google searches using the terms "male infertility" and "male fertility preservation" set to the search locations worldwide, English Canada, and French Canada. Websites that met inclusion criteria (N=85) were assessed using readability indices, the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM), and the DISCERN tool. The associations between website affiliation (government, university/medical, non-profit organization, commercial/corporate, private practice) and Google placement to readability, suitability, and quality were also examined. None of the sampled websites met recommended levels of readability. Across all websites, the mean SAM score for suitability was 45.37% (SD 11.21), or "adequate", while the DISCERN mean score for quality was 43.19 (SD 10.46) or "fair". Websites that placed higher in Google obtained a higher overall score for quality with an r (58) value of -.328 and a P value of .012, but this position was not related to readability or suitability. In addition, 20% of fertility clinic websites did not include fertility information for men. There is a lack of high quality online sources of information on male fertility. Many websites target their information to women, or fail to meet established readability criteria for the general population. Since men may prefer to seek health information online, it is important that health care professionals develop high quality sources of information on male fertility for the general population.

Predicting Near-Term Water Quality from Satellite Observations of Watershed Conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Weiss, W. J.; Wang, L.; Hoffman, K.; West, D.; Mehta, A. V.; Lee, C.

2017-12-01

Despite the strong influence of watershed conditions on source water quality, most water utilities and water resource agencies do not currently have the capability to monitor watershed sources of contamination with great temporal or spatial detail. Typically, knowledge of source water quality is limited to periodic grab sampling; automated monitoring of a limited number of parameters at a few select locations; and/or monitoring relevant constituents at a treatment plant intake. While important, such observations are not sufficient to inform proactive watershed or source water management at a monthly or seasonal scale. Satellite remote sensing data on the other hand can provide a snapshot of an entire watershed at regular, sub-monthly intervals, helping analysts characterize watershed conditions and identify trends that could signal changes in source water quality. Accordingly, the authors are investigating correlations between satellite remote sensing observations of watersheds and source water quality, at a variety of spatial and temporal scales and lags. While correlations between remote sensing observations and direct in situ measurements of water quality have been well described in the literature, there are few studies that link remote sensing observations across a watershed with near-term predictions of water quality. In this presentation, the authors will describe results of statistical analyses and discuss how these results are being used to inform development of a desktop decision support tool to support predictive application of remote sensing data. Predictor variables under evaluation include parameters that describe vegetative conditions; parameters that describe climate/weather conditions; and non-remote sensing, in situ measurements. Water quality parameters under investigation include nitrogen, phosphorus, organic carbon, chlorophyll-a, and turbidity.

Investigation of Magnetotelluric Source Effect Based on Twenty Years of Telluric and Geomagnetic Observation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kis, A.; Lemperger, I.; Wesztergom, V.; Menvielle, M.; Szalai, S.; Novák, A.; Hada, T.; Matsukiyo, S.; Lethy, A. M.

2016-12-01

Magnetotelluric method is widely applied for investigation of subsurface structures by imaging the spatial distribution of electric conductivity. The method is based on the experimental determination of surface electromagnetic impedance tensor (Z) by surface geomagnetic and telluric registrations in two perpendicular orientation. In practical explorations the accurate estimation of Z necessitates the application of robust statistical methods for two reasons:1) the geomagnetic and telluric time series' are contaminated by man-made noise components and2) the non-homogeneous behavior of ionospheric current systems in the period range of interest (ELF-ULF and longer periods) results in systematic deviation of the impedance of individual time windows.Robust statistics manage both load of Z for the purpose of subsurface investigations. However, accurate analysis of the long term temporal variation of the first and second statistical moments of Z may provide valuable information about the characteristics of the ionospheric source current systems. Temporal variation of extent, spatial variability and orientation of the ionospheric source currents has specific effects on the surface impedance tensor. Twenty year long geomagnetic and telluric recordings of the Nagycenk Geophysical Observatory provides unique opportunity to reconstruct the so called magnetotelluric source effect and obtain information about the spatial and temporal behavior of ionospheric source currents at mid-latitudes. Detailed investigation of time series of surface electromagnetic impedance tensor has been carried out in different frequency classes of the ULF range. The presentation aims to provide a brief review of our results related to long term periodic modulations, up to solar cycle scale and about eventual deviations of the electromagnetic impedance and so the reconstructed equivalent ionospheric source effects.

The Scaling of Broadband Shock-Associated Noise with Increasing Temperature

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Miller, Steven A.

2012-01-01

A physical explanation for the saturation of broadband shock-associated noise (BBSAN) intensity with increasing jet stagnation temperature has eluded investigators. An explanation is proposed for this phenomenon with the use of an acoustic analogy. For this purpose the acoustic analogy of Morris and Miller is examined. To isolate the relevant physics, the scaling of BBSAN at the peak intensity level at the sideline ( = 90 degrees) observer location is examined. Scaling terms are isolated from the acoustic analogy and the result is compared using a convergent nozzle with the experiments of Bridges and Brown and using a convergent-divergent nozzle with the experiments of Kuo, McLaughlin, and Morris at four nozzle pressure ratios in increments of total temperature ratios from one to four. The equivalent source within the framework of the acoustic analogy for BBSAN is based on local field quantities at shock wave shear layer interactions. The equivalent source combined with accurate calculations of the propagation of sound through the jet shear layer, using an adjoint vector Green s function solver of the linearized Euler equations, allows for predictions that retain the scaling with respect to stagnation pressure and allows for the accurate saturation of BBSAN with increasing stagnation temperature. This is a minor change to the source model relative to the previously developed models. The full development of the scaling term is shown. The sources and vector Green s function solver are informed by steady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes solutions. These solutions are examined as a function of stagnation temperature at the first shock wave shear layer interaction. It is discovered that saturation of BBSAN with increasing jet stagnation temperature occurs due to a balance between the amplification of the sound propagation through the shear layer and the source term scaling.A physical explanation for the saturation of broadband shock-associated noise (BBSAN) intensity with increasing jet stagnation temperature has eluded investigators. An explanation is proposed for this phenomenon with the use of an acoustic analogy. For this purpose the acoustic analogy of Morris and Miller is examined. To isolate the relevant physics, the scaling of BBSAN at the peak intensity level at the sideline psi = 90 degrees) observer location is examined. Scaling terms are isolated from the acoustic analogy and the result is compared using a convergent nozzle with the experiments of Bridges and Brown and using a convergent-divergent nozzle with the experiments of Kuo, McLaughlin, and Morris at four nozzle pressure ratios in increments of total temperature ratios from one to four. The equivalent source within the framework of the acoustic analogy for BBSAN is based on local field quantities at shock wave shear layer interactions. The equivalent source combined with accurate calculations of the propagation of sound through the jet shear layer, using an adjoint vector Green s function solver of the linearized Euler equations, allows for predictions that retain the scaling with respect to stagnation pressure and allows for the accurate saturation of BBSAN with increasing stagnation temperature. This is a minor change to the source model relative to the previously developed models. The full development of the scaling term is shown. The sources and vector Green s function solver are informed by steady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes solutions. These solutions are examined as a function of stagnation temperature at the first shock wave shear layer interaction. It is discovered that saturation of BBSAN with increasing jet stagnation temperature occurs due to a balance between the amplification of the sound propagation through the shear layer and the source term scaling.

Photovoltaic highway applications: Assessment of the near-term market

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rosenblum, L.; Scudder, L. R.; Bifano, W. J.; Poley, W. A.

1977-01-01

A preliminary assessment of the near-term market for photovoltaic highway applications is presented. Among the potential users, two market sectors are considered: government and commercial. Within these sectors, two possible application areas, signs and motorist aids, are discussed. Based on judgemental information, obtained by a brief survey of representatives of the two user sectors, the government sector appears more amenable to the introduction of photovoltaic power sources for highway applications in the near-term. However, considerable interest and potential opportunities were also found to exist in the commercial sector. Further studies to quantify the market for highway applications appear warranted.

Documentation of volume 3 of the 1978 Energy Information Administration annual report to congress

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1980-02-01

In a preliminary overview of the projection process, the relationship between energy prices, supply, and demand is addressed. Topics treated in detail include a description of energy economic interactions, assumptions regarding world oil prices, and energy modeling in the long term beyond 1995. Subsequent sections present the general approach and methodology underlying the forecasts, and define and describe the alternative projection series and their associated assumptions. Short term forecasting, midterm forecasting, long term forecasting of petroleum, coal, and gas supplies are included. The role of nuclear power as an energy source is also discussed.

Much ado about flu: A mixed methods study of parental perceptions, trust and information seeking in a pandemic.

PubMed

King, Catherine L; Chow, Maria Y K; Wiley, Kerrie E; Leask, Julie

2018-07-01

Effective public health messaging is essential in both the planning phase and duration of a pandemic. This study aimed to gain an understanding of parental information seeking, trusted sources and needs in relation to pandemic influenza A 2009 (pH1N1) to inform future policy planning and resource development. We conducted a mixed methods study; parents from 16 childcare centres in Sydney, Australia, were surveyed between 16 November and 9 December 2009, and interviews were conducted with participants from six childcare centres between June 2009 and May 2011. From 972 surveys distributed, 431 were completed; a response rate of 44%. Most parents (90%) reported that doctors were "trusted a lot" as a source of influenza information, followed by nurses (59%), government (56%) and childcare centres (52%). Less trusted sources included media (7% selected "trusted a lot"), antivaccination groups (6%) and celebrities (1%). Parents identified a range of key search terms for influenza infection and vaccine. From 42 in-depth interviews, key themes were as follows: "Action trigger," "In an emergency, think Emergency," "Fright to hype" and "Dr Google and beyond." Parents relied heavily on media messages, but cynicism emerged when the pandemic was milder than expected. Parents viewed a range of information sources as trustworthy, including doctors, authoritative hospital or government websites, and childcare centres and schools. A user-centred orientation is vital for pandemic communications including tailored information provision, via trusted sources based on what parents want to know and how they can find it. © 2018 The Authors. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Habitat-Lite: A GSC case study based on free text terms for environmental metadata

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kyrpides, Nikos; Hirschman, Lynette; Clark, Cheryl

2008-04-01

There is an urgent need to capture metadata on the rapidly growing number of genomic, metagenomic and related sequences, such as 16S ribosomal genes. This need is a major focus within the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC), and Habitat is a key metadata descriptor in the proposed 'Minimum Information about a Genome Sequence' (MIGS) specification. The goal of the work described here is to provide a light-weight, easy-to-use (small) set of terms ('Habitat-Lite') that captures high-level information about habitat while preserving a mapping to the recently launched Environment Ontology (EnvO). Our motivation for building Habitat-Lite is to meet the needs ofmore » multiple users, such as annotators curating these data, database providers hosting the data, and biologists and bioinformaticians alike who need to search and employ such data in comparative analyses. Here, we report a case study based on semi-automated identification of terms from GenBank and GOLD. We estimate that the terms in the initial version of Habitat-Lite would provide useful labels for over 60% of the kinds of information found in the GenBank isolation-source field, and around 85% of the terms in the GOLD habitat field. We present a revised version of Habitat-Lite and invite the community's feedback on its further development in order to provide a minimum list of terms to capture high-level habitat information and to provide classification bins needed for future studies.« less

NEON: Contributing continental-scale long-term environmental data for the benefit of society

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wee, B.; Aulenbach, S.

2011-12-01

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a NSF funded national investment in physical and information infrastructure. Large-scale environmental changes pose challenges that straddle environmental, economic, and social boundaries. As we develop climate adaptation strategies at the Federal, state, local, and tribal levels, accessible and usable data are essential for implementing actions that are informed by the best available information. NEON's goal is to enable understanding and forecasting of the impacts of climate change, land use change and invasive species on continental-scale ecology by providing physical and information infrastructure. The NEON framework will take standardized, long-term, coordinated measurements of related environmental variables at each of its 62 sites across the nation. These observations, collected by automated instruments, field crews, and airborne instruments, will be processed into more than 700 data products that are provided freely over the web to support research, education, and environmental management. NEON is envisioned to be an integral component of an interoperable ecosystem of credible data and information sources. Other members of this information ecosystem include Federal, commercial, and non-profit entities. NEON is actively involved with the interoperability community via forums like the Foundation for Earth Science Information Partners and the USGS Community for Data Integration in a collective effort to identify the technical standards, best practices, and organizational principles that enable the emergence of such an information ecosystem. These forums have proven to be effective innovation engines for the experimentation of new techniques that evolve into emergent standards. These standards are, for the most part, discipline agnostic. It is becoming increasingly evident that we need to include socio-economic and public health data sources in interoperability initiatives, because the dynamics of coupled natural-human systems cannot be understood in the absence of data about the human dimension. Another essential element is the community of tool and platform developers who create the infrastructure for scientists, educators, resource managers, and policy analysts to discover, analyze, and collaborate on problems using the diverse data that are required to address emerging large-scale environmental challenges. These challenges are very unlikely to be problems confined to this generation: they are urgent, compelling, and long-term problems that require a sustained effort to generate and curate data and information from observations, models, and experiments. NEON's long-term national physical and information infrastructure for environmental observation is one of the cornerstones of a framework that transforms science and information for the benefit of society.

A modification of the Regional Nutrient Management model (ReNuMa) to identify long-term changes in riverine nitrogen sources

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Minpeng; Liu, Yanmei; Wang, Jiahui; Dahlgren, Randy A.; Chen, Dingjiang

2018-06-01

Source apportionment is critical for guiding development of efficient watershed nitrogen (N) pollution control measures. The ReNuMa (Regional Nutrient Management) model, a semi-empirical, semi-process-oriented model with modest data requirements, has been widely used for riverine N source apportionment. However, the ReNuMa model contains limitations for addressing long-term N dynamics by ignoring temporal changes in atmospheric N deposition rates and N-leaching lag effects. This work modified the ReNuMa model by revising the source code to allow yearly changes in atmospheric N deposition and incorporation of N-leaching lag effects into N transport processes. The appropriate N-leaching lag time was determined from cross-correlation analysis between annual watershed individual N source inputs and riverine N export. Accuracy of the modified ReNuMa model was demonstrated through analysis of a 31-year water quality record (1980-2010) from the Yongan watershed in eastern China. The revisions considerably improved the accuracy (Nash-Sutcliff coefficient increased by ∼0.2) of the modified ReNuMa model for predicting riverine N loads. The modified model explicitly identified annual and seasonal changes in contributions of various N sources (i.e., point vs. nonpoint source, surface runoff vs. groundwater) to riverine N loads as well as the fate of watershed anthropogenic N inputs. Model results were consistent with previously modeled or observed lag time length as well as changes in riverine chloride and nitrate concentrations during the low-flow regime and available N levels in agricultural soils of this watershed. The modified ReNuMa model is applicable for addressing long-term changes in riverine N sources, providing decision-makers with critical information for guiding watershed N pollution control strategies.

[To educate and to inform the population about population].

PubMed

Levy, M L

1993-03-01

Each society has multiple institutions that inform members about themselves and their world. The quality of the information received depends on the balance between the political, religious, intellectual, educational, and media institutions that supply information. Population questions are almost always absent from public education programs, because they deal with themes traditionally reserved for family and religious education. But the contemporary world has changed so much that families and the clerical world are no longer necessarily the best sources of instruction. The ignorance and passivity of many families leave a void that is difficult to fill. The difficulty arises because the need is to assist families in filling their role, and not to substitute for them. Educators, development technicians, psychologists, physicians, and sociologists should not be allowed to monopolize the task of educating children in areas related to population, and morality any more than priests should. The central discipline for questions of population is demography. The use of figures and quantitative categories such as age cohorts gives a "scientific" air to demographic discourse which masks the arbitrariness of many terms. At what age, for example, does one became single, or when does one cease to be an orphan? Explaining the European term "household" to Africans, or the African term "concession" to Europeans, illustrates the semantic problems impeding, understanding and communication. The diffusion of demographic information, like that of all numeric information, assumes that the complexity of data gathering and the conventions of calculation are understood. The risk of error and misunderstanding is greater in population than, for example, for the economy, because of the simple and universal nature of demographic subjects: birth, death, illness. Good understanding of demographic information should lead to a deeper understanding of apparently evident notions such as age, duration of life, households, couples and parenthood. Demography is the statistical study of intimate life. Demography should play the same role in relation to social information that national accounts play in relation to economic information, that of a model requiring careful collection of statistics and mathematical rigor, without discouraging evaluation of sources and questioning of theories by the statistical administrators, the press, or the educational institutions.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder on YouTube: Framing, Anchoring, and Objectification in Social Media.

PubMed

Kang, Seok; Ha, Jae-Sik; Velasco, Teresa

2017-05-01

This study investigated videos about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) on YouTube in terms of issues, sources, and episodic-thematic aspects. A total of 685 videos uploaded onto YouTube between 2006 and 2014 were content analyzed. Results demonstrated that the top three key issues about ADHD were symptom, child, and treatment. Doctor, patient, and supporter were the three most interviewed sources. Videos from the public sector including the government, company representative, and public organizations were relatively rare compared to other sources suggesting the potential for a greater role for the government and public sector contributions to YouTube to provide credible information relevant to public awareness, campaigns, and policy announcements. Meanwhile, many personal videos in the episodic frame advocated social solutions. This result implies that YouTube videos about health information from the private sectors have the potential to affect change at the social level.

Long-term monitoring on environmental disasters using multi-source remote sensing technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuo, Y. C.; Chen, C. F.

2017-12-01

Environmental disasters are extreme events within the earth's system that cause deaths and injuries to humans, as well as causing damages and losses of valuable assets, such as buildings, communication systems, farmlands, forest and etc. In disaster management, a large amount of multi-temporal spatial data is required. Multi-source remote sensing data with different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions is widely applied on environmental disaster monitoring. With multi-source and multi-temporal high resolution images, we conduct rapid, systematic and seriate observations regarding to economic damages and environmental disasters on earth. It is based on three monitoring platforms: remote sensing, UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) and ground investigation. The advantages of using UAS technology include great mobility and availability in real-time rapid and more flexible weather conditions. The system can produce long-term spatial distribution information from environmental disasters, obtaining high-resolution remote sensing data and field verification data in key monitoring areas. It also supports the prevention and control on ocean pollutions, illegally disposed wastes and pine pests in different scales. Meanwhile, digital photogrammetry can be applied on the camera inside and outside the position parameters to produce Digital Surface Model (DSM) data. The latest terrain environment information is simulated by using DSM data, and can be used as references in disaster recovery in the future.

Source terms, shielding calculations and soil activation for a medical cyclotron.

PubMed

Konheiser, J; Naumann, B; Ferrari, A; Brachem, C; Müller, S E

2016-12-01

Calculations of the shielding and estimates of soil activation for a medical cyclotron are presented in this work. Based on the neutron source term from the 18 O(p,n) 18 F reaction produced by a 28 MeV proton beam, neutron and gamma dose rates outside the building were estimated with the Monte Carlo code MCNP6 (Goorley et al 2012 Nucl. Technol. 180 298-315). The neutron source term was calculated with the MCNP6 code and FLUKA (Ferrari et al 2005 INFN/TC_05/11, SLAC-R-773) code as well as with supplied data by the manufacturer. MCNP and FLUKA calculations yielded comparable results, while the neutron yield obtained using the manufacturer-supplied information is about a factor of 5 smaller. The difference is attributed to the missing channels in the manufacturer-supplied neutron source terms which considers only the 18 O(p,n) 18 F reaction, whereas the MCNP and FLUKA calculations include additional neutron reaction channels. Soil activation was performed using the FLUKA code. The estimated dose rate based on MCNP6 calculations in the public area is about 0.035 µSv h -1 and thus significantly below the reference value of 0.5 µSv h -1 (2011 Strahlenschutzverordnung, 9 Auflage vom 01.11.2011, Bundesanzeiger Verlag). After 5 years of continuous beam operation and a subsequent decay time of 30 d, the activity concentration of the soil is about 0.34 Bq g -1 .

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

J.C. Ryman

This calculation is a revision of a previous calculation (Ref. 7.5) that bears the same title and has the document identifier BBAC00000-01717-0210-00006 REV 01. The purpose of this revision is to remove TBV (to-be-verified) -41 10 associated with the output files of the previous version (Ref. 7.30). The purpose of this and the previous calculation is to generate source terms for a representative boiling water reactor (BWR) spent nuclear fuel (SNF) assembly for the first one million years after the SNF is discharged from the reactors. This calculation includes an examination of several ways to represent BWR assemblies and operatingmore » conditions in SAS2H in order to quantify the effects these representations may have on source terms. These source terms provide information characterizing the neutron and gamma spectra in particles per second, the decay heat in watts, and radionuclide inventories in curies. Source terms are generated for a range of burnups and enrichments (see Table 2) that are representative of the waste stream and stainless steel (SS) clad assemblies. During this revision, it was determined that the burnups used for the computer runs of the previous revision were actually about 1.7% less than the stated, or nominal, burnups. See Section 6.6 for a discussion of how to account for this effect before using any source terms from this calculation. The source term due to the activation of corrosion products deposited on the surfaces of the assembly from the coolant is also calculated. The results of this calculation support many areas of the Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR), which include thermal evaluation, radiation dose determination, radiological safety analyses, surface and subsurface facility designs, and total system performance assessment. This includes MGR items classified as Quality Level 1, for example, the Uncanistered Spent Nuclear Fuel Disposal Container (Ref. 7.27, page 7). Therefore, this calculation is subject to the requirements of the Quality Assurance Requirements and Description (Ref. 7.28). The performance of the calculation and development of this document are carried out in accordance with AP-3.124, ''Design Calculation and Analyses'' (Ref. 7.29).« less

[French general practitioners and electromagnetic fields].

PubMed

Lambrozo, Jacques; Souques, Martine; Bourg, Fabrice; Guillaume, Xavier; Perrin, Anne

2013-05-01

To assess the perception of risk of general practitioners (GPs) about electromagnetic fields (EMF), their sources of information, as well as their patients' level of concern. Six hundred French GPs were selected according to the quotas method. They were asked to answer 24 items via an electronic questionnaire using the Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) method. The GPs know the main EMF sources: cell phone towers, cell phones, power-lines, microwave ovens and WiFi networks. Patients mostly complain or worry about the first three sources and ask their GP for information about these. GPs themselves search for information in the mainstream media rather than in the usual scientific and medical press. As a consequence, their knowledge about potential risks of EMF is deemed rather crude. The GPs are sensitive to environmental concerns, particularly regarding EMF exposure. However, according to the results analysis, they do not have the same approach because of an obvious lack of mastery in a complex and poorly informed situation. A serious educational effort is essential and would be welcomed by practitioners, who are aware of their responsibilities in terms of counseling, diagnosis and care. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Towards a semantic lexicon for biological language processing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Verspoor, K.

It is well understood that natural language processing (NLP) applications require sophisticated lexical resources to support their processing goals. In the biomedical domain, we are privileged to have access to extensive terminological resources in the form of controlled vocabularies and ontologies, which have been integrated into the framework of the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System's (UMLS) Metathesaurus. However, the existence of such terminological resources does not guarantee their utility for NLP. In particular, we have two core requirements for lexical resources for NLP in addition to the basic enumeration of important domain terms: representation of morphosyntactic informationmore » about those terms, specifically part of speech information and inflectional patterns to support parsing and lemma assignment, and representation of semantic information indicating general categorical information about terms, and significant relations between terms to support text understanding and inference (Hahn et at, 1999). Biomedical vocabularies by and large commonly leave out morphosyntactic information, and where they address semantic considerations, they often do so in an unprincipled manner, for instance by indicating a relation between two concepts without indicating the type of that relation. But all is not lost. The UMLS knowledge sources include two additional resources which are relevant - the SPECIALIST lexicon, a lexicon addressing our morphosyntactic requirements, and the Semantic Network, a representation of core conceptual categories in the biomedical domain. The coverage of these two knowledge sources with respect to the full coverage of the Metathesaurus is, however, not entirely clear. Furthermore, when our goals are specifically to process biological text - and often more specifically, text in the molecular biology domain - it is difficult to say whether the coverage of these resources is meaningful. The utility of the UMLS knowledge sources for medical language processing (MLP) has been explored (Johnson, 1999; Friedman et al 2001); the time has now come to repeat these experiments with respect to biological language processing (BLP). To that end, this paper presents an analysis of ihe UMLS resources, specifically with an eye towards constructing lexical resources suitable for BLP. We follow the paradigm presented in Johnson (1999) for medical language, exploring overlap between the UMLS Metathesaurus and SPECIALIST lexicon to construct a morphosyntactic and semantically-specified lexicon, and then further explore the overlap with a relevant domain corpus for molecular biology.« less

Production and use of estimates for monitoring progress in the health sector: the case of Bangladesh

PubMed Central

Ahsan, Karar Zunaid; Tahsina, Tazeen; Iqbal, Afrin; Ali, Nazia Binte; Chowdhury, Suman Kanti; Huda, Tanvir M.; Arifeen, Shams El

2017-01-01

ABSTRACT Background: In order to support the progress towards the post-2015 development agenda for the health sector, the importance of high-quality and timely estimates has become evident both globally and at the country level. Objective and Methods: Based on desk review, key informant interviews and expert panel discussions, the paper critically reviews health estimates from both the local (i.e. nationally generated information by the government and other agencies) and the global sources (which are mostly modeled or interpolated estimates developed by international organizations based on different sources of information), and assesses the country capacity and monitoring strategies to meet the increasing data demand in the coming years. Primarily, this paper provides a situation analysis of Bangladesh in terms of production and use of health estimates for monitoring progress towards the post-2015 development goals for the health sector. Results: The analysis reveals that Bangladesh is data rich, particularly from household surveys and health facility assessments. Practices of data utilization also exist, with wide acceptability of survey results for informing policy, programme review and course corrections. Despite high data availability from multiple sources, the country capacity for providing regular updates of major global health estimates/indicators remains low. Major challenges also include limited human resources, capacity to generate quality data and multiplicity of data sources, where discrepancy and lack of linkages among different data sources (local sources and between local and global estimates) present emerging challenges for interpretation of the resulting estimates. Conclusion: To fulfill the increased data requirement for the post-2015 era, Bangladesh needs to invest more in electronic data capture and routine health information systems. Streamlining of data sources, integration of parallel information systems into a common platform, and capacity building for data generation and analysis are recommended as priority actions for Bangladesh in the coming years. In addition to automation of routine health information systems, establishing an Indicator Reference Group for Bangladesh to analyze data; building country capacity in data quality assessment and triangulation; and feeding into global, inter-agency estimates for better reporting would address a number of mentioned challenges in the short- and long-run. PMID:28532305

Access to Safe Water in Rural Artibonite, Haiti 16 Months after the Onset of the Cholera Epidemic

PubMed Central

Patrick, Molly; Berendes, David; Murphy, Jennifer; Bertrand, Fabienne; Husain, Farah; Handzel, Thomas

2013-01-01

Haiti has the lowest improved water and sanitation coverage in the Western Hemisphere and is suffering from the largest cholera epidemic on record. In May of 2012, an assessment was conducted in rural areas of the Artibonite Department to describe the type and quality of water sources and determine knowledge, access, and use of household water treatment products to inform future programs. It was conducted after emergency response was scaled back but before longer-term water, sanitation, and hygiene activities were initiated. The household survey and source water quality analysis documented low access to safe water, with only 42.3% of households using an improved drinking water source. One-half (50.9%) of the improved water sources tested positive for Escherichia coli. Of households with water to test, 12.7% had positive chlorine residual. The assessment reinforces the identified need for major investments in safe water and sanitation infrastructure and the importance of household water treatment to improve access to safe water in the near term. PMID:24106191

Residential Mobility and Lung Cancer Risk: Data-Driven Exploration Using Internet Sources

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yoon, Hong-Jun; Tourassi, Georgia; Xu, Songhua

2015-01-01

Frequent relocation has been linked to health decline, particularly with respect to emotional and psychological wellbeing. In this paper we investigate whether there is an association between frequent relocation and lung cancer risk. For the initial investigation we leverage two online data sources to collect cancer and control subjects using web crawling and tailored text mining. The two data sources share different strengths and weaknesses in terms of the amount of detail, population representation, and sample size. One data source includes online obituaries. The second data source includes augmented LinkedIn profiles. For each data source, the subjects spatiotemporal history ismore » reconstructed from the available information provided in the obituaries and from the education and work experience provided in the LinkedIn profiles. The study shows that lung cancer subjects have higher mobility frequency than the control group. This trend is consistent for both data sources.« less

Effects of metals within ambient air particulate matter (PM) on human health.

PubMed

Chen, Lung Chi; Lippmann, Morton

2009-01-01

We review literature providing insights on health-related effects caused by inhalation of ambient air particulate matter (PM) containing metals, emphasizing effects associated with in vivo exposures at or near contemporary atmospheric concentrations. Inhalation of much higher concentrations, and high-level exposures via intratracheal (IT) instillation that inform mechanistic processes, are also reviewed. The most informative studies of effects at realistic exposure levels, in terms of identifying influential individual PM components or source-related mixtures, have been based on (1) human and laboratory animal exposures to concentrated ambient particles (CAPs), and (2) human population studies for which both health-related effects were observed and PM composition data were available for multipollutant regression analyses or source apportionment. Such studies have implicated residual oil fly ash (ROFA) as the most toxic source-related mixture, and Ni and V, which are characteristic tracers of ROFA, as particularly influential components in terms of acute cardiac function changes and excess short-term mortality. There is evidence that other metals within ambient air PM, such as Pb and Zn, also affect human health. Most evidence now available is based on the use of ambient air PM components concentration data, rather than actual exposures, to determine significant associations and/or effects coefficients. Therefore, considerable uncertainties about causality are associated with exposure misclassification and measurement errors. As more PM speciation data and more refined modeling techniques become available, and as more CAPs studies involving PM component analyses are performed, the roles of specific metals and other components within PM will become clearer.

Multilinear Computing and Multilinear Algebraic Geometry

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-08-10

instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send...performance period of this project. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Tensors , multilinearity, algebraic geometry, numerical computations, computational tractability, high...Reset DISTRIBUTION A: Distribution approved for public release. DISTRIBUTION A: Distribution approved for public release. INSTRUCTIONS FOR COMPLETING

Medicare Part D and the Nursing Home Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stevenson, David G.; Huskamp, Haiden A.; Newhouse, Joseph P.

2008-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore how the introduction of Medicare Part D is changing the operations of long-term-care pharmacies (LTCPs) and nursing homes, as well as implications of those changes for nursing home residents. Design and Methods: We reviewed existing sources of information and interviewed stakeholders across…

Nuclear Powerplant Safety: Source Terms. Nuclear Energy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Department of Energy, Washington, DC. Nuclear Energy Office.

There has been increased public interest in the potential effects of nuclear powerplant accidents since the Soviet reactor accident at Chernobyl. People have begun to look for more information about the amount of radioactivity that might be released into the environment as a result of such an accident. When this issue is discussed by people…

Experience of Future Economists' Self-Study Organization in Foreign Higher Education Institutions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Aliyev, Oktay

2016-01-01

The article consolidates information sources on the issues of future economists' self-study organization at foreign universities. There has been carried out the study of approaches to the interpretation of the term "self-study process" in the contemporary scientific thought abroad. There have been specified the productive ideas of…

Short-term C mineralization (aka the flush of CO2) as an indicator of soil biological health

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Soil biological activity is a key component of soil health assessments, as it (a) indicates soil nutrient cycling capacity from various organic matter sources to inorganic availability, (b) relates to soil structural conditions, (c) informs about the potential to harbor biodiversity in soil, and (d)...

Extension Approach for an Effective Fisheries and Aquaculture Extension Service in India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kumaran, M.; Vimala, D. Deboral; Chandrasekaran, V. S.; Alagappan, M.; Raja, S.

2012-01-01

Purpose: Public-funded fisheries extension services have been blamed as poor and responsible for the slow pace of aquaculture development in India. The present investigation aimed to find concrete interventions to streamline the extension service by understanding the research-extension-farmer linkage indirectly in terms of information sources of…

Complaints against Nursing Homes: Comparing Two Sources of Complaint Information and Predictors of Complaints

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Troyer, Jennifer L.; Sause, Wendy L.

2011-01-01

Purpose of the Study: Two consumer-derived measures of nursing home quality that have been underutilized by researchers are consumer complaints to the state certification agency between inspections and complaints to the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. This article describes these complaints, considers facility-level predictors of complaints, and…

40 CFR 63.11651 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

...? 63.11651 Section 63.11651 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR... Area Source Category Other Requirements and Information § 63.11651 What definitions apply to this subpart? Terms used in this subpart are defined in the Clean Air Act, in § 63.2, and in this section as...

40 CFR 63.11651 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

...? 63.11651 Section 63.11651 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR... Area Source Category Other Requirements and Information § 63.11651 What definitions apply to this subpart? Terms used in this subpart are defined in the Clean Air Act, in § 63.2, and in this section as...

40 CFR 63.11651 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

...? 63.11651 Section 63.11651 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR... Area Source Category Other Requirements and Information § 63.11651 What definitions apply to this subpart? Terms used in this subpart are defined in the Clean Air Act, in § 63.2, and in this section as...

How to Keep Your Health Information Private and Secure

MedlinePlus

... permanently. When Using Mobile Devices · Research mobile apps – software programs that perform one or more specific functions – before you download and install any of them. Be sure to use known app websites or trusted sources. · Read the terms of service and the privacy notice of the mobile app ...

SARS wars: an examination of the quantity and construction of health information in the news media.

PubMed

Berry, Tanya R; Wharf-Higgins, Joan; Naylor, P J

2007-01-01

The media have the power to sway public perception of health issues by choosing what to publish and the context in which to present information. The media may influence an individual's tendency to overestimate the risk of some health issues while underestimating the risk of others, ultimately influencing health choices. Although some research has been conducted to examine the number of articles on selected health topics, little research has examined how the messages are constructed. The purpose of this article is to describe an examination of the construction of news reports on health topics using aspects of the social amplification of risk model and the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion for theoretical direction. One hundred news media reports (print, radio, television, and Internet) were analyzed in terms of message repetition, context, source, and grammar. Results showed that health topics were more often discussed in terms of risk, by credible sources using strong language. This content analysis provides an empirical starting point for future research into how such health news may influence consumer's perceptions of health topics.

Numerical modeling of materials processing applications of a pulsed cold cathode electron gun

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Etcheverry, J. I.; Martínez, O. E.; Mingolo, N.

1998-04-01

A numerical study of the application of a pulsed cold cathode electron gun to materials processing is performed. A simple semiempirical model of the discharge is used, together with backscattering and energy deposition profiles obtained by a Monte Carlo technique, in order to evaluate the energy source term inside the material. The numerical computation of the heat equation with the calculated source term is performed in order to obtain useful information on melting and vaporization thresholds, melted radius and depth, and on the dependence of these variables on processing parameters such as operating pressure, initial voltage of the discharge and cathode-sample distance. Numerical results for stainless steel are presented, which demonstrate the need for several modifications of the experimental design in order to achieve a better efficiency.

The phonological-distributional coherence hypothesis: cross-linguistic evidence in language acquisition.

PubMed

Monaghan, Padraic; Christiansen, Morten H; Chater, Nick

2007-12-01

Several phonological and prosodic properties of words have been shown to relate to differences between grammatical categories. Distributional information about grammatical categories is also a rich source in the child's language environment. In this paper we hypothesise that such cues operate in tandem for developing the child's knowledge about grammatical categories. We term this the Phonological-Distributional Coherence Hypothesis (PDCH). We tested the PDCH by analysing phonological and distributional information in distinguishing open from closed class words and nouns from verbs in four languages: English, Dutch, French, and Japanese. We found an interaction between phonological and distributional cues for all four languages indicating that when distributional cues were less reliable, phonological cues were stronger. This provides converging evidence that language is structured such that language learning benefits from the integration of information about category from contextual and sound-based sources, and that the child's language environment is less impoverished than we might suspect.

Internet search term affects the quality and accuracy of online information about developmental hip dysplasia.

PubMed

Fabricant, Peter D; Dy, Christopher J; Patel, Ronak M; Blanco, John S; Doyle, Shevaun M

2013-06-01

The recent emphasis on shared decision-making has increased the role of the Internet as a readily accessible medical reference source for patients and families. However, the lack of professional review creates concern over the quality, accuracy, and readability of medical information available to patients on the Internet. Three Internet search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing) were evaluated prospectively using 3 difference search terms of varying sophistication ("congenital hip dislocation," "developmental dysplasia of the hip," and "hip dysplasia in children"). Sixty-three unique Web sites were evaluated by each of 3 surgeons (2 fellowship-trained pediatric orthopaedic attendings and 1 orthopaedic chief resident) for quality and accuracy using a set of scoring criteria based on the AAOS/POSNA patient education Web site. The readability (literacy grade level) of each Web site was assessed using the Fleisch-Kincaid score. There were significant differences noted in quality, accuracy, and readability of information depending on the search term used. The search term "developmental dysplasia of the hip" provided higher quality and accuracy compared with the search term "congenital hip dislocation." Of the 63 total Web sites, 1 (1.6%) was below the sixth grade reading level recommended by the NIH for health education materials and 8 (12.7%) Web sites were below the average American reading level (eighth grade). The quality and accuracy of information available on the Internet regarding developmental hip dysplasia significantly varied with the search term used. Patients seeking information about DDH on the Internet may not understand the materials found because nearly all of the Web sites are written at a level above that recommended for publically distributed health information. Physicians should advise their patients to search for information using the term "developmental dysplasia of the hip" or, better yet, should refer patients to Web sites that they have personally reviewed for content and clarity. Orthopaedic surgeons, professional societies, and search engines should undertake efforts to ensure that patients have access to information about DDH that is both accurate and easily understandable.

Trends and drivers of marine debris on the Atlantic coast of the United States 1997-2007

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ribic, C.A.; Sheavly, S.B.; Rugg, D.J.; Erdmann, Eric S.

2010-01-01

For the first time, we documented regional differences in amounts and long-term trends of marine debris along the US Atlantic coast. The Southeast Atlantic had low land-based and general-source debris loads as well as no increases despite a 19% increase in coastal population. The Northeast (8% population increase) also had low land-based and general-source debris loads and no increases. The Mid-Atlantic (10% population increase) fared the worst, with heavy land-based and general-source debris loads that increased over time. Ocean-based debris did not change in the Northeast where the fishery is relatively stable; it declined over the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and was correlated with declining regional fisheries. Drivers, including human population, land use status, fishing activity, and oceanic current systems, had complex relationships with debris loads at local and regional scales. Management challenges remain undeniably large but solid information from long-term programs is one key to addressing this pressing pollution issue. ?? 2010.

Trends and drivers of marine debris on the Atlantic coast of the United States 1997-2007.

PubMed

Ribic, Christine A; Sheavly, Seba B; Rugg, David J; Erdmann, Eric S

2010-08-01

For the first time, we documented regional differences in amounts and long-term trends of marine debris along the US Atlantic coast. The Southeast Atlantic had low land-based and general-source debris loads as well as no increases despite a 19% increase in coastal population. The Northeast (8% population increase) also had low land-based and general-source debris loads and no increases. The Mid-Atlantic (10% population increase) fared the worst, with heavy land-based and general-source debris loads that increased over time. Ocean-based debris did not change in the Northeast where the fishery is relatively stable; it declined over the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast and was correlated with declining regional fisheries. Drivers, including human population, land use status, fishing activity, and oceanic current systems, had complex relationships with debris loads at local and regional scales. Management challenges remain undeniably large but solid information from long-term programs is one key to addressing this pressing pollution issue. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

A point-source outbreak of Coccidioidomycosis among a highway construction crew.

PubMed

Nicas, Mark

2018-01-01

Coccidioidomycosis is an infection caused by inhaling spores of the soil fungus Coccidioides immitis (hereafter termed Cocci). Cocci is endemic in certain areas of California. When soil containing the fungus is disturbed, as during earth-moving activities, respirable Cocci spores can become airborne and be inhaled by persons in the vicinity. This article describes a cluster of seven Cocciodioidomycosis cases among a highway construction crew that occurred in June/July 2008 in Kern County, CA, which is among the most highly endemic regions for Cocci in California. The exposures spanned no more than seven work days, and illness developed within two to three weeks of the exposures. Given the common source of exposure (soil dust generated at the work site) and the multiple cases occurring close in time, the cluster can also be termed a "point-source outbreak." The contractor was not informed of the infection risk and did not take adequate precautions against dust exposure. Appropriate engineering/administrative controls and respiratory protection are discussed.

Static and dynamic models in economics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Safiullin, N. Z.; Safiullin, B. L.

2018-05-01

In this article, the authors consider the impact of information and advertising on consumer behavior and the process of producing differentiation formation. Advertising, television, radio, magazines and direct mail as major constraints of mass media may act as sources of information. Economic modernization is aimed at development of acceleration of the knowledge intensive industries, which contribute to Russia’s position in terms of the world economy; the recovering process of the Russian economic manufacturing base; development of import substitution industries and limited participation in international labor specialization.

Deadly Cold: Health Hazards Due to Cold Weather. An Information Paper by the Subcommittee on Health and Long-Term Care of the Select Committee on Aging. House of Representatives, Ninety-Eighth Congress, Second Session (February 1984).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. House Select Committee on Aging.

This paper, on the health hazards of cold weather for elderly persons, presents information from various sources on the death rates in winter throughout the United States. After reviewing the scope of the problem, specific health hazards associated with cold weather are discussed, i.e., hypothermia, fires, carbon monoxide poisoning, and influenza…

Certification of Public Librarians in the United States; A Detailed Summary of Legal and Voluntary Certification Plans for Public Librarians Based on Information Supplied by the Various Certificating State Agencies or other Appropriate Sources, 2nd Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Frame, Ruth R.; Coyne, John R.

Contained in this report is a detailed summary of legal and voluntary certification plans for public librarians in each of the 50 states. Descriptions of the certification plans for public librarians are based on information supplied by state agencies in September 1971. Each plan is identified by the descriptive terms--mandatory, permissive or…

Coherent attacking continuous-variable quantum key distribution with entanglement in the middle

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Zhaoyuan; Shi, Ronghua; Zeng, Guihua; Guo, Ying

2018-06-01

We suggest an approach on the coherent attack of continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CVQKD) with an untrusted entangled source in the middle. The coherent attack strategy can be performed on the double links of quantum system, enabling the eavesdropper to steal more information from the proposed scheme using the entanglement correlation. Numeric simulation results show the improved performance of the attacked CVQKD system in terms of the derived secret key rate with the controllable parameters maximizing the stolen information.

Integrating Information in Biological Ontologies and Molecular Networks to Infer Novel Terms.

PubMed

Li, Le; Yip, Kevin Y

2016-12-15

Currently most terms and term-term relationships in Gene Ontology (GO) are defined manually, which creates cost, consistency and completeness issues. Recent studies have demonstrated the feasibility of inferring GO automatically from biological networks, which represents an important complementary approach to GO construction. These methods (NeXO and CliXO) are unsupervised, which means 1) they cannot use the information contained in existing GO, 2) the way they integrate biological networks may not optimize the accuracy, and 3) they are not customized to infer the three different sub-ontologies of GO. Here we present a semi-supervised method called Unicorn that extends these previous methods to tackle the three problems. Unicorn uses a sub-tree of an existing GO sub-ontology as training part to learn parameters in integrating multiple networks. Cross-validation results show that Unicorn reliably inferred the left-out parts of each specific GO sub-ontology. In addition, by training Unicorn with an old version of GO together with biological networks, it successfully re-discovered some terms and term-term relationships present only in a new version of GO. Unicorn also successfully inferred some novel terms that were not contained in GO but have biological meanings well-supported by the literature. Source code of Unicorn is available at http://yiplab.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/unicorn/.

The Tea-Carbon Dioxide Laser as a Means of Generating Ultrasound in Solids

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Taylor, Gregory Stuart

1990-01-01

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. The aim of this thesis is to characterise the interaction between pulsed, high power, 10.6 mu m radiation and solids. The work is considered both in the general context of laser generation of ultrasound and specifically to gain a deeper understanding of the interaction between a laser supported plasma and a solid. The predominant experimental tools used are the homodyne Michelson interferometer and a range of electromagnetic acoustic transducers. To complement the ultrasonic data, various plasma inspection techniques, such as high speed, streak camera photography and reflection photometry, have been used to correlate the plasma properties with those of the ultrasonic transients. The work involving the characterisation of a laser supported plasma with a solid, which is based on previous experimental and theoretical analysis, gives an increased understanding of the plasma's ultrasonic generation mechanism. The ability to record the entire plasma-sample interaction, time history yields information of the internal dynamics of the plasma growth and shock wave generation. The interaction of the radiation with a solid is characterised in both the plasma breakdown and non-breakdown regimes by a wide ultrasonic source. The variation in source diameter enables the transition from a point to a near planar ultrasonic source to be studied. The resultant ultrasonic modifications are examined in terms of the wave structure and the directivity pattern. The wave structure is analysed in terms of existing wide source, bulk wave theories and extended to consider the effects on surface and Lamb waves. The directivity patterns of the longitudinal and shear waves are analysed in terms of top-hat and non -uniform source profiles, giving additional information into the radiation-solid interaction. The wide, one dimensional source analysis is continued to a two dimensional, extended ultrasonic source, generated on non-metals by the optical penetration of radiation within the target. The generation of ultrasound in both metals and non-metals, using the CO_2 laser, is shown to be an efficient process and may be employed almost totally non-destructively. Such a laser may therefore be used effectively on a greatly enhanced range of materials than those tested to-date via laser generation, resulting in the increased suitability of the laser technique within the field of Non Destructive Testing.

Coral proxy record of decadal-scale reduction in base flow from Moloka'i, Hawaii

USGS Publications Warehouse

Prouty, Nancy G.; Jupiter, Stacy D.; Field, Michael E.; McCulloch, Malcolm T.

2009-01-01

Groundwater is a major resource in Hawaii and is the principal source of water for municipal, agricultural, and industrial use. With a growing population, a long-term downward trend in rainfall, and the need for proper groundwater management, a better understanding of the hydroclimatological system is essential. Proxy records from corals can supplement long-term observational networks, offering an accessible source of hydrologic and climate information. To develop a qualitative proxy for historic groundwater discharge to coastal waters, a suite of rare earth elements and yttrium (REYs) were analyzed from coral cores collected along the south shore of Moloka'i, Hawaii. The coral REY to calcium (Ca) ratios were evaluated against hydrological parameters, yielding the strongest relationship to base flow. Dissolution of REYs from labradorite and olivine in the basaltic rock aquifers is likely the primary source of coastal ocean REYs. There was a statistically significant downward trend (−40%) in subannually resolved REY/Ca ratios over the last century. This is consistent with long-term records of stream discharge from Moloka'i, which imply a downward trend in base flow since 1913. A decrease in base flow is observed statewide, consistent with the long-term downward trend in annual rainfall over much of the state. With greater demands on freshwater resources, it is appropriate for withdrawal scenarios to consider long-term trends and short-term climate variability. It is possible that coral paleohydrological records can be used to conduct model-data comparisons in groundwater flow models used to simulate changes in groundwater level and coastal discharge.

Predictability decomposition detects the impairment of brain-heart dynamical networks during sleep disorders and their recovery with treatment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Faes, Luca; Marinazzo, Daniele; Stramaglia, Sebastiano; Jurysta, Fabrice; Porta, Alberto; Giandomenico, Nollo

2016-05-01

This work introduces a framework to study the network formed by the autonomic component of heart rate variability (cardiac process η) and the amplitude of the different electroencephalographic waves (brain processes δ, θ, α, σ, β) during sleep. The framework exploits multivariate linear models to decompose the predictability of any given target process into measures of self-, causal and interaction predictability reflecting respectively the information retained in the process and related to its physiological complexity, the information transferred from the other source processes, and the information modified during the transfer according to redundant or synergistic interaction between the sources. The framework is here applied to the η, δ, θ, α, σ, β time series measured from the sleep recordings of eight severe sleep apnoea-hypopnoea syndrome (SAHS) patients studied before and after long-term treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, and 14 healthy controls. Results show that the full and self-predictability of η, δ and θ decreased significantly in SAHS compared with controls, and were restored with CPAP for δ and θ but not for η. The causal predictability of η and δ occurred through significantly redundant source interaction during healthy sleep, which was lost in SAHS and recovered after CPAP. These results indicate that predictability analysis is a viable tool to assess the modifications of complexity and causality of the cerebral and cardiac processes induced by sleep disorders, and to monitor the restoration of the neuroautonomic control of these processes during long-term treatment.

Meeting medical terminology needs--the Ontology-Enhanced Medical Concept Mapper.

PubMed

Leroy, G; Chen, H

2001-12-01

This paper describes the development and testing of the Medical Concept Mapper, a tool designed to facilitate access to online medical information sources by providing users with appropriate medical search terms for their personal queries. Our system is valuable for patients whose knowledge of medical vocabularies is inadequate to find the desired information, and for medical experts who search for information outside their field of expertise. The Medical Concept Mapper maps synonyms and semantically related concepts to a user's query. The system is unique because it integrates our natural language processing tool, i.e., the Arizona (AZ) Noun Phraser, with human-created ontologies, the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) and WordNet, and our computer generated Concept Space, into one system. Our unique contribution results from combining the UMLS Semantic Net with Concept Space in our deep semantic parsing (DSP) algorithm. This algorithm establishes a medical query context based on the UMLS Semantic Net, which allows Concept Space terms to be filtered so as to isolate related terms relevant to the query. We performed two user studies in which Medical Concept Mapper terms were compared against human experts' terms. We conclude that the AZ Noun Phraser is well suited to extract medical phrases from user queries, that WordNet is not well suited to provide strictly medical synonyms, that the UMLS Metathesaurus is well suited to provide medical synonyms, and that Concept Space is well suited to provide related medical terms, especially when these terms are limited by our DSP algorithm.

Individual decision making in the non-purchase of long-term care insurance.

PubMed

Curry, Leslie A; Robison, Julie; Shugrue, Noreen; Keenan, Patricia; Kapp, Marshall B

2009-08-01

Although prior research suggests that economic, behavioral, and psychosocial factors influence decisions not to purchase long-term care insurance, few studies have examined the interplay among these factors in depth and from the consumer's point of view. This study was intended to further illuminate these considerations, generate hypotheses about non-purchasing decisions, and inform the design of policies that are responsive to concerns and preferences of potential purchasers. Qualitative study using 32 in-depth interviews and 6 focus groups, following a grounded theory approach. Five themes characterize decisions not to purchase long-term care insurance: (a) the determination that a policy is "too costly" reflects highly individualized and complex trade-offs not solely economic in nature, (b) non-purchasers are skeptical about the viability and integrity of private insurance companies and seek an unbiased source of information, (c) family dynamics play an important role in insurance decisions, (d) contemplating personal risk for long-term care triggers psychological responses that have implications for decision making, and (e) non-purchasers feel inadequately informed and overwhelmed by the process of deciding whether to purchase long-term care insurance. States are seeking to offset escalating Medicaid long-term care expenditures through a variety of policy mechanisms, including stimulating individual purchase of long-term care insurance. Findings suggest that economic incentives such as lowering premiums will be necessary but not sufficient to attract appropriate candidates. Attention to behavioral and psychosocial factors is essential to designing incentives that are responsive to concerns and preferences of potential purchasers.

Task context and organization in free recall

PubMed Central

Polyn, Sean M.; Norman, Kenneth A.; Kahana, Michael J.

2009-01-01

Prior work on organization in free recall has focused on the ways in which semantic and temporal information determine the order in which material is retrieved from memory. Tulving’s theory of ecphory suggests that these organizational effects arise from the interaction of a retrieval cue with the contents of memory. Using the continual-distraction free-recall paradigm (Bjork & Whitten, 1974) to minimize retrieval during the study period, we show that encoding task context can organize recall, suggesting that task-related information is part of the retrieval cue. We interpret these results in terms of the Context Maintenance and Retrieval model (CMR; Polyn, Norman, & Kahana, in press), in which an internal contextual representation, containing semantic, temporal, and source-related information, serves as the retrieval cue and organizes the retrieval of information from memory. We discuss these results in terms of the guided activation theory (Miller & Cohen, 2001) of the role of prefrontal cortex in task performance, as well as the rich neuropsychological literature implicating prefrontal cortex in memory search (e.g, Schacter, 1987). PMID:19524086

Pilot/Controller Coordinated Decision Making in the Next Generation Air Transportation System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bearman, Chris; Miller, Ronald c.; Orasanu, Judith M.

2011-01-01

Introduction: NextGen technologies promise to provide considerable benefits in terms of enhancing operations and improving safety. However, there needs to be a thorough human factors evaluation of the way these systems will change the way in which pilot and controllers share information. The likely impact of these new technologies on pilot/controller coordinated decision making is considered in this paper using the "operational, informational and evaluative disconnect" framework. Method: Five participant focus groups were held. Participants were four experts in human factors, between x and x research students and a technical expert. The participant focus group evaluated five key NextGen technologies to identify issues that made different disconnects more or less likely. Results: Issues that were identified were: Decision Making will not necessarily improve because pilots and controllers possess the same information; Having a common information source does not mean pilots and controllers are looking at the same information; High levels of automation may lead to disconnects between the technology and pilots/controllers; Common information sources may become the definitive source for information; Overconfidence in the automation may lead to situations where appropriate breakdowns are not initiated. Discussion: The issues that were identified lead to recommendations that need to be considered in the development of NextGen technologies. The current state of development of these technologies provides a good opportunity to utilize recommendations at an early stage so that NextGen technologies do not lead to difficulties in resolving breakdowns in coordinated decision making.

Google search behavior for status epilepticus.

PubMed

Brigo, Francesco; Trinka, Eugen

2015-08-01

Millions of people surf the Internet every day as a source of health-care information looking for materials about symptoms, diagnosis, treatments and their possible adverse effects, or diagnostic procedures. Google is the most popular search engine and is used by patients and physicians to search for online health-related information. This study aimed to evaluate changes in Google search behavior occurring in English-speaking countries over time for the term "status epilepticus" (SE). Using Google Trends, data on global search queries for the term SE between the 1st of January 2004 and 31st of December 2014 were analyzed. Search volume numbers over time (downloaded as CSV datasets) were analyzed by applying the "health" category filter. The research trends for the term SE remained fairly constant over time. The greatest search volume for the term SE was reported in the United States, followed by India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Germany. Most terms associated with the search queries were related to SE definition, symptoms, subtypes, and treatment. The volume of searches for some queries (nonconvulsive, focal, and refractory SE; SE definition; SE guidelines; SE symptoms; SE management; SE treatment) was enormously increased over time (search popularity has exceeded a 5000% growth since 2004). Most people use search engines to look for the term SE to obtain information on its definition, subtypes, and management. The greatest search volume occurred not only in developed countries but also in developing countries where raising awareness about SE still remains a challenging task and where there is reduced public knowledge of epilepsy. Health information seeking (the extent to which people search for health information online) reflects the health-related information needs of Internet users for a specific disease. Google Trends shows that Internet users have a great demand for information concerning some aspects of SE (definition, subtypes, symptoms, treatment, and guidelines). Policy makers and neurological scientific societies have the responsibility to try to meet these information needs and to better target public information campaigns on SE to the general population. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled "Status Epilepticus". Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Normal and anomalous diffusion in fluctuations of dust concentration nearby emission source

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Szczurek, Andrzej; Maciejewska, Monika; Wyłomańska, Agnieszka; Sikora, Grzegorz; Balcerek, Michał; Teuerle, Marek

2018-02-01

Particulate matter (PM) is an important component of air. Nowadays, major attention is payed to fine dust. It has considerable environmental impact, including adverse effect on human health. One of important issues regarding PM is the temporal variation of its concentration. The variation contains information about factors influencing this quantity in time. The work focuses on the character of PM concentration dynamics indoors, in the vicinity of emission source. The objective was to recognize between the homogeneous or heterogeneous dynamics. The goal was achieved by detecting normal and anomalous diffusion in fluctuations of PM concentration. For this purpose we used anomalous diffusion exponent, β which was derived from Mean Square Displacement (MSD) analysis. The information about PM concentration dynamics may be used to design sampling strategy, which serves to attain representative information about PM behavior in time. The data analyzed in this work was collected from single-point PM concentration monitoring in the vicinity of seven emission sources in industrial environment. In majority of cases we observed heterogeneous character of PM concentration dynamics. It confirms the complexity of interactions between the emission sources and indoor environment. This result also votes against simplistic approach to PM concentration measurement indoors, namely their occasional character, short measurement periods and long term averaging.

Emo, love and god: making sense of Urban Dictionary, a crowd-sourced online dictionary.

PubMed

Nguyen, Dong; McGillivray, Barbara; Yasseri, Taha

2018-05-01

The Internet facilitates large-scale collaborative projects and the emergence of Web 2.0 platforms, where producers and consumers of content unify, has drastically changed the information market. On the one hand, the promise of the 'wisdom of the crowd' has inspired successful projects such as Wikipedia, which has become the primary source of crowd-based information in many languages. On the other hand, the decentralized and often unmonitored environment of such projects may make them susceptible to low-quality content. In this work, we focus on Urban Dictionary, a crowd-sourced online dictionary. We combine computational methods with qualitative annotation and shed light on the overall features of Urban Dictionary in terms of growth, coverage and types of content. We measure a high presence of opinion-focused entries, as opposed to the meaning-focused entries that we expect from traditional dictionaries. Furthermore, Urban Dictionary covers many informal, unfamiliar words as well as proper nouns. Urban Dictionary also contains offensive content, but highly offensive content tends to receive lower scores through the dictionary's voting system. The low threshold to include new material in Urban Dictionary enables quick recording of new words and new meanings, but the resulting heterogeneous content can pose challenges in using Urban Dictionary as a source to study language innovation.

Emo, love and god: making sense of Urban Dictionary, a crowd-sourced online dictionary

PubMed Central

McGillivray, Barbara

2018-01-01

The Internet facilitates large-scale collaborative projects and the emergence of Web 2.0 platforms, where producers and consumers of content unify, has drastically changed the information market. On the one hand, the promise of the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ has inspired successful projects such as Wikipedia, which has become the primary source of crowd-based information in many languages. On the other hand, the decentralized and often unmonitored environment of such projects may make them susceptible to low-quality content. In this work, we focus on Urban Dictionary, a crowd-sourced online dictionary. We combine computational methods with qualitative annotation and shed light on the overall features of Urban Dictionary in terms of growth, coverage and types of content. We measure a high presence of opinion-focused entries, as opposed to the meaning-focused entries that we expect from traditional dictionaries. Furthermore, Urban Dictionary covers many informal, unfamiliar words as well as proper nouns. Urban Dictionary also contains offensive content, but highly offensive content tends to receive lower scores through the dictionary’s voting system. The low threshold to include new material in Urban Dictionary enables quick recording of new words and new meanings, but the resulting heterogeneous content can pose challenges in using Urban Dictionary as a source to study language innovation. PMID:29892417

User's guide for RAM. Volume II. Data preparation and listings

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Turner, D.B.; Novak, J.H.

1978-11-01

The information presented in this user's guide is directed to air pollution scientists having an interest in applying air quality simulation models. RAM is a method of estimating short-term dispersion using the Gaussian steady-state model. These algorithms can be used for estimating air quality concentrations of relatively nonreactive pollutants for averaging times from an hour to a day from point and area sources. The algorithms are applicable for locations with level or gently rolling terrain where a single wind vector for each hour is a good approximation to the flow over the source area considered. Calculations are performed for eachmore » hour. Hourly meteorological data required are wind direction, wind speed, temperature, stability class, and mixing height. Emission information required of point sources consists of source coordinates, emission rate, physical height, stack diameter, stack gas exit velocity, and stack gas temperature. Emission information required of area sources consists of southwest corner coordinates, source side length, total area emission rate and effective area source-height. Computation time is kept to a minimum by the manner in which concentrations from area sources are estimated using a narrow plume hypothesis and using the area source squares as given rather than breaking down all sources into an area of uniform elements. Options are available to the user to allow use of three different types of receptor locations: (1) those whose coordinates are input by the user, (2) those whose coordinates are determined by the model and are downwind of significant point and area sources where maxima are likely to occur, and (3) those whose coordinates are determined by the model to give good area coverage of a specific portion of the region. Computation time is also decreased by keeping the number of receptors to a minimum. Volume II presents RAM example outputs, typical run streams, variable glossaries, and Fortran source codes.« less

Molecular identification of organic compounds in atmospheric complex mixtures and relationship to atmospheric chemistry and sources.

PubMed

Mazurek, Monica A

2002-12-01

This article describes a chemical characterization approach for complex organic compound mixtures associated with fine atmospheric particles of diameters less than 2.5 m (PM2.5). It relates molecular- and bulk-level chemical characteristics of the complex mixture to atmospheric chemistry and to emission sources. Overall, the analytical approach describes the organic complex mixtures in terms of a chemical mass balance (CMB). Here, the complex mixture is related to a bulk elemental measurement (total carbon) and is broken down systematically into functional groups and molecular compositions. The CMB and molecular-level information can be used to understand the sources of the atmospheric fine particles through conversion of chromatographic data and by incorporation into receptor-based CMB models. Once described and quantified within a mass balance framework, the chemical profiles for aerosol organic matter can be applied to existing air quality issues. Examples include understanding health effects of PM2.5 and defining and controlling key sources of anthropogenic fine particles. Overall, the organic aerosol compositional data provide chemical information needed for effective PM2.5 management.

Functional Annotation of the Arabidopsis Genome Using Controlled Vocabularies1

PubMed Central

Berardini, Tanya Z.; Mundodi, Suparna; Reiser, Leonore; Huala, Eva; Garcia-Hernandez, Margarita; Zhang, Peifen; Mueller, Lukas A.; Yoon, Jungwoon; Doyle, Aisling; Lander, Gabriel; Moseyko, Nick; Yoo, Danny; Xu, Iris; Zoeckler, Brandon; Montoya, Mary; Miller, Neil; Weems, Dan; Rhee, Seung Y.

2004-01-01

Controlled vocabularies are increasingly used by databases to describe genes and gene products because they facilitate identification of similar genes within an organism or among different organisms. One of The Arabidopsis Information Resource's goals is to associate all Arabidopsis genes with terms developed by the Gene Ontology Consortium that describe the molecular function, biological process, and subcellular location of a gene product. We have also developed terms describing Arabidopsis anatomy and developmental stages and use these to annotate published gene expression data. As of March 2004, we used computational and manual annotation methods to make 85,666 annotations representing 26,624 unique loci. We focus on associating genes to controlled vocabulary terms based on experimental data from the literature and use The Arabidopsis Information Resource-developed PubSearch software to facilitate this process. Each annotation is tagged with a combination of evidence codes, evidence descriptions, and references that provide a robust means to assess data quality. Annotation of all Arabidopsis genes will allow quantitative comparisons between sets of genes derived from sources such as microarray experiments. The Arabidopsis annotation data will also facilitate annotation of newly sequenced plant genomes by using sequence similarity to transfer annotations to homologous genes. In addition, complete and up-to-date annotations will make unknown genes easy to identify and target for experimentation. Here, we describe the process of Arabidopsis functional annotation using a variety of data sources and illustrate several ways in which this information can be accessed and used to infer knowledge about Arabidopsis and other plant species. PMID:15173566

Interactive team suggestion for users of digital libraries: Using subject thesauri and co-occurrence lists for information retrieval

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schatz, B.R.; Johnson, E.H.; Cochrane, P.A.

The basic problem in information retrieval is that large-scale searches can only match terms specified by the user to terms appearing in documents in the digital library collection. Intermediate sources that support term suggestion can thus enhance retrieval by providing alternative search terms for the user. Term suggestion increases the recall, while interaction enables the user to attempt to not decrease the precision. We are building a prototype user interface that will become the Web interface for the University of Illinois Digital Library Initiative (DLI) testbed. It supports the principal of multiple views, where different kinds of term suggestors canmore » be used to complement search and each other. This paper discusses its operation with two complementary term suggestors, subject thesauri and co-occurrence lists, and compared their utility. Thesauri are generated by human indexers and place selected terms in a subject hierarchy. Co-occurrence lists are generated by computer and place all terms in frequency order of occurrence together. This paper concludes with a discussion of how multiple views can help provide good quality Search for the Net. This is a paper about the design of a retrieval system prototype that allows users to simultaneously combine terms offered by different suggestion techniques, not about comparing the merits of each in a systematic and controlled way. It offers no experimental results.« less

Infant Skin Care Products: What Are the Issues?

PubMed

Kuller, Joanne McManus

2016-10-01

Infant skin is susceptible to dryness and irritation from external factors, including topical skin care products not formulated for the infant's skin. This may increase the risk of contact dermatitis. Parents frequently express concern regarding potential harm from ingredients in skin care products and seek information. This is complicated by several skin care myths. The purpose of this literature review was to provide evidence-based information to educate parents on the use of products for preterm and term infants. Multiple searches using PubMed were conducted including the search terms "infant skin care," "infant products," "infant bath," "emollients," "diaper skin care," and "diaper wipes." Reference lists of comprehensive reviews were also scanned. Google searches were used to assess consumer information, product information, and regulatory guidelines. There is little scientific evidence to support safety of natural/organic products on infant skin. Raw materials originate from different sources, complicating testing and comparisons of ingredients. Research shows that cleansers formulated for infant skin do not weaken the skin barrier the way harsher soaps and detergents can. Oils with the lowest oleic acid content provide a lower risk of irritant contact dermatitis. Nurses must be informed about natural and organic products, preservatives, and fragrances and know the definition of commonly used marketing terms. Decisions regarding the use of infant products in preterm and term infants should be evidence based. More research is needed to support claims regarding the safety of products used on infant skin.

Possible source term of high concentrations of mecoprop-p in leachate and water quality: impact of climate change, public use and disposal.

PubMed

Idowu, I A; Alkhaddar, R M; Atherton, W

2014-08-01

Mecoprop-p herbicide is often found in wells and water abstractions in many areas around Europe, the UK inclusive. There is a growing environmental and public health concern about mecoprop-p herbicide pollution in ground and surface water in England. Reviews suggest that extensive work has been carried out on the contribution of mecoprop-p herbicides from agricultural use whilst more work needs to be carried out on the contribution of mecoprop-p herbicide from non-agricultural use. The study covers two landfill sites in Weaver/Gowy Catchment. Mecoprop-p herbicide concentrations in the leachate quality range between 0.06 and 290 microg l1 in cells. High concentration ofmecoprop-p herbicide in the leachate quality suggests that there is a possible source term in the waste stream. This paper addresses the gap by exploring possible source terms of mecoprop-p herbicide contamination on landfill sites and evaluates the impact of public purchase, use and disposal alongside climate change on seasonal variations in mecoprop-p concentrations. Mecoprop-p herbicide was found to exceed the EU drinking water quality standards at the unsaturated zone/aquifer with observed average concentrations ranging between 0.005 and 7.96 microg l1. A route map for mecoprop-p herbicide source term contamination is essential for mitigation and pollution management with emphasis on both consumer and producer responsibility towards use of mecoprop-p product. In addition, improvement in data collection on mecoprop-p concentrations and detailed seasonal herbicide sales for non-agricultural purposes are needed to inform the analysis and decision process.

The Efficiency and Success Rates of Print Ready Reference vs Online Ready Reference Searches in Canadian University Libraries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Horner, Jan; Michaud-Oystryk, Nicole

1995-01-01

An experiment investigated whether the format in which information is stored affects the outcomes of ready reference transactions in terms of efficiency and accuracy. Results indicate that bibliographic questions are more efficiently answered online, while factual questions are more efficiently answered with print sources. Results of the study are…

Convenience or Credibility? A Study of College Student Online Research Behaviors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biddix, J. Patrick; Chung, Chung Joo; Park, Han Woo

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate where students turn for course-related assignments, whether an ordered pattern could be described in terms of which sources students turn to and how students evaluated the information they chose to use. Data were drawn from open-ended questionnaires (n = 282). Semantic network analysis was conducted…

40 CFR 63.11158 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Sources Other Requirements and Information § 63.11158 What definitions apply to this subpart? Terms used in this subpart are defined in the CAA, in 40 CFR 63.2, and in this section as follows: Anode copper means copper that is cast into anodes and refined in an electrolytic process to produce high purity...

40 CFR 63.11158 - What definitions apply to this subpart?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... Sources Other Requirements and Information § 63.11158 What definitions apply to this subpart? Terms used in this subpart are defined in the CAA, in 40 CFR 63.2, and in this section as follows: Anode copper means copper that is cast into anodes and refined in an electrolytic process to produce high purity...

Self-Esteem, Creativity, and Music: Implications and Directions for Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

VanderArk, Sherman

1989-01-01

This paper seeks to give potentially pertinent information and ideas for the development of a model and of hypotheses that are relevant in terms of combining the areas of self-concept and creativity. Selected sources from the areas of psychology, education, and music education are presented as the basis for ideas and thoughts for further research.…

Children's Understanding of Health and Health-Related Behavior: The Influence of Age and Information Source

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Daigle, Kay; Hebert, Edward; Humphries, Charlotte

2007-01-01

Background: Health is recognized as an important factor in children's educational achievement, and school-based health education programs are recognized for their potential long-term impact. However, the extent to which children conceptualize health similarly as adults, and the nature of their understandings of health, remain cloudy. Purpose:…

Telling the story of tree species’ range shifts in a complex landscape

Treesearch

Sharon M. Stanton; Vicente J. Monleon; Heather E. Lintz; Joel Thompson

2015-01-01

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program is the unrivaled source for long-term, spatially balanced, publicly available data. FIA will continue to be providers of data, but the program is growing and adapting, including a shift in how we communicate information and knowledge derived from those data. Online applications, interactive mapping, and infographics provide...

Development of Accommodation Models for Soldiers in Vehicles: Squad

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-09-01

existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. Send comments...Distribution Statement A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited 13. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES 14. ABSTRACT Data from a previous study...body armor and body borne gear. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Anthropometry , Posture, Vehicle Occupants, Accommodation 16. SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF

Analysis of Scientific Research Related Anxiety Levels of Undergraduate Students'

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Yildirim, Sefa; Hasiloglu, Mehmet Akif

2018-01-01

In this study, it was aimed to identify the scientific research-related anxiety levels of the undergraduate students studying in the department of faculty of science and letters and faculty of education to analyse these anxiety levels in terms of various variables (students' gender, using web based information sources, going to the library,…

The 'CommTech' Methodology: A Demand-Driven Approach to Efficient, Productive and Measurable Technology Transfer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Horsham, Gray A. P.

1998-01-01

Market research sources were used to initially gather primary technological problems and needs data from non-aerospace companies in targeted industry sectors. The company-supplied information served as input data to activate or start-up an internal, phased match-making process. This process was based on technical-level relationship exploration followed by business-level agreement negotiations, and culminated with project management and execution. Space Act Agreements represented near-term outputs. Company product or process commercialization derived from Lewis support and measurable economic effects represented far-term outputs.

Reproductive health information for young women in Kazakhstan: disparities in access by channel.

PubMed

Buckley, Cynthia; Barrett, Jennifer; Adkins, Kristen

2008-01-01

This study explores young women's reliance on reproductive and sexual health information channels, examining the relationship between information sources and reproductive health knowledge. Utilizing 1995 and 1999 Kazakhstan Demographic and Health Surveys, we investigate access to reproductive health knowledge among young women (ages 15-24) during a key period in the development of wide-scale reproductive health programs in Kazakhstan. Despite reproductive health campaigns throughout the 1990s, we find consistently high proportions of young women without family planning information access. Among young women with access to information, few received information from channels most strongly linked to knowledge and behavioral changes (family and medical professionals). Mass media sources and peer information networks remained the most often utilized channels. Urban residence, non-Kazakh ethnicity, older age (20-24), and higher education significantly increased the odds of accessing family planning information among young Kazakhstani women, and these same factors were especially important in terms of the relative odds of accessing medical and parental channels. While overall contraceptive knowledge and prevalence rose in Kazakhstan during the 1990s, we find knowledge varied by the information channel accessed. Findings also indicate that young women, regardless of marital status, possessed consistently low levels of reproductive health knowledge at the decade's end.

Weighted Regressions on Time, Discharge, and Season (WRTDS), with an application to Chesapeake Bay River inputs

USGS Publications Warehouse

Hirsch, Robert M.; Moyer, Douglas; Archfield, Stacey A.

2010-01-01

A new approach to the analysis of long-term surface water-quality data is proposed and implemented. The goal of this approach is to increase the amount of information that is extracted from the types of rich water-quality datasets that now exist. The method is formulated to allow for maximum flexibility in representations of the long-term trend, seasonal components, and discharge-related components of the behavior of the water-quality variable of interest. It is designed to provide internally consistent estimates of the actual history of concentrations and fluxes as well as histories that eliminate the influence of year-to-year variations in streamflow. The method employs the use of weighted regressions of concentrations on time, discharge, and season. Finally, the method is designed to be useful as a diagnostic tool regarding the kinds of changes that are taking place in the watershed related to point sources, groundwater sources, and surface-water nonpoint sources. The method is applied to datasets for the nine large tributaries of Chesapeake Bay from 1978 to 2008. The results show a wide range of patterns of change in total phosphorus and in dissolved nitrate plus nitrite. These results should prove useful in further examination of the causes of changes, or lack of changes, and may help inform decisions about future actions to reduce nutrient enrichment in the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.

Auroral Proper Motion in the Era of AMISR and EMCCD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Semeter, J. L.

2016-12-01

The term "aurora" is a catch-all for luminosity produced by the deposition of magnetospheric energy in the outer atmosphere. The use of this single phenomenological term occludes the rich variety of sources and mechanisms responsible for the excitation. Among these are electron thermal conduction (SAR arcs), electrostatic potential fields ("inverted-V" aurora), wave-particle resonance (Alfvenic aurora, pulsating aurora), pitch-angle scattering (diffuse aurora), and direct injection of plasma sheet particles (PBIs, substorms). Much information about auroral energization has been derived from the energy spectrum of primary particles, which may be measured directly with an in situ detector or indirectly via analysis of the atmospheric response (e.g., auroral spectroscopy, tomography, ionization). Somewhat less emphasized has been the information in the B_perp dimension. Specifically, the scale-dependent motions of auroral forms in the rest frame of the ambient plasma provide a means of partitioning both the source region and the source mechanism. These results, in turn, affect ionospheric state parameters that control the M-I coupling process-most notably, the degree of structure imparted to the conductance field. This paper describes recent results enabled by the advent of two technologies: high frame-rate, high-resolution imaging detectors, and electronically steerable incoherent scatter radar (the AMISR systems). In addition to contributing to our understanding of the aurora, these results may be used in predictive models of multi-scale energy transfer within the disturbed geospace system.

Network of anatomical texts (NAnaTex), an open-source project for visualizing the interaction between anatomical terms.

PubMed

Momota, Ryusuke; Ohtsuka, Aiji

2018-01-01

Anatomy is the science and art of understanding the structure of the body and its components in relation to the functions of the whole-body system. Medicine is based on a deep understanding of anatomy, but quite a few introductory-level learners are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of anatomical terminology that must be understood, so they regard anatomy as a dull and dense subject. To help them learn anatomical terms in a more contextual way, we started a new open-source project, the Network of Anatomical Texts (NAnaTex), which visualizes relationships of body components by integrating text-based anatomical information using Cytoscape, a network visualization software platform. Here, we present a network of bones and muscles produced from literature descriptions. As this network is primarily text-based and does not require any programming knowledge, it is easy to implement new functions or provide extra information by making changes to the original text files. To facilitate collaborations, we deposited the source code files for the network into the GitHub repository ( https://github.com/ryusukemomota/nanatex ) so that anybody can participate in the evolution of the network and use it for their own non-profit purposes. This project should help not only introductory-level learners but also professional medical practitioners, who could use it as a quick reference.

Post-disaster supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure system restoration: A review of data necessary and available for modeling

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ramachandran, Varun; Long, Suzanna K.; Shoberg, Thomas G.; Corns, Steven; Carlo, Hector J.

2016-01-01

The majority of restoration strategies in the wake of large-scale disasters have focused on short-term emergency response solutions. Few consider medium- to long-term restoration strategies to reconnect urban areas to national supply chain interdependent critical infrastructure systems (SCICI). These SCICI promote the effective flow of goods, services, and information vital to the economic vitality of an urban environment. To re-establish the connectivity that has been broken during a disaster between the different SCICI, relationships between these systems must be identified, formulated, and added to a common framework to form a system-level restoration plan. To accomplish this goal, a considerable collection of SCICI data is necessary. The aim of this paper is to review what data are required for model construction, the accessibility of these data, and their integration with each other. While a review of publically available data reveals a dearth of real-time data to assist modeling long-term recovery following an extreme event, a significant amount of static data does exist and these data can be used to model the complex interdependencies needed. For the sake of illustration, a particular SCICI (transportation) is used to highlight the challenges of determining the interdependencies and creating models capable of describing the complexity of an urban environment with the data publically available. Integration of such data as is derived from public domain sources is readily achieved in a geospatial environment, after all geospatial infrastructure data are the most abundant data source and while significant quantities of data can be acquired through public sources, a significant effort is still required to gather, develop, and integrate these data from multiple sources to build a complete model. Therefore, while continued availability of high quality, public information is essential for modeling efforts in academic as well as government communities, a more streamlined approach to a real-time acquisition and integration of these data is essential.

Neutron crosstalk between liquid scintillators

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Verbeke, J. M.; Prasad, M. K.; Snyderman, N. J.

2015-05-01

We propose a method to quantify the fractions of neutrons scattering between liquid scintillators. Using a spontaneous fission source, this method can be utilized to quickly characterize an array of liquid scintillators in terms of crosstalk. The point model theory due to Feynman is corrected to account for these multiple scatterings. Using spectral information measured by the liquid scintillators, fractions of multiple scattering can be estimated, and mass reconstruction of fissile materials under investigation can be improved. Monte Carlo simulations of mono-energetic neutron sources were performed to estimate neutron crosstalk. A californium source in an array of liquid scintillators wasmore » modeled to illustrate the improvement of the mass reconstruction.« less

Exploiting heterogeneous publicly available data sources for drug safety surveillance: computational framework and case studies.

PubMed

Koutkias, Vassilis G; Lillo-Le Louët, Agnès; Jaulent, Marie-Christine

2017-02-01

Driven by the need of pharmacovigilance centres and companies to routinely collect and review all available data about adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and adverse events of interest, we introduce and validate a computational framework exploiting dominant as well as emerging publicly available data sources for drug safety surveillance. Our approach relies on appropriate query formulation for data acquisition and subsequent filtering, transformation and joint visualization of the obtained data. We acquired data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), PubMed and Twitter. In order to assess the validity and the robustness of the approach, we elaborated on two important case studies, namely, clozapine-induced cardiomyopathy/myocarditis versus haloperidol-induced cardiomyopathy/myocarditis, and apixaban-induced cerebral hemorrhage. The analysis of the obtained data provided interesting insights (identification of potential patient and health-care professional experiences regarding ADRs in Twitter, information/arguments against an ADR existence across all sources), while illustrating the benefits (complementing data from multiple sources to strengthen/confirm evidence) and the underlying challenges (selecting search terms, data presentation) of exploiting heterogeneous information sources, thereby advocating the need for the proposed framework. This work contributes in establishing a continuous learning system for drug safety surveillance by exploiting heterogeneous publicly available data sources via appropriate support tools.

Adolescent responses toward a new technology: first associations, information seeking and affective responses to ecogenomics.

PubMed

Bos, Mark J W; Koolstra, Cees M; Willems, Jaap T J M

2009-03-01

This paper reports on an exploratory study among adolescents (N = 752) who were introduced to the emerging technology of ecogenomics for the first time. An online survey focused on their associations with the term ecogenomics, their planned information seeking behaviors if they were to acquire information about the new technology, and their first affective responses toward ecogenomics after having read some introductory information about it. Adolescents were found to associate ecogenomics most frequently with economy. Although the Internet was the most popular medium to be used in their planned information seeking behaviors, books and science communication professionals were judged as the most trustworthy information sources. After having read the introductory information about ecogenomics most adolescents reported positive affective responses toward the new technology.

Online Health Information Regarding Male Infertility: An Evaluation of Readability, Suitability, and Quality

PubMed Central

Robins, Stephanie; Barr, Helena J; Idelson, Rachel; Lambert, Sylvie

2016-01-01

Background Many men lack knowledge about male infertility, and this may have consequences for their reproductive and general health. Men may prefer to seek health information online, but these sources of information vary in quality. Objective The objective of this study is to determine if online sources of information regarding male infertility are readable, suitable, and of appropriate quality for Internet users in the general population. Methods This study used a cross-sectional design to evaluate online sources resulting from search engine queries. The following categories of websites were considered: (1) Canadian fertility clinics, (2) North American organizations related to fertility, and (3) the first 20 results of Google searches using the terms “male infertility” and “male fertility preservation” set to the search locations worldwide, English Canada, and French Canada. Websites that met inclusion criteria (N=85) were assessed using readability indices, the Suitability Assessment of Materials (SAM), and the DISCERN tool. The associations between website affiliation (government, university/medical, non-profit organization, commercial/corporate, private practice) and Google placement to readability, suitability, and quality were also examined. Results None of the sampled websites met recommended levels of readability. Across all websites, the mean SAM score for suitability was 45.37% (SD 11.21), or “adequate”, while the DISCERN mean score for quality was 43.19 (SD 10.46) or “fair”. Websites that placed higher in Google obtained a higher overall score for quality with an r (58) value of -.328 and a P value of .012, but this position was not related to readability or suitability. In addition, 20% of fertility clinic websites did not include fertility information for men. Conclusions There is a lack of high quality online sources of information on male fertility. Many websites target their information to women, or fail to meet established readability criteria for the general population. Since men may prefer to seek health information online, it is important that health care professionals develop high quality sources of information on male fertility for the general population. PMID:27769954

From a Content Delivery Portal to a Knowledge Management System for Standardized Cancer Documentation.

PubMed

Schlue, Danijela; Mate, Sebastian; Haier, Jörg; Kadioglu, Dennis; Prokosch, Hans-Ulrich; Breil, Bernhard

2017-01-01

Heterogeneous tumor documentation and its challenges of interpretation of medical terms lead to problems in analyses of data from clinical and epidemiological cancer registries. The objective of this project was to design, implement and improve a national content delivery portal for oncological terms. Data elements of existing handbooks and documentation sources were analyzed, combined and summarized by medical experts of different comprehensive cancer centers. Informatics experts created a generic data model based on an existing metadata repository. In order to establish a national knowledge management system for standardized cancer documentation, a prototypical tumor wiki was designed and implemented. Requirements engineering techniques were applied to optimize this platform. It is targeted to user groups such as documentation officers, physicians and patients. The linkage to other information sources like PubMed and MeSH was realized.

“Gestaltomics”: Systems Biology Schemes for the Study of Neuropsychiatric Diseases

PubMed Central

Gutierrez Najera, Nora A.; Resendis-Antonio, Osbaldo; Nicolini, Humberto

2017-01-01

The integration of different sources of biological information about what defines a behavioral phenotype is difficult to unify in an entity that reflects the arithmetic sum of its individual parts. In this sense, the challenge of Systems Biology for understanding the “psychiatric phenotype” is to provide an improved vision of the shape of the phenotype as it is visualized by “Gestalt” psychology, whose fundamental axiom is that the observed phenotype (behavior or mental disorder) will be the result of the integrative composition of every part. Therefore, we propose the term “Gestaltomics” as a term from Systems Biology to integrate data coming from different sources of information (such as the genome, transcriptome, proteome, epigenome, metabolome, phenome, and microbiome). In addition to this biological complexity, the mind is integrated through multiple brain functions that receive and process complex information through channels and perception networks (i.e., sight, ear, smell, memory, and attention) that in turn are programmed by genes and influenced by environmental processes (epigenetic). Today, the approach of medical research in human diseases is to isolate one disease for study; however, the presence of an additional disease (co-morbidity) or more than one disease (multimorbidity) adds complexity to the study of these conditions. This review will present the challenge of integrating psychiatric disorders at different levels of information (Gestaltomics). The implications of increasing the level of complexity, for example, studying the co-morbidity with another disease such as cancer, will also be discussed. PMID:28536537

Bayesian analyses of time-interval data for environmental radiation monitoring.

PubMed

Luo, Peng; Sharp, Julia L; DeVol, Timothy A

2013-01-01

Time-interval (time difference between two consecutive pulses) analysis based on the principles of Bayesian inference was investigated for online radiation monitoring. Using experimental and simulated data, Bayesian analysis of time-interval data [Bayesian (ti)] was compared with Bayesian and a conventional frequentist analysis of counts in a fixed count time [Bayesian (cnt) and single interval test (SIT), respectively]. The performances of the three methods were compared in terms of average run length (ARL) and detection probability for several simulated detection scenarios. Experimental data were acquired with a DGF-4C system in list mode. Simulated data were obtained using Monte Carlo techniques to obtain a random sampling of the Poisson distribution. All statistical algorithms were developed using the R Project for statistical computing. Bayesian analysis of time-interval information provided a similar detection probability as Bayesian analysis of count information, but the authors were able to make a decision with fewer pulses at relatively higher radiation levels. In addition, for the cases with very short presence of the source (< count time), time-interval information is more sensitive to detect a change than count information since the source data is averaged by the background data over the entire count time. The relationships of the source time, change points, and modifications to the Bayesian approach for increasing detection probability are presented.

Social learning of floral odours inside the honeybee hive.

PubMed

Farina, Walter M; Grüter, Christoph; Díaz, Paula C

2005-09-22

A honeybee hive serves as an information centre in which communication among bees allows the colony to exploit the most profitable resources in a continuously changing environment. The best-studied communication behaviour in this context is the waggle dance performed by returning foragers, which encodes information about the distance and direction to the food source. It has been suggested that another information cue, floral scents transferred within the hive, is also important for recruitment to food sources, as bee recruits are more strongly attracted to odours previously brought back by foragers in both honeybees and bumble-bees. These observations suggested that honeybees learn the odour from successful foragers before leaving the hive. However, this has never been shown directly and the mechanisms and properties of the learning process remain obscure. We tested the learning and memory of recruited bees in the laboratory using the proboscis extension response (PER) paradigm, and show that recruits indeed learn the nectar odours brought back by foragers by associative learning and retrieve this memory in the PER paradigm. The associative nature of this learning reveals that information was gained during mouth-to-mouth contacts among bees (trophallaxis). Results further suggest that the information is transferred to long-term memory. Associative learning of food odours in a social context may help recruits to find a particular food source faster.

Low latitude ice core evidence for dust deposition on high altitude glaciers

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gabrielli, P.; Thompson, L. G.

2017-12-01

Polar ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland have provided a wealth of information on dust emission, transport and deposition over glacial to interglacial timescales. These ice cores mainly entrap dust transported long distances from source areas such as Asia for Greenland and South America for Antarctica. Thus, these dust records provide paleo-information about the environmental conditions at the source and the strength/pathways of atmospheric circulation at continental scales. Ice cores have also been extracted from high altitude glaciers in the mid- and low-latitudes and provide dust records generally extending back several centuries and in a few cases back to the last glacial period. For these glaciers the potential sources of dust emission include areas that are close or adjacent to the drilling site which facilitates the potential for a strong imprinting of local dust in the records. In addition, only a few high altitude glaciers allow the reconstruction of past snow accumulation and hence the expression of the dust records in terms of fluxes. Due to their extreme elevation, a few of these high altitude ice cores offer dust histories with the potential to record environmental conditions at remote sources. Dust records (in terms of dust concentration/size, crustal trace elements and terrigenous cations) from Africa, the European Alps, South America and the Himalayas are examined over the last millennium. The interplay of the seasonal atmospheric circulation (e.g. westerlies, monsoons and vertical convection) is shown to play a major role in determining the intensity and origin of dust fallout to the high altitude glaciers around the world.

Internet as a Source of Long-Term and Real-Time Professional, Psychological, and Nutritional Treatment: A Qualitative Case Study Among Former Israeli Soviet Union Immigrants

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Background The Internet is considered to be an effective source of health information and consultation for immigrants. Nutritional interventions for immigrants have become increasingly common over the past few decades. However, each population of immigrants has specific needs. Understanding the factors influencing the success of nutrition programs among immigrants requires an examination of their attitudes and perceptions, as well as their cultural values. Objective The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of the Internet as a tool for long-term and “real-time” professional, psychological, and nutritional treatment for immigrants from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel (IIFSU) from 1990 to 2012. Methods A sample of nutrition forum users (n=18) was interviewed and comments of 80 users were analyzed qualitatively in accordance with the grounded theory principles. Results The results show that IIFSU perceive the Internet as a platform for long-term and “real-time” dietary treatment and not just as an informative tool. IIFSU report benefits of online psychological support with professional dietary treatment. They attribute importance to cultural customization, which helps reduce barriers to intervention. Conclusions In light of the results, when formulating nutritional programs, it is essential to have a specific understanding of immigrants’ cultural characteristics and their patterns of Internet use concerning dietary care. PMID:28159729

[Spatio-temporal characteristics and source identification of water pollutants in Wenruitang River watershed].

PubMed

Ma, Xiao-xue; Wang, La-chun; Liao, Ling-ling

2015-01-01

Identifying the temp-spatial distribution and sources of water pollutants is of great significance for efficient water quality management pollution control in Wenruitang River watershed, China. A total of twelve water quality parameters, including temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen (DO), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH4+ -N), electrical conductivity (EC), turbidity (Turb), nitrite-N (NO2-), nitrate-N(NO3-), phosphate-P(PO4(3-), total organic carbon (TOC) and silicate (SiO3(2-)), were analyzed from September, 2008 to October, 2009. Geographic information system(GIS) and principal component analysis(PCA) were used to determine the spatial distribution and to apportion the sources of pollutants. The results demonstrated that TN, NH4+ -N, PO4(3-) were the main pollutants during flow period, wet period, dry period, respectively, which was mainly caused by urban point sources and agricultural and rural non-point sources. In spatial terms, the order of pollution was tertiary river > secondary river > primary river, while the water quality was worse in city zones than in the suburb and wetland zone regardless of the river classification. In temporal terms, the order of pollution was dry period > wet period > flow period. Population density, land use type and water transfer affected the water quality in Wenruitang River.

Pathways for best practice diffusion: the structure of informal relationships in Canada's long-term care sector.

PubMed

Dearing, James W; Beacom, Amanda M; Chamberlain, Stephanie A; Meng, Jingbo; Berta, Whitney B; Keefe, Janice M; Squires, Janet E; Doupe, Malcolm B; Taylor, Deanne; Reid, Robert Colin; Cook, Heather; Cummings, Greta G; Baumbusch, Jennifer L; Knopp-Sihota, Jennifer; Norton, Peter G; Estabrooks, Carole A

2017-02-03

Initiatives to accelerate the adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices benefit from an association with influential individuals and organizations. When opinion leaders advocate or adopt a best practice, others adopt too, resulting in diffusion. We sought to identify existing influence throughout Canada's long-term care sector and the extent to which informal advice-seeking relationships tie the sector together as a network. We conducted a sociometric survey of senior leaders in 958 long-term care facilities operating in 11 of Canada's 13 provinces and territories. We used an integrated knowledge translation approach to involve knowledge users in planning and administering the survey and in analyzing and interpreting the results. Responses from 482 senior leaders generated the names of 794 individuals and 587 organizations as sources of advice for improving resident care in long-term care facilities. A single advice-seeking network appears to span the nation. Proximity exhibits a strong effect on network structure, with provincial inter-organizational networks having more connections and thus a denser structure than interpersonal networks. We found credible individuals and organizations within groups (opinion leaders and opinion-leading organizations) and individuals and organizations that function as weak ties across groups (boundary spanners and bridges) for all studied provinces and territories. A good deal of influence in the Canadian long-term care sector rests with professionals such as provincial health administrators not employed in long-term care facilities. The Canadian long-term care sector is tied together through informal advice-seeking relationships that have given rise to an emergent network structure. Knowledge of this structure and engagement with its opinion leaders and boundary spanners may provide a route for stimulating the adoption and effective implementation of best practices, improving resident care and strengthening the long-term care advice network. We conclude that informal relational pathways hold promise for helping to transform the Canadian long-term care sector.

Multimodal Medical Image Fusion by Adaptive Manifold Filter.

PubMed

Geng, Peng; Liu, Shuaiqi; Zhuang, Shanna

2015-01-01

Medical image fusion plays an important role in diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as image-guided radiotherapy and surgery. The modified local contrast information is proposed to fuse multimodal medical images. Firstly, the adaptive manifold filter is introduced into filtering source images as the low-frequency part in the modified local contrast. Secondly, the modified spatial frequency of the source images is adopted as the high-frequency part in the modified local contrast. Finally, the pixel with larger modified local contrast is selected into the fused image. The presented scheme outperforms the guided filter method in spatial domain, the dual-tree complex wavelet transform-based method, nonsubsampled contourlet transform-based method, and four classic fusion methods in terms of visual quality. Furthermore, the mutual information values by the presented method are averagely 55%, 41%, and 62% higher than the three methods and those values of edge based similarity measure by the presented method are averagely 13%, 33%, and 14% higher than the three methods for the six pairs of source images.

Core information set for oesophageal cancer surgery.

PubMed

Blazeby, J M; Macefield, R; Blencowe, N S; Jacobs, M; McNair, A G K; Sprangers, M; Brookes, S T

2015-07-01

Surgeons provide patients with information before surgery, although standards of information are lacking and practice varies. The development and use of a 'core information set' as baseline information before surgery may improve understanding. A core set is a minimum set of information to use in all consultations before a specific procedure. This study developed a core information set for oesophageal cancer surgery. Information was identified from the literature, observations of clinical consultations and patient interviews. This was integrated to create a questionnaire survey. Stakeholders (patients and professionals) were surveyed twice to assess views on importance of information from 'not essential' to 'absolutely essential' using Delphi methods. Items not meeting predefined criteria were discarded after each survey and the final retained items were voted on, in separate patient and professional stakeholder meetings, to agree the core set. Some 67 information items were identified initially from multiple sources. Survey response rates were 76·5 per cent (185 of 242) and 54·8 per cent (126 of 230) for patients and professionals respectively (first round), and over 83 per cent in both groups thereafter. Health professionals rated short-term clinical outcomes most highly (technical complications), whereas patients prioritized information related to long-term benefits. The consensus meetings agreed the final set, which consisted of: in-hospital milestones to recovery, rates of open-and-close surgery, in-hospital mortality, major complications (reoperation), milestones in recovery after discharge, longer-term eating and drinking and overall quality of life, and chances of survival. This study has established a core information set for surgery for oesophageal cancer. © 2015 BJS Society Ltd Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Retrieving definitional content for ontology development.

PubMed

Smith, L; Wilbur, W J

2004-12-01

Ontology construction requires an understanding of the meaning and usage of its encoded concepts. While definitions found in dictionaries or glossaries may be adequate for many concepts, the actual usage in expert writing could be a better source of information for many others. The goal of this paper is to describe an automated procedure for finding definitional content in expert writing. The approach uses machine learning on phrasal features to learn when sentences in a book contain definitional content, as determined by their similarity to glossary definitions provided in the same book. The end result is not a concise definition of a given concept, but for each sentence, a predicted probability that it contains information relevant to a definition. The approach is evaluated automatically for terms with explicit definitions, and manually for terms with no available definition.

Echolocation versus echo suppression in humans

PubMed Central

Wallmeier, Ludwig; Geßele, Nikodemus; Wiegrebe, Lutz

2013-01-01

Several studies have shown that blind humans can gather spatial information through echolocation. However, when localizing sound sources, the precedence effect suppresses spatial information of echoes, and thereby conflicts with effective echolocation. This study investigates the interaction of echolocation and echo suppression in terms of discrimination suppression in virtual acoustic space. In the ‘Listening’ experiment, sighted subjects discriminated between positions of a single sound source, the leading or the lagging of two sources, respectively. In the ‘Echolocation’ experiment, the sources were replaced by reflectors. Here, the same subjects evaluated echoes generated in real time from self-produced vocalizations and thereby discriminated between positions of a single reflector, the leading or the lagging of two reflectors, respectively. Two key results were observed. First, sighted subjects can learn to discriminate positions of reflective surfaces echo-acoustically with accuracy comparable to sound source discrimination. Second, in the Listening experiment, the presence of the leading source affected discrimination of lagging sources much more than vice versa. In the Echolocation experiment, however, the presence of both the lead and the lag strongly affected discrimination. These data show that the classically described asymmetry in the perception of leading and lagging sounds is strongly diminished in an echolocation task. Additional control experiments showed that the effect is owing to both the direct sound of the vocalization that precedes the echoes and owing to the fact that the subjects actively vocalize in the echolocation task. PMID:23986105

Framework for automatic information extraction from research papers on nanocrystal devices

PubMed Central

Yoshioka, Masaharu; Hara, Shinjiro; Newton, Marcus C

2015-01-01

Summary To support nanocrystal device development, we have been working on a computational framework to utilize information in research papers on nanocrystal devices. We developed an annotated corpus called “ NaDev” (Nanocrystal Device Development) for this purpose. We also proposed an automatic information extraction system called “NaDevEx” (Nanocrystal Device Automatic Information Extraction Framework). NaDevEx aims at extracting information from research papers on nanocrystal devices using the NaDev corpus and machine-learning techniques. However, the characteristics of NaDevEx were not examined in detail. In this paper, we conduct system evaluation experiments for NaDevEx using the NaDev corpus. We discuss three main issues: system performance, compared with human annotators; the effect of paper type (synthesis or characterization) on system performance; and the effects of domain knowledge features (e.g., a chemical named entity recognition system and list of names of physical quantities) on system performance. We found that overall system performance was 89% in precision and 69% in recall. If we consider identification of terms that intersect with correct terms for the same information category as the correct identification, i.e., loose agreement (in many cases, we can find that appropriate head nouns such as temperature or pressure loosely match between two terms), the overall performance is 95% in precision and 74% in recall. The system performance is almost comparable with results of human annotators for information categories with rich domain knowledge information (source material). However, for other information categories, given the relatively large number of terms that exist only in one paper, recall of individual information categories is not high (39–73%); however, precision is better (75–97%). The average performance for synthesis papers is better than that for characterization papers because of the lack of training examples for characterization papers. Based on these results, we discuss future research plans for improving the performance of the system. PMID:26665057

Framework for automatic information extraction from research papers on nanocrystal devices.

PubMed

Dieb, Thaer M; Yoshioka, Masaharu; Hara, Shinjiro; Newton, Marcus C

2015-01-01

To support nanocrystal device development, we have been working on a computational framework to utilize information in research papers on nanocrystal devices. We developed an annotated corpus called " NaDev" (Nanocrystal Device Development) for this purpose. We also proposed an automatic information extraction system called "NaDevEx" (Nanocrystal Device Automatic Information Extraction Framework). NaDevEx aims at extracting information from research papers on nanocrystal devices using the NaDev corpus and machine-learning techniques. However, the characteristics of NaDevEx were not examined in detail. In this paper, we conduct system evaluation experiments for NaDevEx using the NaDev corpus. We discuss three main issues: system performance, compared with human annotators; the effect of paper type (synthesis or characterization) on system performance; and the effects of domain knowledge features (e.g., a chemical named entity recognition system and list of names of physical quantities) on system performance. We found that overall system performance was 89% in precision and 69% in recall. If we consider identification of terms that intersect with correct terms for the same information category as the correct identification, i.e., loose agreement (in many cases, we can find that appropriate head nouns such as temperature or pressure loosely match between two terms), the overall performance is 95% in precision and 74% in recall. The system performance is almost comparable with results of human annotators for information categories with rich domain knowledge information (source material). However, for other information categories, given the relatively large number of terms that exist only in one paper, recall of individual information categories is not high (39-73%); however, precision is better (75-97%). The average performance for synthesis papers is better than that for characterization papers because of the lack of training examples for characterization papers. Based on these results, we discuss future research plans for improving the performance of the system.

Fusion or confusion: knowledge or nonsense?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rothman, Peter L.; Denton, Richard V.

1991-08-01

The terms 'data fusion,' 'sensor fusion,' multi-sensor integration,' and 'multi-source integration' have been used widely in the technical literature to refer to a variety of techniques, technologies, systems, and applications which employ and/or combine data derived from multiple information sources. Applications of data fusion range from real-time fusion of sensor information for the navigation of mobile robots to the off-line fusion of both human and technical strategic intelligence data. The Department of Defense Critical Technologies Plan lists data fusion in the highest priority group of critical technologies, but just what is data fusion? The DoD Critical Technologies Plan states that data fusion involves 'the acquisition, integration, filtering, correlation, and synthesis of useful data from diverse sources for the purposes of situation/environment assessment, planning, detecting, verifying, diagnosing problems, aiding tactical and strategic decisions, and improving system performance and utility.' More simply states, sensor fusion refers to the combination of data from multiple sources to provide enhanced information quality and availability over that which is available from any individual source alone. This paper presents a survey of the state-of-the- art in data fusion technologies, system components, and applications. A set of characteristics which can be utilized to classify data fusion systems is presented. Additionally, a unifying mathematical and conceptual framework within which to understand and organize fusion technologies is described. A discussion of often overlooked issues in the development of sensor fusion systems is also presented.

Use of quality information in decision-making about health and social care services--a systematic review.

PubMed

Turnpenny, Agnes; Beadle-Brown, Julie

2015-07-01

User choice and personalisation have been at the centre of health and social care policies in many countries. Exercising choice can be especially challenging for people with long-term conditions (LTC) or disabilities. Information about the quality, cost and availability of services is central to user choice. This study used systematic review methods to synthesise evidence in three main areas: (i) how people with LTC or disabilities and their family carers find and access information about the quality of services; (ii) how quality information is used in decision-making; and (iii) what type of quality information is most useful. Quality information was defined broadly and could include formal quality reports (e.g. inspection reports, report cards, etc.), information about the characteristics of a service or provider (e.g. number and qualifications of staff, facilities, etc.) and informal reports about quality (e.g. personal experience, etc.). Literature searches were carried out using electronic databases in January 2012. Thirteen papers reporting findings from empirical studies published between 2001 and 2012 were included in the review. The majority of papers (n = 9) had a qualitative design. The analysis highlighted the use of multiple sources of information in decision-making about services and in particular the importance of informal sources and extended social networks in accessing information. There is limited awareness and use of 'official' and online information sources. Service users or family carers place greater emphasis on general information and structural indicators. Clinical or quality-of-life outcomes are often difficult to interpret and apply. Trust emerged a key issue in relation to quality information. Experiential and subjective information is highly valued and trusted. Various barriers to the effective use of quality information in making choices about services are identified. Implications for policy and future research are discussed. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Evaluating long-term patient-centered outcomes following prostate cancer treatment: findings from the Michigan Prostate Cancer Survivor study.

PubMed

Darwish-Yassine, May; Berenji, Manijeh; Wing, Diane; Copeland, Glenn; Demers, Raymond Y; Garlinghouse, Carol; Fagerlin, Angela; Newth, Gail E; Northouse, Laurel; Holmes-Rovner, Margaret; Rovner, David; Sims, Jerry; Wei, John T

2014-03-01

Advances in screening and treatment of prostate cancer have dramatically increased the number of survivors in the US population. Yet the effect of screening is controversial, and in some instances may not be beneficial. Previous studies have typically only reported outcomes of treatment and symptoms within a short time frame following treatment. The persistence of such symptoms over time necessitates an improvement of survivor care so that the medical and support needs of these patients are met. This study aims to perform a patient-centered survey of prostate cancer survivors in the Michigan Cancer Registry to identify treatment side effect rates, evaluate survivors' access to preventive care services post-prostate cancer treatment, and assess the informational needs of these survivors regarding their prostate cancer. Linking case files of the Michigan Cancer Registry with records from the National Death Index, we identified prostate cancer patients diagnosed between 1985 and 2004 and alive on 31 December 2005. Participants were selected using a stratified cross-sectional sampling strategy to ensure adequate inclusion of survivors based upon race and ethnicity, urban versus rural location, and number of years since diagnosis of prostate cancer. A total of 2,499 surveys were completed and returned. (1) Physical symptoms--assessing bowel, sexual, urinary, and vitality symptoms by treatment modality. (2) Access to care--identifying whether diagnostic tests for prostate cancer (prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and digital rectal examination) were performed. Determining whether the survivors had knowledge of the "watchful waiting" paradigm for prostate cancer surveillance. (3) Informational needs--assessing whether the informational needs of patients were addressed by providers. Evaluating the significant predictors associated with seeking information about prostate cancer from any other source. Identifying what factors influenced a person to actively seek out information and what factors guide which primary information source a survivor would use. Median duration between prostate cancer diagnosis and survey response was 9 years. Of the study population, 80 % was diagnosed at an early stage. Survivors had reported significant problems in the 4 weeks prior to survey. Of the survivors, 88.1 % reported having a PSA test since diagnosis of prostate cancer, with 93 % of them having it done at least once per year. Of the survivors, 82.6 % reported that a healthcare provider gave them information on prostate cancer. Of this 82.6 %, 86.4 % had this information provided by a urologist, 45.4 % by a primary care physician, and 29.2 % by an oncologist. The primary source of information for these survivors was "healthcare provider" (59.2 %). Persistent symptoms subsequent to prostate cancer treatment suggest a gap in symptom management. Future research should support long-term studies of active surveillance versus active treatment outcomes to understand the feasibility of minimizing the burden of long-term physical symptoms arising from prostate cancer treatment. Clinicians must assess post-treatment distress long after treatment has ended to identify when supportive care is needed. More informational resources should be allocated to prostate cancer survivors to ensure that they are well-educated about their prognosis. This study is needed to ensure that the post-treatment symptoms of prostate cancer survivors are properly addressed and managed by healthcare providers over the long term.

The Effect of Rural Hospital Closures on Community Economic Health

PubMed Central

Holmes, George M; Slifkin, Rebecca T; Randolph, Randy K; Poley, Stephanie

2006-01-01

Objective To examine the effect of rural hospital closures on the local economy. Data Sources U.S. Census Bureau, OSCAR, Medicare Cost Reports, and surveys of individuals knowledgeable about local hospital closures. Study Design Economic data at the county level for 1990–2000 were combined with information on hospital closures. The study sample was restricted to rural counties experiencing a closure during the sample period. Longitudinal regression methods were used to estimate the effect of hospital closure on per-capita income, unemployment rate, and other community economic measures. Models included both leading and lagged closure terms allowing a preclosure economic downturn as well as time for the closure to be fully realized by the community. Data Collection Information on closures was collected by contacting every state hospital association, reconciling information gathered with that contained in the American Hospital Association file and OIG reports. Principal Findings Results indicate that the closure of the sole hospital in the community reduces per-capita income by $703 (p<0.05) or 4 percent (p<0.05) and increases the unemployment rate by 1.6 percentage points (p<0.01). Closures in communities with alternative sources of hospital care had no long-term economic impact, although income decreased for 2 years following the closure. Conclusions The local economic effects of a hospital closure should be considered when regulations that affect hospitals' financial well-being are designed or changed. PMID:16584460

Adolescent exposure to violence and adult physical and mental health problems.

PubMed

Franzese, Robert J; Covey, Herbert C; Tucker, Abigail S; McCoy, Leah; Menard, Scott

2014-12-01

Evidence on the relationship of adolescent exposure to violence (AEV) with adult physical and mental health problems is limited, with studies often focusing on earlier childhood rather than adolescence, and also on short term rather than long term outcomes. Information specifically on the relationship of AEV to seeking help for mental health problems in adulthood from either formal sources such as mental health professionals or informal sources such as friends and clergy is even more difficult to find. The present study investigates how adolescent exposure to violence (AEV), in the form of parental physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and exposure to violence in the neighborhood, are related to self-reported adult physical problems and seeking formal or informal assistance with mental health, controlling for more general adolescent violent victimization and for self-reports and parent reports of mental health problems in adolescence. This study adds to the literature on AEV and adult physical problems, and provides a rare look at the relationship of AEV to adult help-seeking for mental health problems. The results suggest that AEV is associated with mental health problems in adolescence for both females and males, that for females AEV is related to physical problems and to seeking help for mental health problems in adulthood, but for males the only significant relationship involves inconsistent reports of witnessing parental violence and adult physical problems. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Whatever Gave You that Idea? False Memories Following Equivalence Training: A Behavioral Account of the Misinformation Effect

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Challies, Danna M.; Hunt, Maree; Garry, Maryanne; Harper, David N.

2011-01-01

The misinformation effect is a term used in the cognitive psychological literature to describe both experimental and real-world instances in which misleading information is incorporated into an account of an historical event. In many real-world situations, it is not possible to identify a distinct source of misinformation, and it appears that the…

Youth Illicit Drug Use Prevention: DARE Long-Term Evaluations and Federal Efforts To Identify Effective Programs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kanof, Marjorie E.

The most widely used school-based substance abuse prevention program in the United States is the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program, which is funded by a variety of sources, including private, federal, and other public entities. DAREs primary mission is to provide children with the information and skills they need to live drug- and…

The Relationship of Parental Knowledge to the Development of Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dichtelmiller, Margo; And Others

1992-01-01

This study found that mothers (n=40) of extremely high-risk infants (averaging 1000 grams birthweight and 28 weeks gestational age) called upon the same experiences and sources of information as mothers of full-term infants. Infants of mothers with above average knowledge about infancy scored significantly higher on tests of infant development at…

Systematically biological prioritizing remediation sites based on datasets of biological investigations and heavy metals in soil

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Wei-Chih; Lin, Yu-Pin; Anthony, Johnathen

2015-04-01

Heavy metal pollution has adverse effects on not only the focal invertebrate species of this study, such as reduction in pupa weight and increased larval mortality, but also on the higher trophic level organisms which feed on them, either directly or indirectly, through the process of biomagnification. Despite this, few studies regarding remediation prioritization take species distribution or biological conservation priorities into consideration. This study develops a novel approach for delineating sites which are both contaminated by any of 5 readily bioaccumulated heavy metal soil contaminants and are of high ecological importance for the highly mobile, low trophic level focal species. The conservation priority of each site was based on the projected distributions of 6 moth species simulated via the presence-only maximum entropy species distribution model followed by the subsequent application of a systematic conservation tool. In order to increase the number of available samples, we also integrated crowd-sourced data with professionally-collected data via a novel optimization procedure based on a simulated annealing algorithm. This integration procedure was important since while crowd-sourced data can drastically increase the number of data samples available to ecologists, still the quality or reliability of crowd-sourced data can be called into question, adding yet another source of uncertainty in projecting species distributions. The optimization method screens crowd-sourced data in terms of the environmental variables which correspond to professionally-collected data. The sample distribution data was derived from two different sources, including the EnjoyMoths project in Taiwan (crowd-sourced data) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) ?eld data (professional data). The distributions of heavy metal concentrations were generated via 1000 iterations of a geostatistical co-simulation approach. The uncertainties in distributions of the heavy metals were then quantified based on the overall consistency between realizations. Finally, Information-Gap Decision Theory (IGDT) was applied to rank the remediation priorities of contaminated sites in terms of both spatial consensus of multiple heavy metal realizations and the priority of specific conservation areas. Our results show that the crowd-sourced optimization algorithm developed in this study is effective at selecting suitable data from crowd-sourced data. By using this technique the available sample data increased to a total number of 96, 162, 72, 62, 69 and 62 or, that is, 2.6, 1.6, 2.5, 1.6, 1.2 and 1.8 times that originally available through the GBIF professionally-assembled database. Additionally, for all species considered the performance of models, in terms of test-AUC values, based on the combination of both data sources exceeded those models which were based on a single data source. Furthermore, the additional optimization-selected data lowered the overall variability, and therefore uncertainty, of model outputs. Based on the projected species distributions, our results revealed that around 30% of high species hotspot areas were also identified as contaminated. The decision-making tool, IGDT, successfully yielded remediation plans in terms of specific ecological value requirements, false positive tolerance rates of contaminated areas, and expected decision robustness. The proposed approach can be applied both to identify high conservation priority sites contaminated by heavy metals, based on the combination of screened crowd-sourced and professionally-collected data, and in making robust remediation decisions.

Financial anatomy of biomedical research.

PubMed

Moses, Hamilton; Dorsey, E Ray; Matheson, David H M; Thier, Samuel O

2005-09-21

Public and private financial support of biomedical research have increased over the past decade. Few comprehensive analyses of the sources and uses of funds are available. This results in inadequate information on which to base investment decisions because not all sources allow equal latitude to explore hypotheses having scientific or clinical importance and creates a barrier to judging the value of research to society. To quantify funding trends from 1994 to 2004 of basic, translational, and clinical biomedical research by principal sponsors based in the United States. Publicly available data were compiled for the federal, state, and local governments; foundations; charities; universities; and industry. Proprietary (by subscription but openly available) databases were used to supplement public sources. Total actual research spending, growth rates, and type of research with inflation adjustment. Biomedical research funding increased from 37.1 billion dollars in 1994 to 94.3 billion dollars in 2003 and doubled when adjusted for inflation. Principal research sponsors in 2003 were industry (57%) and the National Institutes of Health (28%). Relative proportions from all public and private sources did not change. Industry sponsorship of clinical trials increased from 4.0 dollars to 14.2 billion dollars (in real terms) while federal proportions devoted to basic and applied research were unchanged. The United States spent an estimated 5.6% of its total health expenditures on biomedical research, more than any other country, but less than 0.1% for health services research. From an economic perspective, biotechnology and medical device companies were most productive, as measured by new diagnostic and therapeutic devices per dollar of research and development cost. Productivity declined for new pharmaceuticals. Enhancing research productivity and evaluation of benefit are pressing challenges, requiring (1) more effective translation of basic scientific knowledge to clinical application; (2) critical appraisal of rapidly moving scientific areas to guide investment where clinical need is greatest, not only where commercial opportunity is currently perceived; and (3) more specific information about sources and uses of research funds than is generally available to allow informed investment decisions. Responsibility falls on industry, government, and foundations to bring these changes about with a longer-term view of research value.

Variational Iterative Refinement Source Term Estimation Algorithm Assessment for Rural and Urban Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Delle Monache, L.; Rodriguez, L. M.; Meech, S.; Hahn, D.; Betancourt, T.; Steinhoff, D.

2016-12-01

It is necessary to accurately estimate the initial source characteristics in the event of an accidental or intentional release of a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear (CBRN) agent into the atmosphere. The accurate estimation of the source characteristics are important because many times they are unknown and the Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion (AT&D) models rely heavily on these estimates to create hazard assessments. To correctly assess the source characteristics in an operational environment where time is critical, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has developed a Source Term Estimation (STE) method, known as the Variational Iterative Refinement STE algorithm (VIRSA). VIRSA consists of a combination of modeling systems. These systems include an AT&D model, its corresponding STE model, a Hybrid Lagrangian-Eulerian Plume Model (H-LEPM), and its mathematical adjoint model. In an operational scenario where we have information regarding the infrastructure of a city, the AT&D model used is the Urban Dispersion Model (UDM) and when using this model in VIRSA we refer to the system as uVIRSA. In all other scenarios where we do not have the city infrastructure information readily available, the AT&D model used is the Second-order Closure Integrated PUFF model (SCIPUFF) and the system is referred to as sVIRSA. VIRSA was originally developed using SCIPUFF 2.4 for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and integrated into the Hazard Prediction and Assessment Capability and Joint Program for Information Systems Joint Effects Model. The results discussed here are the verification and validation of the upgraded system with SCIPUFF 3.0 and the newly implemented UDM capability. To verify uVIRSA and sVIRSA, synthetic concentration observation scenarios were created in urban and rural environments and the results of this verification are shown. Finally, we validate the STE performance of uVIRSA using scenarios from the Joint Urban 2003 (JU03) experiment, which was held in Oklahoma City and also validate the performance of sVIRSA using scenarios from the FUsing Sensor Integrated Observing Network (FUSION) Field Trial 2007 (FFT07), held at Dugway Proving Grounds in rural Utah.

Land surface Verification Toolkit (LVT)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kumar, Sujay V.

2017-01-01

LVT is a framework developed to provide an automated, consolidated environment for systematic land surface model evaluation Includes support for a range of in-situ, remote-sensing and other model and reanalysis products. Supports the analysis of outputs from various LIS subsystems, including LIS-DA, LIS-OPT, LIS-UE. Note: The Land Information System Verification Toolkit (LVT) is a NASA software tool designed to enable the evaluation, analysis and comparison of outputs generated by the Land Information System (LIS). The LVT software is released under the terms and conditions of the NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) Version 1.1 or later. Land Information System Verification Toolkit (LVT) NOSA.

Applicability of existing C3 (command, control and communications) vulnerability and hardness analyses to sentry system issues. Technical report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, R.C.

1983-01-13

This report is a compilation of abstracts resulting from a literature search of reports relevant to Sentry Ballistic missile system C3 vulnerability and hardness. Primary sources consulted were the DOD Nuclear Information Analysis Center (DASIAC) and the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). Approximately 175 reports were reviewed and abstracted, including several related to computer programs for estimating nuclear effects on electromagnetic propagation. The reports surveyed were ranked in terms of their importance for Sentry C3 VandH issues.

Research on Geo-information Data Model for Preselected Areas of Geological Disposal of High-level Radioactive Waste

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, M.; Huang, S. T.; Wang, P.; Zhao, Y. A.; Wang, H. B.

2016-11-01

The geological disposal of high-level radioactive waste (hereinafter referred to "geological disposal") is a long-term, complex, and systematic scientific project, whose data and information resources in the research and development ((hereinafter referred to ”R&D”) process provide the significant support for R&D of geological disposal system, and lay a foundation for the long-term stability and safety assessment of repository site. However, the data related to the research and engineering in the sitting of the geological disposal repositories is more complicated (including multi-source, multi-dimension and changeable), the requirements for the data accuracy and comprehensive application has become much higher than before, which lead to the fact that the data model design of geo-information database for the disposal repository are facing more serious challenges. In the essay, data resources of the pre-selected areas of the repository has been comprehensive controlled and systematic analyzed. According to deeply understanding of the application requirements, the research work has made a solution for the key technical problems including reasonable classification system of multi-source data entity, complex logic relations and effective physical storage structures. The new solution has broken through data classification and conventional spatial data the organization model applied in the traditional industry, realized the data organization and integration with the unit of data entities and spatial relationship, which were independent, holonomic and with application significant features in HLW geological disposal. The reasonable, feasible and flexible data conceptual models, logical models and physical models have been established so as to ensure the effective integration and facilitate application development of multi-source data in pre-selected areas for geological disposal.

Integrating Information in Biological Ontologies and Molecular Networks to Infer Novel Terms

PubMed Central

Li, Le; Yip, Kevin Y.

2016-01-01

Currently most terms and term-term relationships in Gene Ontology (GO) are defined manually, which creates cost, consistency and completeness issues. Recent studies have demonstrated the feasibility of inferring GO automatically from biological networks, which represents an important complementary approach to GO construction. These methods (NeXO and CliXO) are unsupervised, which means 1) they cannot use the information contained in existing GO, 2) the way they integrate biological networks may not optimize the accuracy, and 3) they are not customized to infer the three different sub-ontologies of GO. Here we present a semi-supervised method called Unicorn that extends these previous methods to tackle the three problems. Unicorn uses a sub-tree of an existing GO sub-ontology as training part to learn parameters in integrating multiple networks. Cross-validation results show that Unicorn reliably inferred the left-out parts of each specific GO sub-ontology. In addition, by training Unicorn with an old version of GO together with biological networks, it successfully re-discovered some terms and term-term relationships present only in a new version of GO. Unicorn also successfully inferred some novel terms that were not contained in GO but have biological meanings well-supported by the literature.Availability: Source code of Unicorn is available at http://yiplab.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/unicorn/. PMID:27976738

Modernization of the NASA scientific and technical information program

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cotter, Gladys A.; Hunter, Judy F.; Ostergaard, K.

1993-01-01

The NASA Scientific and Technical Information Program utilizes a technology infrastructure assembled in the mid 1960s to late 1970s to process and disseminate its information products. When this infrastructure was developed it placed NASA as a leader in processing STI. The retrieval engine for the STI database was the first of its kind and was used as the basis for developing commercial, other U.S., and foreign government agency retrieval systems. Due to the combination of changes in user requirements and the tremendous increase in technological capabilities readily available in the marketplace, this infrastructure is no longer the most cost-effective or efficient methodology available. Consequently, the NASA STI Program is pursuing a modernization effort that applies new technology to current processes to provide near-term benefits to the user. In conjunction with this activity, we are developing a long-term modernization strategy designed to transition the Program to a multimedia, global 'library without walls.' Critical pieces of the long-term strategy include streamlining access to sources of STI by using advances in computer networking and graphical user interfaces; creating and disseminating technical information in various electronic media including optical disks, video, and full text; and establishing a Technology Focus Group to maintain a current awareness of emerging technology and to plan for the future.

Accuracy-preserving source term quadrature for third-order edge-based discretization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nishikawa, Hiroaki; Liu, Yi

2017-09-01

In this paper, we derive a family of source term quadrature formulas for preserving third-order accuracy of the node-centered edge-based discretization for conservation laws with source terms on arbitrary simplex grids. A three-parameter family of source term quadrature formulas is derived, and as a subset, a one-parameter family of economical formulas is identified that does not require second derivatives of the source term. Among the economical formulas, a unique formula is then derived that does not require gradients of the source term at neighbor nodes, thus leading to a significantly smaller discretization stencil for source terms. All the formulas derived in this paper do not require a boundary closure, and therefore can be directly applied at boundary nodes. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate third-order accuracy at interior and boundary nodes for one-dimensional grids and linear triangular/tetrahedral grids over straight and curved geometries.

Uncertainty quantification in (α,n) neutron source calculations for an oxide matrix

DOE PAGES

Pigni, M. T.; Croft, S.; Gauld, I. C.

2016-04-25

Here we present a methodology to propagate nuclear data covariance information in neutron source calculations from (α,n) reactions. The approach is applied to estimate the uncertainty in the neutron generation rates for uranium oxide fuel types due to uncertainties on 1) 17,18O( α,n) reaction cross sections and 2) uranium and oxygen stopping power cross sections. The procedure to generate reaction cross section covariance information is based on the Bayesian fitting method implemented in the R-matrix SAMMY code. The evaluation methodology uses the Reich-Moore approximation to fit the 17,18O(α,n) reaction cross-sections in order to derive a set of resonance parameters andmore » a related covariance matrix that is then used to calculate the energydependent cross section covariance matrix. The stopping power cross sections and related covariance information for uranium and oxygen were obtained by the fit of stopping power data in the -energy range of 1 keV up to 12 MeV. Cross section perturbation factors based on the covariance information relative to the evaluated 17,18O( α,n) reaction cross sections, as well as uranium and oxygen stopping power cross sections, were used to generate a varied set of nuclear data libraries used in SOURCES4C and ORIGEN for inventory and source term calculations. The set of randomly perturbed output (α,n) source responses, provide the mean values and standard deviations of the calculated responses reflecting the uncertainties in nuclear data used in the calculations. Lastly, the results and related uncertainties are compared with experiment thick target (α,n) yields for uranium oxide.« less

Towards Data Value-Level Metadata for Clinical Studies.

PubMed

Zozus, Meredith Nahm; Bonner, Joseph

2017-01-01

While several standards for metadata describing clinical studies exist, comprehensive metadata to support traceability of data from clinical studies has not been articulated. We examine uses of metadata in clinical studies. We examine and enumerate seven sources of data value-level metadata in clinical studies inclusive of research designs across the spectrum of the National Institutes of Health definition of clinical research. The sources of metadata inform categorization in terms of metadata describing the origin of a data value, the definition of a data value, and operations to which the data value was subjected. The latter is further categorized into information about changes to a data value, movement of a data value, retrieval of a data value, and data quality checks, constraints or assessments to which the data value was subjected. The implications of tracking and managing data value-level metadata are explored.

[Instrumental, directive, and affective communication in hospital leaflets].

PubMed

Vasconcellos-Silva, Paulo Roberto; Uribe Rivera, Francisco Javier; Castiel, Luis David

2003-01-01

This study focuses on the typical semantic systems extracted from hospital staff communicative resources which attempt to validate information as an "object" to be transferred to patients. We describe the models of textual communication in 58 patient information leaflets from five hospital units in Brazil, gathered from 1996 to 2002. Three categories were identified, based on the theory of speech acts (Austin, Searle, and Habermas): 1) cognitive-instrumental utterances: descriptions by means of technical terms validated by self-referred, incomplete, or inaccessible argumentation, with an implicit educational function; 2) technical-directive utterances: self-referred (to the context of the source domains), with a shifting of everyday acts to a technical terrain with a disciplinary function and impersonal features; and 3) expressive modulations: need for inter-subjective connections to strengthen bonds of trust and a tendency to use childish arguments. We conclude that the three categories displayed: fragmentary sources; assumption of univocal messages and invariable use of information (idealized motivations and interests, apart from individualized perspectives); and assumption of universal interests as generators of knowledge.

Peer teaching and information retrieval: the role of the NICE Evidence search student champion scheme in enhancing students' confidence.

PubMed

Sbaffi, Laura; Hallsworth, Elaine; Weist, Anne

2018-03-01

This research reports on the NICE Evidence search (ES) student champion scheme (SCS) first five years of activity (2011-2016) in terms of its impact on health care undergraduate students' information search skills and search confidence. A review of students' evaluation of the scheme was carried out to chart the changes in attitude towards NICE Evidence search as an online health care information source and to monitor students' approach to information seeking. This study is based on the results of questionnaires distributed to students before and after attending a training session on NICE Evidence search delivered by their own peers. The exercise was implemented in health related universities in England over a period of five consecutive academic years. (i) Students' search confidence improved considerably after the training; (ii) ES was perceived as being an increasingly useful resource of evidence based information for their studies; (iii) the training helped students develop discerning search skills and use evidence based information sources more consistently and critically. The NICE SCS improves confidence in approaching information tasks amongst health care undergraduate students. Future developments could involve offering the training at the onset of a course of study and adopting online delivery formats to expand its geographical reach. © 2018 Health Libraries Group.

ORIGAMI Automator Primer. Automated ORIGEN Source Terms and Spent Fuel Storage Pool Analysis

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Wieselquist, William A.; Thompson, Adam B.; Bowman, Stephen M.

2016-04-01

Source terms and spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage pool decay heat load analyses for operating nuclear power plants require a large number of Oak Ridge Isotope Generation and Depletion (ORIGEN) calculations. SNF source term calculations also require a significant amount of bookkeeping to track quantities such as core and assembly operating histories, spent fuel pool (SFP) residence times, heavy metal masses, and enrichments. The ORIGEN Assembly Isotopics (ORIGAMI) module in the SCALE code system provides a simple scheme for entering these data. However, given the large scope of the analysis, extensive scripting is necessary to convert formats and process datamore » to create thousands of ORIGAMI input files (one per assembly) and to process the results into formats readily usable by follow-on analysis tools. This primer describes a project within the SCALE Fulcrum graphical user interface (GUI) called ORIGAMI Automator that was developed to automate the scripting and bookkeeping in large-scale source term analyses. The ORIGAMI Automator enables the analyst to (1) easily create, view, and edit the reactor site and assembly information, (2) automatically create and run ORIGAMI inputs, and (3) analyze the results from ORIGAMI. ORIGAMI Automator uses the standard ORIGEN binary concentrations files produced by ORIGAMI, with concentrations available at all time points in each assembly’s life. The GUI plots results such as mass, concentration, activity, and decay heat using a powerful new ORIGEN Post-Processing Utility for SCALE (OPUS) GUI component. This document includes a description and user guide for the GUI, a step-by-step tutorial for a simplified scenario, and appendices that document the file structures used.« less

Readability of online patient education materials for velopharyngeal insufficiency.

PubMed

Xie, Deborah X; Wang, Ray Y; Chinnadurai, Sivakumar

2018-01-01

Evaluate the readability of online and mobile application health information about velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI). Top website and mobile application results for search terms "velopharyngeal insufficiency", "velopharyngeal dysfunction", "VPI", and "VPD" were analyzed. Readability was determined using 10 algorithms with Readability Studio Professional Edition (Oleander Software Ltd; Vandalia, OH). Subgroup analysis was performed based on search term and article source - academic hospital, general online resource, peer-reviewed journal, or professional organization. 18 unique articles were identified. Overall mean reading grade level was a 12.89 ± 2.9. The highest reading level among these articles was 15.47-approximately the level of a college senior. Articles from "velopharyngeal dysfunction" had the highest mean reading level (13.73 ± 2.11), above "velopharyngeal insufficiency" (12.30 ± 1.56) and "VPI" (11.66 ± 1.70). Articles from peer-reviewed journals had the highest mean reading level (15.35 ± 2.79), while articles from academic hospitals had the lowest (12.81 ± 1.66). There were statistically significant differences in reading levels between the different search terms (P < 0.01) and article source types (P < 0.05). Only one mobile application was identified with VPI information, with a readability of 10.68. Despite published reading level guidelines, online patient education materials for VPI are disseminated with language too complex for most readers. There is also a lack of VPI-related mobile application data available for patients. Patients will benefit if future updates to websites and disseminated patient information are undertaken with health literacy in mind. Future studies will investigate patient comprehension of these materials. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Help-seeking behaviors and mental well-being of first year undergraduate university students.

PubMed

Goodwin, John; Behan, Laura; Kelly, Peter; McCarthy, Karen; Horgan, Aine

2016-12-30

University students demonstrate poor help-seeking behatabviors for their mental health, despite often reporting low levels of mental well-being. The aims of this study were to examine the help-seeking intentions and experiences of first year university students in terms of their mental well-betabing, and to extaplore these students' views on formal (e.g. psychiatrists) and informal (e.g. friends) help-seeking. Students from a universitytab in the Republic of Ireland (n=220) completed an online questionnaire which focused on mental well-being and help-seeking behaviors. Almost a third of students had sought help from a mental health professional. Very few students reported availing of university/online supports. Informal sources of help were more popular than formal sources, and those who would avail and had availed of informal sources demonstrated higher well-being scores. Counselors were the source of professional help most widely used. General practitioners, chaplains, social workers, and family therapists were rated the most helpful. Those with low/average well-being scores were less likely to seek help than those with higher scores. Findings indicate the importance of enhancing public knowledge of mental health issues, and for further examination of students' knowledge of help-seeking resources in order to improve the help-seeking behaviors and mental well-being of this population group. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Darwin Core: An Evolving Community-Developed Biodiversity Data Standard

PubMed Central

Wieczorek, John; Bloom, David; Guralnick, Robert; Blum, Stan; Döring, Markus; Giovanni, Renato; Robertson, Tim; Vieglais, David

2012-01-01

Biodiversity data derive from myriad sources stored in various formats on many distinct hardware and software platforms. An essential step towards understanding global patterns of biodiversity is to provide a standardized view of these heterogeneous data sources to improve interoperability. Fundamental to this advance are definitions of common terms. This paper describes the evolution and development of Darwin Core, a data standard for publishing and integrating biodiversity information. We focus on the categories of terms that define the standard, differences between simple and relational Darwin Core, how the standard has been implemented, and the community processes that are essential for maintenance and growth of the standard. We present case-study extensions of the Darwin Core into new research communities, including metagenomics and genetic resources. We close by showing how Darwin Core records are integrated to create new knowledge products documenting species distributions and changes due to environmental perturbations. PMID:22238640

PCB remediation in schools: a review.

PubMed

Brown, Kathleen W; Minegishi, Taeko; Cummiskey, Cynthia Campisano; Fragala, Matt A; Hartman, Ross; MacIntosh, David L

2016-02-01

Growing awareness of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in legacy caulk and other construction materials of schools has created a need for information on best practices to control human exposures and comply with applicable regulations. A concise review of approaches and techniques for management of building-related PCBs is the focus of this paper. Engineering and administrative controls that block pathways of PCB transport, dilute concentrations of PCBs in indoor air or other exposure media, or establish uses of building space that mitigate exposure can be effective initial responses to identification of PCBs in a building. Mitigation measures also provide time for school officials to plan a longer-term remediation strategy and to secure the necessary resources. These longer-term strategies typically involve removal of caulk or other primary sources of PCBs as well as nearby masonry or other materials contaminated with PCBs by the primary sources. The costs of managing PCB-containing building materials from assessment through ultimate disposal can be substantial. Optimizing the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of remediation programs requires aligning a thorough understanding of sources and exposure pathways with the most appropriate mitigation and abatement methods.

Taste and odor occurrence in Lake William C. Bowen and Municipal Reservoir #1, Spartanburg County, South Carolina

USGS Publications Warehouse

Journey, Celeste; Arrington, Jane M.

2009-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey and Spartanburg Water are working cooperatively on an ongoing study of Lake Bowen and Reservoir #1 to identify environmental factors that enhance or influence the production of geosmin in the source-water reservoirs. Spartanburg Water is using information from this study to develop management strategies to reduce (short-term solution) and prevent (long-term solution) geosmin occurrence. Spartanburg Water utility treats and distributes drinking water to the Spartanburg area of South Carolina. The drinking water sources for the area are Lake William C. Bowen (Lake Bowen) and Municipal Reservoir #1 (Reservoir #1), located north of Spartanburg. These reservoirs, which were formed by the impoundment of the South Pacolet River, were assessed in 2006 by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) as being fully supportive of all uses based on established criteria. Nonetheless, Spartanburg Water had noted periodic taste and odor problems due to the presence of geosmin, a naturally occurring compound in the source water. Geosmin is not harmful, but its presence in drinking water is aesthetically unpleasant.

Development of Performance Dashboards in Healthcare Sector: Key Practical Issues.

PubMed

Ghazisaeidi, Marjan; Safdari, Reza; Torabi, Mashallah; Mirzaee, Mahboobeh; Farzi, Jebraeil; Goodini, Azadeh

2015-10-01

Static nature of performance reporting systems in health care sector has resulted in inconsistent, incomparable, time consuming, and static performance reports that are not able to transparently reflect a round picture of performance and effectively support healthcare managers' decision makings. So, the healthcare sector needs interactive performance management tools such as performance dashboards to measure, monitor, and manage performance more effectively. The aim of this article was to identify key issues that need to be addressed for developing high-quality performance dashboards in healthcare sector. A literature review was established to search electronic research databases, e-journals collections, and printed journals, books, dissertations, and theses for relevant articles. The search strategy interchangeably used the terms of "dashboard", "performance measurement system", and "executive information system" with the term of "design" combined with operator "AND". Search results (n=250) were adjusted for duplications, screened based on their abstract relevancy and full-text availability (n=147) and then assessed for eligibility (n=40). Eligible articles were included if they had explicitly focused on dashboards, performance measurement systems or executive information systems design. Finally, 28 relevant articles included in the study. Creating high-quality performance dashboards requires addressing both performance measurement and executive information systems design issues. Covering these two fields, identified contents were categorized to four main domains: KPIs development, Data Sources and data generation, Integration of dashboards to source systems, and Information presentation issues. This study implies the main steps to develop dashboards for the purpose of performance management. Performance dashboards developed on performance measurement and executive information systems principles and supported by proper back-end infrastructure will result in creation of dynamic reports that help healthcare managers to consistently measure the performance, continuously detect outliers, deeply analyze causes of poor performance, and effectively plan for the future.

Side effects of radiotherapy in breast cancer patients : The Internet as an information source.

PubMed

Janssen, S; Käsmann, L; Fahlbusch, F B; Rades, D; Vordermark, D

2018-02-01

Breast cancer is the most common cancer type among women necessitating adjuvant radiotherapy. As the Internet has become a major source of information for cancer patients, this study aimed to evaluate the quality of websites giving information on side effects of radiotherapy for breast cancer patients. A patients' search for the English terms "breast cancer - radiotherapy - side effects" and the corresponding German terms "Brustkrebs - Strahlentherapie - Nebenwirkungen" was carried out twice (5 months apart) using the search engine Google. The first 30 search results each were evaluated using the validated 16-question DISCERN Plus instrument, the Health on the Net Code of Conduct (HONcode) certification and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmark criteria. The overall quality (DISCERN score) of the retrieved websites was further compared to queries via Bing and Yahoo search engines. The DISCERN score showed a great range, with the majority of websites ranking fair to poor. Significantly superior results were found for English websites, particularly for webpages run by hospitals/universities and nongovernmental organizations (NGO), when compared to the respective German categories. In general, only a minority of websites met all JAMA benchmarks and was HONcode certified (both languages). We did not determine a relevant temporal change in website ranking among the top ten search hits, while significant variation occurred thereafter. Mean overall DISCERN score was similar between the various search engines. The Internet can give breast cancer patients seeking information on side effects of radiotherapy an overview. However, based on the currently low overall quality of websites and the lack of transparency for the average layperson, we emphasize the value of personal contact with the treating radio-oncologist in order to integrate and interpret the information found online.

Factors affecting long-term-care residents' decision-making processes as they formulate advance directives.

PubMed

Lambert, Heather C; McColl, Mary Ann; Gilbert, Julie; Wong, Jiahui; Murray, Gale; Shortt, Samuel E D

2005-10-01

The purpose of this study was to describe factors contributing to the decision-making processes of elderly persons as they formulate advance directives in long-term care. This study was qualitative, based on grounded theory. Recruitment was purposive and continued until saturation was reached. Nine residents of a long-term-care facility were interviewed by use of a semistructured format. Open and axial coding of interview transcripts were carried out and the factors contributing to the decision process were defined. Elders based their decisions primarily on information gathered from personal experiences with death and illness. They obtained very little information from professionals or the media. Major factors considered by elders as they weighed information included spiritual, emotional, and social considerations. The factors considered during the decision-making process were oriented more toward the individual's experiences and less on contributions from objective sources than anticipated. Decision making for advance directives is a highly personalized process. The approach of health professionals when assisting with end-of-life decision making should be planned with these contributing factors in mind, so that the services offered to the individuals in this population best meet their needs.

Direction of Magnetoencephalography Sources Associated with Feedback and Feedforward Contributions in a Visual Object Recognition Task

PubMed Central

Ahlfors, Seppo P.; Jones, Stephanie R.; Ahveninen, Jyrki; Hämäläinen, Matti S.; Belliveau, John W.; Bar, Moshe

2014-01-01

Identifying inter-area communication in terms of the hierarchical organization of functional brain areas is of considerable interest in human neuroimaging. Previous studies have suggested that the direction of magneto- and electroencephalography (MEG, EEG) source currents depends on the layer-specific input patterns into a cortical area. We examined the direction in MEG source currents in a visual object recognition experiment in which there were specific expectations of activation in the fusiform region being driven by either feedforward or feedback inputs. The source for the early non-specific visual evoked response, presumably corresponding to feedforward driven activity, pointed outward, i.e., away from the white matter. In contrast, the source for the later, object-recognition related signals, expected to be driven by feedback inputs, pointed inward, toward the white matter. Associating specific features of the MEG/EEG source waveforms to feedforward and feedback inputs could provide unique information about the activation patterns within hierarchically organized cortical areas. PMID:25445356

Multisource information fusion applied to ship identification for the recognized maritime picture

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Simard, Marc-Alain; Lefebvre, Eric; Helleur, Christopher

2000-04-01

The Recognized Maritime Picture (RMP) is defined as a composite picture of activity over a maritime area of interest. In simplistic terms, building an RAMP comes down to finding if an object of interest, a ship in our case, is there or not, determining what it is, determining what it is doing and determining if some type of follow-on action is required. The Canadian Department of National Defence currently has access to or may, in the near future, have access to a number of civilians, military and allied information or sensor systems to accomplish these purposes. These systems include automatic self-reporting positional systems, air patrol surveillance systems, high frequency surface radars, electronic intelligence systems, radar space systems and high frequency direction finding sensors. The ability to make full use of these systems is limited by the existing capability to fuse data from all sources in a timely, accurate and complete manner. This paper presents an information fusion systems under development that correlates and fuses these information and sensor data sources. This fusion system, named Adaptive Fuzzy Logic Correlator, correlates the information in batch but fuses and constructs ship tracks sequentially. It applies standard Kalman filter techniques and fuzzy logic correlation techniques. We propose a set of recommendations that should improve the ship identification process. Particularly it is proposed to utilize as many non-redundant sources of information as possible that address specific vessel attributes. Another important recommendation states that the information fusion and data association techniques should be capable of dealing with incomplete and imprecise information. Some fuzzy logic techniques capable of tolerating imprecise and dissimilar data are proposed.

What are the Starting Points? Evaluating Base-Year Assumptions in the Asian Modeling Exercise

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chaturvedi, Vaibhav; Waldhoff, Stephanie; Clarke, Leon E.

2012-12-01

A common feature of model inter-comparison efforts is that the base year numbers for important parameters such as population and GDP can differ substantially across models. This paper explores the sources and implications of this variation in Asian countries across the models participating in the Asian Modeling Exercise (AME). Because the models do not all have a common base year, each team was required to provide data for 2005 for comparison purposes. This paper compares the year 2005 information for different models, noting the degree of variation in important parameters, including population, GDP, primary energy, electricity, and CO2 emissions. Itmore » then explores the difference in these key parameters across different sources of base-year information. The analysis confirms that the sources provide different values for many key parameters. This variation across data sources and additional reasons why models might provide different base-year numbers, including differences in regional definitions, differences in model base year, and differences in GDP transformation methodologies, are then discussed in the context of the AME scenarios. Finally, the paper explores the implications of base-year variation on long-term model results.« less

Web Page Content and Quality Assessed for Shoulder Replacement.

PubMed

Matthews, John R; Harrison, Caitlyn M; Hughes, Travis M; Dezfuli, Bobby; Sheppard, Joseph

2016-01-01

The Internet has become a major source for obtaining health-related information. This study assesses and compares the quality of information available online for shoulder replacement using medical (total shoulder arthroplasty [TSA]) and nontechnical (shoulder replacement [SR]) terminology. Three evaluators reviewed 90 websites for each search term across 3 search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing). Websites were grouped into categories, identified as commercial or noncommercial, and evaluated with the DISCERN questionnaire. Total shoulder arthroplasty provided 53 unique sites compared to 38 websites for SR. Of the 53 TSA websites, 30% were health professional-oriented websites versus 18% of SR websites. Shoulder replacement websites provided more patient-oriented information at 48%, versus 45% of TSA websites. In total, SR websites provided 47% (42/90) noncommercial websites, with the highest number seen in Yahoo, compared with TSA at 37% (33/90), with Google providing 13 of the 33 websites (39%). Using the nonmedical terminology with Yahoo's search engine returned the most noncommercial and patient-oriented websites. However, the quality of information found online was highly variable, with most websites being unreliable and incomplete, regardless of search term.

Informatics in radiology: radiology gamuts ontology: differential diagnosis for the Semantic Web.

PubMed

Budovec, Joseph J; Lam, Cesar A; Kahn, Charles E

2014-01-01

The Semantic Web is an effort to add semantics, or "meaning," to empower automated searching and processing of Web-based information. The overarching goal of the Semantic Web is to enable users to more easily find, share, and combine information. Critical to this vision are knowledge models called ontologies, which define a set of concepts and formalize the relations between them. Ontologies have been developed to manage and exploit the large and rapidly growing volume of information in biomedical domains. In diagnostic radiology, lists of differential diagnoses of imaging observations, called gamuts, provide an important source of knowledge. The Radiology Gamuts Ontology (RGO) is a formal knowledge model of differential diagnoses in radiology that includes 1674 differential diagnoses, 19,017 terms, and 52,976 links between terms. Its knowledge is used to provide an interactive, freely available online reference of radiology gamuts ( www.gamuts.net ). A Web service allows its content to be discovered and consumed by other information systems. The RGO integrates radiologic knowledge with other biomedical ontologies as part of the Semantic Web. © RSNA, 2014.

Can Consumers Trust Web-Based Information About Celiac Disease? Accuracy, Comprehensiveness, Transparency, and Readability of Information on the Internet

PubMed Central

McNally, Shawna L; Donohue, Michael C; Newton, Kimberly P; Ogletree, Sandra P; Conner, Kristen K; Ingegneri, Sarah E

2012-01-01

Background Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that affects approximately 1% of the US population. Disease is characterized by damage to the small intestinal lining and malabsorption of nutrients. Celiac disease is activated in genetically susceptible individuals by dietary exposure to gluten in wheat and gluten-like proteins in rye and barley. Symptoms are diverse and include gastrointestinal and extraintestinal manifestations. Treatment requires strict adherence to a gluten-free diet. The Internet is a major source of health information about celiac disease. Nonetheless, information about celiac disease that is available on various websites often is questioned by patients and other health care professionals regarding its reliability and content. Objectives To determine the accuracy, comprehensiveness, transparency, and readability of information on 100 of the most widely accessed websites that provide information on celiac disease. Methods Using the search term celiac disease, we analyzed 100 of the top English-language websites published by academic, commercial, nonprofit, and other professional (nonacademic) sources for accuracy, comprehensiveness, transparency, and reading grade level. Each site was assessed independently by 3 reviewers. Website accuracy and comprehensiveness were probed independently using a set of objective core information about celiac disease. We used 19 general criteria to assess website transparency. Website readability was determined by the Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level. Results for each parameter were analyzed independently. In addition, we weighted and combined parameters to generate an overall score, termed website quality. Results We included 98 websites in the final analysis. Of these, 47 (48%) provided specific information about celiac disease that was less than 95% accurate (ie, the predetermined cut-off considered a minimum acceptable level of accuracy). Independent of whether the information posted was accurate, 51 of 98 (52%) websites contained less than 50% of the core celiac disease information that was considered important for inclusion on websites that provide general information about celiac disease. Academic websites were significantly less transparent (P = .005) than commercial websites in attributing authorship, timeliness of information, sources of information, and other important disclosures. The type of website publisher did not predict website accuracy, comprehensiveness, or overall website quality. Only 4 of 98 (4%) websites achieved an overall quality score of 80 or above, which a priori was set as the minimum score for a website to be judged trustworthy and reliable. Conclusions The information on many websites addressing celiac disease was not sufficiently accurate, comprehensive, and transparent, or presented at an appropriate reading grade level, to be considered sufficiently trustworthy and reliable for patients, health care providers, celiac disease support groups, and the general public. This has the potential to adversely affect decision making about important aspects of celiac disease, including its appropriate and proper diagnosis, treatment, and management. PMID:23611901

Can consumers trust web-based information about celiac disease? Accuracy, comprehensiveness, transparency, and readability of information on the internet.

PubMed

McNally, Shawna L; Donohue, Michael C; Newton, Kimberly P; Ogletree, Sandra P; Conner, Kristen K; Ingegneri, Sarah E; Kagnoff, Martin F

2012-04-04

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that affects approximately 1% of the US population. Disease is characterized by damage to the small intestinal lining and malabsorption of nutrients. Celiac disease is activated in genetically susceptible individuals by dietary exposure to gluten in wheat and gluten-like proteins in rye and barley. Symptoms are diverse and include gastrointestinal and extraintestinal manifestations. Treatment requires strict adherence to a gluten-free diet. The Internet is a major source of health information about celiac disease. Nonetheless, information about celiac disease that is available on various websites often is questioned by patients and other health care professionals regarding its reliability and content. To determine the accuracy, comprehensiveness, transparency, and readability of information on 100 of the most widely accessed websites that provide information on celiac disease. Using the search term celiac disease, we analyzed 100 of the top English-language websites published by academic, commercial, nonprofit, and other professional (nonacademic) sources for accuracy, comprehensiveness, transparency, and reading grade level. Each site was assessed independently by 3 reviewers. Website accuracy and comprehensiveness were probed independently using a set of objective core information about celiac disease. We used 19 general criteria to assess website transparency. Website readability was determined by the Flesch-Kincaid reading grade level. Results for each parameter were analyzed independently. In addition, we weighted and combined parameters to generate an overall score, termed website quality. We included 98 websites in the final analysis. Of these, 47 (48%) provided specific information about celiac disease that was less than 95% accurate (ie, the predetermined cut-off considered a minimum acceptable level of accuracy). Independent of whether the information posted was accurate, 51 of 98 (52%) websites contained less than 50% of the core celiac disease information that was considered important for inclusion on websites that provide general information about celiac disease. Academic websites were significantly less transparent (P = .005) than commercial websites in attributing authorship, timeliness of information, sources of information, and other important disclosures. The type of website publisher did not predict website accuracy, comprehensiveness, or overall website quality. Only 4 of 98 (4%) websites achieved an overall quality score of 80 or above, which a priori was set as the minimum score for a website to be judged trustworthy and reliable. The information on many websites addressing celiac disease was not sufficiently accurate, comprehensive, and transparent, or presented at an appropriate reading grade level, to be considered sufficiently trustworthy and reliable for patients, health care providers, celiac disease support groups, and the general public. This has the potential to adversely affect decision making about important aspects of celiac disease, including its appropriate and proper diagnosis, treatment, and management.

Environmental perverse incentives in coastal monitoring.

PubMed

Gibbs, Mark T

2013-08-15

It can be argued that the intensity of monitoring of coastal marine environments lags behind the equivalent terrestrial environments. This results in a paucity of long-term time series of key environmental parameters such as turbidity. This lack of management information of the sources and sinks, and causes and impacts of stressors to the coastal marine environment, along with a lack of co-ordination of information collection is compromising the ability of environmental impact assessments of major coastal developments to discriminate between local and remote anthropogenic impacts, and natural or background processes. In particular, the quasi outsourcing of the collection of coastal information can lead to a perverse incentive whereby in many cases nobody is actively or consistently monitoring the coastal marine environment effectively. This is particularly the case with regards to the collection of long-term and whole-of-system scale data. This lack of effective monitoring can act to incentivise poor environmental performance. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Discovery in a World of Mashups

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, T. A.; Ritschel, B.; Hourcle, J. A.; Moon, I. S.

2014-12-01

When the first digital information was stored electronically, discovery of what existed was through file names and the organization of the file system. With the advent of networks, digital information was shared on a wider scale, but discovery remained based on file and folder names. With a growing number of information sources, named based discovery quickly became ineffective. The keyword based search engine was one of the first types of a mashup in the world of Web 1.0. Embedded links from one document to another with prescribed relationships between files and the world of Web 2.0 was formed. Search engines like Google used the links to improve search results and a worldwide mashup was formed. While a vast improvement, the need for semantic (meaning rich) discovery was clear, especially for the discovery of scientific data. In response, every science discipline defined schemas to describe their type of data. Some core schemas where shared, but most schemas are custom tailored even though they share many common concepts. As with the networking of information sources, science increasingly relies on data from multiple disciplines. So there is a need to bring together multiple sources of semantically rich information. We explore how harvesting, conceptual mapping, facet based search engines, search term promotion, and style sheets can be combined to create the next generation of mashups in the emerging world of Web 3.0. We use NASA's Planetary Data System and NASA's Heliophysics Data Environment to illustrate how to create a multi-discipline mash-up.

Effects of Voice Coding and Speech Rate on a Synthetic Speech Display in a Telephone Information System

DTIC Science & Technology

1988-05-01

Seeciv Limited- System for varying Senses term filter capacity output until some Figure 2. Original limited-capacity channel model (Frim Broadbent, 1958) S...2 Figure 2. Original limited-capacity channel model (From Broadbent, 1958) .... 10 Figure 3. Experimental...unlimited variety of human voices for digital recording sources. Synthesis by Analysis Analysis-synthesis methods electronically model the human voice

Cultural and Gender Differences in Perceptions of Stressors and Coping Skills: A Study of Western and African College Students in China.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hashim, Ismail Hussein

2003-01-01

Tests the universal nature of stress and coping behavior among overseas college students in China and provides basic information towards understanding the problems that result from stress and coping which can best be defined in cultural terms. Results indicated that academic and interpersonal sources of stress were the most common Stressors…

Study of nonpoint source nutrient loading in the Patuxent River basin, Maryland

USGS Publications Warehouse

Preston, S.D.

1997-01-01

Study of nonpoint-source (NPS) nutrient loading in Maryland has focused on the Patuxent watershed because of its importance and representativeness of conditions in the State. Evaluation of NPS nutrient loading has been comprehensive and has included long-term monitoring, detailed watershed modeling, and synoptic sampling studies. A large amount of information has been compiled for the watershed and that information is being used to identify primary controls and efficient management strategies for NPS nutrient loading. Results of the Patuxent NPS study have identified spatial trends in water quality that appear to be related to basin charcteristics such as land use, physiography, andgeology. Evaluation of the data compiled by the study components is continuing and is expected to provide more detailed assessments of the reasons for spatial trends. In particular, ongoing evaluation of the watershed model output is expected to provide detailed information on the relative importance of nutrient sources and transport pathways across the entire watershed. Planned future directions of NPS evaluation in the State of Maryland include continued study of water quality in the Patuxent watershed and a shift in emphasis to a statewide approach. Eventually, the statewide approach will become the primary approach usedby the State to evaluate NPS loading. The information gained in the Patuxent study and the tools developed will represent valuable assets indeveloping the statewide NPS assessment program.

Information sources, awareness and preventive health behaviors in a population at risk of Arsenic exposure: The role of gender and social networks

PubMed Central

Távora, Renata; Nakano, Eduardo Yoshio; Castilhos, Zuleica Carmen

2017-01-01

The population of Paracatu is at risk of Arsenic (As) exposure associated with long-term exploration of the largest open pit gold mine in Brazil. As part of the interdisciplinary research “The Paracatu project: Arsenic environmental contamination and human health risks assessment in Paracatu-MG”, carried out between 2011 and 2013, we used data disaggregated by gender to identify the sources of As-related information being accessed by inhabitants of Paracatu and to examine if access to these sources was correlated to awareness of As health effects and adoption of behaviors to reduce risk of As exposure. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were carried out with 460 participants (294 women and 166 men) to collect data on respondent’s socio-demographic characteristics, use of mass media and social communication networks as sources of information on As issues, the trustworthiness of these information sources, awareness of As health effects, and adoption of behaviors to reduce As exposure. For both men and women, interpersonal communication was used and trusted more frequently than mass media to obtain information on As. Discussion of As issues occurred preferentially among individuals of the same gender and was associated with awareness of As health risks. There are marked differences in variables correlated with the adoption of behaviors to reduce the risk of As exposure between men and women. Discussing As issues with women was associated with adoption of risk-reduction practices for both genders. In contrast, men who discuss As issues with other men were less likely to adopt As exposure prevention behaviors. Finally, adoption was associated with awareness of As health effects for women, but this was not the case for men. Policy implications for decision makers, practitioners and researchers are discussed, based on concrete examples of how gender-specific approaches can effectively guide the formulation and implementation of health promotion campaigns and programs. PMID:29016663

Accuracy of advanced cancer patients' life expectancy estimates: The role of race and source of life expectancy information.

PubMed

Trevino, Kelly M; Zhang, Baohui; Shen, Megan J; Prigerson, Holly G

2016-06-15

The objective of this study was to examine the source of advanced cancer patients' information about their prognosis and determine whether this source of information could explain racial disparities in the accuracy of patients' life expectancy estimates (LEEs). Coping With Cancer was a prospective, longitudinal, multisite study of terminally ill cancer patients followed until death. In structured interviews, patients reported their LEEs and the sources of these estimates (ie, medical providers, personal beliefs, religious beliefs, and other). The accuracy of LEEs was calculated through a comparison of patients' self-reported LEEs with their actual survival. The sample for this analysis included 229 patients: 31 black patients and 198 white patients. Only 39.30% of the patients estimated their life expectancy within 12 months of their actual survival. Black patients were more likely to have an inaccurate LEE than white patients. A minority of the sample (18.3%) reported that a medical provider was the source of their LEEs; none of the black patients (0%) based their LEEs on a medical provider. Black race remained a significant predictor of an inaccurate LEE, even after the analysis had been controlled for sociodemographic characteristics and the source of LEEs. The majority of advanced cancer patients have an inaccurate understanding of their life expectancy. Black patients with advanced cancer are more likely to have an inaccurate LEE than white patients. Medical providers are not the source of information for LEEs for most advanced cancer patients and especially for black patients. The source of LEEs does not explain racial differences in LEE accuracy. Additional research into the mechanisms underlying racial differences in prognostic understanding is needed. Cancer 2016;122:1905-12. © 2016 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Cancer Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2016 The Authors. Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Cancer Society.

Social Media Listening for Routine Post-Marketing Safety Surveillance.

PubMed

Powell, Gregory E; Seifert, Harry A; Reblin, Tjark; Burstein, Phil J; Blowers, James; Menius, J Alan; Painter, Jeffery L; Thomas, Michele; Pierce, Carrie E; Rodriguez, Harold W; Brownstein, John S; Freifeld, Clark C; Bell, Heidi G; Dasgupta, Nabarun

2016-05-01

Post-marketing safety surveillance primarily relies on data from spontaneous adverse event reports, medical literature, and observational databases. Limitations of these data sources include potential under-reporting, lack of geographic diversity, and time lag between event occurrence and discovery. There is growing interest in exploring the use of social media ('social listening') to supplement established approaches for pharmacovigilance. Although social listening is commonly used for commercial purposes, there are only anecdotal reports of its use in pharmacovigilance. Health information posted online by patients is often publicly available, representing an untapped source of post-marketing safety data that could supplement data from existing sources. The objective of this paper is to describe one methodology that could help unlock the potential of social media for safety surveillance. A third-party vendor acquired 24 months of publicly available Facebook and Twitter data, then processed the data by standardizing drug names and vernacular symptoms, removing duplicates and noise, masking personally identifiable information, and adding supplemental data to facilitate the review process. The resulting dataset was analyzed for safety and benefit information. In Twitter, a total of 6,441,679 Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA(®)) Preferred Terms (PTs) representing 702 individual PTs were discussed in the same post as a drug compared with 15,650,108 total PTs representing 946 individual PTs in Facebook. Further analysis revealed that 26 % of posts also contained benefit information. Social media listening is an important tool to augment post-marketing safety surveillance. Much work remains to determine best practices for using this rapidly evolving data source.

Final Technical Report - SciDAC Cooperative Agreement: Center for Wave Interactions with Magnetohydrodynamics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schnack, Dalton D.

Final technical report for research performed by Dr. Thomas G. Jenkins in collaboration with Professor Dalton D. Schnack on SciDAC Cooperative Agreement: Center for Wave Interactions with Magnetohydrodyanics, DE-FC02-06ER54899, for the period of 8/15/06 - 8/14/11. This report centers on the Slow MHD physics campaign work performed by Dr. Jenkins while at UW-Madison and then at Tech-X Corporation. To make progress on the problem of RF induced currents affect magnetic island evolution in toroidal plasmas, a set of research approaches are outlined. Three approaches can be addressed in parallel. These are: (1) Analytically prescribed additional term in Ohm's law tomore » model the effect of localized ECCD current drive; (2) Introduce an additional evolution equation for the Ohm's law source term. Establish a RF source 'box' where information from the RF code couples to the fluid evolution; and (3) Carry out a more rigorous analytic calculation treating the additional RF terms in a closure problem. These approaches rely on the necessity of reinvigorating the computation modeling efforts of resistive and neoclassical tearing modes with present day versions of the numerical tools. For the RF community, the relevant action item is - RF ray tracing codes need to be modified so that general three-dimensional spatial information can be obtained. Further, interface efforts between the two codes require work as well as an assessment as to the numerical stability properties of the procedures to be used.« less

Internet as a Source of Long-Term and Real-Time Professional, Psychological, and Nutritional Treatment: A Qualitative Case Study Among Former Israeli Soviet Union Immigrants.

PubMed

Gesser-Edelsburg, Anat; Shalayeva, Svetlana

2017-02-03

The Internet is considered to be an effective source of health information and consultation for immigrants. Nutritional interventions for immigrants have become increasingly common over the past few decades. However, each population of immigrants has specific needs. Understanding the factors influencing the success of nutrition programs among immigrants requires an examination of their attitudes and perceptions, as well as their cultural values. The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of the Internet as a tool for long-term and "real-time" professional, psychological, and nutritional treatment for immigrants from the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel (IIFSU) from 1990 to 2012. A sample of nutrition forum users (n=18) was interviewed and comments of 80 users were analyzed qualitatively in accordance with the grounded theory principles. The results show that IIFSU perceive the Internet as a platform for long-term and "real-time" dietary treatment and not just as an informative tool. IIFSU report benefits of online psychological support with professional dietary treatment. They attribute importance to cultural customization, which helps reduce barriers to intervention. In light of the results, when formulating nutritional programs, it is essential to have a specific understanding of immigrants' cultural characteristics and their patterns of Internet use concerning dietary care. ©Anat Gesser-Edelsburg, Svetlana Shalayeva. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 03.02.2017.

Association of Internet search trends with suicide death in Taipei City, Taiwan, 2004-2009.

PubMed

Yang, Albert C; Tsai, Shi-Jen; Huang, Norden E; Peng, Chung-Kang

2011-07-01

Although Internet has become an important source for affected people seeking suicide information, the connection between Internet searches for suicide information and suicidal death remains largely unknown. This study aims to evaluate the association between suicide and Internet searches trends for 37 suicide-related terms representing major known risks of suicide. This study analyzes suicide death data in Taipei City, Taiwan and corresponding local Internet search trend data provided by Google Insights for Search during the period from January 2004 to December 2009. The investigation uses cross correlation analysis to estimate the temporal relationship between suicide and Internet search trends and multiple linear regression analysis to identify significant factors associated with suicide from a pool of search trend data that either coincides or precedes the suicide death. Results show that a set of suicide-related search terms, the trends of which either temporally coincided or preceded trends of suicide data, were associated with suicide death. These search factors varied among different suicide samples. Searches for "major depression" and "divorce" accounted for, at most, 30.2% of the variance in suicide data. When considering only leading suicide trends, searches for "divorce" and the pro-suicide term "complete guide of suicide," accounted for 22.7% of variance in suicide data. Appropriate filtering and detection of potentially harmful source in keyword-driven search results by search engine providers may be a reasonable strategy to reduce suicide deaths. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Analysis of biological time-lapse microscopic experiment from the point of view of the information theory.

PubMed

Štys, Dalibor; Urban, Jan; Vaněk, Jan; Císař, Petr

2011-06-01

We report objective analysis of information in the microscopic image of the cell monolayer. The process of transfer of information about the cell by the microscope is analyzed in terms of the classical Shannon information transfer scheme. The information source is the biological object, the information transfer channel is the whole microscope including the camera chip. The destination is the model of biological system. The information contribution is analyzed as information carried by a point to overall information in the image. Subsequently we obtain information reflection of the biological object. This is transformed in the biological model which, in information terminology, is the destination. This, we propose, should be constructed as state transitions in individual cells modulated by information bonds between the cells. We show examples of detected cell states in multidimensional state space. This space is reflected as colour channel intensity phenomenological state space. We have also observed information bonds and show examples of them.

Analysis of biological time-lapse microscopic experiment from the point of view of the information theory.

PubMed

Stys, Dalibor; Urban, Jan; Vanek, Jan; Císar, Petr

2010-07-01

We report objective analysis of information in the microscopic image of the cell monolayer. The process of transfer of information about the cell by the microscope is analyzed in terms of the classical Shannon information transfer scheme. The information source is the biological object, the information transfer channel is the whole microscope including the camera chip. The destination is the model of biological system. The information contribution is analyzed as information carried by a point to overall information in the image. Subsequently we obtain information reflection of the biological object. This is transformed in the biological model which, in information terminology, is the destination. This, we propose, should be constructed as state transitions in individual cells modulated by information bonds between the cells. We show examples of detected cell states in multidimensional state space reflected in space an colour channel intensity phenomenological state space. We have also observed information bonds and show examples of them. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Discovering perturbation of modular structure in HIV progression by integrating multiple data sources through non-negative matrix factorization.

PubMed

Ray, Sumanta; Maulik, Ujjwal

2016-12-20

Detecting perturbation in modular structure during HIV-1 disease progression is an important step to understand stage specific infection pattern of HIV-1 virus in human cell. In this article, we proposed a novel methodology on integration of multiple biological information to identify such disruption in human gene module during different stages of HIV-1 infection. We integrate three different biological information: gene expression information, protein-protein interaction information and gene ontology information in single gene meta-module, through non negative matrix factorization (NMF). As the identified metamodules inherit those information so, detecting perturbation of these, reflects the changes in expression pattern, in PPI structure and in functional similarity of genes during the infection progression. To integrate modules of different data sources into strong meta-modules, NMF based clustering is utilized here. Perturbation in meta-modular structure is identified by investigating the topological and intramodular properties and putting rank to those meta-modules using a rank aggregation algorithm. We have also analyzed the preservation structure of significant GO terms in which the human proteins of the meta-modules participate. Moreover, we have performed an analysis to show the change of coregulation pattern of identified transcription factors (TFs) over the HIV progression stages.

How social media meet patients’ questions: YouTube™ review for mouth sores in children.

PubMed

Di Stasio, D; Romano, A; Paparella, R S; Gentile, C; Serpico, R; Minervini, G; Candotto, V; Laino, L

2018-01-01

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS) is one of the most common causes of mouth sores in children so the management of this condition is a matter of great importance. YouTube™ is increasingly being used by patients to obtain health-related information. The aim of this work is to examine the quality of information offered by YouTube™ about mouth sores in children (MSC). Searching the term ‘mouth sores in children’, (MSC) displayed 12.300 results. Of the top 60 videos analyzed, 31 were excluded following exclusion criteria. The major source of upload was from healthcare information channels (HC-41,38%), followed by individual users (HP-25.59%), healthcare professionals (IU-17.24%) and generalist information channels (HC-13.78%); 20.69% of them deal with predisposing factors, and related pathologies, the majority of these propose home remedies (60.72%) rather than topical analgesic drugs (21.43%), antimicrobials (7.14%) and topical steroids (3.57). Most of the videos analyzed were slightly useful (68.97%). Information about mouth sores in children on YouTube™ was poor regardless of the upload source. Analyzing health content on social platforms is a starting point for providing greater quality of health-related information.

A COMPARISON OF PATIENT AND HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONAL VIEWS WHEN ASSESSING QUALITY OF INFORMATION ON PITUITARY ADENOMA AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET.

PubMed

Druce, Irena; Williams, Chantal; Baggoo, Carolyn; Keely, Erin; Malcolm, Janine

2017-10-01

Patients are increasingly turning to the internet to seek reliable sources of health information and desire guidance in assessing the quality of information as healthcare becomes progressively more complex. Pituitary adenomas are a rare, diverse group of tumors associated with increased mortality and morbidity whose management requires a multidisciplinary approach. As such, patients with this disorder are often searching for additional sources of healthcare information. We undertook a study to assess the quality of information available on the internet for patients with pituitary adenoma. After exclusion, 42 websites were identified based on a search engine query with various search terms. Each website was assessed in triplicate: once by a health professional, once by a simulated patient, and once by a patient who had a pituitary adenoma and underwent medical and surgical treatment. The assessment tools included a content-specific questionnaire, the DISCERN tool, and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients tool. The readability of the information was assessed with the Flesch-Kincaid grade level. We found that the overall quality of information on pituitary adenoma on the internet was variable and written at a high grade level. Correlation between the different assessors was poor, indicating that there may be differences in how healthcare professionals and patients view healthcare information. Our findings highlight the importance of assessment of the health information by groups of the intended user to ensure the needs of that population are met. Abbreviation: EQIP = Ensuring Quality Information for Patients.

The Fukushima releases: an inverse modelling approach to assess the source term by using gamma dose rate observations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saunier, Olivier; Mathieu, Anne; Didier, Damien; Tombette, Marilyne; Quélo, Denis; Winiarek, Victor; Bocquet, Marc

2013-04-01

The Chernobyl nuclear accident and more recently the Fukushima accident highlighted that the largest source of error on consequences assessment is the source term estimation including the time evolution of the release rate and its distribution between radioisotopes. Inverse modelling methods have proved to be efficient to assess the source term due to accidental situation (Gudiksen, 1989, Krysta and Bocquet, 2007, Stohl et al 2011, Winiarek et al 2012). These methods combine environmental measurements and atmospheric dispersion models. They have been recently applied to the Fukushima accident. Most existing approaches are designed to use air sampling measurements (Winiarek et al, 2012) and some of them use also deposition measurements (Stohl et al, 2012, Winiarek et al, 2013). During the Fukushima accident, such measurements are far less numerous and not as well distributed within Japan than the dose rate measurements. To efficiently document the evolution of the contamination, gamma dose rate measurements were numerous, well distributed within Japan and they offered a high temporal frequency. However, dose rate data are not as easy to use as air sampling measurements and until now they were not used in inverse modelling approach. Indeed, dose rate data results from all the gamma emitters present in the ground and in the atmosphere in the vicinity of the receptor. They do not allow one to determine the isotopic composition or to distinguish the plume contribution from wet deposition. The presented approach proposes a way to use dose rate measurement in inverse modeling approach without the need of a-priori information on emissions. The method proved to be efficient and reliable when applied on the Fukushima accident. The emissions for the 8 main isotopes Xe-133, Cs-134, Cs-136, Cs-137, Ba-137m, I-131, I-132 and Te-132 have been assessed. The Daiichi power plant events (such as ventings, explosions…) known to have caused atmospheric releases are well identified in the retrieved source term, except for unit 3 explosion where no measurement was available. The comparisons between the simulations of atmospheric dispersion and deposition of the retrieved source term show a good agreement with environmental observations. Moreover, an important outcome of this study is that the method proved to be perfectly suited to crisis management and should contribute to improve our response in case of a nuclear accident.

MID-LATITUDE CYCLONES WITH TROPICAL ORIGINS: lessons from two historical case studies.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

García-Herrera, R.; Vaquero, J. M.; Wheeler, D.

2009-04-01

Interest in storm and hurricane activity has grown over recent years, their changing incidence being seen, rightly or wrongly, as a gauge of ‘global warming'. Yet such judgements can be confidently offered only on the basis of a reliable long period of record that provides more informative perspective on the events of the past few decades. This presentation is concerned with two examples of hurricane activity, both of which make valuable use of historical source material but provide different lessons for climatologists. The first example is from 1680 and demonstrates the value of historical source material in reconstructing events from the distant past and suggests a way forward in developing and improving the long-term storm chronologies. The other, based on the analogous events of 1842 and 2005, offers a convincing demonstration of the need to call upon such comprehensive long-term chronologies in order to avoid making mistaken and unintentionally ill-informed observations on the seeming idiosyncrasies of recent climatic variation. The first example, from August 1680, reconstructs the trajectory and development of an Atlantic tropical cyclone, and draws upon a notable variety of documentary sources ranging from ships' logbooks, official and unofficial correspondence and some early examples of instrumental data. It serves as a model of how such sources, which remain largely unexploited, can be called upon to provide important climatic information. It allows also for the reconstruction the tropical and extratropical phases of the cyclone's trajectory and its possible impact over the UK. The second example, which compares hurricane Vince (2005) with an earlier but overlooked analogue from 1842, demonstrates the caution with which recent events should be interpreted and the need to take as long-term view as possible. Hurricane Vince, which moved directly from the eastern Atlantic towards Iberia, was widely proclaimed as a unique event and a consequence of global warming. Yet a careful search of the historical record provided an almost perfect analogue from 1842 and in doing so offered a salutary warning of our need for caution and for a clearer picture of the past. This presentation reviews both examples and discusses their implications in terms of the possibility of improving the cyclone chronology and, thereby, of assisting in our understanding of present-day events. References Vaquero J.M., R. García-Herrera, D. Wheeler, M. Chenoweth and C. J. Mock, 2008: An historical analogue of 2005 hurricane Vince. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 89, 191 - 201. WheelerD., R. García-Herrera, J.M.Vaquero, M. Chenoweth and C. J. Mock, 2009: Reconstructing the trajectory of the August 1680 Hurricane from contemporary records Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society,(accepted).

Web-based Discussion Forums on Pregnancy Complaints and Maternal Health Literacy in Norway: A Qualitative Study.

PubMed

Fredriksen, Eva Haukeland; Harris, Janet; Moland, Karen Marie

2016-05-26

The Internet is one of the fastest growing information sources for pregnant women and seems to be used across social and economic strata. However, we still lack knowledge on how interaction in Web-based discussion forums influence maternal health literacy, in terms of how pregnant women access, appraise, and apply information to promote and maintain good health. The aim of this study was to understand how Web-based discussion forums influence maternal health literacy; hence, we explored the role of interactions in Web-based discussion forums among women who experienced health problems during pregnancy. More specifically, we explored why media-literate women experiencing the medically unexplained condition, pelvic girdle pain (PGP), during pregnancy participated in Web-based discussion forums and how they appraised and applied the information and advice that they gained from the Web-based interaction with other women. Women were invited to participate in the study via postings on 3 different open websites for pregnant women and mothers. The sample included 11 Norwegian women who participated in open Web-based discussion forums when experiencing PGP in pregnancy. The data were collected using synchronous qualitative email interviews and were analyzed using thematic analysis. In our study sample, interaction in Web-based discussion forums influenced maternal health literacy in terms of increased health-related knowledge and competencies, increased awareness of health promotion and health protection, and increased system navigation. The women appraised and selectively applied information and advice that resonated with their own experiences. For many, the information provided online by other women in the same situation was valued more highly than advice from health professionals. Women reported that they used their knowledge and competency in encounters with health professionals but hesitated to disclose the origin of their knowledge. Those with a high level of education in medicine-related fields raised a concern about the Internet as a source of horror stories and erroneous information and were actively engaged in trying to minimize potential negative effects, by providing biomedical information. The popularity of Web-based discussion forums among pregnant women suggests that this group needs additional sources of information and support to complement traditional consultations with the health professionals. The professionals need to recognize that pregnant women access Web-based discussion forums for support and information to increase their ability to take better health decisions for themselves. This is a potential resource that health professionals may find useful in consultations with pregnant women.

Web-based Discussion Forums on Pregnancy Complaints and Maternal Health Literacy in Norway: A Qualitative Study

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Background The Internet is one of the fastest growing information sources for pregnant women and seems to be used across social and economic strata. However, we still lack knowledge on how interaction in Web-based discussion forums influence maternal health literacy, in terms of how pregnant women access, appraise, and apply information to promote and maintain good health. Objective The aim of this study was to understand how Web-based discussion forums influence maternal health literacy; hence, we explored the role of interactions in Web-based discussion forums among women who experienced health problems during pregnancy. More specifically, we explored why media-literate women experiencing the medically unexplained condition, pelvic girdle pain (PGP), during pregnancy participated in Web-based discussion forums and how they appraised and applied the information and advice that they gained from the Web-based interaction with other women. Methods Women were invited to participate in the study via postings on 3 different open websites for pregnant women and mothers. The sample included 11 Norwegian women who participated in open Web-based discussion forums when experiencing PGP in pregnancy. The data were collected using synchronous qualitative email interviews and were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results In our study sample, interaction in Web-based discussion forums influenced maternal health literacy in terms of increased health-related knowledge and competencies, increased awareness of health promotion and health protection, and increased system navigation. The women appraised and selectively applied information and advice that resonated with their own experiences. For many, the information provided online by other women in the same situation was valued more highly than advice from health professionals. Women reported that they used their knowledge and competency in encounters with health professionals but hesitated to disclose the origin of their knowledge. Those with a high level of education in medicine-related fields raised a concern about the Internet as a source of horror stories and erroneous information and were actively engaged in trying to minimize potential negative effects, by providing biomedical information. Conclusions The popularity of Web-based discussion forums among pregnant women suggests that this group needs additional sources of information and support to complement traditional consultations with the health professionals. The professionals need to recognize that pregnant women access Web-based discussion forums for support and information to increase their ability to take better health decisions for themselves. This is a potential resource that health professionals may find useful in consultations with pregnant women. PMID:27230094

Medical apps in endocrine diseases – hide and seek

PubMed Central

von Jan, Ute

2014-01-01

Objectives: Quantitative review and categorization of available endocrinology related mobile apps for the iOS platform (Apple®) and outline of search strategies to identify appropriate mobile apps for this field. Methods: A total of 80 endocrinology related search terms were collected and grouped into 8 main categories covering different areas of endocrinology. These terms were then used to perform comprehensive searches in three categories of Apple’s app store, namely ‘Medicine’, ‘Health and Fitness’, and ‘Reference’. Results: Altogether, matches were found for only 33 of the 80 collected endocrinology related search terms; the majority of matches were found in the medical category, followed by matches for the health and fitness (27/33), and reference (16/33) categories. Restricting the search to these categories significantly helped in discriminating between health related apps and those having another purpose. The distribution of apps per category roughly matches what one can expect considering available data for incidence and prevalence of corresponding endocrinological conditions. Apps matching terms belonging to the spectrum of glucose homeostasis disorders are the most common. For conditions where patients do not have to constantly monitor their condition, apps tend to have a reference or educational character, while for conditions that require a high level of involvement from patients, there are proportionally more apps for self-management. With a single exception, the identified apps had not undergone regulation, and information about the data sources, professional backgrounds, and reliability of the content and integrated information sources was rare. Conclusions: While applying a good search strategy is important for finding apps for endocrinology related problems, users also need to consider whether the app they have found respects all necessary criteria regarding reliability, privacy and data protection before they place their trust in it. PMID:25152809

Medical apps in endocrine diseases - hide and seek.

PubMed

Albrecht, Urs-Vito; von Jan, Ute

2014-04-01

Quantitative review and categorization of available endocrinology related mobile apps for the iOS platform (Apple®) and outline of search strategies to identify appropriate mobile apps for this field. A total of 80 endocrinology related search terms were collected and grouped into 8 main categories covering different areas of endocrinology. These terms were then used to perform comprehensive searches in three categories of Apple's app store, namely 'Medicine', 'Health and Fitness', and 'Reference'. Altogether, matches were found for only 33 of the 80 collected endocrinology related search terms; the majority of matches were found in the medical category, followed by matches for the health and fitness (27/33), and reference (16/33) categories. Restricting the search to these categories significantly helped in discriminating between health related apps and those having another purpose. The distribution of apps per category roughly matches what one can expect considering available data for incidence and prevalence of corresponding endocrinological conditions. Apps matching terms belonging to the spectrum of glucose homeostasis disorders are the most common. For conditions where patients do not have to constantly monitor their condition, apps tend to have a reference or educational character, while for conditions that require a high level of involvement from patients, there are proportionally more apps for self-management. With a single exception, the identified apps had not undergone regulation, and information about the data sources, professional backgrounds, and reliability of the content and integrated information sources was rare. While applying a good search strategy is important for finding apps for endocrinology related problems, users also need to consider whether the app they have found respects all necessary criteria regarding reliability, privacy and data protection before they place their trust in it.

Wildlife habitat evaluation demonstration project. [Michigan

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Burgoyne, G. E., Jr.; Visser, L. G.

1981-01-01

To support the deer range improvement project in Michigan, the capability of LANDSAT data in assessing deer habitat in terms of areas and mixes of species and age classes of vegetation is being examined to determine whether such data could substitute for traditional cover type information sources. A second goal of the demonstration project is to determine whether LANDSAT data can be used to supplement and improve the information normally used for making deer habitat management decisions, either by providing vegetative cover for private land or by providing information about the interspersion and juxtaposition of valuable vegetative cover types. The procedure to be used for evaluating in LANDSAT data of the Lake County test site is described.

Gendered Sources of Distress and Resilience among Afghan Refugees in Northern California: A Cross-Sectional Study.

PubMed

Stempel, Carl; Sami, Nilofar; Koga, Patrick Marius; Alemi, Qais; Smith, Valerie; Shirazi, Aida

2016-12-28

Recent studies have emphasized the influence of resettlement factors on the mental health of refugees resettling in developed countries. However, little research has addressed gender differences in the nature and influence of resettlement stressors and sources of resilience. We address this gap in knowledge by investigating how gender moderates and mediates the influence of several sources of distress and resilience among 259 Afghan refugees residing in Northern California (USA). Gender moderated the effects of four factors on levels of distress. Intimate and extended family ties have little correlation with men's distress levels, but are strongly associated with lower distress for women. English ability is positively associated with lower distress for women, but not men. In terms of gender ideology, traditionally oriented women and egalitarian men have lower levels of distress. And experiencing greater dissonant acculturation increases distress for men, but not women. The influence of gender interaction terms is substantial and patterns may reflect difficulty adapting to a different gender order. Future studies of similar populations should investigate gender differences in sources of distress and resilience, and efforts to assist new arrivals might inform them of changes in gender roles they may experience, and facilitate opportunities to renegotiate gender roles.

Gendered Sources of Distress and Resilience among Afghan Refugees in Northern California: A Cross-Sectional Study

PubMed Central

Stempel, Carl; Sami, Nilofar; Koga, Patrick Marius; Alemi, Qais; Smith, Valerie; Shirazi, Aida

2016-01-01

Recent studies have emphasized the influence of resettlement factors on the mental health of refugees resettling in developed countries. However, little research has addressed gender differences in the nature and influence of resettlement stressors and sources of resilience. We address this gap in knowledge by investigating how gender moderates and mediates the influence of several sources of distress and resilience among 259 Afghan refugees residing in Northern California (USA). Gender moderated the effects of four factors on levels of distress. Intimate and extended family ties have little correlation with men’s distress levels, but are strongly associated with lower distress for women. English ability is positively associated with lower distress for women, but not men. In terms of gender ideology, traditionally oriented women and egalitarian men have lower levels of distress. And experiencing greater dissonant acculturation increases distress for men, but not women. The influence of gender interaction terms is substantial and patterns may reflect difficulty adapting to a different gender order. Future studies of similar populations should investigate gender differences in sources of distress and resilience, and efforts to assist new arrivals might inform them of changes in gender roles they may experience, and facilitate opportunities to renegotiate gender roles. PMID:28036054

Constraining the Long-Term Average of Earthquake Recurrence Intervals From Paleo- and Historic Earthquakes by Assimilating Information From Instrumental Seismicity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zoeller, G.

2017-12-01

Paleo- and historic earthquakes are the most important source of information for the estimationof long-term recurrence intervals in fault zones, because sequences of paleoearthquakes cover more than one seismic cycle. On the other hand, these events are often rare, dating uncertainties are enormous and the problem of missing or misinterpreted events leads to additional problems. Taking these shortcomings into account, long-term recurrence intervals are usually unstable as long as no additional information are included. In the present study, we assume that the time to the next major earthquake depends on the rate of small and intermediate events between the large ones in terms of a ``clock-change'' model that leads to a Brownian Passage Time distribution for recurrence intervals. We take advantage of an earlier finding that the aperiodicity of this distribution can be related to the Gutenberg-Richter-b-value, which is usually around one and can be estimated easily from instrumental seismicity in the region under consideration. This allows to reduce the uncertainties in the estimation of the mean recurrence interval significantly, especially for short paleoearthquake sequences and high dating uncertainties. We present illustrative case studies from Southern California and compare the method with the commonly used approach of exponentially distributed recurrence times assuming a stationary Poisson process.

YouTube provides irrelevant information for the diagnosis and treatment of hip arthritis.

PubMed

Koller, Ulrich; Waldstein, Wenzel; Schatz, Klaus-Dieter; Windhager, Reinhard

2016-10-01

YouTube is increasingly becoming a key source for people to satisfy the need for additional information concerning their medical condition. This study analyses the completeness of accurate information found on YouTube pertaining to hip arthritis. The present study analyzed 133 YouTube videos using the search terms: hip arthritis, hip arthritis symptoms, hip arthritis diagnosis, hip arthritis treatment and hip replacement. Two quality assessment checklists with a scale of 0 to 12 points were developed to evaluate available video content for the diagnosis and the treatment of hip arthritis. Videos were grouped into poor quality (grade 0-3), moderate quality (grade 4-7) and excellent quality (grade 8-12), respectively. Three independent observers assessed all videos using the new grading system and independently scored all videos. Discrepancies regarding the categories were clarified by consensus discussion. For intra-observer reliabilities, grading was performed at two occasions separated by four weeks. Eighty-four percent (n = 112) had a poor diagnostic information quality, 14% (n = 19) a moderate quality and only 2% (n = 2) an excellent quality, respectively. In 86% (n = 114), videos provided poor treatment information quality. Eleven percent (n = 15) of videos had a moderate quality and only 3% (n = 4) an excellent quality, respectively. The present study demonstrates that YouTube is a poor source for accurate information pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of hip arthritis. These finding are of high relevance for clinicians as videos are going to become the primary source of information for patients. Therefore, high quality educational videos are needed to further guide patients on the way from the diagnosis of hip arthritis to its proper treatment.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ferrada, J.J.

This report compiles preliminary information that supports the premise that a repository is needed in Latin America and analyzes the nuclear situation (mainly in Argentina and Brazil) in terms of nuclear capabilities, inventories, and regional spent-fuel repositories. The report is based on several sources and summarizes (1) the nuclear capabilities in Latin America and establishes the framework for the need of a permanent repository, (2) the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approach for a regional spent-fuel repository and describes the support that international institutions are lending to this issue, (3) the current situation in Argentina in order to analyze themore » Argentinean willingness to find a location for a deep geological repository, and (4) the issues involved in selecting a location for the repository and identifies a potential location. This report then draws conclusions based on an analysis of this information. The focus of this report is mainly on spent fuel and does not elaborate on other radiological waste sources.« less

Farmers' climate information needs for long-term adaptive decisions: A case study of almonds in CA

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jagannathan, K. A.; Jones, A. D.; Pathak, T. B.; Kerr, A. C.; Doll, D.

2016-12-01

Despite advances in climate modeling and projections, several sources report that current tools and models are not widely used in the agriculture sector. Farmers, depending on their local context, require information on very specific climatic metrics such as start of rains during the planting season, number of low temperature days during the growing season, etc. However, such specific climatic information is either not available, and/or is not synthesized and communicated in a manner that is accessible to these decision-makers. This research aims to bridge the gap between climate information and decision-making needs, by providing an improved understanding of what farmers' consider as relevant climate information, and how these needs compare with current modeling capabilities. Almond is a perennial crop, so any changes in climate within its 25-30 year lifetime can have an adverse impact on crop yield. This makes almond growers vulnerable to medium and long-term climate change. Hence, providing appropriate information on future climate projections can help guide their decisions on crop types & varieties, as well as management practices that are better adapted to future climatic conditions. Semi-structured exploratory interviews have been conducted with almond growers, farm advisors, and other industry stakeholders, with three goals: (1) to understand how growers have used climate information in the past; (2) to identify key climatic variables that are relevant - including appropriate temporal scales and acceptable uncertainty levels; and (3) to understand communication methods that could improve the usability of climate information for farm-level decision-making. The interviews showcased a great diversity amongst growers in terms of how they used weather/climate information. Discussions also indicated that there was a potential for climate information to impact long-term decisions, but only if it is provided within the right context, terminology, and communication channels. The findings offer valuable bottom-up insights into farmers' perspectives on relevance of climate information. These results will also be compared with current modeling capabilities in order to synthesize conclusions for improving the usability of climate science for agricultural decision-makers.

Evaluating the suitability of different environmental samples for tracing atmospheric pollution in industrial areas.

PubMed

Francová, Anna; Chrastný, Vladislav; Šillerová, Hana; Vítková, Martina; Kocourková, Jana; Komárek, Michael

2017-01-01

Samples of lichens, snow and particulate matter (PM 10 , 24 h) are used for the source identification of air pollution in the heavily industrialized region of Ostrava, Upper Silesia, Czech Republic. An integrated approach that uses different environmental samples for metal concentration and Pb isotope analyses was applied. The broad range of isotope ratios in the samples indicates a combination of different pollution sources, the strongest among them being the metallurgical industry, bituminous coal combustion and traffic. Snow samples are proven as the most relevant indicator for tracing metal(loid)s and recent local contamination in the atmosphere. Lichens can be successfully used as tracers of the long-term activity of local and remote sources of contamination. The combination of PM 10 with snow can provide very useful information for evaluation of current pollution sources. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Science Manager's Guide to Case Studies

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Branch, Kristi M.; Peffers, Melissa S.; Ruegg, Rosalie T.

2001-09-24

This guide takes the science manager through the steps of planning, implementing, validating, communicating, and using case studies. It outlines the major methods of analysis, describing their relative merits and applicability while providing relevant examples and sources of additional information. Well-designed case studies can provide a combination of rich qualitative and quantitative information, offering valuable insights into the nature, outputs, and longer-term impacts of the research. An objective, systematic, and credible approach to the evaluation of U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science programs adds value to the research process and is the subject of this guide.

Phase 1 of the near term hybrid passenger vehicle development program, appendix A. Mission analysis and performance specification studies. Volume 2: Appendices

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Traversi, M.; Barbarek, L. A. C.

1979-01-01

A handy reference for JPL minimum requirements and guidelines is presented as well as information on the use of the fundamental information source represented by the Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey. Data on U.S. demographic statistics and highway speeds are included along with methodology for normal parameters evaluation, synthesis of daily distance distributions, and projection of car ownership distributions. The synthesis of tentative mission quantification results, of intermediate mission quantification results, and of mission quantification parameters are considered and 1985 in place fleet fuel economy data are included.

Algae Biofuels Co-Location Assessment Tool for Canada

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

2011-11-29

The Algae Biofuels Co-Location Assessment Tool for Canada uses chemical stoichiometry to estimate Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Carbon atom availability from waste water and carbon dioxide emissions streams, and requirements for those same elements to produce a unit of algae. This information is then combined to find limiting nutrient information and estimate potential productivity associated with waste water and carbon dioxide sources. Output is visualized in terms of distributions or spatial locations. Distances are calculated between points of interest in the model using the great circle distance equation, and the smallest distances found by an exhaustive search and sort algorithm.

Looking Upstream: Findings from Focus Groups on Public Perceptions of Source Water Quality in British Columbia, Canada

PubMed Central

Henrich, Natalie; Holmes, Bev; Prystajecky, Natalie

2015-01-01

In association with the development of new microbial tests for source water quality (SWQ), focus groups with members of the public were conducted to gain insight into their perceptions of SWQ, behaviours and contaminants they think pose the greatest threat to its quality, and what/how they want to know about SWQ. Discussions revealed a low concern about SWQ in general, and in particular about microbial contamination. Participants identified behaviours that threaten SWQ, barriers to changing behaviour and suggestions for inducing change. A strong desire was expressed for water quality information to be interpreted and communicated in terms of how SWQ may impact human health and how their actions should be altered in response to test results. The information can be used to inform communication strategies and possibly impact policies associated with water quality testing and implementation of new tests. More broadly, awareness of the public’s understanding and beliefs about source water can be used in working with the public to adopt water-friendly behaviours, influence the content and methods of communicating with the public about water issues and water quality, and could contribute to the direction of future research and investment into water technologies to align with the public’s priorities. PMID:26540561

Looking Upstream: Findings from Focus Groups on Public Perceptions of Source Water Quality in British Columbia, Canada.

PubMed

Henrich, Natalie; Holmes, Bev; Prystajecky, Natalie

2015-01-01

In association with the development of new microbial tests for source water quality (SWQ), focus groups with members of the public were conducted to gain insight into their perceptions of SWQ, behaviours and contaminants they think pose the greatest threat to its quality, and what/how they want to know about SWQ. Discussions revealed a low concern about SWQ in general, and in particular about microbial contamination. Participants identified behaviours that threaten SWQ, barriers to changing behaviour and suggestions for inducing change. A strong desire was expressed for water quality information to be interpreted and communicated in terms of how SWQ may impact human health and how their actions should be altered in response to test results. The information can be used to inform communication strategies and possibly impact policies associated with water quality testing and implementation of new tests. More broadly, awareness of the public's understanding and beliefs about source water can be used in working with the public to adopt water-friendly behaviours, influence the content and methods of communicating with the public about water issues and water quality, and could contribute to the direction of future research and investment into water technologies to align with the public's priorities.

Evaluating the content and quality of information about premature ejaculation on the Internet: what are men being exposed to ?

PubMed

Gul, M; Kaynar, M

2017-03-01

Premature ejaculation is one of the most common male sexual dysfunctions; however, only a few patients with premature ejaculation are seeking professional help or advice. Internet has become an important source of knowledge, and thus, more patients are looking online for health information. According to our best knowledge, no study has evaluated the content and quality of websites on premature ejaculation. We, therefore, aimed to evaluate the content and quality of currently available Internet-based information on premature ejaculation. A sample was obtained comprising the 50 top sites retrieved from Google, Bing and Yahoo search engines using the terms 'premature ejaculation'. Each site then was reviewed based on some predefined evaluation criteria to determine the general quality, condition-specific content quality, popularity index and ownership. The websites reviewed were differed highly in terms of quality and ownership. Only a few sites provided comprehensive medical and complete information on premature ejaculation. The online information available is often of uncertain calibre; therefore, men are being exposed to information about premature ejaculation with a highly variable degree quality. This fact should be considered both by health professionals and website owners, and better online resources should be provided for these patients. © 2016 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

What Is eHealth (3): A Systematic Review of Published Definitions

PubMed Central

Oh, Hans; Rizo, Carlos; Enkin, Murray

2005-01-01

Context The term eHealth is widely used by many individuals, academic institutions, professional bodies, and funding organizations. It has become an accepted neologism despite the lack of an agreed-upon clear or precise definition. We believe that communication among the many individuals and organizations that use the term could be improved by comprehensive data about the range of meanings encompassed by the term. Objective To report the results of a systematic review of published, suggested, or proposed definitions of eHealth. Data Sources Using the search query string “eHealth” OR “e-Health” OR “electronic health”, we searched the following databases: Medline and Premedline (1966-June 2004), EMBASE (1980-May 2004), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (1970-May 2004), Web of Science (all years), Information Sciences Abstracts (1966-May 2004), Library Information Sciences Abstracts (1969-May 2004), and Wilson Business Abstracts (1982-March 2004). In addition, we searched dictionaries and an Internet search engine. Study Selection We included any source published in either print format or on the Internet, available in English, and containing text that defines or attempts to define eHealth in explicit terms. Two of us independently reviewed titles and abstracts of citations identified in the bibliographic databases and Internet search, reaching consensus on relevance by discussion. Data Extraction We retrieved relevant reports, articles, references, letters, and websites containing definitions of eHealth. Two of us qualitatively analyzed the definitions and coded them for content, emerging themes, patterns, and novel ideas. Data Synthesis The 51 unique definitions that we retrieved showed a wide range of themes, but no clear consensus about the meaning of the term eHealth. We identified 2 universal themes (health and technology) and 6 less general (commerce, activities, stakeholders, outcomes, place, and perspectives). Conclusions The widespread use of the term eHealth suggests that it is an important concept, and that there is a tacit understanding of its meaning. This compendium of proposed definitions may improve communication among the many individuals and organizations that use the term. PMID:15829471

Escaping the recent past: Which stimulus dimensions influence proactive interference?

PubMed Central

Craig, Kimberly S.; Berman, Marc G.; Jonides, John; Lustig, Cindy

2013-01-01

Proactive interference occurs when information from the past disrupts current processing and is a major source of confusion and errors in short-term memory (Wickens, Born & Allen, 1963). The present investigation examines potential boundary conditions for interference, testing the hypothesis that potential competitors must be similar along task-relevant dimensions to influence proactive interference effects. We manipulated both the type of task being completed (Experiments 1, 2 and 3) and dimensions of similarity irrelevant to the current task (Experiments 4 and 5) to determine how the recent presentation of a probe item would affect the speed with which participants could reject that item. Experiments 1, 2 and 3 contrasted short-term memory judgments, which require temporal information, with semantic and perceptual judgments, for which temporal information is irrelevant. In Experiments 4 and 5, task-irrelevant information (perceptual similarity) was manipulated within the recent probes task. We found that interference from past items affected short-term memory (STM) task performance but did not affect performance in semantic or perceptual judgment tasks. Conversely, similarity along a nominally-irrelevant perceptual dimension did not affect the magnitude of interference in STM tasks. Results are consistent with the view that items in STM are represented by noisy codes consisting of multiple dimensions, and that interference occurs when items are similar to each other and thus compete along the dimensions relevant to target selection. PMID:23297049

Bovine placenta: a review on morphology, components, and defects from terminology and clinical perspectives.

PubMed

Peter, Augustine T

2013-10-15

The bovine placenta has been the subject of many studies. Concurrently, several specialized terms have been developed to describe its development, morphology, components, function, and pathology. Many of these terms are simple, some are difficult to understand and use, and others are antiquated and may not be scientifically accurate. Defining and adopting terminology for the bovine placenta that is clear, precise and understandable, and available in a single source is expected to facilitate exchange of clinical and research information. This review presents a brief overview of the current knowledge regarding the bovine placenta and attempts to define terms. In this process, conventional terminology is presented, and contemporary and novel terms are proposed from a biological perspective. For example, use of terms such as syndesmochorial, retained placenta, and large offspring syndrome should be revisited. Furthermore, the clinical relevance of the structure and function of the bovine placenta is reviewed. Finally, terms discussed in this review are summarized (in table format). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

77 FR 19740 - Water Sources for Long-Term Recirculation Cooling Following a Loss-of-Coolant Accident

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-02

... NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [NRC-2010-0249] Water Sources for Long-Term Recirculation Cooling... Regulatory Guide (RG) 1.82, ``Water Sources for Long-Term Recirculation Cooling Following a Loss-of-Coolant... regarding the sumps and suppression pools that provide water sources for emergency core cooling, containment...

Online health information seeking: how people with multiple sclerosis find, assess and integrate treatment information to manage their health.

PubMed

Synnot, Anneliese J; Hill, Sophie J; Garner, Kerryn A; Summers, Michael P; Filippini, Graziella; Osborne, Richard H; Shapland, Sue D P; Colombo, Cinzia; Mosconi, Paola

2016-06-01

The Internet is increasingly prominent as a source of health information for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). But there has been little exploration of the needs, experiences and preferences of people with MS for integrating treatment information into decision making, in the context of searching on the Internet. This was the aim of our study. Sixty participants (51 people with MS; nine family members) took part in a focus group or online forum. They were asked to describe how they find and assess reliable treatment information (particularly online) and how this changes over time. Thematic analysis was underpinned by a coding frame. Participants described that there was both too much information online and too little that applied to them. They spoke of wariness and scepticism but also empowerment. The availability of up-to-date and unbiased treatment information, including practical and lifestyle-related information, was important to many. Many participants were keen to engage in a 'research partnership' with health professionals and developed a range of strategies to enhance the trustworthiness of online information. We use the term 'self-regulation' to capture the variations in information seeking behaviour that participants described over time, as they responded to their changing information needs, their emotional state and growing expertise about MS. People with MS have developed a number of strategies to both find and integrate treatment information from a range of sources. Their reflections informed the development of an evidence-based consumer web site based on summaries of MS Cochrane reviews. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Is Iowa Educationally Competitive? Children and Iowa's Economic Future--March 2010 Update on NAEP Reading Scores. Iowa Kids Count Special Report Update

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Child and Family Policy Center, 2010

2010-01-01

In January, 2010, Iowa Kids Count produced a special report that showed long-term trends in Iowa student reading and mathematics scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the only source for comparative state information on student achievement. The January report showed a decline in Iowa's ranking since 1992, when the first…

Successful Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System Programs Implemented in the Navy - NESDI #494

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-06-01

account. Lastly, upon speaking with numerous stormwater personnel who use a spreadsheet software for data tracking, they recommended that staying well...existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing this collection of information. Send comments regarding...an organized manner. In the long-term, a comprehensive electronic methodology is recommended to keep data organized, be more efficient and to keep

A Source Term for Wave Attenuation by Sea Ice in WAVEWATCH III (registered trademark): IC4

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-07

by ANSI Std. Z39.18 Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for... time . Diamonds indicate active, moored AWACs. Circle indicates location of R/V Sikuliaq. Thick magenta and white lines indicate path of R/V Sikuliaq...past and future ship position, respectively). .................................................................. 15 Figure 10 Time series of

Parsing and Tagging of Bilingual Dictionary

DTIC Science & Technology

2003-09-01

LAMP-TR-106 CAR-TR-991 CS-TR-4529 UMIACS-TR-2003-97 PARSING ANS TAGGING OF BILINGUAL DICTIONARY Huanfeng Ma1,2, Burcu Karagol-Ayan1,2, David... dictionaries hold great potential as a source of lexical resources for training and testing automated systems for optical character recognition, machine...translation, and cross-language information retrieval. In this paper, we describe a system for extracting term lexicons from printed bilingual dictionaries

BioFed: federated query processing over life sciences linked open data.

PubMed

Hasnain, Ali; Mehmood, Qaiser; Sana E Zainab, Syeda; Saleem, Muhammad; Warren, Claude; Zehra, Durre; Decker, Stefan; Rebholz-Schuhmann, Dietrich

2017-03-15

Biomedical data, e.g. from knowledge bases and ontologies, is increasingly made available following open linked data principles, at best as RDF triple data. This is a necessary step towards unified access to biological data sets, but this still requires solutions to query multiple endpoints for their heterogeneous data to eventually retrieve all the meaningful information. Suggested solutions are based on query federation approaches, which require the submission of SPARQL queries to endpoints. Due to the size and complexity of available data, these solutions have to be optimised for efficient retrieval times and for users in life sciences research. Last but not least, over time, the reliability of data resources in terms of access and quality have to be monitored. Our solution (BioFed) federates data over 130 SPARQL endpoints in life sciences and tailors query submission according to the provenance information. BioFed has been evaluated against the state of the art solution FedX and forms an important benchmark for the life science domain. The efficient cataloguing approach of the federated query processing system 'BioFed', the triple pattern wise source selection and the semantic source normalisation forms the core to our solution. It gathers and integrates data from newly identified public endpoints for federated access. Basic provenance information is linked to the retrieved data. Last but not least, BioFed makes use of the latest SPARQL standard (i.e., 1.1) to leverage the full benefits for query federation. The evaluation is based on 10 simple and 10 complex queries, which address data in 10 major and very popular data sources (e.g., Dugbank, Sider). BioFed is a solution for a single-point-of-access for a large number of SPARQL endpoints providing life science data. It facilitates efficient query generation for data access and provides basic provenance information in combination with the retrieved data. BioFed fully supports SPARQL 1.1 and gives access to the endpoint's availability based on the EndpointData graph. Our evaluation of BioFed against FedX is based on 20 heterogeneous federated SPARQL queries and shows competitive execution performance in comparison to FedX, which can be attributed to the provision of provenance information for the source selection. Developing and testing federated query engines for life sciences data is still a challenging task. According to our findings, it is advantageous to optimise the source selection. The cataloguing of SPARQL endpoints, including type and property indexing, leads to efficient querying of data resources over the Web of Data. This could even be further improved through the use of ontologies, e.g., for abstract normalisation of query terms.

Rural energy survey and cost-effectiveness analysis of renewable-energy technologies for a Philippine Island community

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Manibog, F.R.

1982-01-01

This study presents the methodology and results of: (1) a rural energy survey that was conducted in a Philippine island community; and (2) a cost-effectiveness analysis of selected conventional and renewable-energy technologies. The rural energy survey section compares different survey techniques and analyzes energy utilization by providing: (1) a breakdown of energy flows and use patterns; (2) information on energy prices, ownership patterns, social relations, and their effects in terms of differential access to energy sources; (3) per household and per capita consumption figures; and (4) a village energy-consumption table. Correlation analysis is used to determine if the stratified, independentmore » socio-economic variables are indicators for dependent energy variables. Results of the economic analysis indicate that renewable-energy technologies are already least-cost alternatives to diesel generation in the village case study. The sensitivity analysis also shows that these technologies remain the least-cost options even if their capital costs were underestimated. The findings of the study are useful to the current Philippine renewable-energy program in terms of providing: (1) information essential for determining end-users' priority energy needs and for improving technology choice and project design; and (2) justification for promoting auto-generation based on renewable energy sources as alternatives to diesel fuel.« less

Diabetic Macular Edema: What is Focal and What is Diffuse?

PubMed Central

Browning, David J.; Altaweel, Michael M.; Bressler, Neil M.; Bressler, Susan B.; Scott, Ingrid U.

2009-01-01

Purpose To review the available information on classification of diabetic macular edema (DME) as focal or diffuse. Design Interpretive essay. Methods Literature review and interpretation. Results The terms focal and diffuse diabetic macular edema are frequently used without clear definitions. Published definitions often use different examination modalities and are often inconsistent. Evaluating published information on prevalence of focal and diffuse DME, response of focal and diffuse DME to treatments, and importance of focal and diffuse DME in assessing prognosis is hindered because the terms are inconsistently employed. A newer vocabulary may be more constructive, one that describes discrete components of the concepts such as extent and location of macular thickening, involvement of the center of the macula, quantity and pattern of lipid exudates, source of fluorescein leakage, and regional variation in macular thickening, and that distinguishes these terms from the use of the term focal when describing one type of photocoagulation technique. Developing methods for assessing component variables that can be used in clinical practice and establishing reproducibility of the methods will be important tasks. Conclusion Little evidence exists that characteristics of DME described by the terms focal and diffuse help to explain variation in visual acuity or response to treatment. It is unresolved whether a concept of focal and diffuse DME will prove clinically useful despite frequent usage of the terms when describing management of DME. Further studies to address the issues are needed. PMID:18774122

Building a drug ontology based on RxNorm and other sources

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background We built the Drug Ontology (DrOn) because we required correct and consistent drug information in a format for use in semantic web applications, and no existing resource met this requirement or could be altered to meet it. One of the obstacles we faced when creating DrOn was the difficulty in reusing drug information from existing sources. The primary external source we have used at this stage in DrOn’s development is RxNorm, a standard drug terminology curated by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). To build DrOn, we (1) mined data from historical releases of RxNorm and (2) mapped many RxNorm entities to Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) classes, pulling relevant information from ChEBI while doing so. Results We built DrOn in a modular fashion to facilitate simpler extension and development of the ontology and to allow reasoning and construction to scale. Classes derived from each source are serialized in separate modules. For example, the classes in DrOn that are programmatically derived from RxNorm are stored in a separate module and subsumed by classes in a manually-curated, realist, upper-level module of DrOn with terms such as 'clinical drug role’, 'tablet’, 'capsule’, etc. Conclusions DrOn is a modular, extensible ontology of drug products, their ingredients, and their biological activity that avoids many of the fundamental flaws found in other, similar artifacts and meets the requirements of our comparative-effectiveness research use-case. PMID:24345026

Building a drug ontology based on RxNorm and other sources.

PubMed

Hanna, Josh; Joseph, Eric; Brochhausen, Mathias; Hogan, William R

2013-12-18

We built the Drug Ontology (DrOn) because we required correct and consistent drug information in a format for use in semantic web applications, and no existing resource met this requirement or could be altered to meet it. One of the obstacles we faced when creating DrOn was the difficulty in reusing drug information from existing sources. The primary external source we have used at this stage in DrOn's development is RxNorm, a standard drug terminology curated by the National Library of Medicine (NLM). To build DrOn, we (1) mined data from historical releases of RxNorm and (2) mapped many RxNorm entities to Chemical Entities of Biological Interest (ChEBI) classes, pulling relevant information from ChEBI while doing so. We built DrOn in a modular fashion to facilitate simpler extension and development of the ontology and to allow reasoning and construction to scale. Classes derived from each source are serialized in separate modules. For example, the classes in DrOn that are programmatically derived from RxNorm are stored in a separate module and subsumed by classes in a manually-curated, realist, upper-level module of DrOn with terms such as 'clinical drug role', 'tablet', 'capsule', etc. DrOn is a modular, extensible ontology of drug products, their ingredients, and their biological activity that avoids many of the fundamental flaws found in other, similar artifacts and meets the requirements of our comparative-effectiveness research use-case.

Assessment of rainfall thresholds for landslide triggering in the Pacific Northwest: extreme short-term rainfall and long-term trends

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stanley, T.; Kirschbaum, D.; Sobieszczyk, S.; Jasinski, M. F.; Borak, J.; Yatheendradas, S.

2017-12-01

Landslides occur every year in the U.S. Pacific Northwest due to extreme rainfall, snow cover, and rugged topography. Data for 15,000 landslide events in Washington and Oregon were assembled from State Surveys, Departments of Transportation, a Global Landslide Catalog compiled by NASA, and other sources. This new inventory was evaluated against rainfall data from the National Climate Assessment (NCA) Land Data Assimilation System to characterize the regional rainfall conditions that trigger landslides. Analysis of these data sets indicates clear differences in triggering thresholds between extreme weather systems such as a Pineapple Express and the more typical peak seasonal rainfall between November and February. The study also leverages over 30 years of precipitation and land surface information to inform variability of landslide triggering over multiple decades and landslide trends within the region.

Probing Atom-Surface Interactions by Diffraction of Bose-Einstein Condensates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bender, Helmar; Stehle, Christian; Zimmermann, Claus; Slama, Sebastian; Fiedler, Johannes; Scheel, Stefan; Buhmann, Stefan Yoshi; Marachevsky, Valery N.

2014-01-01

In this article, we analyze the Casimir-Polder interaction of atoms with a solid grating and the repulsive interaction between the atoms and the grating in the presence of an external laser source. The Casimir-Polder potential is evaluated exactly in terms of Rayleigh reflection coefficients and via an approximate Hamaker approach. The laser-tuned repulsive interaction is given in terms of Rayleigh transmission coefficients. The combined potential landscape above the solid grating is probed locally by diffraction of Bose-Einstein condensates. Measured diffraction efficiencies reveal information about the shape of the potential landscape in agreement with the theory based on Rayleigh decompositions.

Important ingredients for health adaptive information systems.

PubMed

Senathirajah, Yalini; Bakken, Suzanne

2011-01-01

Healthcare information systems frequently do not truly meet clinician needs, due to the complexity, variability, and rapid change in medical contexts. Recently the internet world has been transformed by approaches commonly termed 'Web 2.0'. This paper proposes a Web 2.0 model for a healthcare adaptive architecture. The vision includes creating modular, user-composable systems which aim to make all necessary information from multiple internal and external sources available via a platform, for the user to use, arrange, recombine, author, and share at will, using rich interfaces where advisable. Clinicians can create a set of 'widgets' and 'views' which can transform data, reflect their domain knowledge and cater to their needs, using simple drag and drop interfaces without the intervention of programmers. We have built an example system, MedWISE, embodying the user-facing parts of the model. This approach to HIS is expected to have several advantages, including greater suitability to user needs (reflecting clinician rather than programmer concepts and priorities), incorporation of multiple information sources, agile reconfiguration to meet emerging situations and new treatment deployment, capture of user domain expertise and tacit knowledge, efficiencies due to workflow and human-computer interaction improvements, and greater user acceptance.

A Promising Tool to Assess Long Term Public Health Effects of Natural Disasters: Combining Routine Health Survey Data and Geographic Information Systems to Assess Stunting after the 2001 Earthquake in Peru

PubMed Central

Rydberg, Henny; Marrone, Gaetano; Strömdahl, Susanne; von Schreeb, Johan

2015-01-01

Background Research on long-term health effects of earthquakes is scarce, especially in low- and middle-income countries, which are disproportionately affected by disasters. To date, progress in this area has been hampered by the lack of tools to accurately measure these effects. Here, we explored whether long-term public health effects of earthquakes can be assessed using a combination of readily available data sources on public health and geographic distribution of seismic activity. Methods We used childhood stunting as a proxy for public health effects. Data on stunting were attained from Demographic and Health Surveys. Earthquake data were obtained from U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeMaps, geographic information system-based maps that divide earthquake affected areas into different shaking intensity zones. We combined these two data sources to categorize the surveyed children into different earthquake exposure groups, based on how much their area of residence was affected by the earthquake. We assessed the feasibility of the approach using a real earthquake case – an 8.4 magnitude earthquake that hit southern Peru in 2001. Results and conclusions Our results indicate that the combination of health survey data and disaster data may offer a readily accessible and accurate method for determining the long-term public health consequences of a natural disaster. Our work allowed us to make pre- and post- earthquake comparisons of stunting, an important indicator of the well-being of a society, as well as comparisons between populations with different levels of exposure to the earthquake. Furthermore, the detailed GIS based data provided a precise and objective definition of earthquake exposure. Our approach should be considered in future public health and disaster research exploring the long-term effects of earthquakes and potentially other natural disasters. PMID:26090999

A Promising Tool to Assess Long Term Public Health Effects of Natural Disasters: Combining Routine Health Survey Data and Geographic Information Systems to Assess Stunting after the 2001 Earthquake in Peru.

PubMed

Rydberg, Henny; Marrone, Gaetano; Strömdahl, Susanne; von Schreeb, Johan

2015-01-01

Research on long-term health effects of earthquakes is scarce, especially in low- and middle-income countries, which are disproportionately affected by disasters. To date, progress in this area has been hampered by the lack of tools to accurately measure these effects. Here, we explored whether long-term public health effects of earthquakes can be assessed using a combination of readily available data sources on public health and geographic distribution of seismic activity. We used childhood stunting as a proxy for public health effects. Data on stunting were attained from Demographic and Health Surveys. Earthquake data were obtained from U.S. Geological Survey's ShakeMaps, geographic information system-based maps that divide earthquake affected areas into different shaking intensity zones. We combined these two data sources to categorize the surveyed children into different earthquake exposure groups, based on how much their area of residence was affected by the earthquake. We assessed the feasibility of the approach using a real earthquake case--an 8.4 magnitude earthquake that hit southern Peru in 2001. Our results indicate that the combination of health survey data and disaster data may offer a readily accessible and accurate method for determining the long-term public health consequences of a natural disaster. Our work allowed us to make pre- and post-earthquake comparisons of stunting, an important indicator of the well-being of a society, as well as comparisons between populations with different levels of exposure to the earthquake. Furthermore, the detailed GIS based data provided a precise and objective definition of earthquake exposure. Our approach should be considered in future public health and disaster research exploring the long-term effects of earthquakes and potentially other natural disasters.

Online resources for persons recently diagnosed with HIV/AIDS: an analysis of HIV-related webpages.

PubMed

Horvath, Keith J; Harwood, Eileen M; Courtenay-Quirk, Cari; McFarlane, Mary; Fisher, Holly; Dickenson, Tina; Kachur, Rachel; Rosser, B R Simon; O'Leary, Ann

2010-07-01

The Internet is a major source of HIV-related information and resources for persons recently diagnosed with HIV/AIDS (PRDHA). This study examined the types of HIV-related websites that appear as a result of HIV-related keyword searches and the extent to which website information targets PRDHA. The first page of HIV-related webpages from 18 keyword searches was coded. Among 137 webpages meeting inclusion criteria, 63% represented HIV-informational websites, 31% targeted HIV-positive individuals, and over half contained or provided access to HIV prevention, treatment, and transmission information. Thirty-three percent of webpages contained or provided access to PRDHA-targeted information, with a greater percentage of those webpages having mobile, non-English, and "Ask the Expert" features compared with non-PRDHA targeted webpages. Implications for PRDHA include the following: (1) they should explore HIV-related websites to gain insight into the credibility of the information contained on those sites; (2) PRDHA must be aware that HIV-related websites have the potential to elicit dated, emotionally distressing, or irrelevant information; and (3) to obtain information that relates to their demographic and situational profile, they may wish to use specific key terms (e.g., "HIV women") rather than attempting to navigate webpages that arise from general search terms (e.g., "HIV"). Recommendations for future development of online resources for PRDHA include providing HIV-relevant information in a stepwise fashion, providing demographically targeted HIV information, and greater utilization of mobile technology.

Static time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry analysis of microelectronics related substrates using a polyatomic ion source

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ravanel, X.; Trouiller, C.; Juhel, M.; Wyon, C.; Kwakman, L. F. Tz.; Léonard, D.

2008-12-01

Recent time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry studies using primary ion cluster sources such as Au n+, SF 5+, Bi n+ or C 60+ have shown the great advantages in terms of secondary ion yield enhancement and ion formation efficiency of polyatomic ion sources as compared to monoatomic ion sources like the commonly used Ga +. In this work, the effective gains provided by such a source in the static ToF-SIMS analysis of microelectronics devices were investigated. Firstly, the influence of the number of atoms in the primary cluster ion on secondary ion formation was studied for physically adsorbed di-isononyl phthalate (DNP) (plasticizer) and perfluoropolyether (PFPE). A drastic increase in secondary ion formation efficiency and a much lower detection limit were observed when using a polyatomic primary ion. Moreover, the yield of the higher mass species was much enhanced indicating a lower degree of fragmentation that can be explained by the fact that the primary ion energy is spread out more widely, or that there is a lower energy per incoming ion. Secondly, the influence of the number of Bi atoms in the Bi n primary ion on the information depth was studied using reference thermally grown silicon oxide samples. The information depth provided by a Bi n cluster was shown to be lowered when the number of atoms in the aggregate was increased.

Critical assessment of pediatric neurosurgery patient/parent educational information obtained via the Internet.

PubMed

Garcia, Michael; Daugherty, Christopher; Ben Khallouq, Bertha; Maugans, Todd

2018-05-01

OBJECTIVE The Internet is used frequently by patients and family members to acquire information about pediatric neurosurgical conditions. The sources, nature, accuracy, and usefulness of this information have not been examined recently. The authors analyzed the results from searches of 10 common pediatric neurosurgical terms using a novel scoring test to assess the value of the educational information obtained. METHODS Google and Bing searches were performed for 10 common pediatric neurosurgical topics (concussion, craniosynostosis, hydrocephalus, pediatric brain tumor, pediatric Chiari malformation, pediatric epilepsy surgery, pediatric neurosurgery, plagiocephaly, spina bifida, and tethered spinal cord). The first 10 "hits" obtained with each search engine were analyzed using the Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose (CRAAP) test, which assigns a numerical score in each of 5 domains. Agreement between results was assessed for 1) concurrent searches with Google and Bing; 2) Google searches over time (6 months apart); 3) Google searches using mobile and PC platforms concurrently; and 4) searches using privacy settings. Readability was assessed with an online analytical tool. RESULTS Google and Bing searches yielded information with similar CRAAP scores (mean 72% and 75%, respectively), but with frequently differing results (58% concordance/matching results). There was a high level of agreement (72% concordance) over time for Google searches and also between searches using general and privacy settings (92% concordance). Government sources scored the best in both CRAAP score and readability. Hospitals and universities were the most prevalent sources, but these sources had the lowest CRAAP scores, due in part to an abundance of self-marketing. The CRAAP scores for mobile and desktop platforms did not differ significantly (p = 0.49). CONCLUSIONS Google and Bing searches yielded useful educational information, using either mobile or PC platforms. Most information was relevant and accurate; however, the depth and breadth of information was variable. Search results over a 6-month period were moderately stable. Pediatric neurosurgery practices and neurosurgical professional organization websites were inferior (less current, less accurate, less authoritative, and less purposeful) to governmental and encyclopedia-type resources such as Wikipedia. This presents an opportunity for pediatric neurosurgeons to participate in the creation of better online patient/parent educational material.

Evaluation of an unsteady flamelet progress variable model for autoignition and flame development in compositionally stratified mixtures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mukhopadhyay, Saumyadip; Abraham, John

2012-07-01

The unsteady flamelet progress variable (UFPV) model has been proposed by Pitsch and Ihme ["An unsteady/flamelet progress variable method for LES of nonpremixed turbulent combustion," AIAA Paper No. 2005-557, 2005] for modeling the averaged/filtered chemistry source terms in Reynolds averaged simulations and large eddy simulations of reacting non-premixed combustion. In the UFPV model, a look-up table of source terms is generated as a function of mixture fraction Z, scalar dissipation rate χ, and progress variable C by solving the unsteady flamelet equations. The assumption is that the unsteady flamelet represents the evolution of the reacting mixing layer in the non-premixed flame. We assess the accuracy of the model in predicting autoignition and flame development in compositionally stratified n-heptane/air mixtures using direct numerical simulations (DNS). The focus in this work is primarily on the assessment of accuracy of the probability density functions (PDFs) employed for obtaining averaged source terms. The performance of commonly employed presumed functions, such as the dirac-delta distribution function, the β distribution function, and statistically most likely distribution (SMLD) approach in approximating the shapes of the PDFs of the reactive and the conserved scalars is evaluated. For unimodal distributions, it is observed that functions that need two-moment information, e.g., the β distribution function and the SMLD approach with two-moment closure, are able to reasonably approximate the actual PDF. As the distribution becomes multimodal, higher moment information is required. Differences are observed between the ignition trends obtained from DNS and those predicted by the look-up table, especially for smaller gradients where the flamelet assumption becomes less applicable. The formulation assumes that the shape of the χ(Z) profile can be modeled by an error function which remains unchanged in the presence of heat release. We show that this assumption is not accurate.

Radiological analysis of plutonium glass batches with natural/enriched boron

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Rainisch, R.

2000-06-22

The disposition of surplus plutonium inventories by the US Department of Energy (DOE) includes the immobilization of certain plutonium materials in a borosilicate glass matrix, also referred to as vitrification. This paper addresses source terms of plutonium masses immobilized in a borosilicate glass matrix where the glass components include both natural boron and enriched boron. The calculated source terms pertain to neutron and gamma source strength (particles per second), and source spectrum changes. The calculated source terms corresponding to natural boron and enriched boron are compared to determine the benefits (decrease in radiation source terms) for to the use ofmore » enriched boron. The analysis of plutonium glass source terms shows that a large component of the neutron source terms is due to (a, n) reactions. The Americium-241 and plutonium present in the glass emit alpha particles (a). These alpha particles interact with low-Z nuclides like B-11, B-10, and O-17 in the glass to produce neutrons. The low-Z nuclides are referred to as target particles. The reference glass contains 9.4 wt percent B{sub 2}O{sub 3}. Boron-11 was found to strongly support the (a, n) reactions in the glass matrix. B-11 has a natural abundance of over 80 percent. The (a, n) reaction rates for B-10 are lower than for B-11 and the analysis shows that the plutonium glass neutron source terms can be reduced by artificially enriching natural boron with B-10. The natural abundance of B-10 is 19.9 percent. Boron enriched to 96-wt percent B-10 or above can be obtained commercially. Since lower source terms imply lower dose rates to radiation workers handling the plutonium glass materials, it is important to know the achievable decrease in source terms as a result of boron enrichment. Plutonium materials are normally handled in glove boxes with shielded glass windows and the work entails both extremity and whole-body exposures. Lowering the source terms of the plutonium batches will make the handling of these materials less difficult and will reduce radiation exposure to operating workers.« less

Establishing Malware Attribution and Binary Provenance Using Multicompilation Techniques

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ramshaw, M. J.

2017-07-28

Malware is a serious problem for computer systems and costs businesses and customers billions of dollars a year in addition to compromising their private information. Detecting malware is particularly difficult because malware source code can be compiled in many different ways and generate many different digital signatures, which causes problems for most anti-malware programs that rely on static signature detection. Our project uses a convolutional neural network to identify malware programs but these require large amounts of data to be effective. Towards that end, we gather thousands of source code files from publicly available programming contest sites and compile themmore » with several different compilers and flags. Building upon current research, we then transform these binary files into image representations and use them to train a long-term recurrent convolutional neural network that will eventually be used to identify how a malware binary was compiled. This information will include the compiler, version of the compiler and the options used in compilation, information which can be critical in determining where a malware program came from and even who authored it.« less

The integration of familiarity and recollection information in short-term recognition: modeling speed-accuracy trade-off functions.

PubMed

Göthe, Katrin; Oberauer, Klaus

2008-05-01

Dual process models postulate familiarity and recollection as the basis of the recognition process. We investigated the time-course of integration of the two information sources to one recognition judgment in a working memory task. We tested 24 subjects with a response signal variant of the modified Sternberg recognition task (Oberauer, 2001) to isolate the time course of three different probe types indicating different combinations of familiarity and source information. We compared two mathematical models implementing different ways of integrating familiarity and recollection. Within each model, we tested three assumptions about the nature of the familiarity signal, with familiarity having (a) only positive values, indicating similarity of the probe with the memory list, (b) only negative values, indicating novelty, or (c) both positive and negative values. Both models provided good fits to the data. A model combining the outputs of both processes additively (Integration Model) gave an overall better fit to the data than a model based on a continuous familiarity signal and a probabilistic all-or-none recollection process (Dominance Model).

Measuring Laypeople’s Trust in Experts in a Digital Age: The Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI)

PubMed Central

Hendriks, Friederike; Kienhues, Dorothe; Bromme, Rainer

2015-01-01

Given their lack of background knowledge, laypeople require expert help when dealing with scientific information. To decide whose help is dependable, laypeople must judge an expert’s epistemic trustworthiness in terms of competence, adherence to scientific standards, and good intentions. Online, this may be difficult due to the often limited and sometimes unreliable source information available. To measure laypeople’s evaluations of experts (encountered online), we constructed an inventory to assess epistemic trustworthiness on the dimensions expertise, integrity, and benevolence. Exploratory (n = 237) and confirmatory factor analyses (n = 345) showed that the Muenster Epistemic Trustworthiness Inventory (METI) is composed of these three factors. A subsequent experimental study (n = 137) showed that all three dimensions of the METI are sensitive to variation in source characteristics. We propose using this inventory to measure assignments of epistemic trustworthiness, that is, all judgments laypeople make when deciding whether to place epistemic trust in–and defer to–an expert in order to solve a scientific informational problem that is beyond their understanding. PMID:26474078

Getting the message: media images and stereotypes and their effect on Asian Americans.

PubMed

Mok, T A

1998-01-01

Mass media sources such as television and movies arguably offer up little in the way of positive Asian/Asian American images or role models. This article contends that the media do not often portray the diversity that is inherent within the Asian American culture and that such a paucity of Asian images may greatly affect perceptions Asian Americans may hold both of their own racial group and of the larger society. This article examines both media images of Asians and Asian Americans and autobiographical information from Asian American literature to illustrate the potentially detrimental effects of being a person of color in a society that emphasizes a monoracial standard of beauty. Information gleaned from first-hand accounts from Asian Americans often points to the media as a potent source of information as to how attractiveness is defined and measured. This article concludes with a discussion of some brief case examples and ethical imperatives for mental health workers in terms of both self-awareness and education as well as considerations for culturally sensitive therapy.

An atlas of thermal data for biomass and other fuels

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gaur, S.; Reed, T.B.

1995-06-01

Biomass is recognized as a major source of renewable energy. In order to convert biomass energy to more useful forms, it is necessary to have accurate scientific data on the thermal properties of biomass. This Atlas has been written to supply a uniform source of that information. In the last few decades Thermal analysis (TA) tools such as thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis, thermo mechanical analysis, etc. have become more important. The data obtained from these techniques can provide useful information in terms of reaction mechanism, kinetic parameters, thermal stability, phase transformation, heat of reaction, etc. for gas-solid and gas-liquid systems.more » Unfortunately, there are no ASTM standards set for the collection of these types of data using TA techniques and therefore, different investigators use different conditions which suit their requirements for measuring this thermal data. As a result, the information obtained from different laboratories is not comparable. This Atlas provides the ability to compare new laboratory results with a wide variety of related data available in the literature and helps ensure consistency in using these data.« less

Mineral commodity summaries 2013

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

2013-01-01

Each chapter of the 2013 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest comprehensive source of 2012 mineral production data for the world. More than 90 individual minerals and materials are covered by two-page synopses. For mineral commodities for which there is a Government stockpile, detailed information concerning the stockpile status is included in the two-page synopsis. Abbreviations and units of measure, and definitions of selected terms used in the report, are in Appendix A and Appendix B, respectively. “Appendix C—Reserves and Resources” includes “Part A—Resource/Reserve Classification for Minerals” and “Part B—Sources of Reserves Data.” A directory of USGS minerals information country specialists and their responsibilities is Appendix D. The USGS continually strives to improve the value of its publications to users. Constructive comments and suggestions by readers of the MCS 2013 are welcomed.

Mineral commodity summaries 2014

USGS Publications Warehouse

,

2014-01-01

Each chapter of the 2014 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production and resources. The MCS is the earliest comprehensive source of 2013 mineral production data for the world. More than 90 individual minerals and materials are covered by two-page synopses. For mineral commodities for which there is a Government stockpile, detailed information concerning the stockpile status is included in the two-page synopsis. Abbreviations and units of measure, and definitions of selected terms used in the report, are in Appendix A and Appendix B, respectively. “Appendix C—Reserves and Resources” includes “Part A—Resource/Reserve Classification for Minerals” and “Part B—Sources of Reserves Data.” A directory of USGS minerals information country specialists and their responsibilities is Appendix D. The USGS continually strives to improve the value of its publications to users. Constructive comments and suggestions by readers of the MCS 2014 are welcomed.

Assessment of groundwater exploitation in an aquifer using the random walk on grid method: a case study at Ordos, China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nan, Tongchao; Li, Kaixuan; Wu, Jichun; Yin, Lihe

2018-04-01

Sustainability has been one of the key criteria of effective water exploitation. Groundwater exploitation and water-table decline at Haolebaoji water source site in the Ordos basin in NW China has drawn public attention due to concerns about potential threats to ecosystems and grazing land in the area. To better investigate the impact of production wells at Haolebaoji on the water table, an adapted algorithm called the random walk on grid method (WOG) is applied to simulate the hydraulic head in the unconfined and confined aquifers. This is the first attempt to apply WOG to a real groundwater problem. The method can not only evaluate the head values but also the contributions made by each source/sink term. One is allowed to analyze the impact of source/sink terms just as if one had an analytical solution. The head values evaluated by WOG match the values derived from the software Groundwater Modeling System (GMS). It suggests that WOG is effective and applicable in a heterogeneous aquifer with respect to practical problems, and the resultant information is useful for groundwater management.

Short-term variability of mineral dust, metals and carbon emission from road dust resuspension

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Amato, Fulvio; Schaap, Martijn; Denier van der Gon, Hugo A. C.; Pandolfi, Marco; Alastuey, Andrés; Keuken, Menno; Querol, Xavier

2013-08-01

Particulate matter (PM) pollution in cities has severe impact on morbidity and mortality of their population. In these cities, road dust resuspension contributes largely to PM and airborne heavy metals concentrations. However, the short-term variation of emission through resuspension is not well described in the air quality models, hampering a reliable description of air pollution and related health effects. In this study we experimentally show that the emission strength of resuspension varies widely among road dust components/sources. Our results offer the first experimental evidence of different emission rates for mineral dust, heavy metals and carbon fractions due to traffic-induced resuspension. Also, the same component (or source) recovers differently in a road in Barcelona (Spain) and a road in Utrecht (The Netherlands). This finding has important implications on atmospheric pollution modelling, mostly for mineral dust, heavy metals and carbon species. After rain events, recoveries were generally faster in Barcelona rather than in Utrecht. The largest difference was found for the mineral dust (Al, Si, Ca). Tyre wear particles (organic carbon and zinc) recovered faster than other road dust particles in both cities. The source apportionment of road dust mass provides useful information for air quality management.

The effect of distraction on change detection in crowded acoustic scenes.

PubMed

Petsas, Theofilos; Harrison, Jemma; Kashino, Makio; Furukawa, Shigeto; Chait, Maria

2016-11-01

In this series of behavioural experiments we investigated the effect of distraction on the maintenance of acoustic scene information in short-term memory. Stimuli are artificial acoustic 'scenes' composed of several (up to twelve) concurrent tone-pip streams ('sources'). A gap (1000 ms) is inserted partway through the 'scene'; Changes in the form of an appearance of a new source or disappearance of an existing source, occur after the gap in 50% of the trials. Listeners were instructed to monitor the unfolding 'soundscapes' for these events. Distraction was measured by presenting distractor stimuli during the gap. Experiments 1 and 2 used a dual task design where listeners were required to perform a task with varying attentional demands ('High Demand' vs. 'Low Demand') on brief auditory (Experiment 1a) or visual (Experiment 1b) signals presented during the gap. Experiments 2 and 3 required participants to ignore distractor sounds and focus on the change detection task. Our results demonstrate that the maintenance of scene information in short-term memory is influenced by the availability of attentional and/or processing resources during the gap, and that this dependence appears to be modality specific. We also show that these processes are susceptible to bottom up driven distraction even in situations when the distractors are not novel, but occur on each trial. Change detection performance is systematically linked with the, independently determined, perceptual salience of the distractor sound. The findings also demonstrate that the present task may be a useful objective means for determining relative perceptual salience. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Medication-indication knowledge bases: a systematic review and critical appraisal.

PubMed

Salmasian, Hojjat; Tran, Tran H; Chase, Herbert S; Friedman, Carol

2015-11-01

Medication-indication information is a key part of the information needed for providing decision support for and promoting appropriate use of medications. However, this information is not readily available to end users, and a lot of the resources only contain this information in unstructured form (free text). A number of public knowledge bases (KBs) containing structured medication-indication information have been developed over the years, but a direct comparison of these resources has not yet been conducted. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to identify all medication-indication KBs and critically appraised these resources in terms of their scope as well as their support for complex indication information. We identified 7 KBs containing medication-indication data. They notably differed from each other in terms of their scope, coverage for on- or off-label indications, source of information, and choice of terminologies for representing the knowledge. The majority of KBs had issues with granularity of the indications as well as with representing duration of therapy, primary choice of treatment, and comedications or comorbidities. This is the first study directly comparing public KBs of medication indications. We identified several gaps in the existing resources, which can motivate future research. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

A general natural-language text processor for clinical radiology.

PubMed Central

Friedman, C; Alderson, P O; Austin, J H; Cimino, J J; Johnson, S B

1994-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Development of a general natural-language processor that identifies clinical information in narrative reports and maps that information into a structured representation containing clinical terms. DESIGN: The natural-language processor provides three phases of processing, all of which are driven by different knowledge sources. The first phase performs the parsing. It identifies the structure of the text through use of a grammar that defines semantic patterns and a target form. The second phase, regularization, standardizes the terms in the initial target structure via a compositional mapping of multi-word phrases. The third phase, encoding, maps the terms to a controlled vocabulary. Radiology is the test domain for the processor and the target structure is a formal model for representing clinical information in that domain. MEASUREMENTS: The impression sections of 230 radiology reports were encoded by the processor. Results of an automated query of the resultant database for the occurrences of four diseases were compared with the analysis of a panel of three physicians to determine recall and precision. RESULTS: Without training specific to the four diseases, recall and precision of the system (combined effect of the processor and query generator) were 70% and 87%. Training of the query component increased recall to 85% without changing precision. PMID:7719797

Coding Early Naturalists' Accounts into Long-Term Fish Community Changes in the Adriatic Sea (1800–2000)

PubMed Central

Fortibuoni, Tomaso; Libralato, Simone; Raicevich, Saša; Giovanardi, Otello; Solidoro, Cosimo

2010-01-01

The understanding of fish communities' changes over the past centuries has important implications for conservation policy and marine resource management. However, reconstructing these changes is difficult because information on marine communities before the second half of the 20th century is, in most cases, anecdotal and merely qualitative. Therefore, historical qualitative records and modern quantitative data are not directly comparable, and their integration for long-term analyses is not straightforward. We developed a methodology that allows the coding of qualitative information provided by early naturalists into semi-quantitative information through an intercalibration with landing proportions. This approach allowed us to reconstruct and quantitatively analyze a 200-year-long time series of fish community structure indicators in the Northern Adriatic Sea (Mediterranean Sea). Our analysis provides evidence of long-term changes in fish community structure, including the decline of Chondrichthyes, large-sized and late-maturing species. This work highlights the importance of broadening the time-frame through which we look at marine ecosystem changes and provides a methodology to exploit, in a quantitative framework, historical qualitative sources. To the purpose, naturalists' eyewitness accounts proved to be useful for extending the analysis on fish community back in the past, well before the onset of field-based monitoring programs. PMID:21103349

NASA's EOSDIS Near Term Challenges

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Behnke, Jeanne

2018-01-01

Given the long-term requirements, and the rapid pace of information technology and changing expectations of the user community, the ESDIS Project has had to evolve EOSDIS continually over the past three decades. However, many challenges remain. One near-term challenge is the enormous quantity of new data that will need to be managed by the EOSDIS. With the upcoming launch of the latest NASA missions coupled with existing operational missions and field campaigns, EOSDIS can expect to handle as much as 50 petabytes of data per year. In perspective, this is twice the size of the current existing archive, which took over 21 years to collect. Another continuing challenge is the disparate requirements of a diverse science community. Maintaining rigorous long-term data preservation, supporting ease of discovery and access, incorporating user feedback, enabling reanalysis/ reprocessing, and agile integration of new data sources, continue to be the Project's objectives.

Water and rock geochemistry, geologic cross sections, geochemical modeling, and groundwater flow modeling for identifying the source of groundwater to Montezuma Well, a natural spring in central Arizona

USGS Publications Warehouse

Johnson, Raymond H.; DeWitt, Ed; Wirt, Laurie; Arnold, L. Rick; Horton, John D.

2011-01-01

The National Park Service (NPS) seeks additional information to better understand the source(s) of groundwater and associated groundwater flow paths to Montezuma Well in Montezuma Castle National Monument, central Arizona. The source of water to Montezuma Well, a flowing sinkhole in a desert setting, is poorly understood. Water emerges from the middle limestone facies of the lacustrine Verde Formation, but the precise origin of the water and its travel path are largely unknown. Some have proposed artesian flow to Montezuma Well through the Supai Formation, which is exposed along the eastern margin of the Verde Valley and underlies the Verde Formation. The groundwater recharge zone likely lies above the floor of the Verde Valley somewhere to the north or east of Montezuma Well, where precipitation is more abundant. Additional data from groundwater, surface water, and bedrock geology are required for Montezuma Well and the surrounding region to test the current conceptual ideas, to provide new details on the groundwater flow in the area, and to assist in future management decisions. The results of this research will provide information for long-term water resource management and the protection of water rights.

Optical detection of special nuclear materials: an alternative approach for standoff and remote sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Johnson, J. Bruce; Reeve, S. W.; Burns, W. A.; Allen, Susan D.

2010-04-01

Termed Special Nuclear Material (SNM) by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, fissile materials, such as 235U and 239Pu, are the primary components used to construct modern nuclear weapons. Detecting the clandestine presence of SNM represents an important capability for Homeland Security. An ideal SNM sensor must be able to detect fissile materials present at ppb levels, be able to distinguish between the source of the detected fissile material, i.e., 235U, 239Pu, 233U or other fission source, and be able to perform the discrimination in near real time. A sensor with such capabilities would provide not only rapid identification of a threat but, ultimately, information on the potential source of the threat. For example, current detection schemes for monitoring clandestine nuclear testing and nuclear fuel reprocessing to provide weapons grade fissile material rely largely on passive air sampling combined with a subsequent instrumental analysis or some type of wet chemical analysis of the collected material. It would be highly useful to have a noncontact method of measuring isotopes capable of providing forensic information rapidly at ppb levels of detection. Here we compare the use of Kr, Xe and I as "canary" species for distinguishing between 235U and 239Pu fission sources by spectroscopic methods.

Fission Product Appearance Rate Coefficients in Design Basis Source Term Determinations - Past and Present

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perez, Pedro B.; Hamawi, John N.

2017-09-01

Nuclear power plant radiation protection design features are based on radionuclide source terms derived from conservative assumptions that envelope expected operating experience. Two parameters that significantly affect the radionuclide concentrations in the source term are failed fuel fraction and effective fission product appearance rate coefficients. Failed fuel fraction may be a regulatory based assumption such as in the U.S. Appearance rate coefficients are not specified in regulatory requirements, but have been referenced to experimental data that is over 50 years old. No doubt the source terms are conservative as demonstrated by operating experience that has included failed fuel, but it may be too conservative leading to over-designed shielding for normal operations as an example. Design basis source term methodologies for normal operations had not advanced until EPRI published in 2015 an updated ANSI/ANS 18.1 source term basis document. Our paper revisits the fission product appearance rate coefficients as applied in the derivation source terms following the original U.S. NRC NUREG-0017 methodology. New coefficients have been calculated based on recent EPRI results which demonstrate the conservatism in nuclear power plant shielding design.

Bayesian and “Anti-Bayesian” Biases in Sensory Integration for Action and Perception in the Size–Weight Illusion

PubMed Central

Brayanov, Jordan B.

2010-01-01

Which is heavier: a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? This classic trick question belies a simple but surprising truth: when lifted, the pound of lead feels heavier—a phenomenon known as the size–weight illusion. To estimate the weight of an object, our CNS combines two imperfect sources of information: a prior expectation, based on the object's appearance, and direct sensory information from lifting it. Bayes' theorem (or Bayes' law) defines the statistically optimal way to combine multiple information sources for maximally accurate estimation. Here we asked whether the mechanisms for combining these information sources produce statistically optimal weight estimates for both perceptions and actions. We first studied the ability of subjects to hold one hand steady when the other removed an object from it, under conditions in which sensory information about the object's weight sometimes conflicted with prior expectations based on its size. Since the ability to steady the supporting hand depends on the generation of a motor command that accounts for lift timing and object weight, hand motion can be used to gauge biases in weight estimation by the motor system. We found that these motor system weight estimates reflected the integration of prior expectations with real-time proprioceptive information in a Bayesian, statistically optimal fashion that discounted unexpected sensory information. This produces a motor size–weight illusion that consistently biases weight estimates toward prior expectations. In contrast, when subjects compared the weights of two objects, their perceptions defied Bayes' law, exaggerating the value of unexpected sensory information. This produces a perceptual size–weight illusion that biases weight perceptions away from prior expectations. We term this effect “anti-Bayesian” because the bias is opposite that seen in Bayesian integration. Our findings suggest that two fundamentally different strategies for the integration of prior expectations with sensory information coexist in the nervous system for weight estimation. PMID:20089821

Validation of the translation of an instrument to measure reliability of written information on treatment choices: a study on attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

PubMed

Montoya, A; Llopis, N; Gilaberte, I

2011-12-01

DISCERN is an instrument designed to help patients assess the reliability of written information on treatment choices. Originally created in English, there is no validated Spanish version of this instrument. This study seeks to validate the Spanish translation of the DISCERN instrument used as a primary measure on a multicenter study aimed to assess the reliability of web-based information on treatment choices for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We used a modified version of a method for validating translated instruments in which the original source-language version is formally compared with the back-translated source-language version. Each item was ranked in terms of comparability of language, similarity of interpretability, and degree of understandability. Responses used Likert scales ranging from 1 to 7, where 1 indicates the best interpretability, language and understandability, and 7 indicates the worst. Assessments were performed by 20 raters fluent in the source language. The Spanish translation of DISCERN, based on ratings of comparability, interpretability and degree of understandability (mean score (SD): 1.8 (1.1), 1.4 (0.9) and 1.6 (1.1), respectively), was considered extremely comparable. All items received a score of less than three, therefore no further revision of the translation was needed. The validation process showed that the quality of DISCERN translation was high, validating the comparable language of the tool translated on assessing written information on treatment choices for ADHD.

Perceived Barriers and Enablers of Help-Seeking for Substance Use Problems During Adolescence.

PubMed

Berridge, Bonita J; McCann, Terence V; Cheetham, Ali; Lubman, Dan I

2018-01-01

Receiving professional help early can reduce long-term harms associated with substance use. However, little is known about the factors that influence help-seeking for substance use problems during early-mid adolescence, prior to the emergence of disorder. Given that beliefs regarding help-seeking are likely to develop early, understanding adolescent views of help-seeking during this period is likely to provide important information for prevention and intervention efforts. The current study identifies perceptions that would facilitate or prevent adolescents from seeking support for substance use problems from formal and informal help sources. Thirty-four 12- to 16-year-olds from two schools in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, were recruited. A qualitative interpretative design was used, incorporating semistructured, audio-recorded interviews. Three overlapping themes that reflected barriers or enablers to help-seeking were identified: approachability, confidentiality and trustworthiness, and expertise. Help-seeking was facilitated when adolescents believed that the help source would be supportive and understanding, would keep information confidential, and had expertise in the alcohol and drug field. Conversely, adolescents were reluctant to seek help from sources they believed would be judgmental, lacked expertise, or would inform their parents. These findings highlight perceptions that may influence help-seeking for alcohol and drug problems during adolescence. Further research is needed to determine if help-seeking can be facilitated by improving parents' and peers' knowledge and promoting health professionals' expertise in working with young people's alcohol and drug issues.

Audio visual speech source separation via improved context dependent association model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kazemi, Alireza; Boostani, Reza; Sobhanmanesh, Fariborz

2014-12-01

In this paper, we exploit the non-linear relation between a speech source and its associated lip video as a source of extra information to propose an improved audio-visual speech source separation (AVSS) algorithm. The audio-visual association is modeled using a neural associator which estimates the visual lip parameters from a temporal context of acoustic observation frames. We define an objective function based on mean square error (MSE) measure between estimated and target visual parameters. This function is minimized for estimation of the de-mixing vector/filters to separate the relevant source from linear instantaneous or time-domain convolutive mixtures. We have also proposed a hybrid criterion which uses AV coherency together with kurtosis as a non-Gaussianity measure. Experimental results are presented and compared in terms of visually relevant speech detection accuracy and output signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) of source separation. The suggested audio-visual model significantly improves relevant speech classification accuracy compared to existing GMM-based model and the proposed AVSS algorithm improves the speech separation quality compared to reference ICA- and AVSS-based methods.

Romanian Experience in The Conditioning of Radium Sources

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dogaru, Gh.; Dragolici, F.; Rotarescu, Gh.

2008-07-01

Ra{sup 226} first radionuclide separated from pitchblende in 1898 by Pierre and Marie Curie was successfully used in medicine, industry as in other fields being the only one available radionuclide till 1940 when were produced other radionuclides in accelerators. On long term the use of Ra{sup 226} sealed sources are not any more safe due to: the high specific activity, long half live, decays in Rn{sup 226} gas which increases the internal pressure of capsule leading in time to the leakage, the salts as raw materials from which the sealed sources are manufactured are soluble, there is a leak ofmore » information and records on the manufacture and operation. Based on this consideration in Romania regulatory authority did not authorized any more the use of these sealed sources [1]. The paper presents some aspects from Romanian experience related to the collection and conditioning of radium sealed sources. Data relating the radium inventory as well as the arrangements made in order to create a workshop for the conditioning of radium sources are presented. (authors)« less

Performance Analysis of Physical Layer Security of Opportunistic Scheduling in Multiuser Multirelay Cooperative Networks

PubMed Central

Shim, Kyusung; Do, Nhu Tri; An, Beongku

2017-01-01

In this paper, we study the physical layer security (PLS) of opportunistic scheduling for uplink scenarios of multiuser multirelay cooperative networks. To this end, we propose a low-complexity, yet comparable secrecy performance source relay selection scheme, called the proposed source relay selection (PSRS) scheme. Specifically, the PSRS scheme first selects the least vulnerable source and then selects the relay that maximizes the system secrecy capacity for the given selected source. Additionally, the maximal ratio combining (MRC) technique and the selection combining (SC) technique are considered at the eavesdropper, respectively. Investigating the system performance in terms of secrecy outage probability (SOP), closed-form expressions of the SOP are derived. The developed analysis is corroborated through Monte Carlo simulation. Numerical results show that the PSRS scheme significantly improves the secure ability of the system compared to that of the random source relay selection scheme, but does not outperform the optimal joint source relay selection (OJSRS) scheme. However, the PSRS scheme drastically reduces the required amount of channel state information (CSI) estimations compared to that required by the OJSRS scheme, specially in dense cooperative networks. PMID:28212286

An evaluation of the social dimensions in public participation in rural domestic waste source-separated collection in Guilin, China.

PubMed

Ma, Jing; Hipel, Keith W; Hanson, Mark L

2017-12-21

A comprehensive evaluation of public participation in rural domestic waste (RDW) source-separated collection in China was carried out within a social-dimension framework, specifically in terms of public perception, awareness, attitude, and willingness to pay for RDW management. The evaluation was based on a case study conducted in Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, which is a representative of most inland areas of the country with a GDP around the national average. It was found that unlike urban residents, rural residents maintained a high rate of recycling, but in a spontaneous manner; they paid more attention to issues closely related to their daily lives, but less attention to those at the general level; their awareness of RDW source-separated collection was low and different age groups showed significantly different preferences regarding the sources of knowledge acquirement. Among potential information sources, village committees played a very important role in knowledge dissemination; for the respondents' pro-environmental attitudes, the influencing factor of "lack of legislation/policy" was considered to be significant; mandatory charges for waste collection and disposal had a high rate of acceptance among rural residents; and high monthly incomes had a positive correlation with both public pro-environmental attitudes and public willingness to pay for extra charges levied by RDW management. These observations imply that, for decision-makers in the short term, implementing mandatory RDW source-separated collection programs with enforced guidelines and economic compensation is more effective, while in the long run, promoting pro-environmental education to rural residents is more important.

[Need for information concerning medical rehabilitation of the federal german pension fund--findings of an online survey of general practitioners].

PubMed

Walther, A L; Pohontsch, N J; Deck, R

2015-05-01

General practitioners complain about information deficits, uncertainties and unclear requirements associated with medical rehabilitation. In this study General practitioners' specific information needs are identified and the preferred form for the presentation of information is determined. In a secondary analysis of several focus groups with different stakeholders, rehabilitation specific aspects were identified for which General practitioners could have further information needs. Those were transferred into an online-questionnaire. GPs in Schleswig-Holstein were invited to the online-survey via E-Mail by different medical associations. A total of 194 questionnaires were available for analysis. In general, high information needs covering all rehabilitation topics in the questionnaire are evident. The highest information need is recognised for the following aspects: in which cases it makes sense to file an objection, which measures have to take place before it makes sense to file an objection and what the term "ambulant measures have been exhausted" exactly means. GPs clearly prefer a website as a means of informational source. Under the option of multiple replies 74.2% prefer a website, followed by the option of a brochure (44.8%) and further education (22.2%). General practitioners have high information needs regarding different aspects of rehabilitation which are not satisfied with existing sources of information. The development of a user-friendly website with comprehensible information on the required aspects seems necessary to increase the acceptance and understanding of medical rehabilitation among practitioners and therefore to optimise rehabilitation processes. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

How to Fully Represent Expert Information about Imprecise Properties in a Computer System – Random Sets, Fuzzy Sets, and Beyond: An Overview

PubMed Central

Nguyen, Hung T.; Kreinovich, Vladik

2014-01-01

To help computers make better decisions, it is desirable to describe all our knowledge in computer-understandable terms. This is easy for knowledge described in terms on numerical values: we simply store the corresponding numbers in the computer. This is also easy for knowledge about precise (well-defined) properties which are either true or false for each object: we simply store the corresponding “true” and “false” values in the computer. The challenge is how to store information about imprecise properties. In this paper, we overview different ways to fully store the expert information about imprecise properties. We show that in the simplest case, when the only source of imprecision is disagreement between different experts, a natural way to store all the expert information is to use random sets; we also show how fuzzy sets naturally appear in such random-set representation. We then show how the random-set representation can be extended to the general (“fuzzy”) case when, in addition to disagreements, experts are also unsure whether some objects satisfy certain properties or not. PMID:25386045

Quality of online information on breast cancer treatment options.

PubMed

Arif, Nadia; Ghezzi, Pietro

2018-02-01

Offering breast cancer patients treatment choice has become a priority as the involvement of patients in the decision-making process is associated with improved physical and psychological outcomes. As the Internet is increasingly being used by patients as a source of medical information, it is important to evaluate the quality of information relating to breast cancer on the Internet. We analysed 200 websites returned by google.co.uk searching "breast cancer treatment options" in terms of their typology and treatment options described. These were related to standard measures of health information quality such as the JAMA score and the presence of quality certifications, as well as readability. We found that health portals were of higher quality whilst commercial and professional websites were of poorer quality in terms of JAMA criteria. Overall, readability was higher than previously reported for other conditions, and Google ranked websites with better readability higher. Most websites discussed surgical and medical treatments. Few websites, with a large proportion being of commercial typology, discussed complementary and alternative medicine. Google ranked professional websites low whilst websites from non-profit organizations were promoted in the ranking. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Isotopic Recorders of Pollution in Heterogeneous Urban Areas

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pataki, D. E.; Cobley, L.; Smith, R. M.; Ehleringer, J. R.; Chritz, K.

2017-12-01

A significant difficulty in quantifying urban pollution lies in the extreme spatial and temporal heterogeneity of cities. Dense sources of both point and non-point source pollution as well as the dynamic role of human activities, which vary over very short time scales and small spatial scales, complicate efforts to establish long-term urban monitoring networks that are relevant at neighborhood, municipal, and regional scales. Fortunately, the natural abundance of isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and other elements provides a wealth of information about the sources and fate of urban atmospheric pollution. In particular, soils and plant material integrate pollution sources and cycling over space and time, and have the potential to provide long-term records of pollution dynamics that extend back before atmospheric monitoring data are available. Similarly, sampling organic material at high spatial resolution can provide "isoscapes" that shed light on the spatial heterogeneity of pollutants in different urban parcels and neighborhoods, along roads of varying traffic density, and across neighborhoods of varying affluence and sociodemographic composition. We have compiled numerous datasets of the isotopic composition of urban organic matter that illustrate the potential for isotopic monitoring of urban areas as a means of understanding hot spots and hot moments in urban atmospheric biogeochemistry. Findings to date already reveal the critical role of affluence, economic activity, demographic change, and land management practices in influencing urban pollution sources and sinks, and suggest an important role of stable isotope and radioisotope measurements in urban atmospheric and biogeochemical monitoring.

Reconstructing source terms from atmospheric concentration measurements: Optimality analysis of an inversion technique

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Turbelin, Grégory; Singh, Sarvesh Kumar; Issartel, Jean-Pierre

2014-12-01

In the event of an accidental or intentional contaminant release in the atmosphere, it is imperative, for managing emergency response, to diagnose the release parameters of the source from measured data. Reconstruction of the source information exploiting measured data is called an inverse problem. To solve such a problem, several techniques are currently being developed. The first part of this paper provides a detailed description of one of them, known as the renormalization method. This technique, proposed by Issartel (2005), has been derived using an approach different from that of standard inversion methods and gives a linear solution to the continuous Source Term Estimation (STE) problem. In the second part of this paper, the discrete counterpart of this method is presented. By using matrix notation, common in data assimilation and suitable for numerical computing, it is shown that the discrete renormalized solution belongs to a family of well-known inverse solutions (minimum weighted norm solutions), which can be computed by using the concept of generalized inverse operator. It is shown that, when the weight matrix satisfies the renormalization condition, this operator satisfies the criteria used in geophysics to define good inverses. Notably, by means of the Model Resolution Matrix (MRM) formalism, we demonstrate that the renormalized solution fulfils optimal properties for the localization of single point sources. Throughout the article, the main concepts are illustrated with data from a wind tunnel experiment conducted at the Environmental Flow Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK.

How well does the Internet answer patients’ questions about inflammatory bowel disease?

PubMed Central

Promislow, Steven; Walker, John R; Taheri, Mohammad; Bernstein, Charles N

2010-01-01

BACKGROUND The Internet is an increasingly important source of health information. OBJECTIVE To assess how well common websites answered patients’ questions regarding inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). METHODS Thirty websites were identified and evaluated. Based on a previous survey of patient information needs, a comprehensive question list was developed in the three following areas: medical information (seven items), medical treatment (six items) and self-management (eight items). The websites were evaluated for the amount of information they provided to answer each question using two standard measures of information quality – the DISCERN and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients scales. RESULTS Four particularly strong websites, scoring highest (on a scale from 1 to 5) in terms of IBD information, were the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (mean information score 4.3), About.com (4.2), HealthCentral (3.8) and WebMD (3.8). These websites also scored well on the DISCERN and the Ensuring Quality Information for Patients quality scales. Most websites provided at least adequate information on common symptoms, complications, treatments and what is known (or not known) about the causes of IBD. However, many web-sites did not provide adequate information about prognosis, possible side effects of treatment and risks of developing cancer. Information regarding self-management was covered to a very limited extent. CONCLUSION Websites could be strengthened by providing more of the information patients deem to be important, and by more clearly identifying sources of information and the date the information was updated. Most websites would benefit from more attention given to reducing the reading level and improving the organization of material. PMID:21157582

Underwater Threat Source Localization: Processing Sensor Network TDOAs with a Terascale Optical Core Device

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Barhen, Jacob; Imam, Neena

2007-01-01

Revolutionary computing technologies are defined in terms of technological breakthroughs, which leapfrog over near-term projected advances in conventional hardware and software to produce paradigm shifts in computational science. For underwater threat source localization using information provided by a dynamical sensor network, one of the most promising computational advances builds upon the emergence of digital optical-core devices. In this article, we present initial results of sensor network calculations that focus on the concept of signal wavefront time-difference-of-arrival (TDOA). The corresponding algorithms are implemented on the EnLight processing platform recently introduced by Lenslet Laboratories. This tera-scale digital optical core processor is optimizedmore » for array operations, which it performs in a fixed-point-arithmetic architecture. Our results (i) illustrate the ability to reach the required accuracy in the TDOA computation, and (ii) demonstrate that a considerable speed-up can be achieved when using the EnLight 64a prototype processor as compared to a dual Intel XeonTM processor.« less

JAMSS: proteomics mass spectrometry simulation in Java.

PubMed

Smith, Rob; Prince, John T

2015-03-01

Countless proteomics data processing algorithms have been proposed, yet few have been critically evaluated due to lack of labeled data (data with known identities and quantities). Although labeling techniques exist, they are limited in terms of confidence and accuracy. In silico simulators have recently been used to create complex data with known identities and quantities. We propose Java Mass Spectrometry Simulator (JAMSS): a fast, self-contained in silico simulator capable of generating simulated MS and LC-MS runs while providing meta information on the provenance of each generated signal. JAMSS improves upon previous in silico simulators in terms of its ease to install, minimal parameters, graphical user interface, multithreading capability, retention time shift model and reproducibility. The simulator creates mzML 1.1.0. It is open source software licensed under the GPLv3. The software and source are available at https://github.com/optimusmoose/JAMSS. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Maternal recall of breastfeeding duration twenty years after delivery.

PubMed

Natland, Siv Tone; Andersen, Lene Frost; Nilsen, Tom Ivar Lund; Forsmo, Siri; Jacobsen, Geir W

2012-11-23

Studies on the health benefits from breastfeeding often rely on maternal recall of breastfeeding. Although short-term maternal recall has been found to be quite accurate, less is known about long-term accuracy. The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy of long-term maternal recall of breastfeeding duration. In a prospective study of pregnancy and birth outcome, detailed information on breastfeeding during the child's first year of life was collected from a cohort of Norwegian women who gave birth in 1986-88. Among 374 of the participants, data on breastfeeding initiation and duration were compared to recalled data obtained from mailed questionnaires some 20 years later. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), Bland-Altman plot, and Kappa statistics were used to assess the agreement between the two sources of data. Logistic regression was used to assess predictors of misreporting breastfeeding duration by more than one month. Recorded and recalled breastfeeding duration were strongly correlated (ICC=0.82, p < 0.001). Nearly two thirds of women recalled their breastfeeding to within one month. Recall data showed a modest median overestimation of about 2 weeks. There were no apparent systematic discrepancies between the two sources of information, but recall error was predicted by the age when infants were introduced to another kind of milk. Across categories of breastfeeding, the overall weighted Kappa statistic showed an almost perfect agreement (κ = 0.85, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.82 - 0.88). Breastfeeding duration was recalled quite accurately 20 years after mothers gave birth in a population where breastfeeding is common and its duration long.

41. DISCOVERY, SEARCH, AND COMMUNICATION OF TEXTUAL KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS a. Discovering and Utilizing Knowledge Sources for Metasearch Knowledge Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zamora, Antonio

Advanced Natural Language Processing Tools for Web Information Retrieval, Content Analysis, and Synthesis. The goal of this SBIR was to implement and evaluate several advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) tools and techniques to enhance the precision and relevance of search results by analyzing and augmenting search queries and by helping to organize the search output obtained from heterogeneous databases and web pages containing textual information of interest to DOE and the scientific-technical user communities in general. The SBIR investigated 1) the incorporation of spelling checkers in search applications, 2) identification of significant phrases and concepts using a combination of linguisticmore » and statistical techniques, and 3) enhancement of the query interface and search retrieval results through the use of semantic resources, such as thesauri. A search program with a flexible query interface was developed to search reference databases with the objective of enhancing search results from web queries or queries of specialized search systems such as DOE's Information Bridge. The DOE ETDE/INIS Joint Thesaurus was processed to create a searchable database. Term frequencies and term co-occurrences were used to enhance the web information retrieval by providing algorithmically-derived objective criteria to organize relevant documents into clusters containing significant terms. A thesaurus provides an authoritative overview and classification of a field of knowledge. By organizing the results of a search using the thesaurus terminology, the output is more meaningful than when the results are just organized based on the terms that co-occur in the retrieved documents, some of which may not be significant. An attempt was made to take advantage of the hierarchy provided by broader and narrower terms, as well as other field-specific information in the thesauri. The search program uses linguistic morphological routines to find relevant entries regardless of whether terms are stored in singular or plural form. Implementation of additional inflectional morphology processes for verbs can enhance retrieval further, but this has to be balanced by the possibility of broadening the results too much. In addition to the DOE energy thesaurus, other sources of specialized organized knowledge such as the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS), and Wikipedia were investigated. The supporting role of the NLP thesaurus search program was enhanced by incorporating spelling aid and a part-of-speech tagger to cope with misspellings in the queries and to determine the grammatical roles of the query words and identify nouns for special processing. To improve precision, multiple modes of searching were implemented including Boolean operators, and field-specific searches. Programs to convert a thesaurus or reference file into searchable support files can be deployed easily, and the resulting files are immediately searchable to produce relevance-ranked results with builtin spelling aid, morphological processing, and advanced search logic. Demonstration systems were built for several databases, including the DOE energy thesaurus.« less

Fukushima Daiichi Radionuclide Inventories

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Cardoni, Jeffrey N.; Jankovsky, Zachary Kyle

Radionuclide inventories are generated to permit detailed analyses of the Fukushima Daiichi meltdowns. This is necessary information for severe accident calculations, dose calculations, and source term and consequence analyses. Inventories are calculated using SCALE6 and compared to values predicted by international researchers supporting the OECD/NEA's Benchmark Study on the Accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (BSAF). Both sets of inventory information are acceptable for best-estimate analyses of the Fukushima reactors. Consistent nuclear information for severe accident codes, including radionuclide class masses and core decay powers, are also derived from the SCALE6 analyses. Key nuclide activity ratios are calculated asmore » functions of burnup and nuclear data in order to explore the utility for nuclear forensics and support future decommissioning efforts.« less

Analysis of Ten Reverse Engineering Tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koskinen, Jussi; Lehmonen, Tero

Reverse engineering tools can be used in satisfying the information needs of software maintainers. Especially in case of maintaining large-scale legacy systems tool support is essential. Reverse engineering tools provide various kinds of capabilities to provide the needed information to the tool user. In this paper we analyze the provided capabilities in terms of four aspects: provided data structures, visualization mechanisms, information request specification mechanisms, and navigation features. We provide a compact analysis of ten representative reverse engineering tools for supporting C, C++ or Java: Eclipse Java Development Tools, Wind River Workbench (for C and C++), Understand (for C++), Imagix 4D, Creole, Javadoc, Javasrc, Source Navigator, Doxygen, and HyperSoft. The results of the study supplement the earlier findings in this important area.

[Health Information Behavior of the South Tyrolean Population: An Epidemiological Cross-Sectional Study].

PubMed

Vögele, Anna; Becker, Ulrich; Gögele, Anna; Schneider, Antonius; Engl, Adolf

2018-06-04

Investigation of the health information behavior, self-rated health, confidence in health issues and specific attitudes to health among the South Tyrolean population. Our study is an epidemiological cross-sectional study; data were collected via telephone interviews, using a questionnaire developed for this purpose that covered various aspects of information and health-related behavior. For the elaboration of the typology of the most distinctive stereotypes in terms of health information and health-related behavior, a hierarchical cluster analysis was performed. We assessed 504 correct telephone interviews. The majority of the respondents considered themselves health-conscious and preferred heterogeneous information media. The most used information media for health issues were mass media, i. e. newspapers or magazines and television or radio. The internet was used less as a source of information. Younger individuals assessed themselves to be healthier than older people, and older women aged 65 years or more were the most health-impaired group. Respondents had greatest confidence in their general practitioner, their own feeling or experience. Thus, in terms of health information and health behavior, the following four classes of people could be distinguished, namely "internet information elite", "robust fatalists", "stricken" and "health-conscious mainstreamers". Our results show that the South Tyrolean population has a high level of health consciousness and gathers health information from various media. The characterization of different patient typologies of information processing in combination with health-related behavior indicates that information about health and illness should be appropriately addressed to the respective stereotype. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

26 CFR 1.737-3 - Basis adjustments; Recovery rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... Properties A1, A2, and A3 is long-term, U.S.-source capital gain or loss. The character of gain on Property A4 is long-term, foreign-source capital gain. B contributes Property B, nondepreciable real property...-term, foreign-source capital gain ($3,000 total gain under section 737 × $2,000 net long-term, foreign...

26 CFR 1.737-3 - Basis adjustments; Recovery rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... Properties A1, A2, and A3 is long-term, U.S.-source capital gain or loss. The character of gain on Property A4 is long-term, foreign-source capital gain. B contributes Property B, nondepreciable real property...-term, foreign-source capital gain ($3,000 total gain under section 737 × $2,000 net long-term, foreign...

26 CFR 1.737-3 - Basis adjustments; Recovery rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... Properties A1, A2, and A3 is long-term, U.S.-source capital gain or loss. The character of gain on Property A4 is long-term, foreign-source capital gain. B contributes Property B, nondepreciable real property...-term, foreign-source capital gain ($3,000 total gain under section 737 × $2,000 net long-term, foreign...

26 CFR 1.737-3 - Basis adjustments; Recovery rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... Properties A1, A2, and A3 is long-term, U.S.-source capital gain or loss. The character of gain on Property A4 is long-term, foreign-source capital gain. B contributes Property B, nondepreciable real property...-term, foreign-source capital gain ($3,000 total gain under section 737 × $2,000 net long-term, foreign...

26 CFR 1.737-3 - Basis adjustments; Recovery rules.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... Properties A1, A2, and A3 is long-term, U.S.-source capital gain or loss. The character of gain on Property A4 is long-term, foreign-source capital gain. B contributes Property B, nondepreciable real property...-term, foreign-source capital gain ($3,000 total gain under section 737 × $2,000 net long-term, foreign...

The information content of high-frequency seismograms and the near-surface geologic structure of "hard rock" recording sites

USGS Publications Warehouse

Cranswick, E.

1988-01-01

Due to hardware developments in the last decade, the high-frequency end of the frequency band of seismic waves analyzed for source mechanisms has been extended into the audio-frequency range (>20 Hz). In principle, the short wavelengths corresponding to these frequencies can provide information about the details of seismic sources, but in fact, much of the "signal" is the site response of the nearsurface. Several examples of waveform data recorded at "hard rock" sites, which are generally assumed to have a "flat" transfer function, are presented to demonstrate the severe signal distortions, including fmax, produced by near-surface structures. Analysis of the geology of a number of sites indicates that the overall attenuation of high-frequency (>1 Hz) seismic waves is controlled by the whole-path-Q between source and receiver but the presence of distinct fmax site resonance peaks is controlled by the nature of the surface layer and the underlying near-surface structure. Models of vertical decoupling of the surface and nearsurface and horizontal decoupling of adjacent sites on hard rock outcrops are proposed and their behaviour is compared to the observations of hard rock site response. The upper bound to the frequency band of the seismic waves that contain significant source information which can be deconvolved from a site response or an array response is discussed in terms of fmax and the correlation of waveform distortion with the outcrop-scale geologic structure of hard rock sites. It is concluded that although the velocity structures of hard rock sites, unlike those of alluvium sites, allow some audio-frequency seismic energy to propagate to the surface, the resulting signals are a highly distorted, limited subset of the source spectra. ?? 1988 Birkha??user Verlag.

Unmixing Magnetic Hysteresis Loops

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Heslop, D.; Roberts, A. P.

2012-04-01

Magnetic hysteresis loops provide important information in rock and environmental magnetic studies. Natural samples often contain an assemblage of magnetic particles composed of components with different origins. Each component potentially carries important environmental information. Hysteresis loops, however, provide information concerning the bulk magnetic assemblage, which makes it difficult to isolate the specific contributions from different sources. For complex mineral assemblages an unmixing strategy with which to separate hysteresis loops into their component parts is therefore essential. Previous methods to unmix hysteresis data have aimed at separating individual loops into their constituent parts using libraries of type-curves thought to correspond to specific mineral types. We demonstrate an alternative approach, which rather than decomposing a single loop into monomineralic contributions, examines a collection of loops to determine their constituent source materials. These source materials may themselves be mineral mixtures, but they provide a genetically meaningful decomposition of a magnetic assemblage in terms of the processes that controlled its formation. We show how an empirically derived hysteresis mixing space can be created, without resorting to type-curves, based on the co-variation within a collection of measured loops. Physically realistic end-members, which respect the expected behaviour and symmetries of hysteresis loops, can then be extracted from the mixing space. These end-members allow the measured loops to be described as a combination of invariant parts that are assumed to represent the different sources in the mixing model. Particular attention is paid to model selection and estimating the complexity of the mixing model, specifically, how many end-members should be included. We demonstrate application of this approach using lake sediments from Butte Valley, northern California. Our method successfully separates the hysteresis loops into sources with a variety of terrigenous and authigenic origins.

Family archives as a source of information about past hydrometeorological extremes in Southern Moravia (Czech Republic)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chromá, Kateřina

2014-05-01

Meteorological and hydrological extremes (hydrometeorological extremes - HMEs) cause great material damage or even loss of human lives in the present time, as well as it was in the past. For the study of their temporal and spatial variability in periods with only natural forcing factors in comparison with those combining also anthropogenic effects it is essential to have the longest possible series of HMEs. In the Czech Lands (recently the Czech Republic), systematic meteorological and hydrological observations started generally in the latter half of the 19th century. Therefore, in order to create long-term series of such extremes, it is necessary to search for other sources of information. There exist different types of documentary evidence used in historical climatology and hydrology, represented by various sources such as annals, chronicles, diaries, private letters, newspapers etc. Besides them, institutional documentary evidence (of economic and administrative character) has particular importance (e.g. taxation records). Documents in family archives represent further promising source of data related to HMEs. The documents kept by the most important lord families in Moravia (e.g. Liechtensteins, Dietrichsteins) are located in Moravian Land Archives in Brno. Besides data about family members, industrial and agricultural business, military questions, travelling and social events, they contain direct or indirect information about HMEs. It concerns descriptions of catastrophic phenomena on the particular demesne (mainly with respect to damage) as well as correspondence related to tax reductions (i.e. they can overlap with taxation records of particular estates). This contribution shows the potential of family archives as a source of information about HMEs, up to now only rarely used, which may extend our knowledge about them. Several examples of such documents are presented. The study is a part of the research project "Hydrometeorological extremes in Southern Moravia derived from documentary evidence" supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, reg. no. 13-19831S.

Impact of communication on consumers' food choices.

PubMed

Verbeke, Wim

2008-08-01

Consumers' food choices and dietary behaviour can be markedly affected by communication and information. Whether the provided information is processed by the receiver, and thus becomes likely to be effective, depends on numerous factors. The role of selected determinants such as uncertainty, knowledge, involvement, health-related motives and trust, as well as message content variables, are discussed in the present paper based on previous empirical studies. The different studies indicate that: uncertainty about meat quality and safety does not automatically result in more active information search; subjective knowledge about fish is a better predictor of fish consumption than objective knowledge; high subjective knowledge about functional foods as a result of a low trusted information source such as mass media advertising leads to a lower probability of adopting these foods in the diet. Also, evidence of the stronger impact of negative news as compared with messages promoting positive outcomes of food choices is discussed. Finally, three audience-segmentation studies based on consumers' involvement with fresh meat, individuals' health-related-motive orientations and their use of and trust in fish information sources are presented. A clear message from these studies is that communication and information provision strategies targeted to a specific audience's needs, interests or motives stand a higher likelihood of being attended to and processed by the receiving audience, and therefore also stand a higher chance of yielding their envisaged impact in terms of food choice and dietary behaviour.

Assessment of Information on Concussion Available to Adolescents on Social Media.

PubMed

Kollia, Betty; Basch, Corey H; Mouser, Christina; Deleon, Aurea J

2018-01-01

Considering how many people obtain information about their health online, the aim of this study was to describe the content of the currently most widely viewed YouTube videos related to concussions and to test the hypothesis that consumer videos would be anecdotal, while other sources would be more informational. The term "concussion" was used to search for videos with 100,000 or more views on YouTube that were posted in English or Spanish. Descriptive information about each video was recorded, as was information on whether certain content was conveyed during the video. The main outcome measures are sources of upload and content of videos. Consumer videos accounted for 48% of the videos, television based accounted for 50% of the videos, and internet based accounted for only 2% of the videos. None of the videos viewed fell into the professional category. Television based videos were viewed significantly more than consumer or internet based videos. Consumer and television based videos were equally anecdotal. Many of the videos focused on adolescents and were related to sports injuries. The majority of the videos (70.4%) addressed concussion causes, with 48% stating sports. Few videos discussed symptoms of concussion and prevention. The potential for widespread misinformation necessitates caution when obtaining information on concussion on a freely accessible and editable medium, such as YouTube.

Patent Retrieval in Chemistry based on Semantically Tagged Named Entities

DTIC Science & Technology

2009-11-01

their corresponding synonyms. An ex- ample query for TS-15 is: (" Betaine " OR "Glycine betaine " OR "Glycocol betaine " OR "Glycylbetaine" OR ...) AND...task in an automatic way based on noun- phrase detection incorporating the OpenNLP chun- 3 Informative Term Synonyms Source Betaine Glycine betaine ...Glycocol betaine , Glycylbetaine etc. ATC Peripheral Artery Disease Peripheral Artery Disorder, Peripheral Arterial Disease etc. MeSH Diels-Alder reaction

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - Department of the Navy Near Term Energy-Efficient Technologies Projects

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-06-23

contract; information required to be in the offeror’s proposal; and factors and significant subfactors, and their relative importance, which will...development and testing, alternative fuels, alternative fuel sources, and small-scale cogeneration . 1. On-Board Vehicle Power The purpose of the On...savings of 20 percent, greater heating and cooling capacity , and provision of full 30 kilowatts of electrical power output in all environments

Use of Modality and Negation in Semantically-Informed Syntactic MT

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-06-01

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE). 422 Baker et al. Modality and Negation in SIMT We produced the full English MN lexicon semi...English sentence pairs, and a bilingual dictionary with 113,911 entries. For our development and test sets, we split the NIST MT-08 test set into two...for combining MT and semantics (termed distillation) to answer the informa- tion needs of monolingual speakers using multilingual sources. Proper

‘You don't know which bits to believe’: qualitative study exploring carers’ experiences of seeking information on the internet about childhood eczema

PubMed Central

Santer, Miriam; Muller, Ingrid; Yardley, Lucy; Burgess, Hana; Ersser, Steven J; Lewis-Jones, Sue; Little, Paul

2015-01-01

Objective We sought to explore parents and carers’ experiences of searching for information about childhood eczema on the internet. Design A qualitative interview study was carried out among carers of children aged 5 years or less with a recorded diagnosis of eczema. The main focus of the study was to explore carers’ beliefs and understandings around eczema and its treatment. As part of this, we explored experiences of formal and informal information seeking about childhood eczema. Transcripts of interviews were analysed thematically. Setting Participants were recruited from six general practices in South West England. Participants Interviews were carried out with 31 parents from 28 families. Results Experiences of searching for eczema information on the internet varied widely. A few interviewees were able to navigate through the internet and find the specific information they were looking for (for instance about treatments their child had been prescribed), but more found searching for eczema information online to be a bewildering experience. Some could find no information of relevance to them, whereas others found the volume of different information sources overwhelming. Some said that they were unsure how to evaluate online information or that they were wary of commercial interests behind some information sources. Interviewees said that they would welcome more signposting towards high quality information from their healthcare providers. Conclusions We found very mixed experiences of seeking eczema information on the internet; but many participants in this study found this to be frustrating and confusing. Healthcare professionals and healthcare systems have a role to play in helping people with long-term health conditions and their carers find reliable online information to support them with self-care. PMID:25854963

Chiropractic wellness on the web: the content and quality of information related to wellness and primary prevention on the Internet.

PubMed

Evans, Marion Willard; Perle, Stephen M; Ndetan, Harrison

2011-02-02

The Internet has become a common source of information for patients wishing to learn about health information. Previous studies found information related to back pain poor and often contradictory to current guidelines. Wellness has become a common topic in the field of chiropractic and accrediting agencies have standards on delivery of wellness-based content in college curricula as well as directives for clinical applications. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of the information on the Internet using the terms "chiropractic wellness," or "wellness chiropractic". Five commonly used search engines were selected and the first 10 sites found using the strategy above were evaluated by two raters. Demographic assessments of the sites were made along with whether they were Health on the Net Foundation (HON) certified, contained standard wellness content, mentioned any Healthy People Focus Areas, and other chiropractic topics. Kappa statistics compared inter-rater agreement. Potential patients appeared to be the audience 87% of the time and a private doctor of chiropractic appeared to be the typical site owner. The sites usually promoted the provider. No sites displayed HON certification logo nor did any appear to meet the HON certification criteria. Twenty-six sites (55%) promoted regular physical activity in some manner and 18 (38%) had information on health risks of tobacco. Four (9%) had mental health or stress-reduction content but none had information supportive of vaccination. Some had information contradictory to common public health measures. Patients searching the Internet for chiropractic wellness information will often find useless information that will not help them maintain health or become well. Most simply market the chiropractic practice or allow for a patients to provide personal information in exchange for more 'wellness' information. More research should be done on how providers determine site content, pay any attention to the details on their sites, or agree with content as some appear to be prefabricated sites. Website content could be enhanced by sharing of information from reputable sources like US Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and other authoritative sources. HON certification should also be sought.

Chiropractic wellness on the web: the content and quality of information related to wellness and primary prevention on the Internet

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

Background The Internet has become a common source of information for patients wishing to learn about health information. Previous studies found information related to back pain poor and often contradictory to current guidelines. Wellness has become a common topic in the field of chiropractic and accrediting agencies have standards on delivery of wellness-based content in college curricula as well as directives for clinical applications. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the quality of the information on the Internet using the terms "chiropractic wellness," or "wellness chiropractic". Methods Five commonly used search engines were selected and the first 10 sites found using the strategy above were evaluated by two raters. Demographic assessments of the sites were made along with whether they were Health on the Net Foundation (HON) certified, contained standard wellness content, mentioned any Healthy People Focus Areas, and other chiropractic topics. Kappa statistics compared inter-rater agreement. Results Potential patients appeared to be the audience 87% of the time and a private doctor of chiropractic appeared to be the typical site owner. The sites usually promoted the provider. No sites displayed HON certification logo nor did any appear to meet the HON certification criteria. Twenty-six sites (55%) promoted regular physical activity in some manner and 18 (38%) had information on health risks of tobacco. Four (9%) had mental health or stress-reduction content but none had information supportive of vaccination. Some had information contradictory to common public health measures. Conclusions Patients searching the Internet for chiropractic wellness information will often find useless information that will not help them maintain health or become well. Most simply market the chiropractic practice or allow for a patients to provide personal information in exchange for more 'wellness' information. More research should be done on how providers determine site content, pay any attention to the details on their sites, or agree with content as some appear to be prefabricated sites. Website content could be enhanced by sharing of information from reputable sources like US Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and other authoritative sources. HON certification should also be sought. PMID:21288336

The role of objective personality inventories in suicide risk assessment: an evaluation and proposal.

PubMed

Johnson, W B; Lall, R; Bongar, B; Nordlund, M D

1999-01-01

Objective personality assessment instruments offer a comparatively underutilized source of clinical data in attempts to evaluate and predict risk for suicide. In contrast to focal suicide risk measures, global personality inventories may be useful in identification of long-standing styles that predispose persons to eventual suicidal behavior. This article reviews the empirical literature regarding the efficacy of established personality inventories in predicting suicidality. The authors offer several recommendations for future research with these measures and conclude that such objective personality instruments offer only marginal utility as sources of clinical information in comprehensive suicide risk evaluations. Personality inventories may offer greatest utility in long-term assessment of suicide risk.

Community outreach library services in the UK: a case study of Wirral Hospital NHS Trust (WHNT).

PubMed

Dowse, Frances Maria; Sen, Barbara

2007-09-01

The study evaluates the Community Outreach Library Service at Wirral Hospital National Health Service Trust (WHNT). It considers the information seeking behaviour and information needs of primary care staff, and service effectiveness in meeting those needs. A literature review established the current context and areas of best practice. The investigative case study used postal questionnaires to 250 primary care staff and an interview with the Community Outreach Librarian. Themes emerged from the literature regarding information seeking behaviour, information needs, and meeting user needs through effective service delivery. Outreach services have value in terms of improving information skills and providing services at point of need. Time is a major constraint for both users and service providers. Investment is needed from appropriate funding sources to support the provision and marketing of outreach library services. Librarians benefit from sharing best practice. The continued evaluation of outreach library services is recommended.

A pivotal role for starch in the reconfiguration of 14C-partitioning and allocation in Arabidopsis thaliana under short-term abiotic stress.

PubMed

Dong, Shaoyun; Zhang, Joshua; Beckles, Diane M

2018-06-18

Plant carbon status is optimized for normal growth but is affected by abiotic stress. Here, we used 14 C-labeling to provide the first holistic picture of carbon use changes during short-term osmotic, salinity, and cold stress in Arabidopsis thaliana. This could inform on the early mechanisms plants use to survive adverse environment, which is important for efficient agricultural production. We found that carbon allocation from source to sinks, and partitioning into major metabolite pools in the source leaf, sink leaves and roots showed both conserved and divergent responses to the stresses examined. Carbohydrates changed under all abiotic stresses applied; plants re-partitioned 14 C to maintain sugar levels under stress, primarily by reducing 14 C into the storage compounds in the source leaf, and decreasing 14 C into the pools used for growth processes in the roots. Salinity and cold increased 14 C-flux into protein, but as the stress progressed, protein degradation increased to produce amino acids, presumably for osmoprotection. Our work also emphasized that stress regulated the carbon channeled into starch, and its metabolic turnover. These stress-induced changes in starch metabolism and sugar export in the source were partly accompanied by transcriptional alteration in the T6P/SnRK1 regulatory pathway that are normally activated by carbon starvation.

Investigating Knowledge and Sources of Scientific Information of University Students and Lifelong Learners

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buxner, Sanlyn; Impey, Chris; Romine, James; Nieberding, Megan

2015-08-01

Using 25 years of data, we have been conducting a long-term study of undergraduate students’ science literacy. Based on questions developed for the National Science Board’s survey of the US public, we have gathered data from students enrolled in astronomy courses to help us understand their basic science knowledge as well as attitudes towards and beliefs about science. Science literacy of students in this study has remained relatively unchanged over a quarter of a century. Additionally, students’ beliefs and attitudes were associated with their overall knowledge in science. Less predictive were their self-reported majors, year in school, and number of college science courses taken. Students in this study consistently outperformed the general public surveyed by the NSB.Three years ago we broadened to our study to include an investigation of where students get their information about science and what sources they believe are the most and least reliable for that information. This past year, we have collected parallel data from lifelong learners from around the globe enrolled in a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) in astronomy, 70% of this audience lives outside the US and represent 170 countries. We will present results of these new studies of almost 700 undergraduate students and over 2500 lifelong learners. Overall, the lifelong learners possess a greater interest in science and better knowledge in science despite less overall college science course experience. Using online sources of scientific information were prevalent for both traditional college students and lifelong learners, although there were distinct differences between how different groups of learners perceived the reliability of online information. We will discuss the implications of teaching science in both traditional in-person college classes and in online learning environments as sources of scientific information and information literacy.This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No.1244799. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The role of retrieval practice in memory and analogical problem-solving.

PubMed

Hostetter, Autumn B; Penix, Elizabeth A; Norman, Mackenzie Z; Batsell, W Robert; Carr, Thomas H

2018-05-01

Retrieval practice (e.g., testing) has been shown to facilitate long-term retention of information. In two experiments, we examine whether retrieval practice also facilitates use of the practised information when it is needed to solve analogous problems. When retrieval practice was not limited to the information most relevant to the problems (Experiment 1), it improved memory for the information a week later compared with copying or rereading the information, although we found no evidence that it improved participants' ability to apply the information to the problems. In contrast, when retrieval practice was limited to only the information most relevant to the problems (Experiment 2), we found that retrieval practice enhanced memory for the critical information, the ability to identify the schematic similarities between the two sources of information, and the ability to apply that information to solve an analogous problem after a hint was given to do so. These results suggest that retrieval practice, through its effect on memory, can facilitate application of information to solve novel problems but has minimal effects on spontaneous realisation that the information is relevant.

Use and value of information sources by parents of child psychiatric patients.

PubMed

Turner, Adrienne; Kabashi, Arta; Guthrie, Hannah; Burket, Roger; Turner, Philip

2011-06-01

With Web 2.0, the variety of information sources for parents of paediatric psychiatric patients has increased dramatically. Information use theory suggests newer sources supplement rather than supplant traditional sources of health information. This study sought to determine the use and value of traditional and emerging sources of information and whether the subjects had access to highly valued sources of information. One hundred parents indicated the use and value of six sources of information on the child's symptoms, diagnoses and treatment. The data were analyzed to determine if significant relationships existed between type of source and the use and value of the information sources. Ninety-four percent of the subjects had access to the Internet and almost half of those reported using the Social Web. Eighty-five percent had at least one high-value information source. The psychiatrist in the clinic, the Internet and the primary care physician were the most highly used and valued sources. Use of digital information sources was greater than found in other studies of similar populations. This use appears to complement rather than supplant more traditional sources. Further studies are needed to see if the negative impact of lack of Internet access is replicated. © 2011 The authors. Health Information and Libraries Journal © 2011 Health Libraries Group.

10 CFR 50.67 - Accident source term.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... occupancy of the control room under accident conditions without personnel receiving radiation exposures in... 10 Energy 1 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Accident source term. 50.67 Section 50.67 Energy NUCLEAR... Conditions of Licenses and Construction Permits § 50.67 Accident source term. (a) Applicability. The...

10 CFR 50.67 - Accident source term.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... occupancy of the control room under accident conditions without personnel receiving radiation exposures in... 10 Energy 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Accident source term. 50.67 Section 50.67 Energy NUCLEAR... Conditions of Licenses and Construction Permits § 50.67 Accident source term. (a) Applicability. The...

10 CFR 50.67 - Accident source term.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... occupancy of the control room under accident conditions without personnel receiving radiation exposures in... 10 Energy 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Accident source term. 50.67 Section 50.67 Energy NUCLEAR... Conditions of Licenses and Construction Permits § 50.67 Accident source term. (a) Applicability. The...

10 CFR 50.67 - Accident source term.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... occupancy of the control room under accident conditions without personnel receiving radiation exposures in... 10 Energy 1 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Accident source term. 50.67 Section 50.67 Energy NUCLEAR... Conditions of Licenses and Construction Permits § 50.67 Accident source term. (a) Applicability. The...

10 CFR 50.67 - Accident source term.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... occupancy of the control room under accident conditions without personnel receiving radiation exposures in... 10 Energy 1 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Accident source term. 50.67 Section 50.67 Energy NUCLEAR... Conditions of Licenses and Construction Permits § 50.67 Accident source term. (a) Applicability. The...

Quality of health information on acute myocardial infarction and stroke in the world wide web.

PubMed

Bastos, Ana; Paiva, Dagmara; Azevedo, Ana

2014-01-01

The quality of health information in the Internet may be low. This is a concerning issue in cardiovascular diseases which warrant patient self-management. We aimed to assess the quality of Portuguese websites as a source of health information on acute myocardial infarction and stroke. We used the search terms 'enfarte miocardio' and 'acidente vascular cerebral' (Portuguese terms for myocardial infarction and stroke) on Google(®), on April 5th and 7th 2011, respectively, using Internet Explorer(®). The first 200 URL retrieved in each search were independently visited and Portuguese websites in Portuguese language were selected. We analysed and classified 121 websites for structural characteristics, information coverage and accuracy of the web pages with items defined a priori, trustworthiness in general according to the Health on the Net Foundation and regarding treatments using the DISCERN instrument (48 websites). Websites were most frequently commercial (49.5%), not exclusively dedicated to acute myocardial infarction/ stroke (94.2%), and with information on medical facts (59.5%), using images, video or animation (60.3%). Websites' trustworthiness was low. None of the websites displayed the Health on the Net Foundation seal. Acute myocardial infarction/ stroke websites differed in information coverage but the accuracy of the information was acceptable, although often incomplete. The quality of information on acute myocardial infarction/ stroke in Portuguese websites was acceptable. Trustworthiness was low, impairing users' capability of identifying potentially more reliable content.

Impacts of forest restoration on water yield: A systematic review

PubMed Central

Filoso, Solange; Bezerra, Maíra Ometto; Weiss, Katherine C. B.; Palmer, Margaret A.

2017-01-01

Background Enhancing water provision services is a common target in forest restoration projects worldwide due to growing concerns over freshwater scarcity. However, whether or not forest cover expansion or restoration can improve water provision services is still unclear and highly disputed. Purpose The goal of this review is to provide a balanced and impartial assessment of the impacts of forest restoration and forest cover expansion on water yields as informed by the scientific literature. Potential sources of bias on the results of papers published are also examined. Data sources English, Spanish and Portuguese peer-review articles in Agricola, CAB Abstracts, ISI Web of Science, JSTOR, Google Scholar, and SciELO. Databases were searched through 2015. Search terms Intervention terms included forest restoration, regeneration/regrowth, forest second-growth, forestation/afforestation, and forestry. Target terms included water yield/quantity, streamflow, discharge, channel runoff, and annual flow. Study selection and eligibility criteria Articles were pre-selected based on key words in the title, abstract or text. Eligible articles addressed relevant interventions and targets and included quantitative information. Results Most studies reported decreases in water yields following the intervention, while other hydrological benefits have been observed. However, relatively few studies focused specifically on forest restoration, especially with native species, and/or on projects done at large spatial or temporal scales. Information is especially limited for the humid tropics and subtropics. Conclusions and implications of key findings While most studies reported a decrease in water yields, meta-analyses from a sub-set of studies suggest the potential influence of temporal and/or spatial scales on the outcomes of forest cover expansion or restoration projects. Given the many other benefits of forest restoration, improving our understanding of when and why forest restoration can lead to recovery of water yields is crucial to help improve positive outcomes and prevent unintended consequences. Our study identifies the critical types of studies and associated measurements needed. PMID:28817639

An effective multisource informed consent procedure for research and clinical practice: an observational study of patient understanding and awareness of their roles as research stakeholders in a cancer biobank.

PubMed

Cervo, Silvia; Rovina, Jane; Talamini, Renato; Perin, Tiziana; Canzonieri, Vincenzo; De Paoli, Paolo; Steffan, Agostino

2013-07-30

Efforts to improve patients' understanding of their own medical treatments or research in which they are involved are progressing, especially with regard to informed consent procedures. We aimed to design a multisource informed consent procedure that is easily adaptable to both clinical and research applications, and to evaluate its effectiveness in terms of understanding and awareness, even in less educated patients. We designed a multisource informed consent procedure for patients' enrolment in a Cancer Institute Biobank (CRO-Biobank). From October 2009 to July 2011, a total of 550 cancer patients admitted to the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico IRCCS Aviano, who agreed to contribute to its biobank, were consecutively enrolled. Participants were asked to answer a self-administered questionnaire aim at exploring their understanding of biobanks and their needs for information on this topic, before and after study participation. Chi-square tests were performed on the questionnaire answers, according to gender or education. Of the 430 patients who returned the questionnaire, only 36.5% knew what a biobank was before participating in the study. Patients with less formal education were less informed by some sources (the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and our Institute). The final assessment test, taken after the multisource informed consent procedure, showed more than 95% correct answers. The information received was judged to be very or fairly understandable in almost all cases. More than 95% of patients were aware of participating in a biobank project, and gave helping cancer research (67.5%), moral obligation, and supporting cancer care as main reasons for their involvement. Our multisource informed consent information system allowed a high rate of understanding and awareness of study participation, even among less-educated participants, and could be an effective and easy-to-apply model for others to consider to contribute to a well-informed decision making process in several fields, from clinical practice to research.Further studies are needed to explore the effects on the study comprehension by each source of information, and by other sources suggested by participants in the questionnaire.

Long-term information and distributed neural activation are relevant for the "internal features advantage" in face processing: electrophysiological and source reconstruction evidence.

PubMed

Olivares, Ela I; Saavedra, Cristina; Trujillo-Barreto, Nelson J; Iglesias, Jaime

2013-01-01

In face processing tasks, prior presentation of internal facial features, when compared with external ones, facilitates the recognition of subsequently displayed familiar faces. In a previous ERP study (Olivares & Iglesias, 2010) we found a visibly larger N400-like effect when identity mismatch familiar faces were preceded by internal features, as compared to prior presentation of external ones. In the present study we contrasted the processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces in the face-feature matching task to assess whether the so-called "internal features advantage" relies mainly on the use of stored face-identity-related information or if it might operate independently from stimulus familiarity. Our participants (N = 24) achieved better performance with internal features as primes and, significantly, with familiar faces. Importantly, ERPs elicited by identity mismatch complete faces displayed a negativity around 300-600 msec which was clearly enhanced for familiar faces primed by internal features when compared with the other experimental conditions. Source reconstruction showed incremented activity elicited by familiar stimuli in both posterior (ventral occipitotemporal) and more anterior (parahippocampal (ParaHIP) and orbitofrontal) brain regions. The activity elicited by unfamiliar stimuli was, in general, located in more posterior regions. Our findings suggest that the activation of multiple neural codes is required for optimal individuation in face-feature matching and that a cortical network related to long-term information for face-identity processing seems to support the internal feature effect. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Variability of patient spine education by Internet search engine.

PubMed

Ghobrial, George M; Mehdi, Angud; Maltenfort, Mitchell; Sharan, Ashwini D; Harrop, James S

2014-03-01

Patients are increasingly reliant upon the Internet as a primary source of medical information. The educational experience varies by search engine, search term, and changes daily. There are no tools for critical evaluation of spinal surgery websites. To highlight the variability between common search engines for the same search terms. To detect bias, by prevalence of specific kinds of websites for certain spinal disorders. Demonstrate a simple scoring system of spinal disorder website for patient use, to maximize the quality of information exposed to the patient. Ten common search terms were used to query three of the most common search engines. The top fifty results of each query were tabulated. A negative binomial regression was performed to highlight the variation across each search engine. Google was more likely than Bing and Yahoo search engines to return hospital ads (P=0.002) and more likely to return scholarly sites of peer-reviewed lite (P=0.003). Educational web sites, surgical group sites, and online web communities had a significantly higher likelihood of returning on any search, regardless of search engine, or search string (P=0.007). Likewise, professional websites, including hospital run, industry sponsored, legal, and peer-reviewed web pages were less likely to be found on a search overall, regardless of engine and search string (P=0.078). The Internet is a rapidly growing body of medical information which can serve as a useful tool for patient education. High quality information is readily available, provided that the patient uses a consistent, focused metric for evaluating online spine surgery information, as there is a clear variability in the way search engines present information to the patient. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Evaluation of realistic layouts for next generation on-scalp MEG: spatial information density maps.

PubMed

Riaz, Bushra; Pfeiffer, Christoph; Schneiderman, Justin F

2017-08-01

While commercial magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems are the functional neuroimaging state-of-the-art in terms of spatio-temporal resolution, MEG sensors have not changed significantly since the 1990s. Interest in newer sensors that operate at less extreme temperatures, e.g., high critical temperature (high-T c ) SQUIDs, optically-pumped magnetometers, etc., is growing because they enable significant reductions in head-to-sensor standoff (on-scalp MEG). Various metrics quantify the advantages of on-scalp MEG, but a single straightforward one is lacking. Previous works have furthermore been limited to arbitrary and/or unrealistic sensor layouts. We introduce spatial information density (SID) maps for quantitative and qualitative evaluations of sensor arrays. SID-maps present the spatial distribution of information a sensor array extracts from a source space while accounting for relevant source and sensor parameters. We use it in a systematic comparison of three practical on-scalp MEG sensor array layouts (based on high-T c SQUIDs) and the standard Elekta Neuromag TRIUX magnetometer array. Results strengthen the case for on-scalp and specifically high-T c SQUID-based MEG while providing a path for the practical design of future MEG systems. SID-maps are furthermore general to arbitrary magnetic sensor technologies and source spaces and can thus be used for design and evaluation of sensor arrays for magnetocardiography, magnetic particle imaging, etc.

Crowd Sourcing to Improve Urban Stormwater Management

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Minsker, B. S.; Band, L. E.; Heidari Haratmeh, B.; Law, N. L.; Leonard, L. N.; Rai, A.

2017-12-01

Over half of the world's population currently lives in urban areas, a number predicted to grow to 60 percent by 2030. Urban areas face unprecedented and growing challenges that threaten society's long-term wellbeing, including poverty; chronic health problems; widespread pollution and resource degradation; and increased natural disasters. These are "wicked" problems involving "systems of systems" that require unprecedented information sharing and collaboration across disciplines and organizational boundaries. Cities are recognizing that the increasing stream of data and information ("Big Data"), informatics, and modeling can support rapid advances on these challenges. Nonetheless, information technology solutions can only be effective in addressing these challenges through deeply human and systems perspectives. A stakeholder-driven approach ("crowd sourcing") is needed to develop urban systems that address multiple needs, such as parks that capture and treat stormwater while improving human and ecosystem health and wellbeing. We have developed informatics- and Cloud-based collaborative methods that enable crowd sourcing of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI: rain gardens, bioswales, trees, etc.) design and management. The methods use machine learning, social media data, and interactive design tools (called IDEAS-GI) to identify locations and features of GSI that perform best on a suite of objectives, including life cycle cost, stormwater volume reduction, and air pollution reduction. Insights will be presented on GI features that best meet stakeholder needs and are therefore most likely to improve human wellbeing and be well maintained.

Hydrometeorological extremes at the Veselí nad Moravou estate (Czech Republic) in the period 1794-1850 derived from documentary evidence of the economic character

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chromá, Kateřina

2010-05-01

Hydrometeorological extremes influenced always human activities (agriculture, forestry, water management) and caused losses of human lives and great material damage. Systematic meteorological and hydrological observations in the Czech Lands (recent Czech Republic) started generally in the latter half of the 19th century. In order to create long-term series of hydrometeorological extremes, it is necessary to search for other sources of information for their study before 1850. Such direct and indirect information about hydrometeorological extremes is included in documentary evidence (e.g. chronicles, memoirs, diaries, early visual weather observations, newspapers, economic sources etc.). Documentary evidence of economic character belongs to the most important sources, especially documents related to taxation records. Damage to agricultural crops on the fields or damage to hay on meadows due to the hydrological and meteorological phenomena has been a good reason for the abatement of tax duty. Based on the official correspondence of the estate of Veselí nad Moravou (southern Moravia), archival information about taxation from the Moravian Land Archives in Brno was excerpted. Based on it, 46 hydrometeorological extremes which occurred between the years 1794 and 1850 were selected and further analysed. Because of fields and meadows of the above estate were located along the Morava River, reports of damage due to floods were the most frequent, followed by damage due to torrential rains and hailstorms.

Gender and Information Literacy: Evaluation of Gender Differences in a Student Survey of Information Sources

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Arthur; Dalal, Heather A.

2017-01-01

Information literacy studies have shown that college students use a variety of information sources to perform research and commonly choose Internet sources over traditional library sources. Studies have also shown that students do not appear to understand the information quality issues concerning Internet information sources and may lack the…

Information prescriptions, 1930-2013: an international history and comprehensive review.

PubMed

McKnight, Michelynn

2014-10-01

Recently, government agencies in several countries have promoted information prescription programs to increase patients' understanding of their conditions. The practice has a long history and many publications, but no comprehensive literature reviews such as this. Using a variety of high-precision and high-recall strategies, the researcher searched two dozen online bibliographic databases, citation databases, and repositories, as well as many print sources, to identify and retrieve documents for review. Of these documents, ninety relevant English-language case reports, research reports, and reviews published from 1930-2013 met the study criteria. Early to mid-twentieth century reports covered long-standing practices and used no rigorous research methods. The literature since the mid-1990s reports on short-term trial projects, especially of government-sponsored programs in the United States and United Kingdom. Although the concept of information prescription has been in the literature and practiced for decades, no long-term research studies were found. Most of the literature is anecdotal concerning small pilot projects. The reports investigate physician, patient, and librarian satisfaction but not changes in patient knowledge or behavior. Many twenty-first century projects emphasize materials and projects from specific government agencies and commercial enterprises. While the practice is commonly believed to be a good idea and there are many publications on the subject, few studies provide any evidence of the efficacy of information prescriptions for increased patient knowledge. Well-designed and executed large or long-term studies might produce needed evidence for professional practice.

PASTE: patient-centered SMS text tagging in a medication management system.

PubMed

Stenner, Shane P; Johnson, Kevin B; Denny, Joshua C

2012-01-01

To evaluate the performance of a system that extracts medication information and administration-related actions from patient short message service (SMS) messages. Mobile technologies provide a platform for electronic patient-centered medication management. MyMediHealth (MMH) is a medication management system that includes a medication scheduler, a medication administration record, and a reminder engine that sends text messages to cell phones. The object of this work was to extend MMH to allow two-way interaction using mobile phone-based SMS technology. Unprompted text-message communication with patients using natural language could engage patients in their healthcare, but presents unique natural language processing challenges. The authors developed a new functional component of MMH, the Patient-centered Automated SMS Tagging Engine (PASTE). The PASTE web service uses natural language processing methods, custom lexicons, and existing knowledge sources to extract and tag medication information from patient text messages. A pilot evaluation of PASTE was completed using 130 medication messages anonymously submitted by 16 volunteers via a website. System output was compared with manually tagged messages. Verified medication names, medication terms, and action terms reached high F-measures of 91.3%, 94.7%, and 90.4%, respectively. The overall medication name F-measure was 79.8%, and the medication action term F-measure was 90%. Other studies have demonstrated systems that successfully extract medication information from clinical documents using semantic tagging, regular expression-based approaches, or a combination of both approaches. This evaluation demonstrates the feasibility of extracting medication information from patient-generated medication messages.

Using ethnography to investigate life scientists' information needs.

PubMed Central

Forsythe, D E

1998-01-01

Designing information resources that actually meet the information needs of individuals requires detailed knowledge of these needs. This poses a challenge for developers. Because the meaning of particular terms can vary by field, professional knowledge differs to some extent in different disciplines, and the questions that people ask assume a certain amount of unarticulated background knowledge, understanding the information needs of life scientists is not a trivial undertaking. One source of help in meeting this challenge is ethnography, a set of research methods and an associated conceptual stance developed and used by anthropologists for investigating uncontrolled real-world settings. Drawing on the author's experience in using ethnographic techniques to study clinicians' information needs, this paper describes why such research is necessary, why it requires particular research methods, what an ethnographic perspective has added to the study of information needs, and what this broader approach has revealed about the types of information sought by clinicians in the course of their daily practice. PMID:9681177

Uncertainty in surface water flood risk modelling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Butler, J. B.; Martin, D. N.; Roberts, E.; Domuah, R.

2009-04-01

Two thirds of the flooding that occurred in the UK during summer 2007 was as a result of surface water (otherwise known as ‘pluvial') rather than river or coastal flooding. In response, the Environment Agency and Interim Pitt Reviews have highlighted the need for surface water risk mapping and warning tools to identify, and prepare for, flooding induced by heavy rainfall events. This need is compounded by the likely increase in rainfall intensities due to climate change. The Association of British Insurers has called for the Environment Agency to commission nationwide flood risk maps showing the relative risk of flooding from all sources. At the wider European scale, the recently-published EC Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks will require Member States to evaluate, map and model flood risk from a variety of sources. As such, there is now a clear and immediate requirement for the development of techniques for assessing and managing surface water flood risk across large areas. This paper describes an approach for integrating rainfall, drainage network and high-resolution topographic data using Flowroute™, a high-resolution flood mapping and modelling platform, to produce deterministic surface water flood risk maps. Information is provided from UK case studies to enable assessment and validation of modelled results using historical flood information and insurance claims data. Flowroute was co-developed with flood scientists at Cambridge University specifically to simulate river dynamics and floodplain inundation in complex, congested urban areas in a highly computationally efficient manner. It utilises high-resolution topographic information to route flows around individual buildings so as to enable the prediction of flood depths, extents, durations and velocities. As such, the model forms an ideal platform for the development of surface water flood risk modelling and mapping capabilities. The 2-dimensional component of Flowroute employs uniform flow formulae (Manning's Equation) to direct flow over the model domain, sourcing water from the channel or sea so as to provide a detailed representation of river and coastal flood risk. The initial development step was to include spatially-distributed rainfall as a new source term within the model domain. This required optimisation to improve computational efficiency, given the ubiquity of ‘wet' cells early on in the simulation. Collaboration with UK water companies has provided detailed drainage information, and from this a simplified representation of the drainage system has been included in the model via the inclusion of sinks and sources of water from the drainage network. This approach has clear advantages relative to a fully coupled method both in terms of reduced input data requirements and computational overhead. Further, given the difficulties associated with obtaining drainage information over large areas, tests were conducted to evaluate uncertainties associated with excluding drainage information and the impact that this has upon flood model predictions. This information can be used, for example, to inform insurance underwriting strategies and loss estimation as well as for emergency response and planning purposes. The Flowroute surface-water flood risk platform enables efficient mapping of areas sensitive to flooding from high-intensity rainfall events due to topography and drainage infrastructure. As such, the technology has widespread potential for use as a risk mapping tool by the UK Environment Agency, European Member States, water authorities, local governments and the insurance industry. Keywords: Surface water flooding, Model Uncertainty, Insurance Underwriting, Flood inundation modelling, Risk mapping.

Development of Performance Dashboards in Healthcare Sector: Key Practical Issues

PubMed Central

Ghazisaeidi, Marjan; Safdari, Reza; Torabi, Mashallah; Mirzaee, Mahboobeh; Farzi, Jebraeil; Goodini, Azadeh

2015-01-01

Background: Static nature of performance reporting systems in health care sector has resulted in inconsistent, incomparable, time consuming, and static performance reports that are not able to transparently reflect a round picture of performance and effectively support healthcare managers’ decision makings. So, the healthcare sector needs interactive performance management tools such as performance dashboards to measure, monitor, and manage performance more effectively. The aim of this article was to identify key issues that need to be addressed for developing high-quality performance dashboards in healthcare sector. Methods: A literature review was established to search electronic research databases, e-journals collections, and printed journals, books, dissertations, and theses for relevant articles. The search strategy interchangeably used the terms of “dashboard”, “performance measurement system”, and “executive information system” with the term of “design” combined with operator “AND”. Search results (n=250) were adjusted for duplications, screened based on their abstract relevancy and full-text availability (n=147) and then assessed for eligibility (n=40). Eligible articles were included if they had explicitly focused on dashboards, performance measurement systems or executive information systems design. Finally, 28 relevant articles included in the study. Results: Creating high-quality performance dashboards requires addressing both performance measurement and executive information systems design issues. Covering these two fields, identified contents were categorized to four main domains: KPIs development, Data Sources and data generation, Integration of dashboards to source systems, and Information presentation issues. Conclusion: This study implies the main steps to develop dashboards for the purpose of performance management. Performance dashboards developed on performance measurement and executive information systems principles and supported by proper back-end infrastructure will result in creation of dynamic reports that help healthcare managers to consistently measure the performance, continuously detect outliers, deeply analyze causes of poor performance, and effectively plan for the future. PMID:26635442

Novel data sources for women's health research: mapping breast screening online information seeking through Google trends.

PubMed

Fazeli Dehkordy, Soudabeh; Carlos, Ruth C; Hall, Kelli S; Dalton, Vanessa K

2014-09-01

Millions of people use online search engines everyday to find health-related information and voluntarily share their personal health status and behaviors in various Web sites. Thus, data from tracking of online information seeker's behavior offer potential opportunities for use in public health surveillance and research. Google Trends is a feature of Google which allows Internet users to graph the frequency of searches for a single term or phrase over time or by geographic region. We used Google Trends to describe patterns of information-seeking behavior in the subject of dense breasts and to examine their correlation with the passage or introduction of dense breast notification legislation. To capture the temporal variations of information seeking about dense breasts, the Web search query "dense breast" was entered in the Google Trends tool. We then mapped the dates of legislative actions regarding dense breasts that received widespread coverage in the lay media to information-seeking trends about dense breasts over time. Newsworthy events and legislative actions appear to correlate well with peaks in search volume of "dense breast". Geographic regions with the highest search volumes have passed, denied, or are currently considering the dense breast legislation. Our study demonstrated that any legislative action and respective news coverage correlate with increase in information seeking for "dense breast" on Google, suggesting that Google Trends has the potential to serve as a data source for policy-relevant research. Copyright © 2014 AUR. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sorting through search results: a content analysis of HPV vaccine information online.

PubMed

Madden, Kelly; Nan, Xiaoli; Briones, Rowena; Waks, Leah

2012-05-28

Surveys have shown that many people now turn to the Internet for health information when making health-related decisions. This study systematically analyzed the HPV vaccine information returned by online search engines. HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease and is the leading cause of cervical cancers. We conducted a content analysis of 89 top search results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com. The websites were analyzed with respect to source, tone, information related to specific content analyzed through the lens of the Health Belief Model, and in terms of two content themes (i.e., conspiracy theories and civil liberties). The relations among these aspects of the websites were also explored. Most websites were published by nonprofit or academic sources (34.8%) and governmental agencies (27.4%) and were neutral in tone (57.3%), neither promoting nor opposing the HPV vaccine. Overall, the websites presented suboptimal or inaccurate information related to the five behavioral predictors stipulated in the Health Belief Model. Questions related to civil liberties were present on some websites. Health professionals designing online communication with the intent of increasing HPV vaccine uptake should take care to include information about the risks of HPV, including susceptibility and severity. Additionally, websites should include information about the benefits of the vaccine (i.e., effective against HPV), low side effects as a barrier that can be overcome, and ways in which to receive the vaccine to raise individual self-efficacy. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Evaluating the quality of Internet health resources in pediatric urology.

PubMed

Fast, Angela M; Deibert, Christopher M; Hruby, Gregory W; Glassberg, Kenneth I

2013-04-01

Many patients and their parents utilize the Internet for health-related information, but quality is largely uncontrolled and unregulated. The Health on the Net Foundation Code (HONcode) and DISCERN Plus were used to evaluate the pediatric urological search terms 'circumcision,' 'vesicoureteral reflux' and 'posterior urethral valves'. A google.com search was performed to identify the top 20 websites for each term. The HONcode toolbar was utilized to determine whether each website was HONcode accredited and report the overall frequency of accreditation for each term. The DISCERN Plus instrument was used to score each website in accordance with the DISCERN Handbook. High and low scoring criteria were then compared. A total of 60 websites were identified. For the search terms 'circumcision', 'posterior urethral valves' and 'vesicoureteral reflux', 25-30% of the websites were HONcode certified. Out of the maximum score of 80, the average DISCERN Plus score was 60 (SD = 12, range 38-78), 40 (SD = 12, range 22-69) and 45 (SD = 19, range 16-78), respectively. The lowest scoring DISCERN criteria included: 'Does it describe how the treatment choices affect overall quality of life?', 'Does it describe the risks of each treatment?' and 'Does it provide details of additional sources of support and information?' (1.35, 1.83 and 1.95 out of 5, respectively). These findings demonstrate the poor quality of information that patients and their parents may use in decision-making and treatment choices. The two lowest scoring DISCERN Plus criteria involved education on quality of life issues and risks of treatment. Physicians should know how to best use these tools to help guide patients and their parents to websites with valid information. Copyright © 2012 Journal of Pediatric Urology Company. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Applications of information and communications technologies to public health: A scoping review using the MeSH term: "public health informatics".

PubMed

Bhattarai, Arjun Kumar; Zarrin, Aein; Lee, Joon

2017-01-01

To investigate the public health domains, key informatics concepts, and information and communications technologies (ICTs) applied in articles that are tagged with the MeSH term "public health informatics" and primarily focus on applying ICTs to public health. The MeSH term "public health informatics" was searched on MEDLINE-PubMed. The results of the search were then screened in two steps in order to only include articles about applying ICTs to public health problems. First, articles were screened based on their titles and abstracts. Second, a full-text review was conducted to ensure the relevance of the included articles. All articles were charted based on public health domain, information technology, article type, and informatics concept. 515 articles were included. Communicable disease monitoring (N=235), public health policy and research (N=201), and public health awareness (N=85) constituted the majority of the articles. Inconsistent results were found regarding the validity of syndromic surveillance and the effectiveness of PHI integration within the healthcare systems. PHI articles with an ICT focus cover a wide range of themes. Collectively, the included articles emphasized the need for further research in interoperability, data quality, appropriate data sources, accessible health information, and communication. The limitations of the study include:1) only one database was searched; 2) by using MeSH tags as a selection criterion, PHI articles without the "public health informatics" MeSH term were excluded. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of PHI, MeSH identifiers were not assigned consistently. Current MeSH-tagged articles indicate that a comprehensive approach is required to integrate PHI into the healthcare system.

Systematic review of studies of staffing and quality in nursing homes.

PubMed

Bostick, Jane E; Rantz, Marilyn J; Flesner, Marcia K; Riggs, C Jo

2006-07-01

To evaluate a range of staffing measures and data sources for long-term use in public reporting of staffing as a quality measure in nursing homes. Eighty-seven research articles and government documents published from 1975 to 2003 were reviewed and summarized. Relevant content was extracted and organized around 3 themes: staffing measures, quality measures, and risk adjustment variables. Data sources for staffing information were also identified. There is a proven association between higher total staffing levels (especially licensed staff) and improved quality of care. Studies also indicate a significant relationship between high turnover and poor resident outcomes. Functional ability, pressure ulcers, and weight loss are the most sensitive quality indicators linked to staffing. The best national data sources for staffing and quality include the Minimum Data Set (MDS) and On-line Survey and Certification Automated Records (OSCAR). However, the accuracy of this self-reported information requires further reliability and validity testing. A nationwide instrument needs to be developed to accurately measure staff turnover. Large-scale studies using payroll data to measure staff retention and its impact on resident outcomes are recommended. Future research should use the most nurse-sensitive quality indicators such as pressure ulcers, functional status, and weight loss.

Repositories for Deep, Dark, and Offline Data - Building Grey Literature Repositories and Discoverability

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Keane, C. M.; Tahirkheli, S.

2017-12-01

Data repositories, especially in the geosciences, have been focused on the management of large quantities of born-digital data and facilitating its discovery and use. Unfortunately, born-digital data, even with its immense scale today, represents only the most recent data acquisitions, leaving a large proportion of the historical data record of the science "out in the cold." Additionally, the data record in the peer-reviewed literature, whether captured directly in the literature or through the journal data archive, represents only a fraction of the reliable data collected in the geosciences. Federal and state agencies, state surveys, and private companies, collect vast amounts of geoscience information and data that is not only reliable and robust, but often the only data representative of specific spatial and temporal conditions. Likewise, even some academic publications, such as senior theses, are unique sources of data, but generally do not have wide discoverability nor guarantees of longevity. As more of these `grey' sources of information and data are born-digital, they become increasingly at risk for permanent loss, not to mention poor discoverability. Numerous studies have shown that grey literature across all disciplines, including geosciences, disappears at a rate of about 8% per year. AGI has been working to develop systems to both improve the discoverability and the preservation of the geoscience grey literature by coupling several open source platforms from the information science community. We will detail the rationale, the technical and legal frameworks for these systems, and the long-term strategies for improving access, use, and stability of these critical data sources.

Framework for Informed Policy Making Using Data from National Environmental Observatories

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wee, B.; Taylor, J. R.; Poinsatte, J.

2012-12-01

Large-scale environmental changes pose challenges that straddle environmental, economic, and social boundaries. As we design and implement climate adaptation strategies at the Federal, state, local, and tribal levels, accessible and usable data are essential for implementing actions that are informed by the best available information. Data-intensive science has been heralded as an enabler for scientific breakthroughs powered by advanced computing capabilities and interoperable data systems. Those same capabilities can be applied to data and information systems that facilitate the transformation of data into highly processed products. At the interface of scientifically informed public policy and data intensive science lies the potential for producers of credible, integrated, multi-scalar environmental data like the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) and its partners to capitalize on data and informatics interoperability initiatives that enable the integration of environmental data from across credible data sources. NSF's large-scale environmental observatories such as NEON and the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) are designed to provide high-quality, long-term environmental data for research. These data are also meant to be repurposed for operational needs that like risk management, vulnerability assessments, resource management, and others. The proposed USDA Agriculture Research Service (ARS) Long Term Agro-ecosystem Research (LTAR) network is another example of such an environmental observatory that will produce credible data for environmental / agricultural forecasting and informing policy. To facilitate data fusion across observatories, there is a growing call for observation systems to more closely coordinate and standardize how variables are measured. Together with observation standards, cyberinfrastructure standards enable the proliferation of an ecosystem of applications that utilize diverse, high-quality, credible data. Interoperability facilitates the integration of data from multiple credible sources of data, and enables the repurposing of data for use at different geographical scales. Metadata that captures the transformation of data into value-added products ("provenance") lends reproducability and transparency to the entire process. This way, the datasets and model code used to create any product can be examined by other parties. This talk outlines a pathway for transforming environmental data into value-added products by various stakeholders to better inform sustainable agriculture using data from environmental observatories including NEON and LTAR.;

Estimation of the Cesium-137 Source Term from the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant Using Air Concentration and Deposition Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Winiarek, Victor; Bocquet, Marc; Duhanyan, Nora; Roustan, Yelva; Saunier, Olivier; Mathieu, Anne

2013-04-01

A major difficulty when inverting the source term of an atmospheric tracer dispersion problem is the estimation of the prior errors: those of the atmospheric transport model, those ascribed to the representativeness of the measurements, the instrumental errors, and those attached to the prior knowledge on the variables one seeks to retrieve. In the case of an accidental release of pollutant, and specially in a situation of sparse observability, the reconstructed source is sensitive to these assumptions. This sensitivity makes the quality of the retrieval dependent on the methods used to model and estimate the prior errors of the inverse modeling scheme. In Winiarek et al. (2012), we proposed to use an estimation method for the errors' amplitude based on the maximum likelihood principle. Under semi-Gaussian assumptions, it takes into account, without approximation, the positivity assumption on the source. We applied the method to the estimation of the Fukushima Daiichi cesium-137 and iodine-131 source terms using activity concentrations in the air. The results were compared to an L-curve estimation technique, and to Desroziers's scheme. Additionally to the estimations of released activities, we provided related uncertainties (12 PBq with a std. of 15 - 20 % for cesium-137 and 190 - 380 PBq with a std. of 5 - 10 % for iodine-131). We also enlightened that, because of the low number of available observations (few hundreds) and even if orders of magnitude were consistent, the reconstructed activities significantly depended on the method used to estimate the prior errors. In order to use more data, we propose to extend the methods to the use of several data types, such as activity concentrations in the air and fallout measurements. The idea is to simultaneously estimate the prior errors related to each dataset, in order to fully exploit the information content of each one. Using the activity concentration measurements, but also daily fallout data from prefectures and cumulated deposition data over a region lying approximately 150 km around the nuclear power plant, we can use a few thousands of data in our inverse modeling algorithm to reconstruct the Cesium-137 source term. To improve the parameterization of removal processes, rainfall fields have also been corrected using outputs from the mesoscale meteorological model WRF and ground station rainfall data. As expected, the different methods yield closer results as the number of data increases. Reference : Winiarek, V., M. Bocquet, O. Saunier, A. Mathieu (2012), Estimation of errors in the inverse modeling of accidental release of atmospheric pollutant : Application to the reconstruction of the cesium-137 and iodine-131 source terms from the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, J. Geophys. Res., 117, D05122, doi:10.1029/2011JD016932.

An information sources map for Occupational and Environmental Medicine: guidance to network-based information through domain-specific indexing.

PubMed Central

Silverstein, S. M.; Miller, P. L.; Cullen, M. R.

1993-01-01

This paper describes a prototype information sources map (ISM), an on-line information source finder, for Occupational and Environmental Medicine (OEM). The OEM ISM was built as part of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) project of the National Library of Medicine. It allows a user to identify sources of on-line information appropriate to a specific OEM question, and connect to the sources. In the OEM ISM we explore a domain-specific method of indexing information source contents, and also a domain-specific user interface. The indexing represents a domain expert's opinion of the specificity of an information source in helping to answer specific types of domain questions. For each information source, an index field represents whether a source might provide useful information in an occupational, industrial, or environmental category. Additional fields represent the degree of specificity of a source in individual question types in each category. The paper discusses the development, design, and implementation of the prototype OEM ISM. PMID:8130548

Passage relevance models for genomics search.

PubMed

Urbain, Jay; Frieder, Ophir; Goharian, Nazli

2009-03-19

We present a passage relevance model for integrating syntactic and semantic evidence of biomedical concepts and topics using a probabilistic graphical model. Component models of topics, concepts, terms, and document are represented as potential functions within a Markov Random Field. The probability of a passage being relevant to a biologist's information need is represented as the joint distribution across all potential functions. Relevance model feedback of top ranked passages is used to improve distributional estimates of query concepts and topics in context, and a dimensional indexing strategy is used for efficient aggregation of concept and term statistics. By integrating multiple sources of evidence including dependencies between topics, concepts, and terms, we seek to improve genomics literature passage retrieval precision. Using this model, we are able to demonstrate statistically significant improvements in retrieval precision using a large genomics literature corpus.

Concept-match medical data scrubbing. How pathology text can be used in research.

PubMed

Berman, Jules J

2003-06-01

In the normal course of activity, pathologists create and archive immense data sets of scientifically valuable information. Researchers need pathology-based data sets, annotated with clinical information and linked to archived tissues, to discover and validate new diagnostic tests and therapies. Pathology records can be used for research purposes (without obtaining informed patient consent for each use of each record), provided the data are rendered harmless. Large data sets can be made harmless through 3 computational steps: (1) deidentification, the removal or modification of data fields that can be used to identify a patient (name, social security number, etc); (2) rendering the data ambiguous, ensuring that every data record in a public data set has a nonunique set of characterizing data; and (3) data scrubbing, the removal or transformation of words in free text that can be used to identify persons or that contain information that is incriminating or otherwise private. This article addresses the problem of data scrubbing. To design and implement a general algorithm that scrubs pathology free text, removing all identifying or private information. The Concept-Match algorithm steps through confidential text. When a medical term matching a standard nomenclature term is encountered, the term is replaced by a nomenclature code and a synonym for the original term. When a high-frequency "stop" word, such as a, an, the, or for, is encountered, it is left in place. When any other word is encountered, it is blocked and replaced by asterisks. This produces a scrubbed text. An open-source implementation of the algorithm is freely available. The Concept-Match scrub method transformed pathology free text into scrubbed output that preserved the sense of the original sentences, while it blocked terms that did not match terms found in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). The scrubbed product is safe, in the restricted sense that the output retains only standard medical terms. The software implementation scrubbed more than half a million surgical pathology report phrases in less than an hour. Computerized scrubbing can render the textual portion of a pathology report harmless for research purposes. Scrubbing and deidentification methods allow pathologists to create and use large pathology databases to conduct medical research.

A novel method for detecting light source for digital images forensic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roy, A. K.; Mitra, S. K.; Agrawal, R.

2011-06-01

Manipulation in image has been in practice since centuries. These manipulated images are intended to alter facts — facts of ethics, morality, politics, sex, celebrity or chaos. Image forensic science is used to detect these manipulations in a digital image. There are several standard ways to analyze an image for manipulation. Each one has some limitation. Also very rarely any method tried to capitalize on the way image was taken by the camera. We propose a new method that is based on light and its shade as light and shade are the fundamental input resources that may carry all the information of the image. The proposed method measures the direction of light source and uses the light based technique for identification of any intentional partial manipulation in the said digital image. The method is tested for known manipulated images to correctly identify the light sources. The light source of an image is measured in terms of angle. The experimental results show the robustness of the methodology.

Source environment feature related phylogenetic distribution pattern of anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria as revealed by pufM analysis.

PubMed

Zeng, Yonghui; Jiao, Nianzhi

2007-06-01

Anoxygenic photosynthesis, performed primarily by anoxygenic photosynthetic bacteria (APB), has been supposed to arise on Earth more than 3 billion years ago. The long established APB are distributed in almost every corner where light can reach. However, the relationship between APB phylogeny and source environments has been largely unexplored. Here we retrieved the pufM sequences and related source information of 89 pufM containing species from the public database. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) most likely occurred within 11 out of a total 21 pufM subgroups, not only among species within the same class but also among species of different phyla or subphyla. A clear source environment feature related phylogenetic distribution pattern was observed, with all species from oxic habitats and those from anoxic habitats clustering into independent subgroups, respectively. HGT among ancient APB and subsequent long term evolution and adaptation to separated niches may have contributed to the coupling of environment and pufM phylogeny.

Piecewise synonyms for enhanced UMLS source terminology integration.

PubMed

Huang, Kuo-Chuan; Geller, James; Halper, Michael; Cimino, James J

2007-10-11

The UMLS contains more than 100 source vocabularies and is growing via the integration of others. When integrating a new source, the source terms already in the UMLS must first be found. The easiest approach to this is simple string matching. However, string matching usually does not find all concepts that should be found. A new methodology, based on the notion of piecewise synonyms, for enhancing the process of concept discovery in the UMLS is presented. This methodology is supported by first creating a general synonym dictionary based on the UMLS. Each multi-word source term is decomposed into its component words, allowing for the generation of separate synonyms for each word from the general synonym dictionary. The recombination of these synonyms into new terms creates an expanded pool of matching candidates for terms from the source. The methodology is demonstrated with respect to an existing UMLS source. It shows a 34% improvement over simple string matching.

Partial independence of bioelectric and biomagnetic fields and its implications for encephalography and cardiography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Irimia, Andrei; Swinney, Kenneth R.; Wikswo, John P.

2009-05-01

In this paper, we clearly demonstrate that the electric potential and the magnetic field can contain different information about current sources in three-dimensional conducting media. Expressions for the magnetic fields of electric dipole and quadrupole current sources immersed in an infinite conducting medium are derived, and it is shown that two different point dipole distributions that are electrically equivalent have different magnetic fields. Although measurements of the electric potential are not sufficient to determine uniquely the characteristics of a quadrupolar source, the radial component of the magnetic field can supply the additional information needed to resolve these ambiguities and to determine uniquely the configuration of dipoles required to specify the electric quadrupoles. We demonstrate how the process can be extended to even higher-order terms in an electrically silent series of magnetic multipoles. In the context of a spherical brain source model, it has been mathematically demonstrated that the part of the neuronal current generating the electric potential lives in the orthogonal complement of the part of the current generating the magnetic potential. This implies a mathematical relationship of complementarity between electroencephalography and magnetoencephalography, although the theoretical result in question does not apply to the nonspherical case [G. Dassios, Math. Med. Biol. 25, 133 (2008)]. Our results have important practical applications in cases where electrically silent sources that generate measurable magnetic fields are of interest. Moreover, electrically silent, magnetically active moments of higher order can be useful when cancellation due to superposition of fields can occur, since this situation leads to a substantial reduction in the measurable amplitude of the signal. In this context, information derived from magnetic recordings of electrically silent, magnetically active multipoles can supplement electrical recordings for the purpose of studying the physiology of the brain. Magnetic fields of the electric multipole sources in a conducting medium surrounded by an insulating spherical shell are also presented and the relevance of this calculation to cardiographic and encephalographic experimentation is discussed.

The Price of Fame: The Impact of Stimulus Familiarity on Proactive Interference Resolution

PubMed Central

Prabhakaran, Ranjani; Thompson-Schill, Sharon L.

2013-01-01

Interference from previously learned information, known as proactive interference (PI), limits our memory retrieval abilities. Previous studies of PI resolution have focused on the role of short-term familiarity, or recency, in causing PI. In the present study, we investigated the impact of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution processes. In two behavioral experiments and one event-related fMRI experiment, long-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of famous and nonfamous stimuli, and short-term familiarity was manipulated through the use of recent and nonrecent probe items in an item recognition task. The right middle frontal gyrus demonstrated greater sensitivity to famous stimuli, suggesting that long-term stimulus familiarity plays a role in influencing PI resolution processes. Further examination of the effect of long-term stimulus familiarity on PI resolution revealed a larger behavioral interference effect for famous stimuli, but only under speeded response conditions. Thus, models of memory retrieval—and of the cognitive control mechanisms that guide retrieval processes—should consider the impact of and interactions among sources of familiarity on multiple time scales. PMID:20429858