WorldWideScience

Sample records for clinical text analysis

  1. Beyond Readability: Investigating Coherence of Clinical Text for Consumers

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    Hetzel, Scott; Dalrymple, Prudence; Keselman, Alla

    2011-01-01

    Background A basic tenet of consumer health informatics is that understandable health resources empower the public. Text comprehension holds great promise for helping to characterize consumer problems in understanding health texts. The need for efficient ways to assess consumer-oriented health texts and the availability of computationally supported tools led us to explore the effect of various text characteristics on readers’ understanding of health texts, as well as to develop novel approaches to assessing these characteristics. Objective The goal of this study was to compare the impact of two different approaches to enhancing readability, and three interventions, on individuals’ comprehension of short, complex passages of health text. Methods Participants were 80 university staff, faculty, or students. Each participant was asked to “retell” the content of two health texts: one a clinical trial in the domain of diabetes mellitus, and the other typical Visit Notes. These texts were transformed for the intervention arms of the study. Two interventions provided terminology support via (1) standard dictionary or (2) contextualized vocabulary definitions. The third intervention provided coherence improvement. We assessed participants’ comprehension of the clinical texts through propositional analysis, an open-ended questionnaire, and analysis of the number of errors made. Results For the clinical trial text, the effect of text condition was not significant in any of the comparisons, suggesting no differences in recall, despite the varying levels of support (P = .84). For the Visit Note, however, the difference in the median total propositions recalled between the Coherent and the (Original + Dictionary) conditions was significant (P = .04). This suggests that participants in the Coherent condition recalled more of the original Visit Notes content than did participants in the Original and the Dictionary conditions combined. However, no difference was seen

  2. [Systematic Readability Analysis of Medical Texts on Websites of German University Clinics for General and Abdominal Surgery].

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    Esfahani, B Janghorban; Faron, A; Roth, K S; Grimminger, P P; Luers, J C

    2016-12-01

    Background: Besides the function as one of the main contact points, websites of hospitals serve as medical information portals. As medical information texts should be understood by any patients independent of the literacy skills and educational level, online texts should have an appropriate structure to ease understandability. Materials and Methods: Patient information texts on websites of clinics for general surgery at German university hospitals (n = 36) were systematically analysed. For 9 different surgical topics representative medical information texts were extracted from each website. Using common readability tools and 5 different readability indices the texts were analysed concerning their readability and structure. The analysis was furthermore stratified in relation to geographical regions in Germany. Results: For the definite analysis the texts of 196 internet websites could be used. On average the texts consisted of 25 sentences and 368 words. The reading analysis tools congruously showed that all texts showed a rather low readability demanding a high literacy level from the readers. Conclusion: Patient information texts on German university hospital websites are difficult to understand for most patients. To fulfill the ambition of informing the general population in an adequate way about medical issues, a revision of most medical texts on websites of German surgical hospitals is recommended. Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  3. Text analysis methods, text analysis apparatuses, and articles of manufacture

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    Whitney, Paul D; Willse, Alan R; Lopresti, Charles A; White, Amanda M

    2014-10-28

    Text analysis methods, text analysis apparatuses, and articles of manufacture are described according to some aspects. In one aspect, a text analysis method includes accessing information indicative of data content of a collection of text comprising a plurality of different topics, using a computing device, analyzing the information indicative of the data content, and using results of the analysis, identifying a presence of a new topic in the collection of text.

  4. Semi-spontaneous oral text production: measurements in clinical practice.

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    Lind, Marianne; Kristoffersen, Kristian Emil; Moen, Inger; Simonsen, Hanne Gram

    2009-12-01

    Functionally relevant assessment of the language production of speakers with aphasia should include assessment of connected speech production. Despite the ecological validity of everyday conversations, more controlled and monological types of texts may be easier to obtain and analyse in clinical practice. This article discusses some simple measurements for the analysis of semi-spontaneous oral text production by speakers with aphasia. Specifically, the measurements are related to the production of verbs and nouns, and the realization of different sentence types. The proposed measurements should be clinically relevant, easily applicable, and linguistically meaningful. The measurements have been applied to oral descriptions of the 'Cookie Theft' picture by eight monolingual Norwegian speakers, four with an anomic type of aphasia and four without any type of language impairment. Despite individual differences in both the clinical and the non-clinical group, most of the measurements seem to distinguish between speakers with and without aphasia.

  5. Entity recognition from clinical texts via recurrent neural network.

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    Liu, Zengjian; Yang, Ming; Wang, Xiaolong; Chen, Qingcai; Tang, Buzhou; Wang, Zhe; Xu, Hua

    2017-07-05

    Entity recognition is one of the most primary steps for text analysis and has long attracted considerable attention from researchers. In the clinical domain, various types of entities, such as clinical entities and protected health information (PHI), widely exist in clinical texts. Recognizing these entities has become a hot topic in clinical natural language processing (NLP), and a large number of traditional machine learning methods, such as support vector machine and conditional random field, have been deployed to recognize entities from clinical texts in the past few years. In recent years, recurrent neural network (RNN), one of deep learning methods that has shown great potential on many problems including named entity recognition, also has been gradually used for entity recognition from clinical texts. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate the performance of LSTM (long-short term memory), a representative variant of RNN, on clinical entity recognition and protected health information recognition. The LSTM model consists of three layers: input layer - generates representation of each word of a sentence; LSTM layer - outputs another word representation sequence that captures the context information of each word in this sentence; Inference layer - makes tagging decisions according to the output of LSTM layer, that is, outputting a label sequence. Experiments conducted on corpora of the 2010, 2012 and 2014 i2b2 NLP challenges show that LSTM achieves highest micro-average F1-scores of 85.81% on the 2010 i2b2 medical concept extraction, 92.29% on the 2012 i2b2 clinical event detection, and 94.37% on the 2014 i2b2 de-identification, which is considerably competitive with other state-of-the-art systems. LSTM that requires no hand-crafted feature has great potential on entity recognition from clinical texts. It outperforms traditional machine learning methods that suffer from fussy feature engineering. A possible future direction is how to integrate knowledge

  6. Directed Activities Related to Text: Text Analysis and Text Reconstruction.

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    Davies, Florence; Greene, Terry

    This paper describes Directed Activities Related to Text (DART), procedures that were developed and are used in the Reading for Learning Project at the University of Nottingham (England) to enhance learning from texts and that fall into two broad categories: (1) text analysis procedures, which require students to engage in some form of analysis of…

  7. Text de-identification for privacy protection: a study of its impact on clinical text information content.

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    Meystre, Stéphane M; Ferrández, Óscar; Friedlin, F Jeffrey; South, Brett R; Shen, Shuying; Samore, Matthew H

    2014-08-01

    As more and more electronic clinical information is becoming easier to access for secondary uses such as clinical research, approaches that enable faster and more collaborative research while protecting patient privacy and confidentiality are becoming more important. Clinical text de-identification offers such advantages but is typically a tedious manual process. Automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) methods can alleviate this process, but their impact on subsequent uses of the automatically de-identified clinical narratives has only barely been investigated. In the context of a larger project to develop and investigate automated text de-identification for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) clinical notes, we studied the impact of automated text de-identification on clinical information in a stepwise manner. Our approach started with a high-level assessment of clinical notes informativeness and formatting, and ended with a detailed study of the overlap of select clinical information types and Protected Health Information (PHI). To investigate the informativeness (i.e., document type information, select clinical data types, and interpretation or conclusion) of VHA clinical notes, we used five different existing text de-identification systems. The informativeness was only minimally altered by these systems while formatting was only modified by one system. To examine the impact of de-identification on clinical information extraction, we compared counts of SNOMED-CT concepts found by an open source information extraction application in the original (i.e., not de-identified) version of a corpus of VHA clinical notes, and in the same corpus after de-identification. Only about 1.2-3% less SNOMED-CT concepts were found in de-identified versions of our corpus, and many of these concepts were PHI that was erroneously identified as clinical information. To study this impact in more details and assess how generalizable our findings were, we examined the overlap between

  8. Text and ideology: text-oriented discourse analysis

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    Maria Eduarda Gonçalves Peixoto

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The article aims to contribute to the understanding of the connection between text and ideology articulated by the text-oriented analysis of discourse (ADTO. Based on the reflections of Fairclough (1989, 2001, 2003 and Fairclough and Chouliaraki (1999, the debate presents the social ontology that ADTO uses to base its conception of social life as an open system and textually mediated; the article then explains the chronological-narrative development of the main critical theories of ideology, by virtue of which ADTO organizes the assumptions that underpin the particular use it makes of the term. Finally, the discussion presents the main aspects of the connection between text and ideology, offering a conceptual framework that can contribute to the domain of the theme according to a critical discourse analysis approach.

  9. From Text to Political Positions: Text analysis across disciplines

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    Kaal, A.R.; Maks, I.; van Elfrinkhof, A.M.E.

    2014-01-01

    ABSTRACT From Text to Political Positions addresses cross-disciplinary innovation in political text analysis for party positioning. Drawing on political science, computational methods and discourse analysis, it presents a diverse collection of analytical models including pure quantitative and

  10. Assigning clinical codes with data-driven concept representation on Dutch clinical free text.

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    Scheurwegs, Elyne; Luyckx, Kim; Luyten, Léon; Goethals, Bart; Daelemans, Walter

    2017-05-01

    Clinical codes are used for public reporting purposes, are fundamental to determining public financing for hospitals, and form the basis for reimbursement claims to insurance providers. They are assigned to a patient stay to reflect the diagnosis and performed procedures during that stay. This paper aims to enrich algorithms for automated clinical coding by taking a data-driven approach and by using unsupervised and semi-supervised techniques for the extraction of multi-word expressions that convey a generalisable medical meaning (referred to as concepts). Several methods for extracting concepts from text are compared, two of which are constructed from a large unannotated corpus of clinical free text. A distributional semantic model (i.c. the word2vec skip-gram model) is used to generalize over concepts and retrieve relations between them. These methods are validated on three sets of patient stay data, in the disease areas of urology, cardiology, and gastroenterology. The datasets are in Dutch, which introduces a limitation on available concept definitions from expert-based ontologies (e.g. UMLS). The results show that when expert-based knowledge in ontologies is unavailable, concepts derived from raw clinical texts are a reliable alternative. Both concepts derived from raw clinical texts perform and concepts derived from expert-created dictionaries outperform a bag-of-words approach in clinical code assignment. Adding features based on tokens that appear in a semantically similar context has a positive influence for predicting diagnostic codes. Furthermore, the experiments indicate that a distributional semantics model can find relations between semantically related concepts in texts but also introduces erroneous and redundant relations, which can undermine clinical coding performance. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  11. It’s about This and That: A Description of Anaphoric Expressions in Clinical Text

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    Wang, Yan; Melton, Genevieve B.; Pakhomov, Serguei

    2011-01-01

    Although anaphoric expressions are very common in biomedical and clinical documents, little work has been done to systematically characterize their use in clinical text. Samples of ‘it’, ‘this’, and ‘that’ expressions occurring in inpatient clinical notes from four metropolitan hospitals were analyzed using a combination of semi-automated and manual annotation techniques. We developed a rule-based approach to filter potential non-referential expressions. A physician then manually annotated 1000 potential referential instances to determine referent status and the antecedent of each referent expression. A distributional analysis of the three referring expressions in the entire corpus of notes demonstrates a high prevalence of anaphora and large variance in distributions of referential expressions with different notes. Our results confirm that anaphoric expressions are common in clinical texts. Effective co-reference resolution with anaphoric expressions remains an important challenge in medical natural language processing research. PMID:22195211

  12. Text Analysis: Critical Component of Planning for Text-Based Discussion Focused on Comprehension of Informational Texts

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    Kucan, Linda; Palincsar, Annemarie Sullivan

    2018-01-01

    This investigation focuses on a tool used in a reading methods course to introduce reading specialist candidates to text analysis as a critical component of planning for text-based discussions. Unlike planning that focuses mainly on important text content or information, a text analysis approach focuses both on content and how that content is…

  13. Building a comprehensive syntactic and semantic corpus of Chinese clinical texts.

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    He, Bin; Dong, Bin; Guan, Yi; Yang, Jinfeng; Jiang, Zhipeng; Yu, Qiubin; Cheng, Jianyi; Qu, Chunyan

    2017-05-01

    To build a comprehensive corpus covering syntactic and semantic annotations of Chinese clinical texts with corresponding annotation guidelines and methods as well as to develop tools trained on the annotated corpus, which supplies baselines for research on Chinese texts in the clinical domain. An iterative annotation method was proposed to train annotators and to develop annotation guidelines. Then, by using annotation quality assurance measures, a comprehensive corpus was built, containing annotations of part-of-speech (POS) tags, syntactic tags, entities, assertions, and relations. Inter-annotator agreement (IAA) was calculated to evaluate the annotation quality and a Chinese clinical text processing and information extraction system (CCTPIES) was developed based on our annotated corpus. The syntactic corpus consists of 138 Chinese clinical documents with 47,426 tokens and 2612 full parsing trees, while the semantic corpus includes 992 documents that annotated 39,511 entities with their assertions and 7693 relations. IAA evaluation shows that this comprehensive corpus is of good quality, and the system modules are effective. The annotated corpus makes a considerable contribution to natural language processing (NLP) research into Chinese texts in the clinical domain. However, this corpus has a number of limitations. Some additional types of clinical text should be introduced to improve corpus coverage and active learning methods should be utilized to promote annotation efficiency. In this study, several annotation guidelines and an annotation method for Chinese clinical texts were proposed, and a comprehensive corpus with its NLP modules were constructed, providing a foundation for further study of applying NLP techniques to Chinese texts in the clinical domain. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  14. Individual Profiling Using Text Analysis

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    2016-04-15

    AFRL-AFOSR-UK-TR-2016-0011 Individual Profiling using Text Analysis 140333 Mark Stevenson UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY Final...REPORT TYPE      Final 3.  DATES COVERED (From - To)      15 Sep 2014 to 14 Sep 2015 4.  TITLE AND SUBTITLE Individual Profiling using Text Analysis ...consisted of collections of tweets for a number of Twitter users whose gender, age and personality scores are known. The task was to construct some system

  15. Privacy protected text analysis in DataSHIELD

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    Rebecca Wilson

    2017-04-01

    Whilst it is possible to analyse free text within a DataSHIELD infrastructure, the challenge is creating generalised and resilient anti-disclosure methods for free text analysis. There are a range of biomedical and health sciences applications for DataSHIELD methods of privacy protected analysis of free text including analysis of electronic health records and analysis of qualitative data e.g. from social media.

  16. Improving Terminology Mapping in Clinical Text with Context-Sensitive Spelling Correction.

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    Dziadek, Juliusz; Henriksson, Aron; Duneld, Martin

    2017-01-01

    The mapping of unstructured clinical text to an ontology facilitates meaningful secondary use of health records but is non-trivial due to lexical variation and the abundance of misspellings in hurriedly produced notes. Here, we apply several spelling correction methods to Swedish medical text and evaluate their impact on SNOMED CT mapping; first in a controlled evaluation using medical literature text with induced errors, followed by a partial evaluation on clinical notes. It is shown that the best-performing method is context-sensitive, taking into account trigram frequencies and utilizing a corpus-based dictionary.

  17. Automated analysis of instructional text

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    Norton, L.M.

    1983-05-01

    The development of a capability for automated processing of natural language text is a long-range goal of artificial intelligence. This paper discusses an investigation into the issues involved in the comprehension of descriptive, as opposed to illustrative, textual material. The comprehension process is viewed as the conversion of knowledge from one representation into another. The proposed target representation consists of statements of the prolog language, which can be interpreted both declaratively and procedurally, much like production rules. A computer program has been written to model in detail some ideas about this process. The program successfully analyzes several heavily edited paragraphs adapted from an elementary textbook on programming, automatically synthesizing as a result of the analysis a working Prolog program which, when executed, can parse and interpret let commands in the basic language. The paper discusses the motivations and philosophy of the project, the many kinds of prerequisite knowledge which are necessary, and the structure of the text analysis program. A sentence-by-sentence account of the analysis of the sample text is presented, describing the syntactic and semantic processing which is involved. The paper closes with a discussion of lessons learned from the project, possible alternative approaches, and possible extensions for future work. The entire project is presented as illustrative of the nature and complexity of the text analysis process, rather than as providing definitive or optimal solutions to any aspects of the task. 12 references.

  18. An exploratory analysis of PubMed's free full-text limit on citation retrieval for clinical questions.

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    Krieger, Mary M; Richter, Randy R; Austin, Tricia M

    2008-10-01

    The research sought to determine (1) how use of the PubMed free full-text (FFT) limit affects citation retrieval and (2) how use of the FFT limit impacts the types of articles and levels of evidence retrieved. Four clinical questions based on a research agenda for physical therapy were searched in PubMed both with and without the use of the FFT limit. Retrieved citations were examined for relevancy to each question. Abstracts of relevant citations were reviewed to determine the types of articles and levels of evidence. Descriptive analysis was used to compare the total number of citations, number of relevant citations, types of articles, and levels of evidence both with and without the use of the FFT limit. Across all 4 questions, the FFT limit reduced the number of citations to 11.1% of the total number of citations retrieved without the FFT limit. Additionally, high-quality evidence such as systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials were missed when the FFT limit was used. Health sciences librarians play a key role in educating users about the potential impact the FFT limit has on the number of citations, types of articles, and levels of evidence retrieved.

  19. Electrochemical Sensors for Clinic Analysis

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    Guang Li

    2008-03-01

    Full Text Available Demanded by modern medical diagnosis, advances in microfabrication technology have led to the development of fast, sensitive and selective electrochemical sensors for clinic analysis. This review addresses the principles behind electrochemical sensor design and fabrication, and introduces recent progress in the application of electrochemical sensors to analysis of clinical chemicals such as blood gases, electrolytes, metabolites, DNA and antibodies, including basic and applied research. Miniaturized commercial electrochemical biosensors will form the basis of inexpensive and easy to use devices for acquiring chemical information to bring sophisticated analytical capabilities to the non-specialist and general public alike in the future.

  20. CUILESS2016: a clinical corpus applying compositional normalization of text mentions.

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    Osborne, John D; Neu, Matthew B; Danila, Maria I; Solorio, Thamar; Bethard, Steven J

    2018-01-10

    Traditionally text mention normalization corpora have normalized concepts to single ontology identifiers ("pre-coordinated concepts"). Less frequently, normalization corpora have used concepts with multiple identifiers ("post-coordinated concepts") but the additional identifiers have been restricted to a defined set of relationships to the core concept. This approach limits the ability of the normalization process to express semantic meaning. We generated a freely available corpus using post-coordinated concepts without a defined set of relationships that we term "compositional concepts" to evaluate their use in clinical text. We annotated 5397 disorder mentions from the ShARe corpus to SNOMED CT that were previously normalized as "CUI-less" in the "SemEval-2015 Task 14" shared task because they lacked a pre-coordinated mapping. Unlike the previous normalization method, we do not restrict concept mappings to a particular set of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) semantic types and allow normalization to occur to multiple UMLS Concept Unique Identifiers (CUIs). We computed annotator agreement and assessed semantic coverage with this method. We generated the largest clinical text normalization corpus to date with mappings to multiple identifiers and made it freely available. All but 8 of the 5397 disorder mentions were normalized using this methodology. Annotator agreement ranged from 52.4% using the strictest metric (exact matching) to 78.2% using a hierarchical agreement that measures the overlap of shared ancestral nodes. Our results provide evidence that compositional concepts can increase semantic coverage in clinical text. To our knowledge we provide the first freely available corpus of compositional concept annotation in clinical text.

  1. Systematic text condensation: a strategy for qualitative analysis.

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    Malterud, Kirsti

    2012-12-01

    To present background, principles, and procedures for a strategy for qualitative analysis called systematic text condensation and discuss this approach compared with related strategies. Giorgi's psychological phenomenological analysis is the point of departure and inspiration for systematic text condensation. The basic elements of Giorgi's method and the elaboration of these in systematic text condensation are presented, followed by a detailed description of procedures for analysis according to systematic text condensation. Finally, similarities and differences compared with other frequently applied methods for qualitative analysis are identified, as the foundation of a discussion of strengths and limitations of systematic text condensation. Systematic text condensation is a descriptive and explorative method for thematic cross-case analysis of different types of qualitative data, such as interview studies, observational studies, and analysis of written texts. The method represents a pragmatic approach, although inspired by phenomenological ideas, and various theoretical frameworks can be applied. The procedure consists of the following steps: 1) total impression - from chaos to themes; 2) identifying and sorting meaning units - from themes to codes; 3) condensation - from code to meaning; 4) synthesizing - from condensation to descriptions and concepts. Similarities and differences comparing systematic text condensation with other frequently applied qualitative methods regarding thematic analysis, theoretical methodological framework, analysis procedures, and taxonomy are discussed. Systematic text condensation is a strategy for analysis developed from traditions shared by most of the methods for analysis of qualitative data. The method offers the novice researcher a process of intersubjectivity, reflexivity, and feasibility, while maintaining a responsible level of methodological rigour.

  2. Rhetorical structure theory and text analysis

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    Mann, William C.; Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M.; Thompson, Sandra A.

    1989-11-01

    Recent research on text generation has shown that there is a need for stronger linguistic theories that tell in detail how texts communicate. The prevailing theories are very difficult to compare, and it is also very difficult to see how they might be combined into stronger theories. To make comparison and combination a bit more approachable, we have created a book which is designed to encourage comparison. A dozen different authors or teams, all experienced in discourse research, are given exactly the same text to analyze. The text is an appeal for money by a lobbying organization in Washington, DC. It informs, stimulates and manipulates the reader in a fascinating way. The joint analysis is far more insightful than any one team's analysis alone. This paper is our contribution to the book. Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), the focus of this paper, is a way to account for the functional potential of text, its capacity to achieve the purposes of speakers and produce effects in hearers. It also shows a way to distinguish coherent texts from incoherent ones, and identifies consequences of text structure.

  3. Semi-Spontaneous Oral Text Production: Measurements in Clinical Practice

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    Lind, Marianne; Kristoffersen, Kristian Emil; Moen, Inger; Simonsen, Hanne Gram

    2009-01-01

    Functionally relevant assessment of the language production of speakers with aphasia should include assessment of connected speech production. Despite the ecological validity of everyday conversations, more controlled and monological types of texts may be easier to obtain and analyse in clinical practice. This article discusses some simple…

  4. The Relationship between Paraphrasing and Text Analysis

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    María Luisa Cepeda Islas

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available Given the importance of paraphrasing in the process of comprehension for college students, this study assessed the level of implementation of text analysis and paraphrases the response of a sample of senior students of the career psychology. We selected a group of freshmen to the Psychology course, which was asked to answer a questionnaire and carry out the summary of an empirical article. The results showed that participants have a low level of text analysis, at the same time had low levels of paraphrasing. It was seen that the predominant textual copy. They envision some possibilities for the structure of a training workshop not only paraphrasing but on the analysis of text.

  5. Text analysis with R for students of literature

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    Jockers, Matthew L

    2014-01-01

    Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature is written with students and scholars of literature in mind but will be applicable to other humanists and social scientists wishing to extend their methodological tool kit to include quantitative and computational approaches to the study of text. Computation provides access to information in text that we simply cannot gather using traditional qualitative methods of close reading and human synthesis. Text Analysis with R for Students of Literature provides a practical introduction to computational text analysis using the open source programming language R. R is extremely popular throughout the sciences and because of its accessibility, R is now used increasingly in other research areas. Readers begin working with text right away and each chapter works through a new technique or process such that readers gain a broad exposure to core R procedures and a basic understanding of the possibilities of computational text analysis at both the micro and macro scale. Each c...

  6. [Text mining, a method for computer-assisted analysis of scientific texts, demonstrated by an analysis of author networks].

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    Hahn, P; Dullweber, F; Unglaub, F; Spies, C K

    2014-06-01

    Searching for relevant publications is becoming more difficult with the increasing number of scientific articles. Text mining as a specific form of computer-based data analysis may be helpful in this context. Highlighting relations between authors and finding relevant publications concerning a specific subject using text analysis programs are illustrated graphically by 2 performed examples. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

  7. Using Texting for Clinical Communication in Surgery: A Survey of Academic Staff Surgeons.

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    Firdouse, Mohammed; Devon, Karen; Kayssi, Ahmed; Goldfarb, Jeremy; Rossos, Peter; Cil, Tulin D

    2018-03-01

    Text messaging has become ubiquitous and is being increasingly used within the health care system. The purpose of this study was to understand texting practices for clinical communication among staff surgeons at a large academic institution. Staff surgeons in 4 subspecialties (vascular, plastics, urology, and general surgery) were surveyed electronically. A total of 62 surgeons from general surgery (n = 33), vascular surgery (n = 6), plastic surgery (n = 13), and urology (n = 10) completed the study (response rate 30%). When conveying urgent patient-related information, staff surgeons preferred directly calling other staff surgeons (61.5%) and trainees (58.8%). When discussing routine patient information, staff surgeons used email to reach other staff surgeons (54.9%) but preferred texting (62.7%) for trainees. The majority of participants used texting because it is fast (65.4%), convenient (69.2%) and allows transmitting information to multiple recipients simultaneously (63.5%). Most felt that texting enhances patient care (71.5%); however, only half believed that it enhanced trainees' educational experiences. The majority believed that texting identifiable patient information breaches patient confidentiality. Our data showed high adoption of text messaging for clinical communication among surgeons, particularly with trainees. The majority of surgeons acknowledge security concerns inherent in texting for patient care. Existing mobile communication platforms fail to meet the needs of academic surgeons. Further research should include guidelines related to texting in clinical practice, educational implications of texting, and technologies to better meet the needs of clinicians working in an academic surgical settings.

  8. English Metafunction Analysis in Chemistry Text: Characterization of Scientific Text

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    Ahmad Amin Dalimunte, M.Hum

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The objectives of this research are to identify what Metafunctions are applied in chemistry text and how they characterize a scientific text. It was conducted by applying content analysis. The data for this research was a twelve-paragraph chemistry text. The data were collected by applying a documentary technique. The document was read and analyzed to find out the Metafunction. The data were analyzed by some procedures: identifying the types of process, counting up the number of the processes, categorizing and counting up the cohesion devices, classifying the types of modulation and determining modality value, finally counting up the number of sentences and clauses, then scoring the grammatical intricacy index. The findings of the research show that Material process (71of 100 is mostly used, circumstance of spatial location (26 of 56 is more dominant than the others. Modality (5 is less used in order to avoid from subjectivity. Impersonality is implied through less use of reference either pronouns (7 or demonstrative (7, conjunctions (60 are applied to develop ideas, and the total number of the clauses are found much more dominant (109 than the total number of the sentences (40 which results high grammatical intricacy index. The Metafunction found indicate that the chemistry text has fulfilled the characteristics of scientific or academic text which truly reflects it as a natural science.

  9. Profiling School Shooters: Automatic Text-Based Analysis

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    Yair eNeuman

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available School shooters present a challenge to both forensic psychiatry and law enforcement agencies. The relatively small number of school shooters, their various charateristics, and the lack of in-depth analysis of all of the shooters prior to the shooting add complexity to our understanding of this problem. In this short paper, we introduce a new methodology for automatically profiling school shooters. The methodology involves automatic analysis of texts and the production of several measures relevant for the identification of the shooters. Comparing texts written by six school shooters to 6056 texts written by a comparison group of male subjects, we found that the shooters' texts scored significantly higher on the Narcissistic Personality dimension as well as on the Humilated and Revengeful dimensions. Using a ranking/priorization procedure, similar to the one used for the automatic identification of sexual predators, we provide support for the validity and relevance of the proposed methodology.

  10. Clinical records anonymisation and text extraction (CRATE): an open-source software system.

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    Cardinal, Rudolf N

    2017-04-26

    Electronic medical records contain information of value for research, but contain identifiable and often highly sensitive confidential information. Patient-identifiable information cannot in general be shared outside clinical care teams without explicit consent, but anonymisation/de-identification allows research uses of clinical data without explicit consent. This article presents CRATE (Clinical Records Anonymisation and Text Extraction), an open-source software system with separable functions: (1) it anonymises or de-identifies arbitrary relational databases, with sensitivity and precision similar to previous comparable systems; (2) it uses public secure cryptographic methods to map patient identifiers to research identifiers (pseudonyms); (3) it connects relational databases to external tools for natural language processing; (4) it provides a web front end for research and administrative functions; and (5) it supports a specific model through which patients may consent to be contacted about research. Creation and management of a research database from sensitive clinical records with secure pseudonym generation, full-text indexing, and a consent-to-contact process is possible and practical using entirely free and open-source software.

  11. Real-Time Data Collection Using Text Messaging in a Primary Care Clinic.

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    Rai, Manisha; Moniz, Michelle H; Blaszczak, Julie; Richardson, Caroline R; Chang, Tammy

    2017-12-01

    The use of text messaging is nearly ubiquitous and represents a promising method of collecting data from diverse populations. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and acceptability of text message surveys in a clinical setting and to describe key lessons to minimize attrition. We obtained a convenience sample of individuals who entered the waiting room of a low-income, primary care clinic. Participants were asked to answer between 17 and 30 survey questions on a variety of health-related topics, including both open- and closed-ended questions. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the participants and determine the response rates. Bivariate analyses were used to identify predictors of incomplete surveys. Our convenience sample consisted of 461 individuals. Of those who attempted the survey, 80% (370/461) completed it in full. The mean age of respondents was 35.4 years (standard deviation = 12.4). Respondents were predominantly non-Hispanic black (42%) or non-Hispanic white (41%), female (75%), and with at least some college education (70%). Of those who completed the survey, 84% (312/370) reported willingness to do another text message survey. Those with incomplete surveys answered a median of nine questions before stopping. Smartphone users were less likely to leave the survey incomplete compared with non-smartphone users (p = 0.004). Text-message surveys are a feasible and acceptable method to collect real-time data among low-income, clinic-based populations. Offering participants a setting for immediate survey completion, minimizing survey length, simplifying questions, and allowing "free text" responses for all questions may optimize response rates.

  12. A Network Text Analysis of David Ayer’s Fury

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Starling David Hunter

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Network Text Analysis (NTA involves the creation of networks of words and/or concepts from linguistic data. Its key insight is that the position of words and concepts in a text network provides vital clues to the central and underlying themes of the text as a whole. Recent research has relied on inductive approaches to identify these themes. In this study we demonstrate a deductive approach that we apply to the screenplay of the 2014 World War II-era film Fury. Specifically, we first use genre expectations theory to establish prior expectations as to the key themes associated with war films. We then empirically test whether words and concepts associated with the most influentially-positioned nodes are consistent with themes common to the war-film genre. As predicted, we find that words and concepts associated with the least constrained nodes in the text network were significantly more likely to be associated with the war, action, and biography genres and significantly less likely to be associated with the mystery, science-fiction, fantasy, and film-noir genres. Keywords: content analysis, text analysis, network text analysis, semantic network analysis, film studies, screenplay, screenwriting, war movies, World War II, tanks

  13. Analysis Of Aspects Of Messages Hiding In Text Environments

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Afanasyeva Olesya

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In the work are researched problems, which arise during hiding of messages in text environments, being transmitted by electronic communication channels and the Internet. The analysis of selection of places in text environment (TE, which can be replaced by word from the message is performed. Selection and replacement of words in the text environment is implemented basing on semantic analysis of text fragment, consisting of the inserted word, and its environment in TE. For implementation of such analysis is used concept of semantic parameters of words coordination and semantic value of separate word. Are used well-known methods of determination of values of these parameters. This allows moving from quality level to quantitative level analysis of text fragments semantics during their modification by word substitution. Invisibility of embedded messages is ensured by providing preset values of the semantic cooperation parameter deviations.

  14. Text Analysis of Chemistry Thesis and Dissertation Titles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scalfani, Vincent F.

    2017-01-01

    Programmatic text analysis can be used to understand patterns and reveal trends in data that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to uncover with manual coding methods. This work uses programmatic text analysis, specifically term frequency counts, to study nearly 10,000 chemistry thesis and dissertation titles from 1911-2015. The thesis and…

  15. The database for aggregate analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov (AACT and subsequent regrouping by clinical specialty.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Asba Tasneem

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The ClinicalTrials.gov registry provides information regarding characteristics of past, current, and planned clinical studies to patients, clinicians, and researchers; in addition, registry data are available for bulk download. However, issues related to data structure, nomenclature, and changes in data collection over time present challenges to the aggregate analysis and interpretation of these data in general and to the analysis of trials according to clinical specialty in particular. Improving usability of these data could enhance the utility of ClinicalTrials.gov as a research resource. METHODS/PRINCIPAL RESULTS: The purpose of our project was twofold. First, we sought to extend the usability of ClinicalTrials.gov for research purposes by developing a database for aggregate analysis of ClinicalTrials.gov (AACT that contains data from the 96,346 clinical trials registered as of September 27, 2010. Second, we developed and validated a methodology for annotating studies by clinical specialty, using a custom taxonomy employing Medical Subject Heading (MeSH terms applied by an NLM algorithm, as well as MeSH terms and other disease condition terms provided by study sponsors. Clinical specialists reviewed and annotated MeSH and non-MeSH disease condition terms, and an algorithm was created to classify studies into clinical specialties based on both MeSH and non-MeSH annotations. False positives and false negatives were evaluated by comparing algorithmic classification with manual classification for three specialties. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The resulting AACT database features study design attributes parsed into discrete fields, integrated metadata, and an integrated MeSH thesaurus, and is available for download as Oracle extracts (.dmp file and text format. This publicly-accessible dataset will facilitate analysis of studies and permit detailed characterization and analysis of the U.S. clinical trials enterprise as a whole. In

  16. Smart Extraction and Analysis System for Clinical Research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Afzal, Muhammad; Hussain, Maqbool; Khan, Wajahat Ali; Ali, Taqdir; Jamshed, Arif; Lee, Sungyoung

    2017-05-01

    With the increasing use of electronic health records (EHRs), there is a growing need to expand the utilization of EHR data to support clinical research. The key challenge in achieving this goal is the unavailability of smart systems and methods to overcome the issue of data preparation, structuring, and sharing for smooth clinical research. We developed a robust analysis system called the smart extraction and analysis system (SEAS) that consists of two subsystems: (1) the information extraction system (IES), for extracting information from clinical documents, and (2) the survival analysis system (SAS), for a descriptive and predictive analysis to compile the survival statistics and predict the future chance of survivability. The IES subsystem is based on a novel permutation-based pattern recognition method that extracts information from unstructured clinical documents. Similarly, the SAS subsystem is based on a classification and regression tree (CART)-based prediction model for survival analysis. SEAS is evaluated and validated on a real-world case study of head and neck cancer. The overall information extraction accuracy of the system for semistructured text is recorded at 99%, while that for unstructured text is 97%. Furthermore, the automated, unstructured information extraction has reduced the average time spent on manual data entry by 75%, without compromising the accuracy of the system. Moreover, around 88% of patients are found in a terminal or dead state for the highest clinical stage of disease (level IV). Similarly, there is an ∼36% probability of a patient being alive if at least one of the lifestyle risk factors was positive. We presented our work on the development of SEAS to replace costly and time-consuming manual methods with smart automatic extraction of information and survival prediction methods. SEAS has reduced the time and energy of human resources spent unnecessarily on manual tasks.

  17. Clinical Reasoning in Medicine: A Concept Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shahram Yazdani

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Clinical reasoning plays an important role in the ability of physicians to make diagnoses and decisions. It is considered the physician’s most critical competence, but it is an ambiguous conceptin medicine that needs a clear analysis and definition. Our aim was to clarify the concept of clinical reasoning in medicine by identifying its components and to differentiate it from other similar concepts.It is necessary to have an operational definition of clinical reasoning, and its components must be precisely defined in order to design successful interventions and use it easily in future research.Methods: McKenna’s nine-step model was applied to facilitate the clarification of the concept of clinical reasoning. The literature for this concept analysis was retrieved from several databases, including Scopus, Elsevier, PubMed, ISI, ISC, Medline, and Google Scholar, for the years 1995– 2016 (until September 2016. An extensive search of the literature was conducted using the electronic database. Accordingly, 17 articles and one book were selected for the review. We applied McKenna’s method of concept analysis in studying clinical reasoning, so that definitional attributes, antecedents, and consequences of this concept were extracted.Results: Clinical reasoning has nine major attributes in medicine. These attributes include: (1 clinical reasoning as a cognitive process; (2 knowledge acquisition and application of different types of knowledge; (3 thinking as a part of the clinical reasoning process; (4 patient inputs; (5 contextdependent and domain-specific processes; (6 iterative and complex processes; (7 multi-modal cognitive processes; (8 professional principles; and (9 health system mandates. These attributes are influenced by the antecedents of workplace context, practice frames of reference, practice models of the practitioner, and clinical skills. The consequences of clinical reasoning are the metacognitive improvement of

  18. Feminism, biomedicine and the 'reproductive destiny' of women in clinical texts on the birth control pill.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carson, Andrea

    2018-07-01

    The birth control pill is one of the most popular forms of contraception in North America and has been a key player in women's rights activism for over 50 years. In this paper, I conduct a feminist deconstructive analysis of 12 biomedical texts on the birth control pill, published between 1965 and 2016. This study is situated amongst the feminist scholarship that challenges the representation of women's bodies in biomedicine. Findings suggest that clinical texts on the birth control pill continue to universalise women's lives and experiences, and essentialise them based on their reproductive capacities. One way the texts accomplish this is by making women absent or passive in the literature thereby losing concern for the diversity of their lives, interpretations and identities as more than reproductive beings. The consequence of such representations is that biomedical texts disseminate limited forms of knowledge, in particular concerning definitions of 'natural' and 'normal' behaviour, with important consequences for the embodied experiences of women.

  19. [Technologies for Complex Intelligent Clinical Data Analysis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baranov, A A; Namazova-Baranova, L S; Smirnov, I V; Devyatkin, D A; Shelmanov, A O; Vishneva, E A; Antonova, E V; Smirnov, V I

    2016-01-01

    The paper presents the system for intelligent analysis of clinical information. Authors describe methods implemented in the system for clinical information retrieval, intelligent diagnostics of chronic diseases, patient's features importance and for detection of hidden dependencies between features. Results of the experimental evaluation of these methods are also presented. Healthcare facilities generate a large flow of both structured and unstructured data which contain important information about patients. Test results are usually retained as structured data but some data is retained in the form of natural language texts (medical history, the results of physical examination, and the results of other examinations, such as ultrasound, ECG or X-ray studies). Many tasks arising in clinical practice can be automated applying methods for intelligent analysis of accumulated structured array and unstructured data that leads to improvement of the healthcare quality. the creation of the complex system for intelligent data analysis in the multi-disciplinary pediatric center. Authors propose methods for information extraction from clinical texts in Russian. The methods are carried out on the basis of deep linguistic analysis. They retrieve terms of diseases, symptoms, areas of the body and drugs. The methods can recognize additional attributes such as "negation" (indicates that the disease is absent), "no patient" (indicates that the disease refers to the patient's family member, but not to the patient), "severity of illness", disease course", "body region to which the disease refers". Authors use a set of hand-drawn templates and various techniques based on machine learning to retrieve information using a medical thesaurus. The extracted information is used to solve the problem of automatic diagnosis of chronic diseases. A machine learning method for classification of patients with similar nosology and the methodfor determining the most informative patients'features are

  20. BoB, a best-of-breed automated text de-identification system for VHA clinical documents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferrández, Oscar; South, Brett R; Shen, Shuying; Friedlin, F Jeffrey; Samore, Matthew H; Meystre, Stéphane M

    2013-01-01

    De-identification allows faster and more collaborative clinical research while protecting patient confidentiality. Clinical narrative de-identification is a tedious process that can be alleviated by automated natural language processing methods. The goal of this research is the development of an automated text de-identification system for Veterans Health Administration (VHA) clinical documents. We devised a novel stepwise hybrid approach designed to improve the current strategies used for text de-identification. The proposed system is based on a previous study on the best de-identification methods for VHA documents. This best-of-breed automated clinical text de-identification system (aka BoB) tackles the problem as two separate tasks: (1) maximize patient confidentiality by redacting as much protected health information (PHI) as possible; and (2) leave de-identified documents in a usable state preserving as much clinical information as possible. We evaluated BoB with a manually annotated corpus of a variety of VHA clinical notes, as well as with the 2006 i2b2 de-identification challenge corpus. We present evaluations at the instance- and token-level, with detailed results for BoB's main components. Moreover, an existing text de-identification system was also included in our evaluation. BoB's design efficiently takes advantage of the methods implemented in its pipeline, resulting in high sensitivity values (especially for sensitive PHI categories) and a limited number of false positives. Our system successfully addressed VHA clinical document de-identification, and its hybrid stepwise design demonstrates robustness and efficiency, prioritizing patient confidentiality while leaving most clinical information intact.

  1. Automated Extraction of Substance Use Information from Clinical Texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yan; Chen, Elizabeth S; Pakhomov, Serguei; Arsoniadis, Elliot; Carter, Elizabeth W; Lindemann, Elizabeth; Sarkar, Indra Neil; Melton, Genevieve B

    2015-01-01

    Within clinical discourse, social history (SH) includes important information about substance use (alcohol, drug, and nicotine use) as key risk factors for disease, disability, and mortality. In this study, we developed and evaluated a natural language processing (NLP) system for automated detection of substance use statements and extraction of substance use attributes (e.g., temporal and status) based on Stanford Typed Dependencies. The developed NLP system leveraged linguistic resources and domain knowledge from a multi-site social history study, Propbank and the MiPACQ corpus. The system attained F-scores of 89.8, 84.6 and 89.4 respectively for alcohol, drug, and nicotine use statement detection, as well as average F-scores of 82.1, 90.3, 80.8, 88.7, 96.6, and 74.5 respectively for extraction of attributes. Our results suggest that NLP systems can achieve good performance when augmented with linguistic resources and domain knowledge when applied to a wide breadth of substance use free text clinical notes.

  2. Sentiment analysis of Arabic tweets using text mining techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Al-Horaibi, Lamia; Khan, Muhammad Badruddin

    2016-07-01

    Sentiment analysis has become a flourishing field of text mining and natural language processing. Sentiment analysis aims to determine whether the text is written to express positive, negative, or neutral emotions about a certain domain. Most sentiment analysis researchers focus on English texts, with very limited resources available for other complex languages, such as Arabic. In this study, the target was to develop an initial model that performs satisfactorily and measures Arabic Twitter sentiment by using machine learning approach, Naïve Bayes and Decision Tree for classification algorithms. The datasets used contains more than 2,000 Arabic tweets collected from Twitter. We performed several experiments to check the performance of the two algorithms classifiers using different combinations of text-processing functions. We found that available facilities for Arabic text processing need to be made from scratch or improved to develop accurate classifiers. The small functionalities developed by us in a Python language environment helped improve the results and proved that sentiment analysis in the Arabic domain needs lot of work on the lexicon side.

  3. Video- or text-based e-learning when teaching clinical procedures? A randomized controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buch, Steen Vigh; Treschow, Frederik Philip; Svendsen, Jesper Brink; Worm, Bjarne Skjødt

    2014-01-01

    This study investigated the effectiveness of two different levels of e-learning when teaching clinical skills to medical students. Sixty medical students were included and randomized into two comparable groups. The groups were given either a video- or text/picture-based e-learning module and subsequently underwent both theoretical and practical examination. A follow-up test was performed 1 month later. The students in the video group performed better than the illustrated text-based group in the practical examination, both in the primary test (Pvideo group performed better on the follow-up test (P=0.04). Video-based e-learning is superior to illustrated text-based e-learning when teaching certain practical clinical skills.

  4. Citation Sentiment Analysis in Clinical Trial Papers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Jun; Zhang, Yaoyun; Wu, Yonghui; Wang, Jingqi; Dong, Xiao; Xu, Hua

    2015-01-01

    In scientific writing, positive credits and negative criticisms can often be seen in the text mentioning the cited papers, providing useful information about whether a study can be reproduced or not. In this study, we focus on citation sentiment analysis, which aims to determine the sentiment polarity that the citation context carries towards the cited paper. A citation sentiment corpus was annotated first on clinical trial papers. The effectiveness of n-gram and sentiment lexicon features, and problem-specified structure features for citation sentiment analysis were then examined using the annotated corpus. The combined features from the word n-grams, the sentiment lexicons and the structure information achieved the highest Micro F-score of 0.860 and Macro-F score of 0.719, indicating that it is feasible to use machine learning methods for citation sentiment analysis in biomedical publications. A comprehensive comparison between citation sentiment analysis of clinical trial papers and other general domains were conducted, which additionally highlights the unique challenges within this domain.

  5. Video- or text-based e-learning when teaching clinical procedures? A randomized controlled trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Buch SV

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Steen Vigh Buch,1 Frederik Philip Treschow,2 Jesper Brink Svendsen,3 Bjarne Skjødt Worm4 1Department of Vascular Surgery, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, Denmark; 2Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Herlev Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark; 3Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; 4Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark Background and aims: This study investigated the effectiveness of two different levels of e-learning when teaching clinical skills to medical students. Materials and methods: Sixty medical students were included and randomized into two comparable groups. The groups were given either a video- or text/picture-based e-learning module and subsequently underwent both theoretical and practical examination. A follow-up test was performed 1 month later. Results: The students in the video group performed better than the illustrated text-based group in the practical examination, both in the primary test (P<0.001 and in the follow-up test (P<0.01. Regarding theoretical knowledge, no differences were found between the groups on the primary test, though the video group performed better on the follow-up test (P=0.04. Conclusion: Video-based e-learning is superior to illustrated text-based e-learning when teaching certain practical clinical skills. Keywords: e-learning, video versus text, medicine, clinical skills

  6. Text-mining analysis of mHealth research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zengul, Ferhat; Oner, Nurettin; Delen, Dursun

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, because of the advancements in communication and networking technologies, mobile technologies have been developing at an unprecedented rate. mHealth, the use of mobile technologies in medicine, and the related research has also surged parallel to these technological advancements. Although there have been several attempts to review mHealth research through manual processes such as systematic reviews, the sheer magnitude of the number of studies published in recent years makes this task very challenging. The most recent developments in machine learning and text mining offer some potential solutions to address this challenge by allowing analyses of large volumes of texts through semi-automated processes. The objective of this study is to analyze the evolution of mHealth research by utilizing text-mining and natural language processing (NLP) analyses. The study sample included abstracts of 5,644 mHealth research articles, which were gathered from five academic search engines by using search terms such as mobile health, and mHealth. The analysis used the Text Explorer module of JMP Pro 13 and an iterative semi-automated process involving tokenizing, phrasing, and terming. After developing the document term matrix (DTM) analyses such as single value decomposition (SVD), topic, and hierarchical document clustering were performed, along with the topic-informed document clustering approach. The results were presented in the form of word-clouds and trend analyses. There were several major findings regarding research clusters and trends. First, our results confirmed time-dependent nature of terminology use in mHealth research. For example, in earlier versus recent years the use of terminology changed from “mobile phone” to “smartphone” and from “applications” to “apps”. Second, ten clusters for mHealth research were identified including (I) Clinical Research on Lifestyle Management, (II) Community Health, (III) Literature Review, (IV) Medical

  7. Text-mining analysis of mHealth research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozaydin, Bunyamin; Zengul, Ferhat; Oner, Nurettin; Delen, Dursun

    2017-01-01

    In recent years, because of the advancements in communication and networking technologies, mobile technologies have been developing at an unprecedented rate. mHealth, the use of mobile technologies in medicine, and the related research has also surged parallel to these technological advancements. Although there have been several attempts to review mHealth research through manual processes such as systematic reviews, the sheer magnitude of the number of studies published in recent years makes this task very challenging. The most recent developments in machine learning and text mining offer some potential solutions to address this challenge by allowing analyses of large volumes of texts through semi-automated processes. The objective of this study is to analyze the evolution of mHealth research by utilizing text-mining and natural language processing (NLP) analyses. The study sample included abstracts of 5,644 mHealth research articles, which were gathered from five academic search engines by using search terms such as mobile health, and mHealth. The analysis used the Text Explorer module of JMP Pro 13 and an iterative semi-automated process involving tokenizing, phrasing, and terming. After developing the document term matrix (DTM) analyses such as single value decomposition (SVD), topic, and hierarchical document clustering were performed, along with the topic-informed document clustering approach. The results were presented in the form of word-clouds and trend analyses. There were several major findings regarding research clusters and trends. First, our results confirmed time-dependent nature of terminology use in mHealth research. For example, in earlier versus recent years the use of terminology changed from "mobile phone" to "smartphone" and from "applications" to "apps". Second, ten clusters for mHealth research were identified including (I) Clinical Research on Lifestyle Management, (II) Community Health, (III) Literature Review, (IV) Medical Interventions

  8. Clinical reasoning: concept analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simmons, Barbara

    2010-05-01

    This paper is a report of a concept analysis of clinical reasoning in nursing. Clinical reasoning is an ambiguous term that is often used synonymously with decision-making and clinical judgment. Clinical reasoning has not been clearly defined in the literature. Healthcare settings are increasingly filled with uncertainty, risk and complexity due to increased patient acuity, multiple comorbidities, and enhanced use of technology, all of which require clinical reasoning. Data sources. Literature for this concept analysis was retrieved from several databases, including CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, ERIC and OvidMEDLINE, for the years 1980 to 2008. Rodgers's evolutionary method of concept analysis was used because of its applicability to concepts that are still evolving. Multiple terms have been used synonymously to describe the thinking skills that nurses use. Research in the past 20 years has elucidated differences among these terms and identified the cognitive processes that precede judgment and decision-making. Our concept analysis defines one of these terms, 'clinical reasoning,' as a complex process that uses cognition, metacognition, and discipline-specific knowledge to gather and analyse patient information, evaluate its significance, and weigh alternative actions. This concept analysis provides a middle-range descriptive theory of clinical reasoning in nursing that helps clarify meaning and gives direction for future research. Appropriate instruments to operationalize the concept need to be developed. Research is needed to identify additional variables that have an impact on clinical reasoning and what are the consequences of clinical reasoning in specific situations.

  9. Using the patchwork text assessment as a vehicle for evaluating students' perceptions of their clinical leadership development.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leigh, J A; Rutherford, J; Wild, J; Cappleman, J; Hynes, C

    2012-01-01

    A shift in universities world wide in providing theoretical post graduate programmes of study underpinned by traditional assessment strategies to work based learning programmes supported by innovative assessment strategies is required if Higher education institutions are to effectively educate contemporary healthcare leaders. Concurrently generating the evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of educational programmes is required by commissioners of healthcare education (DH, 2010). This paper reports on the perceptions of twelve post graduate students attending a clinical leadership masters programme of their leadership development through analysis of the critical commentary provided by students as part of assessment strategy that utilised the Patchwork Text Assessment. Following a thematic content analysis six themes emerged: programme philosophy and its impact on the success of the Patchwork Text Assessment; leadership development targeted against leadership frameworks; application and applicability of learning to the students own healthcare organisation; integrating theory to practice through theoretical development and work based activities; the value of networking; and the importance of multi-professional reflective groups. This study has clearly demonstrated how the success of the Patchwork Text Assessment in promoting deep learning is determined by its integration into the overall philosophy of the programme. Concurrently systems needed to be in place to ensure that Patchwork text Assessment is operationalised effectively and embedded within the day to day management of the programme. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. DataToText: A Consumer-Oriented Approach to Data Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kenny, David A.

    2010-01-01

    DataToText is a project developed where the user communicates the relevant information for an analysis and DataToText computer routine produces text output that describes in words, tables, and figures the results from the analyses. Two extended examples are given, one an example of a moderator analysis and the other an example of a dyadic data…

  11. Identifying clinical course patterns in SMS data using cluster analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kent, Peter; Kongsted, Alice

    2012-01-01

    ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Recently, there has been interest in using the short message service (SMS or text messaging), to gather frequent information on the clinical course of individual patients. One possible role for identifying clinical course patterns is to assist in exploring clinically important...... showed that clinical course patterns can be identified by cluster analysis using all SMS time points as cluster variables. This method is simple, intuitive and does not require a high level of statistical skill. However, there are alternative ways of managing SMS data and many different methods...

  12. Practice-based evidence: profiling the safety of cilostazol by text-mining of clinical notes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicholas J Leeper

    Full Text Available Peripheral arterial disease (PAD is a growing problem with few available therapies. Cilostazol is the only FDA-approved medication with a class I indication for intermittent claudication, but carries a black box warning due to concerns for increased cardiovascular mortality. To assess the validity of this black box warning, we employed a novel text-analytics pipeline to quantify the adverse events associated with Cilostazol use in a clinical setting, including patients with congestive heart failure (CHF.We analyzed the electronic medical records of 1.8 million subjects from the Stanford clinical data warehouse spanning 18 years using a novel text-mining/statistical analytics pipeline. We identified 232 PAD patients taking Cilostazol and created a control group of 1,160 PAD patients not taking this drug using 1:5 propensity-score matching. Over a mean follow up of 4.2 years, we observed no association between Cilostazol use and any major adverse cardiovascular event including stroke (OR = 1.13, CI [0.82, 1.55], myocardial infarction (OR = 1.00, CI [0.71, 1.39], or death (OR = 0.86, CI [0.63, 1.18]. Cilostazol was not associated with an increase in any arrhythmic complication. We also identified a subset of CHF patients who were prescribed Cilostazol despite its black box warning, and found that it did not increase mortality in this high-risk group of patients.This proof of principle study shows the potential of text-analytics to mine clinical data warehouses to uncover 'natural experiments' such as the use of Cilostazol in CHF patients. We envision this method will have broad applications for examining difficult to test clinical hypotheses and to aid in post-marketing drug safety surveillance. Moreover, our observations argue for a prospective study to examine the validity of a drug safety warning that may be unnecessarily limiting the use of an efficacious therapy.

  13. Applying Active Learning to Assertion Classification of Concepts in Clinical Text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yukun; Mani, Subramani; Xu, Hua

    2012-01-01

    Supervised machine learning methods for clinical natural language processing (NLP) research require a large number of annotated samples, which are very expensive to build because of the involvement of physicians. Active learning, an approach that actively samples from a large pool, provides an alternative solution. Its major goal in classification is to reduce the annotation effort while maintaining the quality of the predictive model. However, few studies have investigated its uses in clinical NLP. This paper reports an application of active learning to a clinical text classification task: to determine the assertion status of clinical concepts. The annotated corpus for the assertion classification task in the 2010 i2b2/VA Clinical NLP Challenge was used in this study. We implemented several existing and newly developed active learning algorithms and assessed their uses. The outcome is reported in the global ALC score, based on the Area under the average Learning Curve of the AUC (Area Under the Curve) score. Results showed that when the same number of annotated samples was used, active learning strategies could generate better classification models (best ALC – 0.7715) than the passive learning method (random sampling) (ALC – 0.7411). Moreover, to achieve the same classification performance, active learning strategies required fewer samples than the random sampling method. For example, to achieve an AUC of 0.79, the random sampling method used 32 samples, while our best active learning algorithm required only 12 samples, a reduction of 62.5% in manual annotation effort. PMID:22127105

  14. Comparison of warfarin therapy clinical outcomes following implementation of an automated mobile phone-based critical laboratory value text alert system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Shu-Wen; Kang, Wen-Yi; Lin, Dong-Tsamn; Lee, James; Wu, Fe-Lin; Chen, Chuen-Liang; Tseng, Yufeng J

    2014-01-01

    Computerized alert and reminder systems have been widely accepted and applied to various patient care settings, with increasing numbers of clinical laboratories communicating critical laboratory test values to professionals via either manual notification or automated alerting systems/computerized reminders. Warfarin, an oral anticoagulant, exhibits narrow therapeutic range between treatment response and adverse events. It requires close monitoring of prothrombin time (PT)/international normalized ratio (INR) to ensure patient safety. This study was aimed to evaluate clinical outcomes of patients on warfarin therapy following implementation of a Personal Handy-phone System-based (PHS) alert system capable of generating and delivering text messages to communicate critical PT/INR laboratory results to practitioners' mobile phones in a large tertiary teaching hospital. A retrospective analysis was performed comparing patient clinical outcomes and physician prescribing behavior following conversion from a manual laboratory result alert system to an automated system. Clinical outcomes and practitioner responses to both alert systems were compared. Complications to warfarin therapy, warfarin utilization, and PT/INR results were evaluated for both systems, as well as clinician time to read alert messages, time to warfarin therapy modification, and monitoring frequency. No significant differences were detected in major hemorrhage and thromboembolism, warfarin prescribing patterns, PT/INR results, warfarin therapy modification, or monitoring frequency following implementation of the PHS text alert system. In both study periods, approximately 80% of critical results led to warfarin discontinuation or dose reduction. Senior physicians' follow-up response time to critical results was significantly decreased in the PHS alert study period (46.3% responded within 1 day) compared to the manual notification study period (24.7%; P = 0.015). No difference in follow-up response time

  15. Computer-aided System of Semantic Text Analysis of a Technical Specification

    OpenAIRE

    Zaboleeva-Zotova, Alla; Orlova, Yulia

    2008-01-01

    The given work is devoted to development of the computer-aided system of semantic text analysis of a technical specification. The purpose of this work is to increase efficiency of software engineering based on automation of semantic text analysis of a technical specification. In work it is offered and investigated the model of the analysis of the text of the technical project is submitted, the attribute grammar of a technical specification, intended for formalization of limited Ru...

  16. Inferring Group Processes from Computer-Mediated Affective Text Analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schryver, Jack C [ORNL; Begoli, Edmon [ORNL; Jose, Ajith [Missouri University of Science and Technology; Griffin, Christopher [Pennsylvania State University

    2011-02-01

    Political communications in the form of unstructured text convey rich connotative meaning that can reveal underlying group social processes. Previous research has focused on sentiment analysis at the document level, but we extend this analysis to sub-document levels through a detailed analysis of affective relationships between entities extracted from a document. Instead of pure sentiment analysis, which is just positive or negative, we explore nuances of affective meaning in 22 affect categories. Our affect propagation algorithm automatically calculates and displays extracted affective relationships among entities in graphical form in our prototype (TEAMSTER), starting with seed lists of affect terms. Several useful metrics are defined to infer underlying group processes by aggregating affective relationships discovered in a text. Our approach has been validated with annotated documents from the MPQA corpus, achieving a performance gain of 74% over comparable random guessers.

  17. Learning Semantic Tags from Big Data for Clinical Text Representation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yanpeng; Liu, Hongfang

    2015-01-01

    In clinical text mining, it is one of the biggest challenges to represent medical terminologies and n-gram terms in sparse medical reports using either supervised or unsupervised methods. Addressing this issue, we propose a novel method for word and n-gram representation at semantic level. We first represent each word by its distance with a set of reference features calculated by reference distance estimator (RDE) learned from labeled and unlabeled data, and then generate new features using simple techniques of discretization, random sampling and merging. The new features are a set of binary rules that can be interpreted as semantic tags derived from word and n-grams. We show that the new features significantly outperform classical bag-of-words and n-grams in the task of heart disease risk factor extraction in i2b2 2014 challenge. It is promising to see that semantics tags can be used to replace the original text entirely with even better prediction performance as well as derive new rules beyond lexical level.

  18. Challenges from variation across regions in cost effectiveness analysis in multi-regional clinical trials

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yunbo Chu

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Economic evaluation in the form of cost-effectiveness analysis has become a popular means to inform decisions in healthcare. With multi-regional clinical trials in a global development program becoming a new venue for drug efficacy testing in recent decades, questions in methods for cost-effectiveness analysis in the multi-regional clinical trials setting also emerge. This paper addresses some challenges from variation across regions in cost effectiveness analysis in multi-regional clinical trials. Several discussion points are raised for further attention and a multi-regional clinical trial example is presented to illustrate the implications in industrial application. A general message is delivered to call for a depth discussion by all stakeholders to reach an agreement on a good practice in cost-effectiveness analysis in the multi-regional clinical trials. Meanwhile, we recommend an additional consideration of cost-effectiveness analysis results based on the clinical evidence from a certain homogeneous population as sensitivity or scenario analysis upon data availability.

  19. Comprehension and Analysis of Information in Text: I. Construction and Evaluation of Brief Texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kozminsky, Ely; And Others

    This report describes a series of studies designed to construct and validate a set of text materials necessary to the pursuance of a long-term research project on information analysis and integration in semantically rich, naturalistic domains, primarily in the domain of the stock market. The methods and results of six separate experiments on…

  20. The clinical value of Huangqi injection in the treatment of leucopenia: a meta-analysis of clinical controlled trials.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Changsong Zhang

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Huangqi injection is derived from Astragalus membranaceus root. In China, recent reports of Huangqi injection for the treatment of leucopenia have emerged. However, a systematic review of these reports has not been performed. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis of clinical controlled trials to assess the clinical value of Huangqi injection in the treatment of leucopenia. METHODS: We searched the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM, Wanfang Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, Chinese Scientific Journals Full-text Database (VIP, as well as PubMed and EMBASE to collect the data about trials of Huangqi injection for treating leucopenia. A meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2 software. RESULTS: A total of 13 studies involving 841 patients were included in this study. The overall study quality was lower according to the Jadad scale. The meta-analysis showed that experimentally treated patients experienced greater therapeutic efficacy and lower white blood cell counts than control groups treated with Western medicine (P < 0.05. No publication bias was evident, according to Egger's test. CONCLUSIONS: The validity of this meta-analysis was limited by the overall poor quality of the included studies. Huangqi injection may have potential clinical value in the treatment of leucopenia, but confirmation with rigorously well-designed multi-center trials is needed.

  1. Gender Analysis On Islamic Texts: A Study On Its Accuracy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muchammad Ichsan

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Gender equality movement is spreading all over the world, including in Indonesia where Muslim gender activists have made hard efforts to ensure gender fairness and equality among people. One of their efforts is emphasizing the urgency of reinterpreting Islamic texts. They insist on the reinterpretation of Islamic texts based on gender perspective and analysis due to the existence of many Islamic texts that trespass the principles of gender equality and fairness they have been fighting for. This paper aims at assuring and examining the accuracy of using gender perspective as a tool for analyzing the Islamic text. It is found that using gender perspective and analysis for reinterpreting Islamic texts is not in line with the Islamic principles and will only produce laws and points of views which deviate from Islamic teachings. To reach the goals of this study, a descriptive-analytical approach is employed.

  2. Best practice for analysis of shared clinical trial data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sally Hollis

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Greater transparency, including sharing of patient-level data for further research, is an increasingly important topic for organisations who sponsor, fund and conduct clinical trials. This is a major paradigm shift with the aim of maximising the value of patient-level data from clinical trials for the benefit of future patients and society. We consider the analysis of shared clinical trial data in three broad categories: (1 reanalysis - further investigation of the efficacy and safety of the randomized intervention, (2 meta-analysis, and (3 supplemental analysis for a research question that is not directly assessing the randomized intervention. Discussion In order to support appropriate interpretation and limit the risk of misleading findings, analysis of shared clinical trial data should have a pre-specified analysis plan. However, it is not generally possible to limit bias and control multiplicity to the extent that is possible in the original trial design, conduct and analysis, and this should be acknowledged and taken into account when interpreting results. We highlight a number of areas where specific considerations arise in planning, conducting, interpreting and reporting analyses of shared clinical trial data. A key issue is that that these analyses essentially share many of the limitations of any post hoc analyses beyond the original specified analyses. The use of individual patient data in meta-analysis can provide increased precision and reduce bias. Supplemental analyses are subject to many of the same issues that arise in broader epidemiological analyses. Specific discussion topics are addressed within each of these areas. Summary Increased provision of patient-level data from industry and academic-led clinical trials for secondary research can benefit future patients and society. Responsible data sharing, including transparency of the research objectives, analysis plans and of the results will support appropriate

  3. [Clinical reasoning in nursing, concept analysis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Côté, Sarah; St-Cyr Tribble, Denise

    2012-12-01

    Nurses work in situations of complex care requiring great clinical reasoning abilities. In literature, clinical reasoning is often confused with other concepts and it has no consensual definition. To conduct a concept analysis of a nurse's clinical reasoning in order to clarify, define and distinguish it from the other concepts as well as to better understand clinical reasoning. Rodgers's method of concept analysis was used, after literature was retrieved with the use of clinical reasoning, concept analysis, nurse, intensive care and decision making as key-words. The use of cognition, cognitive strategies, a systematic approach of analysis and data interpretation, generating hypothesis and alternatives are attributes of clinical reasoning. The antecedents are experience, knowledge, memory, cues, intuition and data collection. The consequences are decision making, action, clues and problem resolution. This concept analysis helped to define clinical reasoning, to distinguish it from other concepts used synonymously and to guide future research.

  4. Practice-based evidence: profiling the safety of cilostazol by text-mining of clinical notes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leeper, Nicholas J; Bauer-Mehren, Anna; Iyer, Srinivasan V; Lependu, Paea; Olson, Cliff; Shah, Nigam H

    2013-01-01

    Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a growing problem with few available therapies. Cilostazol is the only FDA-approved medication with a class I indication for intermittent claudication, but carries a black box warning due to concerns for increased cardiovascular mortality. To assess the validity of this black box warning, we employed a novel text-analytics pipeline to quantify the adverse events associated with Cilostazol use in a clinical setting, including patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). We analyzed the electronic medical records of 1.8 million subjects from the Stanford clinical data warehouse spanning 18 years using a novel text-mining/statistical analytics pipeline. We identified 232 PAD patients taking Cilostazol and created a control group of 1,160 PAD patients not taking this drug using 1:5 propensity-score matching. Over a mean follow up of 4.2 years, we observed no association between Cilostazol use and any major adverse cardiovascular event including stroke (OR = 1.13, CI [0.82, 1.55]), myocardial infarction (OR = 1.00, CI [0.71, 1.39]), or death (OR = 0.86, CI [0.63, 1.18]). Cilostazol was not associated with an increase in any arrhythmic complication. We also identified a subset of CHF patients who were prescribed Cilostazol despite its black box warning, and found that it did not increase mortality in this high-risk group of patients. This proof of principle study shows the potential of text-analytics to mine clinical data warehouses to uncover 'natural experiments' such as the use of Cilostazol in CHF patients. We envision this method will have broad applications for examining difficult to test clinical hypotheses and to aid in post-marketing drug safety surveillance. Moreover, our observations argue for a prospective study to examine the validity of a drug safety warning that may be unnecessarily limiting the use of an efficacious therapy.

  5. DHARMAYATRA IN THE DWIJENDRA TATTWA TEXT ANALYSIS OF RECEPTION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ida Bagus Rai Putra

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available The object of the study is Dwijendra Text (hereinafter abbreviated to DT. It containsinteresting narrations and is importantly related to the dharmayatra, the holy religious journeymade by Dang Hyang Nirartha, the charismatic figure, in Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa. Beforethe analysis of reception was conducted, the corpus text of the DT texts completely andstructurally telling the religious journey made by Dang Hyang Nirartha was successfullydetermined. The analysis in this study was made to answer the following questions: what is thenarrative structure of the DT text; what are the enlightenment image entities of the dharmayatraof the DT text; how do people appreciate the dharmayatra of the DT text? The answers to thenarrative structure of the DT text; the image entities and the appreciation provided by people arethe main objectives of this study.The theories adopted in this study are the theory of reception introduced by Jauss, thetheory of semiotics introduced by Pierce and the theory of mythology introduced by Barthes. Asa qualitative study, the data needed were collected by the methods of observation, note taking,documentation and interview supported with a sound recorder and pictures. The results of theanalysis are informally presented, meaning that they are verbally described in the form of wordswhich are systematically composed based on the problems formulated in this study.The analysis of the narrative structure of the DT text contains narrative units which are inthe forms of theme, characters and plots. They all unite to form stories which are mythological,legendary, symbolic, hagiographic and suggestive in nature. Based on the analysis ofenlightenment image entities, it can be concluded that there are three basic entities leading to thecreation of the DT text. They are first enlightenment; second protection of Hinduism; and thirdconstruction of temple institutions. Based on the reception analysis, it can be concluded thatpeople, through

  6. Patient perspectives on delays in diagnosis and treatment of cancer: a qualitative analysis of free-text data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parsonage, Rachel K; Hiscock, Julia; Law, Rebecca-Jane; Neal, Richard D

    2017-01-01

    Earlier cancer diagnosis is crucial in improving cancer survival. The International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership Module 4 (ICBP4) is a quantitative survey study that explores the reasons for delays in diagnosis and treatment of breast, colorectal, lung, and ovarian cancer. To further understand the associated diagnostic processes, it is also important to explore the patient perspectives expressed in the free-text comments. To use the free-text data provided by patients completing the ICBP4 survey to augment the understanding of patients' perspectives of their diagnostic journey. Qualitative analysis of the free-text data collected in Wales between October 2013 and December 2014 as part of the ICBP4 survey. Newly-diagnosed patients with either breast, ovarian, colorectal, or lung cancer were identified from registry data and then invited by their GPs to participate in the survey. A thematic framework was used to analyse the free-text comments provided at the end of the ICBP4 survey. Of the 905 patients who returned a questionnaire, 530 included comments. The free-text data provided information about patients' perspectives of the diagnostic journey. Analysis identified factors that acted as either barriers or facilitators at different stages of the diagnostic process. Some factors, such as screening, doctor-patient familiarity, and private treatment, acted as both barriers and facilitators depending on the context. Factors identified in this study help to explain how existing models of cancer diagnosis (for example, the Pathways to Treatment Model) work in practice. It is important that clinicians are aware of how these factors may interact with individual clinical cases and either facilitate, or act as a barrier to, subsequent cancer diagnosis. Understanding and implementing this knowledge into clinical practice may result in quicker cancer diagnoses. © British Journal of General Practice 2017.

  7. Automatic recognition of disorders, findings, pharmaceuticals and body structures from clinical text: an annotation and machine learning study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Skeppstedt, Maria; Kvist, Maria; Nilsson, Gunnar H; Dalianis, Hercules

    2014-06-01

    Automatic recognition of clinical entities in the narrative text of health records is useful for constructing applications for documentation of patient care, as well as for secondary usage in the form of medical knowledge extraction. There are a number of named entity recognition studies on English clinical text, but less work has been carried out on clinical text in other languages. This study was performed on Swedish health records, and focused on four entities that are highly relevant for constructing a patient overview and for medical hypothesis generation, namely the entities: Disorder, Finding, Pharmaceutical Drug and Body Structure. The study had two aims: to explore how well named entity recognition methods previously applied to English clinical text perform on similar texts written in Swedish; and to evaluate whether it is meaningful to divide the more general category Medical Problem, which has been used in a number of previous studies, into the two more granular entities, Disorder and Finding. Clinical notes from a Swedish internal medicine emergency unit were annotated for the four selected entity categories, and the inter-annotator agreement between two pairs of annotators was measured, resulting in an average F-score of 0.79 for Disorder, 0.66 for Finding, 0.90 for Pharmaceutical Drug and 0.80 for Body Structure. A subset of the developed corpus was thereafter used for finding suitable features for training a conditional random fields model. Finally, a new model was trained on this subset, using the best features and settings, and its ability to generalise to held-out data was evaluated. This final model obtained an F-score of 0.81 for Disorder, 0.69 for Finding, 0.88 for Pharmaceutical Drug, 0.85 for Body Structure and 0.78 for the combined category Disorder+Finding. The obtained results, which are in line with or slightly lower than those for similar studies on English clinical text, many of them conducted using a larger training data set, show that

  8. Clinical judgement within the South African clinical nursing environment: A concept analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anna C. van Graan

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Reform in the South African healthcare and educational system were characterized by the ideals that the country needs to produce independent, critical thinkers. Nurses need to cope with diversity in a more creative way, defining their role in a complex, uncertain, rapidly changing health care environment. Quality clinical judgement is therefore imperative as an identified characteristic of newly qualified professional nurses. The objective of this study was to explore and describe clinical judgement through various data sources and review of literature to clarify the meaning and promote a common understanding through formulating the characteristics and developing a connotative (theoretical definition of the concept. An explorative, descriptive qualitative design was used to discover the complexity and meaning of the phenomenon. Multiple data sources and search strategies were used, for the time frame 1982—2013. A concept analysis was used to arrive at a theoretical definition of the concept of ‘clinical judgement’ as a complex cognitive skill to evaluate patient needs, adaption of current treatment protocols as well as new treatment strategies, prevention of adverse side effects through being proactive rather than reactive within the clinical nursing environment. The findings emphasized clinical judgement as skill within the clinical nursing environment, thereby improving autonomous and accountable nursing care. These findings will assist nurse leaders and clinical nurse educators in developing a teaching-learning strategy to promote clinical judgement in undergraduate nursing students, thereby contributing to the quality of nursing care.

  9. Interim analysis: A rational approach of decision making in clinical trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amal Kumar

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Interim analysis of especially sizeable trials keeps the decision process free of conflict of interest while considering cost, resources, and meaningfulness of the project. Whenever necessary, such interim analysis can also call for potential termination or appropriate modification in sample size, study design, and even an early declaration of success. Given the extraordinary size and complexity today, this rational approach helps to analyze and predict the outcomes of a clinical trial that incorporate what is learned during the course of a study or a clinical development program. Such approach can also fill the gap by directing the resources toward relevant and optimized clinical trials between unmet medical needs and interventions being tested currently rather than fulfilling only business and profit goals.

  10. Chyawanprash: A review of therapeutic benefits as in authoritative texts and documented clinical literature.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Narayana, D B Anantha; Durg, Sharanbasappa; Manohar, P Ram; Mahapatra, Anita; Aramya, A R

    2017-02-02

    Chyawanprash (CP), a traditional immune booster recipe, has a long history of ethnic origin, development, household preparation and usage. There are even mythological stories about the origin of this recipe including its nomenclature. In the last six decades, CP, because of entrepreneurial actions of some research Vaidyas (traditional doctors) has grown to industrial production and marketing in packed forms to a large number of consumers/patients like any food or health care product. Currently, CP has acquired a large accepted user base in India and in a few countries out-side India. Authoritative texts, recognized by the Drugs and Cosmetics Act of India, describe CP as an immunity enhancer and strength giver meant for improving lung functions in diseases with compromised immunity. This review focuses on published clinical efficacy and safety studies of CP for correlation with health benefits as documented in the authoritative texts, and also briefs on its recipes and processes. Authoritative texts were searched for recipes, processes, and other technical details of CP. Labels of marketing CP products (Indian) were studied for the health claims. Electronic search for studies of CP on efficacy and safety data were performed in PubMed/MEDLINE and DHARA (Digital Helpline for Ayurveda Research Articles), and Ayurvedic books were also searched for clinical studies. The documented clinical studies from electronic databases and Ayurvedic books evidenced that individuals who consume CP regularly for a definite period of time showed improvement in overall health status and immunity. However, most of the clinical studies in this review are of smaller sample size and short duration. Further, limitation to access and review significant data on traditional products like CP in electronic databases was noted. Randomized controlled trials of high quality with larger sample size and longer follow-up are needed to have significant evidence on the clinical use of CP as immunity

  11. A review of the use of mobile phone text messaging in clinical and healthy behaviour interventions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Jin; Hollin, Ilene; Kachnowski, Stan

    2011-01-01

    We reviewed the literature on the use of text messaging for clinical and healthy behaviour interventions. Electronic databases were searched in December 2009 using keywords related to text messaging and health interventions. The final review included 24 articles. Of those, seven covered medication adherence, eight discussed clinical management and nine reported on health-related behaviour modification. Sixteen were randomized controlled trials (RCT), five were non-controlled pre-post comparison studies and three were feasibility pilots not reporting a behavioural outcome. The frequency of messaging ranged from multiple messages daily to one message per month. Among the 16 RCTs, 10 reported significant improvement with interventions and six reported differences suggesting positive trends. Text messaging received good acceptance and showed early efficacy in most studies. However, the evidence base is compromised by methodological limitations and is not yet conclusive.

  12. Describing Old Czech Declension Patterns for Automatic Text Analysis

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Jínová, P.; Lehečka, Boris; Oliva jr., Karel

    -, č. 13 (2014), s. 7-17 ISSN 1579-8372 Institutional support: RVO:68378092 Keywords : Old Czech morphology * declension patterns * automatic text analysis * i-stems * ja-stems Subject RIV: AI - Linguistics

  13. Effectiveness of Conceptual Change Texts: A Meta Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armagan, Fulya Öner; Keskin, Melike Özer; Akin, Beril Salman

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to determine the overall effectiveness of conceptual change texts (CCTs) on academic achievement and to find out if effectiveness was related to some characteristics of the study. It followed up a Meta-analysis research approach. 42 published and unpublished studies, published between 1995 and 2010, and 42 experiment…

  14. PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING: AN ANALYSIS ON TEXT AND SEMIOTICS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ni Wayan Sukarini

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available This study concerns with text and semiotics analysis on the use of language in public service advertising (PSA. PSA in this study is the text which is especially on health. There are three problems that are analysed in this research, namely: (1 grammatical structure and the lexical of the text; (2 the relationship of trichotomies (representamen, object, and interpretant with the three components of sign in nonverbal aspect; and (3 ideologies and messages conveyed in the verbal and nonverbal signs. Three methods applied in this research respectively including descriptive, qualitative, and interpretative. The type of data was the written one which was taken from printed media in the forms of poster and brochure. The data was collected through five procedures, they are clipping, numbering, coding, picturing, and documenting. As a scientific writing, a number of theories must be applied for the analysis. The relevant theories are semantics, semiotics, speech act, hermeneutics, language function, and text structure. These six theories were applied eclecticly in analysing the grammatical structure, lexicals, signs, and the structure of texts in order to elaborate the meaning, ideology, and message which were being conveyed through the texts of PSA. The result of the analysis showed that the grammatical structure applied in the PSA of health could be classified into the simple structure in the forms of phrase, clause, and sentence. The use of verbs dominated initially in order to express the imperative meaning but still had the purpose of being persuasive. Kinds of lexicals found were very close to disease, reproduction, and health either the general terms, for example victims, medicine or the specific ones like HIV/AIDS, Odha, perinatal, nifas, jampersal, sadari. From the nonverbal aspect, the relationship of trichotomy with the three of sign components are more realistics in the Object with its three sub components. Triadic relationship of three sub

  15. PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISING: AN ANALYSIS ON TEXT AND SEMIOTICS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ni Wayan Sukarini

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available This study concerns with text and semiotics analysis on the use of language in public service advertising (PSA. PSA in this study is the text which is especially on health. There are three problems that are analysed in this research, namely: (1 grammatical structure and the lexical of the text; (2 the relationship of trichotomies (representamen, object, and interpretant with the three components of sign in nonverbal aspect; and (3 ideologies and messages conveyed in the verbal and nonverbal signs. Three methods applied in this research respectively including descriptive, qualitative, and interpretative. The type of data was the written one which was taken from printed media in the forms of poster and brochure. The data was collected through five procedures, they are clipping, numbering, coding, picturing, and documenting. As a scientific writing, a number of theories must be applied for the analysis. The relevant theories are semantics, semiotics, speech act, hermeneutics, language function, and text structure. These six theories were applied eclecticly in analysing the grammatical structure, lexicals, signs, and the structure of texts in order to elaborate the meaning, ideology, and message which were being conveyed through the texts of PSA. The result of the analysis showed that the grammatical structure applied in the PSA of health could be classified into the simple structure in the forms of phrase, clause, and sentence. The use of verbs dominated initially in order to express the imperative meaning but still had the purpose of being persuasive. Kinds of lexicals found were very close to disease, reproduction, and health either the general terms, for example victims, medicine or the specific ones like HIV/AIDS, Odha, perinatal, nifas, jampersal, sadari. From the nonverbal aspect, the relationship of trichotomy with the three of sign components are more realistics in the Object with its three sub components. Triadic relationship of three sub

  16. Predicting the risk of suicide by analyzing the text of clinical notes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poulin, Chris; Shiner, Brian; Thompson, Paul; Vepstas, Linas; Young-Xu, Yinong; Goertzel, Benjamin; Watts, Bradley; Flashman, Laura; McAllister, Thomas

    2014-01-01

    We developed linguistics-driven prediction models to estimate the risk of suicide. These models were generated from unstructured clinical notes taken from a national sample of U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) medical records. We created three matched cohorts: veterans who committed suicide, veterans who used mental health services and did not commit suicide, and veterans who did not use mental health services and did not commit suicide during the observation period (n = 70 in each group). From the clinical notes, we generated datasets of single keywords and multi-word phrases, and constructed prediction models using a machine-learning algorithm based on a genetic programming framework. The resulting inference accuracy was consistently 65% or more. Our data therefore suggests that computerized text analytics can be applied to unstructured medical records to estimate the risk of suicide. The resulting system could allow clinicians to potentially screen seemingly healthy patients at the primary care level, and to continuously evaluate the suicide risk among psychiatric patients.

  17. Predicting the Risk of Suicide by Analyzing the Text of Clinical Notes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Paul; Vepstas, Linas; Young-Xu, Yinong; Goertzel, Benjamin; Watts, Bradley; Flashman, Laura; McAllister, Thomas

    2014-01-01

    We developed linguistics-driven prediction models to estimate the risk of suicide. These models were generated from unstructured clinical notes taken from a national sample of U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) medical records. We created three matched cohorts: veterans who committed suicide, veterans who used mental health services and did not commit suicide, and veterans who did not use mental health services and did not commit suicide during the observation period (n = 70 in each group). From the clinical notes, we generated datasets of single keywords and multi-word phrases, and constructed prediction models using a machine-learning algorithm based on a genetic programming framework. The resulting inference accuracy was consistently 65% or more. Our data therefore suggests that computerized text analytics can be applied to unstructured medical records to estimate the risk of suicide. The resulting system could allow clinicians to potentially screen seemingly healthy patients at the primary care level, and to continuously evaluate the suicide risk among psychiatric patients. PMID:24489669

  18. Studying text coherence in Czech – a corpus-based analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rysová Magdaléna

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper deals with the field of Czech corpus linguistics and represents one of various current studies analysing text coherence through language interactions. It presents a corpusbased analysis of grammatical coreference and sentence information structure (in terms of contextual boundness in Czech. It focuses on examining the interaction of these two language phenomena and observes where they meet to participate in text structuring. Specifically, the paper analyses contextually bound and non-bound sentence items and examines whether (and how often they are involved in relations of grammatical coreference in Czech newspaper articles. The analysis is carried out on the language data of the Prague Dependency Treebank (PDT containing 3,165 Czech texts. The results of the analysis are helpful in automatic text annotation - the paper presents how (or to what extent the annotation of grammatical coreference may be used in automatic (pre-annotation of sentence information structure in Czech. It demonstrates how accurately we may (automatically assume the value of contextual boundness for the antecedent and anaphor (as the two participants of a grammatical coreference relation. The results of the paper demonstrate that the anaphor of grammatical coreference is automatically predictable - it is a non-contrastive contextually bound sentence item in 99.18% of cases. On the other hand, the value of contextual boundness of the antecedent is not so easy to estimate (according to the PDT, the antecedent is contextually non-bound in 37% of cases, non-contrastive contextually bound in 50% and contrastive contextually bound in 13% of cases.

  19. Comparing data accuracy between structured abstracts and full-text journal articles: implications in their use for informing clinical decisions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fontelo, Paul; Gavino, Alex; Sarmiento, Raymond Francis

    2013-12-01

    The abstract is the most frequently read section of a research article. The use of 'Consensus Abstracts', a clinician-oriented web application formatted for mobile devices to search MEDLINE/PubMed, for informing clinical decisions was proposed recently; however, inaccuracies between abstracts and the full-text article have been shown. Efforts have been made to improve quality. We compared data in 60 recent-structured abstracts and full-text articles from six highly read medical journals. Data inaccuracies were identified and then classified as either clinically significant or not significant. Data inaccuracies were observed in 53.33% of articles ranging from 3.33% to 45% based on the IMRAD format sections. The Results section showed the highest discrepancies (45%) although these were deemed to be mostly not significant clinically except in one. The two most common discrepancies were mismatched numbers or percentages (11.67%) and numerical data or calculations found in structured abstracts but not mentioned in the full text (40%). There was no significant relationship between journals and the presence of discrepancies (Fisher's exact p value =0.3405). Although we found a high percentage of inaccuracy between structured abstracts and full-text articles, these were not significant clinically. The inaccuracies do not seem to affect the conclusion and interpretation overall. Structured abstracts appear to be informative and may be useful to practitioners as a resource for guiding clinical decisions.

  20. Automated Text Messaging as an Adjunct to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression: A Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aguilera, Adrian; Bruehlman-Senecal, Emma; Demasi, Orianna; Avila, Patricia

    2017-05-08

    Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for depression is efficacious, but effectiveness is limited when implemented in low-income settings due to engagement difficulties including nonadherence with skill-building homework and early discontinuation of treatment. Automated messaging can be used in clinical settings to increase dosage of depression treatment and encourage sustained engagement with psychotherapy. The aim of this study was to test whether a text messaging adjunct (mood monitoring text messages, treatment-related text messages, and a clinician dashboard to display patient data) increases engagement and improves clinical outcomes in a group CBT treatment for depression. Specifically, we aim to assess whether the text messaging adjunct led to an increase in group therapy sessions attended, an increase in duration of therapy attended, and reductions in Patient Health Questionnaire-9 item (PHQ-9) symptoms compared with the control condition of standard group CBT in a sample of low-income Spanish speaking Latino patients. Patients in an outpatient behavioral health clinic were assigned to standard group CBT for depression (control condition; n=40) or the same treatment with the addition of a text messaging adjunct (n=45). The adjunct consisted of a daily mood monitoring message, a daily message reiterating the theme of that week's content, and medication and appointment reminders. Mood data and qualitative responses were sent to a Web-based platform (HealthySMS) for review by the therapist and displayed in session as a tool for teaching CBT skills. Intent-to-treat analyses on therapy attendance during 16 sessions of weekly therapy found that patients assigned to the text messaging adjunct stayed in therapy significantly longer (median of 13.5 weeks before dropping out) than patients assigned to the control condition (median of 3 weeks before dropping out; Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney z=-2.21, P=.03). Patients assigned to the text messaging adjunct also generally

  1. Computer Support of Semantic Text Analysis of a Technical Specification on Designing Software

    OpenAIRE

    Zaboleeva-Zotova, Alla; Orlova, Yulia

    2009-01-01

    The given work is devoted to development of the computer-aided system of semantic text analysis of a technical specification. The purpose of this work is to increase efficiency of software engineering based on automation of semantic text analysis of a technical specification. In work it is offered and investigated a technique of the text analysis of a technical specification is submitted, the expanded fuzzy attribute grammar of a technical specification, intended for formaliza...

  2. Full text clustering and relationship network analysis of biomedical publications.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Renchu Guan

    Full Text Available Rapid developments in the biomedical sciences have increased the demand for automatic clustering of biomedical publications. In contrast to current approaches to text clustering, which focus exclusively on the contents of abstracts, a novel method is proposed for clustering and analysis of complete biomedical article texts. To reduce dimensionality, Cosine Coefficient is used on a sub-space of only two vectors, instead of computing the Euclidean distance within the space of all vectors. Then a strategy and algorithm is introduced for Semi-supervised Affinity Propagation (SSAP to improve analysis efficiency, using biomedical journal names as an evaluation background. Experimental results show that by avoiding high-dimensional sparse matrix computations, SSAP outperforms conventional k-means methods and improves upon the standard Affinity Propagation algorithm. In constructing a directed relationship network and distribution matrix for the clustering results, it can be noted that overlaps in scope and interests among BioMed publications can be easily identified, providing a valuable analytical tool for editors, authors and readers.

  3. Clinimetrics and clinical psychometrics: macro- and micro-analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomba, Elena; Bech, Per

    2012-01-01

    Clinimetrics was introduced three decades ago to specify the domain of clinical markers in clinical medicine (indexes or rating scales). In this perspective, clinical validity is the platform for selecting the various indexes or rating scales (macro-analysis). Psychometric validation of these indexes or rating scales is the measuring aspect (micro-analysis). Clinical judgment analysis by experienced psychiatrists is included in the macro-analysis and the item response theory models are especially preferred in the micro-analysis when using the total score as a sufficient statistic. Clinical assessment tools covering severity of illness scales, prognostic measures, issues of co-morbidity, longitudinal assessments, recovery, stressors, lifestyle, psychological well-being, and illness behavior have been identified. The constructive dialogue in clinimetrics between clinical judgment and psychometric validation procedures is outlined for generating developments of clinical practice in psychiatry. Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.

  4. Text Message Support for Weight Loss in Patients With Prediabetes: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fischer, Henry H; Fischer, Ilana P; Pereira, Rocio I; Furniss, Anna L; Rozwadowski, Jeanne M; Moore, Susan L; Durfee, Michael J; Raghunath, Silvia G; Tsai, Adam G; Havranek, Edward P

    2016-08-01

    Although the benefits of in-person Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) classes for diabetes prevention have been demonstrated in trials, effectiveness in clinical practice is limited by low participation rates. This study explores whether text message support enhances weight loss in patients offered DPP classes. English- and Spanish-speaking patients with prediabetes (n = 163) were randomized to the control group, which only received an invitation to DPP classes as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or to the text message-augmented intervention group, which also received text messages adapted from the DPP curriculum for 12 months. Mean weight decreased 0.6 pounds (95% CI -2.7 to 1.6) in the control group and 2.6 pounds (95% CI -5.5 to 0.2) in the intervention group (P value 0.05). Three percent weight loss was achieved by 21.5% of participants in the control group (95% CI 12.5-30.6), compared with 38.5% in the intervention group (95% CI 27.7-49.3) (absolute difference 17.0%; P value 0.02). Mean glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) increased by 0.19% or 2.1 mmol/mol (95% CI -0.1 to 0.5%) and decreased by 0.09% or 1.0 mmol/mol (95% CI -0.2 to 0.0%) in the control group and intervention participants, respectively (absolute difference 0.28%; P value 0.07). Stratification by language demonstrated a significant treatment effect in Spanish speakers but not in English speakers. Text message support can lead to clinically significant weight loss in patients with prediabetes. Further study assessing effect by primary language and in an operational setting is warranted. © 2016 by the American Diabetes Association. Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered.

  5. Analysis of Family Clinical, vision of service nurses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniele Merisio Raimundi

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Objective to know the practice of the Family Clinic in Cuiaba and its relationship with the precepts of the expanded clinic, from the perspective of the service nurses. Method qualitative descriptive research, data collection with semi-structured interviews and results analyzed according to the method of thematic content analysis. Results for nurses working in the service, this assumes a differentiated and innovative proposal, which seeks to correlate with shared management in its three spheres. Although most do not know the Enlarged Clinic term in his speech cited its main principles and its tools. The greatest potential described were related to the Support Center for Health and popular participation, and as challenges, the lack of community health worker, the national health establishment registration and the difficulty of operation due to the profile of the professionals technical level arising from secondary care. Conclusions The clinic has positive aspects that can contribute to the advancement of the profession, to train health professionals and an innovative primary care model. Therefore, it emphasizes the need for implementation of continuing education in order to realize its proposal, and further studies on site.

  6. Mining for constructions in texts using N-gram and network analysis

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Shibuya, Yoshikata; Jensen, Kim Ebensgaard

    2015-01-01

    N-gram analysis to Lewis Carroll's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Mark Twain's novelThe Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and extrapolate a number of likely constructional phenomena from recurring N-gram patterns in the two texts. In addition to simple N-gram analysis, the following....... The main premise is that, if constructions are functional units, then configurations of words that tend to recur together in discourse are likely to have some sort of function that speakers utilize in discourse. Writers of fiction, for instance, may use constructions in characterizations, mind-styles, text...

  7. Semantic Linking and Contextualization for Social Forensic Text Analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ren, Z.; van Dijk, D.; Graus, D.; van der Knaap, N.; Henseler, H.; de Rijke, M.; Brynielsson, J.; Johansson, F.

    2013-01-01

    With the development of social media, forensic text analysis is becoming more and more challenging as forensic analysts have begun to include this information source in their practice. In this paper, we report on our recent work related to semantic search in e-discovery and propose the use of entity

  8. Network analysis of named entity co-occurrences in written texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amancio, Diego Raphael

    2016-06-01

    The use of methods borrowed from statistics and physics to analyze written texts has allowed the discovery of unprecedent patterns of human behavior and cognition by establishing links between models features and language structure. While current models have been useful to unveil patterns via analysis of syntactical and semantical networks, only a few works have probed the relevance of investigating the structure arising from the relationship between relevant entities such as characters, locations and organizations. In this study, we represent entities appearing in the same context as a co-occurrence network, where links are established according to a null model based on random, shuffled texts. Computational simulations performed in novels revealed that the proposed model displays interesting topological features, such as the small world feature, characterized by high values of clustering coefficient. The effectiveness of our model was verified in a practical pattern recognition task in real networks. When compared with traditional word adjacency networks, our model displayed optimized results in identifying unknown references in texts. Because the proposed representation plays a complementary role in characterizing unstructured documents via topological analysis of named entities, we believe that it could be useful to improve the characterization of written texts (and related systems), specially if combined with traditional approaches based on statistical and deeper paradigms.

  9. Cluster analysis of clinical data identifies fibromyalgia subgroups.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elisa Docampo

    Full Text Available INTRODUCTION: Fibromyalgia (FM is mainly characterized by widespread pain and multiple accompanying symptoms, which hinder FM assessment and management. In order to reduce FM heterogeneity we classified clinical data into simplified dimensions that were used to define FM subgroups. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 48 variables were evaluated in 1,446 Spanish FM cases fulfilling 1990 ACR FM criteria. A partitioning analysis was performed to find groups of variables similar to each other. Similarities between variables were identified and the variables were grouped into dimensions. This was performed in a subset of 559 patients, and cross-validated in the remaining 887 patients. For each sample and dimension, a composite index was obtained based on the weights of the variables included in the dimension. Finally, a clustering procedure was applied to the indexes, resulting in FM subgroups. RESULTS: VARIABLES CLUSTERED INTO THREE INDEPENDENT DIMENSIONS: "symptomatology", "comorbidities" and "clinical scales". Only the two first dimensions were considered for the construction of FM subgroups. Resulting scores classified FM samples into three subgroups: low symptomatology and comorbidities (Cluster 1, high symptomatology and comorbidities (Cluster 2, and high symptomatology but low comorbidities (Cluster 3, showing differences in measures of disease severity. CONCLUSIONS: We have identified three subgroups of FM samples in a large cohort of FM by clustering clinical data. Our analysis stresses the importance of family and personal history of FM comorbidities. Also, the resulting patient clusters could indicate different forms of the disease, relevant to future research, and might have an impact on clinical assessment.

  10. ASCOT: a text mining-based web-service for efficient search and assisted creation of clinical trials

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-01-01

    Clinical trials are mandatory protocols describing medical research on humans and among the most valuable sources of medical practice evidence. Searching for trials relevant to some query is laborious due to the immense number of existing protocols. Apart from search, writing new trials includes composing detailed eligibility criteria, which might be time-consuming, especially for new researchers. In this paper we present ASCOT, an efficient search application customised for clinical trials. ASCOT uses text mining and data mining methods to enrich clinical trials with metadata, that in turn serve as effective tools to narrow down search. In addition, ASCOT integrates a component for recommending eligibility criteria based on a set of selected protocols. PMID:22595088

  11. Effectiveness of Systemic Text Analysis in EFL Writing Instruction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velasco Tovar, Ender

    2016-01-01

    This action research study investigates the effectiveness of a model based on the theory of systemic text analysis for the teaching of EFL writing. Employing students' pieces of writing and a teachers' survey as data collection instruments, the writing performance of a group of monolingual intermediate level adult students enrolled on a private…

  12. Developing resources for sentiment analysis of informal Arabic text in social media

    OpenAIRE

    Itani, Maher; Roast, Chris; Al-Khayatt, Samir

    2017-01-01

    Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications such as text categorization, machine translation, sentiment analysis, etc., need annotated corpora and lexicons to check quality and performance. This paper describes the development of resources for sentiment analysis specifically for Arabic text in social media. A distinctive feature of the corpora and lexicons developed are that they are determined from informal Arabic that does not conform to grammatical or spelling standards. We refer to Ara...

  13. Intertextual Content Analysis: An Approach for Analysing Text-Related Discussions with Regard to Movability in Reading and How Text Content Is Handled

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hallesson, Yvonne; Visén, Pia

    2018-01-01

    Reading and discussing texts as a means for learning subject content are regular features within educational contexts. This paper presents an approach for intertextual content analysis (ICA) of such text-related discussions revealing what the participants make of the text. Thus, in contrast to many other approaches for analysing conversation that…

  14. Applicability of supervised discriminant analysis models to analyze astigmatism clinical trial data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sedghipour MR

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available Mohammad Reza Sedghipour,1 Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani2,31Nikoukari Ophthalmology University Hospital, Tabriz, Iran; 2Department of Statistics and Epidemiology, Neuroscience Research Center, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 3Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, SwedenBackground: In astigmatism clinical trials where more complex measurements are common, especially in nonrandomized small sized clinical trials, there is a demand for the development and application of newer statistical methods.Methods: The source data belonged to a project on astigmatism treatment. Data were used regarding a total of 296 eyes undergoing different astigmatism treatment modalities: wavefront-guided photorefractive keratectomy, cross-cylinder photorefractive keratectomy, and monotoric (single photorefractive keratectomy. Astigmatism analysis was primarily done using the Alpins method. Prior to fitting partial least squares regression discriminant analysis, a preliminary principal component analysis was done for data overview. Through fitting the partial least squares regression discriminant analysis statistical method, various model validity and predictability measures were assessed.Results: The model found the patients treated by the wavefront method to be different from the two other treatments both in baseline and outcome measures. Also, the model found that patients treated with the cross-cylinder method versus the single method didn't appear to be different from each other. This analysis provided an opportunity to compare the three methods while including a substantial number of baseline and outcome variables.Conclusion: Partial least squares regression discriminant analysis had applicability for the statistical analysis of astigmatism clinical trials and it may be used as an adjunct or alternative analysis method in small sized clinical trials.Keywords: astigmatism, regression, partial least squares regression

  15. Clinical features and genetic analysis of tuberous sclerosis pedigrees

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    LI Ya-qin

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Objective In order to understand tuberous sclerosis complex better, the clinical manifestation, imaging characteristics, and genetic characteristics of tuberous sclerosis complex from 3 pedigrees were investigated. Methods The clinical data of patients from 3 tuberous sclerosis families were collected. The gene mutation type of TSC2 of proband in pedigree one was determined by PCR and direct gene sequencing. Results All of the 3 probands went to our clinic for the reason of epilepsy. Brain imaging examination noted intracranial nodular calcification. EEG showed comprehensive spines and slow waves, sharp waves. The pedigree 1 has family history, two male patients and 3 female patients, all had facial angiofibromas and epilepsy. Gene mutation analysis of TSC2 demonstrated the c.1444-2A > C mutation in index patient. All the 3 index patients had mental retardation, autism and hypopigmented macule. Conclusion For infants and young children with epilepsy as the first symptom, accompanied by mental retardation, autism, facial angiofibromas or hypopigmented macule and other skin abnormalities, brain imaging examination noted intracranial nodular calcification are highly suggestive of tuberous sclerosis complex. TSC1 and TSC2 gene analysis contribute to the diagnosis of this disease, genentic counseling and prenatal diagnosis.

  16. TACIT: An open-source text analysis, crawling, and interpretation tool.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dehghani, Morteza; Johnson, Kate M; Garten, Justin; Boghrati, Reihane; Hoover, Joe; Balasubramanian, Vijayan; Singh, Anurag; Shankar, Yuvarani; Pulickal, Linda; Rajkumar, Aswin; Parmar, Niki Jitendra

    2017-04-01

    As human activity and interaction increasingly take place online, the digital residues of these activities provide a valuable window into a range of psychological and social processes. A great deal of progress has been made toward utilizing these opportunities; however, the complexity of managing and analyzing the quantities of data currently available has limited both the types of analysis used and the number of researchers able to make use of these data. Although fields such as computer science have developed a range of techniques and methods for handling these difficulties, making use of those tools has often required specialized knowledge and programming experience. The Text Analysis, Crawling, and Interpretation Tool (TACIT) is designed to bridge this gap by providing an intuitive tool and interface for making use of state-of-the-art methods in text analysis and large-scale data management. Furthermore, TACIT is implemented as an open, extensible, plugin-driven architecture, which will allow other researchers to extend and expand these capabilities as new methods become available.

  17. Center of attention: A network text analysis of American Sniper

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Starling Hunter

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Network Text Analysis (NTA is a term used to describe a variety of software - supported methods for modeling texts as networks of concepts. In this study we apply NTA to the screenplay of American Sniper, an Academy Award nominee for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2014. Specifically, we est ablish prior expectations as to the key themes associated with war films. We then empirically test whether words associated with the most influentially - positioned nodes in the network signify themes common to the war - film genre. As predicted, we find tha t words and concepts associated with the least constrained nodes in the text network were significantly more likely to be associated with the war genre and significantly less likely to be associated with genres to which the film did not belong.

  18. The conceptualization of childhood in North American pediatric dentistry texts: a discursive case study analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makansi, Nora; Carnevale, Franco A; Macdonald, Mary Ellen

    2018-03-01

    In recent years, conceptions of childhood have been evolving towards an increased recognition of children as active agents, capable of participating in the determination of their wellbeing. In pediatric dentistry, the extent to which these conceptions are being discursively endorsed is not well known. The aim of this investigation was to examine the discursive construction of childhood in seminal North American pedagogical dentistry materials. We conducted a qualitative discourse analysis of a sample of prominent texts using a sociological discourse analysis approach. We analyzed the latest edition of Macdonald and Avery's textbook (Chapter: Non pharmacologic management of children's behaviors) and the clinical practice guidelines published by the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, AAPD (Behavior guidance for the pediatric dental patient). The analysis produced five salient discursive categories: socialization through behavior modification; development and behavior; paternalism; the utility of child-centered communication; and consequentialism. While there were instances of a child-centered focus in the texts, the main discourses were rooted in developmentalism and behaviorism. There was scant acknowledgment of the importance of children's agency or voice, which runs contrary to child-centered discourses and practices in related disciplines (e.g., pediatric medicine, nursing). Predominant discourses in pediatric dentistry suggest a paternalistic, behaviorist approach to the 'management' of children in the dental office, focused primarily on completing interventions. Priorities for the future development of pediatric dentistry are discussed, integrating more child-centered approaches. © 2017 BSPD, IAPD and John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  19. Computational text analysis and reading comprehension exam complexity towards automatic text classification

    CERN Document Server

    Liontou, Trisevgeni

    2014-01-01

    This book delineates a range of linguistic features that characterise the reading texts used at the B2 (Independent User) and C1 (Proficient User) levels of the Greek State Certificate of English Language Proficiency exams in order to help define text difficulty per level of competence. In addition, it examines whether specific reader variables influence test takers' perceptions of reading comprehension difficulty. The end product is a Text Classification Profile per level of competence and a formula for automatically estimating text difficulty and assigning levels to texts consistently and re

  20. Complementing the Numbers: A Text Mining Analysis of College Course Withdrawals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michalski, Greg V.

    2011-01-01

    Excessive college course withdrawals are costly to the student and the institution in terms of time to degree completion, available classroom space, and other resources. Although generally well quantified, detailed analysis of the reasons given by students for course withdrawal is less common. To address this, a text mining analysis was performed…

  1. An open stylometric system based on multilevel text analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maciej Eder

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available An open stylometric system based on multilevel text analysis Stylometric techniques are usually applied to a limited number of typical tasks, such as authorship attribution, genre analysis, or gender studies. However, they could be applied to several tasks beyond this canonical set, if only stylometric tools were more accessible to users from different areas of the humanities and social sciences. This paper presents a general idea, followed by a fully functional prototype of an open stylometric system that facilitates its wide use through to two aspects: technical and research flexibility. The system relies on a server installation combined with a web-based user interface. This frees the user from the necessity of installing any additional software. At the same time, the system offers a variety of ways in which the input texts can be analysed: they include not only the usual lexical level, but also deep-level linguistic features. This enables a range of possible applications, from typical stylometric tasks to the semantic analysis of text documents. The internal architecture of the system relies on several well-known software packages: a collection of language tools (for text pre-processing, Stylo (for stylometric analysis and Cluto (for text clustering. The paper presents: (1 The idea behind the system from the user’s perspective. (2 The architecture of the system, with a focus on data processing. (3 Features for text description. (4 The use of analytical systems such as Stylo and Cluto. The presentation is illustrated with example applications.   Otwarty system stylometryczny wykorzystujący wielopoziomową analizę języka  Zastosowania metod stylometrycznych na ogół ograniczają się do kilku typowych problemów badawczych, takich jak atrybucja autorska, styl gatunków literackich czy studia nad zróżnicowaniem stylistycznym kobiet i mężczyzn. Z pewnością dałoby się je z powodzeniem zastosować również do wielu innych problem

  2. A GENRE ANALYSIS OF PROMOTIONAL TEXTS IN AN INDONESIAN BATIK INDUSTRY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Diah Kristina

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available This study explored sales promotion letters (SPLs and company profiles (CPs of two prominent batik companies in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia. This essay draws its data from the most important primary source of information on sales promotion letters and company profiles namely words, phrases, and clauses taken from the SPLs and CPs of batik written in Indonesian. Secondary sources were also consulted in this research, among these transcribed data obtained from in-depth interviews with the text writers and buyers. Three SPLs and two batik CPs were analyzed. In addition, two informants (marketing and promotion managers typifying the text production perspective and two buyers typifying the text consumption perspective were interviewed. This research was guided by theories of genre analysis which focuses on patterns of rhetorical organization and genre-specific language features. This study employed the multi-dimensional and multi perspective model of analysis focusing on textual, socio-cognitive and ethnographic aspects of the texts. This study concludes that the strong Javanese cultural influence has made the underlying intention of gaining profits to be less explicitly stated. Secondly, the textual analysis and the in-depth interviews supported the view that CPs of batik had been ideally used to create a favorable image of the company. Thirdly, the most distinctive feature that differentiated establishing credentials in the Indonesian batik business context had been the utilization of a sense of moral obligation to preserve native culture. Fourthly, the chemistry between writers and readers of SPLs and CPs built a strong foundation for mutual understanding and thus paved the way for making purchases. To conclude, this study has shown how the wider culture and the culture of the discourse community has contributed to the framing and formatting of SPLs and CPs of batik in terms of lexico-grammar, cognitive structuring, intertextuality and

  3. Teaching Text Structure: Examining the Affordances of Children's Informational Texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Cindy D.; Clark, Sarah K.; Reutzel, D. Ray

    2016-01-01

    This study investigated the affordances of informational texts to serve as model texts for teaching text structure to elementary school children. Content analysis of a random sampling of children's informational texts from top publishers was conducted on text structure organization and on the inclusion of text features as signals of text…

  4. Full text clustering and relationship network analysis of biomedical publications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guan, Renchu; Yang, Chen; Marchese, Maurizio; Liang, Yanchun; Shi, Xiaohu

    2014-01-01

    Rapid developments in the biomedical sciences have increased the demand for automatic clustering of biomedical publications. In contrast to current approaches to text clustering, which focus exclusively on the contents of abstracts, a novel method is proposed for clustering and analysis of complete biomedical article texts. To reduce dimensionality, Cosine Coefficient is used on a sub-space of only two vectors, instead of computing the Euclidean distance within the space of all vectors. Then a strategy and algorithm is introduced for Semi-supervised Affinity Propagation (SSAP) to improve analysis efficiency, using biomedical journal names as an evaluation background. Experimental results show that by avoiding high-dimensional sparse matrix computations, SSAP outperforms conventional k-means methods and improves upon the standard Affinity Propagation algorithm. In constructing a directed relationship network and distribution matrix for the clustering results, it can be noted that overlaps in scope and interests among BioMed publications can be easily identified, providing a valuable analytical tool for editors, authors and readers.

  5. Text mining factor analysis (TFA) in green tea patent data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rahmawati, Sela; Suprijadi, Jadi; Zulhanif

    2017-03-01

    Factor analysis has become one of the most widely used multivariate statistical procedures in applied research endeavors across a multitude of domains. There are two main types of analyses based on factor analysis: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Both EFA and CFA aim to observed relationships among a group of indicators with a latent variable, but they differ fundamentally, a priori and restrictions made to the factor model. This method will be applied to patent data technology sector green tea to determine the development technology of green tea in the world. Patent analysis is useful in identifying the future technological trends in a specific field of technology. Database patent are obtained from agency European Patent Organization (EPO). In this paper, CFA model will be applied to the nominal data, which obtain from the presence absence matrix. While doing processing, analysis CFA for nominal data analysis was based on Tetrachoric matrix. Meanwhile, EFA model will be applied on a title from sector technology dominant. Title will be pre-processing first using text mining analysis.

  6. Automated Text Messaging as an Adjunct to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Depression: A Clinical Trial

    OpenAIRE

    Aguilera, Adrian; Bruehlman-Senecal, Emma; Demasi, Orianna; Avila, Patricia

    2017-01-01

    Background: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for depression is efficacious, but effectiveness is limited when implemented in low-income settings due to engagement difficulties including nonadherence with skill-building homework and early discontinuation of treatment. Automated messaging can be used in clinical settings to increase dosage of depression treatment and encourage sustained engagement with psychotherapy. Objectives: The aim of this study was to test whether a text messag...

  7. Spectral signature verification using statistical analysis and text mining

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeCoster, Mallory E.; Firpi, Alexe H.; Jacobs, Samantha K.; Cone, Shelli R.; Tzeng, Nigel H.; Rodriguez, Benjamin M.

    2016-05-01

    In the spectral science community, numerous spectral signatures are stored in databases representative of many sample materials collected from a variety of spectrometers and spectroscopists. Due to the variety and variability of the spectra that comprise many spectral databases, it is necessary to establish a metric for validating the quality of spectral signatures. This has been an area of great discussion and debate in the spectral science community. This paper discusses a method that independently validates two different aspects of a spectral signature to arrive at a final qualitative assessment; the textual meta-data and numerical spectral data. Results associated with the spectral data stored in the Signature Database1 (SigDB) are proposed. The numerical data comprising a sample material's spectrum is validated based on statistical properties derived from an ideal population set. The quality of the test spectrum is ranked based on a spectral angle mapper (SAM) comparison to the mean spectrum derived from the population set. Additionally, the contextual data of a test spectrum is qualitatively analyzed using lexical analysis text mining. This technique analyzes to understand the syntax of the meta-data to provide local learning patterns and trends within the spectral data, indicative of the test spectrum's quality. Text mining applications have successfully been implemented for security2 (text encryption/decryption), biomedical3 , and marketing4 applications. The text mining lexical analysis algorithm is trained on the meta-data patterns of a subset of high and low quality spectra, in order to have a model to apply to the entire SigDB data set. The statistical and textual methods combine to assess the quality of a test spectrum existing in a database without the need of an expert user. This method has been compared to other validation methods accepted by the spectral science community, and has provided promising results when a baseline spectral signature is

  8. Dictionary construction and identification of possible adverse drug events in Danish clinical narrative text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eriksson, Robert; Jensen, Peter Bjødstrup; Frankild, Sune; Jensen, Lars Juhl; Brunak, Søren

    2013-01-01

    Drugs have tremendous potential to cure and relieve disease, but the risk of unintended effects is always present. Healthcare providers increasingly record data in electronic patient records (EPRs), in which we aim to identify possible adverse events (AEs) and, specifically, possible adverse drug events (ADEs). Based on the undesirable effects section from the summary of product characteristics (SPC) of 7446 drugs, we have built a Danish ADE dictionary. Starting from this dictionary we have developed a pipeline for identifying possible ADEs in unstructured clinical narrative text. We use a named entity recognition (NER) tagger to identify dictionary matches in the text and post-coordination rules to construct ADE compound terms. Finally, we apply post-processing rules and filters to handle, for example, negations and sentences about subjects other than the patient. Moreover, this method allows synonyms to be identified and anatomical location descriptions can be merged to allow appropriate grouping of effects in the same location. The method identified 1 970 731 (35 477 unique) possible ADEs in a large corpus of 6011 psychiatric hospital patient records. Validation was performed through manual inspection of possible ADEs, resulting in precision of 89% and recall of 75%. The presented dictionary-building method could be used to construct other ADE dictionaries. The complication of compound words in Germanic languages was addressed. Additionally, the synonym and anatomical location collapse improve the method. The developed dictionary and method can be used to identify possible ADEs in Danish clinical narratives.

  9. Clinical trial data analysis using R

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Chen, Ding-Geng; Peace, Karl E

    2011-01-01

    .... Case studies demonstrate how to select the appropriate clinical trial data. The authors introduce the corresponding biostatistical analysis methods, followed by the step-by-step data analysis using R...

  10. Portrayals of Wundt and Titchener in Introductory Psychology Texts: A Content Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zehr, David

    2000-01-01

    Examines the content of introductory psychology books by performing a content analysis on texts from the 1970s and 1990s to determine whether the books incorporated recent historical scholarship in discussions of Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener. Finds that some texts still misrepresent the relation between Wundt and Titchener. (CMK)

  11. Text localization using standard deviation analysis of structure elements and support vector machines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zagoris Konstantinos

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract A text localization technique is required to successfully exploit document images such as technical articles and letters. The proposed method detects and extracts text areas from document images. Initially a connected components analysis technique detects blocks of foreground objects. Then, a descriptor that consists of a set of suitable document structure elements is extracted from the blocks. This is achieved by incorporating an algorithm called Standard Deviation Analysis of Structure Elements (SDASE which maximizes the separability between the blocks. Another feature of the SDASE is that its length adapts according to the requirements of the application. Finally, the descriptor of each block is used as input to a trained support vector machines that classify the block as text or not. The proposed technique is also capable of adjusting to the text structure of the documents. Experimental results on benchmarking databases demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

  12. Social science and linguistic text analysis of nurses’ records

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Buus, N.; Hamilton, B. E.

    2016-01-01

    that included analyses of the social and linguistic features of records and recording. Two reviewers extracted data using established criteria for the evaluation of qualitative research papers. A common characteristic of nursing records was the economical use of language with local meanings that conveyed little......' disturbing behaviour. The text analysis methods were rarely transparent in the articles, which could suggest research quality problems. For most articles, the significance of the findings was substantiated more by theoretical readings of the institutional settings than by the analysis of textual data. More...... probing empirical research of nurses' records and a wider range of theoretical perspectives has the potential to expose the situated meanings of nursing work in healthcare organisations. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd....

  13. Nuclear methodology development for clinical analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oliveira, Laura Cristina de

    2003-01-01

    In the present work the viability of using the neutron activation analysis to perform urine and blood clinical analysis was checked. The aim of this study is to investigate the biological behavior of animals that has been fed with chow doped by natural uranium for a long period. Aiming at time and cost reduction, the absolute method was applied to determine element concentration on biological samples. The quantitative results of urine sediment using NAA were compared with the conventional clinical analysis and the results were compatible. This methodology was also used on bone and body organs such as liver and muscles to help the interpretation of possible anomalies. (author)

  14. A meta-analysis of the effects of texting on driving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caird, Jeff K; Johnston, Kate A; Willness, Chelsea R; Asbridge, Mark; Steel, Piers

    2014-10-01

    Text messaging while driving is considered dangerous and known to produce injuries and fatalities. However, the effects of text messaging on driving performance have not been synthesized or summarily estimated. All available experimental studies that measured the effects of text messaging on driving were identified through database searches using variants of "driving" and "texting" without restriction on year of publication through March 2014. Of the 1476 abstracts reviewed, 82 met general inclusion criteria. Of these, 28 studies were found to sufficiently compare reading or typing text messages while driving with a control or baseline condition. Independent variables (text-messaging tasks) were coded as typing, reading, or a combination of both. Dependent variables included eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Statistics were extracted from studies to compute effect sizes (rc). A total sample of 977 participants from 28 experimental studies yielded 234 effect size estimates of the relationships among independent and dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages while driving adversely affected eye movements, stimulus detection, reaction time, collisions, lane positioning, speed and headway. Typing text messages alone produced similar decrements as typing and reading, whereas reading alone had smaller decrements over fewer dependent variables. Typing and reading text messages affects drivers' capability to adequately direct attention to the roadway, respond to important traffic events, control a vehicle within a lane and maintain speed and headway. This meta-analysis provides convergent evidence that texting compromises the safety of the driver, passengers and other road users. Combined efforts, including legislation, enforcement, blocking technologies, parent modeling, social media, social norms and education, will be required to prevent continued deaths and injuries from texting and driving

  15. Real Time Text Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Senthilkumar, K.; Ruchika Mehra Vijayan, E.

    2017-11-01

    This paper aims to illustrate real time analysis of large scale data. For practical implementation we are performing sentiment analysis on live Twitter feeds for each individual tweet. To analyze sentiments we will train our data model on sentiWordNet, a polarity assigned wordNet sample by Princeton University. Our main objective will be to efficiency analyze large scale data on the fly using distributed computation. Apache Spark and Apache Hadoop eco system is used as distributed computation platform with Java as development language

  16. Adapting computational text analysis to social science (and vice versa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Paul DiMaggio

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available Social scientists and computer scientist are divided by small differences in perspective and not by any significant disciplinary divide. In the field of text analysis, several such differences are noted: social scientists often use unsupervised models to explore corpora, whereas many computer scientists employ supervised models to train data; social scientists hold to more conventional causal notions than do most computer scientists, and often favor intense exploitation of existing algorithms, whereas computer scientists focus more on developing new models; and computer scientists tend to trust human judgment more than social scientists do. These differences have implications that potentially can improve the practice of social science.

  17. Effects of clinical pathways in the joint replacement: a meta-analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Faggiano F

    2009-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background A meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the use of clinical pathways for hip and knee joint replacements when compared with standard medical care. The impact of clinical pathways was evaluated assessing the major outcomes of in-hospital hip and knee joint replacement processes: postoperative complications, number of patients discharged at home, length of in-hospital stay and direct costs. Methods Medline, Cinahl, Embase and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched. The search was performed from 1975 to 2007. Each study was assessed independently by two reviewers. The assessment of methodological quality of the included studies was based on the Jadad methodological approach and on the New Castle Ottawa Scale. Data analysis abided by the guidelines set out by The Cochrane Collaboration regarding statistical methods. Meta-analyses were performed using RevMan software, version 4.2. Results Twenty-two studies met the study inclusion criteria and were included in the meta-analysis for a total sample of 6,316 patients. The aggregate overall results showed significantly fewer patients suffering postoperative complications in the clinical pathways group when compared with the standard care group. A shorter length of stay in the clinical pathway group was also observed and lower costs during hospital stay were associated with the use of the clinical pathways. No significant differences were found in the rates of discharge to home. Conclusion The results of this meta-analysis show that clinical pathways can significantly improve the quality of care even if it is not possible to conclude that the implementation of clinical pathways is a cost-effective process, because none of the included studies analysed the cost of the development and implementation of the pathways. Based on the results we assume that pathways have impact on the organisation of care if the care process is structured in a standardised way

  18. VisualUrText: A Text Analytics Tool for Unstructured Textual Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zainol, Zuraini; Jaymes, Mohd T. H.; Nohuddin, Puteri N. E.

    2018-05-01

    The growing amount of unstructured text over Internet is tremendous. Text repositories come from Web 2.0, business intelligence and social networking applications. It is also believed that 80-90% of future growth data is available in the form of unstructured text databases that may potentially contain interesting patterns and trends. Text Mining is well known technique for discovering interesting patterns and trends which are non-trivial knowledge from massive unstructured text data. Text Mining covers multidisciplinary fields involving information retrieval (IR), text analysis, natural language processing (NLP), data mining, machine learning statistics and computational linguistics. This paper discusses the development of text analytics tool that is proficient in extracting, processing, analyzing the unstructured text data and visualizing cleaned text data into multiple forms such as Document Term Matrix (DTM), Frequency Graph, Network Analysis Graph, Word Cloud and Dendogram. This tool, VisualUrText, is developed to assist students and researchers for extracting interesting patterns and trends in document analyses.

  19. Systematic text condensation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Malterud, Kirsti

    2012-01-01

    To present background, principles, and procedures for a strategy for qualitative analysis called systematic text condensation and discuss this approach compared with related strategies.......To present background, principles, and procedures for a strategy for qualitative analysis called systematic text condensation and discuss this approach compared with related strategies....

  20. Dictionary construction and identification of possible adverse drug events in Danish clinical narrative text

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eriksson, Robert; Jensen, Peter Bjødstrup; Frankild, Sune; Jensen, Lars Juhl; Brunak, Søren

    2013-01-01

    Objective Drugs have tremendous potential to cure and relieve disease, but the risk of unintended effects is always present. Healthcare providers increasingly record data in electronic patient records (EPRs), in which we aim to identify possible adverse events (AEs) and, specifically, possible adverse drug events (ADEs). Materials and methods Based on the undesirable effects section from the summary of product characteristics (SPC) of 7446 drugs, we have built a Danish ADE dictionary. Starting from this dictionary we have developed a pipeline for identifying possible ADEs in unstructured clinical narrative text. We use a named entity recognition (NER) tagger to identify dictionary matches in the text and post-coordination rules to construct ADE compound terms. Finally, we apply post-processing rules and filters to handle, for example, negations and sentences about subjects other than the patient. Moreover, this method allows synonyms to be identified and anatomical location descriptions can be merged to allow appropriate grouping of effects in the same location. Results The method identified 1 970 731 (35 477 unique) possible ADEs in a large corpus of 6011 psychiatric hospital patient records. Validation was performed through manual inspection of possible ADEs, resulting in precision of 89% and recall of 75%. Discussion The presented dictionary-building method could be used to construct other ADE dictionaries. The complication of compound words in Germanic languages was addressed. Additionally, the synonym and anatomical location collapse improve the method. Conclusions The developed dictionary and method can be used to identify possible ADEs in Danish clinical narratives. PMID:23703825

  1. Meta-analysis in clinical trials revisited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    DerSimonian, Rebecca; Laird, Nan

    2015-11-01

    In this paper, we revisit a 1986 article we published in this Journal, Meta-Analysis in Clinical Trials, where we introduced a random-effects model to summarize the evidence about treatment efficacy from a number of related clinical trials. Because of its simplicity and ease of implementation, our approach has been widely used (with more than 12,000 citations to date) and the "DerSimonian and Laird method" is now often referred to as the 'standard approach' or a 'popular' method for meta-analysis in medical and clinical research. The method is especially useful for providing an overall effect estimate and for characterizing the heterogeneity of effects across a series of studies. Here, we review the background that led to the original 1986 article, briefly describe the random-effects approach for meta-analysis, explore its use in various settings and trends over time and recommend a refinement to the method using a robust variance estimator for testing overall effect. We conclude with a discussion of repurposing the method for Big Data meta-analysis and Genome Wide Association Studies for studying the importance of genetic variants in complex diseases. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  2. An analysis of registered clinical trials in otolaryngology from 2007 to 2010: ClinicalTrials.gov.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Witsell, David L; Schulz, Kristine A; Lee, Walter T; Chiswell, Karen

    2013-11-01

    To describe the conditions studied, interventions used, study characteristics, and funding sources of otolaryngology clinical trials from the ClinicalTrials.gov database; compare this otolaryngology cohort of interventional studies to clinical visits in a health care system; and assess agreement between clinical trials and clinical activity. Database analysis. Trial registration data downloaded from ClinicalTrials.gov and administrative data from the Duke University Medical Center from October 1, 2007 to September 27, 2010. Data extraction from ClinicalTrials.gov was done using MeSH and non-MeSH disease condition terms. Studies were subcategorized to create the following groupings for descriptive analysis: ear, nose, allergy, voice, sleep, head and neck cancer, thyroid, and throat. Duke Health System visits were queried by using selected ICD-9 codes for otolaryngology and non-otolaryngology providers. Visits were grouped similarly to ClinicalTrials.gov for further analysis. Chi-square tests were used to explore differences between groups. A total of 1115 of 40,970 registered interventional trials were assigned to otolaryngology. Head and neck cancer trials predominated. Study models most frequently incorporated parallel design (54.6%), 2 study groups (46.6%), and randomization (69.1%). Phase 2 or 3 studies constituted 46.4% of the cohort. Comparison of the ClinicalTrials.gov database with administrative health system visit data by disease condition showed discordance between national research activity and clinical visit volume for patients with otolaryngology complaints. Analysis of otolaryngology-related clinical research as listed in ClinicalTrials.gov can inform patients, physicians, and policy makers about research focus areas. The relative burden of otolaryngology-associated conditions in our tertiary health system exceeds research activity within the field.

  3. Systematic analysis of molecular mechanisms for HCC metastasis via text mining approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhen, Cheng; Zhu, Caizhong; Chen, Haoyang; Xiong, Yiru; Tan, Junyuan; Chen, Dong; Li, Jin

    2017-02-21

    To systematically explore the molecular mechanism for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) metastasis and identify regulatory genes with text mining methods. Genes with highest frequencies and significant pathways related to HCC metastasis were listed. A handful of proteins such as EGFR, MDM2, TP53 and APP, were identified as hub nodes in PPI (protein-protein interaction) network. Compared with unique genes for HBV-HCCs, genes particular to HCV-HCCs were less, but may participate in more extensive signaling processes. VEGFA, PI3KCA, MAPK1, MMP9 and other genes may play important roles in multiple phenotypes of metastasis. Genes in abstracts of HCC-metastasis literatures were identified. Word frequency analysis, KEGG pathway and PPI network analysis were performed. Then co-occurrence analysis between genes and metastasis-related phenotypes were carried out. Text mining is effective for revealing potential regulators or pathways, but the purpose of it should be specific, and the combination of various methods will be more useful.

  4. Intellectual Disabilities, Challenging Behaviour and Referral Texts: A Critical Discourse Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nunkoosing, Karl; Haydon-Laurelut, Mark

    2011-01-01

    The texts of referrals written by workers in residential services for people with learning difficulties constitute sites where contemporary discourses of intellectual disabilities are being constructed. This paper uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine referrals made to a Community Learning Disability Team (CLDT). The study finds referral…

  5. From text to political positions: The convergence of political, linguistic and discourse analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Elfrinkhof, A.M.E.; Maks, I.; Kaal, A.R.; Kaal, A.R.; Maks, I.; van Elfrinkhof, A.M.E.

    2014-01-01

    Abstract: This chapter explores how three methods of political text analysis can complement each other to differentiate parties in detail. A word-frequency method and corpus linguistic techniques are joined by critical discourse analysis in an attempt to assess the ideological relation between

  6. Text linguistics and critical discourse analysis: A multimodal analysis of a magazine advertisement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sidnéa Nunes Ferreira

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2013n64p111 Drawing on Fairclough’s (1995 three-dimensional framework of discourse analysis of communicative events, in this paper we carry out a multimodal analysis of a diners Club international magazine advertisement. Moving from the description of how textimage (Mitchell 1995 constructs a problem-solution structure in the advertisement to the discussion of its discourse and sociocultural practices, the paper foregrounds a multi-layered ideological message, besides the construal of a need (problem for a product (solution. Through its multimodal structure, the advertisement seems to tap on two important sociological issues: the avoidance of human togetherness and the colonization of travelling by consumer markets (bauman  2007.

  7. Pragmatics Analysis In Humorous Text In Reader’s Digest Magazine

    OpenAIRE

    Agustina, Sri

    2011-01-01

    Skripsi yang berjudul Pragmatic Analysis in Humorous Text in Reader’s Digest Magazine, menganalisis konteks dari humor yang berbentuk dialog dan bagaimana humor tersebut diinterpretasikan; yang terdapat di dalam teks humor di dalam majalah Reader’s Digest edisi Agustus, September, Oktober, November dan Desember 2010. Analisis ini menggunakan teori Yule tahun 1996 yang mengatakan bahwa beberapa fokus kajian pragmatik adalah mengkaji makna penutur di dalam konteks tertentu dan bagaimana konteks...

  8. Optimizing Short Message Text Sentiment Analysis for Mobile Device Forensics

    OpenAIRE

    Aboluwarin , Oluwapelumi; Andriotis , Panagiotis; Takasu , Atsuhiro; Tryfonas , Theo

    2016-01-01

    Part 2: MOBILE DEVICE FORENSICS; International audience; Mobile devices are now the dominant medium for communications. Humans express various emotions when communicating with others and these communications can be analyzed to deduce their emotional inclinations. Natural language processing techniques have been used to analyze sentiment in text. However, most research involving sentiment analysis in the short message domain (SMS and Twitter) do not account for the presence of non-dictionary w...

  9. Relating interesting quantitative time series patterns with text events and text features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wanner, Franz; Schreck, Tobias; Jentner, Wolfgang; Sharalieva, Lyubka; Keim, Daniel A.

    2013-12-01

    In many application areas, the key to successful data analysis is the integrated analysis of heterogeneous data. One example is the financial domain, where time-dependent and highly frequent quantitative data (e.g., trading volume and price information) and textual data (e.g., economic and political news reports) need to be considered jointly. Data analysis tools need to support an integrated analysis, which allows studying the relationships between textual news documents and quantitative properties of the stock market price series. In this paper, we describe a workflow and tool that allows a flexible formation of hypotheses about text features and their combinations, which reflect quantitative phenomena observed in stock data. To support such an analysis, we combine the analysis steps of frequent quantitative and text-oriented data using an existing a-priori method. First, based on heuristics we extract interesting intervals and patterns in large time series data. The visual analysis supports the analyst in exploring parameter combinations and their results. The identified time series patterns are then input for the second analysis step, in which all identified intervals of interest are analyzed for frequent patterns co-occurring with financial news. An a-priori method supports the discovery of such sequential temporal patterns. Then, various text features like the degree of sentence nesting, noun phrase complexity, the vocabulary richness, etc. are extracted from the news to obtain meta patterns. Meta patterns are defined by a specific combination of text features which significantly differ from the text features of the remaining news data. Our approach combines a portfolio of visualization and analysis techniques, including time-, cluster- and sequence visualization and analysis functionality. We provide two case studies, showing the effectiveness of our combined quantitative and textual analysis work flow. The workflow can also be generalized to other

  10. Measurement of [Formula: see text] polarisation in [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text] = 7 TeV.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aaij, R; Adeva, B; Adinolfi, M; Affolder, A; Ajaltouni, Z; Albrecht, J; Alessio, F; Alexander, M; Ali, S; Alkhazov, G; Alvarez Cartelle, P; Alves, A A; Amato, S; Amerio, S; Amhis, Y; An, L; Anderlini, L; Anderson, J; Andreassen, R; Andreotti, M; Andrews, J E; Appleby, R B; Aquines Gutierrez, O; Archilli, F; Artamonov, A; Artuso, M; Aslanides, E; Auriemma, G; Baalouch, M; Bachmann, S; Back, J J; Badalov, A; Balagura, V; Baldini, W; Barlow, R J; Barschel, C; Barsuk, S; Barter, W; Batozskaya, V; Bauer, Th; Bay, A; Beddow, J; Bedeschi, F; Bediaga, I; Belogurov, S; Belous, K; Belyaev, I; Ben-Haim, E; Bencivenni, G; Benson, S; Benton, J; Berezhnoy, A; Bernet, R; Bettler, M-O; van Beuzekom, M; Bien, A; Bifani, S; Bird, T; Bizzeti, A; Bjørnstad, P M; Blake, T; Blanc, F; Blouw, J; Blusk, S; Bocci, V; Bondar, A; Bondar, N; Bonivento, W; Borghi, S; Borgia, A; Borsato, M; Bowcock, T J V; Bowen, E; Bozzi, C; Brambach, T; van den Brand, J; Bressieux, J; Brett, D; Britsch, M; Britton, T; Brook, N H; Brown, H; Bursche, A; Busetto, G; Buytaert, J; Cadeddu, S; Calabrese, R; Callot, O; Calvi, M; Calvo Gomez, M; Camboni, A; Campana, P; Campora Perez, D; Carbone, A; Carboni, G; Cardinale, R; Cardini, A; Carranza-Mejia, H; Carson, L; Carvalho Akiba, K; Casse, G; Cassina, L; Castillo Garcia, L; Cattaneo, M; Cauet, Ch; Cenci, R; Charles, M; Charpentier, Ph; Cheung, S-F; Chiapolini, N; Chrzaszcz, M; Ciba, K; Cid Vidal, X; Ciezarek, G; Clarke, P E L; Clemencic, M; Cliff, H V; Closier, J; Coca, C; Coco, V; Cogan, J; Cogneras, E; Collins, P; Comerma-Montells, A; Contu, A; Cook, A; Coombes, M; Coquereau, S; Corti, G; Corvo, M; Counts, I; Couturier, B; Cowan, G A; Craik, D C; Cruz Torres, M; Cunliffe, S; Currie, R; D'Ambrosio, C; Dalseno, J; David, P; David, P N Y; Davis, A; De Bruyn, K; De Capua, S; De Cian, M; De Miranda, J M; De Paula, L; De Silva, W; De Simone, P; Decamp, D; Deckenhoff, M; Del Buono, L; Déléage, N; Derkach, D; Deschamps, O; Dettori, F; Di Canto, A; Dijkstra, H; Donleavy, S; Dordei, F; Dorigo, M; Dosil Suárez, A; Dossett, D; Dovbnya, A; Dupertuis, F; Durante, P; Dzhelyadin, R; Dziurda, A; Dzyuba, A; Easo, S; Egede, U; Egorychev, V; Eidelman, S; Eisenhardt, S; Eitschberger, U; Ekelhof, R; Eklund, L; El Rifai, I; Elsasser, Ch; Esen, S; Evans, T; Falabella, A; Färber, C; Farinelli, C; Farry, S; Ferguson, D; Fernandez Albor, V; Ferreira Rodrigues, F; Ferro-Luzzi, M; Filippov, S; Fiore, M; Fiorini, M; Firlej, M; Fitzpatrick, C; Fiutowski, T; Fontana, M; Fontanelli, F; Forty, R; Francisco, O; Frank, M; Frei, C; Frosini, M; Fu, J; Furfaro, E; Gallas Torreira, A; Galli, D; Gandelman, M; Gandini, P; Gao, Y; Garofoli, J; Garra Tico, J; Garrido, L; Gaspar, C; Gauld, R; Gavardi, L; Gersabeck, E; Gersabeck, M; Gershon, T; Ghez, Ph; Gianelle, A; Giani, S; Gibson, V; Giubega, L; Gligorov, V V; Göbel, C; Golubkov, D; Golutvin, A; Gomes, A; Gordon, H; Gotti, C; Grabalosa Gándara, M; Graciani Diaz, R; Granado Cardoso, L A; Graugés, E; Graziani, G; Grecu, A; Greening, E; Gregson, S; Griffith, P; Grillo, L; Grünberg, O; Gui, B; Gushchin, E; Guz, Yu; Gys, T; Hadjivasiliou, C; Haefeli, G; Haen, C; Haines, S C; Hall, S; Hamilton, B; Hampson, T; Han, X; Hansmann-Menzemer, S; Harnew, N; Harnew, S T; Harrison, J; Hartmann, T; He, J; Head, T; Heijne, V; Hennessy, K; Henrard, P; Henry, L; Hernando Morata, J A; van Herwijnen, E; Heß, M; Hicheur, A; Hill, D; Hoballah, M; Hombach, C; Hulsbergen, W; Hunt, P; Hussain, N; Hutchcroft, D; Hynds, D; Iakovenko, V; Idzik, M; Ilten, P; Jacobsson, R; Jaeger, A; Jalocha, J; Jans, E; Jaton, P; Jawahery, A; Jezabek, M; Jing, F; John, M; Johnson, D; Jones, C R; Joram, C; Jost, B; Jurik, N; Kaballo, M; Kandybei, S; Kanso, W; Karacson, M; Karbach, T M; Kelsey, M; Kenyon, I R; Ketel, T; Khanji, B; Khurewathanakul, C; Klaver, S; Kochebina, O; Kolpin, M; Komarov, I; Koopman, R F; Koppenburg, P; Korolev, M; Kozlinskiy, A; Kravchuk, L; Kreplin, K; Kreps, M; Krocker, G; Krokovny, P; Kruse, F; Kucharczyk, M; Kudryavtsev, V; Kurek, K; Kvaratskheliya, T; La Thi, V N; Lacarrere, D; Lafferty, G; Lai, A; Lambert, D; Lambert, R W; Lanciotti, E; Lanfranchi, G; Langenbruch, C; Latham, T; Lazzeroni, C; Le Gac, R; van Leerdam, J; Lees, J-P; Lefèvre, R; Leflat, A; Lefrançois, J; Leo, S; Leroy, O; Lesiak, T; Leverington, B; Li, Y; Liles, M; Lindner, R; Linn, C; Lionetto, F; Liu, B; Liu, G; Lohn, S; Longstaff, I; Longstaff, I; Lopes, J H; Lopez-March, N; Lowdon, P; Lu, H; Lucchesi, D; Luisier, J; Luo, H; Lupato, A; Luppi, E; Lupton, O; Machefert, F; Machikhiliyan, I V; Maciuc, F; Maev, O; Malde, S; Manca, G; Mancinelli, G; Manzali, M; Maratas, J; Marchand, J F; Marconi, U; Marino, P; Märki, R; Marks, J; Martellotti, G; Martens, A; Martín Sánchez, A; Martinelli, M; Martinez Santos, D; Martinez Vidal, F; Martins Tostes, D; Massafferri, A; Matev, R; Mathe, Z; Matteuzzi, C; Mazurov, A; McCann, M; McCarthy, J; McNab, A; McNulty, R; McSkelly, B; Meadows, B; Meier, F; Meissner, M; Merk, M; Milanes, D A; Minard, M-N; Molina Rodriguez, J; Monteil, S; Moran, D; Morandin, M; Morawski, P; Mordà, A; Morello, M J; Moron, J; Mountain, R; Muheim, F; Müller, K; Muresan, R; Muster, B; Naik, P; Nakada, T; Nandakumar, R; Nasteva, I; Needham, M; Neri, N; Neubert, S; Neufeld, N; Neuner, M; Nguyen, A D; Nguyen, T D; Nguyen-Mau, C; Nicol, M; Niess, V; Niet, R; Nikitin, N; Nikodem, T; Novoselov, A; Oblakowska-Mucha, A; Obraztsov, V; Oggero, S; Ogilvy, S; Okhrimenko, O; Oldeman, R; Onderwater, G; Orlandea, M; Otalora Goicochea, J M; Owen, P; Oyanguren, A; Pal, B K; Palano, A; Palombo, F; Palutan, M; Panman, J; Papanestis, A; Pappagallo, M; Parkes, C; Parkinson, C J; Passaleva, G; Patel, G D; Patel, M; Patrignani, C; Pazos Alvarez, A; Pearce, A; Pellegrino, A; Penso, G; Pepe Altarelli, M; Perazzini, S; Perez Trigo, E; Perret, P; Perrin-Terrin, M; Pescatore, L; Pesen, E; Petridis, K; Petrolini, A; Picatoste Olloqui, E; Pietrzyk, B; Pilař, T; Pinci, D; Pistone, A; Playfer, S; Plo Casasus, M; Polci, F; Polok, G; Poluektov, A; Polycarpo, E; Popov, A; Popov, D; Popovici, B; Potterat, C; Powell, A; Prisciandaro, J; Pritchard, A; Prouve, C; Pugatch, V; Puig Navarro, A; Punzi, G; Qian, W; Rachwal, B; Rademacker, J H; Rakotomiaramanana, B; Rama, M; Rangel, M S; Raniuk, I; Rauschmayr, N; Raven, G; Redford, S; Reichert, S; Reid, M M; Dos Reis, A C; Ricciardi, S; Richards, A; Rinnert, K; Rives Molina, V; Roa Romero, D A; Robbe, P; Rodrigues, A B; Rodrigues, E; Rodriguez Perez, P; Roiser, S; Romanovsky, V; Romero Vidal, A; Rotondo, M; Rouvinet, J; Ruf, T; Ruffini, F; Ruiz, H; Ruiz Valls, P; Sabatino, G; Saborido Silva, J J; Sagidova, N; Sail, P; Saitta, B; Salustino Guimaraes, V; Sanchez Mayordomo, C; Sanmartin Sedes, B; Santacesaria, R; Santamarina Rios, C; Santovetti, E; Sapunov, M; Sarti, A; Satriano, C; Satta, A; Savrie, M; Savrina, D; Schiller, M; Schindler, H; Schlupp, M; Schmelling, M; Schmidt, B; Schneider, O; Schopper, A; Schune, M-H; Schwemmer, R; Sciascia, B; Sciubba, A; Seco, M; Semennikov, A; Senderowska, K; Sepp, I; Serra, N; Serrano, J; Sestini, L; Seyfert, P; Shapkin, M; Shapoval, I; Shcheglov, Y; Shears, T; Shekhtman, L; Shevchenko, V; Shires, A; Silva Coutinho, R; Simi, G; Sirendi, M; Skidmore, N; Skwarnicki, T; Smith, N A; Smith, E; Smith, E; Smith, J; Smith, M; Snoek, H; Sokoloff, M D; Soler, F J P; Soomro, F; Souza, D; Souza De Paula, B; Spaan, B; Sparkes, A; Spinella, F; Spradlin, P; Stagni, F; Stahl, S; Steinkamp, O; Stenyakin, O; Stevenson, S; Stoica, S; Stone, S; Storaci, B; Stracka, S; Straticiuc, M; Straumann, U; Stroili, R; Subbiah, V K; Sun, L; Sutcliffe, W; Swientek, K; Swientek, S; Syropoulos, V; Szczekowski, M; Szczypka, P; Szilard, D; Szumlak, T; T'Jampens, S; Teklishyn, M; Tellarini, G; Teodorescu, E; Teubert, F; Thomas, C; Thomas, E; van Tilburg, J; Tisserand, V; Tobin, M; Tolk, S; Tomassetti, L; Tonelli, D; Topp-Joergensen, S; Torr, N; Tournefier, E; Tourneur, S; Tran, M T; Tresch, M; Tsaregorodtsev, A; Tsopelas, P; Tuning, N; Ubeda Garcia, M; Ukleja, A; Ustyuzhanin, A; Uwer, U; Vagnoni, V; Valenti, G; Vallier, A; Vazquez Gomez, R; Vazquez Regueiro, P; Vázquez Sierra, C; Vecchi, S; Velthuis, J J; Veltri, M; Veneziano, G; Vesterinen, M; Viaud, B; Vieira, D; Vieites Diaz, M; Vilasis-Cardona, X; Vollhardt, A; Volyanskyy, D; Voong, D; Vorobyev, A; Vorobyev, V; Voß, C; Voss, H; de Vries, J A; Waldi, R; Wallace, C; Wallace, R; Walsh, J; Wandernoth, S; Wang, J; Ward, D R; Watson, N K; Webber, A D; Websdale, D; Whitehead, M; Wicht, J; Wiedner, D; Wiggers, L; Wilkinson, G; Williams, M P; Williams, M; Wilson, F F; Wimberley, J; Wishahi, J; Wislicki, W; Witek, M; Wormser, G; Wotton, S A; Wright, S; Wu, S; Wyllie, K; Xie, Y; Xing, Z; Xu, Z; Yang, Z; Yuan, X; Yushchenko, O; Zangoli, M; Zavertyaev, M; Zhang, F; Zhang, L; Zhang, W C; Zhang, Y; Zhelezov, A; Zhokhov, A; Zhong, L; Zvyagin, A

    The polarisation of prompt [Formula: see text] mesons is measured by performing an angular analysis of [Formula: see text] decays using proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.0[Formula: see text], collected by the LHCb detector at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The polarisation is measured in bins of transverse momentum [Formula: see text] and rapidity [Formula: see text] in the kinematic region [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], and is compared to theoretical models. No significant polarisation is observed.

  11. Analysis of cohesive devices in a short text: 'Whiskey. No water. No ice.' by Tom Hart

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janković Anita V.

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper was two-fold. Primarily, based on literature review, it presented various takes on what constitutes a text and what makes it cohesive. Secondly, it reported the results of the cohesion analysis performed on a short drama by Tom Hart. This drama was written as a submission for the London Royal Court Theatre competition '100 Word Play'. The author used the model of analysis of a dramatic dialogue proposed by Halliday and Hassan. The dramatic dialogue here is characterized as a speaking text, for the stage; therefore, the stage directions were excluded from the analysis as para-linguistic phenomena. The results of the analysis revealed immediate ellipsis of anaphoric direction as the most common cohesive device in 47 percent of the text. Second in frequency are referencing mechanisms, and finally lexical devices and connectors. Furthermore, the analysis exposed the use of reiteration, both lexical and structural, which is not predicted by the model. However, these instances were explained by Hoey's model of lexical repetition. The thematic progression in the text is linear which is characteristic of dialogues. The analysis noted no usage of substitution nor parallelism, which is in itself indicative of the set hypothesis because parallelisms are characteristic of poetry and political discourse.

  12. Augmenting Oracle Text with the UMLS for enhanced searching of free-text medical reports.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Jing; Erdal, Selnur; Dhaval, Rakesh; Kamal, Jyoti

    2007-10-11

    The intrinsic complexity of free-text medical reports imposes great challenges for information retrieval systems. We have developed a prototype search engine for retrieving clinical reports that leverages the powerful indexing and querying capabilities of Oracle Text, and the rich biomedical domain knowledge and semantic structures that are captured in the UMLS Metathesaurus.

  13. Feasibility and Utility of Lexical Analysis for Occupational Health Text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harber, Philip; Leroy, Gondy

    2017-06-01

    Assess feasibility and potential utility of natural language processing (NLP) for storing and analyzing occupational health data. Basic NLP lexical analysis methods were applied to 89,000 Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) free text records. Steps included tokenization, term and co-occurrence counts, term annotation, and identifying exposure-health effect relationships. Presence of terms in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) was assessed. The methods efficiently demonstrated common exposures, health effects, and exposure-injury relationships. Many workplace terms are not present in UMLS or map inaccurately. Use of free text rather than narrowly defined numerically coded fields is feasible, flexible, and efficient. It has potential to encourage workers and clinicians to provide more data and to support automated knowledge creation. The lexical method used is easily generalizable to other areas. The UMLS vocabularies should be enhanced to be relevant to occupational health.

  14. TIME SERIES ANALYSIS ON STOCK MARKET FOR TEXT MINING CORRELATION OF ECONOMY NEWS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sadi Evren SEKER

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper proposes an information retrieval methodfor the economy news. Theeffect of economy news, are researched in the wordlevel and stock market valuesare considered as the ground proof.The correlation between stock market prices and economy news is an already ad-dressed problem for most of the countries. The mostwell-known approach is ap-plying the text mining approaches to the news and some time series analysis tech-niques over stock market closing values in order toapply classification or cluster-ing algorithms over the features extracted. This study goes further and tries to askthe question what are the available time series analysis techniques for the stockmarket closing values and which one is the most suitable? In this study, the newsand their dates are collected into a database and text mining is applied over thenews, the text mining part has been kept simple with only term frequency – in-verse document frequency method. For the time series analysis part, we havestudied 10 different methods such as random walk, moving average, acceleration,Bollinger band, price rate of change, periodic average, difference, momentum orrelative strength index and their variation. In this study we have also explainedthese techniques in a comparative way and we have applied the methods overTurkish Stock Market closing values for more than a2 year period. On the otherhand, we have applied the term frequency – inversedocument frequency methodon the economy news of one of the high-circulatingnewspapers in Turkey.

  15. English tsotsitaals? − an analysis of two written texts in Surfspeak ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    ... medium of English; (b) give an appreciation of the humour, wit and style associated with English tsotsitaals, via the analysis of two written texts; and (c) show the limitations of tsotsitaals in extended written usage, for which they have to co-exist with more mainstream forms of the dialect of English they utilise for their base.

  16. [Hippocrates. Aphorisms and Epidemics III. Two clinical texts].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frøland, Anders

    2015-01-01

    The two Hippocratic texts, Aphorisms and Epidemics III, have not been translated into Danish previously. The Aphorisms are 412 short, pithy statements, mostly on the prognosis in relation to certain symptoms in the course of the diseases, very often febrile. The Aphorisms begin with the famous words: "Life is short, the Art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult." (Transl. W H S Jones [22]). Epidemics III consists of 28 case histories, again mostly of febrile patients, but also of observations on the connection of the seasons with general morbidity and mortality. The author describes an epidemic, which in some respects resembles Thucydides' report on the plague in Athens in 430 BC. It is suggested, that observations as have been recorded in the seven Hippocratic texts on epidemic diseases are the material on which prognostic statements as those collected in the Aphorisms are founded.

  17. Predictive factors for the placebo effect in clinical trials for dry eye: a pooled analysis of three clinical trials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imanaka, Takahiro; Sato, Izumi; Tanaka, Shiro; Kawakami, Koji

    2017-11-01

    Placebo effect is one of the methodological difficulties in dry eye clinical trials. If we could elucidate the tendencies of the placebo response and find predictors, we could reduce the placebo response in clinical trials for dry eye. In this study, we investigated the predictive factors for the placebo effect in dry eye clinical trials. A total of 205 patients with dry eye assigned to the placebo arms of three placebo-controlled randomised clinical trials were analysed by simple and multivariable regression analysis. The corneal fluorescein (FL) staining score and dry eye symptoms were studied at week 4. The variables of interest included gender, age, complications of Sjögren's syndrome, Schirmer's test I value, tear break-up time and conjunctival hyperaemia score. We also conducted a stratified analysis according to the patients' age. Among all the studied endpoints, the baseline scores were significantly related to the corresponding placebo response. In addition, for the FL score and the dryness score, age was a significant predictor of the placebo response (p=0.04 and p<0.0001, respectively). Stratified analysis by age showed that patients more than 40 years of age are more likely to have a stronger placebo response in the FL and dryness scores. The baseline scores and age were predictive factors of the placebo response in frequently used endpoints, such as FL score or dryness symptoms. These patient characteristics can be controlled by study design, and our findings enable the design of more efficient placebo-controlled studies with good statistical power. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

  18. Themes, syntax and other necessary steps in the network analysis of texts : A research paper

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Popping, R.

    1996-01-01

    Recent approaches to the qualitative analysis of texts afford visual depictions of words as networks. Yet network characteristics can also be quantified, enabling one to draw probabilistic inferences about a population of texts from a sample of texts-encoded-as-networks. This article describes three

  19. Text mining from ontology learning to automated text processing applications

    CERN Document Server

    Biemann, Chris

    2014-01-01

    This book comprises a set of articles that specify the methodology of text mining, describe the creation of lexical resources in the framework of text mining and use text mining for various tasks in natural language processing (NLP). The analysis of large amounts of textual data is a prerequisite to build lexical resources such as dictionaries and ontologies and also has direct applications in automated text processing in fields such as history, healthcare and mobile applications, just to name a few. This volume gives an update in terms of the recent gains in text mining methods and reflects

  20. Practical text mining and statistical analysis for non-structured text data applications

    CERN Document Server

    Miner, Gary; Hill, Thomas; Nisbet, Robert; Delen, Dursun

    2012-01-01

    The world contains an unimaginably vast amount of digital information which is getting ever vaster ever more rapidly. This makes it possible to do many things that previously could not be done: spot business trends, prevent diseases, combat crime and so on. Managed well, the textual data can be used to unlock new sources of economic value, provide fresh insights into science and hold governments to account. As the Internet expands and our natural capacity to process the unstructured text that it contains diminishes, the value of text mining for information retrieval and search will increase d

  1. The Feasibility of Using Large-Scale Text Mining to Detect Adverse Childhood Experiences in a VA-Treated Population.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammond, Kenric W; Ben-Ari, Alon Y; Laundry, Ryan J; Boyko, Edward J; Samore, Matthew H

    2015-12-01

    Free text in electronic health records resists large-scale analysis. Text records facts of interest not found in encoded data, and text mining enables their retrieval and quantification. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinical data repository affords an opportunity to apply text-mining methodology to study clinical questions in large populations. To assess the feasibility of text mining, investigation of the relationship between exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and recorded diagnoses was conducted among all VA-treated Gulf war veterans, utilizing all progress notes recorded from 2000-2011. Text processing extracted ACE exposures recorded among 44.7 million clinical notes belonging to 243,973 veterans. The relationship of ACE exposure to adult illnesses was analyzed using logistic regression. Bias considerations were assessed. ACE score was strongly associated with suicide attempts and serious mental disorders (ORs = 1.84 to 1.97), and less so with behaviorally mediated and somatic conditions (ORs = 1.02 to 1.36) per unit. Bias adjustments did not remove persistent associations between ACE score and most illnesses. Text mining to detect ACE exposure in a large population was feasible. Analysis of the relationship between ACE score and adult health conditions yielded patterns of association consistent with prior research. Copyright © 2015 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

  2. Comparative analysis of four active compounds of Baikal skullcap and its classical TCM prescriptions according to different clinical curative effects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guang-Wei Zhu

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Objective: A sensitive HPLC-DAD detection method was established for the comparative analysis of the four active compounds (including baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside and wogonin of Baikal Skullcap and its classical TCM prescriptions according to different clinical curative effects. And analyze the relationship between compatibility of medicines, content and clinical curative effect.

  3. INVESTIGATING TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF TEACHERS’ REPORT TEXTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sudarsono M. I. Sudarsono

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available This research aims at observing the teachers’ professional competence by investigating the report texts written by three English teachers in a junior high school in terms of their schematic structures and linguistic features. To achieve this aim, a qualitative case study design involving analysis of English teachers’ report texts and interviews with these English teachers was employed in this research. The results of this research showed that generally the three English teachers have demonstrated sufficient ability in applying appropriate schematic structures and linguistic features relevant to the criteria of a report text. However, the results of this research also indicate that some improvements in understanding and writing a report text, especially in terms of schematic structure, linguistic features, and theme progressions, are needed to enhance the teachers’ subject matter content knowledge about report text.

  4. Decision Analysis: Engineering Science or Clinical Art

    Science.gov (United States)

    1979-11-01

    TECHNICAL REPORT TR 79-2-97 DECISION ANALYSIS: ENGINEERING SCIENCE OR CLINICAL ART ? by Dennis M. Buede Prepared for Defense Advanced Research...APPLICATIONS OF THE ENGINEER- ING SCIENCE AND CLINICAL ART EXTREMES 9 3.1 Applications of the Engineering Science Approach 9 3.1.1 Mexican electrical...DISCUSSION 29 4.1 Engineering Science versus Clinical Art : A Characterization of When Each is Most Attractive 30 4.2 The Implications of the Engineering

  5. Comparing standard office-based follow-up with text-based remote monitoring in the management of postpartum hypertension: a randomised clinical trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hirshberg, Adi; Downes, Katheryne; Srinivas, Sindhu

    2018-04-27

    Monitoring blood pressure at 72 hours and 7-10 days post partum in women with hypertensive disorders is recommended to decrease morbidity. However, there are no recommendations as to how to achieve this. To compare the effectiveness of text-based blood pressure monitoring to in-person visits for women with hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in the immediate postpartum period. Randomised clinical trial among 206 postpartum women with pregnancy-related hypertension diagnosed during the delivery admission between August 2016 and January 2017. Women were randomised to 2 weeks of text-based surveillance using a home blood pressure cuff and previously tested automated platform or usual care blood pressure check at their prenatal clinic 4-6 days following discharge. The primary study outcome was a single recorded blood pressure in the first 10 days post partum. The ability to meet American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) guidelines, defined as having a blood pressure recorded on postpartum days 3-4 and 7-10 was evaluated in the text message group. The study was powered to detect a 1.4-fold increase in a single recorded blood pressure using text messaging. All outcomes were analysed as intention to treat. 206 women were randomised (103 in each arm). Baseline characteristics were similar. There was a statistically significant increase in a single blood pressure obtained in the texting group in the first 10 days post partum as compared with the office group (92.2% vs 43.7%; adjusted OR 58.2 (16.2-208.1), p<0.001). Eighty-four per cent of patients undergoing text-based surveillance met ACOG criteria for blood pressures at both recommended points. Text-based monitoring is more effective in obtaining blood pressures and meeting current clinical guidelines in the immediate postdischarge period in women with pregnancy-related hypertension compared with traditional office-based follow-up. NCT03185455, Remote Surveillance of Postpartum Hypertension (Text

  6. Analysis of texts produced by students of the early years: guidelines for a possible diagnosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Terezinha da Conceição Costa-Hübes

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of students’ texts requires from the teacher scientific knowledge about language which provides him subsidies for the diagnosis of the writings. Thus, this paper aims to present some reflections on the possibilities of using a diagnostic table, designed with the purpose of guiding the teacher – when assessing the student’s text – in the identification of the mastered and non-mastered aspects in writing. The designing of the table is the result of studies carried out by a study group on Portuguese language, consisting of teachers of the early years and supported by the theories of speech genres (BAKHTIN, 2003 and text genres (BRONCKART, 2003, the concept of text as a teaching unit (GERALDI, 1984 and, more specifically, the discussions on practices of linguistic analysis (GERALDI, 1984 and 1997. In order to test the use of the table, we will take texts of the genre ‘note’ produced by students of the 3rd year of elementary school, considering genre, text and spelling aspects.

  7. Appraising the Corporate Sustainability Reports - Text Mining and Multi-Discriminatory Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Modapothala, J. R.; Issac, B.; Jayamani, E.

    The voluntary disclosure of the sustainability reports by the companies attracts wider stakeholder groups. Diversity in these reports poses challenge to the users of information and regulators. This study appraises the corporate sustainability reports as per GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) guidelines (the most widely accepted and used) across all industrial sectors. Text mining is adopted to carry out the initial analysis with a large sample size of 2650 reports. Statistical analyses were performed for further investigation. The results indicate that the disclosures made by the companies differ across the industrial sectors. Multivariate Discriminant Analysis (MDA) shows that the environmental variable is a greater significant contributing factor towards explanation of sustainability report.

  8. Opinion Mining in Latvian Text Using Semantic Polarity Analysis and Machine Learning Approach

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gatis Špats

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we demonstrate approaches for opinion mining in Latvian text. Authors have applied, combined and extended results of several previous studies and public resources to perform opinion mining in Latvian text using two approaches, namely, semantic polarity analysis and machine learning. One of the most significant constraints that make application of opinion mining for written content classification in Latvian text challenging is the limited publicly available text corpora for classifier training. We have joined several sources and created a publically available extended lexicon. Our results are comparable to or outperform current achievements in opinion mining in Latvian. Experiments show that lexicon-based methods provide more accurate opinion mining than the application of Naive Bayes machine learning classifier on Latvian tweets. Methods used during this study could be further extended using human annotators, unsupervised machine learning and bootstrapping to create larger corpora of classified text.

  9. The Deference Due the Oracle: Computerized Text Analysis in a Basic Writing Class.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Otte, George

    1989-01-01

    Describes how a computerized text analysis program can help students discover error patterns in their writing, and notes how students' responses to analyses can reduce errors and improve their writing. (MM)

  10. More Than Just Coding? Evaluating CAQDAS in a Discourse Analysis of News Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Katie MacMillan

    2005-09-01

    Full Text Available Computer assisted qualitative data ana­lysis software (CAQDAS is frequently described as a tool that can be used for "qualitative research" in general, with qualitative analysis treated as a "catch-all" homogeneous category. Few studies have detailed its use within specific methods, and even fewer have appraised its value for discourse analysis (DA. While some briefly comment that CAQDAS has technical limitations for discourse analysis, in general, the topic as a whole is given scant attention. Our aim is to investigate whether this limited interest in CAQDAS as a qualitative tool amongst discourse analysts, and in DA as a research method amongst CAQDAS users, is prac­tically based; due to an uncertainty about research methods, including DA; or because of method­ol­ogical incompatibilities. In order to address these questions, this study is based not only on a review of the literature on CAQDAS and on DA, but also on our own experience as discourse analysts put­ting some of the main CAQDAS to the test in a media analysis of news texts. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0503257

  11. Deconstructing Concealed Gayness Text in The Film Negeri van Oranje: Critical Discourse Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heri Setiawan

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available As one of the most popular creative cultural products, film sometimes speaks beyond what it presents. It is not always produced merely for entertainment purposes, but also to spread a certain ideology and represent a particular culture. Anchored in queer theory, this research looks at the Indonesian film, Negeri Van Oranje, which was chosen purposely to be analyzed using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis model with an aim to deconstruct the concealed gayness text in the film. From the analysis, it was found that the gay scenes in the film try to tell its audience about the positions, feelings, challenges, and rejections that Indonesian gay people experience living amongst heteronormative surroundings. Some new notions about gay people’s life in Indonesia are extracted based on the analysis of the gay scenes in the film. The strategy of inserting gay content into a film nationally released in Indonesia is also revealed. The results of the analysis could be used to create a picture of what gay life looks like in Indonesia, a multicultural country that is well-known as the place in which the world’s largest Muslim population dwells.

  12. Single cell analysis contemporary research and clinical applications

    CERN Document Server

    Cossarizza, Andrea

    2017-01-01

    This book highlights the current state of the art in single cell analysis, an area that involves many fields of science – from clinical hematology, functional analysis and drug screening, to platelet and microparticle analysis, marine biology and fundamental cancer research. This book brings together an eclectic group of current applications, all of which have a significant impact on our current state of knowledge. The authors of these chapters are all pioneering researchers in the field of single cell analysis. The book will not only appeal to those readers more focused on clinical applications, but also those interested in highly technical aspects of the technologies. All of the technologies identified utilize unique applications of photon detection systems.

  13. A text-based data mining and toxicity prediction modeling system for a clinical decision support in radiation oncology: A preliminary study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Kwang Hyeon; Lee, Suk; Shim, Jang Bo; Chang, Kyung Hwan; Yang, Dae Sik; Yoon, Won Sup; Park, Young Je; Kim, Chul Yong; Cao, Yuan Jie

    2017-08-01

    The aim of this study is an integrated research for text-based data mining and toxicity prediction modeling system for clinical decision support system based on big data in radiation oncology as a preliminary research. The structured and unstructured data were prepared by treatment plans and the unstructured data were extracted by dose-volume data image pattern recognition of prostate cancer for research articles crawling through the internet. We modeled an artificial neural network to build a predictor model system for toxicity prediction of organs at risk. We used a text-based data mining approach to build the artificial neural network model for bladder and rectum complication predictions. The pattern recognition method was used to mine the unstructured toxicity data for dose-volume at the detection accuracy of 97.9%. The confusion matrix and training model of the neural network were achieved with 50 modeled plans (n = 50) for validation. The toxicity level was analyzed and the risk factors for 25% bladder, 50% bladder, 20% rectum, and 50% rectum were calculated by the artificial neural network algorithm. As a result, 32 plans could cause complication but 18 plans were designed as non-complication among 50 modeled plans. We integrated data mining and a toxicity modeling method for toxicity prediction using prostate cancer cases. It is shown that a preprocessing analysis using text-based data mining and prediction modeling can be expanded to personalized patient treatment decision support based on big data.

  14. Clinical outcomes with alternative dosing strategies for piperacillin/tazobactam: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Yang

    Full Text Available A better dosing strategy can improve clinical outcomes for patients. We sought to compare the extended or continuous infusion with conventional intermittent infusion of piperacillin/tazobactam, investigating which approach is better and worthy of recommendation for clinical use.Articles were gathered from PubMed, Web of Science, ProQuest, Science Direct, Cochrane, two Chinese literature databases (CNKI, Wan Fang Data and related ICAAC and ACCP conferences. Randomized controlled and observational studies that compared extended or continuous infusion with conventional intermittent infusion of piperacillin/tazobactam were identified from the databases above and analyzed. Two reviewers independently extracted and investigated the data. A meta-analysis was performed using Revman 5.2 software. The quality of each study was assessed. Sensitivity analysis and publication bias were evaluated.Five randomized controlled trials and nine observational studies were included in this study. All included studies had high quality and no publication bias was found. Compared to the conventional intermittent infusion approach, the extended or continuous infusion group had a significantly higher clinical cure rate (OR 1.88, 95% CI 1.29-2.73, P = 0.0009 and a lower mortality rate (OR 0.67, 95% CI 0.50-0.89, P = 0.005. No statistical difference was observed for bacteriologic cure (OR 1.40, 95% CI 0.82-2.37, P = 0.22 between the two dosing regimens. The sensitivity analysis showed the results were stable.Our systematic review and meta-analysis suggested that the extended or continuous infusion strategy of piperacillin/tazobactam should be recommended for clinical use considering its higher clinical cure rate and lower mortality rate in comparison with conventional intermittent strategy. Data from this study could be extrapolated for other β-lactam antimicrobials. Therefore, this dosing strategy could be considered in clinical practice.

  15. A feminist post-structuralist analysis of an exemplar South African school history text

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jill Fardon

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available A feminist post-structuralist perspective offers an alternative paradigm for the study of gender bias in History texts. It focuses on multiple perspectives and open interpretation, opens up space for female voices of the past and present, and deconstructs realist historical narrative. Our aim in this article is to discuss feminist post-structuralism as an innovative approach to History as a school subject, and to demonstrate its implications for the analysis of school History texts. We seek to identify and expose biases that marginalise women in school History texts and contribute to correcting these. Additionally, we seek to develop new knowledge for understanding gender differences. An example of the empirical application of the feminist post-structuralist perspective is provided. The exemplar text analysed supports masculine historical narrative, using a neutral and naturalising style, and renders women and the feminine meaning invisible. It is suggested that non-traditional forms of writing will help to dislodge the inherent hegemony in History texts and challenge the masculine status quo in school History texts.

  16. Experiences of Iranian Nurses that Intent to Leave the Clinical Nursing: a Content Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leila Valizadeh

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Despite the current shortage of nurses, it is important to know the reasons nurses want to leave the clinical setting. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of nurses who intend to leave clinical nursing. Methods: In a qualitative content analysis study, data obtained from 13 in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews with nurses working in hospitals affiliated to the Tabriz and Urmia University of Medical Sciences in Iran, selected through purposive sampling. A conventional content analysis was used for data analysis. Results: Four categories and eleven subcategories emerged during data analysis. The extracted categories and sub categories consisted of (I Entry routes into nursing (implicitly entry, targeted entry, (II Defects in dignity (lack of professional vision toward the nurses, social status of nurses, (III Work in non-ideal working environment (lack of support, discrimination, conflict, lack of opportunities for advancement, and (IV Dissatisfaction with working conditions (heavy workload, lack of power, unusual working hours. Conclusion: The findings of this qualitative study reflect professional turnover as a complex, ongoing, multidimensional process. By identifying the factors responsible, it could be possible to retain nurses in the field.

  17. Clinical phenotype analysis of paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wo-tu TIAN

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Background Paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia (PKD is a disorder characterized by recurrent and brief dystonic or choreoathetoid attacks that are induced by sudden voluntary movement with highly clinical and genetic heterogeneity. We aimed to investigate the clinical features of PKD in a large Chinese population. Methods One hundred and ninety five patients diagnosed as primary PKD were recruited. For all of the participants, neurological examinations were conducted and clinical manifestations were recorded and summarized in self - made uniform registration form for PKD patients. Clinical characteristics were statistically analyzed and compared between familial and sporadic PKD patients.  Results Among all of the 195 PKD patients in the present study, the gender ratio was 4.42∶1 (male∶ female. The average age of onset was (12.32 ± 3.49 years. There were 162 patients (83.08% manifestated with pure form and 33 (16.92% with complicated form of PKD. Among them 16 patients (8.21% had essential tremor (ET, and 144 patients (73.85% had premonitory symptom. The percentage of patients manifested as dystonia, chorea and mixed form during episodic attacks were 68.72% (134/195, 4.10% (8/195 and 27.18% (53/195 repectively. There were 134 cases (68.72% had facial involvement. It was recorded that 115 (58.97%, 54 (27.69% and 26 (13.33% patients had frequency of attack < 10 times/d, 10-20 times/d and > 20-30 times/d respectively. The percentages of patients whose duration of attack <10 s, 10-30 s and > 30-60 s were 60% (117/195, 29.74% (58/195 and 10.26% (20/195 respectively. There were 64 patietns (32.82% with family history of PKD and 131 (67.18% were sporadic PKD patients. Up to 40% (78/195 of patients did not require/take medications, as they had minor clinical manifestations or concerns about the side effects of anticonvulsants. Among 117 patients (60% prescribed with anticonvulsants, 114 patients showed a good response, including complete control (N

  18. Text Character Extraction Implementation from Captured Handwritten Image to Text Conversionusing Template Matching Technique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Barate Seema

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Images contain various types of useful information that should be extracted whenever required. A various algorithms and methods are proposed to extract text from the given image, and by using that user will be able to access the text from any image. Variations in text may occur because of differences in size, style,orientation, alignment of text, and low image contrast, composite backgrounds make the problem during extraction of text. If we develop an application that extracts and recognizes those texts accurately in real time, then it can be applied to many important applications like document analysis, vehicle license plate extraction, text- based image indexing, etc and many applications have become realities in recent years. To overcome the above problems we develop such application that will convert the image into text by using algorithms, such as bounding box, HSV model, blob analysis,template matching, template generation.

  19. Sharing problem gamblers’ experiences: a text analysis of gambling stories via online forum

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    Andrea Caputo

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available The present study explored some common thematic domains which characterised problem gambling experiences of adult Italian participants with the aim of understanding motivations and expectations of problem gamblers and thus promoting better psychological interventions. Emotional Text Analysis was performed on 24 problem gambling stories collected via online forum in order to detect the main themes (cluster analysis and latent factors (correspondence analysis emerging in gamblers’ narratives. Five themes emerged which respectively refer to guilt (16.15%, obsession (27.60%, disease (30.77%, risk taking (15.89% and emotion regulation (4.17%. In addition, four synthetic dimensions were detected which consent to account the variability of problem gambling experience based on: struggle against compulsion (F1, ambivalent acceptance of gambling (F2, interpersonal detachment (F3 and illusion of control (F4. From the emotional experience shaping the problem gamblers’ narratives, this research study allows the identification of some factors which can contribute to quality research on problem gambling and which can provide some useful suggestion for treatment.

  20. [Exploring the clinical characters of Shugan Jieyu capsule through text mining].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pu, Zheng-Ping; Xia, Jiang-Ming; Xie, Wei; He, Jin-Cai

    2017-09-01

    The study was main to explore the clinical characters of Shugan Jieyu capsule through text mining. The data sets of Shugan Jieyu capsule were downloaded from CMCC database by the method of literature retrieved from May 2009 to Jan 2016. Rules of Chinese medical patterns, diseases, symptoms and combination treatment were mined out by data slicing algorithm, and they were demonstrated in frequency tables and two dimension based network. Then totally 190 literature were recruited. The outcomess suggested that SC was most frequently correlated with liver Qi stagnation. Primary depression, depression due to brain disease, concomitant depression followed by physical diseases, concomitant depression followed by schizophrenia and functional dyspepsia were main diseases treated by Shugan Jieyu capsule. Symptoms like low mood, psychic anxiety, somatic anxiety and dysfunction of automatic nerve were mainy relieved bv Shugan Jieyu capsule.For combination treatment. Shugan Jieyu capsule was most commonly used with paroxetine, sertraline and fluoxetine. The research suggested that syndrome types and mining results of Shugan Jieyu capsule were almost the same as its instructions. Syndrome of malnutrition of heart spirit was the potential Chinese medical pattern of Shugan Jieyu capsule. Primary comorbid anxiety and depression, concomitant comorbid anxiety and depression followed by physical diseases, and postpartum depression were potential diseases treated by Shugan Jieyu capsule.For combination treatment, Shugan Jieyu capsule was most commonly used with paroxetine, sertraline and fluoxetine. Copyright© by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association.

  1. Prevalence of Nontuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM in Iranian Clinical Specimens: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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    Azad Khaledi

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Background:    Although, nontuberculous mycobacteria can cause disease in different organisms, they usually are not reported in most countries because scientists in general consider them as non-pathogens. But, increasing nontuberculous mycobacteria diseases occurrence has changed this belief. Nevertheless, there is no meta-analysis review about prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacteria in Iran. Methods:   Any data about prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacteria in clinical specimens in Iran were retrieved by searching data bases such as Pub Med, MEDLINE, and Iranian data bases. Then the meta-analysis was performed by comprehensive meta-analysis software (CMA. Results:    The meta-analysis showed that the prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacteria in the clinical specimens in Iran was 1.3%. In the studies that had sample size less than 300, and in studies conducted after 2004, the prevalence was higher. Also, the prevalence of nontuberculous mycobacteria was higher in the West of Iran. In this study, the most prevalent rapid-growing mycobacterium was Mycobacterium. fortuitum and  most prevalent slow-growing mycobacterium was M. simiae with the prevalence 44.2% and 14.3%, respectively.Conclusion:   M. simiae is the most prevalent nontuberculous mycobacteria in the clinical specimens in Iran. As this species of nontuberculous mycobacteria has similar clinical and radiological manifestations with tuberculosis, it is often treated as tuberculosis. Unfortunately, M. simiae is resistant against first-line anti-TB drugs resulting in treatment failure after using routine anti-TB medication. Therefore, there is an urgent need for application of new diagnostic strategy for identification of nontuberculous mycobacteria species.

  2. Comparative Analysis of Technologies for Quantifying Extracellular Vesicles (EVs in Clinical Cerebrospinal Fluids (CSF.

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    Johnny C Akers

    Full Text Available Extracellular vesicles (EVs have emerged as a promising biomarker platform for glioblastoma patients. However, the optimal method for quantitative assessment of EVs in clinical bio-fluid remains a point of contention. Multiple high-resolution platforms for quantitative EV analysis have emerged, including methods grounded in diffraction measurement of Brownian motion (NTA, tunable resistive pulse sensing (TRPS, vesicle flow cytometry (VFC, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM. Here we compared quantitative EV assessment using cerebrospinal fluids derived from glioblastoma patients using these methods. For EVs 150 nm in diameter, NTA consistently detected lower number of EVs relative to TRPS. These results unveil the strength and pitfalls of each quantitative method alone for assessing EVs derived from clinical cerebrospinal fluids and suggest that thoughtful synthesis of multi-platform quantitation will be required to guide meaningful clinical investigations.

  3. Extracting BI-RADS Features from Portuguese Clinical Texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nassif, Houssam; Cunha, Filipe; Moreira, Inês C; Cruz-Correia, Ricardo; Sousa, Eliana; Page, David; Burnside, Elizabeth; Dutra, Inês

    2012-01-01

    In this work we build the first BI-RADS parser for Portuguese free texts, modeled after existing approaches to extract BI-RADS features from English medical records. Our concept finder uses a semantic grammar based on the BIRADS lexicon and on iterative transferred expert knowledge. We compare the performance of our algorithm to manual annotation by a specialist in mammography. Our results show that our parser's performance is comparable to the manual method.

  4. Text in social networking Web sites: A word frequency analysis of Live Spaces

    OpenAIRE

    Thelwall, Mike

    2008-01-01

    Social networking sites are owned by a wide section of society and seem to dominate Web usage. Despite much research into this phenomenon, little systematic data is available. This article partially fills this gap with a pilot text analysis of one social networking site, Live Spaces. The text in 3,071 English language Live Spaces sites was monitored daily for six months and word frequency statistics calculated and compared with those from the British National Corpus. The results confirmed the...

  5. Circulating Tumor Cell Analysis: Technical and Statistical Considerations for Application to the Clinic

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    Alison L. Allan

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Solid cancers are a leading cause of death worldwide, primarily due to the failure of effective clinical detection and treatment of metastatic disease in distant sites. There is growing evidence that the presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs in the blood of cancer patients may be an important indicator of the potential for metastatic disease and poor prognosis. Technological advances have now facilitated the enumeration and characterization of CTCs using methods such as PCR, flow cytometry, image-based immunologic approaches, immunomagnetic techniques, and microchip technology. However, the rare nature of these cells requires that very sensitive and robust detection/enumeration methods be developed and validated in order to implement CTC analysis for widespread use in the clinic. This review will focus on the important technical and statistical considerations that must be taken into account when designing and implementing CTC assays, as well as the subsequent interpretation of these results for the purposes of clinical decision making.

  6. Inclusion of ethical issues in dementia guidelines: a thematic text analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knüppel, Hannes; Mertz, Marcel; Schmidhuber, Martina; Neitzke, Gerald; Strech, Daniel

    2013-08-01

    Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) aim to improve professionalism in health care. However, current CPG development manuals fail to address how to include ethical issues in a systematic and transparent manner. The objective of this study was to assess the representation of ethical issues in general CPGs on dementia care. To identify national CPGs on dementia care, five databases of guidelines were searched and national psychiatric associations were contacted in August 2011 and in June 2013. A framework for the assessment of the identified CPGs' ethical content was developed on the basis of a prior systematic review of ethical issues in dementia care. Thematic text analysis and a 4-point rating score were employed to assess how ethical issues were addressed in the identified CPGs. Twelve national CPGs were included. Thirty-one ethical issues in dementia care were identified by the prior systematic review. The proportion of these 31 ethical issues that were explicitly addressed by each CPG ranged from 22% to 77%, with a median of 49.5%. National guidelines differed substantially with respect to (a) which ethical issues were represented, (b) whether ethical recommendations were included, (c) whether justifications or citations were provided to support recommendations, and (d) to what extent the ethical issues were explained. Ethical issues were inconsistently addressed in national dementia guidelines, with some guidelines including most and some including few ethical issues. Guidelines should address ethical issues and how to deal with them to help the medical profession understand how to approach care of patients with dementia, and for patients, their relatives, and the general public, all of whom might seek information and advice in national guidelines. There is a need for further research to specify how detailed ethical issues and their respective recommendations can and should be addressed in dementia guidelines. Please see later in the article for the Editors

  7. The Imbalance Attitude of the Journalists in Six Chemical Castration Texts: An SFLCritical Discourse Analysis

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    Mustofa Kamal

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This research investigates how journalists behave in texts. The analysis focuses on the exploitation of attitudinal lexis. This is qualitatively explored through attitude and graduation. The data sources were columns of news, taken from an online version of The Jakarta Post on June sixth 2016. Having been selected using criterion-based sampling technique, the sources of data resulted in six chemical castration texts. The procedure of investigation consists of domain, taxonomic, componential, and cultural value analysis. The result shows that journalists are relatively subjective in reporting news by unbalancing the pros and cons, relatively inconsistent in work from delivering news to criticizing government officials, and relatively provocative by up-scaling critical evaluations against the government policy on sex offenders.

  8. A Comparative Analysis of Information Hiding Techniques for Copyright Protection of Text Documents

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    Milad Taleby Ahvanooey

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available With the ceaseless usage of web and other online services, it has turned out that copying, sharing, and transmitting digital media over the Internet are amazingly simple. Since the text is one of the main available data sources and most widely used digital media on the Internet, the significant part of websites, books, articles, daily papers, and so on is just the plain text. Therefore, copyrights protection of plain texts is still a remaining issue that must be improved in order to provide proof of ownership and obtain the desired accuracy. During the last decade, digital watermarking and steganography techniques have been used as alternatives to prevent tampering, distortion, and media forgery and also to protect both copyright and authentication. This paper presents a comparative analysis of information hiding techniques, especially on those ones which are focused on modifying the structure and content of digital texts. Herein, various text watermarking and text steganography techniques characteristics are highlighted along with their applications. In addition, various types of attacks are described and their effects are analyzed in order to highlight the advantages and weaknesses of current techniques. Finally, some guidelines and directions are suggested for future works.

  9. Plagiarism in Academic Texts

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    Marta Eugenia Rojas-Porras

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available The ethical and social responsibility of citing the sources in a scientific or artistic work is undeniable. This paper explores, in a preliminary way, academic plagiarism in its various forms. It includes findings based on a forensic analysis. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness on the importance of considering these details when writing and publishing a text. Hopefully, this analysis may put the issue under discussion.

  10. General practice-based clinical trials in Germany - a problem analysis

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    Hummers-Pradier Eva

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In Germany, clinical trials and comparative effectiveness studies in primary care are still very rare, while their usefulness has been recognised in many other countries. A network of researchers from German academic general practice has explored the reasons for this discrepancy. Methods Based on a comprehensive literature review and expert group discussions, problem analyses as well as structural and procedural prerequisites for a better implementation of clinical trials in German primary care are presented. Results In Germany, basic biomedical science and technology is more reputed than clinical or health services research. Clinical trials are funded by industry or a single national programme, which is highly competitive, specialist-dominated, exclusive of pilot studies, and usually favours innovation rather than comparative effectiveness studies. Academic general practice is still not fully implemented, and existing departments are small. Most general practitioners (GPs work in a market-based, competitive setting of small private practices, with a high case load. They have no protected time or funding for research, and mostly no research training or experience. Good Clinical Practice (GCP training is compulsory for participation in clinical trials. The group defined three work packages to be addressed regarding clinical trials in German general practice: (1 problem analysis, and definition of (2 structural prerequisites and (3 procedural prerequisites. Structural prerequisites comprise specific support facilities for general practice-based research networks that could provide practices with a point of contact. Procedural prerequisites consist, for example, of a summary of specific relevant key measures, for example on a web platform. The platform should contain standard operating procedures (SOPs, templates, checklists and other supporting materials for researchers. Conclusion All in all, our problem analyses revealed that

  11. An exploratory clinical study to determine the utility of heart rate variability analysis in the assessment of dosha imbalance

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    P. Ram Manohar

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The present study is a comparison of the data of spectral analysis of heart rate variability with clinical evaluation of pathological state of doshas. The calculated cardiointervalography values are combined into three integral indexes, which according to the authors' opinion reflect the influence on heart rhythm of vata, pitta and kapha, the regulation systems of the body known as doshas in Ayurveda. Seven gross dosha imbalances were assessed to test the agreement between the two methods in this study. Heart Rate Variability (HRV spectral data was collected from 42 participants to make the comparison with the clinical assessment of dosha imbalance. Clinical method of dosha assessment and method of calculating integral indexes by cardiointervalography data showed substantial agreement by Kappa coefficient statistic (k = 0.78 in assessment of gross dosha imbalance. The results of the data generated from this pilot study warrant further studies to rigorously validate the algorithms of HRV analysis in understanding dosha imbalance in Ayurvedic clinical practice and research settings. Keywords: Heart rate variability, Ayurveda, Spectral analysis

  12. Connected text reading and differences in text reading fluency in adult readers.

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    Sebastian Wallot

    Full Text Available The process of connected text reading has received very little attention in contemporary cognitive psychology. This lack of attention is in parts due to a research tradition that emphasizes the role of basic lexical constituents, which can be studied in isolated words or sentences. However, this lack of attention is in parts also due to the lack of statistical analysis techniques, which accommodate interdependent time series. In this study, we investigate text reading performance with traditional and nonlinear analysis techniques and show how outcomes from multiple analyses can used to create a more detailed picture of the process of text reading. Specifically, we investigate reading performance of groups of literate adult readers that differ in reading fluency during a self-paced text reading task. Our results indicate that classical metrics of reading (such as word frequency do not capture text reading very well, and that classical measures of reading fluency (such as average reading time distinguish relatively poorly between participant groups. Nonlinear analyses of distribution tails and reading time fluctuations provide more fine-grained information about the reading process and reading fluency.

  13. Sentence connexion and global text structures: a case study of a political text, English leader article

    OpenAIRE

    Stein, Dieter; Mattei, Adriana

    1993-01-01

    The paper first gives a brief overview of the history and theoretical status of discourse analysis, or "text linguistics." The main body of the paper consists of a detailed analysis of sentence connexion, i.e. the logical relationship between sentences and larger chunks of text, performed on a newspaper leader article. The results of this local analysis are then related to the global organisation of text structure with components such as macro- and super-structure by way of int...

  14. [Acupuncture for aphasia: a retrospective analysis of clinical literature].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Jie; Zhang, Hong; Han, Guodong; Ai, Kun; Deng, Shifeng

    2016-04-01

    With the Meta-analysis method, the clinical efficacy of acupuncture and other regular methods for aphasia was evaluated, and the acupoints selection for aphasia was explored. The acupuncture literature of clinical randomized control trials for aphasia published in CNKI, WANFANG, VIP and CBM database was searched; the statistical analysis of clinical efficacy of acupuncture and other regular methods for aphasia was performed by using software Revman 5. 2 provided by Cochrane library. A file of Microsoft Excel was established to perform the analysis of acupoints selection based on frequency analysis method, so as to summarize the characteristics and rules. Totally 385 articles were searched, and 37 articles those met the inclusive criteria was included, involving 1,260 patients in the acupuncture group and 1 238 patients in the control group. The Meta-analysis results showed OR = 3.82, 95% Cl [3.01, 4.85]; rhombus was located on the right side and the funnel plot was nearly symmetry, indicating the treatment effect of the acupuncture group for aphasia was superior to the control group (Z = 11.04, P aphasia is superior to that of speech rehabilitation training and medication treatment alone. The clinical treatment for aphasia focuses on its local effect; the main acupoints are in the head and face, and the meridians are governor vessel, extra channels and conception vessel.

  15. Perspectives on clinical possibility: elements of analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiffi, Daniele; Zanotti, Renzo

    2016-08-01

    Possibility is one of the most common modalities in reasoning and argumentation. Various kinds of modal concepts have been identified in philosophical and logical discussion of the metaphysics of modality. We focus here on the concept of clinical possibility. A critical analysis of what is intended as clinical possibility has not yet received sufficient examination, although the concept is extensively used in clinical reasoning. We present arguments to emphasize some desirable features associated with the concept of clinical possibility. We argue that almost all clinical possibilities are potentialities, that is, possibilities that may be actualized by effective, appropriate and feasible interventions. However, in some limited cases, even mere possibilities - which may or may not be actualized, since we do not have the required knowledge - may be involved in clinical reasoning, and we present some examples in this paper. We then introduce some basic views on the nature of possibility showing their validity and limitations when applied to the concept of clinical possibility. Lastly, we conjecture that clinical possibility is a normative modality that can be formalized in a multimodal system with epistemic and deontic logical operators. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  16. Coronary artery disease risk assessment from unstructured electronic health records using text mining.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jonnagaddala, Jitendra; Liaw, Siaw-Teng; Ray, Pradeep; Kumar, Manish; Chang, Nai-Wen; Dai, Hong-Jie

    2015-12-01

    Coronary artery disease (CAD) often leads to myocardial infarction, which may be fatal. Risk factors can be used to predict CAD, which may subsequently lead to prevention or early intervention. Patient data such as co-morbidities, medication history, social history and family history are required to determine the risk factors for a disease. However, risk factor data are usually embedded in unstructured clinical narratives if the data is not collected specifically for risk assessment purposes. Clinical text mining can be used to extract data related to risk factors from unstructured clinical notes. This study presents methods to extract Framingham risk factors from unstructured electronic health records using clinical text mining and to calculate 10-year coronary artery disease risk scores in a cohort of diabetic patients. We developed a rule-based system to extract risk factors: age, gender, total cholesterol, HDL-C, blood pressure, diabetes history and smoking history. The results showed that the output from the text mining system was reliable, but there was a significant amount of missing data to calculate the Framingham risk score. A systematic approach for understanding missing data was followed by implementation of imputation strategies. An analysis of the 10-year Framingham risk scores for coronary artery disease in this cohort has shown that the majority of the diabetic patients are at moderate risk of CAD. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  17. Effectiveness of Short Message Service Text-Based Smoking Cessation Intervention Among University Students: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Müssener, Ulrika; Bendtsen, Marcus; Karlsson, Nadine; White, Ian R; McCambridge, Jim; Bendtsen, Preben

    2016-03-01

    Smoking is globally the most important preventable cause of ill health and death. Mobile telephone interventions and, in particular, short message service (SMS) text messaging, have the potential to overcome access barriers to traditional health services, not least among young people. To determine the effectiveness of a text-based smoking cessation intervention among young people. A single-blind, 2-arm, randomized clinical trial (Nicotine Exit [NEXit]) was conducted from October 23, 2014, to April 17, 2015; data analysis was performed from April 23, 2014, to May 22, 2015. Participants included daily or weekly smokers willing to set a quit date within 1 month of enrollment. The study used email to invite all college and university students throughout Sweden to participate. The NEXit core program is initiated with a 1- to 4-week motivational phase during which participants can choose to set a stop date. The intervention group then received 157 text messages based on components of effective smoking cessation interventions for 12 weeks. The control group received 1 text every 2 weeks thanking them for participating in the study, with delayed access to the intervention. The primary outcomes were self-reported prolonged abstinence (not having smoked >5 cigarettes over the past 8 weeks) and 4-week point prevalence of complete smoking cessation shortly after the completion of the intervention (approximately 4 months after the quit date). A total of 1590 participants, mainly between 21 and 30 years of age, were randomized into the study; 827 (573 [69.3%] women) were allocated to the intervention group and 763 (522 [68.4%] women) were included in the control group. Primary outcome data were available for 783 (94.7%) of the intervention group and 719 (94.2%) of the control group. At baseline, participants were smoking a median (range) of 63 (1-238) and 70 (2-280) cigarettes per week, respectively. Eight-week prolonged abstinence was reported by 203 participants (25.9%) in the

  18. Text analysis of open-ended survey responses : a complementary method to preference mapping

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    ten Kleij, F; Musters, PAD

    The present study illustrates the use of computer-aided text analysis to evaluate the content of open-ended survey responses. During an in-hall test, different varieties of mayonnaise were evaluated by 165 respondents on a 10-point liking scale, with the option to freely comment on these

  19. Lessons learned from IDeAl - 33 recommendations from the IDeAl-net about design and analysis of small population clinical trials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hilgers, Ralf-Dieter; Bogdan, Malgorzata; Burman, Carl-Fredrik; Dette, Holger; Karlsson, Mats; König, Franz; Male, Christoph; Mentré, France; Molenberghs, Geert; Senn, Stephen

    2018-05-11

    IDeAl (Integrated designs and analysis of small population clinical trials) is an EU funded project developing new statistical design and analysis methodologies for clinical trials in small population groups. Here we provide an overview of IDeAl findings and give recommendations to applied researchers. The description of the findings is broken down by the nine scientific IDeAl work packages and summarizes results from the project's more than 60 publications to date in peer reviewed journals. In addition, we applied text mining to evaluate the publications and the IDeAl work packages' output in relation to the design and analysis terms derived from in the IRDiRC task force report on small population clinical trials. The results are summarized, describing the developments from an applied viewpoint. The main result presented here are 33 practical recommendations drawn from the work, giving researchers a comprehensive guidance to the improved methodology. In particular, the findings will help design and analyse efficient clinical trials in rare diseases with limited number of patients available. We developed a network representation relating the hot topics developed by the IRDiRC task force on small population clinical trials to IDeAl's work as well as relating important methodologies by IDeAl's definition necessary to consider in design and analysis of small-population clinical trials. These network representation establish a new perspective on design and analysis of small-population clinical trials. IDeAl has provided a huge number of options to refine the statistical methodology for small-population clinical trials from various perspectives. A total of 33 recommendations developed and related to the work packages help the researcher to design small population clinical trial. The route to improvements is displayed in IDeAl-network representing important statistical methodological skills necessary to design and analysis of small-population clinical trials. The methods

  20. A systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions for weight management using text messaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siopis, G; Chey, T; Allman-Farinelli, M

    2015-02-01

    Obesity prevalence continues to increase worldwide, with significant associated chronic disease and health cost implications. Among more recent innovations in health service provision is the use of text messaging for health behaviour change interventions including weight management. This review investigates the efficacy of weight management programmes incorporating text messaging. Medical and scientific databases were searched from January 1993 to October 2013. Eligibility criteria included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), pseudoRCTs and before and after studies of weight management, among healthy children and adults, that used text messaging and included a nutrition component. Data extraction and quality assessment followed guidelines from PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) and the Evidence Analysis Manual of the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. From 512 manuscripts retrieved, 14 met the inclusion criteria (five manuscripts in children and nine in adults). Duration of interventions ranged from 1 to 24 months. Frequency of text messaging was from daily to fortnightly. Six studies in adults were included in a meta-analysis with mean body weight change as the primary outcome. The weighted mean change in body weight in intervention participants was -2.56 kg (95% confidence interval = -3.46 to -1.65) and in controls -0.37 kg (95% confidence interval = -1.22 to 0.48). The small body of evidence indicates that text messaging interventions can promote weight loss. However, lack of long-term results indicate that further efficacy studies are required. Future investigations should elucidate the determinants, such as intervention duration, text message frequency and level of interactivity that maximise the success and cost effectiveness of the delivery medium. © 2014 The British Dietetic Association Ltd.

  1. The Power of Social Media Analytics: Text Analytics Based on Sentiment Analysis and Word Clouds on R

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmed Imran KABIR

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Apparently, word clouds have grown as a clear and appealing illustration or visualization strategy in terms of text. Word clouds are used as a part of various settings as a way to give a diagram by cleansing text throughout those words that come up with most frequently. Generally, this is performed constantly as an unadulterated text outline. In any case, that there is a bigger capability to this basic yet intense visualization worldview in text analytics. In this work, we investigate the adequacy of word clouds for general text analysis errands and also analyze the tweets to find out the sentiment and also discuss the legal aspects of text mining. We used R software to pull twitter data which depends altogether on word cloud as a visualization technique and also with the help of positive and negative words to determine the user sentiment. We indicate how this approach can be viably used to explain text analysis tasks and assess it in a qualitative user research.

  2. Use of an android phone application for automated text messages in international settings: A case study in an HIV clinical trial in St. Petersburg, Russia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forman, Leah S; Patts, Gregory J; Coleman, Sharon M; Blokhina, Elena; Lu, John; Yaroslavtseva, Tatiana; Gnatienko, Natalia; Krupitsky, Evgeny; Samet, Jeffrey H; Chaisson, Christine E

    2018-02-01

    Reproducible outcomes in clinical trials depend on adherence to study protocol. Short message service (also known as text message) reminders have been shown to improve clinical trial adherence in the United States and elsewhere. However, due to systematic differences in mobile data plans, languages, and technology, these systems are not easily translated to international settings. To gauge technical capabilities for international projects, we developed SMSMessenger, an automated Android application that uses a US server to send medication reminders to participants in a clinical trial in St. Petersburg, Russia (Zinc for HIV disease among alcohol users-a randomized controlled trial in the Russia Alcohol Research Collaboration on HIV/AIDS cohort). The application is downloaded once onto an Android study phone. When it is time for the text message reminders to be sent, study personnel access the application on a local phone, which in turn accesses the existing clinical trial database hosted on a US web server. The application retrieves a list of participants with the following information: phone number, whether a message should be received at that time, and the appropriate text of the message. The application is capable of storing multiple outgoing messages. With a few clicks, text messages are sent to study participants who can reply directly to the message. Study staff can check the local phone for incoming messages. The SMSMessenger application uses an existing clinical trial database and is able to receive real-time updates. All communications between the application and server are encrypted, and phone numbers are stored in a secure database behind a firewall. No sensitive data are stored on the phone, as outgoing messages are sent through the application and not by messaging features on the phone itself. Messages are sent simultaneously to study participants, which reduces the burden on local study staff. Costs and setup are minimal. The only local requirements

  3. Text mining a self-report back-translation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blanch, Angel; Aluja, Anton

    2016-06-01

    There are several recommendations about the routine to undertake when back translating self-report instruments in cross-cultural research. However, text mining methods have been generally ignored within this field. This work describes a text mining innovative application useful to adapt a personality questionnaire to 12 different languages. The method is divided in 3 different stages, a descriptive analysis of the available back-translated instrument versions, a dissimilarity assessment between the source language instrument and the 12 back-translations, and an item assessment of item meaning equivalence. The suggested method contributes to improve the back-translation process of self-report instruments for cross-cultural research in 2 significant intertwined ways. First, it defines a systematic approach to the back translation issue, allowing for a more orderly and informed evaluation concerning the equivalence of different versions of the same instrument in different languages. Second, it provides more accurate instrument back-translations, which has direct implications for the reliability and validity of the instrument's test scores when used in different cultures/languages. In addition, this procedure can be extended to the back-translation of self-reports measuring psychological constructs in clinical assessment. Future research works could refine the suggested methodology and use additional available text mining tools. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  4. Clinical Evaluation and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Serum Tumor Markers in Lung Cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rong Wang

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The detection of serum tumor markers is valuable for the early diagnosis of lung cancer. Tumor markers are frequently used for the management of cancer patients. However, single markers are less efficient but marker combinations increase the cost, which is troublesome for clinics. To find an optimal serum marker combination panel that benefits the patients and the medical management system as well, four routine lung cancer serum markers (SCCA, NSE, CEA, and CYFRA21-1 were evaluated individually and in combination. Meanwhile, the costs and effects of these markers in clinical practice in China were assessed by cost-effectiveness analysis. As expected, combinations of these tumor markers improved their sensitivity for lung cancer and different combination panels had their own usefulness. NSE + CEA + CYFRA21-1 was the optimal combination panel with highest Youden’s index (0.64, higher sensitivity (75.76%, and specificity (88.57%, which can aid the clinical diagnosis of lung cancer. Nevertheless, the most cost-effective combination was SCCA + CEA, which can be used to screen the high-risk group.

  5. Ethnographic nexus analysis in clinical nursing education

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjær, Malene

    2016-01-01

    Purpose/aim(s): Internationally, student nurses' attrition after clinical practice is an increasing problem (Hamshire, Willgoss, & Wibberley, 2012; Pilegård Jensen, 2006). A better understanding of 'becoming a nurse' as situated practice in the hospital wards might help avoid pitfalls...... in the clinical practice. Thus a thorough insight into the field is necessary in order to change it. The purpose of this paper is to show and discuss how it is possible methodologically to do ethnographic research in clinical education and how the field of clinical nursing education in the hospital wards might...... be improved after insights obtained through ethnographic research. Methods: Using nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004, 2007) as an ethnographic framework in four Danish hospital wards, a study of the development of a professional identity among student nurses in Denmark was conducted. Scollon and Scollon...

  6. SOME ASPECTS OF THE USE OF MATHEMATICAL-STATISTICAL METHODS IN THE ANALYSIS OF SOCIO-HUMANISTIC TEXTS Humanities and social text, mathematics, method, statistics, probability

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zaira M Alieva

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The article analyzes the application of mathematical and statistical methods in the analysis of socio-humanistic texts. The essence of mathematical and statistical methods, presents examples of their use in the study of Humanities and social phenomena. Considers the key issues faced by the expert in the application of mathematical-statistical methods in socio-humanitarian sphere, including the availability of sustainable contrasting socio-humanitarian Sciences and mathematics; the complexity of the allocation of the object that is the bearer of the problem; having the use of a probabilistic approach. The conclusion according to the results of the study.

  7. New challenges for text mining: mapping between text and manually curated pathways

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oda, Kanae; Kim, Jin-Dong; Ohta, Tomoko; Okanohara, Daisuke; Matsuzaki, Takuya; Tateisi, Yuka; Tsujii, Jun'ichi

    2008-01-01

    Background Associating literature with pathways poses new challenges to the Text Mining (TM) community. There are three main challenges to this task: (1) the identification of the mapping position of a specific entity or reaction in a given pathway, (2) the recognition of the causal relationships among multiple reactions, and (3) the formulation and implementation of required inferences based on biological domain knowledge. Results To address these challenges, we constructed new resources to link the text with a model pathway; they are: the GENIA pathway corpus with event annotation and NF-kB pathway. Through their detailed analysis, we address the untapped resource, ‘bio-inference,’ as well as the differences between text and pathway representation. Here, we show the precise comparisons of their representations and the nine classes of ‘bio-inference’ schemes observed in the pathway corpus. Conclusions We believe that the creation of such rich resources and their detailed analysis is the significant first step for accelerating the research of the automatic construction of pathway from text. PMID:18426550

  8. Improving Immunizations in Children: A Clinical Break-even Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Kyle Bradford; Spain, Chad; Wright, Hannah; Gren, Lisa H

    2015-06-01

    Immunizing the population is a vital public health priority. This article describes a resident-led continuous quality improvement project to improve the immunization rates of children under 3 years of age at two urban family medicine residency clinics in Salt Lake City, Utah, as well as a break-even cost analysis to the clinics for the intervention. Immunization records were distributed to provider-medical assistant teamlets daily for each pediatric patient scheduled in clinic to decrease missed opportunities. An outreach intervention by letter, followed by telephone call reminders, was conducted to reach children under 3 years of age who were behind on recommended immunizations for age (total n=457; those behind on immunizations n=101). Immunization rates were monitored at 3 months following start of intervention. A break-even analysis to the clinics for the outreach intervention was performed. Immunizations were improved from a baseline of 75.1% (n=133) and 79.6% (n=223) at the two clinics to 92.1% (n=163) and 89.6% (n=251), respectively, at 3 months following the start of intervention (Pbreak-even point required 36 immunizations to be administered. Significant improvement in the immunization rate of patients under 3 years of age at two family medicine residency training clinics was achieved through decreasing missed opportunities for immunization in clinic, and with outreach through letters and follow-up phone calls. The intervention showed positive revenue to both clinics. © 2015 Marshfield Clinic.

  9. [Educative strategy evaluation to improve critical reading skills on clinical research texts in second year gyneco-obstetrics residents].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carranza Lira, Sebastián; Arce Herrera, Rosa María; González González, Patricia

    2007-11-01

    The educative models and strategies to achieve a significant learning have a wide variety. The development of clinical aptitude for clinical research papers lecture has an important place to maintain the physician actualized and for resident formation. To evaluate the degree of development of the aptitude for the reading of clinical research articles in 2nd grade residents of the gynecology and obstetrics speciality alter an educative strategy. In 16 2nd year gynecology and obstetrics residents, a previously validated instrument was applied for the evaluation of critical lecture of clinical research articles in general medicine previous and after and educative strategy. Statistical analysis was with Kruskal-Wallis analysis of variance. Also Wilcoxon test was used to assess the differences between baseline and final results. The median of age was 27 (24-31) years, gender 56.3% women and 43.8% men. A statistically significant increase in global score was observed after the educative strategy. After it only there was a significant increase in the indicator to interpret. After evaluating the domain degrees according to the indicator to interpret, in baseline evaluation it predominated the very low level and at the final evaluation the very low and low levels. In the indicator to judge at baseline the majority were in the very low level, and at the end in very low and low levels. According to the indicator to propose at baseline all were in the level expected by hazard, and at the end a minimal proportion was at very low level. These results traduce a discrete improvement in critical lecture process, which makes to consider the educative strategy that was used, since the objective to improve critical lecture capacity was not achieved.

  10. Lexical Sentiment Analysis in Slovenian Texts

    OpenAIRE

    VOLČANŠEK, MATEJA

    2015-01-01

    The goal of this thesis is to create a sentiment dictionary for the Slovenian language which can be used in lexical methods for automatic sentiment analysis. We start from a sentiment dictionary for the English language, translate it semi-automatically to Slovenian and curate its content. We test the performance of using the translated dictionary for automated lexical sentiment analysis on a corpus of 5000 manually annotated Slovenian news articles gathered from the main Slovenian news por...

  11. [Clinical analysis of three cases with beta-thalassemia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, X Y; Liu, M J; Xu, L H; Xu, H G; Chen, H L; Fang, J P

    2018-04-02

    Objective: To study the diagnostic strategy of β-thalassemia through retrospective analysis of 3 cases of β-thalassemia. Methods: Three patients were admitted to the Department of Pediatrics, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University from January 2014 to June 2015. The clinical manifestations, hemoglobin electrophoresis and gene detection of these patients and their parents were analyzed, diagnostic ideas and key points were discussed when beta thalassemia gene detection did not explain clinical manifestations or hemoglobin electrophoresis. Results: Case 1, boy, 5 years old, was diagnosed as compound heterozygotes of β41-42 and IVS-Ⅱ-654 with hereditary persistence of fetal hemoglobin(HPFH) according to the clinical manifestations of mild anemia, normal size of liver and spleen, 92.8% fetal hemoglobin (HbF) and gene analysis. Case 2, girl, 3 years old, was confirmed the diagnosis of thalassemia intermedia with β41-42 heterozygote compound and ααα anti3.7 heterozygote in accordance with the manifestations of severe anemia, hepatosplenomegaly, 8.6% HbF, 4.1% hemoglobin A 2 (HbA 2 ) and gene analysis. Case 3, girl, 3 years old, with severe anemia, hepatosplenomegaly, 51.2% HbF and 3.7% HbA 2 , was diagnosed as thalassemia major with compound heterozygotes of PolyA (T→C) and β17 by DNA sequencing. Conclusion: The diagnosis of β-thalassemia should be confirmed by clinical manifestations of hemolytic anemia, hemoglobin electrophoresis, gene diagnosis and family survey.

  12. [Economic analysis of multinational clinical trials in oncology].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lejeune, Catherine; Lueza, Béranger; Bonastre, Julia

    2018-02-01

    In oncology, as in other fields of medicine, international multicentre clinical trials came into being so as to include a sufficient number of subjects to investigate a clinical situation. The existence of tight budgetary constraints and the desire to make the best use of the resources available have resulted in the development of economic evaluations associated with these trials, which, thanks to their level of evidence and their size, provide particularly relevant material. Nonetheless, economic evaluations alongside international clinical trials raise specific questions of methodology with regard to both the design and the analysis of the results. Indeed, the costs of goods and services consumed, the types and quantities of resources, and medical practices vary from one country to another and within an individual country. Economic data from the different countries involved must be available so as to study and to take into account this variability, and appropriate techniques for cost estimations and analysis must be implemented to aggregate the results from several countries. From a review of the literature, the aim of this work was to provide an overview of the specific methodological features of economic evaluations alongside international clinical trials: analysis of efficacy data from several countries, collection of resources and real costs, methods to establish the monetary value of resources, methods to aggregate results accounting for the trial effect. Copyright © 2017 Société Française du Cancer. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  13. Clinical proteomic analysis of scrub typhus infection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Edmond Changkyun; Lee, Sang-Yeop; Yun, Sung Ho; Choi, Chi-Won; Lee, Hayoung; Song, Hyun Seok; Jun, Sangmi; Kim, Gun-Hwa; Lee, Chang-Seop; Kim, Seung Il

    2018-01-01

    Scrub typhus is an acute and febrile infectious disease caused by the Gram-negative α-proteobacterium Orientia tsutsugamushi from the family Rickettsiaceae that is widely distributed in Northern, Southern and Eastern Asia. In the present study, we analysed the serum proteome of scrub typhus patients to investigate specific clinical protein patterns in an attempt to explain pathophysiology and discover potential biomarkers of infection. Serum samples were collected from three patients (before and after treatment with antibiotics) and three healthy subjects. One-dimensional sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry was performed to identify differentially abundant proteins using quantitative proteomic approaches. Bioinformatic analysis was then performed using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. Proteomic analysis identified 236 serum proteins, of which 32 were differentially expressed in normal subjects, naive scrub typhus patients and patients treated with antibiotics. Comparative bioinformatic analysis of the identified proteins revealed up-regulation of proteins involved in immune responses, especially complement system, following infection with O. tsutsugamushi , and normal expression was largely rescued by antibiotic treatment. This is the first proteomic study of clinical serum samples from scrub typhus patients. Proteomic analysis identified changes in protein expression upon infection with O. tsutsugamushi and following antibiotic treatment. Our results provide valuable information for further investigation of scrub typhus therapy and diagnosis.

  14. Usability study of clinical exome analysis software: top lessons learned and recommendations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shyr, Casper; Kushniruk, Andre; Wasserman, Wyeth W

    2014-10-01

    New DNA sequencing technologies have revolutionized the search for genetic disruptions. Targeted sequencing of all protein coding regions of the genome, called exome analysis, is actively used in research-oriented genetics clinics, with the transition to exomes as a standard procedure underway. This transition is challenging; identification of potentially causal mutation(s) amongst ∼10(6) variants requires specialized computation in combination with expert assessment. This study analyzes the usability of user interfaces for clinical exome analysis software. There are two study objectives: (1) To ascertain the key features of successful user interfaces for clinical exome analysis software based on the perspective of expert clinical geneticists, (2) To assess user-system interactions in order to reveal strengths and weaknesses of existing software, inform future design, and accelerate the clinical uptake of exome analysis. Surveys, interviews, and cognitive task analysis were performed for the assessment of two next-generation exome sequence analysis software packages. The subjects included ten clinical geneticists who interacted with the software packages using the "think aloud" method. Subjects' interactions with the software were recorded in their clinical office within an urban research and teaching hospital. All major user interface events (from the user interactions with the packages) were time-stamped and annotated with coding categories to identify usability issues in order to characterize desired features and deficiencies in the user experience. We detected 193 usability issues, the majority of which concern interface layout and navigation, and the resolution of reports. Our study highlights gaps in specific software features typical within exome analysis. The clinicians perform best when the flow of the system is structured into well-defined yet customizable layers for incorporation within the clinical workflow. The results highlight opportunities to

  15. Determining women's sexual self-schemas through advanced computerized text analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, Amelia M; Boyd, Ryan L; Pulverman, Carey S; Meston, Cindy M

    2015-08-01

    The meaning extraction method (MEM), an advanced computerized text analysis technique, was used to analyze women's sexual self-schemas. Participants (n=239) completed open-ended essays about their personal feelings associated with sex and sexuality. These essays were analyzed using the MEM, a procedure designed to extract common themes from natural language. Using the MEM procedure, we extracted seven unique themes germane to sexual self-schemas: family and development, virginity, abuse, relationship, sexual activity, attraction, and existentialism. Each of these themes is comprised of frequently used words across the participants' descriptions of their sexual selves. Significant differences in sexual self-schemas were observed to covary with age, relationship status, and sexual abuse history. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. A Visualization of Evolving Clinical Sentiment Using Vector Representations of Clinical Notes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghassemi, Mohammad M; Mark, Roger G; Nemati, Shamim

    2015-09-01

    Our objective in this paper was to visualize the evolution of clinical language and sentiment with respect to several common population-level categories including: time in the hospital, age, mortality, gender and race. Our analysis utilized seven years of unstructured free text notes from the Multiparameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care (MIMIC) database. The text data was partitioned by category and used to generate several high dimensional vector space representations. We generated visualizations of the vector spaces using Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (tSNE) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). We also investigated representative words from clusters in the vector space. Lastly, we inferred the general sentiment of the clinical notes toward each parameter by gauging the average distance between positive and negative keywords and all other terms in the space. We found intriguing differences in the sentiment of clinical notes over time, outcome, and demographic features. We noted a decrease in the homogeneity and complexity of clusters over time for patients with poor outcomes. We also found greater positive sentiment for females, unmarried patients, and patients of African ethnicity.

  17. Measurement of the [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] production cross sections in multilepton final states using 3.2 fb[Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text] = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aaboud, M; Aad, G; Abbott, B; Abdallah, J; Abdinov, O; Abeloos, B; Aben, R; AbouZeid, O S; Abraham, N L; Abramowicz, H; Abreu, H; Abreu, R; Abulaiti, Y; Acharya, B S; Adamczyk, L; Adams, D L; Adelman, J; Adomeit, S; Adye, T; Affolder, A A; Agatonovic-Jovin, T; Agricola, J; Aguilar-Saavedra, J A; Ahlen, S P; Ahmadov, F; Aielli, G; Akerstedt, H; Åkesson, T P A; Akimov, A V; Alberghi, G L; Albert, J; Albrand, S; Alconada Verzini, M J; Aleksa, M; Aleksandrov, I N; Alexa, C; Alexander, G; Alexopoulos, T; Alhroob, M; Ali, B; Aliev, M; Alimonti, G; Alison, J; Alkire, S P; Allbrooke, B M M; Allen, B W; Allport, P P; Aloisio, A; Alonso, A; Alonso, F; Alpigiani, C; Alstaty, M; Alvarez Gonzalez, B; Álvarez Piqueras, D; Alviggi, M G; Amadio, B T; Amako, K; Amaral Coutinho, Y; Amelung, C; Amidei, D; Amor Dos Santos, S P; Amorim, A; Amoroso, S; Amundsen, G; Anastopoulos, C; Ancu, L S; Andari, N; Andeen, T; Anders, C F; Anders, G; Anders, J K; Anderson, K J; Andreazza, A; Andrei, V; Angelidakis, S; Angelozzi, I; Anger, P; Angerami, A; Anghinolfi, F; Anisenkov, A V; Anjos, N; Annovi, A; Antel, C; Antonelli, M; Antonov, A; Anulli, F; Aoki, M; Aperio Bella, L; Arabidze, G; Arai, Y; Araque, J P; Arce, A T H; Arduh, F A; Arguin, J-F; Argyropoulos, S; Arik, M; Armbruster, A J; Armitage, L J; Arnaez, O; Arnold, H; Arratia, M; Arslan, O; Artamonov, A; Artoni, G; Artz, S; Asai, S; Asbah, N; Ashkenazi, A; Åsman, B; Asquith, L; Assamagan, K; Astalos, R; Atkinson, M; Atlay, N B; Augsten, K; Avolio, G; Axen, B; Ayoub, M K; Azuelos, G; Baak, M A; Baas, A E; Baca, M J; Bachacou, H; Bachas, K; Backes, M; Backhaus, M; Bagiacchi, P; Bagnaia, P; Bai, Y; Baines, J T; Baker, O K; Baldin, E M; Balek, P; Balestri, T; Balli, F; Balunas, W K; Banas, E; Banerjee, Sw; Bannoura, A A E; Barak, L; Barberio, E L; Barberis, D; Barbero, M; Barillari, T; Barklow, T; Barlow, N; Barnes, S L; Barnett, B M; Barnett, R M; Barnovska-Blenessy, Z; Baroncelli, A; Barone, G; Barr, A J; Barranco Navarro, L; Barreiro, F; Barreiro Guimarães da Costa, J; Bartoldus, R; Barton, A E; Bartos, P; Basalaev, A; Bassalat, A; Bates, R L; Batista, S J; Batley, J R; Battaglia, M; Bauce, M; Bauer, F; Bawa, H S; Beacham, J B; Beattie, M D; Beau, T; Beauchemin, P H; Bechtle, P; Beck, H P; Becker, K; Becker, M; Beckingham, M; Becot, C; Beddall, A J; Beddall, A; Bednyakov, V A; Bedognetti, M; Bee, C P; Beemster, L J; Beermann, T A; Begel, M; Behr, J K; Belanger-Champagne, C; Bell, A S; Bella, G; Bellagamba, L; Bellerive, A; Bellomo, M; Belotskiy, K; Beltramello, O; Belyaev, N L; Benary, O; Benchekroun, D; Bender, M; Bendtz, K; Benekos, N; Benhammou, Y; Benhar Noccioli, E; Benitez, J; Benjamin, D P; Bensinger, J R; Bentvelsen, S; Beresford, L; Beretta, M; Berge, D; Bergeaas Kuutmann, E; Berger, N; Beringer, J; Berlendis, S; Bernard, N R; Bernius, C; Bernlochner, F U; Berry, T; Berta, P; Bertella, C; Bertoli, G; Bertolucci, F; Bertram, I A; Bertsche, C; Bertsche, D; Besjes, G J; Bessidskaia Bylund, O; Bessner, M; Besson, N; Betancourt, C; Bethke, S; Bevan, A J; Bhimji, W; Bianchi, R M; Bianchini, L; Bianco, M; Biebel, O; Biedermann, D; Bielski, R; Biesuz, N V; Biglietti, M; De Mendizabal, J Bilbao; Bilokon, H; Bindi, M; Binet, S; Bingul, A; Bini, C; Biondi, S; Bjergaard, D M; Black, C W; Black, J E; Black, K M; Blackburn, D; Blair, R E; Blanchard, J-B; Blanco, J E; Blazek, T; Bloch, I; Blocker, C; Blum, W; Blumenschein, U; Blunier, S; Bobbink, G J; Bobrovnikov, V S; Bocchetta, S S; Bocci, A; Bock, C; Boehler, M; Boerner, D; Bogaerts, J A; Bogavac, D; Bogdanchikov, A G; Bohm, C; Boisvert, V; Bokan, P; Bold, T; Boldyrev, A S; Bomben, M; Bona, M; Boonekamp, M; Borisov, A; Borissov, G; Bortfeldt, J; Bortoletto, D; Bortolotto, V; Bos, K; Boscherini, D; Bosman, M; Bossio Sola, J D; Boudreau, J; Bouffard, J; Bouhova-Thacker, E V; Boumediene, D; Bourdarios, C; Boutle, S K; Boveia, A; Boyd, J; Boyko, I R; Bracinik, J; Brandt, A; Brandt, G; Brandt, O; Bratzler, U; Brau, B; Brau, J E; Braun, H M; Breaden Madden, W D; Brendlinger, K; Brennan, A J; Brenner, L; Brenner, R; Bressler, S; Bristow, T M; Britton, D; Britzger, D; Brochu, F M; Brock, I; Brock, R; Brooijmans, G; Brooks, T; Brooks, W K; Brosamer, J; Brost, E; Broughton, J H; de Renstrom, P A Bruckman; Bruncko, D; Bruneliere, R; Bruni, A; Bruni, G; Bruni, L S; Brunt, B H; Bruschi, M; Bruscino, N; Bryant, P; Bryngemark, L; Buanes, T; Buat, Q; Buchholz, P; Buckley, A G; Budagov, I A; Buehrer, F; Bugge, M K; Bulekov, O; Bullock, D; Burckhart, H; Burdin, S; Burgard, C D; Burghgrave, B; Burka, K; Burke, S; Burmeister, I; Burr, J T P; Busato, E; Büscher, D; Büscher, V; Bussey, P; Butler, J M; Buttar, C M; Butterworth, J M; Butti, P; Buttinger, W; Buzatu, A; Buzykaev, A R; Cabrera Urbán, S; Caforio, D; Cairo, V M; Cakir, O; Calace, N; Calafiura, P; Calandri, A; Calderini, G; Calfayan, P; Caloba, L P; Lopez, S Calvente; Calvet, D; Calvet, S; Calvet, T P; Toro, R Camacho; Camarda, S; Camarri, P; Cameron, D; Caminal Armadans, R; Camincher, C; Campana, S; Campanelli, M; Camplani, A; Campoverde, A; Canale, V; Canepa, A; Cano Bret, M; Cantero, J; Cantrill, R; Cao, T; Capeans Garrido, M D M; Caprini, I; Caprini, M; Capua, M; Caputo, R; Carbone, R M; Cardarelli, R; Cardillo, F; Carli, I; Carli, T; Carlino, G; Carminati, L; Caron, S; Carquin, E; Carrillo-Montoya, G D; Carter, J R; Carvalho, J; Casadei, D; Casado, M P; Casolino, M; Casper, D W; Castaneda-Miranda, E; Castelijn, R; Castelli, A; Gimenez, V Castillo; Castro, N F; Catinaccio, A; Catmore, J R; Cattai, A; Caudron, J; Cavaliere, V; Cavallaro, E; Cavalli, D; Cavalli-Sforza, M; Cavasinni, V; Ceradini, F; Cerda Alberich, L; Cerio, B C; Cerqueira, A S; Cerri, A; Cerrito, L; Cerutti, F; Cerv, M; Cervelli, A; Cetin, S A; Chafaq, A; Chakraborty, D; Chan, S K; Chan, Y L; Chang, P; Chapman, J D; Charlton, D G; Chatterjee, A; Chau, C C; Chavez Barajas, C A; Che, S; Cheatham, S; Chegwidden, A; Chekanov, S; Chekulaev, S V; Chelkov, G A; Chelstowska, M A; Chen, C; Chen, H; Chen, K; Chen, S; Chen, S; Chen, X; Chen, Y; Cheng, H C; Cheng, H J; 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Zhou, M; Zhou, N; Zhu, C G; Zhu, H; Zhu, J; Zhu, Y; Zhuang, X; Zhukov, K; Zibell, A; Zieminska, D; Zimine, N I; Zimmermann, C; Zimmermann, S; Zinonos, Z; Zinser, M; Ziolkowski, M; Živković, L; Zobernig, G; Zoccoli, A; Zur Nedden, M; Zwalinski, L

    2017-01-01

    A measurement of the [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] production cross sections in final states with either two same-charge muons, or three or four leptons (electrons or muons) is presented. The analysis uses a data sample of proton-proton collisions at [Formula: see text] TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015, corresponding to a total integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb[Formula: see text]. The inclusive cross sections are extracted using likelihood fits to signal and control regions, resulting in [Formula: see text] pb and [Formula: see text] pb, in agreement with the Standard Model predictions.

  18. Molecular analysis of pancreatic cyst fluid changes clinical management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arner, David M; Corning, Brooke E; Ahmed, Ali M; Ho, Henry C; Weinbaum, Bradley J; Siddiqui, Uzma; Aslanian, Harry; Adams, Reid B; Bauer, Todd W; Wang, Andrew Y; Shami, Vanessa M; Sauer, Bryan G

    2018-01-01

    DNA molecular analysis has been suggested as a tool to evaluate pancreatic cysts. This study assesses whether the addition of DNA molecular analysis alters clinical management. This is a retrospective review of 46 consecutive patients who underwent EUS-FNA of pancreatic cysts with DNA molecular analysis at two major academic institutions. Cases were presented to two pancreaticobiliary surgeons first without and then with DNA molecular analysis data. The primary outcome was the frequency with which clinical management was altered with the addition of DNA molecular analysis. Forty-six patients with a mean age of 62.0 (±13.4) years and mean cyst size of 3.2 (±2.3) cm were included in the study. Cyst carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was available in 30 patients and ranged from 0.4 to 15,927 ng/mL. DNA molecular analysis was described as benign in 23 (50%), statistically indolent in 13 (28%), statistically higher risk in 9 (20%), and indeterminate in 1 (2%). Surgeon #1 changed the management in 13/46 cases (28%) and surgeon #2 changed the management in 12/46 cases (26%) with the addition of DNA molecular analysis. When organized by CEA concentration, those with an intermediate CEA (45-800 ng/mL) or without a CEA concentration had a management changed more frequently (40%) compared to all others (P molecular analysis alters the clinical management of pancreatic cystic lesions most often when CEA levels are intermediate (45-800 ng/mL) or when no CEA concentration is available. Use of DNA molecular analysis can be considered in this cohort. Further study of molecular markers in pancreatic cystic lesions is recommended.

  19. Key components of financial-analysis education for clinical nurses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lim, Ji Young; Noh, Wonjung

    2015-09-01

    In this study, we identified key components of financial-analysis education for clinical nurses. We used a literature review, focus group discussions, and a content validity index survey to develop key components of financial-analysis education. First, a wide range of references were reviewed, and 55 financial-analysis education components were gathered. Second, two focus group discussions were performed; the participants were 11 nurses who had worked for more than 3 years in a hospital, and nine components were agreed upon. Third, 12 professionals, including professors, nurse executive, nurse managers, and an accountant, participated in the content validity index. Finally, six key components of financial-analysis education were selected. These key components were as follows: understanding the need for financial analysis, introduction to financial analysis, reading and implementing balance sheets, reading and implementing income statements, understanding the concepts of financial ratios, and interpretation and practice of financial ratio analysis. The results of this study will be used to develop an education program to increase financial-management competency among clinical nurses. © 2015 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

  20. Classifying Written Texts Through Rhythmic Features

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Balint, Mihaela; Dascalu, Mihai; Trausan-Matu, Stefan

    2016-01-01

    Rhythm analysis of written texts focuses on literary analysis and it mainly considers poetry. In this paper we investigate the relevance of rhythmic features for categorizing texts in prosaic form pertaining to different genres. Our contribution is threefold. First, we define a set of rhythmic

  1. Intertextuality within the linguistic analysis of a literary text

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Л Н Лунькова

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the phenomenon of precedent texts in fiction, the ways they are introduced into it and the possibilities of their linguistic interpretation within secondary texts.

  2. How GPs implement clinical guidelines in everyday clinical practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Videbæk Le, Jette; Hansen, Helle P; Riisgaard, Helle

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Clinical guidelines are considered to be essential for improving quality and safety of health care. However, interventions to promote implementation of guidelines have demonstrated only partial effectiveness and the reasons for this apparent failure are not yet fully understood....... OBJECTIVE: To investigate how GPs implement clinical guidelines in everyday clinical practice and how implementation approaches differ between practices. METHODS: Individual semi-structured open-ended interviews with seven GPs who were purposefully sampled with regard to gender, age and practice form....... Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and then analysed using systematic text condensation. RESULTS: Analysis of the interviews revealed three different approaches to the implementation of guidelines in clinical practice. In some practices the GPs prioritized time and resources on collective...

  3. Word-Length Correlations and Memory in Large Texts: A Visibility Network Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lev Guzmán-Vargas

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available We study the correlation properties of word lengths in large texts from 30 ebooks in the English language from the Gutenberg Project (www.gutenberg.org using the natural visibility graph method (NVG. NVG converts a time series into a graph and then analyzes its graph properties. First, the original sequence of words is transformed into a sequence of values containing the length of each word, and then, it is integrated. Next, we apply the NVG to the integrated word-length series and construct the network. We show that the degree distribution of that network follows a power law, P ( k ∼ k - γ , with two regimes, which are characterized by the exponents γ s ≈ 1 . 7 (at short degree scales and γ l ≈ 1 . 3 (at large degree scales. This suggests that word lengths are much more strongly correlated at large distances between words than at short distances between words. That finding is also supported by the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA and recurrence time distribution. These results provide new information about the universal characteristics of the structure of written texts beyond that given by word frequencies.

  4. Text mining-based in silico drug discovery in oral mucositis caused by high-dose cancer therapy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirk, Jon; Shah, Nirav; Noll, Braxton; Stevens, Craig B; Lawler, Marshall; Mougeot, Farah B; Mougeot, Jean-Luc C

    2018-08-01

    Oral mucositis (OM) is a major dose-limiting side effect of chemotherapy and radiation used in cancer treatment. Due to the complex nature of OM, currently available drug-based treatments are of limited efficacy. Our objectives were (i) to determine genes and molecular pathways associated with OM and wound healing using computational tools and publicly available data and (ii) to identify drugs formulated for topical use targeting the relevant OM molecular pathways. OM and wound healing-associated genes were determined by text mining, and the intersection of the two gene sets was selected for gene ontology analysis using the GeneCodis program. Protein interaction network analysis was performed using STRING-db. Enriched gene sets belonging to the identified pathways were queried against the Drug-Gene Interaction database to find drug candidates for topical use in OM. Our analysis identified 447 genes common to both the "OM" and "wound healing" text mining concepts. Gene enrichment analysis yielded 20 genes representing six pathways and targetable by a total of 32 drugs which could possibly be formulated for topical application. A manual search on ClinicalTrials.gov confirmed no relevant pathway/drug candidate had been overlooked. Twenty-five of the 32 drugs can directly affect the PTGS2 (COX-2) pathway, the pathway that has been targeted in previous clinical trials with limited success. Drug discovery using in silico text mining and pathway analysis tools can facilitate the identification of existing drugs that have the potential of topical administration to improve OM treatment.

  5. Translation Analysis on Civil Engineering Text Produced by Machine Translator

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sutopo Anam

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Translation is extremely needed in communication since people have serious problem in the language used. Translation activity is done by the person in charge for translating the material. Translation activity is also able to be done by machine. It is called machine translation, reflected in the programs developed by programmer. One of them is Transtool. Many people used Transtool for helping them in solving the problem related with translation activities. This paper wants to deliver how important is the Transtool program, how effective is Transtool program and how is the function of Transtool for human business. This study applies qualitative research. The sources of data were document and informant. This study used documentation and in dept-interviewing as the techniques for collecting data. The collected data were analyzed by using interactive analysis. The results of the study show that, first; Transtool program is helpful for people in translating the civil engineering text and it functions as the aid or helper, second; the working of Transtool software program is effective enough and third; the result of translation produced by Transtool is good for short and simple sentences and not readable, not understandable and not accurate for long sentences (compound, complex and compound complex thought the result is informative. The translated material must be edited by the professional translator.

  6. Evaluation of Clinical Gait Analysis parameters in patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis: Analysis of kinematics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Severini, Giacomo; Manca, Mario; Ferraresi, Giovanni; Caniatti, Luisa Maria; Cosma, Michela; Baldasso, Francesco; Straudi, Sofia; Morelli, Monica; Basaglia, Nino

    2017-06-01

    Clinical Gait Analysis is commonly used to evaluate specific gait characteristics of patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis. The aim of this report is to present a retrospective cross-sectional analysis of the changes in Clinical Gait Analysis parameters in patients affected by Multiple Sclerosis. In this study a sample of 51 patients with different levels of disability (Expanded Disability Status Scale 2-6.5) was analyzed. We extracted a set of 52 parameters from the Clinical Gait Analysis of each patient and used statistical analysis and linear regression to assess differences among several groups of subjects stratified according to the Expanded Disability Status Scale and 6-Minutes Walking Test. The impact of assistive devices (e.g. canes and crutches) on the kinematics was also assessed in a subsample of patients. Subjects showed decreased range of motion at hip, knee and ankle that translated in increased pelvic tilt and hiking. Comparison between the two stratifications showed that gait speed during 6-Minutes Walking Test is better at discriminating patients' kinematics with respect to Expanded Disability Status Scale. Assistive devices were shown not to significantly impact gait kinematics and the Clinical Gait Analysis parameters analyzed. We were able to characterize disability-related trends in gait kinematics. The results presented in this report provide a small atlas of the changes in gait characteristics associated with different disability levels in the Multiple Sclerosis population. This information could be used to effectively track the progression of MS and the effect of different therapies. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  7. Making computers noble. An experiment in automatic analysis of medieval texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrea Colli

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available L’analisi informatica di testi filosofici, la creazione di database, ipertesti o edizioni elettroniche non costituiscono più unicamente una ricerca di frontiera, ma sono da molti anni una risorsa preziosa per gli studi umanistici. Ora, non si tratta di richiedere alle macchine un ulteriore sforzo per comprendere il linguaggio umano, quanto piuttosto di perfezionare gli strumenti affinché esse possano essere a tutti gli effetti collaboratori di ricerca. Questo articolo è concepito come il resoconto di un esperimento finalizzato a documentare come le associazioni lessicali di un gruppo selezionato di testi medievali possa offrire qualche suggerimento in merito ai loro contenuti teorici. Computer analysis of texts, creation of databases hypertexts and digital editions are not the final frontier of research anymore. Quite the contrary, from many years they have been representing a significant contribution to medieval studies. Therefore, we do not mean to make the computer able to grasp the meaning of human language and penetrate its secrets, but rather we aim at improving their tools, so that they will become an even more efficient equipment employed in research activities. This paper is thought as a sort of technical report with the proposed task to verify if an automatic identification of some word associations within a selected groups of medieval writings produces suggestions on the subject of the processed texts, able to be used in a theoretical inquiry.

  8. Analysis of error patterns in clinical radiotherapy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Macklis, Roger; Meier, Tim; Barrett, Patricia; Weinhous, Martin

    1996-01-01

    Purpose: Until very recently, prescription errors and adverse treatment events have rarely been studied or reported systematically in oncology. We wished to understand the spectrum and severity of radiotherapy errors that take place on a day-to-day basis in a high-volume academic practice and to understand the resource needs and quality assurance challenges placed on a department by rapid upswings in contract-based clinical volumes requiring additional operating hours, procedures, and personnel. The goal was to define clinical benchmarks for operating safety and to detect error-prone treatment processes that might function as 'early warning' signs. Methods: A multi-tiered prospective and retrospective system for clinical error detection and classification was developed, with formal analysis of the antecedents and consequences of all deviations from prescribed treatment delivery, no matter how trivial. A department-wide record-and-verify system was operational during this period and was used as one method of treatment verification and error detection. Brachytherapy discrepancies were analyzed separately. Results: During the analysis year, over 2000 patients were treated with over 93,000 individual fields. A total of 59 errors affecting a total of 170 individual treated fields were reported or detected during this period. After review, all of these errors were classified as Level 1 (minor discrepancy with essentially no potential for negative clinical implications). This total treatment delivery error rate (170/93, 332 or 0.18%) is significantly better than corresponding error rates reported for other hospital and oncology treatment services, perhaps reflecting the relatively sophisticated error avoidance and detection procedures used in modern clinical radiation oncology. Error rates were independent of linac model and manufacturer, time of day (normal operating hours versus late evening or early morning) or clinical machine volumes. There was some relationship to

  9. The clinical learning environment in nursing education: a concept analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flott, Elizabeth A; Linden, Lois

    2016-03-01

    The aim of this study was to report an analysis of the clinical learning environment concept. Nursing students are evaluated in clinical learning environments where skills and knowledge are applied to patient care. These environments affect achievement of learning outcomes, and have an impact on preparation for practice and student satisfaction with the nursing profession. Providing clarity of this concept for nursing education will assist in identifying antecedents, attributes and consequences affecting student transition to practice. The clinical learning environment was investigated using Walker and Avant's concept analysis method. A literature search was conducted using WorldCat, MEDLINE and CINAHL databases using the keywords clinical learning environment, clinical environment and clinical education. Articles reviewed were written in English and published in peer-reviewed journals between 1995-2014. All data were analysed for recurring themes and terms to determine possible antecedents, attributes and consequences of this concept. The clinical learning environment contains four attribute characteristics affecting student learning experiences. These include: (1) the physical space; (2) psychosocial and interaction factors; (3) the organizational culture and (4) teaching and learning components. These attributes often determine achievement of learning outcomes and student self-confidence. With better understanding of attributes comprising the clinical learning environment, nursing education programmes and healthcare agencies can collaborate to create meaningful clinical experiences and enhance student preparation for the professional nurse role. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  10. Text Mining in Organizational Research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kobayashi, Vladimer B; Mol, Stefan T; Berkers, Hannah A; Kismihók, Gábor; Den Hartog, Deanne N

    2018-07-01

    Despite the ubiquity of textual data, so far few researchers have applied text mining to answer organizational research questions. Text mining, which essentially entails a quantitative approach to the analysis of (usually) voluminous textual data, helps accelerate knowledge discovery by radically increasing the amount data that can be analyzed. This article aims to acquaint organizational researchers with the fundamental logic underpinning text mining, the analytical stages involved, and contemporary techniques that may be used to achieve different types of objectives. The specific analytical techniques reviewed are (a) dimensionality reduction, (b) distance and similarity computing, (c) clustering, (d) topic modeling, and (e) classification. We describe how text mining may extend contemporary organizational research by allowing the testing of existing or new research questions with data that are likely to be rich, contextualized, and ecologically valid. After an exploration of how evidence for the validity of text mining output may be generated, we conclude the article by illustrating the text mining process in a job analysis setting using a dataset composed of job vacancies.

  11. The Methodology of Syndrome Analysis within the Paradigm of “Qualitat ive Research” in Clinical Psychology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elena I. Pervichko

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available This article considers the potential for applying contemporary philosophical theories(which distinguish classical, nonclassical, and postnonclassical types of scientificrationality to the specification of theoretical methodological principles inthe study of clinical psychology. We prove that psychological syndrome analysis(developed by the Vygotsky–Luria–Zeigarnik school, taken as a system of principlesfor organizing research as well as for interpreting its results, conforms to theepistemological complexity of the object of study in clinical psychology, which isunderstood in the postnonclassical scientific view as a self-developing system.We present an example of the formation of a psychosomatic syndrome in 290patients with mitral-valve prolapse, applying methods of qualitative and statisticaldata analysis in a longitudinal clinical-psychological study. We prove that thesyndrome is system-defined and has a multilevel character, and that its structureis determined by several factors: the motivational factor (with the domination ofthe failure-avoidance motive and the unsatisfied self-approval need; the factor ofthe emotional-regulation disorders, represented by both excessive emotional repressionand lack of emotional control; and a psychophysiological factor. We arguethat a psychosomatic syndrome can be used as a means for approaching not onlydiagnostic but also prognostic tasks both in clinical psychology and in medicine.We conclude that the results of our empirical study, conducted within the frameworkof postnonclassical philosophy and using the methods of psychologicalsyndrome analysis, not only expand the scientific background on the nature of aparticular disease (mitral-valve prolapse but also pose further questions whoseinvestigation will broaden our view of the psychological mechanisms of psychosomatic-syndrome genesis.

  12. Integrating usability testing and think-aloud protocol analysis with "near-live" clinical simulations in evaluating clinical decision support.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Alice C; Kannry, Joseph L; Kushniruk, Andre; Chrimes, Dillon; McGinn, Thomas G; Edonyabo, Daniel; Mann, Devin M

    2012-11-01

    Usability evaluations can improve the usability and workflow integration of clinical decision support (CDS). Traditional usability testing using scripted scenarios with think-aloud protocol analysis provide a useful but incomplete assessment of how new CDS tools interact with users and clinical workflow. "Near-live" clinical simulations are a newer usability evaluation tool that more closely mimics clinical workflow and that allows for a complementary evaluation of CDS usability as well as impact on workflow. This study employed two phases of testing a new CDS tool that embedded clinical prediction rules (an evidence-based medicine tool) into primary care workflow within a commercial electronic health record. Phase I applied usability testing involving "think-aloud" protocol analysis of 8 primary care providers encountering several scripted clinical scenarios. Phase II used "near-live" clinical simulations of 8 providers interacting with video clips of standardized trained patient actors enacting the clinical scenario. In both phases, all sessions were audiotaped and had screen-capture software activated for onscreen recordings. Transcripts were coded using qualitative analysis methods. In Phase I, the impact of the CDS on navigation and workflow were associated with the largest volume of negative comments (accounting for over 90% of user raised issues) while the overall usability and the content of the CDS were associated with the most positive comments. However, usability had a positive-to-negative comment ratio of only 0.93 reflecting mixed perceptions about the usability of the CDS. In Phase II, the duration of encounters with simulated patients was approximately 12 min with 71% of the clinical prediction rules being activated after half of the visit had already elapsed. Upon activation, providers accepted the CDS tool pathway 82% of times offered and completed all of its elements in 53% of all simulation cases. Only 12.2% of encounter time was spent using the

  13. Microfluidic chips for clinical and forensic analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Verpoorte, Elisabeth

    2002-01-01

    This review gives an overview of developments in the field of microchip analysis for clinical diagnostic and forensic applications. The approach chosen to review the literature is different from that in most microchip reviews to date, in that the information is presented in terms of analytes tested

  14. Machine learning methods for clinical forms analysis in mental health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strauss, John; Peguero, Arturo Martinez; Hirst, Graeme

    2013-01-01

    In preparation for a clinical information system implementation, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) Clinical Information Transformation project completed multiple preparation steps. An automated process was desired to supplement the onerous task of manual analysis of clinical forms. We used natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) methods for a series of 266 separate clinical forms. For the investigation, documents were represented by feature vectors. We used four ML algorithms for our examination of the forms: cluster analysis, k-nearest neigh-bours (kNN), decision trees and support vector machines (SVM). Parameters for each algorithm were optimized. SVM had the best performance with a precision of 64.6%. Though we did not find any method sufficiently accurate for practical use, to our knowledge this approach to forms has not been used previously in mental health.

  15. Review and classification of variability analysis techniques with clinical applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Analysis of patterns of variation of time-series, termed variability analysis, represents a rapidly evolving discipline with increasing applications in different fields of science. In medicine and in particular critical care, efforts have focussed on evaluating the clinical utility of variability. However, the growth and complexity of techniques applicable to this field have made interpretation and understanding of variability more challenging. Our objective is to provide an updated review of variability analysis techniques suitable for clinical applications. We review more than 70 variability techniques, providing for each technique a brief description of the underlying theory and assumptions, together with a summary of clinical applications. We propose a revised classification for the domains of variability techniques, which include statistical, geometric, energetic, informational, and invariant. We discuss the process of calculation, often necessitating a mathematical transform of the time-series. Our aims are to summarize a broad literature, promote a shared vocabulary that would improve the exchange of ideas, and the analyses of the results between different studies. We conclude with challenges for the evolving science of variability analysis. PMID:21985357

  16. Review and classification of variability analysis techniques with clinical applications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bravi, Andrea; Longtin, André; Seely, Andrew J E

    2011-10-10

    Analysis of patterns of variation of time-series, termed variability analysis, represents a rapidly evolving discipline with increasing applications in different fields of science. In medicine and in particular critical care, efforts have focussed on evaluating the clinical utility of variability. However, the growth and complexity of techniques applicable to this field have made interpretation and understanding of variability more challenging. Our objective is to provide an updated review of variability analysis techniques suitable for clinical applications. We review more than 70 variability techniques, providing for each technique a brief description of the underlying theory and assumptions, together with a summary of clinical applications. We propose a revised classification for the domains of variability techniques, which include statistical, geometric, energetic, informational, and invariant. We discuss the process of calculation, often necessitating a mathematical transform of the time-series. Our aims are to summarize a broad literature, promote a shared vocabulary that would improve the exchange of ideas, and the analyses of the results between different studies. We conclude with challenges for the evolving science of variability analysis.

  17. Unsupervised text mining methods for literature analysis: a case study for Thomas Pynchon's V.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christos Iraklis Tsatsoulis

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available We investigate the use of unsupervised text mining methods for the analysis of prose literature works, using Thomas Pynchon's novel 'V'. as a case study. Our results suggest that such methods may be employed to reveal meaningful information regarding the novel’s structure. We report results using a wide variety of clustering algorithms, several distinct distance functions, and different visualization techniques. The application of a simple topic model is also demonstrated. We discuss the meaningfulness of our results along with the limitations of our approach, and we suggest some possible paths for further study.

  18. SHAPE OF FEMININITY IN THE TEXT OF GEGURITAN (PHILOSOPICAL VERSE IN BALI: ANALYSIS OF FEMINISM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ni Nyoman Karmini

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available The object of this study is Balinese traditional literature which is the form of geguritan(philosophical verse. The reason why such texts are used as the object of the study is that theycontain very complex and interesting narrations about feminism. The objectives of this studyare to find out the formal and narrative structure of the texts and to describe the shape offemininity in the texts and its relevance to the lives of Balinese women who are Hindufollowers in the society. The objectives are all at once the answers to the problems of the study.The theory applied is that of feminism which emphasizes the concept ofRadical-Cultural Feminism. This study is a qualitative one of which the data were collected bydocumentation method, that is, by the techniques of note taking, observation and interview. Thedata were analyzed using the formal method in accordance with literature studies.There were nine geguritan (philosophical verses which were used as the object of thestudy. From the formal structural analysis, the pupuh (strophe used, its function and literarystyle could be identified. From the content, religious and amusement functions could beidentified. From the narrative structural analysis, it could be identified that the plot waschronological and sorot balik (backward directed; the characters and characterization weredescribed to express extraordinary ability, which was based on Hinduism, while the theme wasdescribed to express the application of panca crada (the five principles in Hinduism. Therewere seven findings as far as the analysis of the text is concerned: they are: (1 the educatedwomen could determine their attitudes, make decisions, show prestige and maintain theirdignity; (2 the women in the texts had extraordinary power. This means that the women werenot weak. Therefore, the stereotype that women were weak was neglected; (3 the educatedwomen who used Hinduism as the reference could become the men’s power; (4 the womenwho could

  19. Mining concepts of health responsibility using text mining and exploratory graph analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kjellström, Sofia; Golino, Hudson

    2018-05-24

    Occupational therapists need to know about people's beliefs about personal responsibility for health to help them pursue everyday activities. The study aims to employ state-of-the-art quantitative approaches to understand people's views of health and responsibility at different ages. A mixed method approach was adopted, using text mining to extract information from 233 interviews with participants aged 5 to 96 years, and then exploratory graph analysis to estimate the number of latent variables. The fit of the structure estimated via the exploratory graph analysis was verified using confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory graph analysis estimated three dimensions of health responsibility: (1) creating good health habits and feeling good; (2) thinking about one's own health and wanting to improve it; and 3) adopting explicitly normative attitudes to take care of one's health. The comparison between the three dimensions among age groups showed, in general, that children and adolescents, as well as the old elderly (>73 years old) expressed ideas about personal responsibility for health less than young adults, adults and young elderly. Occupational therapists' knowledge of the concepts of health responsibility is of value when working with a patient's health, but an identified challenge is how to engage children and older persons.

  20. Clinical laboratory as an economic model for business performance analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buljanović, Vikica; Patajac, Hrvoje; Petrovecki, Mladen

    2011-08-15

    To perform SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of a clinical laboratory as an economic model that may be used to improve business performance of laboratories by removing weaknesses, minimizing threats, and using external opportunities and internal strengths. Impact of possible threats to and weaknesses of the Clinical Laboratory at Našice General County Hospital business performance and use of strengths and opportunities to improve operating profit were simulated using models created on the basis of SWOT analysis results. The operating profit as a measure of profitability of the clinical laboratory was defined as total revenue minus total expenses and presented using a profit and loss account. Changes in the input parameters in the profit and loss account for 2008 were determined using opportunities and potential threats, and economic sensitivity analysis was made by using changes in the key parameters. The profit and loss account and economic sensitivity analysis were tools for quantifying the impact of changes in the revenues and expenses on the business operations of clinical laboratory. Results of simulation models showed that operational profit of €470 723 in 2008 could be reduced to only €21 542 if all possible threats became a reality and current weaknesses remained the same. Also, operational gain could be increased to €535 804 if laboratory strengths and opportunities were utilized. If both the opportunities and threats became a reality, the operational profit would decrease by €384 465. The operational profit of the clinical laboratory could be significantly reduced if all threats became a reality and the current weaknesses remained the same. The operational profit could be increased by utilizing strengths and opportunities as much as possible. This type of modeling may be used to monitor business operations of any clinical laboratory and improve its financial situation by implementing changes in the next fiscal

  1. Back to the drawing board-relearn the clinical skills: A root cause analysis of a missed case of bilateral vocal cord paralysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suruchi Ambasta

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Bilateral vocal cord paralysis being misdiagnosed as bronchial asthma has been reported in the literature on several occasions. Diagnosing this condition needs precise clinical acumen which could lead us to make an integrated diagnostic and treatment plan. Here, we report another missed case of bilateral vocal cord paralysis and the root cause analysis of the incident. This report emphasises the need for appropriate clinical examinations and workup during the pre-operative assessment.

  2. Analysis of Pre-Analytic Factors Affecting the Success of Clinical Next-Generation Sequencing of Solid Organ Malignancies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Chen

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Application of next-generation sequencing (NGS technology to routine clinical practice has enabled characterization of personalized cancer genomes to identify patients likely to have a response to targeted therapy. The proper selection of tumor sample for downstream NGS based mutational analysis is critical to generate accurate results and to guide therapeutic intervention. However, multiple pre-analytic factors come into play in determining the success of NGS testing. In this review, we discuss pre-analytic requirements for AmpliSeq PCR-based sequencing using Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine (PGM (Life Technologies, a NGS sequencing platform that is often used by clinical laboratories for sequencing solid tumors because of its low input DNA requirement from formalin fixed and paraffin embedded tissue. The success of NGS mutational analysis is affected not only by the input DNA quantity but also by several other factors, including the specimen type, the DNA quality, and the tumor cellularity. Here, we review tissue requirements for solid tumor NGS based mutational analysis, including procedure types, tissue types, tumor volume and fraction, decalcification, and treatment effects.

  3. Analysis of the production of scientific literature in clinical research areas in Physiotherapy between 2005 and 2009

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Torres-Narváez Martha

    2012-04-01

    Full Text Available Objective: characterize the behavior of clinical research in Physiotherapy, through the analysis of theproduction of scientific literature in a period of five years in order to identify areas of concentrationand dispersion, collaborative research and types of clinical studies have conducted. Methods andmaterials: descriptive study on the papers in Medline/PubMed from 2005-2009. Were considereda total 404 publications, clinical trials and epidemiological studies side, analyzed according to thepercentage distribution of articles by clinical area, year of publication, and institutional affiliation ofresearchers. Results: It found a greater number of trials (93% systematic reviews represented thegreatest number of epidemiological studies side. The clinical areas pulmonary and cardiovascularaccount for 65% of scientific publications in the studies analyzed. The year with highest numberof publications was 2008. Half of the clinical research produced in this five-year have affiliationwith academic institutions, and secondly, studies conducted in hospitals. Conclusions: the clinicalresearch publications in Physiotherapy in Medline/PubMed registered show sustained activity ofscientific production in the pulmonary and cardiovascular areas, consistent with the major healthconcerns in the world. The findings suggest that the ability of physiotherapists to develop qualityresearch, use and transfer of results into clinical practice should achieve greater development.

  4. Using the Situated Clinical Decision-Making framework to guide analysis of nurses' clinical decision-making.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gillespie, Mary

    2010-11-01

    Nurses' clinical decision-making is a complex process that holds potential to influence the quality of care provided and patient outcomes. The evolution of nurses' decision-making that occurs with experience has been well documented. In addition, literature includes numerous strategies and approaches purported to support development of nurses' clinical decision-making. There has been, however, significantly less attention given to the process of assessing nurses' clinical decision-making and novice clinical educators are often challenged with knowing how to best support nurses and nursing students in developing their clinical decision-making capacity. The Situated Clinical Decision-Making framework is presented for use by clinical educators: it provides a structured approach to analyzing nursing students' and novice nurses' decision-making in clinical nursing practice, assists educators in identifying specific issues within nurses' clinical decision-making, and guides selection of relevant strategies to support development of clinical decision-making. A series of questions is offered as a guide for clinical educators when assessing nurses' clinical decision-making. The discussion presents key considerations related to analysis of various decision-making components, including common sources of challenge and errors that may occur within nurses' clinical decision-making. An exemplar illustrates use of the framework and guiding questions. Implications of this approach for selection of strategies that support development of clinical decision-making are highlighted. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Determining Women’s Sexual Self-Schemas Through Advanced Computerized Text Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stanton, Amelia M.; Boyd, Ryan L.; Pulverman, Carey S.; Meston, Cindy M.

    2015-01-01

    The meaning extraction method (MEM), an advanced computerized text analysis technique, was used to analyze women’s sexual self-schemas. Participants (n = 239) completed open-ended essays about their personal feelings associated with sex and sexuality. These essays were analyzed using the MEM, a procedure designed to extract common themes from natural language. Using the MEM procedure, we extracted seven unique themes germane to sexual self-schemas: family and development, virginity, abuse, relationship, sexual activity, attraction, and existentialism. Each of these themes is comprised of frequently used words across the participants’ descriptions of their sexual selves. Significant differences in sexual self-schemas were observed to covary with age, relationship status, and sexual abuse history. PMID:26146161

  6. Bidirectional Text Messaging to Improve Adherence to Recommended Lipid Testing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baldwin, Laura-Mae; Morrison, Caitlin; Griffin, Jonathan; Anderson, Nick; Edwards, Kelly; Green, Jeff; Waldren, Cleary; Reiter, William

    2017-01-01

    Synergies between technology and health care in the United States are accelerating, increasing opportunities to leverage these technologies to improve patient care. This study was a collaboration between an academic study team, a rural primary care clinic, and a local nonprofit informatics company developing tools to improve patient care through population management. Our team created a text messaging management tool, then developed methods for and tested the feasibility of bidirectional text messaging to remind eligible patients about the need for lipid testing. We measured patient response to the text messages, then interviewed 8 patients to explore their text messaging experience. Of the 129 patients the clinic was able to contact by phone, 29.4% had no cell phone or text-messaging capabilities. An additional 20% refused to participate. Two thirds of the 28 patients who participated in the text messaging intervention (67.9%) responded to at least 1 of the up to 3 messages. Seven of 8 interviewed patients had a positive text-messaging experience. Bidirectional text messaging is a feasible and largely acceptable form of communication for test reminders that has the potential to reach large numbers of patients in clinical care. © Copyright 2017 by the American Board of Family Medicine.

  7. Whose American Government? A Quantitative Analysis of Gender and Authorship in American Politics Texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cassese, Erin C.; Bos, Angela L.; Schneider, Monica C.

    2014-01-01

    American government textbooks signal to students the kinds of topics that are important and, by omission, the kinds of topics that are not important to the discipline of political science. This article examines portrayals of women in introductory American politics textbooks through a quantitative content analysis of 22 widely used texts. We find…

  8. Making Sense of Student Feedback Using Text Analysis--Adapting and Expanding a Common Lexicon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santhanam, Elizabeth; Lynch, Bernardine; Jones, Jeffrey

    2018-01-01

    Purpose: This paper aims to report the findings of a study into the automated text analysis of student feedback comments to assist in investigating a high volume of qualitative information at various levels in an Australian university. It includes the drawbacks and advantages of using selected applications and established lexicons. There has been…

  9. Short Message Service (SMS) Texting Symbols: A Functional Analysis of 10,000 Cellular Phone Text Messages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beasley, Robert E.

    2009-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of symbolic expressions (e.g., "BTW," "LOL," "UR") in an SMS text messaging corpus consisting of over 10,000 text messages. More specifically, the purpose was to determine, not only how frequently these symbolic expressions are used, but how they are utilized in terms of the language functions…

  10. Using Web Crawler Technology for Text Analysis of Geo-Events: A Case Study of the Huangyan Island Incident

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, H.; Ge, Y. J.

    2013-11-01

    With the social networking and network socialisation have brought more text information and social relationships into our daily lives, the question of whether big data can be fully used to study the phenomenon and discipline of natural sciences has prompted many specialists and scholars to innovate their research. Though politics were integrally involved in the hyperlinked word issues since 1990s, automatic assembly of different geospatial web and distributed geospatial information systems utilizing service chaining have explored and built recently, the information collection and data visualisation of geo-events have always faced the bottleneck of traditional manual analysis because of the sensibility, complexity, relativity, timeliness and unexpected characteristics of political events. Based on the framework of Heritrix and the analysis of web-based text, word frequency, sentiment tendency and dissemination path of the Huangyan Island incident is studied here by combining web crawler technology and the text analysis method. The results indicate that tag cloud, frequency map, attitudes pie, individual mention ratios and dissemination flow graph based on the data collection and processing not only highlight the subject and theme vocabularies of related topics but also certain issues and problems behind it. Being able to express the time-space relationship of text information and to disseminate the information regarding geo-events, the text analysis of network information based on focused web crawler technology can be a tool for understanding the formation and diffusion of web-based public opinions in political events.

  11. Applying independent component analysis to clinical fMRI at 7 T

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simon Daniel Robinson

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Increased BOLD sensitivity at 7 T offers the possibility to increase the reliability of fMRI, but ultra-high field is also associated with an increase in artifacts related to head motion, Nyquist ghosting and parallel imaging reconstruction errors. In this study, the ability of Independent Component Analysis (ICA to separate activation from these artifacts was assessed in a 7 T study of neurological patients performing chin and hand motor tasks. ICA was able to isolate primary motor activation with negligible contamination by motion effects. The results of General Linear Model (GLM analysis of these data were, in contrast, heavily contaminated by motion. Secondary motor areas, basal ganglia and thalamus involvement were apparent in ICA results, but there was low capability to isolate activation in the same brain regions in the GLM analysis, indicating that ICA was more sensitive as well as more specific. A method was developed to simplify the assessment of the large number of independent components. Task-related activation components could be automatically identified via intuitive and effective features. These findings demonstrate that ICA is a practical and sensitive analysis approach in high field fMRI studies, particularly where motion is evoked. Promising applications of ICA in clinical fMRI include presurgical planning and the study of pathologies affecting subcortical brain areas.

  12. Decision Analysis for Metric Selection on a Clinical Quality Scorecard.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guth, Rebecca M; Storey, Patricia E; Vitale, Michael; Markan-Aurora, Sumita; Gordon, Randolph; Prevost, Traci Q; Dunagan, Wm Claiborne; Woeltje, Keith F

    2016-09-01

    Clinical quality scorecards are used by health care institutions to monitor clinical performance and drive quality improvement. Because of the rapid proliferation of quality metrics in health care, BJC HealthCare found it increasingly difficult to select the most impactful scorecard metrics while still monitoring metrics for regulatory purposes. A 7-step measure selection process was implemented incorporating Kepner-Tregoe Decision Analysis, which is a systematic process that considers key criteria that must be satisfied in order to make the best decision. The decision analysis process evaluates what metrics will most appropriately fulfill these criteria, as well as identifies potential risks associated with a particular metric in order to identify threats to its implementation. Using this process, a list of 750 potential metrics was narrowed to 25 that were selected for scorecard inclusion. This decision analysis process created a more transparent, reproducible approach for selecting quality metrics for clinical quality scorecards. © The Author(s) 2015.

  13. Rethinking Critical Mathematics: A Comparative Analysis of Critical, Reform, and Traditional Geometry Instructional Texts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brantlinger, Andrew

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents findings from a comparative analysis of three similar secondary geometry texts, one critical unit, one standards-based reform unit, and one specialist chapter. I developed the critical unit as I took the tenets of critical mathematics (CM) and substantiated them in printed curricular materials in which to teach as part of a…

  14. Applicability of supervised discriminant analysis models to analyze astigmatism clinical trial data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sedghipour, Mohammad Reza; Sadeghi-Bazargani, Homayoun

    2012-01-01

    In astigmatism clinical trials where more complex measurements are common, especially in nonrandomized small sized clinical trials, there is a demand for the development and application of newer statistical methods. The source data belonged to a project on astigmatism treatment. Data were used regarding a total of 296 eyes undergoing different astigmatism treatment modalities: wavefront-guided photorefractive keratectomy, cross-cylinder photorefractive keratectomy, and monotoric (single) photorefractive keratectomy. Astigmatism analysis was primarily done using the Alpins method. Prior to fitting partial least squares regression discriminant analysis, a preliminary principal component analysis was done for data overview. Through fitting the partial least squares regression discriminant analysis statistical method, various model validity and predictability measures were assessed. The model found the patients treated by the wavefront method to be different from the two other treatments both in baseline and outcome measures. Also, the model found that patients treated with the cross-cylinder method versus the single method didn't appear to be different from each other. This analysis provided an opportunity to compare the three methods while including a substantial number of baseline and outcome variables. Partial least squares regression discriminant analysis had applicability for the statistical analysis of astigmatism clinical trials and it may be used as an adjunct or alternative analysis method in small sized clinical trials.

  15. Classifying medical relations in clinical text via convolutional neural networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Bin; Guan, Yi; Dai, Rui

    2018-05-16

    Deep learning research on relation classification has achieved solid performance in the general domain. This study proposes a convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture with a multi-pooling operation for medical relation classification on clinical records and explores a loss function with a category-level constraint matrix. Experiments using the 2010 i2b2/VA relation corpus demonstrate these models, which do not depend on any external features, outperform previous single-model methods and our best model is competitive with the existing ensemble-based method. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  16. [Formula: see text]Official Position of the American Academy of Clinical Neuropsychology (AACN): Guidelines for Practicum Training in Clinical Neuropsychology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nelson, Aaron P; Roper, Brad L; Slomine, Beth S; Morrison, Chris; Greher, Michael R; Janusz, Jennifer; Larson, Jennifer C; Meadows, Mary-Ellen; Ready, Rebecca E; Rivera Mindt, Monica; Whiteside, Doug M; Willment, Kim; Wodushek, Thomas R

    2015-01-01

    Practical experience is central to the education and training of neuropsychologists, beginning in graduate school and extending through postdoctoral fellowship. However, historically, little attention has been given to the structure and requirements of practicum training in clinical neuropsychology. A working group of senior-level neuropsychologists, as well as a current postdoctoral fellow, all from a diverse range of settings (The AACN Practicum Guidelines Workgroup), was formed to propose guidelines for practicum training in clinical neuropsychology. The Workgroup reviewed relevant literature and sought input from professional organizations involved in education and training in neuropsychology. The proposed guidelines provide a definition of practicum training in clinical neuropsychology, detail entry and exit criteria across competencies relevant to practicum training in clinical neuropsychology, and discuss the relationship between doctoral training programs and practicum training sites. The proposed guidelines also provide a methodology for competency-based evaluation of clinical neuropsychology practicum trainees and outline characteristics and features that are integral to an effective training environment. Although the guidelines discussed below may not be implemented in their entirety across all clinical neuropsychology practicum training sites, they are consistent with the latest developments in competency-based education.

  17. Theological Media Literacy Education and Hermeneutic Analysis of Soviet Audiovisual Anti-Religious Media Texts in Students' Classroom

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedorov, Alexander

    2015-01-01

    This article realized the Russian way of theological media education literacy and hermeneutic analysis of specific examples of Soviet anti-religious audiovisual media texts: a study of the process of interpretation of these media texts, cultural and historical factors influencing the views of the media agency/authors. The hermeneutic analysis…

  18. Text Genres in Information Organization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nahotko, Marek

    2016-01-01

    Introduction: Text genres used by so-called information organizers in the processes of information organization in information systems were explored in this research. Method: The research employed text genre socio-functional analysis. Five genre groups in information organization were distinguished. Every genre group used in information…

  19. Layout-aware text extraction from full-text PDF of scientific articles

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ramakrishnan Cartic

    2012-05-01

    . Finally, we discuss preliminary error analysis for our system and identify further areas of improvement. Conclusions LA-PDFText is an open-source tool for accurately extracting text from full-text scientific articles. The release of the system is available at http://code.google.com/p/lapdftext/.

  20. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy for acute cholecystitis: clinical analysis of 216 cases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    DAI Juntao

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical experience of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC for acute cholecystitis. MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical records of 216 patients with acute cholecystitis who underwent LC in Qingpu Branch of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University from January 2010 to January 2013. LC was performed under intubation general anaesthesia, with three holes conventionally and four holes if necessary. After operation, the drainage tube was placed for 1-3 d, and antibiotics were administered for 3-5 d. The time of operation, length of postoperative hospital stay, and incidence of postoperative complications were determined. All patients were followed up for at least 0.5 year after operation. ResultsLC was successfully performed in 188 (87.0% of all patients; 28 (13.0% of all patients were converted to open surgery. The mean time of operation was 62.00±11.27 min; the mean length of hospital stay was 4.60±2.16 d; the incidence of postoperative complications was 2.3%(5/216. All patients were cured and discharged. During follow-up, no patients developed other complications and all recovered well. ConclusionLC is safe and feasible in the treatment of acute cholecystitis. Correct manipulation of the Calot's triangle and proper abdominal drainage are the key to successful operation.

  1. Layout-aware text extraction from full-text PDF of scientific articles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramakrishnan, Cartic; Patnia, Abhishek; Hovy, Eduard; Burns, Gully Apc

    2012-05-28

    The Portable Document Format (PDF) is the most commonly used file format for online scientific publications. The absence of effective means to extract text from these PDF files in a layout-aware manner presents a significant challenge for developers of biomedical text mining or biocuration informatics systems that use published literature as an information source. In this paper we introduce the 'Layout-Aware PDF Text Extraction' (LA-PDFText) system to facilitate accurate extraction of text from PDF files of research articles for use in text mining applications. Our paper describes the construction and performance of an open source system that extracts text blocks from PDF-formatted full-text research articles and classifies them into logical units based on rules that characterize specific sections. The LA-PDFText system focuses only on the textual content of the research articles and is meant as a baseline for further experiments into more advanced extraction methods that handle multi-modal content, such as images and graphs. The system works in a three-stage process: (1) Detecting contiguous text blocks using spatial layout processing to locate and identify blocks of contiguous text, (2) Classifying text blocks into rhetorical categories using a rule-based method and (3) Stitching classified text blocks together in the correct order resulting in the extraction of text from section-wise grouped blocks. We show that our system can identify text blocks and classify them into rhetorical categories with Precision1 = 0.96% Recall = 0.89% and F1 = 0.91%. We also present an evaluation of the accuracy of the block detection algorithm used in step 2. Additionally, we have compared the accuracy of the text extracted by LA-PDFText to the text from the Open Access subset of PubMed Central. We then compared this accuracy with that of the text extracted by the PDF2Text system, 2commonly used to extract text from PDF. Finally, we discuss preliminary error analysis for

  2. Clinical laboratory as an economic model for business performance analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buljanović, Vikica; Patajac, Hrvoje; Petrovečki, Mladen

    2011-01-01

    Aim To perform SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis of a clinical laboratory as an economic model that may be used to improve business performance of laboratories by removing weaknesses, minimizing threats, and using external opportunities and internal strengths. Methods Impact of possible threats to and weaknesses of the Clinical Laboratory at Našice General County Hospital business performance and use of strengths and opportunities to improve operating profit were simulated using models created on the basis of SWOT analysis results. The operating profit as a measure of profitability of the clinical laboratory was defined as total revenue minus total expenses and presented using a profit and loss account. Changes in the input parameters in the profit and loss account for 2008 were determined using opportunities and potential threats, and economic sensitivity analysis was made by using changes in the key parameters. The profit and loss account and economic sensitivity analysis were tools for quantifying the impact of changes in the revenues and expenses on the business operations of clinical laboratory. Results Results of simulation models showed that operational profit of €470 723 in 2008 could be reduced to only €21 542 if all possible threats became a reality and current weaknesses remained the same. Also, operational gain could be increased to €535 804 if laboratory strengths and opportunities were utilized. If both the opportunities and threats became a reality, the operational profit would decrease by €384 465. Conclusion The operational profit of the clinical laboratory could be significantly reduced if all threats became a reality and the current weaknesses remained the same. The operational profit could be increased by utilizing strengths and opportunities as much as possible. This type of modeling may be used to monitor business operations of any clinical laboratory and improve its financial situation by

  3. One-way versus two-way text messaging on improving medication adherence: meta-analysis of randomized trials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wald, David S; Butt, Shahena; Bestwick, Jonathan P

    2015-10-01

    Mobile telephone text messaging is a simple potential solution to the failure to take medications as directed. There is uncertainty over the effectiveness of 1-way text messaging (sending text message reminders only) compared with 2-way text messaging (sending reminders and receiving replies confirming whether medication has been taken) as a means of improving medication adherence. A meta-analysis of 8 randomized trials (1994 patients) that tested the effectiveness of text messaging on medication adherence was performed. The trials were divided into 2 groups: trials using 1-way text messaging versus no text messaging and trials using 2-way text messaging versus no text messaging. The summary estimates of the effect of the 2 methods of text messaging (1-way or 2-way) were compared. The summary relative risk estimate was 1.04 (95% confidence interval, 0.97-1.11) for 1-way text messaging and 1.23 (95% confidence interval, 1.13-1.35) for 2-way text messaging. The difference in effect between the 2 methods was statistically significant (P = .007). Two-way text messaging is associated with substantially improved medication adherence compared with 1-way text messaging. This has important implications in the provision of mobile-based messaging in the management of patients taking medication for the prevention of chronic disease. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Analysis of hospital logistics and costs of the Clinical Engineering Sector in a Philanthropic Hospital

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antônio Artur de Souza

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Hospitals are considered complex organizations mainly due to the high cost of the health care structure employed for care. Reducing operating costs is a challenge for hospital managers. Particularly in the clinical engineering sector, adequate hospital logistics can reduce costs. In this context, the aim of the research was to analyze the activities of hospital logistics of the Clinical Engineering department at a charity hospital, focusing on cost reduction. The paper presents a case study in a large charity hospital located in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte, MG. The analysis focuses on the activities of hospital logistics at this hospital clinical engineering sector. The work in this sector is concentrated in the realization and implementation of equipment maintenance, to the detriment of efforts to reduce costs and increase safety for all streams managed by the sector. It was also found that there are risks of increased costs with inadequate routines: (i acquisition of new and large equipment; (ii maintenance and release schedule for use; and (iii the theft of equipment.

  5. NOTICING HYBRID RECASTS IN TEXT CHAT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mark J. Oliver

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available This study examined ten EFL learners’ noticing of the corrective nature of a form of text-based SCMC (text chat feedback that combined a recast of a grammatical error with metalinguistic information. The feedback, termed a hybrid recast, was provided by a native-speaker interlocutor during two text chat activities: a spot-the-difference and picture-ordering task. Data was collected in two ways: analysis of task-based dyadic text chat interaction in which uptake was used as an indicator of learner noticing, and a post-task questionnaire containing questions that identified evidence of learner noticing. Interaction analysis showed that learners responded to almost two thirds of the hybrid recasts with uptake. In addition, every learner provided evidence that they had correctly perceived at least some of the hybrid recasts as corrective in their post-task questionnaire responses.

  6. Text mining analysis of public comments regarding high-level radioactive waste disposal

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kugo, Akihide; Yoshikawa, Hidekazu; Shimoda, Hiroshi; Wakabayashi, Yasunaga

    2005-01-01

    In order to narrow the risk perception gap as seen in social investigations between the general public and people who are involved in nuclear industry, public comments on high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal have been conducted to find the significant talking points with the general public for constructing an effective risk communication model of social risk information regarding HLW disposal. Text mining was introduced to examine public comments to identify the core public interest underlying the comments. The utilized test mining method is to cluster specific groups of words with negative meanings and then to analyze public understanding by employing text structural analysis to extract words from subjective expressions. Using these procedures, it was found that the public does not trust the nuclear fuel cycle promotion policy and shows signs of anxiety about the long-lasting technological reliability of waste storage. To develop effective social risk communication of HLW issues, these findings are expected to help experts in the nuclear industry to communicate with the general public more effectively to obtain their trust. (author)

  7. Introducing the Interactive Model for the Training of Audiovisual Translators and Analysis of Multimodal Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pietro Luigi Iaia

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract – This paper introduces the ‘Interactive Model’ of audiovisual translation developed in the context of my PhD research on the cognitive-semantic, functional and socio-cultural features of the Italian-dubbing translation of a corpus of humorous texts. The Model is based on two interactive macro-phases – ‘Multimodal Critical Analysis of Scripts’ (MuCrAS and ‘Multimodal Re-Textualization of Scripts’ (MuReTS. Its construction and application are justified by a multidisciplinary approach to the analysis and translation of audiovisual texts, so as to focus on the linguistic and extralinguistic dimensions affecting both the reception of source texts and the production of target ones (Chaume 2004; Díaz Cintas 2004. By resorting to Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough 1995, 2001, to a process-based approach to translation and to a socio-semiotic analysis of multimodal texts (van Leeuwen 2004; Kress and van Leeuwen 2006, the Model is meant to be applied to the training of audiovisual translators and discourse analysts in order to help them enquire into the levels of pragmalinguistic equivalence between the source and the target versions. Finally, a practical application shall be discussed, detailing the Italian rendering of a comic sketch from the American late-night talk show Conan.Abstract – Questo studio introduce il ‘Modello Interattivo’ di traduzione audiovisiva sviluppato durante il mio dottorato di ricerca incentrato sulle caratteristiche cognitivo-semantiche, funzionali e socio-culturali della traduzione italiana per il doppiaggio di un corpus di testi comici. Il Modello è costituito da due fasi: la prima, di ‘Analisi critica e multimodale degli script’ (MuCrAS e la seconda, di ‘Ritestualizzazione critica e multimodale degli script’ (MuReTS, e la sua costruzione e applicazione sono frutto di un approccio multidisciplinare all’analisi e traduzione dei testi audiovisivi, al fine di esaminare le

  8. Adolescent Female Text Messaging Preferences to Prevent Pregnancy After an Emergency Department Visit: A Qualitative Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chernick, Lauren Stephanie; Schnall, Rebecca; Stockwell, Melissa S; Castaño, Paula M; Higgins, Tracy; Westhoff, Carolyn; Santelli, John; Dayan, Peter S

    2016-09-29

    Over 15 million adolescents use the emergency department (ED) each year in the United States. Adolescent females who use the ED for medical care have been found to be at high risk for unintended pregnancy. Given that adolescents represent the largest users of text messaging and are receptive to receiving text messages related to their sexual health, the ED visit represents an opportunity for intervention. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore interest in and preferences for the content, frequency, and timing of an ED-based text message intervention to prevent pregnancy for adolescent females. We conducted semistructured, open-ended interviews in one urban ED in the United States with adolescent females aged 14-19 years. Eligible subjects were adolescents who were sexually active in the past 3 months, presented to the ED for a reproductive health complaint, owned a mobile phone, and did not use effective contraception. Using an interview guide, enrollment continued until saturation of key themes. The investigators designed sample text messages using the Health Beliefs Model and participants viewed these on a mobile phone. The team recorded, transcribed, and coded interviews based on thematic analysis using the qualitative analysis software NVivo and Excel. Participants (n=14) were predominantly Hispanic (13/14; 93%), insured (13/14; 93%), ED users in the past year (12/14; 86%), and frequent text users (10/14; 71% had sent or received >30 texts per day). All were interested in receiving text messages from the ED about pregnancy prevention, favoring messages that were "brief," "professional," and "nonaccusatory." Respondents favored texts with links to websites, repeated information regarding places to receive "confidential" care, and focused information on contraception options and misconceptions. Preferences for text message frequency varied from daily to monthly, with random hours of delivery to maintain "surprise." No participant feared that text

  9. Systematic characterizations of text similarity in full text biomedical publications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Zhaohui; Errami, Mounir; Long, Tara; Renard, Chris; Choradia, Nishant; Garner, Harold

    2010-09-15

    Computational methods have been used to find duplicate biomedical publications in MEDLINE. Full text articles are becoming increasingly available, yet the similarities among them have not been systematically studied. Here, we quantitatively investigated the full text similarity of biomedical publications in PubMed Central. 72,011 full text articles from PubMed Central (PMC) were parsed to generate three different datasets: full texts, sections, and paragraphs. Text similarity comparisons were performed on these datasets using the text similarity algorithm eTBLAST. We measured the frequency of similar text pairs and compared it among different datasets. We found that high abstract similarity can be used to predict high full text similarity with a specificity of 20.1% (95% CI [17.3%, 23.1%]) and sensitivity of 99.999%. Abstract similarity and full text similarity have a moderate correlation (Pearson correlation coefficient: -0.423) when the similarity ratio is above 0.4. Among pairs of articles in PMC, method sections are found to be the most repetitive (frequency of similar pairs, methods: 0.029, introduction: 0.0076, results: 0.0043). In contrast, among a set of manually verified duplicate articles, results are the most repetitive sections (frequency of similar pairs, results: 0.94, methods: 0.89, introduction: 0.82). Repetition of introduction and methods sections is more likely to be committed by the same authors (odds of a highly similar pair having at least one shared author, introduction: 2.31, methods: 1.83, results: 1.03). There is also significantly more similarity in pairs of review articles than in pairs containing one review and one nonreview paper (frequency of similar pairs: 0.0167 and 0.0023, respectively). While quantifying abstract similarity is an effective approach for finding duplicate citations, a comprehensive full text analysis is necessary to uncover all potential duplicate citations in the scientific literature and is helpful when

  10. A comparison of the accuracy of clinical decisions based on full-text articles and on journal abstracts alone: a study among residents in a tertiary care hospital.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marcelo, Alvin; Gavino, Alex; Isip-Tan, Iris Thiele; Apostol-Nicodemus, Leilanie; Mesa-Gaerlan, Faith Joan; Firaza, Paul Nimrod; Faustorilla, John Francis; Callaghan, Fiona M; Fontelo, Paul

    2013-04-01

    Many clinicians depend solely on journal abstracts to guide clinical decisions. This study aims to determine if there are differences in the accuracy of responses to simulated cases between resident physicians provided with an abstract only and those with full-text articles. It also attempts to describe their information-seeking behaviour. Seventy-seven resident physicians from four specialty departments of a tertiary care hospital completed a paper-based questionnaire with clinical simulation cases, then randomly assigned to two intervention groups-access to abstracts-only and access to both abstracts and full-text. While having access to medical literature, they completed an online version of the same questionnaire. The average improvement across departments was not significantly different between the abstracts-only group and the full-text group (p=0.44), but when accounting for an interaction between intervention and department, the effect was significant (p=0.049) with improvement greater with full-text in the surgery department. Overall, the accuracy of responses was greater after the provision of either abstracts-only or full-text (pfull-text articles were more accurate than those guided by abstracts alone, but the results seem to be driven by a significant difference in one department.

  11. Degrees of systematic thoroughness: A text analysis of student technical science writing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esch, Catherine Julia

    This dissertation investigates student technical science writing and use of evidence. Student writers attended a writing-intensive undergraduate university oceanography course where they were required to write a technical paper drawing from an instructor-designed software program, Our Dynamic Planet. This software includes multiple interactive geological data sets relevant to plate tectonics. Through qualitative text analysis of students science writing, two research questions frame the study asking: How are the papers textually structured? Are there distinctions between high- and low-rated papers? General and specific text characteristics within three critical sections of the technical paper are identified and analyzed (Observations, Interpretations, Conclusions). Specific text characteristics consist of typical types of figures displayed in the papers, and typical statements within each paper section. Data gathering consisted of collecting 15 student papers which constitute the population of study. An analytical method was designed to manage and analyze the text characteristics. It has three stages: identifying coding categories, re-formulating the categories, and configuring categories. Three important elements emerged that identified notable distinctions in paper quality: data display and use, narration of complex geological feature relationships, and overall organization of text structure. An inter-rater coding concordance check was conducted, and showed high concordance ratios for the coding of each section: Observations = 0.95; Interpretations = 0.93; and Conclusions = 0.87. These categories collectively reveal a larger pattern of general differences in the paper quality levels (high, low, medium). This variation in the quality of papers demonstrates degrees of systematic thoroughness, which is defined as how systematically each student engages in the tasks of the assignment, and how thoroughly and consistently the student follows through on that systematic

  12. Clinical Implications of Cluster Analysis-Based Classification of Acute Decompensated Heart Failure and Correlation with Bedside Hemodynamic Profiles.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tariq Ahmad

    Full Text Available Classification of acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF is based on subjective criteria that crudely capture disease heterogeneity. Improved phenotyping of the syndrome may help improve therapeutic strategies.To derive cluster analysis-based groupings for patients hospitalized with ADHF, and compare their prognostic performance to hemodynamic classifications derived at the bedside.We performed a cluster analysis on baseline clinical variables and PAC measurements of 172 ADHF patients from the ESCAPE trial. Employing regression techniques, we examined associations between clusters and clinically determined hemodynamic profiles (warm/cold/wet/dry. We assessed association with clinical outcomes using Cox proportional hazards models. Likelihood ratio tests were used to compare the prognostic value of cluster data to that of hemodynamic data.We identified four advanced HF clusters: 1 male Caucasians with ischemic cardiomyopathy, multiple comorbidities, lowest B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP levels; 2 females with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, few comorbidities, most favorable hemodynamics; 3 young African American males with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy, most adverse hemodynamics, advanced disease; and 4 older Caucasians with ischemic cardiomyopathy, concomitant renal insufficiency, highest BNP levels. There was no association between clusters and bedside-derived hemodynamic profiles (p = 0.70. For all adverse clinical outcomes, Cluster 4 had the highest risk, and Cluster 2, the lowest. Compared to Cluster 4, Clusters 1-3 had 45-70% lower risk of all-cause mortality. Clusters were significantly associated with clinical outcomes, whereas hemodynamic profiles were not.By clustering patients with similar objective variables, we identified four clinically relevant phenotypes of ADHF patients, with no discernable relationship to hemodynamic profiles, but distinct associations with adverse outcomes. Our analysis suggests that ADHF classification using

  13. Vaccine adverse event text mining system for extracting features from vaccine safety reports.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Botsis, Taxiarchis; Buttolph, Thomas; Nguyen, Michael D; Winiecki, Scott; Woo, Emily Jane; Ball, Robert

    2012-01-01

    To develop and evaluate a text mining system for extracting key clinical features from vaccine adverse event reporting system (VAERS) narratives to aid in the automated review of adverse event reports. Based upon clinical significance to VAERS reviewing physicians, we defined the primary (diagnosis and cause of death) and secondary features (eg, symptoms) for extraction. We built a novel vaccine adverse event text mining (VaeTM) system based on a semantic text mining strategy. The performance of VaeTM was evaluated using a total of 300 VAERS reports in three sequential evaluations of 100 reports each. Moreover, we evaluated the VaeTM contribution to case classification; an information retrieval-based approach was used for the identification of anaphylaxis cases in a set of reports and was compared with two other methods: a dedicated text classifier and an online tool. The performance metrics of VaeTM were text mining metrics: recall, precision and F-measure. We also conducted a qualitative difference analysis and calculated sensitivity and specificity for classification of anaphylaxis cases based on the above three approaches. VaeTM performed best in extracting diagnosis, second level diagnosis, drug, vaccine, and lot number features (lenient F-measure in the third evaluation: 0.897, 0.817, 0.858, 0.874, and 0.914, respectively). In terms of case classification, high sensitivity was achieved (83.1%); this was equal and better compared to the text classifier (83.1%) and the online tool (40.7%), respectively. Our VaeTM implementation of a semantic text mining strategy shows promise in providing accurate and efficient extraction of key features from VAERS narratives.

  14. Vector-field statistics for the analysis of time varying clinical gait data.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Donnelly, C J; Alexander, C; Pataky, T C; Stannage, K; Reid, S; Robinson, M A

    2017-01-01

    In clinical settings, the time varying analysis of gait data relies heavily on the experience of the individual(s) assessing these biological signals. Though three dimensional kinematics are recognised as time varying waveforms (1D), exploratory statistical analysis of these data are commonly carried out with multiple discrete or 0D dependent variables. In the absence of an a priori 0D hypothesis, clinicians are at risk of making type I and II errors in their analyis of time varying gait signatures in the event statistics are used in concert with prefered subjective clinical assesment methods. The aim of this communication was to determine if vector field waveform statistics were capable of providing quantitative corroboration to practically significant differences in time varying gait signatures as determined by two clinically trained gait experts. The case study was a left hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy (GMFCS I) gait patient following a botulinum toxin (BoNT-A) injection to their left gastrocnemius muscle. When comparing subjective clinical gait assessments between two testers, they were in agreement with each other for 61% of the joint degrees of freedom and phases of motion analysed. For tester 1 and tester 2, they were in agreement with the vector-field analysis for 78% and 53% of the kinematic variables analysed. When the subjective analyses of tester 1 and tester 2 were pooled together and then compared to the vector-field analysis, they were in agreement for 83% of the time varying kinematic variables analysed. These outcomes demonstrate that in principle, vector-field statistics corroborates with what a team of clinical gait experts would classify as practically meaningful pre- versus post time varying kinematic differences. The potential for vector-field statistics to be used as a useful clinical tool for the objective analysis of time varying clinical gait data is established. Future research is recommended to assess the usefulness of vector-field analyses

  15. Development of Workshops on Biodiversity and Evaluation of the Educational Effect by Text Mining Analysis

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    Baba, R.; Iijima, A.

    2014-12-01

    Conservation of biodiversity is one of the key issues in the environmental studies. As means to solve this issue, education is becoming increasingly important. In the previous work, we have developed a course of workshops on the conservation of biodiversity. To disseminate the course as a tool for environmental education, determination of the educational effect is essential. A text mining enables analyses of frequency and co-occurrence of words in the freely described texts. This study is intended to evaluate the effect of workshop by using text mining technique. We hosted the originally developed workshop on the conservation of biodiversity for 22 college students. The aim of the workshop was to inform the definition of biodiversity. Generally, biodiversity refers to the diversity of ecosystem, diversity between species, and diversity within species. To facilitate discussion, supplementary materials were used. For instance, field guides of wildlife species were used to discuss about the diversity of ecosystem. Moreover, a hierarchical framework in an ecological pyramid was shown for understanding the role of diversity between species. Besides, we offered a document material on the historical affair of Potato Famine in Ireland to discuss about the diversity within species from the genetic viewpoint. Before and after the workshop, we asked students for free description on the definition of biodiversity, and analyzed by using Tiny Text Miner. This technique enables Japanese language morphological analysis. Frequently-used words were sorted into some categories. Moreover, a principle component analysis was carried out. After the workshop, frequency of the words tagged to diversity between species and diversity within species has significantly increased. From a principle component analysis, the 1st component consists of the words such as producer, consumer, decomposer, and food chain. This indicates that the students have comprehended the close relationship between

  16. PERSPECTIVES OF FACTORIAL ANALYSIS IN STUDYING ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN IMMUNE SYSTEM PARAMETERS AND CLINICAL CHARACTERISTICS IN GASTRIC CANCER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. G. Solovyeva

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available When studying functional features of immune system, a lot of quantitative and functional parameters are determined. A multifactorial analysis allows of detecting interdependent immunological parameters and defining them as significant factors. In present study, four factors are revealed, which are associated with certain clinical characteristics of gastric cancer (tumor invasion depth, lymph node status and distant metastases, tumor stage, histological type. The data obtained are of interest, with regard of systemic approach to functional studies of immune functions.

  17. Sildenafil (Viagra for male erectile dysfunction: a meta-analysis of clinical trial reports

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    McQuay HJ

    2002-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Evaluation of company clinical trial reports could provide information for meta-analysis at the commercial introduction of a new technology. Methods Clinical trial reports of sildenafil for erectile dysfunction from September 1997 were used for meta-analysis of randomised trials (at least four weeks duration and using fixed or dose optimisation regimens. The main outcome sought was an erection, sufficiently rigid for penetration, followed by successful intercourse, and conducted at home. Results Ten randomised controlled trials fulfilled the inclusion criteria (2123 men given sildenafil and 1131 placebo. NNT or NNH were calculated for important efficacy, adverse event and discontinuation outcomes. Dose optimisation led to at least 60% of attempts at sexual intercourse being successful in 49% of men, compared with 11% with placebo; the NNT was 2.7 (95% confidence interval 2.3 to 3.3. For global improvement in erections the NNT was 1.7 (1.6 to 1.9. Treatment-related adverse events occurred in 30% of men on dose optimised sildenafil compared with 11% on placebo; the NNH was 5.4 (4.3 to 7.3. All cause discontinuations were less frequent with sildenafil (10% than with placebo (20%. Sildenafil dose optimisation gave efficacy equivalent to the highest fixed doses, and adverse events equivalent to the lowest fixed doses. Conclusion This review of clinical trial reports available at the time of licensing agreed with later reviews that had many more trials and patients. Making reports submitted for marketing approval available publicly would provide better information when it was most needed, and would improve evidence-based introduction of new technologies.

  18. Basic Test Framework for the Evaluation of Text Line Segmentation and Text Parameter Extraction

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    Darko Brodić

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Text line segmentation is an essential stage in off-line optical character recognition (OCR systems. It is a key because inaccurately segmented text lines will lead to OCR failure. Text line segmentation of handwritten documents is a complex and diverse problem, complicated by the nature of handwriting. Hence, text line segmentation is a leading challenge in handwritten document image processing. Due to inconsistencies in measurement and evaluation of text segmentation algorithm quality, some basic set of measurement methods is required. Currently, there is no commonly accepted one and all algorithm evaluation is custom oriented. In this paper, a basic test framework for the evaluation of text feature extraction algorithms is proposed. This test framework consists of a few experiments primarily linked to text line segmentation, skew rate and reference text line evaluation. Although they are mutually independent, the results obtained are strongly cross linked. In the end, its suitability for different types of letters and languages as well as its adaptability are its main advantages. Thus, the paper presents an efficient evaluation method for text analysis algorithms.

  19. Integrating text mining, data mining, and network analysis for identifying genetic breast cancer trends.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jurca, Gabriela; Addam, Omar; Aksac, Alper; Gao, Shang; Özyer, Tansel; Demetrick, Douglas; Alhajj, Reda

    2016-04-26

    Breast cancer is a serious disease which affects many women and may lead to death. It has received considerable attention from the research community. Thus, biomedical researchers aim to find genetic biomarkers indicative of the disease. Novel biomarkers can be elucidated from the existing literature. However, the vast amount of scientific publications on breast cancer make this a daunting task. This paper presents a framework which investigates existing literature data for informative discoveries. It integrates text mining and social network analysis in order to identify new potential biomarkers for breast cancer. We utilized PubMed for the testing. We investigated gene-gene interactions, as well as novel interactions such as gene-year, gene-country, and abstract-country to find out how the discoveries varied over time and how overlapping/diverse are the discoveries and the interest of various research groups in different countries. Interesting trends have been identified and discussed, e.g., different genes are highlighted in relationship to different countries though the various genes were found to share functionality. Some text analysis based results have been validated against results from other tools that predict gene-gene relations and gene functions.

  20. How do text-messaging smoking cessation interventions confer benefit? A multiple mediation analysis of Text2Quit.

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    Hoeppner, Bettina B; Hoeppner, Susanne S; Abroms, Lorien C

    2017-04-01

    To determine the degree to which the observed benefit of Text2Quit was accounted for by psychosocial mechanisms derived from its quit smoking messaging versus from the use of extra-programmatic smoking cessation treatments and services. Prospective, multiple mediation model of a randomized controlled trial (RCT). United States nation-wide. A total of 409 adult daily smokers participated. Participants were, on average, 35 years of age, predominantly female (68%), white (79%), lacked a college degree (70%), had medium nicotine dependence (average Fagerström Nicotine Dependence Score score of 5.2) and more than half (62%) had made a previous quit attempt. Adult daily smokers browsing the web for smoking cessation support (n = 409; recruited 19 May2011-10 July 2012) were randomized to receive smoking cessation support via Text2Quit versus a smoking cessation material. Mediators (i.e. changes in psychosocial constructs of health behavior change, use of extra-programmatic treatment) were assessed at 1 month using single-item measures and outcome (i.e. self-reported 7-day point prevalence abstinence) at 6-month follow-up. Mediators accounted for 35% of the effect of Text2Quit on smoking cessation. Only psychosocial mechanisms had complete mediational paths, with increases in self-efficacy [b = 0.10 (0.06-0.15)], quitting know-how [b = 0.07 (0.03-0.11)] and the sense that someone cared [b = 0.06 (0.01-0.11)], partially explaining the conferred benefit of Text2Quit. Use of outside resources, including treatments promoted explicitly by Text2Quit, i.e. medication [b = 0.001 (-0.01 to 0.01), quitline [b = -0.002 (-0.01 to 0.04)], treatments and resources not promoted by Text2Quit, i.e. online forums [b = 0.01 (-0.01 to 0.04)] and self-help materials [b = -0.01 (-0.04 to 0.02)], did not have complete mediational paths. An interaction effect existed for medication use that suggested that for participants not using medication, Text2Quit conferred substantial

  1. Text Mining Applications and Theory

    CERN Document Server

    Berry, Michael W

    2010-01-01

    Text Mining: Applications and Theory presents the state-of-the-art algorithms for text mining from both the academic and industrial perspectives.  The contributors span several countries and scientific domains: universities, industrial corporations, and government laboratories, and demonstrate the use of techniques from machine learning, knowledge discovery, natural language processing and information retrieval to design computational models for automated text analysis and mining. This volume demonstrates how advancements in the fields of applied mathematics, computer science, machine learning

  2. Qualitative analysis of programmatic initiatives to text patients with mobile devices in resource-limited health systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garg, Sachin K; Lyles, Courtney R; Ackerman, Sara; Handley, Margaret A; Schillinger, Dean; Gourley, Gato; Aulakh, Veenu; Sarkar, Urmimala

    2016-02-06

    of texting communications due to an inability to integrate texting platforms with electronic health records. Despite enthusiasm for the texting programs from the involved individuals and organizations, inadequate data management capabilities and unclear privacy and security regulations for mobile health technology slowed the initial implementation and limited the clinical use of texting in the safety net and scope of pilots. Future implementation work and research should investigate how different texting platform and intervention designs affect efficacy, as well as explore issues that may affect sustainability and the scalability.

  3. Cluster Analysis of Clinical Data Identifies Fibromyalgia Subgroups

    Science.gov (United States)

    Docampo, Elisa; Collado, Antonio; Escaramís, Geòrgia; Carbonell, Jordi; Rivera, Javier; Vidal, Javier; Alegre, José

    2013-01-01

    Introduction Fibromyalgia (FM) is mainly characterized by widespread pain and multiple accompanying symptoms, which hinder FM assessment and management. In order to reduce FM heterogeneity we classified clinical data into simplified dimensions that were used to define FM subgroups. Material and Methods 48 variables were evaluated in 1,446 Spanish FM cases fulfilling 1990 ACR FM criteria. A partitioning analysis was performed to find groups of variables similar to each other. Similarities between variables were identified and the variables were grouped into dimensions. This was performed in a subset of 559 patients, and cross-validated in the remaining 887 patients. For each sample and dimension, a composite index was obtained based on the weights of the variables included in the dimension. Finally, a clustering procedure was applied to the indexes, resulting in FM subgroups. Results Variables clustered into three independent dimensions: “symptomatology”, “comorbidities” and “clinical scales”. Only the two first dimensions were considered for the construction of FM subgroups. Resulting scores classified FM samples into three subgroups: low symptomatology and comorbidities (Cluster 1), high symptomatology and comorbidities (Cluster 2), and high symptomatology but low comorbidities (Cluster 3), showing differences in measures of disease severity. Conclusions We have identified three subgroups of FM samples in a large cohort of FM by clustering clinical data. Our analysis stresses the importance of family and personal history of FM comorbidities. Also, the resulting patient clusters could indicate different forms of the disease, relevant to future research, and might have an impact on clinical assessment. PMID:24098674

  4. Same Principles, Different Worlds: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Medical Ethics and Nursing Ethics in Finnish Professional Texts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saxén, Salla

    2018-03-01

    This qualitative social scientific study explores professional texts of healthcare ethics to understand the ways in which ethical professionalism in medicine and nursing are culturally constructed in Finland. Two books in ethics, published by Finnish national professional organizations-one for nurses and one for physicians-were analyzed with the method of critical discourse analysis. Codes of ethics for each profession were also scrutinized. Analysis of the texts sought to reveal what is taken for granted in the texts as well as to speculate what appeared to be relegated to the margins of the texts or left entirely invisible. Physicians' ethics was discovered to emphasize objectivity and strong group membership as a basis for ethical professionalism. The discourses identified in the physicians' ethics guidebook were universal ethics, reductionism, non-subjectivity, and threat. Nursing ethics was discovered to highlight reflectivity as its central focus. This idea of reflectivity was echoed in the identified discourses: local ethics, enlightenment, and moral agency. The analysis exposes a cultural gap between the ethics discourses of medicine and nursing. More work is needed to bridge ethics discourses in Finland in a way that can support healthcare professionals to find common ground and to foster inclusivity in ethical dialogue. Further development of bioethical practices is suggested as a potential way forward.

  5. Clinical simulation training improves the clinical performance of Chinese medical students

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    Ming-ya Zhang

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: Modern medical education promotes medical students’ clinical operating capacity rather than the mastery of theoretical knowledge. To accomplish this objective, clinical skill training using various simulations was introduced into medical education to cultivate creativity and develop the practical ability of students. However, quantitative analysis of the efficiency of clinical skill training with simulations is lacking. Methods: In the present study, we compared the mean scores of medical students (Jinan University who graduated in 2013 and 2014 on 16 stations between traditional training (control and simulative training groups. In addition, in a clinical skill competition, the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE scores of participating medical students trained using traditional and simulative training were compared. The data were statistically analyzed and qualitatively described. Results: The results revealed that simulative training could significantly enhance the graduate score of medical students compared with the control. The OSCE scores of participating medical students in the clinical skill competition, trained using simulations, were dramatically higher than those of students trained through traditional methods, and we also observed that the OSCE marks were significantly increased for the same participant after simulative training for the clinical skill competition. Conclusions: Taken together, these data indicate that clinical skill training with a variety of simulations could substantially promote the clinical performance of medical students and optimize the resources used for medical education, although a precise analysis of each specialization is needed in the future.

  6. Multimodal Diversity of Postmodernist Fiction Text

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    U. I. Tykha

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the analysis of structural and functional manifestations of multimodal diversity in postmodernist fiction texts. Multimodality is defined as the coexistence of more than one semiotic mode within a certain context. Multimodal texts feature a diversity of semiotic modes in the communication and development of their narrative. Such experimental texts subvert conventional patterns by introducing various semiotic resources – verbal or non-verbal.

  7. Staff nurse clinical leadership: a concept analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chávez, Eduardo C; Yoder, Linda H

    2015-01-01

    The purpose of this article is to provide a concept analysis of staff nurse clinical leadership (SNCL). A clear delineation of SNCL will promote understanding and encourage communication of the phenomenon. Clarification of the concept will establish a common understanding of the concept, and advance the practice, education, and research of this phenomenon. A review of the literature was conducted using several databases. The databases were searched using the following keywords: clinical leadership, nursing, bedside, staff nurse, front-line, front line, and leadership. The search yielded several sources; however, only those that focused on clinical leadership demonstrated by staff nurses in acute care hospital settings were selected for review. SNCL is defined as staff nurses who exert significant influence over other individuals in the healthcare team, and although no formal authority has been vested in them facilitates individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared clinical objectives. The theoretical definition for SNCL within the team context will provide a common understanding of this concept and differentiate it from other types of leadership in the nursing profession. This clarification and conceptualization of the concept will assist further research of the concept and advance its practical application in acute care hospital settings. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  8. Full-text automated detection of surgical site infections secondary to neurosurgery in Rennes, France.

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    Campillo-Gimenez, Boris; Garcelon, Nicolas; Jarno, Pascal; Chapplain, Jean Marc; Cuggia, Marc

    2013-01-01

    The surveillance of Surgical Site Infections (SSI) contributes to the management of risk in French hospitals. Manual identification of infections is costly, time-consuming and limits the promotion of preventive procedures by the dedicated teams. The introduction of alternative methods using automated detection strategies is promising to improve this surveillance. The present study describes an automated detection strategy for SSI in neurosurgery, based on textual analysis of medical reports stored in a clinical data warehouse. The method consists firstly, of enrichment and concept extraction from full-text reports using NOMINDEX, and secondly, text similarity measurement using a vector space model. The text detection was compared to the conventional strategy based on self-declaration and to the automated detection using the diagnosis-related group database. The text-mining approach showed the best detection accuracy, with recall and precision equal to 92% and 40% respectively, and confirmed the interest of reusing full-text medical reports to perform automated detection of SSI.

  9. Finding text in color images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Jiangying; Lopresti, Daniel P.; Tasdizen, Tolga

    1998-04-01

    In this paper, we consider the problem of locating and extracting text from WWW images. A previous algorithm based on color clustering and connected components analysis works well as long as the color of each character is relatively uniform and the typography is fairly simple. It breaks down quickly, however, when these assumptions are violated. In this paper, we describe more robust techniques for dealing with this challenging problem. We present an improved color clustering algorithm that measures similarity based on both RGB and spatial proximity. Layout analysis is also incorporated to handle more complex typography. THese changes significantly enhance the performance of our text detection procedure.

  10. Assessing semantic similarity of texts - Methods and algorithms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rozeva, Anna; Zerkova, Silvia

    2017-12-01

    Assessing the semantic similarity of texts is an important part of different text-related applications like educational systems, information retrieval, text summarization, etc. This task is performed by sophisticated analysis, which implements text-mining techniques. Text mining involves several pre-processing steps, which provide for obtaining structured representative model of the documents in a corpus by means of extracting and selecting the features, characterizing their content. Generally the model is vector-based and enables further analysis with knowledge discovery approaches. Algorithms and measures are used for assessing texts at syntactical and semantic level. An important text-mining method and similarity measure is latent semantic analysis (LSA). It provides for reducing the dimensionality of the document vector space and better capturing the text semantics. The mathematical background of LSA for deriving the meaning of the words in a given text by exploring their co-occurrence is examined. The algorithm for obtaining the vector representation of words and their corresponding latent concepts in a reduced multidimensional space as well as similarity calculation are presented.

  11. A study of active learning methods for named entity recognition in clinical text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yukun; Lasko, Thomas A; Mei, Qiaozhu; Denny, Joshua C; Xu, Hua

    2015-12-01

    Named entity recognition (NER), a sequential labeling task, is one of the fundamental tasks for building clinical natural language processing (NLP) systems. Machine learning (ML) based approaches can achieve good performance, but they often require large amounts of annotated samples, which are expensive to build due to the requirement of domain experts in annotation. Active learning (AL), a sample selection approach integrated with supervised ML, aims to minimize the annotation cost while maximizing the performance of ML-based models. In this study, our goal was to develop and evaluate both existing and new AL methods for a clinical NER task to identify concepts of medical problems, treatments, and lab tests from the clinical notes. Using the annotated NER corpus from the 2010 i2b2/VA NLP challenge that contained 349 clinical documents with 20,423 unique sentences, we simulated AL experiments using a number of existing and novel algorithms in three different categories including uncertainty-based, diversity-based, and baseline sampling strategies. They were compared with the passive learning that uses random sampling. Learning curves that plot performance of the NER model against the estimated annotation cost (based on number of sentences or words in the training set) were generated to evaluate different active learning and the passive learning methods and the area under the learning curve (ALC) score was computed. Based on the learning curves of F-measure vs. number of sentences, uncertainty sampling algorithms outperformed all other methods in ALC. Most diversity-based methods also performed better than random sampling in ALC. To achieve an F-measure of 0.80, the best method based on uncertainty sampling could save 66% annotations in sentences, as compared to random sampling. For the learning curves of F-measure vs. number of words, uncertainty sampling methods again outperformed all other methods in ALC. To achieve 0.80 in F-measure, in comparison to random

  12. Exploring the measurement properties of the osteopathy clinical teaching questionnaire using Rasch analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vaughan, Brett

    2018-01-01

    Clinical teaching evaluations are common in health profession education programs to ensure students are receiving a quality clinical education experience. Questionnaires students use to evaluate their clinical teachers have been developed in professions such as medicine and nursing. The development of a questionnaire that is specifically for the osteopathy on-campus, student-led clinic environment is warranted. Previous work developed the 30-item Osteopathy Clinical Teaching Questionnaire. The current study utilised Rasch analysis to investigate the construct validity of the Osteopathy Clinical Teaching Questionnaire and provide evidence for the validity argument through fit to the Rasch model. Senior osteopathy students at four institutions in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom rated their clinical teachers using the Osteopathy Clinical Teaching Questionnaire. Three hundred and ninety-nine valid responses were received and the data were evaluated for fit to the Rasch model. Reliability estimations (Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega) were also evaluated for the final model. The initial analysis demonstrated the data did not fit the Rasch model. Accordingly, modifications to the questionnaire were made including removing items, removing person responses, and rescoring one item. The final model contained 12 items and fit to the Rasch model was adequate. Support for unidimensionality was demonstrated through both the Principal Components Analysis/t-test, and the Cronbach's alpha and McDonald's omega reliability estimates. Analysis of the questionnaire using McDonald's omega hierarchical supported a general factor (quality of clinical teaching in osteopathy). The evidence for unidimensionality and the presence of a general factor support the calculation of a total score for the questionnaire as a sufficient statistic. Further work is now required to investigate the reliability of the 12-item Osteopathy Clinical Teaching Questionnaire to provide evidence

  13. Representation of Social History Factors Across Age Groups: A Topic Analysis of Free-Text Social Documentation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lindemann, Elizabeth A; Chen, Elizabeth S; Wang, Yan; Skube, Steven J; Melton, Genevieve B

    2017-01-01

    As individuals age, there is potential for dramatic changes in the social and behavioral determinants that affect health status and outcomes. The importance of these determinants has been increasingly recognized in clinical decision-making. We sought to characterize how social and behavioral health determinants vary in different demographic groups using a previously established schema of 28 social history types through both manual analysis and automated topic analysis of social documentation in the electronic health record across the population of an entire integrated healthcare system. Our manual analysis generated 8,335 annotations over 1,400 documents, representing 24 (86%) social history types. In contrast, automated topic analysis generated 22 (79%) social history types. A comparative evaluation demonstrated both similarities and differences in coverage between the manual and topic analyses. Our findings validate the widespread nature of social and behavioral determinants that affect health status over populations of individuals over their lifespan.

  14. Exome analysis in clinical practice: expanding the phenotype of Bartsocas-Papas syndrome.

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    Gripp, Karen W; Ennis, Sara; Napoli, Joseph

    2013-05-01

    Exome analysis has had a dramatic impact on genetic research. We present the application of such newly generated information to patient care. The patient was a female, born with normal growth parameters to nonconsanguineous parents after an uneventful pregnancy. She had bilateral cleft lip/palate and ankyloblepharon. Sparse hair, dysplastic nails and hypohidrosis were subsequently noted. With exception of speech related issues, her development was normal. A clinical diagnosis of ankyloblepharon-ectodermal defects-cleft lip/palate or Hay-Wells syndrome resulted in TP63 sequence analysis. TP63 sequence and deletion/duplication analysis of all coding exons had a normal result, as did chromosome and SNP array analysis. Diagnostic exome analysis revealed a heterozygous nonsense mutation in KRT83 categorized as deleterious and associated with monilethrix. In addition, a homozygous missense variant of unknown clinical significance was reported in RIPK4. Using research based exome analysis, RIPK4 had just a few months prior been identified as pathogenic for Bartsocas-Papas syndrome. While the clinical diagnostic report implied the KRT83 mutation as a more likely cause for the patient's phenotype, clinical correlation, literature review and use of computerized mutation analysis programs allowed us to identify the homozygous RIPK4 (c.488G > A; p.Gly163Asp) mutation as the underlying pathogenic change. Consequently, we expand the phenotype of Bartsocas-Papas syndrome to an attenuated presentation resembling Hay-Wells syndrome, lacking lethality and pterygia. In contrast to the autosomal dominant Hay-Wells syndrome, Bartsocas-Papas syndrome is autosomal recessive, implying a 25% recurrence risk. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  15. Text messaging in health care: a systematic review of impact studies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yeager, Valerie A; Menachemi, Nir

    2011-01-01

    Studies suggest text messaging is beneficial to health care; however, no one has synthesized the overall evidence on texting interventions. In response to this need, we conducted a systematic review of the impacts of text messaging in health care. PubMed database searches and subsequent reference list reviews sought English-language, peer-reviewed studies involving text messaging in health care. Commentaries, conference proceedings, and feasibilities studies were excluded. Data was extracted using an article coding sheet and input into a database for analysis. Of the 61 papers reviewed, 50 articles (82%) found text messaging had a positive effect on the primary outcome. Average sample sizes in articles reporting positive findings (n=813) were significantly larger than those that did not find a positive impact (n=178) on outcomes (p = 0.032). Articles were categorized into focal groups as follows: 27 articles (44.3%) investigated the impact of texting on disease management, 24 articles (39.3%) focused texting's impact to public health related outcomes, and 10 articles (16.4%) examined texting and its influence on administrative processes. Articles in focal groups differed by the purpose of the study, direction of the communication, and where they were published, but not in likelihood of reporting a positive impact from texting. Current evidence indicates that text messaging health care interventions are largely beneficial clinically, in public health related uses, and in terms of administrative processes. However, despite the promise of these findings, literature gaps exist, especially in primary care settings, across geographic regions and with vulnerable populations.

  16. Clinical analysis of 155 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

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    Qi BING

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Objective To investigate the clinical manifestations and laboratory examinations of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD patients and evaluate the principle of intermittent intravenous combined with oral glucocorticoid therapy.  Methods The clinical features, laboratory examinations andfollow-up data of 155 DMD patients were collected. These patients were given dexamethasone 5-10 mg/d by intravenous infusion for 10-15 d and oral prednisone acetate 0.50-0.75 mg/(kg·d for one month. After treatment, the motor ability of lower limbs, the level of serum creatine kinase (CK and 99mTc-MIBI gated myocardial perfusion imaging (GMPI findings were compared with those before glucocorticoid therapy by statistical analysis.  Results 1 The motor ability was improved in 70 follow-up cases of DMD patients with long-term oral prednisone (squat and rise: Z = 207.000, P = 0.034; climbing stairs: Z = 237.000, P =0.008. 2 The level of serum CK of 155 first diagnosed patients reached the peak at 3 years old, and declined after the age of 8 (P < 0.05, for all. The serum CK of 70 follow-up cases was significantly decreased after 10-15 d dexamethasone intravenous infusion (P = 0.000, and increased again after one-month oral administration of prednisone acetate (P = 0.000, but was still lower than that before treatment (P = 0.008. 3 The 99mTc-MIBI GMPI of 77 patients showed different degrees of myocardial involvement and significantly uneven left ventricular radionuclide distribution, especially in apex cordis (55 cases, inferior wall (45 cases and anterior wall (30 cases of apex. Conclusions There exists increased level of serum CK in the sub⁃clinical stage of DMD. The level of serum CK declined year by year after the age of 8. Intermittent intravenous combined with oral glucocorticoid therapy has an important effect on protecting motor and cardiac functions, extending walking time and reducing serum CK level and muscle cell damage. Early glucocorticoid therapy is

  17. Interim analysis: A rational approach of decision making in clinical trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Amal; Chakraborty, Bhaswat S

    2016-01-01

    Interim analysis of especially sizeable trials keeps the decision process free of conflict of interest while considering cost, resources, and meaningfulness of the project. Whenever necessary, such interim analysis can also call for potential termination or appropriate modification in sample size, study design, and even an early declaration of success. Given the extraordinary size and complexity today, this rational approach helps to analyze and predict the outcomes of a clinical trial that incorporate what is learned during the course of a study or a clinical development program. Such approach can also fill the gap by directing the resources toward relevant and optimized clinical trials between unmet medical needs and interventions being tested currently rather than fulfilling only business and profit goals.

  18. A common type system for clinical natural language processing

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    Wu Stephen T

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background One challenge in reusing clinical data stored in electronic medical records is that these data are heterogenous. Clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP plays an important role in transforming information in clinical text to a standard representation that is comparable and interoperable. Information may be processed and shared when a type system specifies the allowable data structures. Therefore, we aim to define a common type system for clinical NLP that enables interoperability between structured and unstructured data generated in different clinical settings. Results We describe a common type system for clinical NLP that has an end target of deep semantics based on Clinical Element Models (CEMs, thus interoperating with structured data and accommodating diverse NLP approaches. The type system has been implemented in UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture and is fully functional in a popular open-source clinical NLP system, cTAKES (clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System versions 2.0 and later. Conclusions We have created a type system that targets deep semantics, thereby allowing for NLP systems to encapsulate knowledge from text and share it alongside heterogenous clinical data sources. Rather than surface semantics that are typically the end product of NLP algorithms, CEM-based semantics explicitly build in deep clinical semantics as the point of interoperability with more structured data types.

  19. Using computerized text analysis to assess communication within an Italian type 1 diabetes Facebook group

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    Alda Troncone

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to assess messages posted by mothers of children with type 1 diabetes in the Italian Facebook group “Mamme e diabete” using computerized text analysis. The data suggest that these mothers use online discussion boards as a place to seek and provide information to better manage the disease’s daily demands—especially those tasks linked to insulin correction and administration, control of food intake, and bureaucratic duties, as well as to seek and give encouragement and to share experiences regarding diabetes and related impact on their life. The implications of these findings for the management of diabetes are discussed.

  20. Social science and linguistic text analysis of nurses' records: a systematic review and critique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Buus, Niels; Hamilton, Bridget Elizabeth

    2016-03-01

    The two aims of the paper were to systematically review and critique social science and linguistic text analyses of nursing records in order to inform future research in this emerging area of research. Systematic searches in reference databases and in citation indexes identified 12 articles that included analyses of the social and linguistic features of records and recording. Two reviewers extracted data using established criteria for the evaluation of qualitative research papers. A common characteristic of nursing records was the economical use of language with local meanings that conveyed little information to the uninitiated reader. Records were dominated by technocratic-medical discourse focused on patients' bodies, and they depicted only very limited aspects of nursing practice. Nurses made moral evaluations in their categorisation of patients, which reflected detailed surveillance of patients' disturbing behaviour. The text analysis methods were rarely transparent in the articles, which could suggest research quality problems. For most articles, the significance of the findings was substantiated more by theoretical readings of the institutional settings than by the analysis of textual data. More probing empirical research of nurses' records and a wider range of theoretical perspectives has the potential to expose the situated meanings of nursing work in healthcare organisations. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  1. Nursing identity and patient-centredness in scholarly health services research: a computational text analysis of PubMed abstracts 1986-2013.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bell, Erica; Campbell, Steve; Goldberg, Lynette R

    2015-01-22

    The most important and contested element of nursing identity may be the patient-centredness of nursing, though this concept is not well-treated in the nursing identity literature. More conceptually-based mapping of nursing identity constructs are needed to help nurses shape their identity. The field of computational text analytics offers new opportunities to scrutinise how growing disciplines such as health services research construct nursing identity. This paper maps the conceptual content of scholarly health services research in PubMed as it relates to the patient-centeredness of nursing. Computational text analytics software was used to analyse all health services abstracts in the database PubMed since 1986. Abstracts were treated as indicative of the content of health services research. The database PubMed was searched for all research papers using the term "service" or "services" in the abstract or keywords for the period 01/01/1986 to 30/06/2013. A total of 234,926 abstracts were obtained. Leximancer software was used in 1) mapping of 4,144,458 instances of 107 concepts; 2) analysis of 106 paired concept co-occurrences for the nursing concept; and 3) sentiment analysis of the nursing concept versus patient, family and community concepts, and clinical concepts. Nursing is constructed within quality assurance or service implementation or workforce development concepts. It is relatively disconnected from patient, family or community care concepts. For those who agree that patient-centredness should be a part of nursing identity in practice, this study suggests that there is a need for development of health services research into both the nature of the caring construct in nursing identity and its expression in practice. More fundamentally, the study raises questions about whether health services research cultures even value the politically popular idea of nurses as patient-centred caregivers and whether they should.

  2. The effect of exercise in clinically depressed adults: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Krogh, Jesper; Nordentoft, Merete; Sterne, Jonathan A C

    2011-01-01

    SH) and text word terms depression, depressive disorder and exercise, aerobic, non-aerobic, physical activity, physical fitness, walk*, jog*, run*, bicycling, swim*, strength, and resistance. STUDY SELECTION: Randomized trials including adults with clinical depression according to any diagnostic system were......OBJECTIVE: To assess the effectiveness of exercise in adults with clinical depression. DATA SOURCES: The databases CINAHL, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic reviews, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO were searched (1806-2008) using medical subject headings (Me...... with depression (P = .002). No other characteristics were related to between-study heterogeneity. Pooled analysis of 5 trials with long-term follow-up (ie, that examined outcomes beyond the end of the intervention) suggested no long-term benefit (SMD, -0.01; 95% CI, -0.28 to 0.26), with no strong evidence...

  3. Changing Text: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Textbooks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeff Bezemer

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we provide a multimodal account of historical changes in secondary school textbooks in England and their social significance. Adopting a social semiotic approach to text and text making we review learning resources across core subjects of the English national curriculum, English, Science and Mathematics. Comparing textbooks from the 1930s, 1980s and 2000s, we show that a all modes operating in textbooks -typography, image, writing and layout- contribute to meaning and potential for learning b that the use of these modes has changed between 1930 and now, in ways significant for social relations between and across makers and users of textbooks. Designers and readers / learners now take responsibility for coherence, which was previously the exclusive domain of authors. Where previously reading paths were fixed by makers it may now be left to learners to establish these according to their interests. For users of textbooks the changes in design demand new forms of ‘literacy’; a fluency not only in ‘reading’ writing, image, typography and layout jointly, but in the overall design of learning environments. We place these changes against the backdrop of wider social changes and features of the contemporary media landscape, recognizing a shift from stability, canonicity and vertical power structures to ‘horizontal’, more open, participatory relations in the production of knowledge.

  4. The Medline/full-text research project.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKinin, E J; Sievert, M; Johnson, E D; Mitchell, J A

    1991-05-01

    This project was designed to test the relative efficacy of index terms and full-text for the retrieval of documents in those MEDLINE journals for which full-text searching was also available. The full-text files used were MEDIS from Mead Data Central and CCML from BRS Information Technologies. One hundred clinical medical topics were searched in these two files as well as the MEDLINE file to accumulate the necessary data. It was found that full-text identified significantly more relevant articles than did the indexed file, MEDLINE. The full-text searches, however, lacked the precision of searches done in the indexed file. Most relevant items missed in the full-text files, but identified in MEDLINE, were missed because the searcher failed to account for some aspect of natural language, used a logical or positional operator that was too restrictive, or included a concept which was implied, but not expressed in the natural language. Very few of the unique relevant full-text citations would have been retrieved by title or abstract alone. Finally, as of July, 1990 the more current issue of a journal was just as likely to appear in MEDLINE as in one of the full-text files.

  5. Need for Outcome Scenario Analysis of Clinical Trials in Diabetes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garcia-Verdugo, Rosa; Erbach, Michael; Schnell, Oliver

    2017-03-01

    Since the FDA requirement for cardiovascular safety of all new antihyperglycemic drugs to enter the market, the number and extent of phase 3 clinical trials has markedly increased. Unexpected trial results imply an enormous economic, personal and time cost and has deleterious effects over R&D. To prevent unforeseen developments in clinical trials, we recommend performing a comprehensive prospective outcome scenario analysis before launching the trial. In this commentary, we discuss the most important factors to take in consideration for prediction of clinical trial outcome scenarios and propose a theoretical model for decision making.

  6. Towards automated processing of clinical Finnish: sublanguage analysis and a rule-based parser.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laippala, Veronika; Ginter, Filip; Pyysalo, Sampo; Salakoski, Tapio

    2009-12-01

    In this paper, we present steps taken towards more efficient automated processing of clinical Finnish, focusing on daily nursing notes in a Finnish Intensive Care Unit (ICU). First, we analyze ICU Finnish as a sublanguage, identifying its specific features facilitating, for example, the development of a specialized syntactic analyser. The identified features include frequent omission of finite verbs, limitations in allowed syntactic structures, and domain-specific vocabulary. Second, we develop a formal grammar and a parser for ICU Finnish, thus providing better tools for the development of further applications in the clinical domain. The grammar is implemented in the LKB system in a typed feature structure formalism. The lexicon is automatically generated based on the output of the FinTWOL morphological analyzer adapted to the clinical domain. As an additional experiment, we study the effect of using Finnish constraint grammar to reduce the size of the lexicon. The parser construction thus makes efficient use of existing resources for Finnish. The grammar currently covers 76.6% of ICU Finnish sentences, producing highly accurate best-parse analyzes with F-score of 91.1%. We find that building a parser for the highly specialized domain sublanguage is not only feasible, but also surprisingly efficient, given an existing morphological analyzer with broad vocabulary coverage. The resulting parser enables a deeper analysis of the text than was previously possible.

  7. Reporting on methods of subgroup analysis in clinical trials: a survey of four scientific journals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E.D. Moreira Jr.

    2001-11-01

    Full Text Available Results of subgroup analysis (SA reported in randomized clinical trials (RCT cannot be adequately interpreted without information about the methods used in the study design and the data analysis. Our aim was to show how often inaccurate or incomplete reports occur. First, we selected eight methodological aspects of SA on the basis of their importance to a reader in determining the confidence that should be placed in the author's conclusions regarding such analysis. Then, we reviewed the current practice of reporting these methodological aspects of SA in clinical trials in four leading journals, i.e., the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet, and the American Journal of Public Health. Eight consecutive reports from each journal published after July 1, 1998 were included. Of the 32 trials surveyed, 17 (53% had at least one SA. Overall, the proportion of RCT reporting a particular methodological aspect ranged from 23 to 94%. Information on whether the SA preceded/followed the analysis was reported in only 7 (41% of the studies. Of the total possible number of items to be reported, NEJM, JAMA, Lancet and AJPH clearly mentioned 59, 67, 58 and 72%, respectively. We conclude that current reporting of SA in RCT is incomplete and inaccurate. The results of such SA may have harmful effects on treatment recommendations if accepted without judicious scrutiny. We recommend that editors improve the reporting of SA in RCT by giving authors a list of the important items to be reported.

  8. Text mining with R a tidy approach

    CERN Document Server

    Silge, Julia

    2017-01-01

    Much of the data available today is unstructured and text-heavy, making it challenging for analysts to apply their usual data wrangling and visualization tools. With this practical book, you'll explore text-mining techniques with tidytext, a package that authors Julia Silge and David Robinson developed using the tidy principles behind R packages like ggraph and dplyr. You'll learn how tidytext and other tidy tools in R can make text analysis easier and more effective. The authors demonstrate how treating text as data frames enables you to manipulate, summarize, and visualize characteristics of text. You'll also learn how to integrate natural language processing (NLP) into effective workflows. Practical code examples and data explorations will help you generate real insights from literature, news, and social media. Learn how to apply the tidy text format to NLP Use sentiment analysis to mine the emotional content of text Identify a document's most important terms with frequency measurements E...

  9. Research trends on Big Data in Marketing: A text mining and topic modeling based literature analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alexandra Amado

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Given the research interest on Big Data in Marketing, we present a research literature analysis based on a text mining semi-automated approach with the goal of identifying the main trends in this domain. In particular, the analysis focuses on relevant terms and topics related with five dimensions: Big Data, Marketing, Geographic location of authors’ affiliation (countries and continents, Products, and Sectors. A total of 1560 articles published from 2010 to 2015 were scrutinized. The findings revealed that research is bipartite between technological and research domains, with Big Data publications not clearly aligning cutting edge techniques toward Marketing benefits. Also, few inter-continental co-authored publications were found. Moreover, findings show that research in Big Data applications to Marketing is still in an embryonic stage, thus making it essential to develop more direct efforts toward business for Big Data to thrive in the Marketing arena.

  10. Why are clinicians not embracing the results from pivotal clinical trials in severe sepsis? A bayesian analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andre C Kalil

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Five pivotal clinical trials (Intensive Insulin Therapy; Recombinant Human Activated Protein C [rhAPC]; Low-Tidal Volume; Low-Dose Steroid; Early Goal-Directed Therapy [EGDT] demonstrated mortality reduction in patients with severe sepsis and expert guidelines have recommended them to clinical practice. Yet, the adoption of these therapies remains low among clinicians. OBJECTIVES: We selected these five trials and asked: Question 1--What is the current probability that the new therapy is not better than the standard of care in my patient with severe sepsis? Question 2--What is the current probability of reducing the relative risk of death (RRR of my patient with severe sepsis by meaningful clinical thresholds (RRR >15%; >20%; >25%? METHODS: Bayesian methodologies were applied to this study. Odds ratio (OR was considered for Question 1, and RRR was used for Question 2. We constructed prior distributions (enthusiastic; mild, moderate, and severe skeptic based on various effective sample sizes of other relevant clinical trials (unfavorable evidence. Posterior distributions were calculated by combining the prior distributions and the data from pivotal trials (favorable evidence. MAIN FINDINGS: Answer 1--The analysis based on mild skeptic prior shows beneficial results with the Intensive Insulin, rhAPC, and Low-Tidal Volume trials, but not with the Low-Dose Steroid and EGDT trials. All trials' results become unacceptable by the analyses using moderate or severe skeptic priors. Answer 2--If we aim for a RRR>15%, the mild skeptic analysis shows that the current probability of reducing death by this clinical threshold is 88% for the Intensive Insulin, 62-65% for the Low-Tidal Volume, rhAPC, EGDT trials, and 17% for the Low-Dose Steroid trial. The moderate and severe skeptic analyses show no clinically meaningful reduction in the risk of death for all trials. If we aim for a RRR >20% or >25%, all probabilities of benefits become lower

  11. Interdisciplinary Issues at the Intersection of Assessing and Treating Substance Use Disorders and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Clinical Social Work and Clinical Behavioral Analysis with Veterans

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Monica M. Matthieu

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Veterans and military personnel may be at higher risk for developing addictions due to increased prevalence rates of co-occurring mental health disorders including posttraumatic stress and substance abuse disorders. However, clinicians may feel unprepared to assess and to treat these co-occurring disorders, especially when it includes a behavioral addiction such as gambling. Clinical social work and clinical behavior analysis are two fields with complementary interdisciplinary approaches that can lead to improved client-centered outcomes. Yet, limited evidence exists to guide interdisciplinary treatment teams in effective treatment of gambling addictions and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD. The current article provides an interdisciplinary treatment model to assist clinicians in selecting appropriate evidence-based assessments and treatments. A case example focuses on the use of assessment tools and treatment approaches drawn from recommendations from best practice guidelines for veterans. Finally, resources related trauma and addictions are presented.

  12. Gene Dosage Analysis in a Clinical Environment: Gene-Targeted Microarrays as the Platform-of-Choice

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    Donald R. Love

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available The role of gene deletion and duplication in the aetiology of disease has become increasingly evident over the last decade. In addition to the classical deletion/duplication disorders diagnosed using molecular techniques, such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Charcot-Marie-Tooth Neuropathy Type 1A, the significance of partial or whole gene deletions in the pathogenesis of a large number single-gene disorders is becoming more apparent. A variety of dosage analysis methods are available to the diagnostic laboratory but the widespread application of many of these techniques is limited by the expense of the kits/reagents and restrictive targeting to a particular gene or portion of a gene. These limitations are particularly important in the context of a small diagnostic laboratory with modest sample throughput. We have developed a gene-targeted, custom-designed comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH array that allows twelve clinical samples to be interrogated simultaneously for exonic deletions/duplications within any gene (or panel of genes on the array. We report here on the use of the array in the analysis of a series of clinical samples processed by our laboratory over a twelve-month period. The array has proven itself to be robust, flexible and highly suited to the diagnostic environment.

  13. Intertextuality and Glocalization a Corpus-based Analysis of Advertisement Texts of an International Female Fashion Magazine

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuo Cao

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available In the context of the glocalization of business, it is becoming increasingly important to better understand the cross-linguistic persuasive communication conveyed through media, such as advertisement, which is considered one of the most active form of modern media. In achieving this goal, intertextuality study in the pragmatic field proves to be helpful. Employing quantitative and qualitative approaches, we compare English and Chinese texts of advertisements in Cosmopolitan, the most sellable female fashion magazine, with the study focused on lexical, thematic and cultural intertextuality. It is found that the glocalization of advertisement for female products and services are dependent on local culture and language. The analysis of intertextuality between two texts will contribute to researches on female advertisements and international marketing strategy.

  14. An Analysis on Reading Texts in Teaching Turkish to Foreigners

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    Adem İŞCAN

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Being one of the four basic language skills, reading has a great importance in teaching Turkish to foreigners. It is required to develop reading skills to develop vocabulary. There have been some problems in teaching Turkish as second language. These problems are generally related to difference in alphabet, inadequacy of the sources used in teaching Turkish, methods and techniques used and the texts used. The basic sources used in teaching Turkish to foreigners are texts. This study aims at determination of the opinions of students in Gaziosmanpaşa University and Ondokuz Mayıs University Turkish Education and Application Center (TOMER concerning Turkish reading texts. General browsing method was used in the study. The questionnaire comprising of 24 items was applied to 25 students in beginner level and 7 students in advanced level. With this study, it is foreseen to arrange the texts being the key stone according to the wishes of and in compliance with the levels of students; giving importance to pre-reading, reading and post-reading activities and including questions with short-answer about the text as well as questions to develop high level skills.

  15. The Psychedelic Debriefing in Alcohol Dependence Treatment: Illustrating Key Change Phenomena through Qualitative Content Analysis of Clinical Sessions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elizabeth M. Nielson

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Research on the clinical applications of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has demonstrated promising early results for treatment of alcohol dependence. Detailed description of the content and methods of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, as it is conducted in clinical settings, is scarce.Methods: An open-label pilot (proof-of-concept study of psilocybin-assisted treatment of alcohol dependence (NCT01534494 was conducted to generate data for a phase 2 RCT (NCT02061293 of a similar treatment in a larger population. The present paper presents a qualitative content analysis of the 17 debriefing sessions conducted in the pilot study, which occurred the day after corresponding psilocybin medication sessions.Results: Participants articulated a series of key phenomena related to change in drinking outcomes and acute subjective effects of psilocybin.Discussion: The data illuminate change processes in patients' own words during clinical sessions, shedding light on potential therapeutic mechanisms of change and how participants express effects of psilocybin. This study is unique in analyzing actual clinical sessions, as opposed to interviews of patients conducted separately from treatment.

  16. Text2Floss: the feasibility and acceptability of a text messaging intervention to improve oral health behavior and knowledge.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hashemian, Tony S; Kritz-Silverstein, Donna; Baker, Ryan

    2015-01-01

    Text messaging is useful for promoting numerous health-related behaviors. The Text2Floss Study examines the feasibility and utility of a 7-day text messaging intervention to improve oral health knowledge and behavior in mothers of young children. Mothers were recruited from a private practice and a community clinic. Of 156 mothers enrolled, 129 randomized into text (n = 60) and control groups (n = 69) completed the trial. Participants in the text group received text messages for 7 days, asking about flossing and presenting oral health information. Oral health behaviors and knowledge were surveyed pre- and post-intervention. At baseline, there were no differences between text and control group mothers in knowledge and behaviors (P > 0.10). Post-intervention, text group mothers flossed more (P = 0.01), had higher total (P = 0.0006) and specific (P Text messages were accepted and perceived as useful. Mothers receiving text messages improved their own oral health behaviors and knowledge as well as their behaviors regarding their children's oral health. Text messaging represents a viable method to improve oral health behaviors and knowledge. Its high acceptance may make it useful for preventing oral disease. © 2014 American Association of Public Health Dentistry.

  17. The clinical behavior of mixed ductal/lobular carcinoma of the breast: a clinicopathologic analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dunnington Gary

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background To date, the clinical presentation and prognosis of mixed ductal/lobular mammary carcinomas has not been well studied, and little is known about the outcome of this entity. Thus, best management practices remain undetermined due to a dearth of knowledge on this topic. Methods In this paper, we present a clinicopathologic analysis of patients at our institution with this entity and compare them to age-matched controls with purely invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC and historical data from patients with purely lobular carcinoma and also stain-available tumor specimens for E-cadherin. We have obtained 100 cases of ductal and 50 cases of mixed ductal/lobular breast carcinoma. Results Clinically, the behavior of mixed ductal/lobular tumors seemed to demonstrate some important differences from their ductal counterparts, particularly a lower rate of metastatic spread but with a much higher rate of second primary breast cancers. Conclusions Our data suggests that mixed ductal/lobular carcinomas are a distinct clinicopathologic entity incorporating some features of both lobular and ductal carcinomas and representing a pleomorphic variant of IDC.

  18. Longitudinal study on clinical and microbial analysis of periodontal status in pregnancy

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    Fernanda Campos MACHADO

    Full Text Available Abstract This study was aimed to provide a longitudinal overview of the subgingival bacterial microbiome using fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH technique, in women in the second trimester of pregnancy (between 14 and 24 weeks, and 48 h and 8 weeks postpartum. Of 31 women evaluated during pregnancy, 24 returned for the 48-h and 18 for their 8-week exams postpartum. Probing depth (PD, bleeding on probing, clinical attachment level, and presence of calculus were recorded. Subgingival plaque samples were collected, and FISH was used to identify the numbers of eight periodontal pathogens. Friedman test was used to compare differences between follow-up examinations, followed by a multiple comparison test for a post hoc pairwise comparison. Clinically, a significantly greater number of teeth with PD = 4–5 mm were found during pregnancy than on postpartum examinations. Microbial analysis showed a statistically significant decrease in cell count over the study period for Prevotella nigrescens. P. intermedia, Campylobacter rectus, and Porphyromonas gingivalis also decrease, although not significantly, and Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans increased. No significant changes were found for Fusobacterium nucleatum, Treponema denticola, or Tannerella forsythia. Our data demonstrate a change in the subgingival microbiota during pregnancy, at least for P. nigrescens.

  19. Clinical Significance of ErbB Receptor Family in Urothelial Carcinoma of the Bladder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

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    Yuh-Shyan Tsai

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available The prognostic importance of examining ErbB receptor family expression in human bladder cancer remains uncertain. Using published evidence, we examined the clinical value and the updated results of clinical trials targeting ErbB receptor family members. Twenty-seven articles from 65 references related to ErbB receptor expression assessment in bladder cancer were reviewed. The estimates included the association significance, hazard ratios, and 95% confidence intervals (CIs from actuarial curves and survival analyses. A meta-analysis was done on those reports using univariate log-rank tests or a Cox-regression model. The methods of analysis and study subjects chosen varied widely among studies. The overall risks of disease progression for patients with EGFR or ErbB2 overexpression were 4.5 (95% CI: 2.5–8.4 and 1.1 (95% CI: 0.6–1.9, and the risks of mortality were 3.0 (95% CI: 1.6–5.9 and 1.1 (95% CI: 1.0–1.2, respectively. However, the significance of coexpression patterns of the ErbB receptor family remains controversial. None of six clinical trials yielded convincing results for blockading ErbB receptor signaling in urothelial carcinoma. The results of this analysis suggest that assessing co-expression patterns of the ErbB family may provide better prognostic information for bladder cancer patients.

  20. Collaborative partnership and the social value of clinical research: a qualitative secondary analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nurmi, Sanna-Maria; Halkoaho, Arja; Kangasniemi, Mari; Pietilä, Anna-Maija

    2017-10-25

    Protecting human subjects from being exploited is one of the main ethical challenges for clinical research. However, there is also a responsibility to protect and respect the communities who are hosting the research. Recently, attention has focused on the most efficient way of carrying out clinical research, so that it benefits society by providing valuable research while simultaneously protecting and respecting the human subjects and the communities where the research is conducted. Collaboration between partners plays an important role and that is why we carried out a study to describe how collaborative partnership and social value are emerging in clinical research. A supra-analysis design for qualitative descriptive secondary analysis was employed to consider a novel research question that pertained to nurse leaders' perceptions of ethical recruitment in clinical research and the ethics-related aspects of clinical research from the perspective of administrative staff. The data consisted of two separate pre-existing datasets, comprising 451 pages from 41 interviews, and we considered the research question by using deductive-inductive content analysis with NVivo software. A deductive analysis matrix was generated on the basis of two requirements, namely collaborative partnership and social value, as presented in An Ethical Framework for Biomedical Research by Emanuel et al. The findings showed that collaborative partnership was a cornerstone for ethical clinical research and ways to foster inter-partner collaboration were indicated, such as supporting mutual respect and equality, shared goals and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. In addition, the social value of clinical research was an important precondition for ethical clinical research and its realisation required the research partners to demonstrate collaboration and shared responsibility during the research process. However, concerns emerged that the multidimensional meaning of clinical research for

  1. Automated Text Analysis Based on Skip-Gram Model for Food Evaluation in Predicting Consumer Acceptance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Augustine Yongwhi Kim

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this paper is to evaluate food taste, smell, and characteristics from consumers’ online reviews. Several studies in food sensory evaluation have been presented for consumer acceptance. However, these studies need taste descriptive word lexicon, and they are not suitable for analyzing large number of evaluators to predict consumer acceptance. In this paper, an automated text analysis method for food evaluation is presented to analyze and compare recently introduced two jjampong ramen types (mixed seafood noodles. To avoid building a sensory word lexicon, consumers’ reviews are collected from SNS. Then, by training word embedding model with acquired reviews, words in the large amount of review text are converted into vectors. Based on these words represented as vectors, inference is performed to evaluate taste and smell of two jjampong ramen types. Finally, the reliability and merits of the proposed food evaluation method are confirmed by a comparison with the results from an actual consumer preference taste evaluation.

  2. Retrospective Analysis of Clinical and Cost Outcomes Associated with Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus Complicated Skin and Skin Structure Infections Treated with Daptomycin, Vancomycin, or Linezolid

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bradley M. Wright

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective. The objective of this analysis was to compare clinical and cost outcomes associated with patients who had suspected or documented methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA infections treated with daptomycin, vancomycin, or linezolid in complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSIs. Design. This was a retrospective analysis conducted from February to June of 2007. Appropriate data was collected, collated, and subsequently evaluated with the purpose of quantifying length of stay, antibiotic therapy duration, clinical cure rates, adverse drug events, and cost of hospitalization. Results. All 82 patients included in the analysis experienced clinical cure. The duration of antibiotic therapy was similar among the three groups yet the length of hospitalization was slightly shorter in the daptomycin group. Conclusions. The incidence of resistant staphylococcal infections is increasing; therefore, judicious use of MRSA active agents is paramount. Future studies are necessary to determine if MRSA treatment options can be stratified based on the severity of the infectious process.

  3. Automatic Decision Support for Clinical Diagnostic Literature Using Link Analysis in a Weighted Keyword Network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Shuqing; Sun, Ying; Soergel, Dagobert

    2017-12-23

    We present a novel approach to recommending articles from the medical literature that support clinical diagnostic decision-making, giving detailed descriptions of the associated ideas and principles. The specific goal is to retrieve biomedical articles that help answer questions of a specified type about a particular case. Based on the filtered keywords, MeSH(Medical Subject Headings) lexicon and the automatically extracted acronyms, the relationship between keywords and articles was built. The paper gives a detailed description of the process of by which keywords were measured and relevant articles identified based on link analysis in a weighted keywords network. Some important challenges identified in this study include the extraction of diagnosis-related keywords and a collection of valid sentences based on the keyword co-occurrence analysis and existing descriptions of symptoms. All data were taken from medical articles provided in the TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) clinical decision support track 2015. Ten standard topics and one demonstration topic were tested. In each case, a maximum of five articles with the highest relevance were returned. The total user satisfaction of 3.98 was 33% higher than average. The results also suggested that the smaller the number of results, the higher the average satisfaction. However, a few shortcomings were also revealed since medical literature recommendation for clinical diagnostic decision support is so complex a topic that it cannot be fully addressed through the semantic information carried solely by keywords in existing descriptions of symptoms. Nevertheless, the fact that these articles are actually relevant will no doubt inspire future research.

  4. A common type system for clinical natural language processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Stephen T; Kaggal, Vinod C; Dligach, Dmitriy; Masanz, James J; Chen, Pei; Becker, Lee; Chapman, Wendy W; Savova, Guergana K; Liu, Hongfang; Chute, Christopher G

    2013-01-03

    One challenge in reusing clinical data stored in electronic medical records is that these data are heterogenous. Clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP) plays an important role in transforming information in clinical text to a standard representation that is comparable and interoperable. Information may be processed and shared when a type system specifies the allowable data structures. Therefore, we aim to define a common type system for clinical NLP that enables interoperability between structured and unstructured data generated in different clinical settings. We describe a common type system for clinical NLP that has an end target of deep semantics based on Clinical Element Models (CEMs), thus interoperating with structured data and accommodating diverse NLP approaches. The type system has been implemented in UIMA (Unstructured Information Management Architecture) and is fully functional in a popular open-source clinical NLP system, cTAKES (clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System) versions 2.0 and later. We have created a type system that targets deep semantics, thereby allowing for NLP systems to encapsulate knowledge from text and share it alongside heterogenous clinical data sources. Rather than surface semantics that are typically the end product of NLP algorithms, CEM-based semantics explicitly build in deep clinical semantics as the point of interoperability with more structured data types.

  5. Clinical Characteristics and Predictors of Outcome for Onconeural Antibody-Associated Disorders: A Retrospective Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shaohua Liao

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available ObjectiveTo describe and analyze the clinical characteristics, laboratory data, management, and outcome of patients with onconeural antibody-associated disorders (OAAD and identify predictors for poor outcome.MethodsThis was a retrospective review of all patients with potential OAAD, who were hospitalized in Jinan General Hospital between September 2009 and July 2017. We clarified the diagnosis, collected comprehensive information and categorized patients into three groups: paraneoplastic neurological disorders (PNDs, autoimmune encephalitis (AE, and possible OAAD. Within the three groups, we analyzed a range of clinical and laboratory parameters and used univariate and multivariate regression analysis to identify predictors for poor outcome [modified Rankin Scale (mRS = 3–6].ResultsFrom 158 patients, we identified 70 who fulfilled the criteria for OAAD, including 44 men (62.9% and 26 women (37.1%. There were 38 patients (54.3% in the PNDs group, 14 patients (20% in the AE group, and 18 patients (25.7% in the possible OAAD group. After the last follow-up, 14 (36.8%, 9 (64.2%, and 12 (66.7% had a good outcome (mRS = 0–2. However, 6 (15.8%, 2 (14.3%, and 3 (16.7% died, respectively. Univariate analysis showed that duration prior to the hospital (p = 0.0224 and urinary incontinence/retention (p = 0.0043 were associated with poor outcome (mRS = 3–6. After multivariate regression analysis, urinary incontinence/retention (p = 0.0388 and an immunocompromised state (p = 0.0247 remained as significant factors for poor outcome.ConclusionUrinary incontinence/retention and an immunocompromised state represent significant predictors of a worse prognosis for patients with OAAD. By contrast, cerebrospinal fluid analysis showed that serum autoantibodies and tumor markers, the function of crucial organs, electrophysiology, and radiological findings were not associated with a poor outcome.

  6. Effectiveness of Vildagliptin in Clinical Practice: Pooled Analysis of Three Korean Observational Studies (the VICTORY Study

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    Sunghwan Suh

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The present observational study aimed to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of vildagliptin with metformin in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM. Data were pooled from the vildagliptin postmarketing survey (PMS, the vildagliptin/metformin fixed drug combination (DC PMS, and a retrospective observational study of vildagliptin/metformin (fixed DC or free DC. The effectiveness endpoint was the proportion of patients who achieved a glycemic target (HbA1c of ≤7.0% at 24 weeks. In total, 4303 patients were included in the analysis; of these, 2087 patients were eligible. The mean patient age was 56.99 ± 11.25 years. Overall, 58.94% patients achieved an HbA1c target of ≤7.0% at 24 weeks. The glycemic target achievement rate was significantly greater in patients with baseline HbA1c < 7.5% versus ≥7.5% (84.64% versus 43.97%, receiving care at the hospital versus clinic (67.95% versus 52.33%, and receiving vildagliptin/metformin fixed DC versus free DC (70.69% versus 55.42%. Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that disease duration (P<0.0001, baseline HbA1c (P<0.0001, and DC type (P=0.0103 had significant effects on drug effectiveness. Vildagliptin plus metformin appeared as an effective treatment option for patients with T2DM in clinical practice settings in Korea.

  7. Optical ensemble analysis of intraocular lens performance through a simulated clinical trial with ZEMAX.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Huawei

    2009-01-01

    A ZEMAX model was constructed to simulate a clinical trial of intraocular lenses (IOLs) based on a clinically oriented Monte Carlo ensemble analysis using postoperative ocular parameters. The purpose of this model is to test the feasibility of streamlining and optimizing both the design process and the clinical testing of IOLs. This optical ensemble analysis (OEA) is also validated. Simulated pseudophakic eyes were generated by using the tolerancing and programming features of ZEMAX optical design software. OEA methodology was verified by demonstrating that the results of clinical performance simulations were consistent with previously published clinical performance data using the same types of IOLs. From these results we conclude that the OEA method can objectively simulate the potential clinical trial performance of IOLs.

  8. A practical guide to propensity score analysis for applied clinical research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Jaehoon; Little, Todd D

    2017-11-01

    Observational studies are often the only viable options in many clinical settings, especially when it is unethical or infeasible to randomly assign participants to different treatment régimes. In such case propensity score (PS) analysis can be applied to accounting for possible selection bias and thereby addressing questions of causal inference. Many PS methods exist, yet few guidelines are available to aid applied researchers in their conduct and evaluation of a PS analysis. In this article we give an overview of available techniques for PS estimation and application, balance diagnostic, treatment effect estimation, and sensitivity assessment, as well as recent advances. We also offer a tutorial that can be used to emulate the steps of PS analysis. Our goal is to provide information that will bring PS analysis within the reach of applied clinical researchers and practitioners. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Qualitative analysis of factors leading to clinical incidents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, Matthew D; Birch, Julian D; Renshaw, Mark; Ottewill, Melanie

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the common themes leading or contributing to clinical incidents in a UK teaching hospital. A root-cause analysis was conducted on patient safety incidents. Commonly occurring root causes and contributing factors were collected and correlated with incident timing and severity. In total, 65 root-cause analyses were reviewed, highlighting 202 factors implicated in the clinical incidents and 69 categories were identified. The 14 most commonly occurring causes (encountered in four incidents or more) were examined as a key-root or contributory cause. Incident timing was also analysed; common factors were encountered more frequently during out-hours--occurring as contributory rather than a key-root cause. In total, 14 commonly occurring factors were identified to direct interventions that could prevent many clinical incidents. From these, an "Organisational Safety Checklist" was developed to involve departmental level clinicians to monitor practice. This study demonstrates that comprehensively investigating incidents highlights common factors that can be addressed at a local level. Resilience against clinical incidents is low during out-of-hours periods, where factors such as lower staffing levels and poor service provision allows problems to escalate and become clinical incidents, which adds to the literature regarding out-of-hours care provision and should prove useful to those organising hospital services at departmental and management levels.

  10. Analysis of free text in electronic health records for identification of cancer patient trajectories

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Kasper; Soguero-Ruiz, Cristina; Mikalsen, Karl Oyvind

    2017-01-01

    With an aging patient population and increasing complexity in patient disease trajectories, physicians are often met with complex patient histories from which clinical decisions must be made. Due to the increasing rate of adverse events and hospitals facing financial penalties for readmission......, there has never been a greater need to enforce evidence-led medical decision-making using available health care data. In the present work, we studied a cohort of 7,741 patients, of whom 4,080 were diagnosed with cancer, surgically treated at a University Hospital in the years 2004-2012. We have developed...... a methodology that allows disease trajectories of the cancer patients to be estimated from free text in electronic health records (EHRs). By using these disease trajectories, we predict 80% of patient events ahead in time. By control of confounders from 8326 quantified events, we identified 557 events...

  11. What variables can influence clinical reasoning?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vahid Ashoorion

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Clinical reasoning is one of the most important competencies that a physician should achieve. Many medical schools and licensing bodies try to predict it based on some general measures such as critical thinking, personality, and emotional intelligence. This study aimed at providing a model to design the relationship between the constructs. Materials and Methods: Sixty-nine medical students participated in this study. A battery test devised that consist four parts: Clinical reasoning measures, personality NEO inventory, Bar-On EQ inventory, and California critical thinking questionnaire. All participants completed the tests. Correlation and multiple regression analysis consumed for data analysis. Results: There is low to moderate correlations between clinical reasoning and other variables. Emotional intelligence is the only variable that contributes clinical reasoning construct (r=0.17-0.34 (R 2 chnage = 0.46, P Value = 0.000. Conclusion: Although, clinical reasoning can be considered as a kind of thinking, no significant correlation detected between it and other constructs. Emotional intelligence (and its subscales is the only variable that can be used for clinical reasoning prediction.

  12. Clinical effect of platelet rich fibrin in the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects. Systematic review and meta-analysis.

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    Heber Arbildo.

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Background: There is currently no gold standard biomaterial for the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects (PIDs. One of the current options is the use of platelet-rich fibrin (PRF. Objective: To determine the clinical effect of PRF in the treatment of PID through a systematic review and meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: A literature search was conducted up to February 2017 in the following biomedical databases: Pubmed, Embase, Scielo, Science Direct, SIGLE, LILACS and in the Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials. The selection criteria included: randomized clinical trials published in the last 5 years, reporting clinical effects (probing depth, clinical insertion level or gingival recession, with a follow-up time equal to or greater than 6 months, and sample size larger than or equal to 10 patients reporting the use of PRF as a treatment for PID. The methodological quality of the studies was analyzed using the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions as a reference. Results: The search strategy yielded 20 articles. A reduction in probing depth and an increase in clinical insertion level or a reduction in gingival recession is reported, when using PRF alone or in combination with another biomaterial or substance that stimulates tissue regeneration. Conclusion: The literature suggests that the use of PRF in the treatment of PIDs has a beneficial clinical effect when compared to control treatments.

  13. Meta-Analysis of the Clinical Value of Danshen Injection and Huangqi Injection in Liver Cirrhosis

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    Changtai Zhu

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective. To evaluate the clinical value of Danshen injection and Huangqi injection for the treatment of liver cirrhosis. Methods. The Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM, Chinese Scientific Journals Full-Text Database (VIP, Wanfang Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI, PubMed, and EMBASE database were searched to collect the literatures about the randomized controlled trials involving the treatment of liver cirrhosis with Danshen injection combined with Huangqi injection, and the data analyses were performed using RevMan 4.2 software. Results. A total of 11 studies involving 1086 patients (trials group: 554 cases, control group: 532 cases were included in this study. Compared with those in control group, the meta-analysis showed-that the total effectiveness rate and the level of serum albumin increased, while serum total bilirubin, alanine transmninase, type III procollagen, hyaluronic acid, laminin, and type-IV collagen decreased in trials group. The Jadad score ranged from 1 to 2 and the funnel plot analysis suggests that publication bias may occur. Conclusions. Danshen injection combined with Huangqi injection may promote the curative efficacy of liver cirrhosis, which is a promising novel treatment approach. The exact outcome needs to perform rigorously designed, multicenter, and large randomized controlled trials.

  14. The Emar Lexical Texts

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gantzert, Merijn

    2011-01-01

    This four-part work provides a philological analysis and a theoretical interpretation of the cuneiform lexical texts found in the Late Bronze Age city of Emar, in present-day Syria. These word and sign lists, commonly dated to around 1100 BC, were almost all found in the archive of a single school.

  15. UNDERSTANDING TENOR IN SPOKEN TEXTS IN YEAR XII ENGLISH TEXTBOOK TO IMPROVE THE APPROPRIACY OF THE TEXTS

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    Noeris Meristiani

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available ABSTRACT: The goal of English Language Teaching is communicative competence. To reach this goal students should be supplied with good model texts. These texts should consider the appropriacy of language use. By analyzing the context of situation which is focused on tenor the meanings constructed to build the relationships among the interactants in spoken texts can be unfolded. This study aims at investigating the interpersonal relations (tenor of the interactants in the conversation texts as well as the appropriacy of their realization in the given contexts. The study was conducted under discourse analysis by applying a descriptive qualitative method. There were eight conversation texts which function as examples in five chapters of a textbook. The data were analyzed by using lexicogrammatical analysis, described, and interpreted contextually. Then, the realization of the tenor of the texts was further analyzed in terms of appropriacy to suggest improvement. The results of the study show that the tenor indicates relationships between friend-friend, student-student, questioners-respondents, mother-son, and teacher-student; the power is equal and unequal; the social distances show frequent contact, relatively frequent contact, relatively low contact, high and low affective involvement, using informal, relatively informal, relatively formal, and formal language. There are also some indications of inappropriacy of tenor realization in all texts. It should be improved in the use of degree of formality, the realization of societal roles, status, and affective involvement. Keywords: context of situation, tenor, appropriacy.

  16. The Interplay of Text, Meaning and Practice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kärreman, Dan; Levay, Charlotta

    2017-01-01

    Context: The study of discourses (i.e. verbal interactions or written accounts) is increasingly used in social sciences to gain insight into issues connected to discourse, such as meanings, behaviours and actions. This paper situates discourse analysis in medical education, based on a framework...... settings, with a particular focus on the field of medical education. Methods: The study is based on a literature analysis of discourse analysis approaches published in Medical Education. Results: Findings suggest that empirical studies through discourse analysis can be heuristically understood in terms...... of the links between text, practices and meaning. Conclusions: Discourse analysis provides a more strongly supported argument when it is possible to defend claims on three levels: practice, using observational data; meaning, using ethnographic data, and text, using conversational and textual data....

  17. Brachytherapy for cervix cancer: low-dose rate or high-dose rate brachytherapy – a meta-analysis of clinical trials

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    Stefano Eduardo J

    2009-04-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background The literature supporting high-dose rate brachytherapy (HDR in the treatment of cervical carcinoma derives primarily from retrospective series. However, controversy still persists regarding the efficacy and safety of HDR brachytherapy compared to low-dose rate (LDR brachytherapy, in particular, due to inadequate tumor coverage for stage III patients. Whether LDR or HDR brachytherapy produces better results for these patients in terms of survival rate, local control rate and the treatment complications remain controversial. Methods A meta-analysis of RCT was performed comparing LDR to HDR brachytherapy for cervix cancer treated for radiotherapy alone. The MEDLINE, EMBASE, CANCERLIT and Cochrane Library databases, as well as abstracts published in the annual proceedings were systematically searched. We assessed methodological quality for each outcome by grading the quality of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE methodology. We used "recommend" for strong recommendations, and "suggest" for weak recommendations. Results Pooled results from five randomized trials (2,065 patients of HDR brachytherapy in cervix cancer showed no significant increase of mortality (p = 0.52, local recurrence (p = 0.68, or late complications (rectal; p = 0.7, bladder; p = 0.95 or small intestine; p = 0.06 rates as compared to LDR brachytherapy. In the subgroup analysis no difference was observed for overall mortality and local recurrence in patients with clinical stages I, II and III. The quality of evidence was low for mortality and local recurrence in patients with clinical stage I, and moderate for other clinical stages. Conclusion Our meta-analysis shows that there are no differences between HDR and LDR for overall survival, local recurrence and late complications for clinical stages I, II and III. By means of the GRADE system, we recommend the use of HDR for all clinical stages of cervix

  18. Clinical trials in dentistry in India: Analysis from trial registry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gowri, S; Kannan, Sridharan

    2017-01-01

    Evidence-based practice requires clinical trials to be performed. In India, if any clinical trial has to be performed, it has to be registered with clinical trial registry of India. Studies have shown that the report of clinical trials is poor in dentistry. Hence, the present study has been conducted to assess the type and trends of clinical trials being undertaken in dentistry in India over a span of 6 years. All the clinical trials which were registered with the Central Trial Registry of India (CTRI) (www.ctri.nic.in) from January 1, 2007 to March 3, 2014 were evaluated using the keyword "dental." Following information were collected for each of the clinical trials obtained from the search; number of centres (single center/multicentric), type of the institution undertaking the research (government/private/combined), study (observational/interventional), study design (randomized/single blinded/double-blinded), type of health condition, type of participants (healthy/patients), sponsors (academia/commercial), phase of clinical trial (Phase 1/2/3/4), publication details (published/not published), whether it was a postgraduate thesis or not and prospective or retrospective registration of clinical trials, methodological quality (method of randomization, allocation concealment). Descriptive statistics was used for analysis of various categories. Trend analysis was done to assess the changes over a period of time. The search yielded a total of 84 trials of which majority of them were single centered. Considering the study design more than half of the registered clinical trials were double-blinded (47/84 [56%]). With regard to the place of conducting a trial, most of the trials were planned to be performed in private hospitals (56/84 [66.7%]). Most (79/84, 94.1%) of the clinical trials were interventional while only 5/84 (5.9%) were observational. Majority (65/84, 77.4%) of the registered clinical trials were recruiting patients while the rest were being done in healthy

  19. Text mining improves prediction of protein functional sites.

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    Karin M Verspoor

    Full Text Available We present an approach that integrates protein structure analysis and text mining for protein functional site prediction, called LEAP-FS (Literature Enhanced Automated Prediction of Functional Sites. The structure analysis was carried out using Dynamics Perturbation Analysis (DPA, which predicts functional sites at control points where interactions greatly perturb protein vibrations. The text mining extracts mentions of residues in the literature, and predicts that residues mentioned are functionally important. We assessed the significance of each of these methods by analyzing their performance in finding known functional sites (specifically, small-molecule binding sites and catalytic sites in about 100,000 publicly available protein structures. The DPA predictions recapitulated many of the functional site annotations and preferentially recovered binding sites annotated as biologically relevant vs. those annotated as potentially spurious. The text-based predictions were also substantially supported by the functional site annotations: compared to other residues, residues mentioned in text were roughly six times more likely to be found in a functional site. The overlap of predictions with annotations improved when the text-based and structure-based methods agreed. Our analysis also yielded new high-quality predictions of many functional site residues that were not catalogued in the curated data sources we inspected. We conclude that both DPA and text mining independently provide valuable high-throughput protein functional site predictions, and that integrating the two methods using LEAP-FS further improves the quality of these predictions.

  20. Molecular analysis of Rv0679c and Rv0180c genes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from clinical isolates of pulmonary tuberculosis

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    L Rupa

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Context: Two novel proteins/genes Rv0679c and Rv0180c of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB H37Rv were classified as a hypothetical membrane and transmembrane proteins which might have a role in the invasion. Molecular analysis of these genes in human clinical isolates of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB patients was not well characterised. Aims: To assess the molecular diversity of Rv0679c and Rv0180c genes of MTB from clinical isolates of PTB patients. Settings and Design: DNA from 97 clinical isolates was extracted and subjected to amplification using selective primers by polymerase chain reaction (PCR. The PCR product obtained was sequenced commercially. Patients and Methods: Clinical isolates obtained from tuberculosis patients were investigated for polymorphisms in the Rv0679c and Rv0180c genes by PCR and DNA sequencing. Genomic DNA isolated by cetyltrimethylammonium bromide method was used for amplification of genes. Results: Rv0679c gene was highly conserved in 61 out of 65 clinical isolates assessed for sequence homology with wild-type H37Rv gene and was identical using ClustalW. Fifty-five out of 78 (70.5% clinical isolates assessed for Rv0180c were positive for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP at 258th position where the nucleotide G was replaced with T (G to T. In clinical isolates of untreated cases, the frequency was 54.5% for SNP at 258th position which is low compared to cases undergoing treatment where the frequency was 73.1%. Conclusions: Molecular analysis of Rv0180c in clinical isolates of PTB assessed in this study was the first report, where an SNP at 258th position G to T was identified within the gene. Rv0679c gene was highly conserved (94%, within Indian clinical isolates as compared to reports from other nations.

  1. Analysis of repeated measurement data in the clinical trials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, Vineeta; Rana, Rakesh Kumar; Singhal, Richa

    2013-01-01

    Statistics is an integral part of Clinical Trials. Elements of statistics span Clinical Trial design, data monitoring, analyses and reporting. A solid understanding of statistical concepts by clinicians improves the comprehension and the resulting quality of Clinical Trials. In biomedical research it has been seen that researcher frequently use t-test and ANOVA to compare means between the groups of interest irrespective of the nature of the data. In Clinical Trials we record the data on the patients more than two times. In such a situation using the standard ANOVA procedures is not appropriate as it does not consider dependencies between observations within subjects in the analysis. To deal with such types of study data Repeated Measure ANOVA should be used. In this article the application of One-way Repeated Measure ANOVA has been demonstrated by using the software SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) Version 15.0 on the data collected at four time points 0 day, 15th day, 30th day, and 45th day of multicentre clinical trial conducted on Pandu Roga (~Iron Deficiency Anemia) with an Ayurvedic formulation Dhatrilauha. PMID:23930038

  2. Clinical and economic analysis of the modern strategies for treating metabolic syndrome

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    Marina Fedorovna Kalashnikova

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to identify the ways to optimize therapy for metabolic syndrome through complex clinical and economic analysis.MethodsSixty patients with metabolic syndrome were included in the study. The study group (30 subjects with the mean age of 41.0±11 years, 23 females (76.7%, 7 males (23.3% received pharmacotherapy for obesity (orlistat and insulin resistance (metformin, lipid-lowering therapy and antihypertensive therapy, if needed. The control group (30 patients with the mean age of 43.4±9.5 years, 26 females (86.7%, 4 males (13.3% received lipid-lowering and antihypertensive therapy, if needed. All patients underwent clinical and laboratory examination, assessment of depression (Beck Depression Inventory and evaluation of the quality of life using the SF-36 questionnaire at admission to the study and after 6 months of therapy. Complex clinical and economic analyses, including cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses and calculation of such indices as “the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio” (ICER, LYG, QALY and “net monetary benefit” (NMB, were conducted based on the results obtained.ResultsImprovement of clinical and laboratory indicators and quality of life in the study group was more significant than that in the control group. The direct medical costs were 33,440.40 RUB for the study group and 18,878.50 RUB for the control group (for 6 months of therapy. The control group CER was 4,016.70, while the study group CER was 3,125.30; ICER was 2,430.90 RUB. LYG was equal to 0.7 and 2.3 years for the control and the study groups, respectively. The QALY measure for the control and study groups was 8.63 and 9.45, respectively. The weighted average total costs for the intended period of living was 498,745.00 RUB for the control group and 457,866.00 RUB for the study group. The control group CUR was 57,792.00 and 54,902.00 RUB/QALY without and with discounting, respectively, while in the study group

  3. Clinical and economic analysis of the modern strategies for treating metabolic syndrome

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Fedorovna Kalashnikova

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Objective. The objective of this study was to identify the ways to optimize therapy for metabolic syndrome through complex clinical and economic analysis. Methods. Sixty patients with metabolic syndrome were included in the study. The study group (30 subjects with the mean age of 41.0?11 years, 23 females (76.7%, 7 males (23.3% received pharmacotherapy for obesity (orlistat and insulin resistance (metformin, lipid-lowering therapy and antihypertensive therapy, if needed. The control group (30 patients with the mean age of 43.4?9.5 years, 26 females (86.7%, 4 males (13.3% received lipid-lowering and antihypertensive therapy, if needed. All patients underwent clinical and laboratory examination, assessment of depression (Beck Depression Inventory and evaluation of the quality of life using the SF-36 questionnaire at admission to the study and after 6 months of therapy. Complex clinical and economic analyses, including cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses and calculation of such indices as ?the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio? (ICER, LYG, QALY and ?net monetary benefit? (NMB, were conducted based on the results obtained. Results. Improvement of clinical and laboratory indicators and quality of life in the study group was more significant than that in the control group. The direct medical costs were 33,440.40 RUB for the study group and 18,878.50 RUB for the control group (for 6 months of therapy. The control group CER was 4,016.70, while the study group CER was 3,125.30; ICER was 2,430.90 RUB. LYG was equal to 0.7 and 2.3 years for the control and the study groups, respectively. The QALY measure for the control and study groups was 8.63 and 9.45, respectively. The weighted average total costs for the intended period of living was 498,745.00 RUB for the control group and 457,866.00 RUB for the study group. The control group CUR was 57,792.00 and 54,902.00 RUB/QALY without and with discounting, respectively, while in the study group they

  4. Clinical usefulness and feasibility of time-frequency analysis of chemosensory event-related potentials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huart, C; Rombaux, Ph; Hummel, T; Mouraux, A

    2013-09-01

    The clinical usefulness of olfactory event-related brain potentials (OERPs) to assess olfactory function is limited by the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio of the responses identified using conventional time-domain averaging. Recently, it was shown that time-frequency analysis of the obtained EEG signals can markedly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of OERPs in healthy controls, because it enhances both phase-locked and non phase-locked EEG responses. The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical usefulness of this approach and evaluate its feasibility in a clinical setting. We retrospectively analysed EEG recordings obtained from 45 patients (15 anosmic, 15 hyposmic and 15 normos- mic). The responses to olfactory stimulation were analysed using conventional time-domain analysis and joint time-frequency analysis. The ability of the two methods to discriminate between anosmic, hyposmic and normosmic patients was assessed using a Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis. The discrimination performance of OERPs identified using conventional time-domain averaging was poor. In contrast, the discrimination performance of the EEG response identified in the time-frequency domain was relatively high. Furthermore, we found a significant correlation between the magnitude of this response and the psychophysical olfactory score. Time-frequency analysis of the EEG responses to olfactory stimulation could be used as an effective and reliable diagnostic tool for the objective clinical evaluation of olfactory function in patients.

  5. Design of Dimensional Model for Clinical Data Storage and Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dipankar SENGUPTA

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available Current research in the field of Life and Medical Sciences is generating chunk of data on daily basis. It has thus become a necessity to find solutions for efficient storage of this data, trying to correlate and extract knowledge from it. Clinical data generated in Hospitals, Clinics & Diagnostics centers is falling under a similar paradigm. Patient’s records in various hospitals are increasing at an exponential rate, thus adding to the problem of data management and storage. Major problem being faced corresponding to storage, is the varied dimensionality of the data, ranging from images to numerical form. Therefore there is a need for development of efficient data model which can handle this multi-dimensionality data issue and store the data with historical aspect.For the stated problem lying in façade of clinical informatics we propose a clinical dimensional model design which can be used for development of a clinical data mart. The model has been designed keeping in consideration temporal storage of patient's data with respect to all possible clinical parameters which can include both textual and image based data. Availability of said data for each patient can be then used for application of data mining techniques for finding the correlation of all the parameters at the level of individual and population.

  6. Diagnosis of clonorchiasis during and after biliary tract surgery: a clinical analysis of 15 cases

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    QI Wenlei

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical features of clonorchiasis diagnosed during biliary surgery, and to provide more comprehensive and effective information for the surgical treatment of clonorchiasis. MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 15 patients who were diagnosed with clonorchiasis during and after biliary tract surgery in our department from January 2013 to January 2016, and their clinical features were summarized. ResultsAll the 15 patients were male, among whom 5 once ate uncooked freshwater fish and shrimps. Of all patients, 8 underwent laparoscopic bile duct exploration and 7 underwent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP. Adult Clonorchis sinensis was found in intraoperative or postoperative drainage. All the patients achieved clearance of Clonorchis sinensis after regular anthelmintic treatment. ConclusionIf bile duct exploration finds grey-black or bright-red melon seed-like floccules, clonorchiasis should be highly suspected. Intraoperative T-tube drainage is recommended, and if suspected Clonorchis sinensis is found after laparoscopic bile duct exploration and T-tube drainage or after ERCP and nasobiliary drainage, microbiological examination should be performed next. As for the patients with a definite diagnosis of clonorchiasis, they should not eat uncooked freshwater fish or shrimps and should be given regular anthelmintic treatment.

  7. Coordinated clinical and financial analysis as a powerful tool to influence vendor pricing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Logan, Catherine A; Wu, Roger Y; Mulley, Debra; Smith, Paul C; Schwaitzberg, Steven D

    2010-01-01

    As costs continue to outpace reimbursements, hospital administrators and clinicians face increasing pressure to justify new capital purchases. Massachusetts Health Care Reform has added further economic challenges for Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH), as resources formerly available to treat the uninsured have been redirected. In this challenging climate, many hospitals still lack a standardized process for technology planning and/or vendor negotiation. : The purpose of this study was to determine whether a simple, coordinated clinical and financial analysis of a technology, Endoscopic Carpal Tunnel Release (ECTR), is sufficient to impact vendor pricing at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA), a disproportionate share hospital (DSH) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This case study addressed the topic of technology adoption, a complex decision-making process every hospital administration faces. Taking note of other hospitals approaches to instill a strategic management culture, CHA combined a literature review on clinical outcomes and financial analysis on profitability. Clinical effectiveness was evaluated through a literature review. The financial analysis was based on a retrospective inquiry of fixed and variable costs, reimbursement rates, actual payer mix, and profitability of adopting ECTR over open carpal tunnel release at CHA. This clinical and financial analysis was then shared with the vendor. A literature review revealed that although there are short-term benefits to ECTR, there is little to no difference in long-term outcomes to justify a calculated incremental loss of $91.49 in revenue per case. Sharing this analysis with the vendor resulted in a 30% price reduction. A revised cost analysis demonstrated a $53.51 incremental gain in revenue per case. CHA has since elected to offer ECTR to its patients. Smaller hospital systems often have modest leverage in vendor negotiations. Our results suggest that the development of adoption criteria and an evidence

  8. Corpus-based critical discourse analysis as a method of exploring underlying ideologies and self-representation strategies in legal texts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Potts, Amanda; Kjær, Anne Lise

    that legal language can be subjective and emotive. The semantic field of ‘crime’ is an expected key, but concordance analysis shows ideological skew in discursive construction of crimes/victims. For instance, ‘rape’/‘sexual assault’ co-occurs with female victims, whereas ‘torture’/‘outrages upon personal......Legal language is an integral and foundational party of our social reality, but it is underrepresented in interdisciplinary, critical linguistic analyses. This is perhaps because language is more objective and formulaic than media texts, which can be more subjective and emotive (Kjær and Palsbro......, 2008). In this paper, I demonstrate how a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of legal language can expose hidden traces of the underlying ideologies of text creators, while demonstrating how identity can be performed in legal texts. Research is based on a half-million-word corpus of annual...

  9. The Determination of Children's Knowledge of Global Lunar Patterns from Online Essays Using Text Mining Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheon, Jongpil; Lee, Sangno; Smith, Walter; Song, Jaeki; Kim, Yongjin

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to use text mining analysis of early adolescents' online essays to determine their knowledge of global lunar patterns. Australian and American students in grades five to seven wrote about global lunar patterns they had discovered by sharing observations with each other via the Internet. These essays were analyzed for…

  10. Automated detection of follow-up appointments using text mining of discharge records.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruud, Kari L; Johnson, Matthew G; Liesinger, Juliette T; Grafft, Carrie A; Naessens, James M

    2010-06-01

    To determine whether text mining can accurately detect specific follow-up appointment criteria in free-text hospital discharge records. Cross-sectional study. Mayo Clinic Rochester hospitals. Inpatients discharged from general medicine services in 2006 (n = 6481). Textual hospital dismissal summaries were manually reviewed to determine whether the records contained specific follow-up appointment arrangement elements: date, time and either physician or location for an appointment. The data set was evaluated for the same criteria using SAS Text Miner software. The two assessments were compared to determine the accuracy of text mining for detecting records containing follow-up appointment arrangements. Agreement of text-mined appointment findings with gold standard (manual abstraction) including sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values (PPV and NPV). About 55.2% (3576) of discharge records contained all criteria for follow-up appointment arrangements according to the manual review, 3.2% (113) of which were missed through text mining. Text mining incorrectly identified 3.7% (107) follow-up appointments that were not considered valid through manual review. Therefore, the text mining analysis concurred with the manual review in 96.6% of the appointment findings. Overall sensitivity and specificity were 96.8 and 96.3%, respectively; and PPV and NPV were 97.0 and 96.1%, respectively. of individual appointment criteria resulted in accuracy rates of 93.5% for date, 97.4% for time, 97.5% for physician and 82.9% for location. Text mining of unstructured hospital dismissal summaries can accurately detect documentation of follow-up appointment arrangement elements, thus saving considerable resources for performance assessment and quality-related research.

  11. Systematic review and meta-analysis: the relationship between the Helicobacter pylori dupA gene and clinical outcomes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shiota Seiji

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In 2005, the first disease-specific Helicobacter pylori virulence factor that induced duodenal ulcer and had a suppressive action on gastric cancer has been identified, and was named duodenal ulcer promoting gene (dupA. However, the importance of the dupA gene on clinical outcomes is conflicting in subsequent studies. The aim of this study was to estimate the magnitude of the risk for clinical outcomes associated with dupA gene. Methods A meta-analysis of case-control studies which provided raw data on the infection rates with the dupA-positive H. pylori detected by polymerase chain reaction was performed. Results Seventeen studies with a total of 2,466 patients were identified in the search. Infection with the dupA-positive H. pylori increased the risk for duodenal ulcer by 1.41-fold (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.12-1.76 overall. Subgroup analysis showed that the summary odds ratio (OR was 1.57 (95% CI, 1.19-2.06 in Asian countries and 1.09 (95% CI, 0.73-1.62 in Western countries. There was no association between the presence of the dupA gene and gastric cancer and gastric ulcer. Publication bias did not exist. Conclusion Our meta-analysis confirmed the importance of the presence of the dupA gene for duodenal ulcer, especially in Asian countries.

  12. Analysis of Existing Guidelines for the Systematic Planning Process of Clinical Registries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Löpprich, Martin; Knaup, Petra

    2016-01-01

    Clinical registries are a powerful method to observe the clinical practice and natural disease history. In contrast to clinical trials, where guidelines and standardized methods exist and are mandatory, only a few initiatives have published methodological guidelines for clinical registries. The objective of this paper was to review these guidelines and systematically assess their completeness, usability and feasibility according to a SWOT analysis. The results show that each guideline has its own strengths and weaknesses. While one supports the systematic planning process, the other discusses clinical registries in great detail. However, the feasibility was mostly limited and the special requirements of clinical registries, their flexible, expandable and adaptable technological structure was not addressed consistently.

  13. TEPAPA: a novel in silico feature learning pipeline for mining prognostic and associative factors from text-based electronic medical records.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Frank Po-Yen; Pokorny, Adrian; Teng, Christina; Epstein, Richard J

    2017-07-31

    Vast amounts of clinically relevant text-based variables lie undiscovered and unexploited in electronic medical records (EMR). To exploit this untapped resource, and thus facilitate the discovery of informative covariates from unstructured clinical narratives, we have built a novel computational pipeline termed Text-based Exploratory Pattern Analyser for Prognosticator and Associator discovery (TEPAPA). This pipeline combines semantic-free natural language processing (NLP), regular expression induction, and statistical association testing to identify conserved text patterns associated with outcome variables of clinical interest. When we applied TEPAPA to a cohort of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients, plausible concepts known to be correlated with human papilloma virus (HPV) status were identified from the EMR text, including site of primary disease, tumour stage, pathologic characteristics, and treatment modalities. Similarly, correlates of other variables (including gender, nodal status, recurrent disease, smoking and alcohol status) were also reliably recovered. Using highly-associated patterns as covariates, a patient's HPV status was classifiable using a bootstrap analysis with a mean area under the ROC curve of 0.861, suggesting its predictive utility in supporting EMR-based phenotyping tasks. These data support using this integrative approach to efficiently identify disease-associated factors from unstructured EMR narratives, and thus to efficiently generate testable hypotheses.

  14. The Evasion of the Text; Invasion of the Text; Again, Evasion of the Text; "The Eagle and the Mole": The Affective Fallacy Revisited.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ducharme, Edward R.; And Others

    1970-01-01

    Three writers debate whether English teachers should depend on external or internal criteria when analyzing and teaching literature. Each writer discusses the meaning of Elinor Wylie's poem, "The Eagle and the Mole," according to his particular view of literary analysis. Edward Ducharme, in "The Evasion of the Text," submits…

  15. Nursing students' views of sociocultural factors in clinical learning: a qualitative content analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dadgaran, Ideh; Parvizy, Soroor; Peyrovi, Hamid

    2013-06-01

    The aim of this study is description of nursing students' views of sociocultural factors in clinical learning. A qualitative content analysis was conducted to describe nursing students' views of sociocultural factors in clinical learning. The participants consisted of 21 nursing students. Semi-structured and interactive interviews were used to collect data. All the interviews were recorded and transcribed, and then, they were analyzed using Qualitative Content Analysis and Max Qualitative Data Analysis 2010. From the transcripts, a remarkable number of primary themes, main themes, and sub-themes emerged. The main themes consisted of elements related to "society and culture", "family", "staff", and "classmates". The themes encompassed a spectrum of facilitators of and impediments to clinical learning. The findings showed that the administrators of nursing education should coordinate with faculty and staff by adopting interactive and participatory solutions, including the establishment of clinical learning teams and the transformation of hospitals into suitable sociocultural environments for education. © 2012 The Authors. Japan Journal of Nursing Science © 2012 Japan Academy of Nursing Science.

  16. Understanding of safety monitoring in clinical trials by individuals with CF or their parents: A qualitative analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kern-Goldberger, Andrew S; Hessels, Amanda J; Saiman, Lisa; Quittell, Lynne M

    2018-03-14

    Recruiting both pediatric and adult participants for clinical trials in CF is currently of paramount importance as numerous new therapies are being developed. However, recruitment is challenging as parents of children with CF and adults with CF cite safety concerns as a principal barrier to enrollment. In conjunction with the CF Foundation (CFF) Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), a pilot brochure was developed to inform patients and parents of the multiple levels of safety monitoring; the CFF simultaneously created an infographic representing the safety monitoring process. This study explores the attitudes and beliefs of CF patients and families regarding safety monitoring and clinical trial participation, and elicits feedback regarding the educational materials. Semi-structured interviews were conducted using a pre-tested interview guide and audio-recorded during routine CF clinic visits. Participants included 5 parents of children with CF quotations: attitudes toward clinical trials, safety values, conceptualizing the safety monitoring process, and priorities for delivery of patient education. Participant feedback was used to revise the pilot brochure; text was shortened, unfamiliar words clarified (e.g., "pipeline"), abbreviations eliminated, and redundancy avoided. Qualitative analysis of CF patient and family interviews provided insights into barriers to participation in clinical trials, safety concerns, perspectives on safety monitoring and educational priorities. We plan a multicenter study to determine if the revised brochure reduces knowledge, attitude and practice barriers regarding participation in CF clinical trials. Copyright © 2018 European Cystic Fibrosis Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  17. Registered nurses' clinical reasoning in home healthcare clinical practice: A think-aloud study with protocol analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnsen, Hege Mari; Slettebø, Åshild; Fossum, Mariann

    2016-05-01

    The home healthcare context can be unpredictable and complex, and requires registered nurses with a high level of clinical reasoning skills and professional autonomy. Thus, additional knowledge about registered nurses' clinical reasoning performance during patient home care is required. The aim of this study is to describe the cognitive processes and thinking strategies used by recently graduated registered nurses while caring for patients in home healthcare clinical practice. An exploratory qualitative think-aloud design with protocol analysis was used. Home healthcare visits to patients with stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in seven healthcare districts in southern Norway. A purposeful sample of eight registered nurses with one year of experience. Each nurse was interviewed using the concurrent think-aloud technique in three different patient home healthcare clinical practice visits. A total of 24 home healthcare visits occurred. Follow-up interviews were conducted with each participant. The think-aloud sessions were transcribed and analysed using three-step protocol analysis. Recently graduated registered nurses focused on both general nursing concepts and concepts specific to the domains required and tasks provided in home healthcare services as well as for different patient groups. Additionally, participants used several assertion types, cognitive processes, and thinking strategies. Our results showed that recently graduated registered nurses used both simple and complex cognitive processes involving both inductive and deductive reasoning. However, their reasoning was more reactive than proactive. The results may contribute to nursing practice in terms of developing effective nursing education programmes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Explicating Filipino student nurses' preferences of clinical instructors' attributes: A conjoint analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Factor, Elisa Monette R; de Guzman, Allan B

    2017-08-01

    The role of clinical instructor in student nurses' preparation for the professional nursing practice cannot be underestimated. The extent to which such role is achieved depends highly on the instructors' ability to realize the desired qualities expected of them. While a number of empirical studies have qualitatively explored the attributes of an effective clinical instructor, no attempt has ventured yet on the power of experimental vignettes for conjoint analysis in explicating the preferences of a select group of Filipino student nurses relative to their clinical instructors' attributes. Junior and senior nursing students (n=227), recruited from one of the comprehensive universities in the Philippines, were asked to sort out orthogonal cards generated by Sawtooth Software. As shown, the full-profile conjoint analysis was considerably fit for this study: Pearson's R=0.988, (prelationship and caring behavior (33.17%). In regard to the clinical teaching capability, a clinical instructor who parallels clinical teaching skills with the students' understanding and experience (0.089) was the highest part-worth. As for the interpersonal relationship and caring behavior, the highest part-worth was a clinical instructor who respects a student nurse as an individual and cares about him/her as a person (0.114). Findings of this study can be a basis for clinical instructors as to which qualities to cultivate best to facilitate a first-rate clinical nursing instruction. Likewise, the results of this study can inform current practices of clinical instructors by making them aware of how they can nurture a pedagogical approach consistent with the student nurses' preferences. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. A Customizable Text Classifier for Text Mining

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yun-liang Zhang

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available Text mining deals with complex and unstructured texts. Usually a particular collection of texts that is specified to one or more domains is necessary. We have developed a customizable text classifier for users to mine the collection automatically. It derives from the sentence category of the HNC theory and corresponding techniques. It can start with a few texts, and it can adjust automatically or be adjusted by user. The user can also control the number of domains chosen and decide the standard with which to choose the texts based on demand and abundance of materials. The performance of the classifier varies with the user's choice.

  20. Text Manipulation Techniques and Foreign Language Composition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Walker, Ronald W.

    1982-01-01

    Discusses an approach to teaching second language composition which emphasizes (1) careful analysis of model texts from a limited, but well-defined perspective and (2) the application of text manipulation techniques developed by the word processing industry to student compositions. (EKN)

  1. A behavioral economic analysis of texting while driving: Delay discounting processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayashi, Yusuke; Miller, Kimberly; Foreman, Anne M; Wirth, Oliver

    2016-12-01

    The purpose of the present study was to examine an impulsive decision-making process underlying texting while driving from a behavioral economic perspective. A sample of 108 college students completed a novel discounting task that presented participants with a hypothetical scenario in which, after receiving a text message while driving, they rated the likelihood of replying to a text message immediately versus waiting to reply for a specific period of time. Participants also completed a delay discounting task in which they made repeated hypothetical choices between obtaining a larger amount of money available after a delay and an equal or lesser amount of money available immediately. The results show that the duration of the delay is a critical variable that strongly determines whether participants choose to wait to reply to a text message, and that the decrease in the likelihood of waiting as a function of delay is best described by a hyperbolic delay discounting function. The results also show that participants who self-reported higher frequency of texting while driving discounted the opportunity to reply to a text message at greater rates, whereas there was no relation between the rates of discounting of hypothetical monetary rewards and the frequency of texting while driving. The results support the conclusion that texting while driving is fundamentally an impulsive choice. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  2. Mining Sequential Update Summarization with Hierarchical Text Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chunyun Zhang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The outbreak of unexpected news events such as large human accident or natural disaster brings about a new information access problem where traditional approaches fail. Mostly, news of these events shows characteristics that are early sparse and later redundant. Hence, it is very important to get updates and provide individuals with timely and important information of these incidents during their development, especially when being applied in wireless and mobile Internet of Things (IoT. In this paper, we define the problem of sequential update summarization extraction and present a new hierarchical update mining system which can broadcast with useful, new, and timely sentence-length updates about a developing event. The new system proposes a novel method, which incorporates techniques from topic-level and sentence-level summarization. To evaluate the performance of the proposed system, we apply it to the task of sequential update summarization of temporal summarization (TS track at Text Retrieval Conference (TREC 2013 to compute four measurements of the update mining system: the expected gain, expected latency gain, comprehensiveness, and latency comprehensiveness. Experimental results show that our proposed method has good performance.

  3. Text Mining Improves Prediction of Protein Functional Sites

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohn, Judith D.; Ravikumar, Komandur E.

    2012-01-01

    We present an approach that integrates protein structure analysis and text mining for protein functional site prediction, called LEAP-FS (Literature Enhanced Automated Prediction of Functional Sites). The structure analysis was carried out using Dynamics Perturbation Analysis (DPA), which predicts functional sites at control points where interactions greatly perturb protein vibrations. The text mining extracts mentions of residues in the literature, and predicts that residues mentioned are functionally important. We assessed the significance of each of these methods by analyzing their performance in finding known functional sites (specifically, small-molecule binding sites and catalytic sites) in about 100,000 publicly available protein structures. The DPA predictions recapitulated many of the functional site annotations and preferentially recovered binding sites annotated as biologically relevant vs. those annotated as potentially spurious. The text-based predictions were also substantially supported by the functional site annotations: compared to other residues, residues mentioned in text were roughly six times more likely to be found in a functional site. The overlap of predictions with annotations improved when the text-based and structure-based methods agreed. Our analysis also yielded new high-quality predictions of many functional site residues that were not catalogued in the curated data sources we inspected. We conclude that both DPA and text mining independently provide valuable high-throughput protein functional site predictions, and that integrating the two methods using LEAP-FS further improves the quality of these predictions. PMID:22393388

  4. USE OF DIMETHYL FUMARATE IN THE TREATMENT OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS: CLINICAL AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. R. Mkrtchyan

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents a review of an update on the comparative pharmacoeconomic analysis of using dimethyl fumarate in the treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS in European countries. A pharmacoeconomic evaluation was made to study the use of first-line oral dimethyl fumarate versus another first-line oral teriflunomide in the treatment of MS in the Russian Federation (for 1 year and second-line natalizumab and fingolimod. Among first-line oral drugs, dimethyl fumarate was shown to be superior to teriflunomide in a cost-effectiveness ratio and to be slightly ahead of the MS-modifying drugs (MSMDs  and the second-line drugs natalizumab and fingolimod. According to clinical and economic indicators, dimethyl fumarate is the drug of choise among other MSMDs in the treatment of MS.

  5. Authentic texts in teaching French as a foreign language

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Meta Lah

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available The present paper is aimed at providing a ref lection on the use of authentic texts in French as a foreign language classroom. The author bases herself on an analysis of texts taken from four textbook sets (Le nouveau sans fronti`eres, Panorama, Campus and Rond point, which were or are still used in teaching French as a foreign language. Initially, a definition of authenticity and a survey of authentic material usage through history are provided. In the overview of the texts forming the corpus the texts are divided into authentic, adapted, apparently authentic and those for which no assumption can be made as to their authenticity. The authenticity analysis is also carried out by taking into account the analysis of/categorisation into text types (according to Adam. The author proceeds from two premises, i.e. firstly she foresees that authentic texts will be present in all text books analysed and secondly, considering the greater accessibility of materials, that their presence will be more pronounced in recent textbooks. However, none of the two hypo theses is confirmed, as authentic texts are found in the first three textbook sets, but not in the most recent one, while their presence is most pronounced in the oldest textbook set, i.e. in Le nouveau sans fronti`eres. The result of the analysis is thus somehow surprising given the overall accessibility of all kinds of authentic materials. In the author's opinion more authentic texts should be included into textbooks to thus enhance the purposeful ness of the foreign language classroom.

  6. Identifying influenza-like illness presentation from unstructured general practice clinical narrative using a text classifier rule-based expert system versus a clinical expert.

    Science.gov (United States)

    MacRae, Jayden; Love, Tom; Baker, Michael G; Dowell, Anthony; Carnachan, Matthew; Stubbe, Maria; McBain, Lynn

    2015-10-06

    We designed and validated a rule-based expert system to identify influenza like illness (ILI) from routinely recorded general practice clinical narrative to aid a larger retrospective research study into the impact of the 2009 influenza pandemic in New Zealand. Rules were assessed using pattern matching heuristics on routine clinical narrative. The system was trained using data from 623 clinical encounters and validated using a clinical expert as a gold standard against a mutually exclusive set of 901 records. We calculated a 98.2 % specificity and 90.2 % sensitivity across an ILI incidence of 12.4 % measured against clinical expert classification. Peak problem list identification of ILI by clinical coding in any month was 9.2 % of all detected ILI presentations. Our system addressed an unusual problem domain for clinical narrative classification; using notational, unstructured, clinician entered information in a community care setting. It performed well compared with other approaches and domains. It has potential applications in real-time surveillance of disease, and in assisted problem list coding for clinicians. Our system identified ILI presentation with sufficient accuracy for use at a population level in the wider research study. The peak coding of 9.2 % illustrated the need for automated coding of unstructured narrative in our study.

  7. Knowledge Based Understanding of Radiology Text

    OpenAIRE

    Ranum, David L.

    1988-01-01

    A data acquisition tool which will extract pertinent diagnostic information from radiology reports has been designed and implemented. Pertinent diagnostic information is defined as that clinical data which is used by the HELP medical expert system. The program uses a memory based semantic parsing technique to “understand” the text. Moreover, the memory structures and lexicon necessary to perform this action are automatically generated from the diagnostic knowledge base by using a special purp...

  8. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... Trials About Clinical Trials Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, or ... and Clinical Studies Web page. Children and Clinical Studies Learn more about Children and Clinical Studies Importance ...

  9. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... questions and clinical trials. Optimizing our Clinical Trials Enterprise NHLBI has a strong tradition of supporting clinical ... multi-pronged approach to Optimize our Clinical Trials Enterprise that will make our clinical trials enterprise even ...

  10. Challenges of Clinical Governance in Risk Management: A Qualitative Study of Teaching Hospitals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohammad Keshvari

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Clinical Governance is a Framework in which health care provider will be responsible for continuous quality improvement. This study aimed to identify implementation challenges of Clinical Governance in the area of risk management. Methods: This is a descriptive-qualitative study. We used Content Analysis method for data analysis. Study environment contained 7 teaching hospitals, and the study population included the hospitals staff engaged in Clinical Governance implementation. Using purposive non-randomised sampling, 18 participants were selected. A semi-structured face-to-face interview was used for data collection. Content Analysis method was used to conceptualize, interpret and analyze the texts and maxQDA software for data analysis. Results: Our research findings presented two main themes as cultural factors and lack of resources. Conclusion: Promoting management as well as empowering health care providers could act as a key factor in addressing problems related to the implementation of risk management in health care environments.

  11. Unblocking Blockbusters: Using Boolean Text-Mining to Optimise Clinical Trial Design and Timeline for Novel Anticancer Drugs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard J. Epstein

    2009-08-01

    Full Text Available Two problems now threaten the future of anticancer drug development: (i the information explosion has made research into new target-specific drugs more duplication-prone, and hence less cost-efficient; and (ii high-throughput genomic technologies have failed to deliver the anticipated early windfall of novel first-in-class drugs. Here it is argued that the resulting crisis of blockbuster drug development may be remedied in part by innovative exploitation of informatic power. Using scenarios relating to oncology, it is shown that rapid data-mining of the scientific literature can refine therapeutic hypotheses and thus reduce empirical reliance on preclinical model development and early-phase clinical trials. Moreover, as personalised medicine evolves, this approach may inform biomarker-guided phase III trial strategies for noncytotoxic (antimetastatic drugs that prolong patient survival without necessarily inducing tumor shrinkage. Though not replacing conventional gold standards, these findings suggest that this computational research approach could reduce costly ‘blue skies’ R&D investment and time to market for new biological drugs, thereby helping to reverse unsustainable drug price inflation.

  12. Unblocking Blockbusters: Using Boolean Text-Mining to Optimise Clinical Trial Design and Timeline for Novel Anticancer Drugs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Richard J. Epstein

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Two problems now threaten the future of anticancer drug development: (i the information explosion has made research into new target-specific drugs more duplication-prone, and hence less cost-efficient; and (ii high-throughput genomic technologies have failed to deliver the anticipated early windfall of novel first-in-class drugs. Here it is argued that the resulting crisis of blockbuster drug development may be remedied in part by innovative exploitation of informatic power. Using scenarios relating to oncology, it is shown that rapid data-mining of the scientific literature can refine therapeutic hypotheses and thus reduce empirical reliance on preclinical model development and early-phase clinical trials. Moreover, as personalised medicine evolves, this approach may inform biomarker-guided phase III trial strategies for noncytotoxic (antimetastatic drugs that prolong patient survival without necessarily inducing tumor shrinkage. Though not replacing conventional gold standards, these findings suggest that this computational research approach could reduce costly ‘blue skies’ R&D investment and time to market for new biological drugs, thereby helping to reverse unsustainable drug price inflation.

  13. Generation of silver standard concept annotations from biomedical texts with special relevance to phenotypes.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anika Oellrich

    Full Text Available Electronic health records and scientific articles possess differing linguistic characteristics that may impact the performance of natural language processing tools developed for one or the other. In this paper, we investigate the performance of four extant concept recognition tools: the clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System (cTAKES, the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO Annotator, the Biomedical Concept Annotation System (BeCAS and MetaMap. Each of the four concept recognition systems is applied to four different corpora: the i2b2 corpus of clinical documents, a PubMed corpus of Medline abstracts, a clinical trails corpus and the ShARe/CLEF corpus. In addition, we assess the individual system performances with respect to one gold standard annotation set, available for the ShARe/CLEF corpus. Furthermore, we built a silver standard annotation set from the individual systems' output and assess the quality as well as the contribution of individual systems to the quality of the silver standard. Our results demonstrate that mainly the NCBO annotator and cTAKES contribute to the silver standard corpora (F1-measures in the range of 21% to 74% and their quality (best F1-measure of 33%, independent from the type of text investigated. While BeCAS and MetaMap can contribute to the precision of silver standard annotations (precision of up to 42%, the F1-measure drops when combined with NCBO Annotator and cTAKES due to a low recall. In conclusion, the performances of individual systems need to be improved independently from the text types, and the leveraging strategies to best take advantage of individual systems' annotations need to be revised. The textual content of the PubMed corpus, accession numbers for the clinical trials corpus, and assigned annotations of the four concept recognition systems as well as the generated silver standard annotation sets are available from http://purl.org/phenotype/resources. The textual content

  14. The interpretation of dream meaning: Resolving ambiguity using Latent Semantic Analysis in a small corpus of text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Altszyler, Edgar; Ribeiro, Sidarta; Sigman, Mariano; Fernández Slezak, Diego

    2017-11-01

    Computer-based dreams content analysis relies on word frequencies within predefined categories in order to identify different elements in text. As a complementary approach, we explored the capabilities and limitations of word-embedding techniques to identify word usage patterns among dream reports. These tools allow us to quantify words associations in text and to identify the meaning of target words. Word-embeddings have been extensively studied in large datasets, but only a few studies analyze semantic representations in small corpora. To fill this gap, we compared Skip-gram and Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) capabilities to extract semantic associations from dream reports. LSA showed better performance than Skip-gram in small size corpora in two tests. Furthermore, LSA captured relevant word associations in dream collection, even in cases with low-frequency words or small numbers of dreams. Word associations in dreams reports can thus be quantified by LSA, which opens new avenues for dream interpretation and decoding. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Diseases of poultry in Akure, Nigeria: a ten year analysis of clinical ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    An analysis of poultry diseases diagnosed at the avian clinic of Veterinary Hospital of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Akure, Ondo-State, was carried out using data from 22,927 cases reported at the clinic over a period of ten years. The commonest diseases reported were Newcastle, 9.8%, chronic ...

  16. Translation Analysis on Civil Engineering Text Produced by Machine Translator

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutopo, Anam

    2018-02-01

    Translation is extremely needed in communication since people have serious problem in the language used. Translation activity is done by the person in charge for translating the material. Translation activity is also able to be done by machine. It is called machine translation, reflected in the programs developed by programmer. One of them is Transtool. Many people used Transtool for helping them in solving the problem related with translation activities. This paper wants to deliver how important is the Transtool program, how effective is Transtool program and how is the function of Transtool for human business. This study applies qualitative research. The sources of data were document and informant. This study used documentation and in dept-interviewing as the techniques for collecting data. The collected data were analyzed by using interactive analysis. The results of the study show that, first; Transtool program is helpful for people in translating the civil engineering text and it functions as the aid or helper, second; the working of Transtool software program is effective enough and third; the result of translation produced by Transtool is good for short and simple sentences and not readable, not understandable and not accurate for long sentences (compound, complex and compound complex) thought the result is informative. The translated material must be edited by the professional translator.

  17. Combining dosimetry and toxicity: analysis of two UK phase III clinical trials

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gulliford, Sarah L

    2014-01-01

    There are many advantages to performing a clinical trial when implementing a novel radiotherapy technique. The clinical trials framework enables the safety and efficacy of the 'experimental arm' to be tested and ensures practical support, rigorous quality control and data monitoring for participating centres. In addition to the clinical and follow-up data collected from patients within the trial, it is also possible to collect 3-D dosimetric information from the corresponding radiotherapy treatment plans. Analysing the combination of dosimetric, clinical and follow-up data enhances the understanding of the relationship between the dose delivered to both the target and normal tissue structures and reported outcomes and toxicity. Aspects of the collection, collation and analysis of data from two UK multicentre Phase III radiotherapy trials are presented here. MRC-RT01 dose-escalation prostate radiotherapy trial ISRCTN47772397 was one of the first UK multi-centre radiotherapy trials to collect 3-D dosimetric data. A number of different analysis methodologies were implemented to investigate the relationship between the dose distribution to the rectum and specific rectal toxicities. More recently data was collected from the PARSPORT trial (Parotid Sparing IMRT vs conventional head and neck radiotherapy) ISRCTN48243537. In addition to the planned analysis, dosimetric analysis was employed to investigate an unexpected finding that acute fatigue was more prevalent in the IMRT arm of the trial. It can be challenging to collect 3-D dosimetric information from multicentre radiotherapy trials. However, analysing the relationship between dosimetric and toxicity data provides invaluable information which can influence the next generation of radiotherapy techniques.

  18. Clinical analysis of three cases of Percheron artery infarction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zi-juan PENG

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available The clinical features, imaging, treatment and prognosis of 3 cases of Percheron artery infarction were analyzed retrospectively. Risk factors for cerebrovascular diseases existed in all patients. They presented acute onset, with varying degrees of disturbance of consciousness, lags in response, dysgnosia and mental changes, but without movement disorders. Two cases also presented eye movement disorders. Brain MRI showed symmetrical long T1 and long T2 signal in bilateral thalami and midbrain. Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI showed hyperintensity, and FLAIR of one case showed "V sign" in midbrain. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA of one case demonstrated right posterior cerebral artery (PCA was mainly extended posterior communicating artery (PCoA, with dysplastic P1 segment, which was embryonal PCA. The clinical symptoms of 3 cases were improved significantly after cerebrovascular disease treatment. The classical clinical symptoms, symmetrical high signal in bilateral paramedian thalami on DWI and "V sign" in midbrain on FLAIR, can improve early diagnosis of Percheron artery infarction. Unilateral embryonal PCA may be underlying risk factor for Percheron artery infarction. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2016.11.011

  19. Clinical analysis of 20 cases of pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rui TONG

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Objective  To review the experiences of diagnosis and treatment of pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis (PCI, and study the clinical characteristics of the disease in order to improve the diagnosis and treatment. Methods  Clinical data from 20 patients with endoscopically confirmed PCI were retrospectively analyzed. They were admitted to the Chinese PLA General Hospital from June 1995 to June 2015. Results  Among the patients 16 of them were male,and the other four were female. The main clinical manifestations were abdominal distention, diarrhea, abdominal pain and mucous bloody stool. The diagnosis relied mainly on colonoscopy and pathological examination. Laparoscopy assisted colorectal cancer resection was performed in 1 patient, laparostomy and repair of sigmoid colon perforation in 1, endoscopic treatment in 5 cases, drug administration and hyperbaric oxygen therapy in 2, drug treatment alone in 7, and no treatment in 4. Conclusions  The final diagnosis depends on endoscopic findings. No treatment is recommended to patients with no symptoms. The management of patients with PCI includes antibiotics, oxygen therapy, endoscopic therapy, surgery, and appropriate therapy related to the underlying cause of PCI. The prognosis is good. DOI: 10.11855/j.issn.0577-7402.2016.02.09

  20. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... Clinical Trials About Clinical Trials Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, or ... humans. What Are Clinical Trials? Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, or ...

  1. Structured prediction models for RNN based sequence labeling in clinical text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jagannatha, Abhyuday N; Yu, Hong

    2016-11-01

    Sequence labeling is a widely used method for named entity recognition and information extraction from unstructured natural language data. In clinical domain one major application of sequence labeling involves extraction of medical entities such as medication, indication, and side-effects from Electronic Health Record narratives. Sequence labeling in this domain, presents its own set of challenges and objectives. In this work we experimented with various CRF based structured learning models with Recurrent Neural Networks. We extend the previously studied LSTM-CRF models with explicit modeling of pairwise potentials. We also propose an approximate version of skip-chain CRF inference with RNN potentials. We use these methodologies for structured prediction in order to improve the exact phrase detection of various medical entities.

  2. Genome analysis of environmental and clinical P. aeruginosa isolates from sequence type-1146.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Sánchez

    Full Text Available The genomes of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates of the new sequence type ST-1146, three environmental (P37, P47 and P49 and one clinical (SD9 isolates, with differences in their antibiotic susceptibility profiles have been sequenced and analysed. The genomes were mapped against P. aeruginosa PAO1-UW and UCBPP-PA14. The allelic profiles showed that the highest number of differences were in "Related to phage, transposon or plasmid" and "Secreted factors" categories. The clinical isolate showed a number of exclusive alleles greater than that for the environmental isolates. The phage Pf1 region in isolate SD9 accumulated the highest number of nucleotide substitutions. The ORF analysis of the four genomes assembled de novo indicated that the number of isolate-specific genes was higher in isolate SD9 (132 genes than in isolates P37 (24 genes, P47 (16 genes and P49 (21 genes. CRISPR elements were found in all isolates and SD9 showed differences in the spacer region. Genes related to bacteriophages F116 and H66 were found only in isolate SD9. Genome comparisons indicated that the isolates of ST-1146 are close related, and most genes implicated in pathogenicity are highly conserved, suggesting a genetic potential for infectivity in the environmental isolates similar to the clinical one. Phage-related genes are responsible of the main differences among the genomes of ST-1146 isolates. The role of bacteriophages has to be considered in the adaptation processes of isolates to the host and in microevolution studies.

  3. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... the NHLBI's Children and Clinical Studies Web page. Children and Clinical Studies Learn more about Children and Clinical Studies Importance of Children in Clinical Studies Children have often had to ...

  4. Symbiotic Relations of Verbal and Non-Verbal Components of Creolized Text on the Example of Stephen King’s Books Covers Analysis

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    Anna S. Kobysheva

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The article examines the symbiotic relationships between non-verbal and verbal components of the creolized text. The research focuses on the analysis of the correlation between verbal and visual elements of horror book covers based on three types of correlations between verbal and non-verbal text constituents, i.e. recurrent, additive and emphatic.

  5. Comprehending text in literature class

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Purić Daliborka S.

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper discusses the problem of understanding a text and the contribution of methodological apparatus in the reader book to comprehension of a text being read in junior classes of elementary school. By using the technique of content analysis from methodological apparatuses in eight reader books for the fourth grade of elementary school, approved for usage in 2014/2015 academic year, and surveying 350 teachers in 33 elementary schools and 11 administrative districts in the Republic of Serbia we examined: (a to what extent the Serbian language text book contents enable junior students to understand a literary text; (b to what extent teachers accept the suggestions offered in the textbook for preparing literature teaching. The results show that a large number of suggestions relate to reading comprehension, but some of categories of understanding are unevenly distributed in the methodological apparatus. On the other hand, the majority of teachers use the methodological apparatus given in a textbook for preparing classes, not only the textbook he or she selected for teaching but also other textbooks for the same grade.

  6. Strategies for Translating Vocative Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olga COJOCARU

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper deals with the linguistic and cultural elements of vocative texts and the techniques used in translating them by giving some examples of texts that are typically vocative (i.e. advertisements and instructions for use. Semantic and communicative strategies are popular in translation studies and each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages in translating vocative texts. The advantage of semantic translation is that it takes more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text, while communicative translation attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original text in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership. Focus is laid on the strategies used in translating vocative texts, strategies that highlight and introduce a cultural context to the target audience, in order to achieve their overall purpose, that is to sell or persuade the reader to behave in a certain way. Thus, in order to do that, a number of advertisements from the field of cosmetics industry and electronic gadgets were selected for analysis. The aim is to gather insights into vocative text translation and to create new perspectives on this field of research, now considered a process of innovation and diversion, especially in areas as important as economy and marketing.

  7. Detecting causality from online psychiatric texts using inter-sentential language patterns

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wu Jheng-Long

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Online psychiatric texts are natural language texts expressing depressive problems, published by Internet users via community-based web services such as web forums, message boards and blogs. Understanding the cause-effect relations embedded in these psychiatric texts can provide insight into the authors’ problems, thus increasing the effectiveness of online psychiatric services. Methods Previous studies have proposed the use of word pairs extracted from a set of sentence pairs to identify cause-effect relations between sentences. A word pair is made up of two words, with one coming from the cause text span and the other from the effect text span. Analysis of the relationship between these words can be used to capture individual word associations between cause and effect sentences. For instance, (broke up, life and (boyfriend, meaningless are two word pairs extracted from the sentence pair: “I broke up with my boyfriend. Life is now meaningless to me”. The major limitation of word pairs is that individual words in sentences usually cannot reflect the exact meaning of the cause and effect events, and thus may produce semantically incomplete word pairs, as the previous examples show. Therefore, this study proposes the use of inter-sentential language patterns such as ≪broke up, boyfriend>, Results Performance was evaluated on a corpus of texts collected from PsychPark (http://www.psychpark.org, a virtual psychiatric clinic maintained by a group of volunteer professionals from the Taiwan Association of Mental Health Informatics. Experimental results show that the use of inter-sentential language patterns outperformed the use of word pairs proposed in previous studies. Conclusions This study demonstrates the acquisition of inter-sentential language patterns for causality detection from online psychiatric texts. Such semantically more complete and precise features can improve causality detection performance.

  8. Scaling analysis of the non-Abelian quasiparticle tunneling in [Formula: see text] FQH states.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Qi; Jiang, Na; Wan, Xin; Hu, Zi-Xiang

    2018-06-27

    Quasiparticle tunneling between two counter propagating edges through point contacts could provide information on its statistics. Previous study of the short distance tunneling displays a scaling behavior, especially in the conformal limit with zero tunneling distance. The scaling exponents for the non-Abelian quasiparticle tunneling exhibit some non-trivial behaviors. In this work, we revisit the quasiparticle tunneling amplitudes and their scaling behavior in a full range of the tunneling distance by putting the electrons on the surface of a cylinder. The edge-edge distance can be smoothly tuned by varying the aspect ratio for a finite size cylinder. We analyze the scaling behavior of the quasiparticles for the Read-Rezayi [Formula: see text] states for [Formula: see text] and 4 both in the short and long tunneling distance region. The finite size scaling analysis automatically gives us a critical length scale where the anomalous correction appears. We demonstrate this length scale is related to the size of the quasiparticle at which the backscattering between two counter propagating edges starts to be significant.

  9. Sharing Feelings Online: Studying Emotional Well-Being via Automated Text Analysis of Facebook Posts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michele eSettanni

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available Digital traces of activity on social network sites represent a vast source of ecological data with potential connections with individual behavioral and psychological characteristics. The present study investigates the relationship between user-generated textual content shared on Facebook and emotional well-being. Self-report measures of depression, anxiety and stress were collected from 201 adult Facebook users from North Italy. Emotion-related textual indicators, including emoticon use, were extracted form users’ Facebook posts via automated text analysis. Correlation analyses revealed that individuals with higher levels of depression, anxiety expressed negative emotions on Facebook more frequently. In addition, use of emoticons expressing positive emotions correlated negatively with stress level. When comparing age groups, younger users reported higher frequency of both emotion-related words and emoticon use in their posts. Also, the relationship between online emotional expression and self-report emotional well-being was generally stronger in the younger group. Overall, findings support the feasibility and validity of studying individual emotional well-being by means of examination of Facebook profiles. Implications for online screening purposes and future research directions are discussed.

  10. Evaluation and Audience Acceptance in Biotech News Texts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Holmgreen, Lise-Lotte; Vestergaard, Torben

    2009-01-01

    It is well known that news texts are not value neutral and that in these texts even genuinely factual statements can function as evaluations. Hence, only an analysis of the types of evaluation used will reveal the true picture of the attitudinal import of reporting texts. The paper explores...... these features by analysing the coverage of the biotechnology debate in one of the largest Danish newspapers, Politiken, during the first 9 months of 2004. The aim of this analysis is to uncover how seemingly objective and ‘neutral' accounts of events and state of affairs can be used by journalists...

  11. The Relationship between Clinical Competence and Clinical Self-efficacy among Nursing and Midwifery Students

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    Shahla Mohamadirizi

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Introduction  Self-efficacy in clinical performance had an important role in applying competencies; also competencies and self-efficacy in clinical performance influenced to quality care of nursing and midwifery students. So the present study aimed to define the relationship between clinical competencies and clinical self-efficacy among nursing and midwifery students. Materials and Methods  This is a cross-sectional study conducted on 150 of nursing and midwifery students in Isfahan University of Medical Science, selected through two stage sampling in 2014. The participant completed questionnaires about personal/ educational characteristics and nursing competencies questionnaire (18 items and clinical self-efficacy scale (37 items. The data were analyzed by, Pearson statistical test, t-test, variance analysis through SPSS version16. Results The results showed that 50% (n=75 and 37.4% (n=56 of nursing and midwifery students had good clinical competence and clinical Self-Efficacy, respectively. Also the mean competencies and self-efficacy in clinical performance scores were 35.05± 1.2 and 76.03± 0.4 respectively. Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there was a positive linear correlation between the score of clinical competence and clinical self-efficacy (P

  12. A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Text Messaging Intervention to Promote Virologic Suppression and Retention in Care in an Urban Safety-Net HIV Clinic: The Connect4Care (C4C) Trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christopoulos, Katerina A; Riley, Elise D; Carrico, Adam W; Tulsky, Jacqueline; Moskowitz, Judith T; Dilworth, Samantha; Coffin, Lara S; Wilson, Leslie; Peretz, Jason Johnson; Hilton, Joan F

    2018-02-21

    Text messaging is a promising strategy to support HIV care engagement, but little is known about its efficacy in urban safety-net HIV clinic populations. We conducted a randomized controlled trial of a supportive and motivational text messaging intervention, Connect4Care (C4C), among viremic patients who had a history of poor retention or were new to clinic. Participants were randomized (stratified by new HIV diagnosis status) to receive one of the following for 12 months: 1) thrice-weekly intervention messages, plus texted primary care appointment reminders and a monthly text message requesting confirmation of study participation, or; 2) texted reminders and monthly messages alone. Viral load was assessed at 6 and 12 months. The primary outcome was virologic suppression (<200 copies/mL) at 12 months, estimated via repeated measures log-binomial regression, adjusted for new diagnosis status. The secondary outcome was retention in clinic care. Between August 2013-November 2015, 230 participants were randomized. Virologic suppression at 12 months was similar between intervention and control participants (48.8% vs. 45.8%), with negligible change from 6-month estimates, yielding RR 1.07 (95% CI: 0.82, 1.39). Suppression was higher in the newly diagnosed (78.3% vs. 45.3%). There were no intervention effects on the secondary outcome. Exploratory analyses suggested that patients with more responses to study text messages had better outcomes, regardless of arm. The C4C text messaging intervention did not significantly increase virologic suppression or retention in care. Response to text messages may be a useful way for providers to gauge risk for poor HIV outcomes. NCT01917994.

  13. Adaptive Text Entry for Mobile Devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Proschowsky, Morten Smidt

    The reduced size of many mobile devices makes it difficult to enter text with them. The text entry methods are often slow or complicated to use. This affects the performance and user experience of all applications and services on the device. This work introduces new easy-to-use text entry methods...... for mobile devices and a framework for adaptive context-aware language models. Based on analysis of current text entry methods, the requirements to the new text entry methods are established. Transparent User guided Prediction (TUP) is a text entry method for devices with one dimensional touch input. It can...... be touch sensitive wheels, sliders or similar input devices. The interaction design of TUP is done with a combination of high level task models and low level models of human motor behaviour. Three prototypes of TUP are designed and evaluated by more than 30 users. Observations from the evaluations are used...

  14. Measurement of quarkonium production at forward rapidity in [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text]TeV.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Abelev, B; Adam, J; Adamová, D; Aggarwal, M M; Agnello, M; Agostinelli, A; Agrawal, N; Ahammed, Z; Ahmad, N; Ahmad Masoodi, A; Ahmed, I; Ahn, S U; Ahn, S A; Aimo, I; Aiola, S; Ajaz, M; Akindinov, A; Aleksandrov, D; Alessandro, B; Alexandre, D; Alici, A; Alkin, A; Alme, J; Alt, T; Altini, V; Altinpinar, S; Altsybeev, I; Alves Garcia Prado, C; Andrei, C; Andronic, A; Anguelov, V; Anielski, J; Antičić, T; Antinori, F; Antonioli, P; Aphecetche, L; Appelshäuser, H; Arbor, N; Arcelli, S; Armesto, N; Arnaldi, R; Aronsson, T; Arsene, I C; Arslandok, M; Augustinus, A; Averbeck, R; Awes, T C; Azmi, M D; Bach, M; Badalà, A; Baek, Y W; Bagnasco, S; Bailhache, R; Bala, R; Baldisseri, A; Baltasar Dos Santos Pedrosa, F; Baral, R C; Barbera, R; Barile, F; Barnaföldi, G G; Barnby, L S; Barret, V; Bartke, J; Basile, M; Bastid, N; Basu, S; Bathen, B; Batigne, G; Batyunya, B; Batzing, P C; Baumann, C; Bearden, I G; Beck, H; Bedda, C; Behera, N K; Belikov, I; Bellini, F; Bellwied, R; Belmont-Moreno, E; Bencedi, G; Beole, S; Berceanu, I; Bercuci, A; Berdnikov, Y; Berenyi, D; Bertens, R A; Berzano, D; Betev, L; Bhasin, A; Bhat, I R; Bhati, A K; Bhattacharjee, B; Bhom, J; Bianchi, L; Bianchi, N; Bianchin, C; Bielčík, J; Bielčíková, J; Bilandzic, A; Bjelogrlic, S; Blanco, F; Blau, D; Blume, C; Bock, F; Bogdanov, A; Bøggild, H; Bogolyubsky, M; Boldizsár, L; Bombara, M; Book, J; Borel, H; Borissov, A; Bossú, F; Botje, M; Botta, E; Böttger, S; Braun-Munzinger, P; Bregant, M; Breitner, T; Broker, T A; Browning, T A; Broz, M; Bruna, E; Bruno, G E; Budnikov, D; Buesching, H; Bufalino, S; Buncic, P; Busch, O; Buthelezi, Z; Caffarri, D; Cai, X; Caines, H; Caliva, A; Calvo Villar, E; Camerini, P; Carena, F; Carena, W; Castillo Castellanos, J; Casula, E A R; Catanescu, V; Cavicchioli, C; Ceballos Sanchez, C; Cepila, J; Cerello, P; Chang, B; Chapeland, S; Charvet, J L; Chattopadhyay, S; Chattopadhyay, S; Chelnokov, V; Cherney, M; Cheshkov, C; Cheynis, B; Chibante Barroso, V; Chinellato, D D; Chochula, P; Chojnacki, M; Choudhury, S; Christakoglou, P; Christensen, C H; Christiansen, P; Chujo, T; Chung, S U; Cicalo, C; Cifarelli, L; Cindolo, F; Cleymans, J; Colamaria, F; Colella, D; Collu, A; Colocci, M; Conesa Balbastre, G; Conesa Del Valle, Z; Connors, M E; Contreras, J G; Cormier, T M; Corrales Morales, Y; Cortese, P; Cortés Maldonado, I; Cosentino, M R; Costa, F; Crochet, P; Cruz Albino, R; Cuautle, E; Cunqueiro, L; Dainese, A; Dang, R; Danu, A; Das, D; Das, I; Das, K; Das, S; Dash, A; Dash, S; De, S; Delagrange, H; Deloff, A; Dénes, E; D'Erasmo, G; De Caro, A; de Cataldo, G; de Cuveland, J; De Falco, A; De Gruttola, D; De Marco, N; De Pasquale, S; de Rooij, R; Diaz Corchero, M A; Dietel, T; Divià, R; Di Bari, D; Di Liberto, S; Di Mauro, A; Di Nezza, P; Djuvsland, Ø; Dobrin, A; Dobrowolski, T; Domenicis Gimenez, D; Dönigus, B; Dordic, O; Dubey, A K; Dubla, A; Ducroux, L; Dupieux, P; Dutta Majumdar, A K; Ehlers, R J; Elia, D; Engel, H; Erazmus, B; Erdal, H A; Eschweiler, D; Espagnon, B; Esposito, M; Estienne, M; Esumi, S; Evans, D; Evdokimov, S; Fabris, D; Faivre, J; Falchieri, D; Fantoni, A; Fasel, M; Fehlker, D; Feldkamp, L; Felea, D; Feliciello, A; Feofilov, G; Ferencei, J; Fernández Téllez, A; Ferreiro, E G; Ferretti, A; Festanti, A; Figiel, J; Figueredo, M A S; Filchagin, S; Finogeev, D; Fionda, F M; Fiore, E M; Floratos, E; Floris, M; Foertsch, S; Foka, P; Fokin, S; Fragiacomo, E; Francescon, A; Frankenfeld, U; Fuchs, U; Furget, C; Fusco Girard, M; Gaardhøje, J J; Gagliardi, M; Gago, A M; Gallio, M; Gangadharan, D R; Ganoti, P; Garabatos, C; Garcia-Solis, E; Gargiulo, C; Garishvili, I; Gerhard, J; Germain, M; Gheata, A; Gheata, M; Ghidini, B; Ghosh, P; Ghosh, S K; Gianotti, P; Giubellino, P; Gladysz-Dziadus, E; Glässel, P; Gomez Ramirez, A; González-Zamora, P; Gorbunov, S; Görlich, L; Gotovac, S; Graczykowski, L K; Grelli, A; Grigoras, A; Grigoras, C; Grigoriev, V; Grigoryan, A; Grigoryan, S; Grinyov, B; Grion, N; Grosse-Oetringhaus, J F; Grossiord, J-Y; Grosso, R; Guber, F; Guernane, R; Guerzoni, B; Guilbaud, M; Gulbrandsen, K; Gulkanyan, H; Gunji, T; Gupta, A; Gupta, R; Khan, K H; Haake, R; Haaland, Ø; Hadjidakis, C; Haiduc, M; Hamagaki, H; Hamar, G; Hanratty, L D; Hansen, A; Harris, J W; Hartmann, H; Harton, A; Hatzifotiadou, D; Hayashi, S; Heckel, S T; Heide, M; Helstrup, H; Herghelegiu, A; Herrera Corral, G; Hess, B A; Hetland, K F; Hicks, B; Hippolyte, B; Hladky, J; Hristov, P; Huang, M; Humanic, T J; Hutter, D; Hwang, D S; Ilkaev, R; Ilkiv, I; Inaba, M; Innocenti, G M; Ionita, C; Ippolitov, M; Irfan, M; Ivanov, M; Ivanov, V; Ivanytskyi, O; Jachołkowski, A; Jacobs, P M; Jahnke, C; Jang, H J; Janik, M A; Jayarathna, P H S Y; Jena, S; Jimenez Bustamante, R T; Jones, P G; Jung, H; Jusko, A; Kadyshevskiy, V; Kalcher, S; Kalinak, P; Kalweit, A; Kamin, J; Kang, J H; Kaplin, V; Kar, S; Karasu Uysal, A; Karavichev, O; Karavicheva, T; Karpechev, E; Kebschull, U; Keidel, R; Khan, M M; Khan, P; Khan, S A; Khanzadeev, A; Kharlov, Y; Kileng, B; Kim, B; Kim, D W; Kim, D J; Kim, J S; Kim, M; Kim, M; Kim, S; Kim, T; Kirsch, S; Kisel, I; Kiselev, S; Kisiel, A; Kiss, G; Klay, J L; Klein, J; Klein-Bösing, C; Kluge, A; Knichel, M L; Knospe, A G; Kobdaj, C; Köhler, M K; Kollegger, T; Kolojvari, A; Kondratiev, V; Kondratyeva, N; Konevskikh, A; Kovalenko, V; Kowalski, M; Kox, S; Koyithatta Meethaleveedu, G; Kral, J; Králik, I; Kramer, F; Kravčáková, A; Krelina, M; Kretz, M; Krivda, M; Krizek, F; Krus, M; Kryshen, E; Krzewicki, M; Kučera, V; Kucheriaev, Y; Kugathasan, T; Kuhn, C; Kuijer, P G; Kulakov, I; Kumar, J; Kurashvili, P; Kurepin, A; Kurepin, A B; Kuryakin, A; Kushpil, S; Kweon, M J; Kwon, Y; Ladron de Guevara, P; Lagana Fernandes, C; Lakomov, I; Langoy, R; Lara, C; Lardeux, A; Lattuca, A; La Pointe, S L; La Rocca, P; Lea, R; Lee, G R; Legrand, I; Lehnert, J; Lemmon, R C; Lenti, V; Leogrande, E; Leoncino, M; León Monzón, I; Lévai, P; Li, S; Lien, J; Lietava, R; Lindal, S; Lindenstruth, V; Lippmann, C; Lisa, M A; Ljunggren, H M; Lodato, D F; Loenne, P I; Loggins, V R; Loginov, V; Lohner, D; Loizides, C; Lopez, X; López Torres, E; Lu, X-G; Luettig, P; Lunardon, M; Luo, J; Luparello, G; Luzzi, C; Ma, R; Maevskaya, A; Mager, M; Mahapatra, D P; Maire, A; Majka, R D; Malaev, M; Maldonado Cervantes, I; Malinina, L; Mal'Kevich, D; Malzacher, P; Mamonov, A; Manceau, L; Manko, V; Manso, F; Manzari, V; Marchisone, M; Mareš, J; Margagliotti, G V; Margotti, A; Marín, A; Markert, C; Marquard, M; Martashvili, I; Martin, N A; Martinengo, P; Martínez, M I; Martínez García, G; Martin Blanco, J; Martynov, Y; Mas, A; Masciocchi, S; Masera, M; Masoni, A; Massacrier, L; Mastroserio, A; Matyja, A; Mayer, C; Mazer, J; Mazzoni, M A; Meddi, F; Menchaca-Rocha, A; Mercado Pérez, J; Meres, M; Miake, Y; Mikhaylov, K; Milano, L; Milosevic, J; Mischke, A; Mishra, A N; Miśkowiec, D; Mitu, C M; Mlynarz, J; Mohanty, B; Molnar, L; Montaño Zetina, L; Montes, E; Morando, M; Moreira De Godoy, D A; Moretto, S; Morreale, A; Morsch, A; Muccifora, V; Mudnic, E; Muhuri, S; Mukherjee, M; Müller, H; Munhoz, M G; Murray, S; Musa, L; Musinsky, J; Nandi, B K; Nania, R; Nappi, E; Nattrass, C; Nayak, T K; Nazarenko, S; Nedosekin, A; Nicassio, M; Niculescu, M; Nielsen, B S; Nikolaev, S; Nikulin, S; Nikulin, V; Nilsen, B S; Noferini, F; Nomokonov, P; Nooren, G; Nyanin, A; Nystrand, J; Oeschler, H; Oh, S; Oh, S K; Okatan, A; Olah, L; Oleniacz, J; Oliveira Da Silva, A C; Onderwaater, J; Oppedisano, C; Ortiz Velasquez, A; Oskarsson, A; Otwinowski, J; Oyama, K; Sahoo, P; Pachmayer, Y; Pachr, M; Pagano, P; Paić, G; Painke, F; Pajares, C; Pal, S K; Palmeri, A; Pant, D; Papikyan, V; Pappalardo, G S; Pareek, P; Park, W J; Parmar, S; Passfeld, A; Patalakha, D I; Paticchio, V; Paul, B; Pawlak, T; Peitzmann, T; Pereira Da Costa, H; Pereira De Oliveira Filho, E; Peresunko, D; Pérez Lara, C E; Pesci, A; Peskov, V; Pestov, Y; Petráček, V; Petran, M; Petris, M; Petrovici, M; Petta, C; Piano, S; Pikna, M; Pillot, P; Pinazza, O; Pinsky, L; Piyarathna, D B; Płoskoń, M; Planinic, M; Pluta, J; Pochybova, S; Podesta-Lerma, P L M; Poghosyan, M G; Pohjoisaho, E H O; Polichtchouk, B; Poljak, N; Pop, A; Porteboeuf-Houssais, S; Porter, J; Pospisil, V; Potukuchi, B; Prasad, S K; Preghenella, R; Prino, F; Pruneau, C A; Pshenichnov, I; Puddu, G; Pujahari, P; Punin, V; Putschke, J; Qvigstad, H; Rachevski, A; Raha, S; Rak, J; Rakotozafindrabe, A; Ramello, L; Raniwala, R; Raniwala, S; Räsänen, S S; Rascanu, B T; Rathee, D; Rauf, A W; Razazi, V; Read, K F; Real, J S; Redlich, K; Reed, R J; Rehman, A; Reichelt, P; Reicher, M; Reidt, F; Renfordt, R; Reolon, A R; Reshetin, A; Rettig, F; Revol, J-P; Reygers, K; Ricci, R A; Richert, T; Richter, M; Riedler, P; Riegler, W; Riggi, F; Rivetti, A; Rocco, E; Rodríguez Cahuantzi, M; Rodriguez Manso, A; Røed, K; Rogochaya, E; Rohni, S; Rohr, D; Röhrich, D; Romita, R; Ronchetti, F; Rosnet, P; Rossegger, S; Rossi, A; Roukoutakis, F; Roy, A; Roy, C; Roy, P; Rubio Montero, A J; Rui, R; Russo, R; Ryabinkin, E; Rybicki, A; Sadovsky, S; Šafařík, K; Sahlmuller, B; Sahoo, R; Sahu, P K; Saini, J; Salgado, C A; Salzwedel, J; Sambyal, S; Samsonov, V; Sanchez Castro, X; Sánchez Rodríguez, F J; Šándor, L; Sandoval, A; Sano, M; Santagati, G; Sarkar, D; Scapparone, E; Scarlassara, F; Scharenberg, R P; Schiaua, C; Schicker, R; Schmidt, C; Schmidt, H R; Schuchmann, S; Schukraft, J; Schulc, M; Schuster, T; Schutz, Y; Schwarz, K; Schweda, K; Scioli, G; Scomparin, E; Scott, R; Segato, G; Seger, J E; Sekiguchi, Y; Selyuzhenkov, I; Seo, J; Serradilla, E; Sevcenco, A; Shabetai, A; Shabratova, G; Shahoyan, R; Shangaraev, A; Sharma, N; Sharma, S; Shigaki, K; Shtejer, K; Sibiriak, Y; Siddhanta, S; Siemiarczuk, T; Silvermyr, D; Silvestre, C; Simatovic, G; Singaraju, R; Singh, R; Singha, S; Singhal, V; Sinha, B C; Sinha, T; Sitar, B; Sitta, M; Skaali, T B; Skjerdal, K; Smakal, R; Smirnov, N; Snellings, R J M; Søgaard, C; Soltz, R; Song, J; Song, M; Soramel, F; Sorensen, S; Spacek, M; Sputowska, I; Spyropoulou-Stassinaki, M; Srivastava, B K; Stachel, J; Stan, I; Stefanek, G; Steinpreis, M; Stenlund, E; Steyn, G; Stiller, J H; Stocco, D; Stolpovskiy, M; Strmen, P; Suaide, A A P; Sugitate, T; Suire, C; Suleymanov, M; Sultanov, R; Šumbera, M; Susa, T; Symons, T J M; Szanto de Toledo, A; Szarka, I; Szczepankiewicz, A; Szymanski, M; Takahashi, J; Tangaro, M A; Tapia Takaki, J D; Tarantola Peloni, A; Tarazona Martinez, A; Tauro, A; Tejeda Muñoz, G; Telesca, A; Terrevoli, C; Thäder, J; Thomas, D; Tieulent, R; Timmins, A R; Toia, A; Torii, H; Trubnikov, V; Trzaska, W H; Tsuji, T; Tumkin, A; Turrisi, R; Tveter, T S; Ulery, J; Ullaland, K; Uras, A; Usai, G L; Vajzer, M; Vala, M; Valencia Palomo, L; Vallero, S; Vande Vyvre, P; Vannucci, L; Van Hoorne, J W; van Leeuwen, M; Vargas, A; Varma, R; Vasileiou, M; Vasiliev, A; Vechernin, V; Veldhoen, M; Velure, A; Venaruzzo, M; Vercellin, E; Vergara Limón, S; Vernet, R; Verweij, M; Vickovic, L; Viesti, G; Viinikainen, J; Vilakazi, Z; Villalobos Baillie, O; Vinogradov, A; Vinogradov, L; Vinogradov, Y; Virgili, T; Viyogi, Y P; Vodopyanov, A; Völkl, M A; Voloshin, K; Voloshin, S A; Volpe, G; von Haller, B; Vorobyev, I; Vranic, D; Vrláková, J; Vulpescu, B; Vyushin, A; Wagner, B; Wagner, J; Wagner, V; Wang, M; Wang, Y; Watanabe, D; Weber, M; Wessels, J P; Westerhoff, U; Wiechula, J; Wikne, J; Wilde, M; Wilk, G; Wilkinson, J; Williams, M C S; Windelband, B; Winn, M; Xiang, C; Yaldo, C G; Yamaguchi, Y; Yang, H; Yang, P; Yang, S; Yano, S; Yasnopolskiy, S; Yi, J; Yin, Z; Yoo, I-K; Yushmanov, I; Zaccolo, V; Zach, C; Zaman, A; Zampolli, C; Zaporozhets, S; Zarochentsev, A; Závada, P; Zaviyalov, N; Zbroszczyk, H; Zgura, I S; Zhalov, M; Zhang, H; Zhang, X; Zhang, Y; Zhao, C; Zhigareva, N; Zhou, D; Zhou, F; Zhou, Y; Zhu, H; Zhu, J; Zhu, X; Zichichi, A; Zimmermann, A; Zimmermann, M B; Zinovjev, G; Zoccarato, Y; Zynovyev, M; Zyzak, M

    The inclusive production cross sections at forward rapidity of [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text](1S) and [Formula: see text](2S) are measured in [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text] with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The analysis is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.35 pb[Formula: see text]. Quarkonia are reconstructed in the dimuon-decay channel and the signal yields are evaluated by fitting the [Formula: see text] invariant mass distributions. The differential production cross sections are measured as a function of the transverse momentum [Formula: see text] and rapidity [Formula: see text], over the ranges [Formula: see text] GeV/c for [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text] GeV/c for all other resonances and for [Formula: see text]. The measured cross sections integrated over [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], and assuming unpolarized quarkonia, are: [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]b, [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]b, [Formula: see text] nb and [Formula: see text] nb, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second one is systematic. The results are compared to measurements performed by other LHC experiments and to theoretical models.

  15. Clinical differences between younger and older adults with HIV/AIDS starting antiretroviral therapy in Uganda and Zimbabwe: a secondary analysis of the DART trial.

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    Sujal M Parikh

    Full Text Available Clinical and immunological data about HIV in older adults from low and middle income countries is scarce. We aimed to describe differences between younger and older adults with HIV starting antiretroviral therapy in two low-income African countries.HIV clinics in Uganda and Zimbabwe.Secondary exploratory cross-sectional analysis of the DART randomized controlled trial.Clinical and laboratory characteristics were compared between adults aged 18-49 years (younger and ≥ 50 years (older, using two exploratory multivariable logistic regression models, one with HIV viral load (measured in a subset pre-ART and one without.A total of 3316 eligible participants enrolled in DART were available for analysis; 219 (7% were ≥ 50 years and 1160 (35% were male. Across the two adjusted regression models, older adults had significantly higher systolic blood pressure, lower creatinine clearance and were consistently less likely to be females compared to younger adults with HIV. Paradoxically, the models separately suggested that older adults had statistically significant (but not clinically important higher CD4+ cell counts and higher plasma HIV-1 viral copies at initiation. Crude associations between older age and higher baseline hemoglobin, body mass index, diastolic blood pressure and lower WHO clinical stage were not sustained in the adjusted analysis.Our study found clinical and immunological differences between younger and older adults, in a cohort of Africans starting antiretroviral therapy. Further investigations should explore how these differences could be used to ensure equity in service delivery and affect outcomes of antiretroviral therapy.

  16. Cell Phoning and Texting While Driving

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Judy Honoria Rosaire Telemaque

    2015-07-01

    Full Text Available A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted on the consequences of cell phone use while operating a vehicle. We discussed why talking and texting on cell phones are so popular through the analysis of our interviews with police officers, driving instructors, and parents of teens and young adults. The participants came from central, northeastern, northwestern, and southeastern Connecticut. All had exposure with respect to the effects of cell phone usage problem. The study reached a point of theoretical saturation or redundancy by which the analysis no longer resulted in new themes. We concluded that the discoveries revealed the necessity for education, expansion of technology, and additional driver education preparation, which may provide a path for leadership to help solve the problem.

  17. Expression Analysis of Multiple Genes May Involve in Antimony Resistance among Leishmania major Clinical Isolates from Fars Province, Central Iran

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nafiseh GHOBAKHLOO

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: Treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL is being faced with serious difficulties in Fars Province, due to emerging of resistance against meglumine antimonite (Glucantime®. In this context, determining some biomarkers for drug sensitivity monitoring seems to be highly essential. Different studies have been carried out to decipher the genes might be involved in antimony resistant phenotype in Leishmania spp. Here, we selected three genes: AQP (as drug transporter, TDR-1-1(as drug activator, and γ-GCS (inducing reduction environment for comparative expression analysis on clinical resistant and sensitive isolates of L. major.Methods: The clinical isolates of L. major were collected from CL patients referred to Valfajr Health Center, Shiraz from Oct 2011 to Feb 2012. The susceptibility test was performed to confirm drug sensitivity of strains in vitro as well. Then, the gene expression analysis was performed by quantitative real-time PCR using SYBR® Green.Results: By comparison of expression level between strains, up regulation of γ-GCS gene and down regulation of AQP gene were observed in resistant strains compared to the sensitive isolates; however, down regulation of AQP was not statistically specific. Analysis of TDR-1-1 gene unexpectedly showed a high level of expression in the non-responsive cases.Conclusion: The γ-GCS, at least, can be considered as a suitable molecular marker for screening antimony sensitivity in clinical isolates, although AQP and TDR-1-1gene seem not to be reliable resistant markers. 

  18. Active learning for clinical text classification: is it better than random sampling?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Figueroa, Rosa L; Ngo, Long H; Goryachev, Sergey; Wiechmann, Eduardo P

    2012-01-01

    Objective This study explores active learning algorithms as a way to reduce the requirements for large training sets in medical text classification tasks. Design Three existing active learning algorithms (distance-based (DIST), diversity-based (DIV), and a combination of both (CMB)) were used to classify text from five datasets. The performance of these algorithms was compared to that of passive learning on the five datasets. We then conducted a novel investigation of the interaction between dataset characteristics and the performance results. Measurements Classification accuracy and area under receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves for each algorithm at different sample sizes were generated. The performance of active learning algorithms was compared with that of passive learning using a weighted mean of paired differences. To determine why the performance varies on different datasets, we measured the diversity and uncertainty of each dataset using relative entropy and correlated the results with the performance differences. Results The DIST and CMB algorithms performed better than passive learning. With a statistical significance level set at 0.05, DIST outperformed passive learning in all five datasets, while CMB was found to be better than passive learning in four datasets. We found strong correlations between the dataset diversity and the DIV performance, as well as the dataset uncertainty and the performance of the DIST algorithm. Conclusion For medical text classification, appropriate active learning algorithms can yield performance comparable to that of passive learning with considerably smaller training sets. In particular, our results suggest that DIV performs better on data with higher diversity and DIST on data with lower uncertainty. PMID:22707743

  19. Identifying novel phenotypes of acute heart failure using cluster analysis of clinical variables.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horiuchi, Yu; Tanimoto, Shuzou; Latif, A H M Mahbub; Urayama, Kevin Y; Aoki, Jiro; Yahagi, Kazuyuki; Okuno, Taishi; Sato, Yu; Tanaka, Tetsu; Koseki, Keita; Komiyama, Kota; Nakajima, Hiroyoshi; Hara, Kazuhiro; Tanabe, Kengo

    2018-07-01

    Acute heart failure (AHF) is a heterogeneous disease caused by various cardiovascular (CV) pathophysiology and multiple non-CV comorbidities. We aimed to identify clinically important subgroups to improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of AHF and inform clinical decision-making. We evaluated detailed clinical data of 345 consecutive AHF patients using non-hierarchical cluster analysis of 77 variables, including age, sex, HF etiology, comorbidities, physical findings, laboratory data, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram and treatment during hospitalization. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to estimate the association between the clusters and clinical outcomes. Three clusters were identified. Cluster 1 (n=108) represented "vascular failure". This cluster had the highest average systolic blood pressure at admission and lung congestion with type 2 respiratory failure. Cluster 2 (n=89) represented "cardiac and renal failure". They had the lowest ejection fraction (EF) and worst renal function. Cluster 3 (n=148) comprised mostly older patients and had the highest prevalence of atrial fibrillation and preserved EF. Death or HF hospitalization within 12-month occurred in 23% of Cluster 1, 36% of Cluster 2 and 36% of Cluster 3 (p=0.034). Compared with Cluster 1, risk of death or HF hospitalization was 1.74 (95% CI, 1.03-2.95, p=0.037) for Cluster 2 and 1.82 (95% CI, 1.13-2.93, p=0.014) for Cluster 3. Cluster analysis may be effective in producing clinically relevant categories of AHF, and may suggest underlying pathophysiology and potential utility in predicting clinical outcomes. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Clinical scoring and instrumental analysis to evaluate skin types.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mercurio, D G; Segura, J H; Demets, M B A; Maia Campos, P M B G

    2013-04-01

    The biology of the skin is very complex, and there are a number of methods used to classify the different skin types. It is possible to measure or quantify the characteristics of the specific skin types, using a variety of techniques that can objectively evaluate the properties of the skin in a noninvasive manner. To clinically characterize different skin types by dermatological evaluation and biophysical and skin imaging techniques, and to evaluate the relationship between the different characteristics. The study recruited 26 volunteers. Clinical scoring was performed by a dermatologist who classified the volunteers' skin as normal or dry (group 1) and combination or oily (group 2). Objective measurements included skin microrelief, pH, oiliness, water content of the stratum corneum and transepidermal water loss (TEWL). Positive correlations were found between the level of skin oiliness and skin texture obtained from both instrumental analysis and clinical scoring. The combination and oily skin types had higher clinical scores for shine intensity, oiliness and tendency to pigmentation, and also had higher objective scores for sebum secretion, TEWL and roughness. Biophysical and skin imaging techniques are effective tools to help characterize skin type and assist in clinical dermatology. We found that different skin types had different characteristics related to skin microrelief, oiliness and TEWL, and therefore require specific dermatological treatments. © The Author(s) CED © 2013 British Association of Dermatologists.

  1. BOVINE PLASMA FIBRINOGEN AS MARKER IN CLINICAL AND SUB-CLINICAL MASTITIS

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    R. Ali

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Plasma samples were collected from healthy as well as clinical and sub-clinical mastitis affected cows from Barasat, West Bengal, India. Plasma samples, after ammonium sulphate precipitation, were dialyzed against several changes of PBS (pH 7.2 to remove the excess ammonium sulphate. Then plasma fibrinogens were purified by gel filtration chromatography on Sephacryl S-200 HR. SDS-PAGE (10% of purified fibrinogen from plasma of healthy cow revealed polypeptide bands of 74, 67 and 57 kDa which represent the α (alpha, β (beta and γ (gamma- chains respectively. On the other hand, purified fibrinogen from plasma of sub-clinical and clinical mastitis affected cow revealed polypeptide bands of 73 (α-chain, 68 kDa (β-chain and 72 (γ-chain, 68 kDa (β-chain respectively. The SDS-PAGE analysis showed the absence of gamma (γ- chain of fibrinogen in both the samples of sub-clinical and clinical mastitis positive cow. Single precipitin line was observed in double immunodiffusion test when purified fibrinogen from healthy, clinical and subclinical mastitis positive cows reacted with hyper immune sera raised in rabbit. No precipitin line was found against the normal control serum. These purified fibrinogens also showed cross reactivity against antibody raised in rabbit when analyzed by western blot technique.

  2. Clinical and economic analysis of voriconazole using for treatment of invasive aspergillosis in Russian Federation

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    V. I. Ignatieva

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Based on clinical studies data voriconazole is recommended as the drug of choice for treatment of invasive aspergillosis (IA – a widespread infectious complications occurring in immunocompromised patients and is characterized by severe clinical course and high mortality.The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of voriconazole compared to other preparations recommended in the Russian practice for the treatment of IA in adult patients.Materials and methods. The authors constructed a «decision tree» type of model, which compared the three treatment alternatives for the IA in adult patients, depending on the drug in first-line therapy: 1 voriconazole, 2, caspofungin, or 3 amphotericin B lipid complex (LC. Efficacy was assessed as the probability of patient survival within 14 weeks of starting treatment. We took into account the drugs cost and an increase in the hospitalization duration due to the development of serious adverse events. The model parameters were determined on the basis of the published results of clinical studies, the costs were calculated on the basis of medicines prices in the public procurement and the average bed-day cost in system of obligatory health insurance. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis was performed.Results. It has been shown that the use of voriconazole for treatment of IA is the dominant strategy compared to the use of caspofungin and amphotericin B LC, providing cost reduction while achieving maximum effect. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis (1000 simulations showed stability of the revealed pattern.Conclusion. The use of voriconazole in the treatment of IA allows to save the greatest number of lives at minimal cost compared to other preparations recommended in the Russian practice.

  3. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... clinical trials contribute to medical knowledge and practice. Why Clinical Trials Are Important Clinical trials are a ... will be done during the clinical trial and why. Each medical center that does the study uses ...

  4. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... Studies Learn more about Children and Clinical Studies Importance of Children in Clinical Studies Children have often ... participants. Children and Clinical Studies Learn about the importance of children in clinical studies and get answers ...

  5. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... medical strategy, treatment, or device is safe and effective for humans. What Are Clinical Trials? Clinical trials ... and Centers sponsor clinical trials. Many other groups, companies, and organizations also sponsor clinical trials. Examples include ...

  6. Good news or bad news: Conducting sentiment analysis on Dutch texts to distinguish between positive and negative relations

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Atteveldt, W.H.; Kleinnijenhuis, J.; Ruigrok, N.; Schlobach, S.

    2008-01-01

    Many research questions in political communication can be answered by representing text as a network of positive or negative relations between actors and issues such as conducted by semantic network analysis. This article presents a system for automatically determining the polarity

  7. Medical school clinical placements - the optimal method for assessing the clinical educational environment from a graduate entry perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hyde, Sarah; Hannigan, Ailish; Dornan, Tim; McGrath, Deirdre

    2018-01-05

    Educational environment is a strong determinant of student satisfaction and achievement. The learning environments of medical students on clinical placements are busy workplaces, composed of many variables. There is no universally accepted method of evaluating the clinical learning environment, nor is there consensus on what concepts or aspects should be measured. The aims of this study were to compare the Dundee ready educational environment measure (DREEM - the current de facto standard) and the more recently developed Manchester clinical placement index (MCPI) for the assessment of the clinical learning environment in a graduate entry medical student cohort by correlating the scores of each and analysing free text comments. This study also explored student perceptionof how the clinical educational environment is assessed. An online, anonymous survey comprising of both the DREEM and MCPI instruments was delivered to students on clinical placement in a graduate entry medical school. Additional questions explored students' perceptions of instruments for giving feedback. Numeric variables (DREEM score, MCPI score, ratings) were tested for normality and summarised. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to measure the strength of the association between total DREEM score and total MCPI scores. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the free text comments. The overall response rate to the questionnaire was 67% (n = 180), with a completed response rate for the MCPI of 60% (n = 161) and for the DREEM of 58% (n = 154). There was a strong, positive correlation between total DREEM and MCPI scores (r = 0.71, p < 0.001). On a scale of 0 to 7, the mean rating for how worthwhile students found completing the DREEM was 3.27 (SD 1.41) and for the MCPI was 3.49 (SD 1.57). 'Finding balance' and 'learning at work' were among the themes to emerge from analysis of free text comments. The present study confirms that DREEM and MCPI total scores are strongly correlated

  8. Clinical effect of platelet rich plasma in the treatment of periodontal intrabony defects.Systematic review and meta-analysis.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heber Arbildo

    2017-04-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: One of the consequences of periodontitis is periodontal intrabony defects (PID. Various biomaterials have been used for its treatment, but there is still no biomaterial considered as the gold standard. Current research is focused on the use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP for the treatment of PID. Objective: To determine the clinical effect of PRP in the treatment of PID through a systematic review with meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: A literature search was conducted until February 2017 in the biomedical databases: Pubmed, Embase, Scielo, Science Direct, SIGLE, LILACS, IBECS, and the Cochrane Central Register of Clinical Trials. The criteria for the selection of the studies, which were randomized clinical trials, were the following: articles or papers published in the last 5 years, reporting clinical effects, with a follow-up time equal to or greater than 6 months, and a sample size equal to or greater than 10 patients reporting the use of PRP as a treatment for PID. The methodological quality of the studies was analyzed using the Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews of Interventions as a reference. Results: The search strategy yielded nine articles reporting a reduction in probing depth and gingival recession, and an increase in clinical insertion level when using PRP alone or in combination with another biomaterial. Conclusion: The reviewed literature suggests that the use of PRP in the treatment of PID has a positive clinical effect.

  9. Efficacy of a text messaging (SMS) based intervention for adults with hypertension: protocol for the StAR (SMS Text-message Adherence suppoRt trial) randomised controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bobrow, Kirsty; Brennan, Thomas; Springer, David; Levitt, Naomi S; Rayner, Brian; Namane, Mosedi; Yu, Ly-Mee; Tarassenko, Lionel; Farmer, Andrew

    2014-01-11

    Interventions to support people with hypertension in attending clinics and taking their medication have potential to improve outcomes, but delivery on a wide scale and at low cost is challenging. Some trials evaluating clinical interventions using short message service (SMS) text-messaging systems have shown important outcomes, although evidence is limited. We have developed a novel SMS system integrated with clinical care for use by people with hypertension in a low-resource setting. We aim to test the efficacy of the system in improving blood pressure control and treatment adherence compared to usual care. The SMS Text-message Adherence suppoRt trial (StAR) is a pragmatic individually randomised three-arm parallel group trial in adults treated for hypertension at a single primary care centre in Cape Town, South Africa. The intervention is a structured programme of clinic appointment, medication pick-up reminders, medication adherence support and hypertension-related education delivered remotely using an automated system with either informational or interactive SMS text-messages. Usual care is supplemented by infrequent non-hypertension related SMS text-messages. Participants are 1:1:1 individually randomised, to usual care or to one of the two active interventions using minimisation to dynamically adjust for gender, age, baseline systolic blood pressure, years with hypertension, and previous clinic attendance. The primary outcome is the change in mean systolic blood pressure at 12-month follow-up from baseline measured with research staff blinded to trial allocation. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of patients with 80% or more of days medication available, proportion of participants achieving a systolic blood pressure less than 140 mmHg and a diastolic blood pressure less than 90 mmHg, hospital admissions, health status, retention in clinical care, satisfaction with treatment and care, and patient related quality of life. Anonymised demographic data

  10. Intramuscular leukemic relapse: clinical signs and imaging findings. A multicentric analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Surov, Alexey [Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Radiology, Halle (Germany); University of Leipzig, Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Leipzig (Germany); Kiratli, Hayyam [Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Department of Ophthalmology, Ankara (Turkey); Im, Soo Ah [Seoul St. Mary' s Hospital, Department of Radiology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Manabe, Yasuhiro [National Hospital Organization Okayama Medical Center, Department of Neurology, Okayama (Japan); O' Neill, Alibhe; Shinagare, Atul B. [Brigham and Women' s Hospital, Department of Radiology, Boston, MA (United States); Spielmann, Rolf Peter [Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Radiology, Halle (Germany)

    2014-09-26

    Leukemia is a group of malignant diseases involving peripheral blood and bone marrow. Extramedullary tumor manifestation in leukemia can also occur. They more often involve lymph nodes, skin, and bones. Intramuscular leukemic relapse (ILR) is very unusual. The aim of this analysis was to summarize the reported data regarding clinical signs and radiological features of ILR. The PubMed database was searched for publications related to ILR. After an analysis of all identified articles, 20 publications matched the inclusion criteria. The authors of the 20 publications were contacted and provided imaging of their cases for review. The following were recorded: age, gender, primary diagnosis, clinical signs, pattern, localization and size of the intramuscular leukemic relapse. Images of 16 patients were provided [8 computer tomographic (CT) images and 15 magnetic resonance images, MRI]. Furthermore, one patient with ILR was identified in our institutional database. Therefore, images of 17 patients were available for further analysis. Overall, 32 cases with ILR were included in the analysis. In most cases acute myeloid leukemia was diagnosed. Most ILRs were localized in the extremities (44 %) and in the extraocular muscles (44 %). Clinically, ILR manifested as local pain, swelling and muscle weakness. Radiologically, ILR presented most frequently with diffuse muscle infiltration. On postcontrast CT/MRI, most lesions demonstrated homogeneous enhancement. ILRs were hypo-/isointense on T1w and hyperintense on T2w images. ILR manifests commonly as focal pain, swelling and muscle weakness. ILR predominantly involved the extraocular musculature and the extremities. Radiologically, diffuse muscle infiltration was the most common imaging finding. (orig.)

  11. Texting while driving: is speech-based text entry less risky than handheld text entry?

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, J; Chaparro, A; Nguyen, B; Burge, R J; Crandall, J; Chaparro, B; Ni, R; Cao, S

    2014-11-01

    Research indicates that using a cell phone to talk or text while maneuvering a vehicle impairs driving performance. However, few published studies directly compare the distracting effects of texting using a hands-free (i.e., speech-based interface) versus handheld cell phone, which is an important issue for legislation, automotive interface design and driving safety training. This study compared the effect of speech-based versus handheld text entries on simulated driving performance by asking participants to perform a car following task while controlling the duration of a secondary text-entry task. Results showed that both speech-based and handheld text entries impaired driving performance relative to the drive-only condition by causing more variation in speed and lane position. Handheld text entry also increased the brake response time and increased variation in headway distance. Text entry using a speech-based cell phone was less detrimental to driving performance than handheld text entry. Nevertheless, the speech-based text entry task still significantly impaired driving compared to the drive-only condition. These results suggest that speech-based text entry disrupts driving, but reduces the level of performance interference compared to text entry with a handheld device. In addition, the difference in the distraction effect caused by speech-based and handheld text entry is not simply due to the difference in task duration. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Factors Enhancing Manpower Efficiency from the Viewpoint of Clinical and Non-clinical Faculty Members at Guilan University of Medical Sciences in 2011

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fardin Mehrabian

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: There are various factors that affect manpower efficiency. Identification of the most important and influential factors on efficiency is quite essential. Analysis of factors affecting manpower efficiency from the viewpoint of clinical and non-clinical faculty members at Guilan University of Medical Sciences in 2011.Methods: This descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional study was performed in October and November in 2011. The study sample consisted of 186 faculty members, including 128 clinical and 58 non-clinical. Instruments used to collect library data were questionnaire and field studies. Exploratory factor analysis with Varimax rotation was utilized to determine the factors influencing manpower efficiency as well as loading level of each of the variables. Results: Among clinical faculty members, 70.66% of changes in manpower efficiency, and among non-clinical faculty members, 79.57% of changes in manpower efficiency were explained by 9 and 8 factors, respectivelyConclusion: Staff empowerment and organizational culture were recognized as the most important factors enhancing manpower efficiency from the viewpoint of clinical and non-clinical faculty members, respectively.

  13. Hand on the wheel, mind on the mobile: an analysis of social factors contributing to texting while driving.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Seiler, Steven J

    2015-02-01

    In an era defined by social technology, mobile phones provide constant connection to others. However, they also present a very dangerous situation when people choose to use their mobile phones while driving. In particular, exchanging text messages while driving has resulted in numerous accidents and fatalities. The purpose of this study is to examine social factors that lead people to text while driving. Specifically, using a multivariate logistic regression analysis of data from a 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center, variables for general mobile talk, driving while talking on a mobile, using the Internet on a mobile, sexting, and various motivations for texting were examined to determine factors that increase the likelihood of texting while driving. The findings suggest that people engage in mobile multiplexing (i.e., communication using two or more media on the mobile) while driving. Additionally, exchanging text messages in public, and consequently texting while driving, has become normalized. Furthermore, people are socialized into such behaviors through observing others texting while driving and using a mobile recklessly while driving. Finally, a number of motivations for texting were found to increase the likelihood of texting while driving significantly. Ultimately, the author contends that texting while driving has become a cultural artifact in the United States, which conflicts with driver safety as well as laws prohibiting texting while driving. The findings of this study could inform future awareness campaigns and technology developers to help establish a safer driving environment within the multitasking culture.

  14. Quantification of human motion: gait analysis-benefits and limitations to its application to clinical problems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simon, Sheldon R

    2004-12-01

    The technology supporting the analysis of human motion has advanced dramatically. Past decades of locomotion research have provided us with significant knowledge about the accuracy of tests performed, the understanding of the process of human locomotion, and how clinical testing can be used to evaluate medical disorders and affect their treatment. Gait analysis is now recognized as clinically useful and financially reimbursable for some medical conditions. Yet, the routine clinical use of gait analysis has seen very limited growth. The issue of its clinical value is related to many factors, including the applicability of existing technology to addressing clinical problems; the limited use of such tests to address a wide variety of medical disorders; the manner in which gait laboratories are organized, tests are performed, and reports generated; and the clinical understanding and expectations of laboratory results. Clinical use is most hampered by the length of time and costs required for performing a study and interpreting it. A "gait" report is lengthy, its data are not well understood, and it includes a clinical interpretation, all of which do not occur with other clinical tests. Current biotechnology research is seeking to address these problems by creating techniques to capture data rapidly, accurately, and efficiently, and to interpret such data by an assortment of modeling, statistical, wave interpretation, and artificial intelligence methodologies. The success of such efforts rests on both our technical abilities and communication between engineers and clinicians.

  15. Clinical analysis on 159 cases of mechanical ocular trauma

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zi-Yao Liu

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available AIM: To provide the basis of security guidance and decreasing the incidence through a general investigation of the mechanical ocular trauma among all the common causes, occasions where getting hurt as well as the characteristics of the high-risk group, and by further analysis and monitoring of the clinical cases and follow-up visit, study the related key factors of influencing the prognosis statistically. METHODS: The data of the 159 cases with mechanical ocular trauma were recorded.RESULTS: We obtained the 159 subjects' ages, genders as well as mechanical ocular trauma characteristic data, such as ocular distributions, the seasons of the injuries occurring, the causes and the occasions of the injuries, the high-risks group and so on. The factors affecting the visual prognosis,univariate analysis showed that the difference between urban and rural areas was a related influencing factor while the consulting hours and the ages of the patients were irrelevant. In the multivariate Logistic regression model of complications that affected the visual prognosis, there were four main factors leading to poor eyesight: endophthalmitis, retinal detachment, luxation or subluxation of the lens, prolapse of vitreous. In the multivariate Logistic regression model of the visual prognosis of mechanical eye injury, there were three factors of concern that corresponded to poor eyesight: the ages less than 10, zonation Ⅲ, grade of injury more than 3. CONCLUSION: The epidemiologic features of the mechanical ocular trauma in our hospital correspond to the reports from other areas. Appropriate medical care can improve the visual prognosis. Factors such as zonation Ⅲ, ages less than 10, grade of injury more than 3, endophthalmitis with the eye injury, prolapse of vitreous, luxation or subluxation of the lens and so on, indicate poor visual prognosis.

  16. Text-interpreter language for flexible generation of patient notes and instructions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forker, T S

    1992-01-01

    An interpreted computer language has been developed along with a windowed user interface and multi-printer-support formatter to allow preparation of documentation of patient visits, including progress notes, prescriptions, excuses for work/school, outpatient laboratory requisitions, and patient instructions. Input is by trackball or mouse with little or no keyboard skill required. For clinical problems with specific protocols, the clinician can be prompted with problem-specific items of history, exam, and lab data to be gathered and documented. The language implements a number of text-related commands as well as branching logic and arithmetic commands. In addition to generating text, it is simple to implement arithmetic calculations such as weight-specific drug dosages; multiple branching decision-support protocols for paramedical personnel (or physicians); and calculation of clinical scores (e.g., coma or trauma scores) while simultaneously documenting the status of each component of the score. ASCII text files produced by the interpreter are available for computerized quality audit. Interpreter instructions are contained in text files users can customize with any text editor.

  17. The therapeutic effect of clinical trials: understanding placebo response rates in clinical trials – A secondary analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Walach Harald

    2005-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background and purpose Placebo response rates in clinical trials vary considerably and are observed frequently. For new drugs it can be difficult to prove effectiveness superior to placebo. It is unclear what contributes to improvement in the placebo groups. We wanted to clarify, what elements of clinical trials determine placebo variability. Methods We analysed a representative sample of 141 published long-term trials (randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled; duration > 12 weeks to find out what study characteristics predict placebo response rates in various diseases. Correlational and regression analyses with study characteristics and placebo response rates were carried out. Results We found a high and significant correlation between placebo and treatment response rate across diseases (r = .78; p Conclusion Medication response rates and placebo response rates in clinical trials are highly correlated. Trial characteristics can explain some portion of the variance in placebo healing rates in RCTs. Placebo response in trials is only partially due to methodological artefacts and only partially dependent on the diagnoses treated.

  18. Intertextuality in the texts of Ancient Egypt: an analysis of the "sandbanks"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leila Salem

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Literary texts emerged in ancient Egypt at the beginning of the 12th Dynasty. Nevertheless some metaphors, topics and expressions that are recurrent in the texts of fiction belong to other narrative fields, like the texts of the tombs or monumental. The concept of intertextuality allows us to analyze how literary texts permanently dialogue with other types of expressive discourses, putting in question the individual authorship of the same, since the literary text participates and is part of a broader, interconnected textuality, without a single mentor. Through the expression Tsw "sandbanks" we will analyze the intertextual relationship of the literary texts of the Middle Kingdom with the autobiographies of the Ancient Kingdom, and the First Intermediate Period and some religious texts of the New Kingdom as the Books of the Amduat. In this way, we will discuss the different meanings that the expression Tsw was acquiring according to the textual and historical context in which it was expressed. This allows us to conclude that the literary text is nourished by diversity and narrates topics that do not entirely belong to it, that is, it fictionalizes metaphors, expressions, ideas, texts that we find in nonfiction narratives but which are nourished by their meanings.

  19. Radiographic and Clinical Analysis of Lateral Epicondylitis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shillito, Matthew; Soong, Maximillian; Martin, Nicholas

    2017-06-01

    The literature suggests that radiographs may be unnecessary in the initial evaluation of lateral epicondylitis because treatment is rarely altered as a result of the radiographic findings. The most commonly reported radiographic finding is calcification at the lateral epicondyle. Our goal was to perform a quantitative and qualitative analysis of this finding to determine its importance and possible relationship with various clinical factors and patient-reported measures. All patients diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis by a single surgeon during a 5-year period were retrospectively reviewed. Age, sex, laterality, hand dominance, pain visual analog scale, duration of symptoms, Quick-Disability of the Arm, Shoulder, and Hand questionnaire score, and history of steroid injection were recorded. Calcifications on standard elbow radiographs, acquired digitally and viewed at 200% magnification on a 24-inch monitor, were characterized by size and relationship with the lateral epicondyle. We reviewed 245 patients diagnosed with lateral epicondylitis. A total of 115 elbows (47%) demonstrated lateral epicondyle calcifications. Patients with and without calcifications were similar with regard to clinical factors, as were patients with larger or smaller lesions. Eighty-five elbows (35%) had additional radiographic findings. Treatment was not altered by the radiographic findings in any case. Lateral epicondyle calcifications are much more common in lateral epicondylitis than previously reported, possibly owing to modern digital radiography and magnification, although they do not appear to be related to clinical factors including patient-reported measures. Thus, patients and surgeons should be careful to avoid overinterpretation of such findings. Although radiographs may be helpful in ruling out additional pathology, we did not find other clinically important contributions to the initial evaluation and management of this condition, and thus we do not recommend their routine use

  20. Gender bias in clinical case reports: A cross-sectional study of the "big five" medical journals.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pascale Allotey

    Full Text Available Gender bias in medical journals can affect the science and the benefit to patients. It has never been investigated in clinical case reports. The oversight is important because of the role clinical case reports play in hypothesis generation and medical education. We investigated contemporary gender bias in case reports for the highest ranked journals in general and internal medicine.PubMed case reports data from 2011 to 2016 were extracted for the Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association, The Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine. The gender of the patients were identified and a text analysis of the Medical Subject Headings conducted.A total of 2,742 case reports were downloaded and 2,582 (95.6% reports contributed to the final analysis. A pooled analysis showed a statistically significant gender bias against female case reports (0.45; 95%CI: 0.43-0.47. The Annals of Internal Medicine was the only journal with a point estimate (non significant in the direction of a bias against male patients. The text analysis identified no substantive difference in the focus of the case reports and no obvious explanation for the bias.Gender bias, previously identified in clinical research and in clinical authorship, extends into the patients presented in clinical case reports. Whether it is driven by authors or editors is not clear, but it likely contributes to and supports an overall male bias of clinical medicine.

  1. Frequency and content analysis of chronic fatigue syndrome in medical text books.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jason, Leonard A; Paavola, Erin; Porter, Nicole; Morello, Morgan L

    2010-01-01

    Text books are a cornerstone in the training of medical staff and students, and they are an important source of references and reviews for these professionals. The objective of this study was to determine both the quantity and quality of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) information included in medical texts. After reviewing 119 medical text books from various medical specialties, we found that 48 (40.3%) of the medical text books included information on CFS. However, among the 129 527 total pages within these medical text books, the CFS content was presented on only 116.3 (0.090%) pages. Other illnesses that are less prevalent, such as multiple sclerosis and Lyme disease, were more frequently represented in medical text books. These findings suggest that the topic ofCFS is underreported in published medical text books.

  2. AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENT‘S DESCRIPTIVE TEXT: SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rizka Maulina Wulandari

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In Indonesia where different languages co-exist, and where English is used as a foreign language, the learners‘ capabilities in writing toward English plays an important role in formulating effective learning method. This descriptive qualitative research aimed to investigate the student‘s errors in writing descriptive text in SFL perspectives. A secondary, yet important, objective of this research is also to design the appropriate pedagogical plans that can be used for junior high school students in Indonesian education based on the result of the research. The results indicated that the student has good control about the schematic structure of descriptive text although many of his idea still uses Indonesian context which make the reader can be confused in understanding his meaning. It can be concluded that there is intervention from L1, that is Indonesian language, while he wrote his descriptive text.. Hence, the study highlighted that cooperative learning could be an option as an appropriate learning method to solve the students problem on writing descriptive text.

  3. Clinical analysis of three children patients with MELAS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiao-jun LIU

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available This study aims to investigate the clinical manifestations, laboratory and imaging features, pathological and genetic testing, diagnosis and treatment in 3 children patients with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS. Focal refractory epileptic seizures were the main clinical manifestations of 3 children, at the same time with stroke-like episodes, exercise intolerance, short stature, paroxysmal headache, vomiting, cognitive impairment, visual impairment, increased blood lactic acid (LA level and metabolic acidosis. Head MRI showed the lesions were located in temporo-parieto-occipital lobes, and EEG showed slow-wave background, bilateral asymmetry and interictal epileptiform discharges of occiput. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA A3243G mutation was found in the peripheral blood samples of 2 cases. The mutation was not detected in the other case, however, the muscle biopsy revealed pathological changes of mitochondrial myopathy. All 3 cases were treated by antiepileptic drugs (AEDs including topiramate, levetiracetam and oxcarbazepine, and cocktail therapy. One case died of status epilepticus (SE after 46 months of follow-up, one case had stroke-like episodes for 2-3 times per year during the follow-up of 40 months, and one case was lost. The clinical manifestations, laboratory and imaging characteristics, pathological and genetic testing in children of MELAS have certain features, which will be helpful for early identification and definite diagnosis, and thus may reduce misdiagnosis and mistreatment. DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1672-6731.2016.05.009

  4. Important Text Characteristics for Early-Grades Text Complexity

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fitzgerald, Jill; Elmore, Jeff; Koons, Heather; Hiebert, Elfrieda H.; Bowen, Kimberly; Sanford-Moore, Eleanor E.; Stenner, A. Jackson

    2015-01-01

    The Common Core set a standard for all children to read increasingly complex texts throughout schooling. The purpose of the present study was to explore text characteristics specifically in relation to early-grades text complexity. Three hundred fifty primary-grades texts were selected and digitized. Twenty-two text characteristics were identified…

  5. Short message service or disService: issues with text messaging in a complex medical environment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Robert; Appel, Lora; Morra, Dante; Lo, Vivian; Kitto, Simon; Quan, Sherman

    2014-04-01

    Hospitals today are experiencing major changes in their clinical communication workflows as conventional numeric paging and face-to-face verbal conversations are being replaced by computer mediated communication systems. In this paper, we highlight the importance of understanding this transition and discuss some of the impacts that may emerge when verbal clinical conversations are replaced by short text messages. In-depth interviews (n=108) and non-participatory observation sessions (n=260h) were conducted on the General Internal Medicine wards at five academic teaching hospitals in Toronto, Canada. From our analysis of the qualitative data, we identified two major themes. De-contextualization of complex issues led to an increase in misinterpretation and an increase in back and forth messaging for clarification. Depersonalization of communication was due to less verbal conversations and face-to-face interactions and led to a negative impact on work relationships. Text-based communication in hospital settings led to the oversimplification of messages and the depersonalization of communication. It is important to recognize and understand these unintended consequences of new technology to avoid the negative impacts to patient care and work relationships. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Chapter 16: text mining for translational bioinformatics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cohen, K Bretonnel; Hunter, Lawrence E

    2013-04-01

    Text mining for translational bioinformatics is a new field with tremendous research potential. It is a subfield of biomedical natural language processing that concerns itself directly with the problem of relating basic biomedical research to clinical practice, and vice versa. Applications of text mining fall both into the category of T1 translational research-translating basic science results into new interventions-and T2 translational research, or translational research for public health. Potential use cases include better phenotyping of research subjects, and pharmacogenomic research. A variety of methods for evaluating text mining applications exist, including corpora, structured test suites, and post hoc judging. Two basic principles of linguistic structure are relevant for building text mining applications. One is that linguistic structure consists of multiple levels. The other is that every level of linguistic structure is characterized by ambiguity. There are two basic approaches to text mining: rule-based, also known as knowledge-based; and machine-learning-based, also known as statistical. Many systems are hybrids of the two approaches. Shared tasks have had a strong effect on the direction of the field. Like all translational bioinformatics software, text mining software for translational bioinformatics can be considered health-critical and should be subject to the strictest standards of quality assurance and software testing.

  7. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TEXTS OF JULIJE BENEŠIĆ AND JOSIP KOSOR (A COMPARISON

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marina Jemrić

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available A comparative analysis of two autobiographical texts of two contemporaries, Julije Benešić and Josip Kosor, is based on three aspects: analysis of basic tenets of autobiographical text, use of self-references, and the presence of literary panoramas in them. Analysis reveals that both autobiographical texts are autobiographies in the narrow sense of the term, but the thoughts contained in them take the form of associations in Benešić’s, and the form of chronological-travelogue elements in Kosor’s text. In both authors’ texts the auto-text encompasses both biographic and poetic elements. However, the tenets of literary panoramas in Benešić’s text are mostly expressed through topographic and natural elements with only occasional travelogue elements, while Kosor’s autobiographical text contains prominent topographic-travelogue panoramas.

  8. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... Health Topics / About Clinical Trials About Clinical Trials Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, ... tool for advancing medical knowledge and patient care. Clinical research is done only if doctors don't know ...

  9. Genome-Wide DNA Copy Number Analysis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Identifies New Genetic Markers Associated with Clinical Outcome.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maribel Forero-Castro

    Full Text Available Identifying additional genetic alterations associated with poor prognosis in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL is still a challenge.To characterize the presence of additional DNA copy number alterations (CNAs in children and adults with ALL by whole-genome oligonucleotide array (aCGH analysis, and to identify their associations with clinical features and outcome. Array-CGH was carried out in 265 newly diagnosed ALLs (142 children and 123 adults. The NimbleGen CGH 12x135K array (Roche was used to analyze genetic gains and losses. CNAs were analyzed with GISTIC and aCGHweb software. Clinical and biological variables were analyzed. Three of the patients showed chromothripsis (cth6, cth14q and cth15q. CNAs were associated with age, phenotype, genetic subtype and overall survival (OS. In the whole cohort of children, the losses on 14q32.33 (p = 0.019 and 15q13.2 (p = 0.04 were related to shorter OS. In the group of children without good- or poor-risk cytogenetics, the gain on 1p36.11 was a prognostic marker independently associated with shorter OS. In adults, the gains on 19q13.2 (p = 0.001 and Xp21.1 (p = 0.029, and the loss of 17p (p = 0.014 were independent markers of poor prognosis with respect to OS. In summary, CNAs are frequent in ALL and are associated with clinical parameters and survival. Genome-wide DNA copy number analysis allows the identification of genetic markers that predict clinical outcome, suggesting that detection of these genetic lesions will be useful in the management of patients newly diagnosed with ALL.

  10. CLINICAL CASE OF PARKES-WEBER-RUBASHOV SYNDROME

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    Zhdonec S. V.

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available A clinical case of one variant of congenital venous angiodysplasia – Parkes Weber-Rubashov syndrome of the right lower extremity is presented in the article. The features of its clinical presentation and diagnosis difficulties are described. The analysis of the scientific data and own clinical observation showed that Parkes Weber-Rubashov syndrome belongs to the rare congenital disease of the vascular system, in some cases with the absence of typical clinical manifestations and combination with other disorders of the venous system. The best method for diagnosing the syndrome is radiopaque arteriography. The separation of the patent’s arteriovenous fistulas is justified as a radical method of its surgical treatment.

  11. Text Mining of Supreme Administrative Court Jurisdictions

    OpenAIRE

    Feinerer, Ingo; Hornik, Kurt

    2007-01-01

    Within the last decade text mining, i.e., extracting sensitive information from text corpora, has become a major factor in business intelligence. The automated textual analysis of law corpora is highly valuable because of its impact on a company's legal options and the raw amount of available jurisdiction. The study of supreme court jurisdiction and international law corpora is equally important due to its effects on business sectors. In this paper we use text mining methods to investigate Au...

  12. Marketing and clinical trials: a case study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Entwistle Vikki A

    2007-11-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Publicly funded clinical trials require a substantial commitment of time and money. To ensure that sufficient numbers of patients are recruited it is essential that they address important questions in a rigorous manner and are managed well, adopting effective marketing strategies. Methods Using methods of analysis drawn from management studies, this paper presents a structured assessment framework or reference model, derived from a case analysis of the MRC's CRASH trial, of 12 factors that may affect the success of the marketing and sales activities associated with clinical trials. Results The case study demonstrates that trials need various categories of people to buy in – hence, to be successful, trialists must embrace marketing strategies to some extent. Conclusion The performance of future clinical trials could be enhanced if trialists routinely considered these factors.

  13. Intertext: On Connecting Text in the Building Process

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Lars Rune

    2015-01-01

    Actors in the building process are critically dependent on a corpus of written text that draws the distributed work tasks together. This paper introduces, on the basis of a field study, the concepts of corpus, intertext and intertextuality to the analysis of text in cooperative work practice. Thi...... type and the mediated type, may constitute the intertext of a particular task. By employing the concepts of corpus, intertext and intertextuality with respect to the study of the building process, this paper outlines an approach to the investigation of text in cooperative work.......Actors in the building process are critically dependent on a corpus of written text that draws the distributed work tasks together. This paper introduces, on the basis of a field study, the concepts of corpus, intertext and intertextuality to the analysis of text in cooperative work practice....... This paper shows that actors in the building process create intertext (connections) between complementary texts, in a particular situation and for a particular task. This has an integrating effect on the building process. Several types of intertextuality, including the complementary type, the intratextual...

  14. Best clinical trials reported in 2010.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garner, John B; Grayburn, Paul A; Yancy, Clyde W

    2011-07-01

    Each year, a number of clinical trials emerge with data sufficient to change clinical practice. Determining which findings will result in practice change and which will provide only incremental benefit can be a dilemma for clinicians. The authors review selected clinical trials reported in 2010 in journals, at society meetings, and at conferences, focusing on those studies that have the potential to change clinical practice. This review offers 3 separate means of analysis: an abbreviated text summary, organized by subject area; a comprehensive table of relevant clinical trials that provides a schematic review of the hypotheses, interventions, methods, primary end points, results, and implications; and a complete bibliography for further reading as warranted. It is hoped that this compilation of relevant clinical trials and their important findings released in 2010 will be of benefit in the everyday practice of cardiovascular medicine. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Automated Text Analysis Based on Skip-Gram Model for Food Evaluation in Predicting Consumer Acceptance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Augustine Yongwhi; Ha, Jin Gwan; Choi, Hoduk; Moon, Hyeonjoon

    2018-01-01

    The purpose of this paper is to evaluate food taste, smell, and characteristics from consumers' online reviews. Several studies in food sensory evaluation have been presented for consumer acceptance. However, these studies need taste descriptive word lexicon, and they are not suitable for analyzing large number of evaluators to predict consumer acceptance. In this paper, an automated text analysis method for food evaluation is presented to analyze and compare recently introduced two jjampong ramen types (mixed seafood noodles). To avoid building a sensory word lexicon, consumers' reviews are collected from SNS. Then, by training word embedding model with acquired reviews, words in the large amount of review text are converted into vectors. Based on these words represented as vectors, inference is performed to evaluate taste and smell of two jjampong ramen types. Finally, the reliability and merits of the proposed food evaluation method are confirmed by a comparison with the results from an actual consumer preference taste evaluation.

  16. Temporal analysis of text data using latent variable models

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Mølgaard, Lasse Lohilahti; Larsen, Jan; Goutte, Cyril

    2009-01-01

    Detecting and tracking of temporal data is an important task in multiple applications. In this paper we study temporal text mining methods for Music Information Retrieval. We compare two ways of detecting the temporal latent semantics of a corpus extracted from Wikipedia, using a stepwise...

  17. Text Analytics: the convergence of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Antonio Moreno

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The analysis of the text content in emails, blogs, tweets, forums and other forms of textual communication constitutes what we call text analytics. Text analytics is applicable to most industries: it can help analyze millions of emails; you can analyze customers’ comments and questions in forums; you can perform sentiment analysis using text analytics by measuring positive or negative perceptions of a company, brand, or product. Text Analytics has also been called text mining, and is a subcategory of the Natural Language Processing (NLP field, which is one of the founding branches of Artificial Intelligence, back in the 1950s, when an interest in understanding text originally developed. Currently Text Analytics is often considered as the next step in Big Data analysis. Text Analytics has a number of subdivisions: Information Extraction, Named Entity Recognition, Semantic Web annotated domain’s representation, and many more. Several techniques are currently used and some of them have gained a lot of attention, such as Machine Learning, to show a semisupervised enhancement of systems, but they also present a number of limitations which make them not always the only or the best choice. We conclude with current and near future applications of Text Analytics.

  18. A comprehensive and quantitative comparison of text-mining in 15 million full-text articles versus their corresponding abstracts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Westergaard, David; Stærfeldt, Hans-Henrik; Tønsberg, Christian; Jensen, Lars Juhl; Brunak, Søren

    2018-02-01

    Across academia and industry, text mining has become a popular strategy for keeping up with the rapid growth of the scientific literature. Text mining of the scientific literature has mostly been carried out on collections of abstracts, due to their availability. Here we present an analysis of 15 million English scientific full-text articles published during the period 1823-2016. We describe the development in article length and publication sub-topics during these nearly 250 years. We showcase the potential of text mining by extracting published protein-protein, disease-gene, and protein subcellular associations using a named entity recognition system, and quantitatively report on their accuracy using gold standard benchmark data sets. We subsequently compare the findings to corresponding results obtained on 16.5 million abstracts included in MEDLINE and show that text mining of full-text articles consistently outperforms using abstracts only.

  19. Work-engaged nurses for a better clinical learning environment: a ward-level analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tomietto, Marco; Comparcini, Dania; Simonetti, Valentina; Pelusi, Gilda; Troiani, Silvano; Saarikoski, Mikko; Cicolini, Giancarlo

    2016-05-01

    To correlate workgroup engagement in nursing teams and the clinical learning experience of nursing students. Work engagement plays a pivotal role in explaining motivational dynamics. Nursing education is workplace-based and, through their clinical placements, nursing students develop both their clinical competences and their professional identity. However, there is currently a lack of evidence on the role of work engagement related to students' learning experiences. A total of 519 nurses and 519 nursing students were enrolled in hospital settings. The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) was used to assess work engagement, and the Clinical Learning Environment and Supervision plus nurse Teacher (CLES+T) scale was used to assess students' learning experience. A multilevel linear regression analysis was performed. Group-level work engagement of nurses correlated with students' clinical learning experience (β = 0.11, P learning (respectively, β = 0.37, P education. Nursing education institutions and health-care settings need to conjointly work to build effective organisational climates. The results highlighted the importance of considering the group-level analysis to understand the most effective strategies of intervention for both organisations and nursing education. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. Medical Paraclinical Standards, Political Economy of Clinic, and Patients’ Clinical Dependency; A Critical Conversation Analysis of Clinical Counseling in South of Iran

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalateh Sadati, Ahmad; Iman, Mohammad Taghi; Bagheri Lankarani, Kamran

    2014-01-01

    Background: Despite its benefits and importance, clinical counseling affects the patient both psychosocially and socially. Illness labeling not only leads to many problems for patient and his/her family but also it imposes high costs to health care system. Among various factors, doctor-patient relationship has an important role in the clinical counseling and its medical approach. The goal of this study is to evaluate the nature of clinical counseling based on critical approach. Methods: The context of research is the second major medical training center in Shiraz, Iran. In this study, Critical Conversation Analysis was used based on the methodologies of critical theories. Among about 50 consultation meetings digitally recorded, 33 were selected for this study. Results: Results show that the nature of doctor-patient relationship in these cases is based on paternalistic model. On the other hand, in all consultations, the important values that were legitimated with physicians were medical paraclinical standards. Paternalism in one hand and standardization on the other leads to dependency of patients to the clinic. Conclusion: Although we can’t condone the paraclinical standards, clinical counseling and doctor-patient relationship need to reduce its dominance over counseling based on interpretation of human relations, paying attention to social and economical differences of peoples and biosocial and biocultural differences, and focusing on clinical examinations. Also, we need to accept that medicine is an art of interaction that can’t reduce it to instrumental and linear methods of body treatment. PMID:25349858

  1. Medical paraclinical standards, political economy of clinic, and patients' clinical dependency; a critical conversation analysis of clinical counseling in South of iran.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalateh Sadati, Ahmad; Iman, Mohammad Taghi; Bagheri Lankarani, Kamran

    2014-07-01

    Despite its benefits and importance, clinical counseling affects the patient both psychosocially and socially. Illness labeling not only leads to many problems for patient and his/her family but also it imposes high costs to health care system. Among various factors, doctor-patient relationship has an important role in the clinical counseling and its medical approach. The goal of this study is to evaluate the nature of clinical counseling based on critical approach. The context of research is the second major medical training center in Shiraz, Iran. In this study, Critical Conversation Analysis was used based on the methodologies of critical theories. Among about 50 consultation meetings digitally recorded, 33 were selected for this study. RESULTS show that the nature of doctor-patient relationship in these cases is based on paternalistic model. On the other hand, in all consultations, the important values that were legitimated with physicians were medical paraclinical standards. Paternalism in one hand and standardization on the other leads to dependency of patients to the clinic. Although we can't condone the paraclinical standards, clinical counseling and doctor-patient relationship need to reduce its dominance over counseling based on interpretation of human relations, paying attention to social and economical differences of peoples and biosocial and biocultural differences, and focusing on clinical examinations. Also, we need to accept that medicine is an art of interaction that can't reduce it to instrumental and linear methods of body treatment.

  2. Text mining in cancer gene and pathway prioritization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Luo, Yuan; Riedlinger, Gregory; Szolovits, Peter

    2014-01-01

    Prioritization of cancer implicated genes has received growing attention as an effective way to reduce wet lab cost by computational analysis that ranks candidate genes according to the likelihood that experimental verifications will succeed. A multitude of gene prioritization tools have been developed, each integrating different data sources covering gene sequences, differential expressions, function annotations, gene regulations, protein domains, protein interactions, and pathways. This review places existing gene prioritization tools against the backdrop of an integrative Omic hierarchy view toward cancer and focuses on the analysis of their text mining components. We explain the relatively slow progress of text mining in gene prioritization, identify several challenges to current text mining methods, and highlight a few directions where more effective text mining algorithms may improve the overall prioritization task and where prioritizing the pathways may be more desirable than prioritizing only genes.

  3. A break-even analysis of delivering a memory clinic by videoconferencing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Comans, Tracy A; Martin-Khan, Melinda; Gray, Leonard C; Scuffham, Paul A

    2013-10-01

    We analysed the costs of two kinds of dementia clinic. In the conventional clinic, held in a rural area, the specialist travels to the clinic from the city. In the videoconferencing clinic, patients are also seen in a rural area, but the specialist conducts the assessment by video from the city. The fixed costs common to both modalities, such as clinic infrastructure, were ignored. The total fixed cost of a monthly conventional clinic was $522 and the total fixed cost of a monthly videoconferencing clinic was $881. The additional variable cost of the specialist travelling to the conventional clinic was $2.62 per minute of the specialist's travelling time. The break-even point at which the cost of the two modalities is the same was just over two hours (138 min round trip). A sensitivity analysis showed that the break-even point was not particularly sensitive to changes in staff wages, but slightly more sensitive to the non labour costs of videoconferencing. Air travel is not an efficient alternative to travel by car. Reducing the number of clinics to six per year results in a much higher cost of running the videoconferencing service compared to the conventional service. Videoconferencing for the purpose of diagnosing dementia is both a reliable and cost effective method of health service provision when a specialist is required to drive for more than about two hours (round trip) to provide a memory disorder clinic service.

  4. Semantic Modeling for Exposomics with Exploratory Evaluation in Clinical Context

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jung-wei Fan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Exposome is a critical dimension in the precision medicine paradigm. Effective representation of exposomics knowledge is instrumental to melding nongenetic factors into data analytics for clinical research. There is still limited work in (1 modeling exposome entities and relations with proper integration to mainstream ontologies and (2 systematically studying their presence in clinical context. Through selected ontological relations, we developed a template-driven approach to identifying exposome concepts from the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS. The derived concepts were evaluated in terms of literature coverage and the ability to assist in annotating clinical text. The generated semantic model represents rich domain knowledge about exposure events (454 pairs of relations between exposure and outcome. Additionally, a list of 5667 disorder concepts with microbial etiology was created for inferred pathogen exposures. The model consistently covered about 90% of PubMed literature on exposure-induced iatrogenic diseases over 10 years (2001–2010. The model contributed to the efficiency of exposome annotation in clinical text by filtering out 78% of irrelevant machine annotations. Analysis into 50 annotated discharge summaries helped advance our understanding of the exposome information in clinical text. This pilot study demonstrated feasibility of semiautomatically developing a useful semantic resource for exposomics.

  5. [Clinical analysis of 6 cases of Bartter syndrome].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yin, Fang-mei; Zheng, Fang-qiu; Zhang, Xin; Wu, Mei-jun; Wei, Hong-yan; Ma, Zhong-shu; Lu, Biao; Qiu, Ming-cai

    2011-03-01

    To summarize the clinical characteristics of Bartter syndrome and investigate its pathogenesis. The clinical data of 6 cases of Bartter syndrome at our hospital from November 2006 to May 2010 were analyzed retrospectively. The onset age of Bartter syndrome was 13-35 years old. The main symptoms included weakness (6/6), paralysis (1/6), numbness (5/6) and tetany (4/6). All patients had normal blood pressure. The biochemical tests showed persistent hypokalemia, metabolic alkalosis (6/6) and hyperreninemia. The pathological examination of deltoid muscle biopsy showed the swelling, degeneration and necrosis of myocytes and the deposition of immunocomplex in myolemma. And the pathological examination of renal biopsy showed the hyperplasia of juxtaglomerular apparatus (5/6) and the deposition of immunocomplex. All symptoms were relieved after a therapy of potassium supplementation or a combination of indomethacin, spironolactone and immunosuppressant. When such clinical features as weakness, paralysis, tetany, hypokalemic alkalosis and normotension are encountered, Bartter syndrome should be suspected. Serum electrolytes, blood gas analysis and activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system should be examined for a definite diagnosis. The treatment of choice includes potassium and magnesium supplementation or in combination with prostaglandin synthetase inhibitor, aldosterone antagonist and immunosuppressant. Immunologic mechanism may participate in the course of Bartter syndrome.

  6. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... child to enroll. Also, children aged 7 and older often must agree (assent) to take part in clinical trials. Clinical trials for children have the same scientific safeguards as clinical trials for adults. For more information, go to "How Do Clinical ...

  7. When fear of cancer recurrence becomes a clinical issue: a qualitative analysis of features associated with clinical fear of cancer recurrence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mutsaers, Brittany; Jones, Georden; Rutkowski, Nicole; Tomei, Christina; Séguin Leclair, Caroline; Petricone-Westwood, Danielle; Simard, Sébastien; Lebel, Sophie

    2016-10-01

    Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is a common experience for cancer survivors. However, it remains unclear what characteristics differentiate non-clinical from clinical levels of FCR. The goal of this study was to investigate the potential hallmarks of clinical FCR. A convenience sample of 40 participants (n = 19 female) was drawn from another study (Lebel et al. in Qual Life Res 25:311-321. doi: 10.1007/s11136-015-1088-2 , 2016). The semi-structured interview for fear of cancer recurrence (Simard and Savard in J Cancer Surviv 9:481-491. doi: 10.1007/s11764-015-0424-4 , 2015) was used to identify participants with non-clinical and clinical FCR and qualitative analysis of these interviews was performed. Individuals with clinical FCR reported the following features: death-related thoughts, feeling alone, belief that the cancer would return, experiencing intolerance of uncertainty, having cancer-related thoughts and imagery that were difficult to control, daily and recurrent, lasted 30 minutes or more, increased over time, caused distress and impacted their daily life. Triggers of FCR and coping strategies did not appear to be features of clinical FCR as they were reported by participants with a range of FCR scores. While features of clinical FCR found in this analysis such as intrusive thoughts, distress and impact on functioning confirmed previous FCR research, other features spontaneously emerged from the interviews including "death-related thoughts," "feeling alone," and "belief that the cancer will return." The participants' descriptions of cancer-specific fear and worry suggest that FCR is a distinct phenomenon related to cancer survivorship, despite similarities with psychological disorders (e.g., Anxiety Disorders). Future research investigating the construct of FCR, and the distinguishing features of clinical FCR across a range of cancer types and gender is required.

  8. Identifying issue frames in text.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eyal Sagi

    Full Text Available Framing, the effect of context on cognitive processes, is a prominent topic of research in psychology and public opinion research. Research on framing has traditionally relied on controlled experiments and manually annotated document collections. In this paper we present a method that allows for quantifying the relative strengths of competing linguistic frames based on corpus analysis. This method requires little human intervention and can therefore be efficiently applied to large bodies of text. We demonstrate its effectiveness by tracking changes in the framing of terror over time and comparing the framing of abortion by Democrats and Republicans in the U.S.

  9. Retrospective analysis of patients clinical manifestations before and after pheochromocytoma surgery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Balazovjech, I; Davidova, H; Breza, J

    2004-01-01

    A retrospective analysis of presurgical clinical picture and blood pressures of 34 patients with histologically verified pheochromocytoma. Assessment of clinical state, blood pressure and prognosis in the course of patients control hospitalizations from 2001 to 2002. The study was designed as a synoptic one, based on a retrospective analysis of 34 patients records with histologically verified pheochromocytoma (26 women and 8 men). Our assessments of clinical symptomatology, maximum paroxysmal hypertension values, average blood pressure values in patients with persistent arterial hypertension, arterial hypertension grade and circadian index were based on patients records. Patients epinephrectomies were followed during their control hospitalizations to assess their clinical state. Their blood pressures were evaluated by means of their circadian monitoring. From the 34 patients, 21 were diagnosed with solitary pheochromocytomas. The circadian index persistence analysis prior to the surgery was associated with circadian blood pressure monitoring in 21 patients. It was lost in 57% of patients. During their control hospitalization as many as 82% of patients preserved their circadian blood pressure variability with a more than 10% decrease in the night time, 5 patients did not preserve their circadian blood pressure variability. Seven from the original 34 patients died: Three of them died from their primary disease, one 63-year old man died from shock following tumour extirpation. The death of other 3 patients was not associated with their primary disease. Long-lasting survival of patients with pheochromocytoma after surgical treatment--except for those with malignant disease--was demonstrated. Although our assessment of the resulting treatment effects was positive, a long-term follow-up is inevitable because of a difficult pathologic-anatomical verification of the malignant nature of the disease as well as of the risk of tumour relapse assessment. (Tab. 1, Fig. 5, Ref 36.)

  10. Extensive next-generation sequencing analysis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia at diagnosis: clinical and biological correlations

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gian Matteo Rigolin

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background In chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL, next-generation sequencing (NGS analysis represents a sensitive, reproducible, and resource-efficient technique for routine screening of gene mutations. Methods We performed an extensive biologic characterization of newly diagnosed CLL, including NGS analysis of 20 genes frequently mutated in CLL and karyotype analysis to assess whether NGS and karyotype results could be of clinical relevance in the refinement of prognosis and assessment of risk of progression. The genomic DNA from peripheral blood samples of 200 consecutive CLL patients was analyzed using Ion Torrent Personal Genome Machine, a NGS platform that uses semiconductor sequencing technology. Karyotype analysis was performed using efficient mitogens. Results Mutations were detected in 42.0 % of cases with 42.8 % of mutated patients presenting 2 or more mutations. The presence of mutations by NGS was associated with unmutated IGHV gene (p = 0.009, CD38 positivity (p = 0.010, risk stratification by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH (p < 0.001, and the complex karyotype (p = 0.003. A high risk as assessed by FISH analysis was associated with mutations affecting TP53 (p = 0.012, BIRC3 (p = 0.003, and FBXW7 (p = 0.003 while the complex karyotype was significantly associated with TP53, ATM, and MYD88 mutations (p = 0.003, 0.018, and 0.001, respectively. By multivariate analysis, the multi-hit profile (≥2 mutations by NGS was independently associated with a shorter time to first treatment (p = 0.004 along with TP53 disruption (p = 0.040, IGHV unmutated status (p < 0.001, and advanced stage (p < 0.001. Advanced stage (p = 0.010, TP53 disruption (p < 0.001, IGHV unmutated status (p = 0.020, and the complex karyotype (p = 0.007 were independently associated with a shorter overall survival. Conclusions At diagnosis, an extensive biologic characterization including

  11. Clinical features and phylogenetic analysis of Coxsackievirus A9 in Northern Taiwan in 2011

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huang Yi-Chuan

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Coxsackievirus A9 (CA9 was one of the most prevalent serotype of enteroviral infections in Taiwan in 2011. After several patient series were reported in the 1960s and 1970s, few studies have focused on the clinical manifestations of CA9 infections. Our study explores and deepens the current understanding of CA9. Methods We analyzed the clinical presentations of 100 culture-proven CA9-infected patients in 2011 by reviewing their medical records and depicted the CA9 phylogenetic tree. Results Of the 100 patients with culture-proven CA9 infections, the mean (SD age was 4.6 (3.4 years and the male to female ratio was 1.9. For clinical manifestations, 96 patients (96% had fever and the mean (SD duration of fever was 5.9 (3.4 days. Sixty one patients (61% developed a skin rash, and the predominant pattern was a generalized non-itchy maculopapular rash without vesicular changes. While most patients showed injected throat, oral ulcers were found in only 19 cases (19%, among whom, 6 were diagnosed as herpangina. Complicated cases included: aseptic meningitis (n=8, bronchopneumonia (n=6, acute cerebellitis (n=1, and polio-like syndrome (n=1. Phylogenetic analysis for current CA9 strains is closest to the CA9 isolate 27-YN-2008 from the border area of mainland China and Myanmar. Conclusions The most common feature of CA9 during the 2011 epidemic in Taiwan is generalized febrile exanthema rather than herpangina or hand, foot, and mouth disease. Given that prolonged fever and some complications are possible, caution should be advised in assessing patients as well as in predicting the clinical course.

  12. Analysis of Art House Media Texts Use during Media Studies in the Student Audience (Alain Robbe-Grillet Movies Case Study)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fedorov, Alexander

    2012-01-01

    The study of media culture and virtual world requires knowledge and skills of the analysis of media texts of different levels of complexity. In this sense, the cinematic legacy of the great French writer, screenwriter and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008) gives productive opportunities for the analysis of works of the elite media culture…

  13. Mining the Text: 34 Text Features that Can Ease or Obstruct Text Comprehension and Use

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Sheida

    2012-01-01

    This article presents 34 characteristics of texts and tasks ("text features") that can make continuous (prose), noncontinuous (document), and quantitative texts easier or more difficult for adolescents and adults to comprehend and use. The text features were identified by examining the assessment tasks and associated texts in the national…

  14. Text Structuration Leading to an Automatic Summary System: RAFI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lehman, Abderrafih

    1999-01-01

    Describes the design and construction of Resume Automatique a Fragments Indicateurs (RAFI), a system of automatic text summary which sums up scientific and technical texts. The RAFI system transforms a long source text into several versions of more condensed texts, using discourse analysis, to make searching easier; it could be adapted to the…

  15. Comparing the characteristics of users of an online service for STI self-sampling with clinic service users: a cross-sectional analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barnard, Sharmani; Free, Caroline; Bakolis, Ioannis; Turner, Katy M E; Looker, Katharine J; Baraitser, Paula

    2018-02-07

    Online services for self-sampling at home could improve access to STI testing; however, little is known about those using this new modality of care. This study describes the characteristics of users of online services and compares them with users of clinic services. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of routinely collected data on STI testing activity from online and clinic sexual health services in Lambeth and Southwark between 1January 2016 and 31March 2016. Activity was included for chlamydia, gonorrhoea, HIV and syphilis testing for residents of the boroughs aged 16 years and older. Logistic regression models were used to explore potential associations between type of service use with age group, gender, ethnic group, sexual orientation, positivity and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) quintiles. We used the same methods to explore potential associations between return of complete samples for testing with age group, gender, ethnic group, sexual orientation and IMD quintiles among online users. 6456 STI tests were carried out by residents in the boroughs. Of these, 3582 (55.5%) were performed using clinic services and 2874 (44.5%) using the online service. In multivariate analysis, online users were more likely than clinic users to be aged between 20 and 30 years, female, white British, homosexual or bisexual, test negative for chlamydia or gonorrhoea and live in less deprived areas. Of the individuals that ordered a kit from the online service, 72.5% returned sufficient samples. In multivariate analysis, returners were more likely than non-returners to be aged >20 years and white British. Nearly half (44.5%) of all basic STI testing was done online, although the characteristics of users of clinic and online services differed and positivity rates for those using the online service for testing were lower. Clinics remain an important point of access for some groups. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article

  16. Making School Development Credible. Text, Context, Irony

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mats Börjesson

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available

    The article argues for the importance of an open, reflexive-methodological approach when switching between studying text, context and researcher activity. Close linguistic analysis can benefit from being linked with the researcher’s contextualisation of his empirical material as well as with more distanced readings. The more specific starting point for this article is that school development, like other similar terms such as school improvement and the like, makes use of linguistic building blocks with which whole narratives about today’s and tomorrow’s schools can be constructed. The subject of the study is a short text issued by the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen. Government language changes according to the authorities’ role in society and their own definitions of their functions, and an important aspect here is the legitimacy of the authorities’ texts. By means of various kinds of close linguistic analysis, the above-mentioned text is studied with regard to choice of categories, hierarchies of modalisation and the rhetorical effects of different types of formulations in a broader political-social landscape. The article concludes with a reflective discussion on the relationship between government language and irony as a stylistic device – a device that is based on the results of the close empirical analysis.[i]



    [i] The article is part of the project ”School  Development as Narrative”, funded by the Swedish Research Council. The author would like to thank the two reviewers for very valuable comments.

  17. Clinical registry for rheumatoid arthritis; a preliminary analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fakhr, A.; Hakim, F.; Zaidi, S.K.; Sharif, A.

    2017-01-01

    To establish a clinical registry for Rheumatoid Arthritis and delineate the most common symptoms that rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients experience in our set up. Study Design: Cross sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Study was carried out at Military Hospital (MH) Rawalpindi at Rheumatology Department during the period of Jan 2013 to Jun 2015. Material and Methods: A clinical registry for Rheumatoid Arthritis was developed as per criteria jointly developed by American College of Rheumatology (ACR) along with European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) (2010). Fifty-eight patients were registered after their informed consent and approval by Military Hospital (MH) Rawalpindi ethical committee. Age, gender and relevant clinical parameters of RA patients were recorded on case report forms and stored for analysis in the RA registry in Excel 2010. The figures were reported in frequencies and percentages. Results: Multiple joint pains (48.28%), fever (24.14%), morning stiffness of joints (22.41%) were the most common symptoms in RA patients. Other clinical manifestations included painful bilateral swollen joints (13.79%), pain in different parts of the body (10.34%), Raynaud's phenomenon (10.34%), malaise (8.62%), swollen body parts (8.62%), ulcers (8.62%), fatigue (6.90%), nodules on skin/elbow/interphalangeal joints (6.90%), deformities of fingers/ hand (3.45%), redness of eyes (3.45%), body rash (3.45%), inability to walk (3.45%), cervical lymphadenopathy (1.72%), stiffness of spine (1.72%) and myalgias (1.72%). Conclusion: It is concluded that multiple joint pains, fever and morning stiffness of joints are the most common symptoms of RA patients. (author)

  18. A pragmatic analysis of vulnerability in clinical research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wendler, David

    2017-09-01

    Identifying which subjects are vulnerable, and implementing safeguards to protect them, is widely regarded as essential to clinical research. Commentators have endorsed a number of responses to these challenges and have thereby made significant progress in understanding vulnerability in clinical research. At the same time, this literature points to a central contradiction which calls into question its potential to protect vulnerable subjects in practice. Specifically, analysis suggests that all human subjects are vulnerable and vulnerability in clinical research is comparative and context dependent, in the sense that individuals are vulnerable relative to others and in some contexts only. Yet, if everyone is vulnerable, there seems to be no point in citing the vulnerability of some individuals. Moreover, the conclusion that everyone is vulnerable seems inconsistent with the claims that vulnerability is comparative and context dependent, raising concern over whether it will be possible to develop a comprehensive account of vulnerability that is internally consistent. The solution to this dilemma lies in recognition of the fact that the practical significance of claims regarding vulnerability depends on the context in which they are used. The claims that appear to lead to the central contradiction are in fact accurate conclusions that follow from different uses of the term 'vulnerability'. The present manuscript describes this 'pragmatic' approach to vulnerability in clinical research and considers its implications for ensuring that subjects receive appropriate protection. Published 2017. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

  19. The use of weekly text messaging over 6 months was a feasible method for monitoring the clinical course of low back pain in patients seeking chiropractic care

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Axen, I.; Bodin, L.; Bergstrom, G.

    2012-01-01

    Objective: This study critically evaluates a new method of collecting frequent data using mobile phones and text messages. Fluctuating conditions such as low back pain (LBP) need frequent monitoring to describe the clinical course in detail and to account for individual and subgroup variations....... Study Design and Setting: In this multicentre prospective observational study, 262 subjects with nonspecific LBP were followed with weekly text messages for 6 months, with the question "How many days this previous week has your low back pain been bothersome?" The text replies were instantly recorded...... in a data file to be merged with baseline and follow up data (age, gender, pain intensity, duration, and self- rated health) collected through ordinary questionnaires. The response rate, user-friendliness, and compliance of this method were evaluated. Results: The mean response rate for the text messages...

  20. Clinical Trials

    Medline Plus

    Full Text Available ... of clinical trials contribute to medical knowledge and practice. Why Clinical Trials Are Important Clinical trials are a key ... Enterprise NHLBI has a strong tradition of supporting clinical trials that have not only shaped medical practice around the world, but have improved the health ...

  1. Healthcare-associated Pneumonia: Clinical Features and Retrospective Analysis Over 10 Years

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fei Qi

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Healthcare-associated pneumonia (HCAP is associated with drug-resistant pathogens and high mortality, and there is no clear evidence that this is due to inappropriate antibiotic therapy. This study was to elucidate the clinical features, pathogens, therapy, and outcomes of HCAP, and to clarify the risk factors for drug-resistant pathogens and prognosis. Methods: Retrospective observational study among hospitalized patients with HCAP over 10 years. The primary outcome was 30-day all-cause hospital mortality after admission. Demographics (age, gender, clinical features, and comorbidities, dates of admission, discharge and/or death, hospitalization costs, microbiological results, chest imaging studies, and CURB-65 were analyzed. Antibiotics, admission to Intensive Care Unit (ICU, mechanical ventilation, and pneumonia prognosis were recorded. Patients were dichotomized based on CURB-65 (low- vs. high-risk. Results: Among 612 patients (mean age of 70.7 years, 88.4% had at least one comorbidity. Commonly detected pathogens were Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and coagulase-negative staphylococci. Initial monotherapy with β-lactam antibiotics was the most common initial therapy (50%. Mean age, length of stay, hospitalization expenses, ICU admission, mechanical ventilation use, malignancies, and detection rate for P. aeruginosa, and Staphylococcus aureus were higher in the high-risk group compared with the low-risk group. CURB-65 ≥3, malignancies, and mechanical ventilation were associated with an increased mortality. Logistic regression analysis showed that cerebrovascular diseases and being bedridden were independent risk factors for HCAP. Conclusion: Initial treatment of HCAP with broad-spectrum antibiotics could be an appropriate approach. CURB-65 ≥3, malignancies, and mechanical ventilation may result in an increased mortality.

  2. Students' Learning Experiences from Didactic Teaching Sessions Including Patient Case Examples as Either Text or Video: A Qualitative Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedersen, Kamilla; Moeller, Martin Holdgaard; Paltved, Charlotte; Mors, Ole; Ringsted, Charlotte; Morcke, Anne Mette

    2017-10-06

    The aim of this study was to explore medical students' learning experiences from the didactic teaching formats using either text-based patient cases or video-based patient cases with similar content. The authors explored how the two different patient case formats influenced students' perceptions of psychiatric patients and students' reflections on meeting and communicating with psychiatric patients. The authors conducted group interviews with 30 medical students who volunteered to participate in interviews and applied inductive thematic content analysis to the transcribed interviews. Students taught with text-based patient cases emphasized excitement and drama towards the personal clinical narratives presented by the teachers during the course, but never referred to the patient cases. Authority and boundary setting were regarded as important in managing patients. Students taught with video-based patient cases, in contrast, often referred to the patient cases when highlighting new insights, including the importance of patient perspectives when communicating with patients. The format of patient cases included in teaching may have a substantial impact on students' patient-centeredness. Video-based patient cases are probably more effective than text-based patient cases in fostering patient-centered perspectives in medical students. Teachers sharing stories from their own clinical experiences stimulates both engagement and excitement, but may also provoke unintended stigma and influence an authoritative approach in medical students towards managing patients in clinical psychiatry.

  3. Analysis and clinical usefullness of cardiac ECT images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hayashi, Makoto; Kagawa, Masaaki; Yamada, Yukinori

    1983-01-01

    We estimated basically and clinically myocardial ECT image and ECG gated cardiac blood-pool ECT image. ROC curve is used for the evaluation of the accuracy in diagnostic myocardial infarction. The accuracy in diagnostic of MI is superior in myocardial ECT image and ECT estimation is unnecessary skillfulness and experience. We can absene the whole defect of MI than planar image by using ECT. LVEDV between estimated volume and contrast volume is according to it and get one step for automatic analysis of cardiac volume. (author)

  4. Framework for the impact analysis and implementation of Clinical Prediction Rules (CPRs)

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Wallace, Emma

    2011-10-14

    Abstract Clinical Prediction Rules (CPRs) are tools that quantify the contribution of symptoms, clinical signs and available diagnostic tests, and in doing so stratify patients according to the probability of having a target outcome or need for a specified treatment. Most focus on the derivation stage with only a minority progressing to validation and very few undergoing impact analysis. Impact analysis studies remain the most efficient way of assessing whether incorporating CPRs into a decision making process improves patient care. However there is a lack of clear methodology for the design of high quality impact analysis studies. We have developed a sequential four-phased framework based on the literature and the collective experience of our international working group to help researchers identify and overcome the specific challenges in designing and conducting an impact analysis of a CPR. There is a need to shift emphasis from deriving new CPRs to validating and implementing existing CPRs. The proposed framework provides a structured approach to this topical and complex area of research.

  5. A Contrastive Analysis of the Links of Textuality in Abstracts Written by Persian and English Writers in Clinical Psychology Journals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abbas Mehrabi Boshrabadi

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available It is generally agreed today that lexical cohesion is one of the fundamental elements of the text texture achieved through lexical semantic relations dominating the arrangement of propositional units in a text. Accordingly, this study sought to compare and contrast the textual links or lexical cohesive devices enlisted in the psychological abstracts written by Persian and English writers. To this end, 40 abstracts from Persian and English articles, 20 in each language, published in clinical psychology journals were randomly selected. The framework serving as tertium comprationis for analyzing lexical cohesion markers was derived from Halliday and Hasan’s (1976 model [Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman]. A frequency count analysis was employed to gauge the number of occurrences of cohesive links in the selected corpus. The results revealed that lexical links of synonymy and repetition were more frequent than other cohesive devices in both English and Persian abstracts.

  6. Clinical Use of Curcumin in Depression: A Meta-Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Qin Xiang; Koh, Shawn Shao Hong; Chan, Hwei Wuen; Ho, Collin Yih Xian

    2017-06-01

    There is growing interest in the use of curcumin, a plant polyphenol with potent anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, and neuroprotective properties, as a novel antidepressant. Clinical trials have yielded conflicting conclusions pertaining to its effectiveness in depression. A meta-analysis of the topic, which has not been done until now, is therefore necessary to summarize current evidence and generate hypotheses for further research. Using the keywords [curcumin OR diferuloylmethane OR curcuminoid OR turmeric OR Indian saffron] AND [depression OR MDD OR suicide], a preliminary search on the PubMed, Ovid, Clinical Trials Register of the Cochrane Collaboration Depression, Anxiety and Neurosis Group (CCDANTR), and Cochrane Field for Complementary Medicine database yielded 2081 articles published in English between January 1, 1960, and August 1, 2016. Six clinical trials with a total of 377 patients were reviewed, comparing the use of curcumin to placebo. In patients with depression, the pooled standardized mean difference from baseline Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression scores (pooled standardized mean difference -0.344, 95% confidence interval -0.558 to -0.129; P = .002) support the significant clinical efficacy of curcumin in ameliorating depressive symptoms. Significant anti-anxiety effects were also reported in 3 of the trials. Notably, no adverse events were reported in any of the trials. Most trials had a generally low risk of bias, except for an open trial of curcumin and a single-blinded study. Because of the small number of studies available, a funnel plot or sensitivity analysis was not possible. Evidence on the long-term efficacy and safety of curcumin is also limited as the duration of all available studies ranged from 4 to 8 weeks. Curcumin appears to be safe, well-tolerated, and efficacious among depressed patients. More robust randomized controlled trials with larger sample sizes and follow-up studies carried out over a longer duration should be

  7. Building the Clinical Bridge: An Australian Success

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marianne Wallis

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Nursing effectiveness science includes primary, secondary, and translational, clinically focused research activities which aim to improve patient or client outcomes. It is imperative, for the successful conduct of a program of nursing effectiveness science, that a clinical bridge is established between academic and healthcare service facilities. An Australian example of the development of a robust clinical bridge through the use of jointly funded positions at the professorial level is outlined. In addition, an analysis of the practical application of Lewin’s model of change management and the contribution of both servant and transformational leadership styles to the bridge building process is provided.

  8. A comprehensive and quantitative comparison of text-mining in 15 million full-text articles versus their corresponding abstracts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Westergaard, David; Stærfeldt, Hans-Henrik

    2018-01-01

    Across academia and industry, text mining has become a popular strategy for keeping up with the rapid growth of the scientific literature. Text mining of the scientific literature has mostly been carried out on collections of abstracts, due to their availability. Here we present an analysis of 15 million English scientific full-text articles published during the period 1823–2016. We describe the development in article length and publication sub-topics during these nearly 250 years. We showcase the potential of text mining by extracting published protein–protein, disease–gene, and protein subcellular associations using a named entity recognition system, and quantitatively report on their accuracy using gold standard benchmark data sets. We subsequently compare the findings to corresponding results obtained on 16.5 million abstracts included in MEDLINE and show that text mining of full-text articles consistently outperforms using abstracts only. PMID:29447159

  9. Pharmspresso: a text mining tool for extraction of pharmacogenomic concepts and relationships from full text.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garten, Yael; Altman, Russ B

    2009-02-05

    Pharmacogenomics studies the relationship between genetic variation and the variation in drug response phenotypes. The field is rapidly gaining importance: it promises drugs targeted to particular subpopulations based on genetic background. The pharmacogenomics literature has expanded rapidly, but is dispersed in many journals. It is challenging, therefore, to identify important associations between drugs and molecular entities--particularly genes and gene variants, and thus these critical connections are often lost. Text mining techniques can allow us to convert the free-style text to a computable, searchable format in which pharmacogenomic concepts (such as genes, drugs, polymorphisms, and diseases) are identified, and important links between these concepts are recorded. Availability of full text articles as input into text mining engines is key, as literature abstracts often do not contain sufficient information to identify these pharmacogenomic associations. Thus, building on a tool called Textpresso, we have created the Pharmspresso tool to assist in identifying important pharmacogenomic facts in full text articles. Pharmspresso parses text to find references to human genes, polymorphisms, drugs and diseases and their relationships. It presents these as a series of marked-up text fragments, in which key concepts are visually highlighted. To evaluate Pharmspresso, we used a gold standard of 45 human-curated articles. Pharmspresso identified 78%, 61%, and 74% of target gene, polymorphism, and drug concepts, respectively. Pharmspresso is a text analysis tool that extracts pharmacogenomic concepts from the literature automatically and thus captures our current understanding of gene-drug interactions in a computable form. We have made Pharmspresso available at http://pharmspresso.stanford.edu.

  10. A MODEL OF DISCOVERY LEARNING BASED - TEXT BOOK OF CHARACTER AND ISLAMIC EDUCATION : AN ACCURACY ANALYSIS OF STUDENT BOOK IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fadriati Fadriati

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at developing a valid discovery-learning text book for the Islamic Education (PAI and Character subject delivered at the fifth grade of Primary School based on the results of the accuracy analysis of the existing student books. This is a Research and Development (R and D applying the 4-D model proposed by Semmel and Thiagarajan, that is, defining, designing, developing, and disseminating. Data collection techniques used (1 instrument assessment with the format of student book analysis to measure the level of accuracy of the existing textbooks, (2 interviews and observations, conducted to the PAI teachers, and (3 validation sheets. Moreover, the technique of data analysis used inter rater analysis technique, known as the technique of intra class correlation coefficient analysis (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient-ICC. As the result, in terms of level of accuracy, the existing textbooks of Character and Islamic Education at the fifth grade of elementary school is still low. In general, the teachers claim that the existing text books are able to meet some of the basic competencies and indicators. However, the text books need to be refined and clarified the student learning activities, making it more simple for students to learn. On the other hand, the product of discovery learning textbooks on the subjects of Character and Islamic Education  at the fifth grade of elementary school are declared valid. This product is refined based on input, making it feasible for the students at the fifth grade of Primary School in learning Character and Islamic Education.

  11. Cost analysis of public health influenza vaccine clinics in Ontario.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mercer, Nicola J

    2009-01-01

    Public health in Ontario delivers, promotes and provides each fall the universal influenza immunization program. This paper addresses the question of whether Ontario public health agencies are able to provide the influenza immunization program within the Ministry of Health fiscal funding envelope of $5 per dose. Actual program delivery data from the 2006 influenza season of Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) were used to create a model template for influenza clinics capturing all variable costs. Promotional and administrative costs were separated from clinic costs. Maximum staff workloads were estimated. Vaccine clinics were delivered by public health staff in accordance with standard vaccine administration practices. The most significant economic variables for influenza clinics are labour costs and number of vaccines given per nurse per hour. The cost of facility rental was the only other significant cost driver. The ability of influenza clinics to break even depended on the ability to manage these cost drivers. At WDGPH, weekday flu clinics required the number of vaccines per nurse per hour to exceed 15, and for weekend flu clinics this number was greater than 21. We estimate that 20 vaccines per hour is at the limit of a safe workload over several hours. Managing cost then depends on minimizing hourly labour costs. The results of this analysis suggest that by managing the labour costs along with planning the volume of patients and avoiding expensive facilities, flu clinics can just break even. However, any increased costs, including negotiated wage increases or the move to safety needles, with a fixed revenue of $5.00 per dose will negate this conclusion.

  12. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... the same scientific safeguards as clinical trials for adults. For more information, go to "How Do Clinical ... based on what is known to work in adults. To improve clinical care of children, more studies ...

  13. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... take part in a clinical trial. When researchers think that a trial's potential risks are greater than ... care costs for clinical trials. If you're thinking about taking part in a clinical trial, find ...

  14. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... or vulnerable patients (such as children). A DSMB's role is to review data from a clinical trial ... a Clinical Trial If you're interested in learning more about, or taking part in, clinical trials, ...

  15. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... you to explore NIH Clinical Center for patient recruitment and clinical trial information. For more information, please email the NIH Clinical Center Office of Patient Recruitment at cc-prpl@cc.nih.gov or call ...

  16. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... clinical trials are vital to the process of improving medical care. Many people volunteer because they want ... care costs for clinical trials. If you're thinking about taking part in a clinical trial, find ...

  17. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... comparison groups by chance, rather than choice. This method helps ensure that any differences observed during a ... to learn more about clinical research and to search for clinical trials: NHLBI Clinical Trials Browse a ...

  18. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... these results are important because they advance medical knowledge and help improve patient care. Sponsorship and Funding ... All types of clinical trials contribute to medical knowledge and practice. Why Clinical Trials Are Important Clinical ...

  19. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... of clinical trials contribute to medical knowledge and practice. Why Clinical Trials Are Important Clinical trials are ... earlier than they would be in general medical practice. This is because late-phase trials have large ...

  20. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... or device is safe and effective for humans. What Are Clinical Trials? Clinical trials are research studies ... parents, clinicians, researchers, children, and the general public. What to Expect During a clinical trial, doctors, nurses, ...

  1. Analysis Of Clinical, Haematological And Biochemical Parameters In Patients With Infectious Mononucleosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Canović Petar

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Primary infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV usually occurs in early childhood and often does not present clinical symptoms. More than 90% of adults are infected with this virus. A primary infection that occurs in adolescence or adulthood is usually clinically presented as infectious mononucleosis with a triad of symptoms: fever, lymphadenopathy and pharyngitis. Our retrospective study included 51 patients with a median age of 17 (9-23 years and serologically confirmed infectious mononucleosis. All patients with infectious mononucleosis were treated at the Clinic for Infectious Diseases at the Clinical Center in Kragujevac during 2013. We analysed the clinical, haematological and laboratory parameters of patients. The aspartate-aminotransferase levels were increased in 40 patients, with a mean value of 116.24 (±93.22; the alanine-aminotransferase levels were increased in 44 patients, with a mean value of 189.24 (±196.69. Lymphadenopathy was the most common clinical feature upon admission in 49 patients (96%; 38 patients (74.5% had splenomegaly, and 20 (39% had hepatomegaly. Twenty-six patients (51% had leukocytosis with lymphocytosis, while 15 (75% of the 20 who had a normal leukocyte count also had lymphocytosis. In the present study, we updated the clinical, haematological and laboratory parameters, which may lead to the establishment of an accurate diagnosis and promote further treatment of the patients.

  2. Role of omega-3 fatty acids in the treatment of depressive disorders: a comprehensive meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Giuseppe Grosso

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Despite omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA supplementation in depressed patients have been suggested to improve depressive symptomatology, previous findings are not univocal. OBJECTIVES: To conduct an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs of omega-3 PUFA treatment of depressive disorders, taking into account the clinical differences among patients included in the studies. METHODS: A search on MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycInfo, and the Cochrane Database of RCTs using omega-3 PUFA on patients with depressive symptoms published up to August 2013 was performed. Standardized mean difference in clinical measure of depression severity was primary outcome. Type of omega-3 used (particularly eicosapentaenoic acid [EPA] and docosahexaenoic acid [DHA] and omega-3 as mono- or adjuvant therapy was also examined. Meta-regression analyses assessed the effects of study size, baseline depression severity, trial duration, dose of omega-3, and age of patients. RESULTS: Meta-analysis of 11 and 8 trials conducted respectively on patients with a DSM-defined diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD and patients with depressive symptomatology but no diagnosis of MDD demonstrated significant clinical benefit of omega-3 PUFA treatment compared to placebo (standardized difference in random-effects model 0.56 SD [95% CI: 0.20, 0.92] and 0.22 SD [95% CI: 0.01, 0.43], respectively; pooled analysis was 0.38 SD [95% CI: 0.18, 0.59]. Use of mainly EPA within the preparation, rather than DHA, influenced final clinical efficacy. Significant clinical efficacy had the use of omega-3 PUFA as adjuvant rather than mono-therapy. No relation between efficacy and study size, baseline depression severity, trial duration, age of patients, and study quality was found. Omega-3 PUFA resulted effective in RCTs on patients with bipolar disorder, whereas no evidence was found for those exploring their efficacy on depressive symptoms in young populations

  3. Measuring clinical trial transparency: an empirical analysis of newly approved drugs and large pharmaceutical companies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Jennifer E; Wilenzick, Marc; Ritcey, Nolan; Ross, Joseph S; Mello, Michelle M

    2017-12-05

    To define a series of clinical trial transparency measures and apply them to large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and their 2014 FDA-approved drugs. Cross-sectional descriptive analysis of all clinical trials supporting 2014 Food and Drugs Administration (FDA)-approved new drug applications (NDAs) for novel drugs sponsored by large companies. Data from over 45 sources, including Drugs@FDA.gov, ClinicalTrials.gov, corporate and international registries; PubMed, Google Scholar, EMBASE, corporate press releases, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings and personal communications with drug manufacturers. Trial registration, results reporting, clinical study report (CSR) synopsis sharing, biomedical journal publication, and FDA Amendments Acts (FDAAA) compliance, analysed on the drug level. The FDA approved 19 novel new drugs, sponsored by 11 large companies, involving 553 trials, in 2014. We analysed 505 relevant trials. Per drug, a median of 100% (IQR 86%-100%) of trials in patients were registered, 71% (IQR 57%-100%) reported results or shared a CSR synopsis, 80% (70%-100%) were published and 96% (80%-100%) were publicly available in some form by 13 months after FDA approval. Disclosure rates were lower at FDA approval (65%) and improved significantly by 6 months post FDA approval. Per drug, a median of 100% (IQR 75%-100%) of FDAAA-applicable trials were compliant. Half of reviewed drugs had publicly disclosed results for all trials in patients in our sample. One trial was uniquely registered in a corporate registry, and not ClinicalTrials.gov; 0 trials were uniquely registered in international registries. Among large pharmaceutical companies and new drugs, clinical trial transparency is high based on several standards, although opportunities for improvement remain. Transparency is markedly higher for trials in patients than among all trials supporting drug approval, including trials in healthy volunteers. Ongoing efforts to publicly track

  4. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... resources to the strategies and treatments that work best. How Clinical Trials Work If you take part in a clinical trial, you may get tests or treatments in a hospital, clinic, or doctor's office. In some ways, taking part in a clinical trial is different ...

  5. Dissecting the determinants of depressive disorders outcome: an in depth analysis of two clinical cases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oasi Osmano

    2007-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Clinicians face everyday the complexity of depression. Available pharmacotherapies and psychotherapies improve patients suffering in a large part of subjects, however up to half of patients do not respond to treatment. Clinicians may forecast to a good extent if a given patient will respond or not, based on a number of data and sensations that emerge from face to face assessment. Conversely, clinical predictors of non response emerging from literature are largely unsatisfactory. Here we try to fill this gap, suggesting a comprehensive assessment of patients that may overcome the limitation of standardized assessments and detecting the factors that plausibly contribute to so marked differences in depressive disorders outcome. For this aim we present and discuss two clinical cases. Mr. A was an industrial manager who came to psychiatric evaluation with a severe depressive episode. His employment was demanding and the depressive episode undermined his capacity to manage it. Based on standardized assessment, Mr. A condition appeared severe and potentially dramatic. Mrs. B was a housewife who came to psychiatric evaluation with a moderate depressive episode. Literature predictors would suggest Mrs. B state as associated with a more favourable outcome. However the clinician impression was not converging with the standardized assessment and in fact the outcome will reverse the prediction based on the initial formal standard evaluation. Although the present report is based on two clinical cases and no generalizability is possible, a more detailed analysis of personality, temperament, defense mechanisms, self esteem, intelligence and social adjustment may allow to formalize the clinical impressions used by clinicians for biologic and pharmacologic studies.

  6. Container-Based Clinical Solutions for Portable and Reproducible Image Analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matelsky, Jordan; Kiar, Gregory; Johnson, Erik; Rivera, Corban; Toma, Michael; Gray-Roncal, William

    2018-05-08

    Medical imaging analysis depends on the reproducibility of complex computation. Linux containers enable the abstraction, installation, and configuration of environments so that software can be both distributed in self-contained images and used repeatably by tool consumers. While several initiatives in neuroimaging have adopted approaches for creating and sharing more reliable scientific methods and findings, Linux containers are not yet mainstream in clinical settings. We explore related technologies and their efficacy in this setting, highlight important shortcomings, demonstrate a simple use-case, and endorse the use of Linux containers for medical image analysis.

  7. A Proposed Arabic Handwritten Text Normalization Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tarik Abu-Ain

    2014-11-01

    Full Text Available Text normalization is an important technique in document image analysis and recognition. It consists of many preprocessing stages, which include slope correction, text padding, skew correction, and straight the writing line. In this side, text normalization has an important role in many procedures such as text segmentation, feature extraction and characters recognition. In the present article, a new method for text baseline detection, straightening, and slant correction for Arabic handwritten texts is proposed. The method comprises a set of sequential steps: first components segmentation is done followed by components text thinning; then, the direction features of the skeletons are extracted, and the candidate baseline regions are determined. After that, selection of the correct baseline region is done, and finally, the baselines of all components are aligned with the writing line.  The experiments are conducted on IFN/ENIT benchmark Arabic dataset. The results show that the proposed method has a promising and encouraging performance.

  8. Symbiotic Relations of Verbal and Non-Verbal Components of Creolized Text on the Example of Stephen King’s Books Covers Analysis

    OpenAIRE

    Anna S. Kobysheva; Viktoria A. Nakaeva

    2017-01-01

    The article examines the symbiotic relationships between non-verbal and verbal components of the creolized text. The research focuses on the analysis of the correlation between verbal and visual elements of horror book covers based on three types of correlations between verbal and non-verbal text constituents, i.e. recurrent, additive and emphatic.

  9. Clinical psychology service users' experiences of confidentiality and informed consent: a qualitative analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martindale, S J; Chambers, E; Thompson, A R

    2009-12-01

    To explore and describe the experience of clinical psychology service users in relation to the processes associated with confidentiality and the generation of informed consent in individual therapy. A qualitative interview-based study employing interpretative phenomenological analysis was conducted with service users. User researchers were active collaborators in the study. A focus group of four users was convened to explore issues related to confidentiality and consent, which then informed the development of the semi-structured interview schedule. Twelve users of community mental health clinical psychology services were interviewed by user researchers. A user researcher and a clinical psychologist undertook joint analysis of the data. A second clinical psychologist facilitated reflexivity and wider consideration of validity issues. Four main themes were identified from the data: being referred; the participant's feelings, mental health difficulties, and their impact; relationships with workers and carers; and autonomy. The meaningfulness of processes of discussing confidentiality, and generating informed consent, can be improved by psychologists placing a greater emphasis on choice, control, autonomy, individual preferences, and actively involving the user in dialogue on repeated occasions.

  10. Content-driven analysis of an online community for smoking cessation: integration of qualitative techniques, automated text analysis, and affiliation networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myneni, Sahiti; Fujimoto, Kayo; Cobb, Nathan; Cohen, Trevor

    2015-06-01

    We identified content-specific patterns of network diffusion underlying smoking cessation in the context of online platforms, with the aim of generating targeted intervention strategies. QuitNet is an online social network for smoking cessation. We analyzed 16 492 de-identified peer-to-peer messages from 1423 members, posted between March 1 and April 30, 2007. Our mixed-methods approach comprised qualitative coding, automated text analysis, and affiliation network analysis to identify, visualize, and analyze content-specific communication patterns underlying smoking behavior. Themes we identified in QuitNet messages included relapse, QuitNet-specific traditions, and cravings. QuitNet members who were exposed to other abstinent members by exchanging content related to interpersonal themes (e.g., social support, traditions, progress) tended to abstain. Themes found in other types of content did not show significant correlation with abstinence. Modeling health-related affiliation networks through content-driven methods can enable the identification of specific content related to higher abstinence rates, which facilitates targeted health promotion.

  11. Quetiapine in overdosage : a clinical and pharmacokinetic analysis of 14 cases

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hunfeld, N G M; Westerman, E M; Boswijk, D J; de Haas, J A M; van Putten, M J A M; Touw, D J

    Data on quetiapine overdosage are only sparsely available in the literature. This study provides additional data on the pharmacokinetics and clinical effects of intoxication with this atypical antipsychotic drug. The authors performed a retrospective analysis of all quetiapine intoxications reported

  12. Regression-based statistical mediation and moderation analysis in clinical research: Observations, recommendations, and implementation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayes, Andrew F; Rockwood, Nicholas J

    2017-11-01

    There have been numerous treatments in the clinical research literature about various design, analysis, and interpretation considerations when testing hypotheses about mechanisms and contingencies of effects, popularly known as mediation and moderation analysis. In this paper we address the practice of mediation and moderation analysis using linear regression in the pages of Behaviour Research and Therapy and offer some observations and recommendations, debunk some popular myths, describe some new advances, and provide an example of mediation, moderation, and their integration as conditional process analysis using the PROCESS macro for SPSS and SAS. Our goal is to nudge clinical researchers away from historically significant but increasingly old school approaches toward modifications, revisions, and extensions that characterize more modern thinking about the analysis of the mechanisms and contingencies of effects. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... Clinical Trials About Clinical Trials Clinical trials are research studies that explore whether a medical strategy, treatment, ... required to have an IRB. Office for Human Research Protections The U.S. Department of Health and Human ...

  14. AN ANALYSIS OF ACEHNESE EFL STUDENTS’ GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN WRITING RECOUNT TEXTS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qudwatin Nisak M. Isa

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available This study aims at finding empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and sources of errors in recount texts written by the first-year students of SMAS Babul Maghfirah, Aceh Besar. The subject of the study was a collection of students’ personal writing documents of recount texts about their lives experience. The students’ recount texts were analyzed by referring to Betty S. Azar classification and Richard’s theory on sources of errors. The findings showed that the total number of error is 436. Two frequent types of grammatical errors were Verb Tense and Word Choice. The major sources of error were Intralingual Error, Interference Error and Developmental Error respectively. Furthermore, the findings suggest that it is necessary for EFL teachers to apply appropriate techniques and strategies in teaching recount texts, which focus on past tense and language features of the text in order to reduce the possible errors to be made by the students.

  15. Epidermoid Cysts – A Wide Spectrum of Clinical Presentation and Successful Treatment by Surgery: A Retrospective 10-Year Analysis and Literature Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Uwe Wollina

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Epidermoid cysts are common benign lesions of hair-bearing, and less often glabrous skin. They can also occur in oral mucosa and internal organs. In case of cutaneous lesions, an epidermal punctum is a clinical diagnostic hallmark. The clinical presentation is variable leading to some differential diagnoses. Diagnosis of epidermoid cysts needs histopathological confirmation – not only of the potential of malignant transformation. The treatment of choice is surgery. We report a retrospective analysis of 2159 epidermoid cysts treated surgically. Most of the cases can be performed under local anaesthesia. The complication rate of 2.2% is low. To avoid relapses, the cyst wall has to be removed completely. Rare genetic disorders with multiple cysts are Gardner and Lowe syndrome.

  16. ONTOGRABBING: Extracting Information from Texts Using Generative Ontologies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nilsson, Jørgen Fischer; Szymczak, Bartlomiej Antoni; Jensen, P.A.

    2009-01-01

    We describe principles for extracting information from texts using a so-called generative ontology in combination with syntactic analysis. Generative ontologies are introduced as semantic domains for natural language phrases. Generative ontologies extend ordinary finite ontologies with rules...... for producing recursively shaped terms representing the ontological content (ontological semantics) of NL noun phrases and other phrases. We focus here on achieving a robust, often only partial, ontology-driven parsing of and ascription of semantics to a sentence in the text corpus. The aim of the ontological...... analysis is primarily to identify paraphrases, thereby achieving a search functionality beyond mere keyword search with synsets. We further envisage use of the generative ontology as a phrase-based rather than word-based browser into text corpora....

  17. Building a glaucoma interaction network using a text mining approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soliman, Maha; Nasraoui, Olfa; Cooper, Nigel G F

    2016-01-01

    The volume of biomedical literature and its underlying knowledge base is rapidly expanding, making it beyond the ability of a single human being to read through all the literature. Several automated methods have been developed to help make sense of this dilemma. The present study reports on the results of a text mining approach to extract gene interactions from the data warehouse of published experimental results which are then used to benchmark an interaction network associated with glaucoma. To the best of our knowledge, there is, as yet, no glaucoma interaction network derived solely from text mining approaches. The presence of such a network could provide a useful summative knowledge base to complement other forms of clinical information related to this disease. A glaucoma corpus was constructed from PubMed Central and a text mining approach was applied to extract genes and their relations from this corpus. The extracted relations between genes were checked using reference interaction databases and classified generally as known or new relations. The extracted genes and relations were then used to construct a glaucoma interaction network. Analysis of the resulting network indicated that it bears the characteristics of a small world interaction network. Our analysis showed the presence of seven glaucoma linked genes that defined the network modularity. A web-based system for browsing and visualizing the extracted glaucoma related interaction networks is made available at http://neurogene.spd.louisville.edu/GlaucomaINViewer/Form1.aspx. This study has reported the first version of a glaucoma interaction network using a text mining approach. The power of such an approach is in its ability to cover a wide range of glaucoma related studies published over many years. Hence, a bigger picture of the disease can be established. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first glaucoma interaction network to summarize the known literature. The major findings were a set of

  18. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... Working at the NHLBI Contact and FAQs Accessible Search Form Search the NHLBI, use the drop down list to ... to learn more about clinical research and to search for clinical trials: NHLBI Clinical Trials Browse a ...

  19. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... about your health or fill out forms about how you feel. Some people will need to travel or stay in hospitals to take part in clinical trials. For example, the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, runs clinical trials. Many other clinical trials take place ...

  20. Clinical Trials

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    Full Text Available ... part in a clinical trial is your decision. Talk with your doctor about all of your treatment options. Together, you can make the ... more about, or taking part in, clinical trials, talk with your doctor. He or she may know about ... clinical trials. NIH Clinical Research Studies ...

  1. Crescentic glomerulonephritis: A clinical and histomorphological analysis of 46 cases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ruchika Gupta

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: Crescentic glomerulonephritis (CrGN, defined as crescents involving more than 50% of the glomeruli, includes pauci-immune, immune complex-mediated and anti-glomerular basement membrane disease. Objectives: The present study was aimed at evaluating the various clinical, biochemical and histological parameters in CrGN with respect to these categories and clinical outcome. Materials and Methods: Renal biopsies diagnosed as CrGN between Jan 2008 and Feb 2010 were included. Clinical and laboratory parameters were retrieved along with the therapeutic approach and clinical outcome, wherever available. Renal biopsy slides were evaluated for various glomerular, tubulo-interstitial and arteriolar features. Appropriate statistical tests were applied for significance. Results: A total of 46 cases of CrGN were included; majority (71.7% of cases were pauci-immune (PI while 28.3% were immune complex-mediated (IC. Among clinical features, gender ratio was significantly different between PI and IC groups (P = 0.006. The various histological parameters, including proportion of cellular crescents, tuft necrosis and Bowman′s capsule rupture, were similar in both the groups. Four unusual associations, including idiopathic membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (MPGN, multibacillary leprosy, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and C1q nephropathy were detected. Adequate follow-up information was available in 21 (46% of the patients. Of these, 11 (52.4% were dialysis-dependent at the last follow-up. Adult patients required renal replacement therapy more frequently than pediatric cases (P = 0.05. Presence of arteriolar fibrinoid necrosis also showed association with poor clinical outcome (P = 0.05. Conclusions: Crescentic glomerulonephritis remains one of the main causes of acute renal failure with histological diagnosis. Immunohistologic examination is essential for accurate classification into one of the three categories. This condition should be considered

  2. A comprehensive and quantitative comparison of text-mining in 15 million full-text articles versus their corresponding abstracts

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Westergaard, David; Stærfeldt, Hans Henrik; Tønsberg, Christian

    2018-01-01

    Across academia and industry, text mining has become a popular strategy for keeping up with the rapid growth of the scientific literature. Text mining of the scientific literature has mostly been carried out on collections of abstracts, due to their availability. Here we present an analysis of 15...... subcellular associations using a named entity recognition system, and quantitatively report on their accuracy using gold standard benchmark data sets. We subsequently compare the findings to corresponding results obtained on 16.5 million abstracts included in MEDLINE and show that text mining of full...... million English scientific full-text articles published during the period 1823-2016. We describe the development in article length and publication sub-topics during these nearly 250 years. We showcase the potential of text mining by extracting published protein-protein, disease-gene, and protein...

  3. Generation of silver standard concept annotations from biomedical texts with special relevance to phenotypes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oellrich, Anika; Collier, Nigel; Smedley, Damian; Groza, Tudor

    2015-01-01

    Electronic health records and scientific articles possess differing linguistic characteristics that may impact the performance of natural language processing tools developed for one or the other. In this paper, we investigate the performance of four extant concept recognition tools: the clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System (cTAKES), the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) Annotator, the Biomedical Concept Annotation System (BeCAS) and MetaMap. Each of the four concept recognition systems is applied to four different corpora: the i2b2 corpus of clinical documents, a PubMed corpus of Medline abstracts, a clinical trails corpus and the ShARe/CLEF corpus. In addition, we assess the individual system performances with respect to one gold standard annotation set, available for the ShARe/CLEF corpus. Furthermore, we built a silver standard annotation set from the individual systems' output and assess the quality as well as the contribution of individual systems to the quality of the silver standard. Our results demonstrate that mainly the NCBO annotator and cTAKES contribute to the silver standard corpora (F1-measures in the range of 21% to 74%) and their quality (best F1-measure of 33%), independent from the type of text investigated. While BeCAS and MetaMap can contribute to the precision of silver standard annotations (precision of up to 42%), the F1-measure drops when combined with NCBO Annotator and cTAKES due to a low recall. In conclusion, the performances of individual systems need to be improved independently from the text types, and the leveraging strategies to best take advantage of individual systems' annotations need to be revised. The textual content of the PubMed corpus, accession numbers for the clinical trials corpus, and assigned annotations of the four concept recognition systems as well as the generated silver standard annotation sets are available from http://purl.org/phenotype/resources. The textual content of the Sh

  4. Current status and future prospects of the development of clinical Pharmacy in China: A SWOT analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rao, Yuefeng; Zhao, Qingwei; Zhang, Xiangyi; Yang, Hongyu; Lou, Yan; Zhang, Xingguo

    2016-03-01

    In many industrialized countries, clinical pharmacy has developed into a separate discipline and become a vital part of inpatient care in hospitals. However, as compared to many established branches of medicine, clinical pharmacy is still in its infancy, with much room for growth, improvement, and recognition by both the medical community and patients. In this study, a widely-recognized development strategy analysis tool, Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat (SWOT), was used to systematically address several key issues to the development of clinical pharmacy in China. This analysis aims to provide feasible recommendations for the development of clinical pharmacy in China by identifying current problems and growth opportunities. Full development of clinical pharmacy as a mature clinical discipline will help promote the rational use of drugs by both clinicians and patients and lead to enhanced drug efficacy and safety.

  5. Clinical usefulness of physiological components obtained by factor analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ohtake, Eiji; Murata, Hajime; Matsuda, Hirofumi; Yokoyama, Masao; Toyama, Hinako; Satoh, Tomohiko.

    1989-01-01

    The clinical usefulness of physiological components obtained by factor analysis was assessed in 99m Tc-DTPA renography. Using definite physiological components, another dynamic data could be analyzed. In this paper, the dynamic renal function after ESWL (Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy) treatment was examined using physiological components in the kidney before ESWL and/or a normal kidney. We could easily evaluate the change of renal functions by this method. The usefulness of a new analysis using physiological components was summarized as follows: 1) The change of a dynamic function could be assessed in quantity as that of the contribution ratio. 2) The change of a sick condition could be morphologically evaluated as that of the functional image. (author)

  6. Clinical features of type 1 autoimmune pancreatitis: an analysis of 13 cases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    MO Xue

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available ObjectiveTo investigate the clinical features of type 1 autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP, and to deepen the understanding of this disease, reduce false positive rate, and enhance people′s awareness of this disease. MethodsA retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 13 patients with type 1 AIP who were admitted to The First Hospital of Jilin University from January 2012 to December 2016, including general status, clinical manifestations, laboratory serological examination, imaging findings, histopathological findings, treatment, and prognosis. ResultsOf all 13 patients, there were 9 male and 4 female patients with a mean age of 60.08±9.47 years. Major clinical manifestations included jaundice (69.2%, abdominal pain (61.5%, and weight loss (61.5%. The most common organ involved was bile duct (462%, and 30.8% of the patients had sclerosing cholangitis. Of all patients, 23.1% had diabetes. As for serological markers, 92.30% patients had more than 2 times increase in IgG4, and 7.69% had 1-2 times increase in IgG4, 53.85% patients had an increase in CA19-9, 69.23% patients had an increase in total bilirubin, more than two thirds of the patients had an increase in aminotransferases or gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase. As for imaging findings, 53.8% patients had diffuse enlargement of the pancreas on CT, 46.2% had focal enlargement of the pancreas, and 46.2% patients had low-density cyst-like shadow in pancreatic lesions. Pathological examination showed fibrous connective tissue proliferation with infiltration of lymphocytes and plasma cells. All patients were given standard glucocorticoid therapy (initial dose of prednisone: 30-40 mg/d and the remission rate of glucocorticoid therapy was 100%. The follow-up time was 12 months, and one patient experienced multiple recurrences in the course of the disease. ConclusionType 1 AIP is the local manifestation of IgG4-associated disease in the pancreas, which often occurs in middle-aged and

  7. Clinical diagnosis of an anterior cruciate ligament rupture : A meta-analysis

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Benjammse, A; Gokeler, A; van der Schans, CP

    Study Design: Meta-analysis. Objectives: To define the accuracy of clinical tests for assessing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures. Background: The cruciate ligaments, and especially the ACL, are among the most commonly injured structures of the knee. Given the increasing injury prevalence,

  8. The profile of patients followed at the Neuroimmunology Clinic at UNIFESP: 20 years analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Denis Bernardi Bichuetti

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Objective To describe the clinical activities at the Neuroimmunology Clinic of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP from 1994 to 2013. Method The final diagnosis of all patients that attended the center was reviewed and established upon specific guidelines for each disease. The number of total appointments and extra clinical activities (reports and prescriptions were also analyzed, as are part of routine activities. Results 1,599 patients attended the Clinic from 1994 to 2013: 816 with multiple sclerosis (MS, 172 with clinical isolated syndromes, 178 with neuromyelitis optica (NMO, 216 with other demyelinating disease, 20 with metabolic disorder, 42 with a vascular disease and 155 with other or undetermined diagnosis. A mean 219 outpatient visits and 65 extra clinical activities were performed monthly. Conclusion We identified that 15% of patients seen have NMO. As patients with NMO have a more severe disease than MS, this data may be important for planning local health care policies.

  9. The Eviction of the Human from Human Interest: The Case of Mechanically Generated Text and Textual Analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adrian Nathan West

    2013-05-01

    Full Text Available In recent years, automation has encroached upon “soft knowledge” fields long considered the exclusive preserve of human agents, particularly in the production and analysis of texts framed in natural language. Like most technological innovations, automation has been embraced with minimal skepticism: mainstream voices have assumed that new technologies, while changing the type of work available, will continue creating new jobs to replace those it renders obsolete, and harsh criticism has been confined mainly to the ideological fringes. There is reason to believe that this optimism is unjustified with respect to the automation of intellectual labor, which may prove to have pernicious consequences both for the market economy and for human values that yield only poorly to abstract calculation.

  10. Perspectives on Clinical Informatics: Integrating Large-Scale Clinical, Genomic, and Health Information for Clinical Care

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    In Young Choi

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available The advances in electronic medical records (EMRs and bioinformatics (BI represent two significant trends in healthcare. The widespread adoption of EMR systems and the completion of the Human Genome Project developed the technologies for data acquisition, analysis, and visualization in two different domains. The massive amount of data from both clinical and biology domains is expected to provide personalized, preventive, and predictive healthcare services in the near future. The integrated use of EMR and BI data needs to consider four key informatics areas: data modeling, analytics, standardization, and privacy. Bioclinical data warehouses integrating heterogeneous patient-related clinical or omics data should be considered. The representative standardization effort by the Clinical Bioinformatics Ontology (CBO aims to provide uniquely identified concepts to include molecular pathology terminologies. Since individual genome data are easily used to predict current and future health status, different safeguards to ensure confidentiality should be considered. In this paper, we focused on the informatics aspects of integrating the EMR community and BI community by identifying opportunities, challenges, and approaches to provide the best possible care service for our patients and the population.

  11. Critical reading of a text through its electronic supplement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kieran O’Halloran

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available A by-product of new social media platforms is an abundant textual record of engagements – billions of words across the world-wide-web in, for example, discussion forums, blogs and wiki discussion tabs. Many of these engagements consist of commentary on a particular text and can thus be regarded as supplements to these texts. The larger purpose of this article is to flag the utility value of this electronic supplementarity for critical reading by highlighting how it can reveal particular meanings that the text being responded to can reasonably be said to marginalise and / or repress. Given the potentially very large size of social media textual product, knowing how to explore these supplements with electronic text analysis software is essential. To illustrate the above, I focus on how the content of online discussion forums, explored through electronic text analysis software, can be used to assist critical reading of the texts which initiate them. The paper takes its theoretical orientations from the textual intervention work of Rob Pope together with themes in the work of the philosopher, Jacques Derrida.

  12. THE GOSPEL TEXT IN DOSTOEVSKY'S NOVEL "NETOCHKA NEZVANOVA"

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Natalya Nikolaevna Romanova

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available The article looks at the parallels with the Gospel text that arise in F.M. Dostoevsky's novel Netochka Nezvanova. We analyse and compare the parables of the New Testament that implicitly appear in the text of the novel, as well as their artistic transformation. The main focus of our comparative analysis is on God's judgement of the fallen man and human judgement (that of the Pharisee. Among the parables woven into the fabric of the novel we find that of the Pharisee and Publican, of the prodigal son, the lost sheep, the called and the chosen, of the talents and the narrow gate. The comparative analysis is run on both lexical and semantic levels. Biblical allusions are important signals which allow us to reach the deep layer of the text's original meaning. Both the characters and their possessions have an allusive level of meaning. The article also deals with the issue of sacralization of the female protagonist.

  13. A student's guide through the great physics texts

    CERN Document Server

    Kuehn, Kerry

    This book provides a chronological introduction to the sciences of astronomy and cosmology based on the reading and analysis of significant selections from classic texts, such as Ptolemy’s Almagest, Kepler’s Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, Shapley’s Galaxies, and Lemaître’s The Primeval Atom. Each chapter begins with a short introduction followed by a reading selection. Carefully crafted study questions draw out key points in the text and focus the reader’s attention on the author’s methods, analysis, and conclusions. Numerical and observational exercises at the end of each chapter test the reader’s ability to understand and apply key concepts from the text.  The Heavens and the Earth is the first of four volumes in A Student’s Guide Through the Great Physics Texts. This book grew out of a four-semester undergraduate physics curriculum designed to encourage a critical and circumspect approach to natural science, while at the same time preparing students for advanced coursework in physics. ...

  14. Cost analysis of one of the first outpatient wound clinics in the Netherlands.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rondas, A A L M; Schols, J M G; Halfens, R J G; Hull, H R; Stobberingh, E E; Evers, S M A A

    2015-09-01

    To perform, from an insurance perspective, a cost analysis of one of the outpatient community wound care clinics in the Netherlands, the Knowledge Centre in Wound Care (KCWC) at Venray. This study involved a cost analysis based on an observational cohort study with a one-year pre-admission and a one-year post-admission comparison of costs. Patients were included when they first consulted the outpatient wound care clinic. Participants were all insured by the same health insurance company, Coöperatie Volksgezondheidszorg (VGZ). A standard six-step procedure for performing cost studies was used to calculate the costs. Given the skewed cost data, non-parametric bootstrapping was used to test for statistical differences. There were 172 patients included in this study. The difference in costs related to wound care between the year before and the year after initial admission to the wound clinic amounted to an average reduction of €2621 (£1873) per patient in the base case analysis. The categories 'general practitioner', 'hospital care', 'mental health care' and 'transport' scored lower, indicating lower costs, in the year after admission to the wound clinic. In this study, only the reimbursement data of patients of one health insurance company, and specifically only those made under the 2006 Dutch Health Insurance Act, were available. Because of the observational design, definitive conclusions cannot be made regarding a demonstrated reduction of costs in the year post admission. Nevertheless, this study is a first attempt of a cost analysis of an equipped outpatient wound clinic as an innovative way of responding to the increasing number of chronic wounds in the Netherlands. The calculations show that savings in wound care are possible. A possible conflict of interest should be mentioned. First author AALM Rondas, PhD student at Maastricht University, is working at the KCWC wound clinic at Venray in the Netherlands as a physician. However, the research data were

  15. Clinical Pathology and Prognostic Analysis of Visceral Metastatic Carcinoma of Unknown Primary Site (VMCUP

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Q Xu

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To analyse the clinicopathologic characteristics of visceral metastatic carcinoma of unknown primary site (VMCUP, discuss the relationship between its treatment and prognosis, and provide the basis for individualized clinical diagnosis and treatment. Methods: A retrospective analysis on clinical pathologic data was performed on 21 VMCUP cases from Fujian Union Hospital from January 2007 to January 2012. Follow-up visits on patients were made and analysis of their survival conditions and relevant influencing factors were collated. Results: The gender distribution of the 21 VMCUP cases was 1:1.1; the median age was 63 years and the pathology type was dominated by adenocarcinoma. The median survival time and survival rate in patients accepting treatment were evidently higher than those in patients not accepting treatment. The median survival time of those patients receiving more than one treatment procedure was higher than in those patients only receiving chemotherapy. Among those patients who received comprehensive therapy, the median survival time in those mainly receiving operative therapy was also higher than in those only receiving chemotherapy (p two cycles or > four cycles was evidently longer than those receiving chemotherapy ≤ two cycles or ≤ four cycles separately. For those choosing paclitaxel in combination with platinum as first-line chemotherapy, their median survival time was longer than those primarily taking fluorouracil (p 0.05 in the median survival times among groups receiving the same treatment but with different age, gender or pathological types. It was indicated by multiple-factor analysis that the chemotherapeutics, chemotherapy times and treatment methods were prognostic factors affecting the survival of VMCUP. Conclusion: The overall progression of VMCUP patients deteriorates quickly, with a poor prognosis and without a standard treatment pattern. Appropriate chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, however

  16. Emotiogenic Cognitive Function of Modern School Teaching Texts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Любовь Васильевна Ерохина

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The article is devoted to the analysis of emotional attractiveness of modern school educational texts and ecological/non-ecological influence upon pupils’ cognition in teaching communication. Reasoning is based on the thesis that - emotional attractiveness of modern school educational texts opposes their cognitive function. Emotional educational text profile and its components are under consideration. The article is concerned with ecological and cognitive and emotional asymmetry content. The material under focus is printed texts of some of modern school textbooks, teaching methodical aids, academic competitions, mass media information from the cognitive ecology point of view.

  17. Clinical risk analysis with failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) model in a dialysis unit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonfant, Giovanna; Belfanti, Pietro; Paternoster, Giuseppe; Gabrielli, Danila; Gaiter, Alberto M; Manes, Massimo; Molino, Andrea; Pellu, Valentina; Ponzetti, Clemente; Farina, Massimo; Nebiolo, Pier E

    2010-01-01

    The aim of clinical risk management is to improve the quality of care provided by health care organizations and to assure patients' safety. Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a tool employed for clinical risk reduction. We applied FMEA to chronic hemodialysis outpatients. FMEA steps: (i) process study: we recorded phases and activities. (ii) Hazard analysis: we listed activity-related failure modes and their effects; described control measures; assigned severity, occurrence and detection scores for each failure mode and calculated the risk priority numbers (RPNs) by multiplying the 3 scores. Total RPN is calculated by adding single failure mode RPN. (iii) Planning: we performed a RPNs prioritization on a priority matrix taking into account the 3 scores, and we analyzed failure modes causes, made recommendations and planned new control measures. (iv) Monitoring: after failure mode elimination or reduction, we compared the resulting RPN with the previous one. Our failure modes with the highest RPN came from communication and organization problems. Two tools have been created to ameliorate information flow: "dialysis agenda" software and nursing datasheets. We scheduled nephrological examinations, and we changed both medical and nursing organization. Total RPN value decreased from 892 to 815 (8.6%) after reorganization. Employing FMEA, we worked on a few critical activities, and we reduced patients' clinical risk. A priority matrix also takes into account the weight of the control measures: we believe this evaluation is quick, because of simple priority selection, and that it decreases action times.

  18. Analysis of serum and cerebrospinal fluid in clinically normal adult miniature donkeys.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mozaffari, A A; Samadieh, H

    2013-09-01

    To establish reference intervals for serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) parameters in clinically healthy adult miniature donkeys. Experiments were conducted on 10 female and 10 male clinically normal adult miniature donkeys, randomly selected from five herds. Lumbosacral CSF collection was performed with the sedated donkey in the standing position. Cell analysis was performed immediately after the samples were collected. Blood samples were obtained from the jugular vein immediately after CSF sample collection. Sodium, potassium, glucose, urea nitrogen, total protein, calcium, chloride, phosphorous and magnesium concentrations were measured in CSF and serum samples. A paired t-test was used to compare mean values between female and male donkeys. The CSF was uniformly clear, colourless and free from flocculent material, with a specific gravity of 1.002. The range of total nucleated cell counts was 2-4 cells/μL. The differential white cell count comprised only small lymphocytes. No erythrocytes or polymorphonuclear cells were observed on cytological examination. Reference values were obtained for biochemical analysis of serum and CSF. Gender had no effect on any variables measured in serum or CSF (p>0.05). CSF analysis can provide important information in addition to that gained by clinical examination. CSF analysis has not previously been performed in miniature donkeys; this is the first report on the subject. In the present study, reference intervals for total nucleated cell count, total protein, glucose, urea nitrogen, sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorous and magnesium concentrations of serum and CSF were determined for male and female miniature donkeys.

  19. Nursing students’ experiences of clinical education setting

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rahnama M

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available Background and Objective: Appropriate clinical environment has an important role in preparing students to use learned knowledge in practice through providing learning opportunities. Since the students’ experiences in the clinical setting affect on quality of their learning, the current study aimed to explain the experiences of nursing students concerning clinical education setting. Materials and Method: The current study was conducted based on conventional content analysis. Sampling was done purposively and the participants were 13 last year nursing students in Zabol Nursing and Midwifery School in 2013-2014. Data collection was done through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was conducted through qualitative content analysis approach. Results: Based on the results, five major categories including threats, vision, dual forces, mindset and students’ action to clinical education and also10 subcategorie were identified. Conclusion: Since the formation of students’ experiences in these environments is one of the predictive factors in achieving their learning and in facilitating the professionalization process, thus the attention of managers in clinical settings is very important for decreasing the threats and concerns for students. In this way, the marred prospects of profession can be recovered through the meeting students’ expectations, attractiveness of the profession can be increased and the positive belief, actions and feelings can be created in students.

  20. Partition of Ni between olivine and sulfide: the effect of temperature, f_{{text{O}}_{text{2}} } and f_{{text{S}}_{text{2}} }

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fleet, M. E.; Macrae, N. D.

    1987-03-01

    The experimental distribution coefficient for Ni/ Fe exchange between olivine and monosulfide (KD3) is 35.6±1.1 at 1385° C, f_{{text{O}}_{text{2}} } = 10^{ - 8.87} ,f_{{text{S}}_{text{2}} } = 10^{ - 1.02} , and olivine of composition Fo96 to Fo92. These are the physicochemical conditions appropriate to hypothesized sulfur-saturated komatiite magma. The present experiments equilibrated natural olivine grains with sulfide-oxide liquid in the presence of a (Mg, Fe)-alumino-silicate melt. By a variety of different experimental procedures, K D3 is shown to be essentially constant at about 30 to 35 in the temperature range 900 to 1400° C, for olivine of composition Fo97 to FoO, monosulfide composition with up to 70 mol. % NiS, and a wide range of f_{{text{O}}_{text{2}} } and f_{{text{S}}_{text{2}} }.