Authoritative Information Research Articles

The Public Face of a Proto-Something ….: Diplomacy and the European Union

This analysis takes its cue from Richard Langhorne's contribution on the continuities of diplomacy and the nature of the European Union [EU] as a diplomatic actor. It traces the institutional changes following the 2009 Lisbon Treaty, looking at the rationale for and the foreign policy roles of the president of the European Council, the High Representative, and, particularly, the European External Action Service [EEAS]. The creation of the EEAS has been especially contested, largely as a product of continuing competition amongst European institutions and the member states. The outcome, however, has been a more visible European diplomatic service that increasingly provides authoritative information to member states, many of whom have limited representation of their own. Whilst that potentially strengthens the role of the High Representative in policy-making, it still leaves many member states determined to see EU diplomacy in support of rather than as a substitute for their own.

The jenny mccarthy conundrum: Public libraries, popular culture, and health misinformation

Throughout the United States, public libraries are important resources for all types of information and serve a variety of information needs. One of these areas is health information provision; in fact, public libraries were widely identified as institutions providing support for patrons with questions on the Affordable Care Act. Yet, not all public libraries are equipped to provide this type of support. Moreover, there seems to be an inherent tension between collecting popular literature that may provide dangerous misinformation with regard to health and access to high quality, authoritative resources. Collection development tools and policies aren't standardized across libraries, and often staff are not trained to provide health information. Researchers visited randomly selected public libraries in three eastern U.S. states and posing as a patron asked: do vaccines cause autism. Public library staff referred to print materials to answer the question in half of all visits; 69% of the time, the print resource did not provide a credible answer. The sometimes conflicting roles of popular literature provider and authoritative health information provider have implications for library practice, public health and provision of high quality health information in communities throughout the nation.

The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences

The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences

Parliamentary information sources, systems and services in South Africa

Parliamentarians need accessible, current and authoritative information for decision-making. However, within the African continent information sources, systems and services are not always well organized and accessible. South Africa, relatively speaking has a well-organized information sector making a variety of information sources, systems and services available to the parliamentarian. The aim of the paper is to discuss the information needs of the South African parliamentarians, what sources they use to access information, and explore what the information sector in South Africa can provide to satisfy their information needs. The information for writing this paper was gained through a literature review, interviews, and an empirical study. The study targeted all the South African parliamentarians, and a questionnaire was used to gain information from the respondents. One hundred and sixty seven (23%) responses were received. The parliamentarians expressed a variety of information needs. Although the predominant preference source of information was still for printed sources (78%), the use of electronic sources (24%) was notable, taken into account its recent introduction. A myriad of information sources, and systems and services are available to the parliamentarian, either by visiting the information provider in person, or via telephone, faxing, visiting a website or e-mail. The parliamentarians however do not always make time or have the skills to access the information sources. It is strongly recommended that the services of a professionally trained information intermediary such as a parliamentary librarian be used to gate keep the information overload and provide the parliamentarian with the needed information. The increasing use of non-professional information providers such as Personal Assistant should be minimized and further investigated.

A Dynamic Integration Method for Borderland Database using OSM data

Abstract. Spatial data is the fundamental of borderland analysis of the geography, natural resources, demography, politics, economy, and culture. As the spatial region used in borderland researching usually covers several neighboring countries’ borderland regions, the data is difficult to achieve by one research institution or government. VGI has been proven to be a very successful means of acquiring timely and detailed global spatial data at very low cost. Therefore VGI will be one reasonable source of borderland spatial data. OpenStreetMap (OSM) has been known as the most successful VGI resource. But OSM data model is far different from the traditional authoritative geographic information. Thus the OSM data needs to be converted to the scientist customized data model. With the real world changing fast, the converted data needs to be updated. Therefore, a dynamic integration method for borderland data is presented in this paper. In this method, a machine study mechanism is used to convert the OSM data model to the user data model; a method used to select the changed objects in the researching area over a given period from OSM whole world daily diff file is presented, the change-only information file with designed form is produced automatically. Based on the rules and algorithms mentioned above, we enabled the automatic (or semiautomatic) integration and updating of the borderland database by programming. The developed system was intensively tested.

Informational support exchanges using different computer‐mediated communication formats in a social media alcoholism community

E‐patients seeking information online often seek specific advice related to coping with their health condition(s) among social networking sites. They may be looking for social connectivity with compassionate strangers who may have experienced similar situations to share opinions and experiences rather than for authoritative medical information. Previous studies document distinct technological features and different levels of social support interaction patterns. It is expected that the design of the social media functions will have an impact on the user behavior of social support exchange. In this part of a multipart study, we investigate the social support types, in particular information support types, across multiple computer‐mediated communication formats (forum, journal, and notes) within an alcoholism community using descriptive content analysis on 3 months of data from a MedHelp online peer support community. We present the results of identified informational support types including advice, referral, fact, personal experiences, and opinions, either offered or requested. Fact type was exchanged most often among the messages; however, there were some different patterns between notes and journal posts. Notes were used for maintaining relationships rather than as a main source for seeking information. Notes were similar to comments made to journal posts, which may indicate the friendship between journal readers and the author. These findings suggest that users may have initially joined the MedHelp Alcoholism Community for information‐seeking purposes but continue participation even after they have completed with information gathering because of the relationships they formed with community members through social media features.

Evolving pharmacology of orphan GPCRs: IUPHAR Commentary

The award of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for their work on the structure and function of GPCRs, spanning a period of more than 20 years from the cloning of the human β2 -adrenoceptor to determining the crystal structure of the same protein, has earned both researchers a much deserved place in the pantheon of major scientific discoveries. GPCRs comprise one of the largest families of proteins, controlling many major physiological processes and have been a major focus of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology Committee on Receptor Nomenclature and Drug Classification (NC-IUPHAR) since its inception in 1987. We report here recent efforts by the British Pharmacological Society and NC-IUPHAR to define the endogenous ligands of 'orphan' GPCRs and to place authoritative and accessible information about these crucial therapeutic targets online.

Accessing Electronic Resources

Having access to current and authoritative knowledge-based information resources including electronic resources is a standard set by The Joint Commission (1); however, to connect a library's electr...

Geobiodiversity Database: a comprehensive section-based integration of stratigraphic and paleontological data

The Geobiodiversity Database (GBDB – www.geobiodiversity.com), an integrated system for the management and analysis of stratigraphic and paleontological information, was started in 2006 and became available online in 2007. Its goal is to facilitate regional and global scientific collaborations focused on regional and global correlation, quantitative stratigraphy, systematics, biodiversity dynamics, paleogeography and paleoecology. It is unique among global, public access databases in that it is a section-based online database system, incorporating data from a wide range of disciplines of stratigraphy and paleontology, with inherent interrelationship between different kinds of data sets. It provides the capability of completely digitizing raw data, as well as integrating of different interpretations to the same paleontological and stratigraphic content. Several Windows-based visualization and analysis applications, either fully integrated with the database or supported by subset-export functions, have been developed to make the database more useful as a scientific and educational tool. The GBDB became the formal database of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) in August 2012 at the 34th International Geological Congress in Brisbane, and will produce comprehensive and authoritative web-based stratigraphic information service for global geoscientists, educators and the public.

Journal of the Medical Library Association readership survey

Every few years, MLA conducts a survey of the readership of the Journal of the Medical Library Association (JMLA). Regular evaluation of the JMLA is required by the association, and this survey is an important part of that process. In October 2012, the survey was sent by email to a random sample of 1,200 Medical Library Association members and nonmember subscribers, and 518 responded. The results are very encouraging. Over 60% of respondents said they read something in every issue of the JMLA; a full 90% reported that they read something at least once a year. This compares favorably to respondents' reports of how often they read other library journals: 54% said they read something in Medical Reference Services Quarterly at least once a year, and a little over 30% said they read something that often in College and Research Libraries, the Journal of Academic Librarianship, and the Journal of Hospital Librarianship. A majority of respondents who read the JMLA thought that the JMLA was better than average in terms of all the qualities listed (timeliness, authoritative information, evidence-based information, relevance, readability, practical information, and value in professional development). The poorest scores were received for readability (Worse than average = 4%) and practical information (Worse than average = 7%). Sixty percent to 70% of those who read the JMLA said that items they had recently read helped them with work-related issues, provided useful information, had practical applications and information not found elsewhere, and contributed to their professional development. Slightly fewer (50%) said it helped them with research. When asked to indicate the topics of the items read, technology was the most frequently chosen topic (67%), followed by instruction (63%) and user behavior (57%). Interlibrary loan, acquisitions and licensing, and bibliometrics were the lowest scoring topics, chosen by approximately 20% of respondents (respondents could select more than 1 option). For the most part, a majority of respondents indicated that the current distribution of sections was “about right.” However, more than a third wanted more electronic resource reviews and case studies, and 10%–11% wanted fewer full-length research papers and book reviews. The percentage recommending elimination of any section was less than 1%, with the exception of book reviews (4%). Between 18% and 11% of responses to all choices for this question was “no opinion,” possibly because these respondents do not regularly look at the section listed. A look at statistics supplied by PubMed Central confirms readers' continuing interest in material published in the JMLA (a word of caution: some fraction of these numbers may represent harvesters rather than actual viewers). We published 18 brief communications in 2012; in the first 4 months after publication, the average brief communication received 170 full-text views and 70 portable document format (PDF) downloads. We published 8 case studies; these received, on average, 299 full-text views and 120 PDF downloads. The 12 full-length research papers had 365 full-text views and 168 PDF downloads. The 4 papers invited for our special issue were clearly of interest as well: 279 full-text views and 124 PDF downloads. By far the most frequently read paper online was the 2011 Janet Doe Lecture by T. Scott Plutchak, AHIP: 6,046 full-text views and 1,308 PDF downloads in just the first 4 months after it appeared! Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in our readership survey. We will continue to analyze the results so that we can do an even better job of meeting your needs. Sixty-three percent of respondents said that the JMLA is one of the top three to five most important programs or projects provided by the Medical Library Association. We will be working hard to live up to user expectations.

WE‐G‐137‐01: Medical Physics Economics

This presentation will review the aspects of medical physics economics and reimbursement that are relevant to the practicing clinical medical physicist. Covered topics will include:CPT© code development, valuation and useMedicare payment systems: Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System, Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and Ambulatory Surgical CentersGeneral coding and billing practicesUpcoming changes in reimbursementSources of informationAAPM economic activitiesKnowledge of these topics is essential to the practicing physicist to ensure that his/her work is recognized and billed for correctly. The presentation will not be a comprehensive billing seminar as coverage policies vary with location. However, general guidelines will be reviewed and sources of authoritative billing information will be included.Learning Objectives:1. Understand the three primary Medicare reimbursement systems, how they differ in coverage and in the way they determine reimbursement levels.2. Understand how CPT© codes are utilized to report billable work.3. Understand where to find authoritative billing and coding information.

Guidelines for designing a digestive disease endoscopy unit: Report of the World Endoscopy Organization

A dedicated digestive disease endoscopy unit is structurally and functionally differentiating rapidly as a result of increasing diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities in the last 10-20 years. Publications with practical details are scarce, imposing a challenge in the construction of such a unit. The lack of authoritative information about endoscopy unit design means that architects produce their own design with or without consulting endoscopists working in such a unit. A working group of the World Endoscopy Organization discussed and outlined a practical approach fordesign and construction of a modern endoscopy unit. Designing the layout is extremely important, necessitating thoughtful planning to provide comfort to the endoscopy staff and patients, and efficient data archiving and transmission during endoscopic services.

Free, Authoritative Online Drug Information Directory: PharmGuide

Many free Web sites provide drug information, but it can be difficult to determine if these sites are trustworthy and correct. PharmGuide (http://goo.gl/f14Me) is an online directory of Web sites providing accurate, authoritative, and free information about prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It was created and is maintained by the Pharmacy and Drug Information Section of the Medical Library Association. Nine criteria are used to assess Web sites, ensuring that selected sites are current, unbiased, and authoritative. Intended for use by librarians, health care professionals, and consumers, PharmGuide provides annotations describing the content and navigation of free drug information Web sites.

The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences

For nearly 10 years, there has been a need to replace the long-revered Brandon/Hill list that ceased publication in 2003 1. The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences does an excellent job replacing that tool and lives up to its title as a master guide. It is 8.5-inches-x-11.25-inches and 2 inches thick, covers 34 broad-based subjects, and is organized logically around the “Health Occupations” and “Biological Sciences” tree structures of the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). More than three-quarters of the contributors are librarians (the rest are experts in their domains), and each contributor has reviewed and selected essential books, journals, and databases in their areas of expertise. The book covers a broad range of the expected clinical areas, but also chiropractic, dentistry, environmental health, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, and administration. It also includes some basic sciences and ethics and ends with a general reference section. This single volume makes no claim to be comprehensive; instead expert contributors were explicitly asked to identify up to ten of the most valuable books and journals in their field. The design follows the intention of Brandon/Hill in that it seeks to offer the most value for selectors in small-budget medical libraries, but the Master Guide expands its scope to include databases and electronic resources. The Master Guide is well organized and designed. The table of contents is constructed with broad categories and subdivided by specialties. Subcategories are numbered in a way similar to many style guides (for example, Chapter 11 is “Surgical Specialties,” followed by subspecialties: “11.1 Colorectal Surgery,” “11.2 Gynecology,” “11.3 Neurosurgery,” etc.). Three indexes in the back (monographs, journals, and databases and electronic resources) facilitate easy look-up of particular resources by name. This feature will be useful when considering requests to add a particular volume or subscription to a library's collection. Each section or subcategory begins with a definition of the discipline, mostly from MeSH and occasionally from a medical dictionary, and names the contributing authors. Overview encyclopedic works are presented first in the main section, followed by specialties within the field. Up to 20 resources are presented, in consistent order of monographs, then journals, then databases. Each individual entry includes title, edition, author, publisher, publication date, 13-digit international standard book number (ISBN), and uniform resource locator (URL) for online versions, where available, either for free or by subscription. When items were selected by more than one discipline, there is a “See” referral to the primary section. Listings offer recommendations for hospital, academic, or consumer health libraries. If the selection was included in the Brandon/Hill List or Doody's Core Titles 2, that is also indicated. Entries then offer a brief (100–200 words) description emphasizing the importance and value of the work. For books, if Doody's Core Titles recommended it as an “essential purchase,” that information is included. For journals, the entry includes indexing information. The presentation of the material in this book will make sense to librarians. The final section on general reference extends the usefulness of this work by including free and subscription bibliographic sources that help librarians find and evaluate information resources. There are sections on databases, dictionaries and medical terminology, statistical sources, biographical directories, and finally a section on grant sources. An online version of this excellent resource is intended, but no current URL, as of this writing, could be located. The Master Guide offers more in-depth annotation than the New Walford Guide to Reference Resources volume on medicine 3. The New Walford is a dictionary or catalog of resources offering only brief descriptions and borrowed review blurbs from publisher sources. Their purposes are different,. Like the Introduction to Reference Sources in the Health Sciences 4, the New Walford seeks to support the new librarian who has no idea what sources exist in a field. The Master Guide, on the other hand, is written and edited by librarians mostly for an audience of directors of hospital libraries or bibliographic selectors in academic institutions who must make difficult collection development decisions within tight budgets. The Medical Library Association's Master Guide to Authoritative Information Resources in the Health Sciences is highly recommended for hospital libraries. It would also be a core resource for academic libraries at all levels with medical, pharmacy, nursing, dentistry, allied health, or veterinary schools. Frankly, it would be a highly useful desk reference for medical librarians involved in collection development or needing a resource for reference questions outside their areas of expertise.

A screening tool to prioritize public health risk associated with accidental or deliberate release of chemicals into the atmosphere

The Chemical Events Working Group of the Global Health Security Initiative has developed a flexible screening tool for chemicals that present a risk when accidentally or deliberately released into the atmosphere. The tool is generic, semi-quantitative, independent of site, situation and scenario, encompasses all chemical hazards (toxicity, flammability and reactivity), and can be easily and quickly implemented by non-subject matter experts using freely available, authoritative information. Public health practitioners and planners can use the screening tool to assist them in directing their activities in each of the five stages of the disaster management cycle.

Farmers’ attitudes to disease risk management in England: A comparative analysis of sheep and pig farmers

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) identified practices to reduce the risk of animal disease outbreaks. We report on the response of sheep and pig farmers in England to promotion of these practices. A conceptual framework was established from research on factors influencing adoption of animal health practices, linking knowledge, attitudes, social influences and perceived constraints to the implementation of specific practices. Qualitative data were collected from nine sheep and six pig enterprises in 2011. Thematic analysis explored attitudes and responses to the proposed practices, and factors influencing the likelihood of implementation. Most feel they are doing all they can reasonably do to minimise disease risk and that practices not being implemented are either not relevant or ineffective. There is little awareness and concern about risk from unseen threats. Pig farmers place more emphasis than sheep farmers on controlling wildlife, staff and visitor management and staff training. The main factors that influence livestock farmers’ decision on whether or not to implement a specific disease risk measure are: attitudes to, and perceptions of, disease risk; attitudes towards the specific measure and its efficacy; characteristics of the enterprise which they perceive as making a measure impractical; previous experience of a disease or of the measure; and the credibility of information and advice. Great importance is placed on access to authoritative information with most seeing vets as the prime source to interpret generic advice from national bodies in the local context. Uptake of disease risk measures could be increased by: improved risk communication through the farming press and vets to encourage farmers to recognise hidden threats; dissemination of credible early warning information to sharpen farmers’ assessment of risk; and targeted information through training events, farming press, vets and other advisers, and farmer groups, tailored to the different categories of livestock farmer.

Extracting drug indication information from structured product labels using natural language processing.

To extract drug indications from structured drug labels and represent the information using codes from standard medical terminologies. We used MetaMap and other publicly available resources to extract information from the indications section of drug labels. Drugs and indications were encoded by RxNorm and UMLS identifiers respectively. A sample was manually reviewed. We also compared the results with two independent information sources: National Drug File-Reference Terminology and the Semantic Medline project. A total of 6797 drug labels were processed, resulting in 19 473 unique drug-indication pairs. Manual review of 298 most frequently prescribed drugs by seven physicians showed a recall of 0.95 and precision of 0.77. Inter-rater agreement (Fleiss κ) was 0.713. The precision of the subset of results corroborated by Semantic Medline extractions increased to 0.93. Correlation of a patient's medical problems and drugs in an electronic health record has been used to improve data quality and reduce medication errors. Authoritative drug indication information is available from drug labels, but not in a format readily usable by computer applications. Our study shows that it is feasible to use publicly available natural language processing resources to extract drug indications from drug labels. The same method can be applied to other sections of the drug label-for example, adverse effects, contraindications. It is feasible to use publicly available natural language processing tools to extract indication information from freely available drug labels. Named entity recognition sources (eg, MetaMap) provide reasonable recall. Combination with other data sources provides higher precision.

Water and hydraulic fracturing

This article provides an overview of the AWWA white paper ‐ Water and Hydraulic Fracturing ‐ that was requested by AWWA's Water Utility Council in response to increasing oil and natural gas development and the difficulty many utilities have experienced in seeking balanced and authoritative information on this issue.

Strategies for justifying counter-arguments in Q&A discussion

This study examines the strategies employed in justifying counter-arguments against answers provided in Q&A (question and answer) discussion. The study also explores how information sources are used in support of such arguments. The findings draw on the analysis of 100 discourse episodes focusing on global warming – a controversial topic eliciting competing answers from the participants. The empirical data were downloaded from Yahoo! Answers. Four strategies were identified. Of them, questioning the validity of answers and questioning the background assumptions of answers were used most frequently. While justifying counter-arguments, the participants also drew on emotional appeals and questioned the contributor’s motives. To support the counter-arguments, the participants mainly drew on internet-based sources of information. The controversial nature of the discussion topic was reflected in the debate about the most authoritative information sources: persuasive material advocating a particular viewpoint to global warming vs objective research reports.

Onward and upward

As Human Reproduction Update changes its Editor-in-Chief with the first issue of 2013, it is an apt time to reflect on the history of this journal and project plans for a strong future. Human Reproduction Update is a review journal which is owned by ESHRE, a large professional society, and published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a highly respected academic publisher. As a review journal it aims to provide comprehensive, authoritative, up-to-date and balanced information, primarily for the scientific community. Another task for a review journal which is owned by a professional society is to provide an educational service to its members and other readers. The Journal scope covers basic, transitional and clinical topics related to reproduction. This includes all the relevant areas of reproductive genetics, epidemiology, endocrinology and immunology. Reviews on mechanisms of action of hormones and regulatory molecules in female and male reproductive axis functions and pathologies, as well as on diagnostic and therapeutic topics in reproductive medicine, are welcome. In 2005 the types of reviews in the journal were summarized by two former Editors as follows: