Equal Pace Research Articles

Importance of Caste-Based Headcounts: An Analysis of Caste Specific Demographics Transition in India

Caste has always been a subject of socio-political segregation in India. Inequality across caste is prominent for varying health and development outcomes, which is a subject less researched till date. Four rounds of National Family Health Surveys (1–4) conducted in the last 25 years are analysed to portray the fertility and mortality differentials across castes/ tribes. The article signifies, that distinct inter and intra-caste differences in association with the region of residence are present that must be taken into consideration while understanding the health outcomes. Despite a decline in the fertility and child mortality rates in India, caste-wise differentials suggests that the decline is associated with the socio-economic position and transition experienced by these groups. Though schemes and benefits are targeted towards backwards castes, however, sub-castes under each caste are far from realization of those benefits at equal pace. Realization of the developmental processes among castes is a matter of proper enumeration and intricate research that rationalize the distributive and affirmative policies of India.

A STUDY ON POLYPHARMACY AMONG ELDERLY PATIENTS IN MEDICINE WARD OF A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL OF EASTERN INDIA

Background: In the modern era, with the increase in the lifespan of individuals with increasing access to health-care facilities, the population of elderly is also increasing with an equal pace. However, on the other hand, with the increasing population of the elderly another important issue of polypharmacy has also emerged. Elderly people usually have more disease conditions for which more of medications are prescribed in older individuals as compared to younger population. Hence, optimizing drug therapy in this aging population is a challenging task for physician. Polypharmacy can also lead to increase in drug interactions, adverse drug reactions, and medication errors. It was an observational, cross-sectional, prospective study. The Materials and Methods: study was conducted in patients admitted in general medicine wards at College of Medicine& JNM Hospital, Kalyani, West Bengal. The study involved 320 elderly patients (above 65 years of age) of either sex for 3 months from January to March 2020. The information recorded included the demographic details of the patients, diagnosis, comorbid illnesses, details about medications being, the total number of drugs being used, and the factors associated with polypharmacy. A total of 320 geriatric patients were included in the study. Pol Results: ypharmacy was found (>5 medications/day) in 79.71% of geriatrics. Pantoprazole , antimnicrobials and NSAIDS were most commonly prescribed drugs. To counteract the problems Conclusion: associated with polypharmacy, regular follow- ups and proper monitoring of drug regimens of older individuals are the need of the hour.

Paradigm Shift in Adaptive Cyber Defense for Securing the Web Data: The Future Ahead

Web Applications are becoming more sophisticated to cater the ever-growing demand of data processing and computing. Fast technological advancements in web engineering not only facilitate data intensive and high-performance computing, but also raise serious concerns on security. Cyber threats are also ramping up at the equal pace and attackers are now more organised and equipped with high-end servers. The Data over Web needs to be more authenticated and reliable. Data Provenance-aware methods are capable of identification of data breaches and manipulation through various attacks. They analyse underlying data for the potential threats to ensure protection against various attacks. Cyber Security Practitioners are witnessing severe issues in securing the Web Data and applications as the security risks are growing rapidly due to the sudden eruption in internet usage due to the pandemic in the last few years. People and organisations are relying more on Internet and web applications than ever before. The efforts for securing the web data on such a massive scale is premature to counter the ever-evolving attack attempts. Nature-inspired Cyber Security (NICS) facilitates the development and implementation of robust defensive mechanisms which are more adaptive and highly tolerant to online malicious programs. These methods are also capable of dealing with the common algorithmic issues like incompleteness and uncertainty of information and to provide a high-level security mechanism by effectively implementing the bio-inspired methodologies like deception, and camouflage etc. This article will attempt to explore the effectiveness of NICS in web data and application security to provide smart security methods.

Evaluating the actual use of learning management systems during the covid-19 pandemic: an integrated theoretical model

ABSTRACT The accelerating influx of learning technologies has catalyzed the surge for the formidable investments in e-learning systems across higher education institutions to revolutionize pedagogical practices. Thereby, learning management systems (LMS) have become indispensable tools in higher education. The enforcement of pandemic restrictions and emergency lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19 have compelled higher education institutions worldwide to cope with and sustain online education requirements while preserving the quality of the learning experiences at an equal pace. This research develops and validates an integrated theoretical model by integrating three theories, including the IS success model, technology acceptance model (TAM), and theory of planned behavior (TPB). A web-based survey has been administered to a sample of 373 Omani undergraduate students. The PLS-SEM technique has been implemented to analyze and scrutinize the hypothesized cause and effect paths among the constructs. The results revealed that quality factors have significantly influenced perceived ease of use, whereas technical system quality has demonstrated the most critical impact on the perceived usefulness. Both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, in addition to subjective norms, have significantly influenced the intention to use LMS. In line with these results, the study throws several theoretical contributions and practical implications.

Is the Spillover Hypothesis of Neofunctionalism Functional in an Asian Context? The China–Central Asia and China–Southeast Asia Pipelines in Comparative Perspective

To secure an oil and gas supply, China has built several types of energy infrastructure near its borders and developed energy cooperation with regional partners based on this infrastructure. However, not all energy cooperation projects develop at an equal pace or are equally successful. This study employs the neofunctionalist spillover hypothesis—one of several key discourses applied to explaining European integration—to account for the difference in regional cooperation between two China-driven energy megaprojects in Asia: the China–Central Asia Pipelines and the China–Southeast Asia Pipelines. After investigation into the so-called spillover hypothesis, including “functional spillover,” “political spill-over,” and “cultivated spillover,” the more successful of the two projects was also found to be more significant in terms of its spillover effect. Thus, this article finds that regional cooperation in the Chinese context also supports the spill-over hypothesis, which has conventionally been regarded as a Europe-based discourse.

Assess the Engagement with 3D Virtual Learning Tools during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The recent growth of learning technologies has catalyzed the surge in investments in e-learning systems across higher education to revolutionize pedagogical practices. Thus, the implementation of 3D virtual learning tools has become an indispensable, standard methodological tool in higher education. More recently, the enforcement of restrictions and emergency lockdowns to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic compelled higher education institutions worldwide to cope with and meet the requirements of online education while preserving the quality of the learning experience at an equal pace. To develop a 3D physics laboratory, the appropriate equipment for physical experiments was first collected; then, the design software was applied to construct the 3D model. Software was then developed to edit the 3D experimental environment. Two practical tests were performed on the completed setup to verify the disadvantages and feasibility of the experiments. The present study develops and validates the incorporation of user satisfaction approaches to examine the quality of the most influential 3D learning tools during the coronavirus outbreak. The findings of this study confirm that 3D laboratories can positively influence learning attitudes when it comes to physics and improve learners’ understanding of physics concepts; they also confirm that 3D laboratories are a suitable tool for teaching physics experiments. Finally, the difficulties and solutions encountered in the development of the 3D laboratory are outlined as a reference for subsequent studies.

Person-Centered Care Coordination Next Steps in a Long Journey.

Citizens of the Netherlands receive excellent care, when they need it, insurance based funded according to the solidarity principle. Maintaining this system is a huge challenge, as we live longer and the demand for care is growing. With an increasing percentage of multi-morbidity in all age groups the need for integrated network organized care is growing at equal pace. Gradually the need to shift focus to prevention is increasingly understood, but a challenging business model is still lacking. The involvement of citizens in maintaining their health requires a focus on managing the social determinants of health. The concept of the holistic problem list and the overarching care plan provides a unique way to combine both health and disease management. Our vision is to bring control to the patient and promote coordination of all active problems across the health and social care network.

Defining and evaluating stability in early years assessment

ABSTRACT Stability is an important underlying assumption in any form of assessment-supported decision-making. Since early years development is frequently described as unstable, the concept plays a central role in the discussion surrounding early years assessment. This paper describes stability as a set of assumptions about the way individual scores change over time. Here, an analytical framework developed by Tisak and Meredith, which can be used to evaluate these assumptions, is extended and applied to evaluate the stability of mathematics scores of 1402 children between kindergarten and third grade. Multilevel models are used to evaluate the assumption that each child has a unique individual growth rate, as well as the assumption that the ranking of children’s test scores is consistent over time. The results show that for a large proportion of the children, assuming unique individual growth rates leads to similar predictions as assuming that children develop at an equal pace. While individual differences in growth rate may provide relevant information, these differences only become apparent after several test administrations. As such, decisions should not be based on perceived stagnated or accelerated growth over a short period.

Prevalence of Multidrug Resistant <i>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</i> among Tuberculosis Patients Admitted to Adama Hospital Medical College, Adama, Ethiopia: A Retrospective Study

Multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is an emerging challenge for TB control programs globally. Ethiopia ranks 7th among the world’s 22 high TB burden countries. According to report of WHO (2017), TB is one of the leading infectious causes of death in Ethiopia claiming the life of more than 30 thousand people annually. The surge of MDR-TB has been compounding the problem further. Facility-based MDR-TB researches have not been generated in equal pace with community-based ones. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of MDR-TB using clinical records of MDR-TB patients in Adama Hospital Medical College (AHMC) from 2014 to 2018. All clinical data of MDR-TB from 2014-2018 was collected from AHMC TB department. Socio-demographic and risk factor data were collected from patients using semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analyzed using Microsoft excel and SPSS version 20. Out of a total 2332 TB suspected cases admitted to AHMC from 2014 to 2018, 175 (7.5%) were confirmed MDR-TB cases or confirmed Rifampicin resistant cases. In particular, 97 (4.2%) presented presumptive MDR-TB alone and 78 (3.3%) showed confirmed Rifampicin resistance alone. Comparison among age groups showed the highest prevalence for 24 - 44 years with 1.8% and 1.5% confirmed MDR-TB and Rifampicin resistance. The overall prevalence of MDR-TB was moderate indicating for possible rise of the problem due to course of time. Further study combining both community and health facility based is recommended to highlight the need to make useful strategies for testing, surveillance and effective clinical management of MDR-TB cases.

Women’s Empowerment and Micro Credit: Results from Newly Declared Municipality of Western Hill

In this article, the process of women’s empowerment, after their involvement in micro credit, has been epitomized as being equally efficient wheal of the same cart and being strong enough to run in equal pace with men. The members of Khairenitar Women Development Multi-purpose Cooperative Ltd. (KWDMCL) have been studied and analyzed how women’s empowerment process is enabling her to negotiate with the men and becoming stronger to decide own destiny of lives. The women empowerment process has been analyzed in both individual and collective level as envisaged by Commission on Women and Development (2007). The process of being empowered is causing more workload to women as they have to accomplish the roles assigned by patriarchy as well as new responsibilities associated with the micro credit.

Utilization rates and clinical outcomes of hepatitis C positive donor hearts in the contemporary era

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) donors should be categorized as HCV-viremic (antibody [Ab] negative or positive/Nucleic Acid testing [NAT] positive) or HCV Ab+nonviremic (Ab+/NAT-). Whereas recipients of hearts from HCV-viremic donors will develop viremia but can be cured of HCV shortly after transplant with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), recipients of hearts from HCV Ab+ nonviremic donors are highly unlikely to become viremic or require DAAs. Given this important difference in risk, we assessed the utilization trends and post-heart-transplantation outcomes of HCV-naive (Ab-/NAT-), HCV-viremic, and HCV Ab+ nonviremic donor hearts. A total of 26,572 adult donors (≥18 years) with information on HCV Ab and NAT status were identified in the United Network for Organ Sharing registry between August 2015 and June 2018 for utilization rates. Adult heart transplant recipients of these donors were compared for primary graft failure (PGF) at 90 days and 1-year recipient survival. A total of 96 HCV Ab+ nonviremic and 135 HCV-viremic adult donor hearts were transplanted during the study period. The utilization rates of both HCV Ab+ nonviremic (1.4%-23.4%) and HCV-viremic (0.7%-25.4%) donor hearts increased significantly approaching HCV-naive rates (29.04%). There was no significant difference in rates of PGF and 1-year survival between recipients in the 3 donor HCV groups. We also used (1:3) propensity score matching and found similar 1-year survival in different donor HCV groups (HCV-naive vs HCV Ab+ nonviremic, p = 0.59, and HCV-naive vs HCV-viremic, p = 0.98). Recipients of HCV-viremic and HCV Ab+ nonviremic donor hearts had equivalent risk of PGF and 1-year mortality compared with recipients of HCV-naive donor hearts. Although only HCV-viremic organs require DAAs and the risk of coronary artery vasculopathy after treated HCV infection has not been defined, the utilization rates of both HCV Ab+ nonviremic and HCV-viremic adult donor hearts have increased at an equal pace now approaching HCV-naive rates.

Emerging Public Health Concern and Air Pollution: A Case Study of Delhi’s Air Pollution Governance

Air Pollution is a cause of concern in the present world as it is not responsible for only deteriorating our environment but is associated with severe health risks to the human life as well. With the increasing levels of air pollution the burden of diseases on health has increased too in quite evident ways. A healthy environment is prerequisite for the well-being of all and hence handling this risk becomes crucial. Air pollution in Delhi is not a recent phenomenon rather a recurring case. There are several contributing factors to it which combines to make Delhi ‘gas chamber’. This study focuses on the management of this risk, through the governance aspect which can contribute in making Delhi’s air healthy. This is a qualitative research wherein case study method has been applied to understand air pollution governance as a means of risk management. Delhi which has multi-level governance has become the study area wherein the risk of air pollution is evermounting. This paper also investigates the case of air pollution and its governance in Delhi transversing into a public health emergency in the recent times, keeping public trust doctrine as the conceptual basis to look at governance. National Capital Territory of Delhi can be considered as a victim of the Air Pollution and its consequent impacts. The lack of integrated approach in Delhi for risk governance makes the governance process multifaceted and a challenging task. From this study it can be stated that emerging public health concern due to air pollution and its governance, have not kept an equal pace even with the backing of legislative measures and intervention of court of law. Right to Life and Right to a Healthy Environment are being violated by increasing air pollution levels in the city time and again. As the levels of air quality continues to be poor, good governance for reducing air pollution is need of the hour.

Identifying the Challenges and Cost-effectiveness of Telerehabilitation: A Narrative Review

Technology has been evolving at an exponential speed in the past decade and the evidence of a dramatic change is all around us such as self-driving cars, artificial intelligence, robotics, and many more. The fusion of physical, digital and biological worlds, the so-called 4th industrial revolution, has impacted all industries and disciplines including healthcare. It has changed the way we live, work, and interacts with people around the globe. Despite its numerous benefits it also brings several concerns such as organisations failing to adapt to this shift at an equal or adequate pace. It is imperative that we grab the opportunities it presents and together shapes a sustainable and highly productive future. The field of rehabilitation has begun to adapt to these changes and became known as Telerehabilitation (TR). A promising field can be instrumental in aiding healthcare delivery, enhancing compliance, and improving health outcomes and quality of life of patients. However, the development of TR has been at a much slower pace than expected in both developing and developed countries. This article is a review of status and trends in TR and will mainly deal with identifying challenges faced by its users, gaps and propose means for rectifying issues and for establishing cost-effectiveness. It is thus concluded that there should be future studies of high quality, analysing its cost effectiveness and cost benefit. Also, the challenges could be overcome by a combination of face to face delivery and TR.

Keeping up with the monolinguals

AbstractPrevious studies investigating possible differences between monolingual and bilingual infants’ vocabulary development have produced mixed results. The current study examines the size of the total receptive and expressive vocabulary, total conceptual vocabulary, and specific Dutch vocabulary of two hundred 8- to 18-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants born and living in the Netherlands. Families completed a Dutch version of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories. Results illustrate that bilingual infants keep up with monolinguals even in Dutch receptive and expressive vocabulary sizes, showing no trace of delay in the development of the socially dominant language. The overall findings constitute an extension of work on vocabulary acquisition and challenge existing theories that suggest a developmental delay among bilingual learners. The equal pace of development between the monolingual and bilingual groups provides new insights into the influence and perhaps advantages of early bilingual language acquisition.

Cyber Crime Control Techno - Legal Network

The Internet technology in Electronic science, and its utility have advanced at a faster rate, than any other area of science. The internet crimes are also increasing in an equal pace. The crimes are happening in the Cyber space. How to be safe, so that any secret data is not stolen and misused ? There are cyber laws, to catch the evident crimes where both the sufferer & the person who committed the crime are reachable. But a Cyber crime is an intellectual stealing technique. The robber himself, access the valuable data in cyber space, through a software. Steals, hacks, damages, or misuses the data. There is a time gap between the crime & it’s effects, on the ground level !! How to capture them ? The moral is that a technical robber should be caught or trimmed through the same technology of their robbery. This is achieved in this book through a Cyber Law Control unit at ground, and a Cyber Law control Shell at cyber level, for every nation. These coordinate among themselves, and with all servers and nodes on the ground. This will ensure a full protection and implement all the clauses of the Country’s Cyber Law, from the Space. This setup is applicable internationally.

Assessment of species diversity and distribution of an ancient diatom lineage using a DNA metabarcoding approach.

BackgroundContinuous efforts to estimate actual diversity and to trace the species distribution and ranges in the natural environments have gone in equal pace with advancements of the technologies in the study of microbial species diversity from microscopic observations to DNA-based barcoding. DNA metabarcoding based on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) constitutes the latest advancement in these efforts. Here we use NGS data from different sites to investigate the geographic range of six species of the diatom family Leptocylindraceae and to identify possible new taxa within the family.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe analysed the V4 and V9 regions of the nuclear-encoded SSU rDNA gene region in the NGS database of the European ERA-Biodiversa project BioMarKs, collected in plankton and sediments at six coastal sites in European coastal waters, as well as environmental sequences from the NCBI database. All species known in the family Leptocylindraceae were detected in both datasets, but the much larger Illumina V9 dataset showed a higher species coverage at the various sites than the 454 V4 dataset. Sequences identical or similar to the references of Leptocylindrus aporus, L. convexus, L. danicus/hargravesii and Tenuicylindrus belgicus were found in the Mediterranean Sea, North Atlantic Ocean and Black Sea as well as at locations outside Europe. Instead, sequences identical or close to that of L. minimus were found in the North Atlantic Ocean and the Black Sea but not in the Mediterranean Sea, while sequences belonging to a yet undescribed taxon were encountered only in Oslo Fjord and Baffin Bay.Conclusions/SignificanceIdentification of Leptocylindraceae species in NGS datasets has expanded our knowledge of the species biogeographic distribution and of the overall diversity of this diatom family. Individual species appear to be widespread, but not all of them are found everywhere. Despite the sequencing depth allowed by NGS and the wide geographic area covered by this study, the diversity of this ancient diatom family appears to be low, at least at the level of the marker used in this study.

Millennial-scale phase relationships between ice-core and Mediterranean marine records: insights from high-precision 40Ar/39Ar dating of the Green Tuff of Pantelleria, Sicily Strait

With the advent of annually-resolved polar ice records extending back to 70 ka, marine and continental paleoclimate studies have now matured into a discipline where high-quality age control is essential for putting on an equal pace layer-counted timescale models and Late Quaternary sedimentary records. High-resolution U–Th dating of speleothem records and 40Ar/39Ar dating of globally recorded geomagnetic excursions have recently improved the time calibration of Quaternary archives, reflecting the cross-disciplinary effort made to synchronize the geologic record at the millennial scale. Yet, tie-points with such an absolute age control remain scarce for paleoclimatic time-series extending beyond the radiocarbon timescale, most notably in the marine record. Far-travelled tephra layers recorded both onland and offshore provide an alternative in such instance to synchronize continental and marine archives via high-resolution 40Ar/39Ar dating of the parent volcanic eruption. High-resolution 40Ar/39Ar data are reported herein for one such volcanic marker, the Green Tuff of Pantelleria and its Y-6 tephra equivalent recorded throughout the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Published radiochronometric and δ18O orbitally-tied ages for this marker horizon scatter widely from about 41 ka up to 56 ka. Our new 40Ar/39Ar age at 45.7 ± 1.0 ka (2σ) reveals that previous estimates are biased by more than their reported errors would suggest, including recent orbital tuning of marine records hosting the tephra bed that are reevaluated in the context of this study. This improved estimate enables potential phase lags and leads to be studied between deep-sea and terrestrial archives with unrivaled (near-millennial) 40Ar/39Ar precision in the marine record.

Employment Growth by Accelerated Manufacturing in India - A Comparative Study and Lesson to Be Learnt from China

It is the popular belief that employment growth should have been at an equal pace with the growth of Manufacturing industry in India post major economic reforms in 1991, but number of studies show that it hasn’t been so. Though it’s seen that employment has indeed increased post 1991 reforms it hasn’t accelerated at the rate of manufacturing industry growth. adoption of automation methods and other technological advancements adopted by manufacturing companies have been a major reason for this phenomenon, and also the huge cost pressure on the firm due to stiff competition in the market which they operate In this paper we will investigate the employment growth in India during various periods of major economic changes and compare them in parallel with neighboring country China which has marked significant progress by adopting manufacturing as the major industry.

Clinical features and neuroimaging findings of 12 patients with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis involved in corpus callosum

To summarize the clinical features and neuroimaging findings of the patients with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) involved in corpus callosum (CC) so as to distinguish it from other diseases. A total of 12 ADEM patients with the involvement of CC during the period of 2010-2012 were recruited. There were 9 males and 3 females with a mean age of 31±14 years (range: 10-54). Their clinical and neuroimaging features were retrospectively reviewed and all data analyzed by SPSS 18.0. (1) All of them had an acute or subacute onset. Two patients had a history of vaccination and 5 suffered upper respiratory tract infection or diarrhea. (2) The presenting symptoms included fever (n=5), headache (n=4), unsteady gait (n=2), urinary retention (n=1), indifference (n=1) and delirium (n=1). (3) The main clinical symptoms included memory loss (n=9), delirium (n=5), somnolence (n=4), urinary retention (n=9), paraplegia (n=4) and unsteady gait (n=5). (4) The examinations of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) revealed increased intracranial pressure (n=4), leucocytosis (n=3) and increased protein (n=7) of 7 cases. All oligoclonal bands were negative. (5) The lesions were involved in bilateral CCs in 12 patients. Among them, splenium was the most commonly affected (n=9), secondly stem (n=5) and lastly genu (n=4). For 6 patients, the intracranial lesions were all in their CCs. And among them, 2 cases were involved in spinal cord. Except for CC, there were other focal lesions in brain stem and cerebellum (n=4) and spinal cord (n=6). (6) On magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), all cases showed long T2 signal intensity with blurred images. And among them, 2 cases' lesions in brain were discerned only by diffuse weighing imaging (DWI) or T2 fast fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (T2FLAIR) instead of T2-weighted. The lesions of CCs showed on gadolinium-enhanced MRI were significantly enhanced and the shapes were sheet-like (4/6). Spinal cord lesions was found in 6 cases and most spinal cord lesions were discontinuous. And the number of spinal cord segments with lesions was from 4 to 8. The shapes of lesions of spinal cord showed on enhanced MRI were like thin line. (7) Most of them were misdiagnosed as viral encephalitis (n=5), tuberculous meningoencephalitis (n=1) and brain neoplasms (n=2). And another case was admitted into urology surgery ward due to urinary retention. There are three key points about the characteristics of the ADEM patients with CC lesions: (1) They may have an adult male preponderance. The distinctive symptoms include fever, headache, delirium, somnolence, memory loss, unsteady gait and urination disorders, etc.. (2) The number of lesions on brain MRI can be multiple or single, especially the lesions of CC (mostly in splenium). On MRI, all cases showed long T2 signal intensity with blurred images so that DWI and T2 FLAIR may have a higher efficiency of detecting the lesions. In particular, multiple lesions may be all enhanced or not enhanced at equal pace on enhanced MRI. (3) In ADEM patients with CC lesions, many indices of CSF chemical examination, such as increased intracranial pressure, leucocytosis, increased protein, low sugar and low chloride, indicate the presence of intracranial infective diseases. Therefore they are most likely to be misdiagnosed as viral encephalitis or tuberculous meningoencephalitis. However, CC is not the predilection site for viral encephalitis since CC belongs to white matter but not gray matter. So ADEM should be a more appropriate diagnosis for these cases.

Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology Review - Do we Need Another Journal?

A search of the web reveals at least 200 cardiology journals in English, over 10 of which are dedicated review journals. What is the need, therefore, for an additional regular publication, particularly in the era of widely accessible electronic information? Perhaps this issue is more easily addressed in relation to contemporary electrophysiology and management of arrhythmia. With the advent of genetics, ablation techniques, electrode technology and anti-arrhythmia devices, our knowledge on the diagnosis and therapy of arrhythmia is expanding at a rate not always matched by an equal pace of dissemination. A scholarly review by an expert on the subject provides a systematic presentation of background knowledge derived from multidisciplinary and diverse faculties such as molecular biology, genetics and clinical epidemiology. It also summarises findings of randomised clinical trials (RCTs) and guidelines and recommendations from learned societies that may occasionally escape the attention of even the well-read, up-to-date but busy clinician. Hippocrates, the father of scientific medicine, has taught us that we should rely on facts and clinical observation rather than theory regarding the manifestations of disease and effects of therapy and in 1943, Sir Austin Bradford Hill introduced the concept of the RCT in his seminal paper on tuberculosis.1 However, RCTs, as John Ioannidis has indicated with his devastating critique, are not infallible.2 They are hampered by human bias, statistical over- or under-interpretation, commercial interests and methodological inaccuracies that may not be initially obvious. The astute scientist who reviews the data may pick up their limitations and draw our attention to caution that is always needed in science and provide the balanced view that is closer to the truth. Reviews, therefore, are not merely systematic presentations of data. They inevitably reflect the experience and clinical wisdom of the expert author(s) and more importantly, their critical view of available information that may not be easily interpretable. We do hope that Arrhythmia & Electrophysiology Review will proved such a forum for scholarly articles that should be carefully peer-reviewed and edited in the true spirit of Henry Oldenburg, the long-time secretary of the Royal Society who suggested peer-reviewing of scientific citations as early as the 17th century.3 To these ends, it may facilitate the art of evidence-based clinical practice for the management of the patient with arrhythmic disorders.