Topic Summaries Research Articles

Expected health benefits of e-Therapeutics Highlights according to pharmacists and physicians.

The purpose of this research brief is to describe the expected health benefits of e-Therapeutics Highlights,* as evaluated by Canadian pharmacists and family physicians. The Canadian Pharmacists Association (CPhA), the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and the Information Technology Primary Care Research Group (McGill University) collaborated to create an innovative continuing education program, called e-Therapeutics Highlights. Highlights are key treatment recommendations from e-Therapeutics+.** CPhA produces and maintains e-Therapeutics+, a web portal comprising clinical topic summaries that are authored and peer reviewed by subject matter experts (www.e-therapeutics.ca). Once a week, CPhA and CFPC members receive an e-Therapeutics Highlight delivered by e-mail, which they have the option of evaluating by means of a reflective learning activity based on the Information Assessment Method (IAM).1 For each rated Highlight, pharmacists receive continuing education units, and family physicians receive Mainpro credits. We present the aggregated results of IAM ratings as a way of summarizing the wisdom of the crowd of Highlight raters. Crowdsourcing is a force multiplier, defined as the release of online material to a crowd of users who may be interested in contributing ideas or performing a task such as rating a Highlight (voting) and submitting their work to a platform or an organization such as the CPhA, for the profit of the entire community.2,3 Large groups can be collectively wise in identifying relevant information.4 This principle of “crowdsourcing” has been applied to the development of innovative learning network approaches such as those seen in Wikipedia and various voting systems.5,6 Crowdsourcing allows the traditional “ask-the-user” approach to reach a wider audience.7,8

Supporting navigation in Wikipedia by information visualization: extended evaluation measures

Purpose – The authors introduce two semantics-based navigation applications that facilitate information-seeking activities in internal link-based web sites in Wikipedia. These applications aim to help users find concepts within a topic and related articles on a given topic quickly and then gain topical knowledge from internal link-based encyclopedia web sites. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The WNavi s application consists of three information visualization (IV) tools which are a topic network, a hierarchy topic tree and summaries for topics. The WikiMap application consists of a topic network. The goal of the topic network and topic tree tools is to help users to find the major concepts of a topic and identify relationships between these major concepts easily. In addition, in order to locate specific information and enable users to explore and read topic-related articles quickly, the topic tree and summaries for topics tools support users to gain topical knowledge quickly. The authors then apply the k-clique of cohesive indicator to analyze the sub topics of the seed query and find out the best clustering results via the cosine measure. The authors utilize four metrics, which are correctness, time cost, usage behaviors, and satisfaction, to evaluate the three interfaces. These metrics measure both the outputs and outcomes of applications. As a baseline system for evaluation the authors used a traditional Wikipedia interface. For the evaluation, the authors used an experimental user study with 30 participants. Findings – The results indicate that both WikiMap and WNavi s supported users to identify concepts and their relations better compared to the baseline. In topical tasks WNavi s over performed both WikiMap and the baseline system. Although there were no time differences in finding concepts or answering topical questions, the test systems provided users with a greater gain per time unit. The users of WNavi s leaned on the hierarchy tree instead of other tools, whereas WikiMap users used the topic map. Research limitations/implications – The findings have implications for the design of IR support tools in knowledge-intensive web sites that help users to explore topics and concepts. Originality/value – The authors explored to what extent the use of each IV support tool contributed to successful exploration of topics in search tasks. The authors propose extended task-based evaluation measures to understand how each application provides useful context for users to accomplish the tasks and attain the search goals. That is, the authors not only evaluate the output of the search results, e.g. the number of relevant items retrieved, but also the outcome provided by the system for assisting users to attain the search goal.

Textbook of Peripheral Neuropathy edited by DonofrioPeter D., 486 pp., Demos Medical, 2012, $125

edited by Peter D. Donofrio, 486 pp., Demos Medical, 2012, $125 Peripheral neuropathy is a common but underappreciated neurologic condition. Approximately 2%–7% of the US population and 24% over age 70 years are estimated to have neuropathy. Focal neuropathy is more common. However, neuropathy awareness lags behind other common neurologic conditions. Likewise, useful and authoritative physician tools are underrepresented in the medical literature, including neuropathy sections of general textbooks of neurology. Pocket books typically oversimplify and exhaustive tomes dedicated to neuropathy are out of reach and impractical for most practitioners and trainees. Textbook of Peripheral Neuropathy offers a manageable and affordable reference targeted for practicing neurologists and non-neurologists, fellows, and residents. At 475 pages, the book is detailed enough for the purpose but not onerous for topical review. The book includes a useful introduction by the editor focusing on the clinical approach to neuropathy patients. The work includes sections on mononeuropathies, plexopathies, ganglionopathies, radiculopathies, cranial neuropathies, mononeuropathy multiplex, and autonomic neuropathies. However, the bulk of the content is devoted to reviews of multiple categories of polyneuropathy organized by cause. Individual contributions are offered by highly respected authorities in the field. Tables that highlight etiology, clinical patterns, classification schemes, and treatment options permeate the work. A respectable number of figures, charts, and color micrographs are included. Most sections have clearly marked clinical pearls, topic summaries, and key points. Many anatomical diagrams are present. Little space is devoted to pathophysiology or scientific basis of disease but these topics are not the intended focus. Sections are generally up to date and include current consensus regarding diagnosis and treatment. Criteria important for clinical diagnosis and care are evident, such as comparison of the multiple chronic inflammatory demyelinating neuropathy clinical and research diagnostic criteria sensitivities and specificities. Some sections have duplicate tables but without notable contradictions. The same conditions are also addressed by different authors, including paraneoplastic conditions, monoclonal gammopathies, vasculitis, toxic neuropathy, and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, but the redundant discussions are complementary in most instances. Sections on neuropathy complicating medical conditions are potentially useful for non-neurologists and practitioners needing to research a specific condition. A section addressing the utility of numerous individual laboratory tests employed to diagnose polyneuropathy should be particularly instructive for the target audience. Overall, the work is a welcome addition and fills an important niche. The presentation level, readability, and abundant educational aids are well suited for the intended audience. Hopefully, this work will help promote further insight into the significance, prevalence, clinical approach, and management of neuropathic conditions.

Most Important Outcomes Research Papers on Cardiovascular Disease in Women

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women has been historically understudied. For many years, heart disease had been thought to be primarily a “man’s disease.” Consequently, women have been significantly under-represented in longitudinal studies of disease history and in clinical trials. High-quality data from women at the extremes of age, with multiple co-morbidities, and from racial and ethnic minorities have been particularly rare. In order to increase awareness of cardiovascular prevention among women, in 1999 the American Heart Association (AHA) published its first women-specific clinical recommendations for the prevention of CVD.1 In 2004, the AHA and multiple other collaborating organizations subsequently sponsored “Evidence-Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Women,” which underwent updates in 2007 and 2011. As a result of these and other related initiatives, the rate of public awareness of CVD as the leading cause of death among US women has increased from 30% in 1997 to 54% in 2009.2 CVD-associated death among US women has declined significantly over this time period.3,4 Yet substantial work still needs to be done to improve women’s cardiovascular health. CVD remains the number one killer among women.4 As the obesity epidemic continues, we are actually finding increases in coronary heart disease (CHD) death among young women 35 to 54 years of age.2 Morbidity and mortality from stroke and hypertension remain high.4 In addition, substantial outcomes disparities continue for women from racial and ethnic minorities.4 We have therefore dedicated our topic summaries in this issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes to CVD in women. We have included only those studies where authors provided a convincing a priori reason to study a particular disease process or clinical intervention in women and reported primary endpoints that were sex-specific. We have included articles on the representation of women …

Decision boxes for clinicians to support evidence-based practice and shared decision making: the user experience

BackgroundThis project engages patients and physicians in the development of Decision Boxes, short clinical topic summaries covering medical questions that have no single best answer. Decision Boxes aim to prepare the clinician to communicate the risks and benefits of the available options to the patient so they can make an informed decision together.MethodsSeven researchers (including four practicing family physicians) selected 10 clinical topics relevant to primary care practice through a Delphi survey. We then developed two one-page prototypes on two of these topics: prostate cancer screening with the prostate-specific antigen test, and prenatal screening for trisomy 21 with the serum integrated test. We presented the prototypes to purposeful samples of family physicians distributed in two focus groups, and patients distributed in four focus groups. We used the User Experience Honeycomb to explore barriers and facilitators to the communication design used in Decision Boxes. All discussions were transcribed, and three researchers proceeded to thematic content analysis of the transcriptions. The coding scheme was first developed from the Honeycomb’s seven themes (valuable, usable, credible, useful, desirable, accessible, and findable), and included new themes suggested by the data. Prototypes were modified in light of our findings.ResultsThree rounds were necessary for a majority of researchers to select 10 clinical topics. Fifteen physicians and 33 patients participated in the focus groups. Following analyses, three sections were added to the Decision Boxes: introduction, patient counseling, and references. The information was spread to two pages to try to make the Decision Boxes less busy and improve users’ first impression. To try to improve credibility, we gave more visibility to the research institutions involved in development. A statement on the boxes’ purpose and a flow chart representing the shared decision-making process were added with the intent of clarifying the tool’s purpose. Information about the risks and benefits according to risk levels was added to the Decision Boxes, to try to ease the adaptation of the information to individual patients.ConclusionResults will guide the development of the eight remaining Decision Boxes. A future study will evaluate the effect of Decision Boxes on the integration of evidence-based and shared decision making principles in clinical practice.

Bone fractures after menopause

Every year 30% of individuals above age 65 fall, and falls are the principal cause of bone fractures. To reduce fracture incidence requires both prevention of falls and maintenance of bone strength. PubMed searches were performed, for studies of the epidemiology of fractures, bone physiology, endocrine effects, osteoporosis measurement, genetics, prevention and effectiveness. Topic summaries were presented to the Workshop Group and omissions or disagreements were resolved by discussion. Ageing reduces bone strength in post-menopausal women because estrogen deficiency causes accelerated bone resorption. Bone mineral density (BMD) decreased more than 2.5 standard deviation below the mean of healthy young adults defines osteoporosis, a condition associated with an increased risk of fractures. Risk factors such as age and previous fracture are combined with BMD for a more accurate prediction of fracture risk. The most widely used assessment tool is FRAX™ which combines clinical risk factors and femoral neck BMD. General preventive measures include physical exercise to reduce the risk of falling and vitamin D to facilitate calcium absorption. Pharmacological interventions consist mainly in the administration of inhibitors of bone resorption. Randomized controlled trials show treatment improves BMD, and may reduce the relative fracture risk by about 50% for vertebral, 20-25% for non-vertebral and up to 40% for hip fractures although the absolute risk reductions are much lower. Although diagnosis of osteoporosis is an important step, the threshold for treatment to prevent fractures depends on additional clinical risk factors. None of the presently available treatment options provide complete fracture prevention.

Female contraception over 40

The majority of women 40-49 years of age need an effective method of contraception because the decline in fertility with age is an insufficient protection against unwanted pregnancy. Although pregnancy is less likely after the age of 40 years, the clinical and social consequences of an unexpected pregnancy are potentially detrimental. No contraceptive method is contraindicated by advanced reproductive age alone; thus there is a need to discuss the effectiveness, risks and non-contraceptive benefits of all family planning methods for women in this age group. MEDLINE searches were done by topic (epidemiology, age and reproduction, sexual function, delayed childbearing and specific contraceptive methods). The topic summaries were presented to the Workshop Group and omissions or disagreements were resolved by discussion. The decline in fecundity in the fifth decade is insufficient for contraceptive purposes. Thus a family planning method is needed. Sterilization is by far the most common method in several countries. Copper intrauterine devices and hormone intrauterine systems have similar effectiveness, with fewer than 1% failures in the first year of typical use. Special considerations in this age group include the frequency of menstrual irregularity, sexual problems and the possibility of menopausal symptoms, all of which may respond to hormonal methods of contraception. Women should be advised to continue with a contraceptive method until they have reached the menopause with its natural state of sterility.

Of studies, syntheses, synopses, summaries, and systems: the “5S” evolution of information services for evidence-based healthcare decisions

Success in delivering evidence-based health care relies heavily on the ready availability of current best evidence about diagnosis, treatment, and prevention options for health disorders, ideally tailored to the characteristics...

Of studies, syntheses, synopses, summaries, and systems: the “5S” evolution of information services for evidence-based healthcare decisions

Success in delivering evidence-based health care relies heavily on the ready availability of current best evidence about diagnosis, treatment, and prevention options for health disorders, ideally tailored to the characteristics...

Evaluation and Development of Potentially Better Practices to Reduce Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia in Very Low Birth Weight Infants

The objective of this study was to describe development and implementation of potentially better practices to reduce bronchopulmonary dysplasia in very low birth weight infants (birth weight: 501-1500 g). Results of Breathsavers Group meetings, conference calls and critically appraised topic summaries were used to construct potentially better practices. Implementation plans and experiences were reported by participants and collated. The Breathsavers Group developed 13 potentially better practices, based on published evidence and expert opinion. Participants determined which potentially better practices to implement and implementation methods. Participating NICUs implemented an average of 5 potentially better practices (range: 3-9). The Breathsavers Group also developed a resource kit, identified common obstacles to implementation, and initiated research to define bronchopulmonary dysplasia better. Multiinstitutional collaboration facilitated development and implementation of potentially better practices to reduce bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

Topic discovery based on text mining techniques

In this paper, we present a topic discovery system aimed to reveal the implicit knowledge present in news streams. This knowledge is expressed as a hierarchy of topic/subtopics, where each topic contains the set of documents that are related to it and a summary extracted from these documents. Summaries so built are useful to browse and select topics of interest from the generated hierarchies. Our proposal consists of a new incremental hierarchical clustering algorithm, which combines both partitional and agglomerative approaches, taking the main benefits from them. Finally, a new summarization method based on Testor Theory has been proposed to build the topic summaries. Experimental results in the TDT2 collection demonstrate its usefulness and effectiveness not only as a topic detection system, but also as a classification and summarization tool.

EHPnet: The World of Food Science

Vol. 114, No. 6 EnvironewsOpen AccessEHPnet: The World of Food Science Erin E. Dooley Erin E. Dooley Search for more papers by this author Published:1 June 2006https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.114-a347AboutSectionsPDF ToolsDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InReddit The International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) is a nonprofit network of national food science organizations and is the only global food science and technology group, while the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is a U.S. scientific society for food scientists, technologists, and related professionals in industry, academia, and government. These two groups have come together to produce an online magazine, The World of Food Science, located at http://www.worldfoodscience.org/. With The World of Food Science, the IUFoST and the IFT work together to promote the scientific and technical aspects of international food production, distribution, preparation, and marketing, as well as provide current information to all food science professionals and others involved in the industry.The homepage for The World of Food Science provides in-depth Focus and Feature articles collected from a variety of sources, including IUFoST correspondents and food scientists from around the world. Recent articles have covered modern biotechnology in food production, obesity, and how food packaging has evolved to ensure the safety of the food supply. Select articles are available in French and/or Spanish as well as English. Past articles are available by clicking the Archive link at the top of the home-page. The site also includes two Spanish-language sections: the full text of a report titled Biotecnología y Alimentos [“Biotechnology and Food”] and IFT Scientific Status Summaries that have been translated from English to Spanish.At the bottom of the homepage are links to documents and expert reports published by the IFT. Currently featured are annual buyer’s guides for nutraceuticals (foods or food components that provide a medical or health benefit) and food industry services. Visitors will also find links to the expert panel reports Functional Foods: Opportunities and Challenges (“functional foods” are formulated with ingredients believed to impart health benefits) and Emerging Microbiological Food Safety Issues: Implications for Control in the 21st Century. Clicking on the links for the expert reports takes visitors to webpages devoted solely to those respective topics. Available resources include the full text of each expert panel review, one-page topic summaries, related news releases, and lists of frequently asked questions.The homepage also includes a frequently updated collection of news coverage. Clicking on any headline takes the visitor to the Daily News page. A searchable library of past news articles is archived by month. Visitors can also choose from a menu of other news options: national food technology association news, regional reports on food issues, papers directed toward students in the field, international regulatory updates, and policy papers. The Events section has information on upcoming meetings related to food science and technology.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 114, No. 6 June 2006Metrics About Article Metrics Publication History Originally published1 June 2006Published in print1 June 2006 Financial disclosuresPDF download License information EHP is an open-access journal published with support from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. All content is public domain unless otherwise noted. Note to readers with disabilities EHP strives to ensure that all journal content is accessible to all readers. However, some figures and Supplemental Material published in EHP articles may not conform to 508 standards due to the complexity of the information being presented. If you need assistance accessing journal content, please contact [email protected]. Our staff will work with you to assess and meet your accessibility needs within 3 working days.

Breathe– the present issue – Issue 3

The present third issue of Breathe presents, as previous issues have, a combination of educational Review articles, Hot topic summaries of papers published in other journals with comments from senior pulmonologists and paediatric pulmonologists, material from ERS School courses and educational Case presentations.

REVIEWS

The text of the article is available in the PDF.

Focused Topic Session Summaries

Focused Topic Session Summaries

RadNotes: a novel software development tool for radiology education.

RadNotes is a novel software development tool that enables physicians to develop teaching materials incorporating text and images in an intelligent, highly usable format. Projects undertaken in the RadNotes environment require neither programming expertise nor the assistance of a software engineer. The first of these projects, Thoracic Imaging, integrates image teaching files, concise disease and topic summaries, references, and flash card quizzes into a single program designed to provide an overview of chest radiology. RadNotes is intended to support the academic goals of teaching radiologists by enabling authors to create, edit, and electronically distribute image-oriented presentations. RadNotes also supports the educational goals of physicians who wish to quickly review selected imaging topics, as well as to develop a visual vocabulary of corresponding radiologic anatomy and pathologic conditions. Although Thoracic Imaging was developed with the aim of introducing chest radiology to residents, RadNotes can be used to develop tutorials and image-based tests for all levels; create corresponding World Wide Web sites; and organize notes, images, and references for individual use.

Ideas for Teaching History and Systems

This article presents some ideas and activities (reaction journal, intellectual genealogy, textbook comparisons, and multiple timelines) for the history and systems class. Instead of formal testing, students prepared topic summaries that integrated their knowledge from lectures, text, and original articles. These activities can be used to increase the richness of students' experience.

Comments in reply to request of the United States Geological Survey on the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Summary Report Regulations

We, the Executive Committee of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, wish to reply to the proposed Summary Report Regulations of the U.S. Geological Survy as published in the Federal Register, Vol. 43, no. 165, August 24, 1978, page 37771. Our reply is directed specifically to topic (3) Geological and Geophysical data summaries. (Summarized technical information used to derive resource and reserve estimates. Included where appropriate, and in aggregated form such as to protect confidential and proprietary information and data, Page 10–15.)