SEARCH · Search PubMed
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Developmental toxicants, insidious in modes of action and effects, strike the very origin of our lives: the developing embryo, fetus, neonate, and child; they cause spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, malformations, early postnatal mortality, reduced birth weight, mental retardation, sensory loss as well as other functional or physical changes, including subclinical effects having far reaching social and economic impacts. The large majority of developmental defects have unknown etiologies. With this uncertainty, EPA and the scientific community world-wide give high priority to finding new approaches for assessing etiology and risks of developmental effects. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and Agenda 21 mobilized the international community to focus on risks posed by chemicals in the environment, including developmental risks. The international harmonization of test and risk assessment guidelines for developmental effects are priorities. Lead, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), endocrine disruptors, and the improvement of quantitative risk assessment methodologies, particularly for children, are priorities. EPA reinvented its research agenda of assure wide involvement of the National Science Foundation, other federal agencies, and national experts in research to address the U.S.'s public health and environmental priorities.
BACKGROUND: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections pose a substantial health burden, particularly for clinically vulnerable populations such as infants and older adults. Although novel immunoprophylactic interventions show promise in providing protection, many countries may not have robust surveillance systems to monitor circulating RSV lineages and detect mutations that might reduce the effectiveness of these new interventions. We aimed to assess the diversity and temporal dynamics of circulating RSV lineages in urban populations through amplicon-based sequencing and analysis of wastewater extracts. METHODS: In this prospective observational wastewater-based genomic surveillance study, 32 raw influent 24-h composite samples were collected during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 RSV seasons from both Zurich and Geneva, Switzerland. We applied an RSV subtype-specific amplicon-based sequencing approach to obtain RSV-A and RSV-B sequences from all 64 samples. Mutations relative to reference genomes were identified at positions with read depth above 30. Relative abundances of RSV lineages were estimated from frequencies of lineage-signature mutations, present in greater than 90% of publicly available sequences of that lineage. FINDINGS: Relative abundances of RSV-B (2022-23) and RSV-A (2023-24) lineages were estimated over the two RSV seasons. During the 2022-23 season, the RSV-B B.D.E.1 lineage prevailed in both cities. In the 2023-24 season, multiple RSV-A lineages cocirculated, including A.D.1, A.D.3, A.D.5, and their sub-lineages. Identification and frequency estimation of mutations showed low-frequency, non-synonymous mutations in antigenic sites on the fusion gene of both RSV-A and RSV-B, some of which have not been reported in clinical sequences. The primary outcome was identification and relative abundance of RSV lineages in wastewater samples. INTERPRETATION: These findings show the potential of wastewater-based genomic surveillance to identify and track circulating RSV lineages and clinically relevant mutations. As novel RSV immunoprophylaxis measures are introduced in upcoming RSV seasons, wastewater-derived genomic RSV data provide a valuable baseline for understanding RSV diversity and future viral evolution under increased immunological pressure. FUNDING: This study was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and in part by the National Institute Of Allergy And Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. Funding for sample collection and processing was provided by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health.
OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to estimate the prevalence of and evaluate risk factors for subclinical vitamin A deficiency in Arab-Bedouin children at age 18 months, followed from birth. DESIGN: Community-based, prospective, cohort study conducted in Rahat, a large Arab-Bedouin township, located near the city of Beer Sheva in the Negev region of southern Israel. SUBJECTS: Healthy Bedouin infants (n=117) from the township, born at Soroka University Medical Center (SUMC) in Beer Sheva, were randomly recruited at birth. Enrollment was restricted to well infants born weighing >2500 g at birth. RESULTS: More than 15% of the children had serum retinol concentrations below 0.7 micromol/l. Male sex (odds ratio (OR) 4.17 [1.14-15.32], P=0.031), stunting at age 12 months (OR 10.09 [2.00-50.97], P=0.05) and warm season at age 18 months (OR 6.20 [1.36-28.28], P=0.018) were associated with vitamin A deficiency. Maternal education decreased the risk of vitamin A deficiency (OR 0.81 [0.68-0.95], P=0.011). CONCLUSIONS: Study results indicate a significant vitamin A deficiency problem among Bedouin children. Deficiency may be prevented by increasing dietary intake of vitamin A, especially during the warm season. Other interventions include preventing and controlling diarrheal diseases in order to avert nutritional stunting, and providing nutritional education to women of childbearing age. SPONSORSHIP: This study received financial support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (AI-26497), the US-Israel Bi-national Science Foundation (BSF 90-00257), and the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine (AID/ANE 0158-G-SS-9035-00).
This article proposes that the postwar National Science Foundation (NSF) debate constituted a critical, transitional episode in American social science and partisan politics. I show that by responding to powerful conservative critics in the scientific and political communities, the Social Science Research Council's (SSRC's) leading scholars (re)asserted a contested scientistic strategy-to advance the social sciences by following the natural sciences. Further, I reconstruct a wider and longer framework of analysis in order to recover central challenges to the scientistic strategy raised by prominent liberal scholars who rejected the associated commitments to value neutrality and disinterested professionalism. In developing this framework for understanding the contrasting fortunes of each strategy, this article argues that the NSF debate has a deep historical significance-for the social sciences, for American liberalism, and for the nation.
The Biology and Medicine division of the Swiss National Science Foundation finances about 1200 research projects. Only 24 (2%) of them originate from surgical departments or clinics. If we look at amounts, the share is even smaller, namely, 1.4%. Compared with the fields a pure "Medical Research Council" would cover, the share is 3.5% or 2.8% for the number of the amount, respectively. The problems of surgical research are only one special case of the problems in clinical research in Switzerland. Our new TANDEM program should encourage better collaboration between researchers in basic biological sciences and those in clinical medicine.
Allegations of scientific misconduct against graduate students appear to have unique attributes in the detection, investigation, processes used and sanctions imposed vis-à-vis other populations against which misconduct is alleged and found. An examination of the cases closed by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Research Integrity and the National Science Foundation reveals that most of the allegations made against graduate and medical students are for falsification and fabrication. Further, additional processes are used in these cases, e.g., student judicial processes, more students are "set up" and more students admit misconduct. Finally, the sanctions imposed when a finding is made typically involve separation from the institution and the federal sanction ranges from none to debarment. Drawing upon the teachings and circumstances of cases involving graduate student peers is a good vehicle for illustrating the concepts and perils of misconduct to graduate students.
Growing university-industry ties, particularly in biomedical areas, naturally raise concerns about conflicts of interest. Such conflicts are essentially problems in business and professional ethics. As of the fall of 1995, all institutions seeking funding from either the Public Health Service or the National Science Foundation have been required to maintain and enforce a written policy on conflicts of interest. The PHS and the NSF also require the disclosure of "significant" financial interests that might affect the research. Although the PHS and NSF requirements may prove helpful, they are not sufficient for monitoring the full range of serious conflicts of interest that can arise in university-industry relations. The PHS and the NSF are basically concerned with potential bias in the design, conduct, and reporting of research. Their disclosure requirements are restricted to financial considerations of $10,000 or more. However, bias in research can result from conflicts of interest when much less is at stake financially. Furthermore, it can arise at both individual and institutional levels. This article attempts to provide a conceptual and normative analysis of conflicts of interest that better enables us to understand the subtleties that can be involved. This article is one of three in this issue of Academic Medicine that deal with issues of conflict of interest in university-industry research relationships. These articles are discussed in an overview that precedes them.
Accountability through demonstrated learning is increasingly being demanded by agencies funding science education projects. For example, the National Science Foundation requires evidence of the educational impact of programs designed to increase the scientific understanding and competencies of teachers and their students. The purpose of this paper is to share our human genetics educational experiences and accountability model with colleagues interested in serving the genetics educational needs of in-service secondary school science teachers and their students. Our accountability model is facilitated through (1) identifying the educational needs of the population of teachers to be served, (2) articulating goals and measurable objectives to meet these needs, and (3) then designing and implementing pretest/posttest questions to measure whether the objectives have been achieved. Comparison of entry and exit levels of performance on a 50-item test showed that teacher-participants learned a statistically significant amount of genetics content in our NSF-funded workshops. Teachers, in turn, administered a 25-item pretest/posttest to their secondary school students, and collective data from 121 classrooms across the United States revealed statistically significant increases in student knowledge of genetics content. Methods describing our attempts to evaluate teachers' use of pedagogical techniques and bioethical decision-making skills are briefly addressed.
Young students find extra-terrestrial life one of the most intriguing of all topics. A project funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, and administered by the SETI Institute, is underway to devise science lessons for grades 3-9 that draw upon this fascination. The lessons are designed by teachers and persons with long experience at curriculum design, tested in classrooms, revised and retested. Six guides, each containing some 6-10 science lessons, will be finished by summer, 1994. The theme Life in the Universe lends itself naturally to integrated treatment of facts and concepts from many scientific disciplines. The lessons for two completed guides span the origin of planet systems, evolution of complex life, chemical makeup of life, astronomy, spectroscopy, continental drift, mathematics and SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence). All lessons are hands-on, interesting, and successful.
The National Information Infrastructure (NII) or "information superhighway" is a high-priority federal initiative to combine communications networks, computers, databases, and consumer electronics to deliver information services to all U.S. citizens. The NII will be used to improve government and social services while cutting administrative costs. Operated by the private sector, the NII will rely on advanced technologies developed under the direction of the federal High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program. These include computing systems capable of performing trillions of operations (teraops) per second and networks capable of transmitting billions of bits (gigabits) per second. Among other activities, the HPCC Program supports the national supercomputer research centers, the federal portion of the Internet, and the development of interface software, such as Mosaic, that facilitates access to network information services. Health care has been identified as a critical demonstration area for HPCC technology and an important application area for the NII. As an HPCC participant, the National Library of Medicine (NLM) assists hospitals and medical centers to connect to the Internet through projects directed by the Regional Medical Libraries and through an Internet Connections Program cosponsored by the National Science Foundation. In addition to using the Internet to provide enhanced access to its own information services, NLM sponsors health-related applications of HPCC technology. Examples include the "Visible Human" project and recently awarded contracts for test-bed networks to share patient data and medical images, telemedicine projects to provide consultation and medical care to patients in rural areas, and advanced computer simulations of human anatomy for training in "virtual surgery."
Progress in sex-based biology, the study of biological and behavioral differences between males and females, and the impact of those differences on health and disease will require collaboration across research disciplines and medical specialties and among all research approaches, from molecular biology to epidemiology. The importance of sex-based biology to healthcare necessitates a bench-to-bedside approach that is built on integration of research findings from studies at the cellular level, in animals, and in human subjects. Barriers to interdisciplinary collaborations are being addressed in a variety of ways by public and private funders. The J.D. and C.T. MacArthur Foundation supports interdisciplinary research networks that address broad questions in health and behavior. The National Institute of Mental Health supports cross-disciplinary research networks investigating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal network. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development offers grants for Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health. The National Science Foundation Directorate for Biological Sciences sponsors Research Coordination Networks in Biological Sciences. Among the challenges faced by interdisciplinary research programs are appropriate peer review, career advancement for young investigators with interdisciplinary training, and acceptance of interdisciplinary research reports by high-quality scientific publications.
Recent cases of erroneous identification have strengthened critical comments on the reliability of fingerprint identification. This goes hand in hand with recent publications regarding the lack of scientific foundation of the discipline. Combined with "legislative" needs, such as for instance the admissibility criteria under Daubert, or experimental studies revealing potential bias, the call for research on the identification process has become more urgent. That background set the basis of this research project financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) which includes, among other parts, experimental tests to study potential observational biases in the analysis stage of fingerprint individualisation. These tests have been submitted to several groups of forensic science students at the University of Lausanne. The aim is to study factors potentially influencing the analysis of fingermarks, more specifically the influence of training/education (test I) as well as the potential impact of case contextual information or known print availability (test II). For all tests students were given 11 or 12 fingermarks of a medium to difficult quality, with a range of 8-15 minutiae. For all tests the task was always the same for the participants but carried out in different contexts: to analyse the marks, to annotate the minutiae observed, to designate them and to decide on the status of the mark in two categories, exploitable and identifiable. The aim was to see how the fingermarks were annotated by different individuals so as to have an idea of the variation in annotation and counting in the analysis stage only. For test I, students were submitted the same 12 fingerprints before and after having followed specific training in fingermark individualisation. The aim was to see how training/education impacts the analysis of fingermarks. For test II, were participants given eleven fingermarks so as to study whether the presence of a comparison print changes the amount of minutiae found and whether low/high-profile background information influences the analysis stage. Results show that for test I the effect of training can be observed, among other, in an increase of minutiae annotated and a higher consensus between participants. For test II no effect of the stimuli used to induce observational biases has been observed by all of the factors studied.
The Internet stands at the forefront of telecommunications in medicine. This worldwide system of computers had its beginnings in networking projects in the United States and western Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. The precursor of the Internet was ARPANET, a long-distance telecommunication network funded by the Department of Defense that linked together computers throughout the United States. In the 1980s, ARPANET was superseded by NSFNET, a series of networks created by the National Science Foundation, which established the present-day structure of the Internet. The physical structure of the Internet resembles and is integrated with the telephone system. Long-distance data transport services are provided by large telecommunication companies, called network service providers (NSPs), through high-capacity, high-speed national and international fiber optic cables. These transport services are accessed through Internet service providers, ISPs. ISPs, the equivalent of regional Bell operating companies, provide the physical link to the NSPs for individuals and organizations. Telecommunications on the Internet are standardized by a set of communications protocols, the TCP/IP protocol suite, that describe routing of messages over the Internet, computer naming conventions, and commonly used Internet services such as e-mail. At present, the Internet consists of over 20 million computer worldwide and is continuing to grow at a rapid rate. Along with the growth of the Internet, higher speed access methods are offering a range of new services such as real-time video and voice communications. Medical education, teaching, and research, as well as clinical practice, will be affected in numerous different ways by these advances.
The Bernard Distinguished Lecturers are individuals who have a history of experience and expertise in teaching that impacts multiple levels of health science education. Dr. Joel Michael more than meets these criteria. Joel earned a BS in biology from CalTech and a PhD in physiology from MIT following which he vigorously pursued his fascination with the mammalian central nervous system under continuous National Institutes of Health funding for a 15-yr period. At the same time, he became increasingly involved in teaching physiology, with the computer being his bridge between laboratory science and classroom teaching. Soon after incorporating computers into his laboratory, he began developing computer-based learning resources for his students. Observing students using these resources to solve problems led to an interest in the learning process itself. This in turn led to a research and development program, funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), that applied artificial intelligence to develop smart computer tutors. The impact of problem solving on student learning became the defining theme of National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported research in health science education that gradually moved all of Dr. Michael's academic efforts from neurophysiology to physiology education by the early 1980's. More recently, Joel has been instrumental in developing and maintaining the Physiology Education Research Consortium, a group of physiology teachers from around the nation who collaborate on diverse projects designed to enhance learning of the life sciences. In addition to research in education and learning science, Dr. Michael has devoted much of his time to helping physiology teachers adopt modern approaches to helping students learn. He has organized and presented faculty development workshops at many national and international venues. The topics for these workshops have included computer-based education, active learning, problem-based learning, and the use of general models in teaching physiology.