Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “resource structure”

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.

At least 631 records · Page 35Linked to original sources
PubMed2006

Bioinformatics database infrastructure for biotechnology research.

Many databases are available that provide valuable data resources for the biotechnological researcher. According to their core data, they can be divided into different types. Some databases provide primary data, like all published nucleotide sequences, others deal with protein sequences. In addition to these two basic types of databases, a huge number of more specialized resources are available, like databases about protein structures, protein identification, special features of genes and/or proteins, or certain organisms. Furthermore, some resources offer integrated views on different types of data, allowing the user to do easy customized queries over large datasets and to compare different types of data.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Coping resources and health responses among men and women medical students.

The structures and pressures of medical education raise particular concerns about how coping resources vary among students as they enter training. Most past studies have focussed on male students. Our data considers the coping and health-related responses of men and women students during the initial phase of their socialization into medicine. Subjects were 179 men and 80 women in entering classes of two medical schools who completed a variety of self-report measures. A multivariate analysis of these data revealed profile differences between men and women on measures of coping and health-related responses. Univariate tests demonstrated sex differences in mastery, number of health symptoms and reliance on alcohol. Men and women, however, showed similarly high esteem and use of social networks. The variation observed between men and women medical students as they begin their training suggests different potential sources of vulnerability. The importance of these findings is to provide a context of initial coping repertoires of men and women medical students for future evaluation of the effects of socialization.

Female↗
PubMed2001

A structured interview for medical school admission, Phase 1: initial procedures and results.

PURPOSE: Despite their widespread use, medical school admission interviews often are unstructured and lack reliability. This report describes the development of a structured admission interview designed to eliminate bias and provide valid information for selecting medical students, with preliminary information about the interview's reliability and validity. METHOD: After screening applications, 490 applicants to a public medical school residency program were interviewed by two faculty members using a structured interview format. Interview scores were compiled and correlated with undergraduate grade-point averages (GPAs); Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores; Iowa Evaluation Form (IEF) scores, an in-house evaluation of applicants' noncognitive abilities; and eventual admissions status. RESULTS: Interrater agreement was good; the percentages of rater pairs whose scores differed by one point or less ranged from 87% to 98%. Scores on the structured interview revealed low to moderate correlations with other admission criteria: 10 (p < 0.05) for cumulative GPA, 0.18 (p < 0.01) for MCAT Biological Science, 0.08 (p > 0.05) MCAT Physical Science, and 0.10 (p < 0.05) MCAT Verbal Reasoning. None of the correlations between the overall interview scores and the IEF scores reached statistical significance (p = 0.05). Higher overall scores on the structured interview did predict a greater likelihood of being accepted into the medical school and the interview score accounted for 20% of the incremental variance in admission status beyond GPA, MCAT, and IEF scores. CONCLUSIONS: The moderate-to-low correlations with other admission criteria suggest that the interview provided information about candidate credentials not obtained from other sources and accounted for a substantial proportion of the variance in admission status. This finding supports the considerable time and resources required to develop a structured interview for medical student admissions. Final judgment on the validity and utility of this interview should be made after follow-up performance data have been obtained and analyzed.

Educational Measurement↗
PubMed2003

Physicians resources in Lithuania: change comes slowly.

AIM: To analyze the structure of the physician workforce in Lithuania at the time when the country gained independence, changes it has undergone since 1990, and physician resource planning activities. METHODS: National and international databases were examined to determine the changes in the structure of physician workforce after 1990. Studies and reports, funded by international and national governmental organizations, were reviewed to examine the recommendations for physician resource planning and the rate of their acceptance. Since there was no government plan, a study using Delphi technique was conducted to find consensus among practitioners and policy makers on the physician-to-population ratio needed in Lithuania. Medical residents and physicians in Lithuania were surveyed to assess their emigration intentions. RESULTS: In comparison with other Baltic countries, the number of physicians in Lithuania has remained high despite dramatic reductions in the number of students enrolled to medical schools. There is still a maldistribution of physician resources geographically and by specialty. The government has accepted few recommendations based on the international studies. None of the internal databases provided all the needed information on the physician workforce and the existing databases could not be linked to gain access to all required information. CONCLUSIONS: The physician-to-population ratio remained high after Lithuania had gained independence. There has been little planning at the government level to determine the number of physicians needed in a reformed health system. Changes in the number of students admitted to medical schools did not follow from a well thought-out long-term plan for physician workforce the country will need in the future. To develop a frequently updated database of physicians is essential for the successful planning of future physician workforce.

Databases as Topic↗
PubMed1997

Detecting and managing elder abuse: challenges in primary care. The Research Subcommittee of the Elder Abuse and Self-Neglect Task Force of Hamilton-Wentworth.

OBJECTIVE: To determine family physicians' perceptions of barriers and strategies in the effective detection and appropriate management of abused elderly people. DESIGN: Questionnaire survey; the protocol included an advance notification letter and 3 follow-up mailings. SETTING: Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth, Ont. PARTICIPANTS: All active nonspecialist physicians who reported seeing elderly patients in their practices were eligible for inclusion. Fifty health service organization (HSO) physicians were randomly selected from among those listed with the HSO Mental Health Program, and 200 fee-for-service physicians were randomly selected from the Canadian Medical Directory. Of the 189 eligible physicians 122 returned completed questionnaires, a response rate of 65%. OUTCOME MEASURES: Physicians' ratings of the importance of potential barriers in assisting older people experiencing abuse and of the usefulness of strategies for dealing with elder abuse. RESULTS: Physicians identified the following barriers as fairly or very important: denial of abuse, resistance to intervention, not knowing where to call for help, lack of protocols to assess and respond to abuse, lack of guidelines about confidentiality, fear of reprisal, and lack of knowledge of the prevalence and definition of elder abuse. Strategies deemed to be helpful included a single agency to call, a directory of services, a list of resource people, an educational package, guidelines for detection and management, reimbursement for time spent on legal matters, continuing education, revision of fee structure and a central library of resources on elder abuse. CONCLUSION: Although the physicians perceived numerous barriers to their detection and management of elder abuse, they identified many strategies that could be implemented at a local level. Preparation of an algorithm to help physicians is the next phase of this work.

Aged↗
PubMed2005

Decomposing protein networks into domain-domain interactions.

UNLABELLED: The application of novel experimental techniques has generated large networks of protein-protein interactions. Frequently, important information on the structure and cellular function of protein-protein interactions can be gained from the domains of interacting proteins. We have designed a Cytoscape plugin that decomposes interacting proteins into their respective domains and computes a putative network of corresponding domain-domain interactions. To this end, the network graph of proteins has been extended by additional node and edge types for domain interactions, including different node and edge shapes and coloring schemes used for visualization. An additional plugin provides supplementary web links to Internet resources on domain function and structure. AVAILABILITY: Both Cytoscape plugins can be downloaded from http://www.cytoscape.org

Algorithms↗
PubMed2006

Natural products from plant-associated microorganisms: distribution, structural diversity, bioactivity, and implications of their occurrence.

A growing body of evidence suggests that plant-associated microorganisms, especially endophytic and rhizosphere bacteria and fungi, represent a huge and largely untapped resource of natural products with chemical structures that have been optimized by evolution for biological and ecological relevance. A diverse array of bioactive small molecule natural products has been encountered in these microorganisms. The structures of over 230 metabolites isolated and characterized from over 70 plant-associated microbial strains during the past four years are presented with information on their hosts, culture conditions, and biological activities. Some significant biological and ecological implications of their occurrence are also reviewed.

Bacteria↗
PubMed2001

Biological and social feasibility of Sesbania fallow practice in small holder agricultural farms in developing countries: a Zambian case study.

Many small holder farmers in developing countries face problems of declining soil fertility and crop yields and insufficient money to buy expensive inorganic fertilizers. The Sesbania fallow system, an agroforestry technology, seems to hold a key to these problems. Based on field studies in eastern Zambia, this paper reports that fallow system has the potential to improve and sustain soil productivity in the small holder farms. However, the paper also reports that the ability for subsistence farmers to adopt the Sesbania fallow system is affected by gender differences in resource allocation to productive resources and institutional, cultural, and social structural settings in which farmers exist and make decisions.

Agriculture↗
PubMed2005

Sex-specific life history patterns in bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus): interacting mechanisms influence individual body size.

The ultimate body size that an individual fish achieves can be a function both of direct effects of growth or indirect effects associated with the timing of sexual maturation (and associated energetic tradeoffs). These alternatives are often invoked to explain variation in body size within and among fish populations, but have rarely been considered simultaneously. We assessed how resource availability and timing of maturation interact to influence individual body size of bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). Resource availability (high and low food) and the social structure of the population (presence or absence of large, mature males) were varied in experimental ponds. Food ration affected growth (larger fish in the high food treatments) and the social structure of the population affected timing of maturation (early maturation of males in the absence of large males). Treatment effects, however, were sex-specific; males responded to the social structure of the population and females were more responsive to resource availability. We also found individuals that became sexually mature were smaller than those that remained immature, although results were sex-specific and resource dependent. For males, individuals that matured were smaller when resources were limited; mature and immature females showed no difference in body size regardless of food ration. We show that both resource availability and the processes that control timing of maturation interact in sex-specific ways to influence body size of bluegill. These results suggest that a more robust explanation for variable body size requires consideration of sex-specific interactions between ecological (food and growth) and evolutionary (timing of maturation) mechanisms.

Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena↗
PubMed2000

[Evaluation in the health sector: concepts and methods].

The practice of evaluation has existed in one form or another for as long as one can remember and is central to all processes of learning. Today, evaluation is a popular concept grouping together multiple and diverse realities. This article aims to propose a conceptual framework for evaluation that is broad and universal enough to allow all those concerned with evaluation of health services (regardless of their disciplines and interests) to better understand each other, to perform better evaluations, and to use them in a more pertinent manner. We will begin by defining evaluation as the process which consists of making a judgement on the value of an intervention by implementing a system which can provide scientifically valid and socially legitimate information on regarding this particular intervention (or any of its components) to the different stakeholders concerned, such that they can form an opinion from their perspective on the intervention and reach a judgement which can translate into action. We define "intervention" as any organized system of action (a structure, actors and their practices, processes of action, one or many finalities and an environment) aiming to, in a given environment, during a given time period, modify the foreseeable course of a phenomenon to correct a problematic situation. An intervention can be a technique, a medication, a treatment, an organisation, a program, a policy or even a complex system like the health care system. Various interventions, regardless of their nature, can be the object of two types of evaluation. Normative evaluation is based on appreciation of each component of the intervention according to criteria and standards. This type of evaluation is defined as an activity which consists of making a judgement regarding an intervention by comparing the resources utilized and their organisation (structure); services and goods produced (process) and results obtained to criteria and standards (in other words, summaries of what is good and right). Did the intervention correspond to what should have been done according to the standards utilized? Evaluative research aims to employ valid scientific methods to analyze relationships between different components of an intervention. More specifically, evaluation research can be classified into six types of analysis, which employ different research strategies. Strategic analysis allows appreciation of the pertinence of an intervention; logical analysis, the soundness of the theoretical and operational bases of the intervention; productivity analysis, the technical efficiency with which resources are mobilized to produce goods or services; analysis of effects, effectiveness of goods and services in producing results; efficiency analysis, relations between the costs of the resources (or the services) used and the results; implementation analysis, appreciation of interactions between the process of the intervention and the context of implementation in the production of effects. The official finalities of all evaluation processes are of four types: (1)strategic, to aid the planning and development of an intervention, (2) formative, to supply information to improve an intervention in progress, (3) summative, to determine the effects of an intervention (to decide if it should be maintained, transformed or suspended), (4) fundamental, to contribute to the advancement of empirical and theoretical knowledge regarding the intervention. In addition, experience acquired in the field of evaluation suggests that evaluation is also productive in that it allows actors, in an organized setting, to reconsider the links between the objectives given, practices developed and their context of action. This task of achieving coherence is continuous and is one of the intrinsic conditions of action in an organized setting. In this perspective, evaluation can have a key role, given that it is not employed to legitimize new forms of control but rather to favor debate and th

Cost-Benefit Analysis↗
PubMed2000

Curricular change in medical schools: how to succeed.

Society's changing needs, advancing knowledge, and innovations in education require constant changes of medical school curricula. But successful curricular change occurs only through the dedicated efforts of effective change agents. This study systematically searched and synthesized the literature on educational curricular change (at all levels of instruction), as well as organizational change, to provide guidance for those who direct curricular change initiatives in medical schools. The focus was on the process of planning, implementing, and institutionalizing curricular change efforts; thus, only those articles that dealt with examining the change process and articulating the factors that promote or inhibit change efforts were included. In spite of the highly diverse literature reviewed, a consistent set of characteristics emerged as being associated with successful curricular change. The frequent reappearance of the same characteristics in the varied fields and settings suggests they are robust contributors to successful change. Specifically, the characteristics are in the areas of the organization's mission and goals, history of change in the organization, politics (internal networking, resource allocation, relationship with the external environment), organizational structure, need for change, scope and complexity of the innovation, cooperative climate, participation by the organization's members, communication, human resource development (training, incorporating new members, reward structure), evaluation, performance dip (i.e., the temporary decrease in an organization's performance as a new program is implemented), and leadership. These characteristics are discussed in detail and related specifically to curricular change in medical school settings.

Communication↗
PubMed1982

Adapting to environmental jolts.

This paper examines organizational adaptations to an environmental jolt--a sudden and unprecedented event (in this case, a doctors' strike)-- that created a natural experiment within a group of hospitals. Although adaptations were diverse and appeared anomalous, they are elucidated by considering the hospitals' antecedent strategies, structures, ideologies, and stockpiles of slack resources. Assessments of the primacy of the antecedents suggest that ideological and strategic variables are better predictors of adaptations to jolts than are structural variables or measures of organizational slack. Although abrupt changes in environments are commonly thought to jeopardize organizations, environmental jolts are found to be ambiguous events that offer propitious opportunities for organizational learning, administrative drama, and introducing unrelated changes.

California↗
PubMed1998

Quality improvement measures adopted by the Italian National Health Service.

The reform process underway within the Italian National Health System is aimed at making decision makers responsible for appropriate and efficient resource utilisation and at ensuring quality of care, eliminating conflict between fairness, quality and cost control. The risk for the quality of the services provided entailed by resource rationalisation is avoidable and controllable. This article explains how the Italian NHS has managed the reform process assuring quality improvement, and describes the policy and the tools adopted. As well as involving all players and the system as a whole in constant improvement, the Italian NHS's policy in pursuing quality of care is based on the adoption of a wide range of measures: measurement of health care and of clinical outcomes, systematic data collection, team work and protocols. The tools adopted, currently under implementation, to support quality control are: an integrated system of indicators for measuring efficiency and quality of NHS structures (demand and accessibility indicators, resource related indicators, activity indicators and result indicators); compulsory accreditation as a prerequisite for health care providers; a system to monitor and control the effects of the new prospective payment system; clinical guidelines (each related to a specific clinical problem); a menu of services (Carta dei Servizi) released by all NHS accredited service providers with full information and warranties regarding the services provided and their quality.

Health Care Reform↗
PubMed2006

Evolutionary computation and multimodal search: a good combination to tackle molecular diversity in the field of peptide design.

The awesome degree of structural diversity accessible in peptide design has created a demand for computational resources that can evaluate a multitude of candidate structures. In our specific case, we translate the peptide design problem to an optimization problem, and use evolutionary computation (EC) in tandem with docking to carry out a combinatorial search. However, the use of EC in huge search spaces with different optima may pose certain drawbacks. For example, EC is prone to focus a search in the first good region found. This is a problem not only because of the undesirable and automatic rejection of potentially good search space regions, but also because the found solution may be extremely difficult to synthesize chemically or may even be a false docking positive. In order to avoid rejecting potentially good solutions and to maximize the molecular diversity of the search, we have implemented evolutionary multimodal search techniques, as well as the molecular diversity metric needed by the multimodal algorithms to measure differences between various regions of the search space.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2005

Teaching with STKE.

STKE has several mechanisms by which instructors and students can utilize the site as a teaching tool and resource. With the instructors of the "Cell Signaling Systems" course for graduate students, STKE explores using the various elements of STKE as a digital teaching aid. The resources that will be part of the STKE online supplement to the course as taught at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, include Teaching Resources starting with one that outlines the course structure and schedule and then one for each lecture. In addition, related resources at STKE will be highlighted in and linked to the Teaching Resources. The final component will be online discussion forums that allow students and instructors the world over to interact with the instructors of this course, which is offered in a traditional classroom format at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Education, Medical↗
PubMed2004

Plant community responses to resource availability and heterogeneity during restoration.

Availability and heterogeneity of resources have a strong influence on plant community structure in undisturbed systems, as well as those recovering from disturbance. Less is known about the role of resource availability and heterogeneity in restored communities, although restoration provides a valuable opportunity to test our understanding of factors that influence plant community assembly. We altered soil nitrogen (N) availability and soil depth during a prairie restoration to determine if the availability and/or heterogeneity of soil resources influenced plant community composition in restored grassland communities. Plant community responses to three levels of N availability (ambient, enriched by fertilization, and reduced by carbon amendment) and two levels of soil depth (deep and shallow) were evaluated. In addition, we evaluated plant community responses to four whole plot heterogeneity treatments created from the six possible combinations of soil N availability and soil depth. The soil depth treatment had little influence on community structure during the first 3 years of restoration. Total diversity and richness declined over time under annual N enrichment, whereas diversity was maintained and richness increased over time in soil with reduced N availability. Non-native species establishment was lowest in reduced-N soil in the initial year, but their presence was negligible in all of the soil N treatments by the second year of restoration. Panicum virgatum, a native perennial C(4) grass, was the dominant species in all soil N treatments by year three, but the magnitude of its dominance was lowest in the reduced-N soil and highest in enriched-N soil. Consequently, the relative cover of P. virgatum was strongly correlated with community dominance and inversely related to diversity. The differential growth response of P. virgatum to soil N availability led to a higher degree of community similarity to native prairie in the reduced-N treatment than in the enriched-N treatment. There were no differences in plant community structure among the four whole plot-level heterogeneity treatments, which all exhibited the same degree of similarity to native prairie. Diversity and community heterogeneity in the whole-plot treatments appeared to be regulated by the dominant species' effect on light availability, rather than soil N heterogeneity per se. Our results indicate that a strong differential response of a dominant species to resource availability in a restored community can regulate community structure, diversity, and similarity to the native (or target) community, but the importance of resource heterogeneity in restoring diversity may be dampened in systems where a dominant species can successfully establish across a range of resource availability.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗
PubMed2000

Dwarfs and Giants: Cannibalism and Competition in Size-Structured Populations.

Cannibals and their victims often share common resources and thus potentially compete. Smaller individuals are often competitively superior to larger ones because of size-dependent scaling of foraging and metabolic rates, while larger ones may use cannibalism to counter this competition. We study the interplay between cannibalism and competition using a size-structured population model in which all individuals consume a shared resource but in which larger ones may cannibalize smaller conspecifics. In this model, intercohort competition causes single-cohort cycles when cannibalism is absent. Moderate levels of cannibalism reduce intercohort competition, enabling coexistence of many cohorts. More voracious cannibalism, in combination with competition, produces large-amplitude cycles and a bimodal population size distribution with many small and few giant individuals. These coexisting ``dwarfs'' and ``giants'' have very different life histories, resulting from a reversal in importance of cannibalism and competition. The population structure at time of birth determines whether individuals suffer severe cannibalism, with the few survivors reaching giant sizes, or whether they suffer intense intracohort competition, with all individuals remaining small. These model results agree remarkably well with empirical data on perch population dynamics. We argue that the induction of cannibalistic giants in piscivorous fish is a population-dynamic emergent phenomenon that requires a combination of size-dependent cannibalism and competition.

Perca fluviatilis↗
PubMed1993

Human aldehyde dehydrogenase. cDNA cloning and primary structure of the enzyme that catalyzes dehydrogenation of 4-aminobutyraldehyde.

Human liver aldehyde dehydrogenase (E3 isozyme), with wide substrate specificity and low Km for 4-aminobutyraldehyde, was only recently characterized [Kurys, G., Ambroziak, W. & Pietruszko, R. (1989) J. Biol. Chem. 264, 4715-4721] and in this study we report on its primary structure. Polyclonal antibodies, specific for the E3 isozyme and three oligonucleotide probes derived from amino acid sequence of the E3 protein, were used for isolation of the first cDNA clone encoding the human enzyme (1503 bp; coding for 440 amino acid residues). Additional clones were obtained by using the first isolated clone as a probe. The largest clone of 1635 bp coded for 462 amino acid residues; it was longer at the 3'end of the cDNA non-coding region. The identity of the clone was established by DNA sequencing and by comparison with peptide sequences derived from the E3 protein, which constituted approximately 29% of the total primary structure of the E3 isozyme. The start codon was never encountered despite a variety of different approaches (500 amino acid residues were expected on the basis of SDS-gel molecular-mass determination of the E3 isozyme subunit). Despite the great catalytic similarity between the E3 and E1 isozymes [Ambroziak, W. & Pietruszko, R. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266, 13011-13018], the primary structure of the E3 isozyme has only approximately 40.6% of positional identity with that of the E1 isozyme. Sequence comparison with GenBank and Protein Identification Resource database sequences indicated no primary structure of aldehyde dehydrogenase more closely resembling the E3 isozyme than that of Escherichia coli betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (52.7% positional identity), a prokaryotic enzyme specific for betaine aldehyde.

Aldehyde Dehydrogenase↗