ELECTRONICS VIEWED AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF ADVANCES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.
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The responsibility of industry to the consumer is to provide products derived from biotechnology that are effective as labeled and safe for their intended use on animals, plants and in the environment. Moreover, food products from the animals and plants receiving the drugs or chemicals must be safe for human consumption. To fulfill these responsibilities, industry must provide an accurate label for the drug or chemical, ensure drug or chemical product consistency so that every batch of the drug or chemical is similar to every other batch, complete studies to document that the drug or chemical is safe for use in the animal or on the plant, complete studies designed to provide data to ensure that the food derived from the use of the drug or chemical is safe for human consumption and complete studies to document that the drug or chemical is safe for use in the environment. The process of requiring data to be derived from sound experimental science, completion of the studies under scrutiny by regulatory personnel and extensive scientific review of the data by regulatory personnel results in products derived from biotechnology that are safe and effective.
BACKGROUND: Two-dimensional data colourings are an effective medium by which to represent three-dimensional data in two dimensions. Such "color-grid" representations have found increasing use in the biological sciences (e.g. microarray 'heat maps' and bioactivity data) as they are particularly suited to complex data sets and offer an alternative to the graphical representations included in traditional statistical software packages. The effectiveness of color-grids lies in their graphical design, which introduces a standard for customizable data representation. Currently, software applications capable of generating limited color-grid representations can be found only in advanced statistical packages or custom programs (e.g. micro-array analysis tools), often associated with steep learning curves and requiring expert knowledge. RESULTS: Here we describe JColorGrid, a Java library and platform independent application that renders color-grid graphics from data. The software can be used as a Java library, as a command-line application, and as a color-grid parameter interface and graphical viewer application. Data, titles, and data labels are input as tab-delimited text files or Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and the color-grid settings are specified through the graphical interface or a text configuration file. JColorGrid allows both user graphical data exploration as well as a means of automatically rendering color-grids from data as part of research pipelines. CONCLUSION: The program has been tested on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, and the binary executables and source files are available for download at http://jcolorgrid.ucsf.edu.
In its search for an objective overall diagnostic evaluation, the University of Illinois Library of the Health Sciences' Program Evaluation Committee selected a book availability measure; it is easy to administer and repeat, results are reproducible, and comparable data exist for other academic and health sciences libraries. The study followed the standard methodology in the literature with minor modifications. Patrons searching for particular books were asked to record item(s) needed and the outcome of the search. Library staff members then determined the reasons for failures in obtaining desired items. The results of the study are five performance scores. The first four represent the percentage probability of a library's operating with ideal effectiveness; the last provides an overall performance score. The scores of the Library of the Health Sciences demonstrated no unusual availability problems. The study was easy to implement and provided meaningful, quantitative, and objective data.
Psychological assessment is a hybrid, both art and science. The empirical foundations of testing are indispensable in providing reliable and valid data. At the level of the integrated assessment, however, science gives way to art. Standards of reliability and validity account for the individual instrument; they do not account for the integration of data into a comprehensive assessment. This article examines the current climate of psychological assessment, selectively reviewing the literature of the past decade. Ethics, expertise, and validity are the components under discussion. Psychologists can and do take precautions to ensure that the "art" of their work holds as much merit as the science.
A judgment of the relevance of nine basic sciences courses was tested by the pair comparison method. The test groups consisted of first-, second-, third-, and fourth-year medical students; interns and residents; basic sciences faculty; and clinical faculty. The data obtained from all groups proved to be consistent. Three strata of relevance were detected. Physiology, pathology, and pharmacology comprised the stratum of maximum relevance. The anatomy sciences (gross anatomy, histology, cell biology, and embryology) formed a stratum of lowest relevancy. The comparative relevancy of biochemisty and microbiology fell between the two extremes. Two approaches for making the anatomy disciplines more relevant are discussed.
Nursing scholarship on children and their families has increased rapidly over the past decades. This research focuses on infants, children, and adolescents and their families facing acute or chronic illness, as well as on promoting health and preventing disease in children. While the amount and scope of research in pediatric nursing has increased, the methods and theories used are diverse and are often not based on the most recent science in the broader fields of developmental research. Developmental science, which evolved over the past two decades into a new interdisciplinary framework for the study of human development, involves an integrated holistic, developmental, and systems-oriented perspective. According to this view, the individual functions and develops through dynamic and complex processes involving the integration of many systems within the individual, including mental, biological, and behavioral systems. In addition, individuals function and develop in a continuously ongoing, reciprocal process of interaction with their environment and, as such, have an influence on that environment. These nonlinear, dynamic processes demand complex conceptualizations and research designs if one is to truly understand human development, including health and illness. Key aspects of developmental science important in conceptualization, design, measurement, and data analysis are identified. By providing a framework for critiquing research and presenting recommendations for future research based on developmental science, we hope to move nursing research with children forward toward more developmentally sound knowledge of nursing practice.
BACKGROUND: Data clustering analysis has been extensively applied to extract information from gene expression profiles obtained with DNA microarrays. To this aim, existing clustering approaches, mainly developed in computer science, have been adapted to microarray data analysis. However, previous studies revealed that microarray datasets have very diverse structures, some of which may not be correctly captured by current clustering methods. We therefore approached the problem from a new starting point, and developed a clustering algorithm designed to capture dataset-specific structures at the beginning of the process. RESULTS: The clustering algorithm is named Fuzzy clustering by Local Approximation of MEmbership (FLAME). Distinctive elements of FLAME are: (i) definition of the neighborhood of each object (gene or sample) and identification of objects with "archetypal" features named Cluster Supporting Objects, around which to construct the clusters; (ii) assignment to each object of a fuzzy membership vector approximated from the memberships of its neighboring objects, by an iterative converging process in which membership spreads from the Cluster Supporting Objects through their neighbors. Comparative analysis with K-means, hierarchical, fuzzy C-means and fuzzy self-organizing maps (SOM) showed that data partitions generated by FLAME are not superimposable to those of other methods and, although different types of datasets are better partitioned by different algorithms, FLAME displays the best overall performance. FLAME is implemented, together with all the above-mentioned algorithms, in a C++ software with graphical interface for Linux and Windows, capable of handling very large datasets, named Gene Expression Data Analysis Studio (GEDAS), freely available under GNU General Public License. CONCLUSION: The FLAME algorithm has intrinsic advantages, such as the ability to capture non-linear relationships and non-globular clusters, the automated definition of the number of clusters, and the identification of cluster outliers, i.e. genes that are not assigned to any cluster. As a result, clusters are more internally homogeneous and more diverse from each other, and provide better partitioning of biological functions. The clustering algorithm can be easily extended to applications different from gene expression analysis.
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The Houston Academy of Medicine--Texas Medical Center (HAM--TMC) Library collected data on friends of the library groups from 103 health sciences libraries, using a mail questionnaire. Sixteen of the responding libraries had independent friends groups; seven had friends groups that were subordinate to a university group. The sixteen independent groups gave as their major purposes (1) to raise money for their associated library and (2) to develop support for their library. These groups contributed an average of $4,870 a year to their libraries, the money being used primarily to purchase rare books and working-collection books and to sponsor social events. The subordinate groups contributed relatively little money to the health sciences libraries responding to the survey.
INTRODUCTION: Radical prostatectomy and radiotherapy are currently accepted treatment modalities for localized prostate cancer. Regarding radiotherapy, current evidence suggests that favorable treatment outcome critically depends on adequate radiation doses. However, the exact role of dose in relation to the individual risk profile is complex. In order to evaluate available data on radiation dose response relationships, in prostate cancer, a thorough and critical literature analysis was performed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Studies on dose response relationships from randomized trials, dose escalation trials, retrospective subgroup analyses and pooled data were identified by Pubmed and ISI web of sciences searches and were critically reviewed. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: All available data suggest a clear dose response relationship for radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer. In low risk cases, most studies suggest that doses of 70-72 Gy are adequate. Dose escalations up to 78-80 Gy seem to be beneficial for intermediate risk patients. Due to confounding variables, the dose response curves for high-risk patients are less steep. The integration of dose escalation into a more comprehensive treatment protocol is difficult, since trials on the relative impact of either hormonal ablation or inclusion of adjuvant nodal regions on dose escalation are missing.
With the increasing amount of data produced by high-throughput technologies in many fields of science, clustering has become an integral step in exploratory data analysis in order to group similar elements into classes. However, many clustering algorithms can only work properly if aided by human expertise. For example, one parameter which is crucial and often manually set is the number of clusters present in the analyzed set. We present a novel stopping rule to find the optimal number of clusters based on the comparison of the density of points inside the clusters and between them. The method is evaluated on synthetic as well as on real transcriptomic data and compared with two current methods. Finally, we illustrate its usefulness in the analysis of the expression profiles of promyelocytic cells before and after treatment with all-trans retinoic acid. Simultaneous clustering for gene regulation and absolute initial expression levels allowed the identification of numerous genes associated with signal transduction revealing the complexity of retinoic acid signaling.
Neuroscience has produced an enormous amount of structural and functional data. Powerful database systems are required to make these data accessible for computational approaches such as higher-order analyses and simulations. Available databases for key data such as anatomical and functional connectivity between cortical areas, however, are still hampered by methodological problems. These problems arise predominantly from the parcellation problem, the use of incongruent parcellation schemes by different authors. We here present a coordinate-independent mathematical method to overcome this problem: objective relational transformation (ORT). Based on new classifications for brain data and on methods from theoretical computer science, ORT represents a formally defined, transparent transformation method for reproducible, coordinate-independent mapping of brain data to freely chosen parcellation schemes. We describe the methodology of ORT and discuss its strengths and limitations. Using two practical examples, we show that ORT in conjunction with connectivity databases like CoCoMac (http://www.cocomac.org) is an important tool for analyses of cortical organization and structure-function relationships.
The major developments of recent years in computer sciences have led to the creation of large morbidity data bases. Although these data sets are not compiled expressly for research, they serve researchers if certain precautions are taken. These concern definition of the study population, unit of analysis, record linkage and both reliability and validity of the data.
A prerequisite to systems biology is the integration of heterogeneous experimental data, which are stored in numerous life-science databases. However, a wide range of obstacles that relate to access, handling and integration impede the efficient use of the contents of these databases. Addressing these issues will not only be essential for progress in systems biology, it will also be crucial for sustaining the more traditional uses of life-science databases.
BACKGROUND: Autopsy rates continue to fall despite the enduring benefit of the procedure to families and medical science, yet there are few data about the consent process itself. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the current practice of obtaining autopsy consent, by assessing the consent forms currently in use, the knowledge and attitudes of chief residents on the procedure, and the expert opinion of pathologists in those institutions. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey. SETTINGS AND PARTICIPANTS: One hundred twenty-seven US teaching hospitals. RESULTS: Of all autopsy consent forms we surveyed, 84.7% contained 7 of 10 elements recommended by the College of American Pathologists. Only 7.1% of institutions supplied educational materials for the physician, as recommended by the College of American Pathologists. Overall, 50.1% of chief residents reported deficiencies in their knowledge of the autopsy procedure. Correspondingly, greater than 74.5% felt that educational materials would be beneficial for physicians and the family. Finally, 93.3% of chief residents believed that a limited autopsy should be offered to families, while 68 (90%) of 76 pathologists at these institutions believed that limited autopsies are an unsatisfactory alternative to the complete procedure. CONCLUSIONS: Chief residents at US teaching hospitals reported substantial deficiencies in their knowledge about autopsy and desire more training on the consent process. Autopsy consent forms are often lacking information that might help physicians and families in making an educated choice about autopsy. Teaching institutions need to reevaluate the training for the autopsy consent practice.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of neuromodulation and bimodal stimulation for chronic subjective tinnitus in randomized controlled trials (RCTs). DATA SOURCES: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, and EMBASE (January 2015-December 2025) searched per PRISMA 2020. REVIEW METHODS: Adult RCTs (≥ 18 years) with chronic subjective tinnitus (> 3 months) assessing validated outcomes (THI, TFI, TQ) for neuromodulation/bimodal interventions vs. sham/controls. Two-stage screening, Cochrane RoB-2 risk-of-bias assessment. Random-effects meta-analyses (REML) were performed when ≥ 3 comparable trials were available; effects reported as standardized mean differences (SMD) with 95% CIs. Main Outcomes and measures included change in tinnitus severity (THI/TFI/TQ) while secondary outcomes included loudness (VAS/NRS), durability, and adverse events. RESULTS: Twenty-six RCTs (n = 1576) met criteria: tES (11; n = 372), rTMS (8; n = 432), acoustic coordinated reset (1; n = 100), vagus nerve stimulation (2; n = 90), and bimodal stimulation (4; n = 582). Meta-analysis showed a nonsignificant pooled effect for tDCS (SMD -0.36; 95% CI -0.75 to 0.02; I 2 = 51%) and rTMS (SMD -0.15; 95% CI -0.37 to 0.07; I 2 = 0%). Single-trial evidence for coordinated reset showed no advantage over broadband noise. VNS demonstrated modest benefits with safety concerns limited to implanted approaches. Bimodal stimulation yielded consistent, clinically meaningful reductions (often ≥ 10-20 points on THI/TFI), with durability up to 12 months. Adverse events were mild/transient across noninvasive modalities. CONCLUSIONS: Noninvasive neuromodulation appears safe with average benefits; among modalities, bimodal stimulation shows the most consistent and durable clinical improvements. Standardized, adequately powered RCTs with harmonized protocols and long-term follow-up are needed to refine targets and dosing.
The within-subject coefficient of variation (WCV) is widely used as a measure of precision and reproducibility of data in medical and biological science. In this paper, generalized confidence intervals and tests for a single WCV is developed using the concept of generalized pivots under the assumption of one-way random effect model. This approach is further extended to two-sample cases. The resulting procedures are easy to compute and have good properties in term of coverage probabilities and type-I error control at small sample sizes. The proposed methods are illustrated by a real life example.