Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “Data mining”

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 1,567 records · Page 87Linked to original sources
PubMed1980

[Dust control in the Belgian coal mines. Status at the start of the year 1980].

The present communication gives a general view of the methods of dust control in the Belgian coal mines at the beginning of 1980. The statistical data received from the mines are presented in tabular form. The length and the output of coal faces treated by the classical methods of pre-spraying of the wall, wet cutting and water infusion are given separately; in some cases two or more of these technics are used together on the same coal face. The number of stone drivages in which different methods of dust control are used, is also given.

Belgium↗
PubMed1978

[Dust control in Belgian coal mines. Status at the beginning of 1978].

The present communication gives a general view of the methods of dust control in the Belgian coal mines at the beginning of 1978. The statistical data received from the mines are presented in tabular form. The length and the output of coal faces treated by the classical methods of pre-spraying of the wall, wet cutting, water infusion and wet pneumatic picks, are given separately; in some cases two or more of these technics are used together on the same coal face. The number of stone drivages in which different methods of dust control are used, is also given.

Coal Mining↗
PubMed1996

Causation, impairment, disability: an analysis of coal workers' pneumoconiosis evaluations.

The relation of exposure, impairment, and awarded disability in coal dust disease cases is often unclear. Surveillance data from large mining populations has demonstrated a decline in pulmonary function associated with coal dust exposure, even in miners with normal roentgenographs, though the frequency with which this results in impairment is not well defined. This study examines a more specific group, 374 disability claimants, for whom evaluation data is less extensive. In this group, several pulmonary function variables declined in association with years mining, even after controlling for roentgenograph status and smoking. This was particularly seen among underground miners, although the declines were small and of marginal statistical significance. Awards were evaluated for 203 resolved cases. Among 59 with completely normal roentgenographs and pulmonary function tests (PFTs), 38 (64%) received some disability award. These findings support development of a more rational impairment/disability system for those with potential coal dust disease.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Feature mining and predictive model construction from severe trauma patient's data.

In management of severe trauma patients, trauma surgeons need to decide which patients are eligible for damage control. Such decision may be supported by utilizing models that predict the patient's outcome. The study described in this paper investigates the possibility to construct patient outcome prediction models from retrospective patient's data at the end of initial damage control surgery by using feature mining and machine learning techniques. As the data used comprises rather excessive number of features, special attention was paid to the problem of selecting only the most relevant features. We show that a small subset of features may carry enough information to construct reasonably accurate prognostic models. Furthermore, the techniques used in our study identified two factors, namely the pH value when admitted to ICU and the worst partial active thromboplastin time, to be of highest importance for prediction. This finding is pathophysiologically reasonable and represents two of three major problems with severe trauma patients, metabolic acidosis, hypothermia, and coagulopathy.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2004

The effect of exposure to employees from mining and milling operations in a uranium mine on lead isotopes--a pilot study.

Potential exposure during mining and milling of uranium ore has resulted in the industry being highly regulated. Exposure can arise from inhalation of the daughter product radioactive gas radon (222Rn), inhalation of radioactive dust particles from mining and milling, direct irradiation from outside the body, and ingestion of radionuclides (e.g. uranium or radium) in food or water. Making use of the highly unusual lead isotopic signature for uranium ores (high 206Pb/204Pb from the high uranium content, low 208Pb/204Pb from the low Th/U ratio), we undertook a pilot study of nine male mine employees and three controls from the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory Australia to determine if it was feasible to use lead isotopes in blood to identify exposure to uranium-derived materials. The lead isotopic data for the mine employees and controls plot in two distinct fields which are consistent with predicted isotopic patterns. Assuming retention of 10% of the ingested lead, then the increases seen in 206Pb represent intakes of between 0.9 and 15 mg, integrated over the years of exposure. The small amount of lead does not affect blood lead concentrations, but appears to be sufficient to be detectable with sensitive isotopic methods. Further studies, including those on urine, should be undertaken to confirm the veracity of the lead isotope method in monitoring exposure of uranium industry employees.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Bluetooth wireless database for scoliosis clinics.

A database system with Bluetooth wireless connectivity has been developed so that scoliosis clinics can be run more efficiently and data can be mined for research studies without significant increases in equipment cost. The wireless database system consists of a Bluetooth-enabled laptop or PC and a Bluetooth-enabled handheld personal data assistant (PDA). Each patient has a profile in the database, which has all of his or her clinical history. Immediately prior to the examination, the orthopaedic surgeon selects a patient's profile from the database and uploads that data to the PDA over a Bluetooth wireless connection. The surgeon can view the entire clinical history of the patient while in the examination room and, at the same time, enter in any new measurements and comments from the current examination. After seeing the patient, the surgeon synchronises the newly entered information with the database wirelessly and prints a record for the chart. This combination of the database and the PDA both improves efficiency and accuracy and can save significant time, as there is less duplication of work, and no dictation is required. The equipment required to implement this solution is a Bluetooth-enabled PDA and a Bluetooth wireless transceiver for the PC or laptop.

Computers, Handheld↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An automated method for exploring targeted substructural diversity within sets of chemical structures.

Practicing medicinal chemists tend to treat a lead compound as an assemblage of its substructural parts. By iteratively confining their synthetic efforts in a localized fashion, they are able to systematically investigate how minor changes in certain portions of the molecule effect the properties of interest in the logical expectation that the observed beneficial changes will be cumulative. One disadvantage to this approach arises when large amounts of structure data begin to accumulate which is often the case in recent times due to such developments as high-throughput screening, virtual screening, and combinatorial chemistry. How then does one interactively mine this diverse data consistent with the desired substructural template, so those desirable structural features can be discovered and interpreted, especially when they may not occur in the most active compounds due to structural deficiencies in other portions of the molecule? In this paper, we present an algorithm to automate this process that has historically been performed in an ad-hoc and manual fashion. Using the proposed method, significantly larger numbers of compounds can be analyzed in this fashion, potentially discovering useful structural feature combinations that would not have otherwise been detected due to the sheer scale of modern structural and biological data collections.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2002

The epiphany of data warehousing technologies in the pharmaceutical industry.

The highly competitive pharmaceutical industry has seen many external changes to its landscape as companies consume each other increasing their pipelines while removing redundant functions and processes. Internally, companies have sought to streamline the discovery and development phases in an attempt to improve candidate selection and reduce the time to regulatory filing. In conjunction with efforts to screen and develop more compounds faster and more efficiently, database management systems (DBMS) have been developed for numerous groups supporting various R&D efforts. An outgrowth of DBMS evolution has been the birth of data warehousing. Often confused with DBMS, data warehousing provides a conduit for data residing across platforms, networks, and in different data structures. Through the use of metadata, the warehouse establishes connectivity of varied data stores (operational detail data, ODD) and permits identification of data ownership, location and transaction history. This evolution has closely mirrored and in some ways been driven by the electronic submission (formerly CANDA). The integration of the electronic submissions and document management with R&D data warehousing initiatives should provide a platform by which companies can address compliance with 21 CFR Part 11. Now more than ever "corporate memory" is being extended to the data itself. The when, why and how of successes and failures are constantly being probed by R&D management teams. The volume of information being generated by today's pharmaceutical companies requires mining of historical data on a routine basis. Data warehousing represents a core technology to assist in this endeavor. New initiatives in this field address the necessity of data portals through which warehouse data can be web-enabled and exploited by diverse data customers both internal and external to the company. The epiphany of data warehousing technologies within the pharmaceutical industry has begun and promises to change the way in which companies process and provide data to regulatory agencies. The improvements in drug discovery and reduction in development timelines remain to be seen but would seem to be rational if such technology is fully exploited.

Drug Industry↗
PubMed1988

Structuring strain data for storage and retrieval of information on fungi and yeasts in MINE, the Microbial Information Network Europe.

A distributed Microbial Information Network Europe (MINE) is being constructed by a number of major microbial culture collections in countries of the European Community, with the support of the Biotechnology Action Programme (BAP) of the Commission of the European Community. The representatives of the collections participating in MINE have agreed to adopt a general format for the computer storage and retrieval of strain data. This uniform format will facilitate the electronic combination and exchange of data from different collections in order to produce integrated catalogues and the use of identical commands to search the different databases. It is recommended to other collections who may wish to contribute data to the MINE network or between themselves. Three kinds of records can be linked to the leading 'species records': strain records, synonym records, and alternative morphonym records. A minimum data set of 30 fields (similar to the fields used for producing catalogues) is defined that facilitates the exchange of data between the national nodes and serves as a directory to strains available at other nodes. It is suggested that the full strain record comprise 99 fields, grouped in 12 blocks: internal administration--name--strain administration--status--environment and history--biological interactions--sexuality--properties (cytology, biomolecular data)--genotype and genetics--growth conditions--chemistry and enzymes--practical applications. Several fields are divided into subfields of different ranks. Delimiters are used either to separate a range of entries that have to be indexed or to divide an entry from the reference to its source or remarks that should not be indexed. The contents and structure of the fields proposed for filamentous fungi and yeasts are described and in some cases illustrated by examples. Uniformity of input is essential for indexed fields and desirable for non-indexed fields. Seven thesaurus files are envisaged to ensure consistency.

Data Collection↗
PubMed1991

Scale model studies of the transport of airborne pollutants on coalfaces.

Studies have been carried out to investigate airflows in coalmine models, with special regard to the transport of airborne pollutants, and to examine how they relate to what happens at full-scale in an actual underground mine. If such models can be shown to provide data representative of actual mine ventilation engineering, then they can provide cost-effective alternatives to full-scale investigations. The work set out in the first instance to identify the properties of: (a) the bulk airflow and associated transport of airborne pollutants along a longwall coalface; and (b) the transport of material out of regions that were partially enclosed or poorly ventilated (e.g. in the cutting zone, in headings). For the former, an appropriate quantity is the dispersivity of the coalface airflow, for the latter the mean retention time. Both quantities may be rendered non-dimensional with respect to dimensions characteristic of the system and to velocities of the airflow. Their behaviour in relation to a third dimensionless quantity, the flow Reynolds' number is also important. Experiments were performed, using smoke or dust tracers, to investigate how these properties are interrelated and how they scale between small-scale and full-scale systems. They were carried out in a 1/10-scale laboratory model, in a full-scale surface model, and underground in an actual coalmine. The basis of most of the experiments was the 'tracer decay' method, in which the transport properties of the aerodynamic system under investigation were determined from observations of the changes in tracer concentration with time immediately following the removal of the tracer source. During these experiments, the feasibility of using small-scale models to investigate ventilation problems was clearly indicated and preliminary scaling relationships which may be used as an initial basis for predicting the transport and local build-up of pollutants in mines were developed. It is expected that applications of the ideas and methodology described will be relevant to other industries.

Air Movements↗
PubMed2006

dbZach: A MIAME-compliant toxicogenomic supportive relational database.

Quantitative risk assessment and the elucidation of mechanisms of toxicity requires computational infrastructure and innovative analysis approaches that systematically consider available data at all levels of biological organization. dbZach (http://dbzach.fst.msu.edu) is a modular relational database with associated data insertion, retrieval, and mining tools that manages traditional toxicology and complementary toxicogenomic data to facilitate comprehensive data integration, analysis, and sharing. It consists of four Core Subsystems (i.e., Clones, Genes, Sample Annotation, and Protocols), four Experimental Subsystems (i.e., Microarray, Affymetrix, Real-Time PCR, and Toxicology), and three Computational Subsystems (i.e., Gene Regulation, Pathways, Orthology) that comply with the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standard. It is capable of including emerging technologies and other model systems, including ecologically relevant species. dbZach represents an enterprise toxicogenomic data management system which facilitates data integration and analysis, and reduces uncertainties in the continuum from initial exposure to toxicity while facilitating more comprehensive elucidations of mechanisms of toxicity and supporting mechanistically-based quantitative risk assessment.

Animals↗
PubMed1999

An essential hospital package for South Africa--selection criteria, costs and affordability.

BACKGROUND: In 1995 the Committee of Enquiry into National Health Insurance (NHI) recommended that formally employed individuals and their employers be required to fund at least a minimum package of hospital cover for workers and their dependents. This has recently been echoed in a Department of Health policy paper on social health insurance. This research aims to define and cost a minimum package of essential hospital care for competing (public and private) health insurers in South Africa. CRITERIA FOR PACKAGE DEFINITION: Based on the objectives implict in the NHI Committee report, the following criteria were used to define the essential package: (i) the extent to which there was another appropriate responsible party who should pay for treatment; (ii) the degree of discretion in deciding whether or not to provide treatment (roughly equivalent to 'urgency'); and (iii) the cost and effectiveness of treatment. RESULTS: On the basis of the above criteria, 396 out of 598 possible interventions were included in the package. Using local mine hospital and private sector utilisation rates and mine hospital cost data, it was estimated that the essential inpatient package would cost around R502 per enrollee per year, using 1998 prices, for a working age population and their dependents. Age-sex standardised outpatient care costs in the mine hospital population studied were estimated at R183 per person per year. It was therefore estimated that the total inpatient and outpatient hospital package would cost around R685 per person per year. CONCLUSIONS: The results presented in this paper are intended to inform the process of defining a national essential hospital benefit package. Assuming that contributions were proportionally related to income, and that costs should not exceed 6% of wages, the package should be affordable to all of those earning above R20,000 per year. Significant additional work is required, firstly at a technical level to assess the appropriateness of the prioritization approach used here, and secondly to take the debate around essential hospital benefits to broader political and public forums.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗
PubMed1989

Locations of fatal work injuries in the United States: 1980 to 1985.

Surveillance of injury at work is beset with problems of method and definition. As a result, national agencies have widely varying estimates of the number of fatal work injuries in the United States. One plausible method for identifying fatal work injuries is to use the Place of Injury variable, which is entered on all US death certificates but is not encoded by the National Center for Health Statistics. To use this method, one would assume that work injuries largely occur at "typical work sites," ie, places coded as industrial, farm, and mine and quarry. Data to test this method were derived from the National Traumatic Occupational Fatality data base maintained by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Analysis of this data base showed that work-related fatal injuries mostly occur in places where many non-work-related injuries also occur. Only about one third of fatal work injuries took place at locations coded as industrial, farm, and mine and quarry. As a method for identifying fatal work injuries, the Place of Injury variable appears to have little value.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

[Microbial eco-characterization and its restoration in copper reclaimed wasteland in red soil area of China. II. Effects on soil microbial characteristics and community structure].

Soil microbial features in Lipu copper mining and non-mine soil were studied comparatively. The results indicated that mine soil possessed obviously different microbial features such as lower microbial biomass carbon and soil basal respiration strength, Cmic/Corg decreasing, and higher microbial ecophysiological parameters qCO2, indicating that heavy metal had a depressive impact on soil microbial eco-characteristics. Biolog data showed that mine soil microbial community structure was changed obviously, the speed and quantity of carbon consuming were increased significantly, and the kinds of carbon sources which soil microorganism used were changed, led to consume much more energies for maintaining the normal needs of its life. But the utilization efficiency was lower compared with the control. All the results showed that soil microbial eco-characteristics could be used as a sensitive, effective and liable index of mine soil environment qualities.

Bacteria↗
PubMed1987

Development of a model to aid in reconstruction of historical silica dust exposures in the taconite industry.

The ability to reconstruct employee exposure histories would be a valuable research tool for the evaluation of occupation as a factor in disease. In many cases, however, historical environmental data are available but have not been used to compute past exposures because of differences in sampling methods. This paper describes a quantitative model to convert historical environmental data (from taconite mine and mill operations) into a form consistent with current sampling methods and results and, therefore, will enable past exposure histories to be used. (Past exposure histories are to be determined in an epidemiological study.) In this study, parallel sampling results from the environmental data base were used to obtain a coefficient for the conversion of impinger-particle counts (old sampling method) to filter-respirable mass sampling results (new sampling method). Parameters in the model were estimated using multiple regression techniques. Results show that a consistent ratio exists between impinger-particle counts and filter-respirable mass concentrations for samples collected at the same locations.

Air Pollutants, Occupational↗