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The development of reference/information services in the health sciences library is traced, with emphasis on the events which brought about change. The distinction between information and knowledge is outlined and a philosophy which stresses the value of the librarian's knowledge is offered as the key to the future.
In the U.S., there is no consistent relationship between what health scientists find and public policy. Some scientific findings are heralded and quickly incorporated into individual and political action. Other findings are ignored, and others are contradicted by policy. This paper explains this inconsistency in terms of individual reaction to hazards, media coverage of hazards, and different ability of individuals to respond to health information; political leaders' preference for high-technology science, distortion and opposition by commercial interests, bureaucratic maneuvering for power and resources; and uncertainty and asymmetry of some scientific findings.
The arrangement of course information in a logical sequence for molecular life science (MLS) courses remains a matter of some controversy, even within a single subdiscipline such as biochemistry. This is due to the explosion of knowledge, the latest bioinformatic revelations, and the observation that new discoveries sometimes reveal specific connections between previously disparate topics. However, the general outlines of biomedical information are in place, at least the knowledge that should be conveyed to undergraduates taking cell and molecular biology and biochemistry. Despite the increasing amount and complexity of the information to be presented, integration and unification are possible because the molecular reactions and interactions that underlie all life processes are coming into view: they are common to all cellular structural rearrangements, nucleic acid functions, and biochemical reactions, whether of plant or animal origin. Also, it is no longer possible to draw clear boundaries between cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology that would not violate the fundamental unity of our understanding. Therefore, an arrangement of content is proposed for a two-semester course that aims to present a unified portrait of upper-division undergraduate MLS.
The Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Informatics at Linköping University in Sweden were established in 1972-1973. The main purpose was to develop and offer courses in medicine, biomedical engineering and medical informatics to students in electrical engineering and computer science, for a specialization in biomedical engineering and medical informatics. The courses total about 400 hours of scheduled study in the subjects of basic cell biology, basic medicine (terminology, anatomy, physiology), biomedical engineering and medical informatics. Laboratory applications of medical computing are mainly taught in biomedical engineering courses, whereas clinical information systems, knowledge based decision support and computer science aspects are included within the medical informatics courses.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) classifies dichloromethane (DCM) as a "probable human carcinogen," based upon its risk assessment conducted in the late 1980s (http://www.epa.gov/iris/subst/0070.htm). Since that time, cancer risk-assessment practices have evolved, leading to improved scientifically based methods for estimating risk and for illuminating as well as reducing residual uncertainties. A new physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model has been developed, using data from human volunteers exposed to low DCM levels, that provides new information on the human to human variability in DCM metabolism and elimination (L. M. Sweeney et al., 2004, Toxicol. Lett. 154, 201-216). This information, along with data from other published human studies, has been used to develop a new cancer risk estimation model utilizing probabilistic methodology similar to that employed recently by U.S. EPA for other chemicals (ENVIRON Health Sciences Institute, 2005, Development of population cancer risk estimates for environmental exposure to dichloromethane using a physiologically based pharmacokinetic model. Final Report to Eastman Kodak Company). This article summarizes the deliberations of a scientific peer-review panel convened on 3 and 4 May 2005 at the CIIT Centers for Health Research in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, to review the "state of the science" for DCM and to critically evaluate the new information for its utility in assessing potential human cancer risks from DCM exposure. The panel (Melvin E Andersen, CIIT Centers for Health Research, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709; A. John Bailer, Miami University, Scripps Gerontology Center, Oxford, OH 45056; Kenneth S. Crump, ENVIRON Health Sciences Institute, Ruston, LA 71270; Clifford R. Elcombe, University of Dundee, Biomedical Research Centre, Dundee DD1 9SY, United Kingdom; Linda S. Erdreich, Exponent, 420 Lexington Avenue, Suite 1740, New York, NY 10170; Jeffery W. Fisher, University of Georgia, Department of Environmental Health Science, Athens, GA 30602; David Gaylor, Gaylor and Associates, LLC, Eureka Springs, AR 72631; F Peter Guengerich, Vanderbilt University, Department of Biochemistry, Nashville, TN 37232; Kenneth Mundt, ENVIRON Health Sciences Institute, Amherst, MA 01004; Lorenz R Rhomberg, Gradient Corporation, Cambridge, MA 021138; Charles Timchalk, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352), chaired by M.E.A., was composed of experts in xenobiotic metabolism and carcinogenic mechanisms, PBPK modeling, epidemiology, biostatistics, and quantitative risk assessment. Observers included representatives from U.S. EPA, CIIT, and Eastman Kodak Company (Kodak), as well as several consultants to Kodak. The workshop was organized and sponsored by Kodak, which employs DCM as a solvent in the production of imaging materials. Overall, the panel concluded that the new models for DCM risk assessment were scientifically and technically sound and represented an advance over those employed in past assessments.
Various aspects of criminalistics have been discussed briefly in this chapter. It is impossible to select topics that will be of greatest interest to everyone. That is why we have libraries. However, it has been my objective to provide sufficient information about several subjects to demonstrate many applications of science to the investigation of crime. It is hoped that the repeated mentioning of things and methods, and the use of italics to emphasize these words, will convey my belief that a basic understanding of the simplicity of crime will help us to focus our attention on its solution. I believe that Dr. Paul L. Kirk was correct in his introductory statements. He made a fundamental observation when he said people commit crimes with things. I hope I have shown worthwhile examples of how people employ various methods when they analyze things.
CONTEXT: Practicing pathologists often encounter controversial clinical issues and nonstandardized laboratory approaches to the evolving science of predictive/prognostic tumor marker assays. This dilemma becomes especially acute when the assay is the sole determinant for selection of a specific therapy. OBJECTIVES: To summarize the areas of practical agreement and identify opportunities for improvement in Her-2/neu testing of breast cancer. DESIGN: The College of American Pathologists created a new comprehensive education model, called Strategic Science, with expert speakers integrating new and evolving basic, clinical, and scientific issues of Her-2/neu testing with aspects of laboratory management. SETTING: Symposium held May 4 and 5, 2002, in Rosemont, Ill. PARTICIPANTS: Ten speakers and more than 100 attendees. RESULTS: Components addressed were new technology assessment, practice guidelines, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, risk and liability, billing and coding, cost analysis, consultation, information management, and results reporting. CONCLUSIONS: This Strategic Science symposium derived areas of practical agreement, defined the current state-of-the-art, and identified areas for improvement in Her-2/neu testing.
Desktop computers have evolved to permit physicians in practice and/or training to access and manage information to enhance knowledge, understanding, and learning. There are compelling reasons why the personal computer is key to learning and important in medical education. Above all, the computer enhances and amplifies the learning process. Using the desktop computer effectively is relatively easy. We teach our students to research information in books and journals and hope that, as practicing physicians, they do it even more to be current and maintain their competency. Why not a desktop computer to access and manage information, analyze it, and present findings? Computer technology is available to do virtually all of these tasks. Some tools are critical for medical students. For some time, all medical students have needed a black bag and microscope. Now every medical student needs a computer. Ample courseware is available and expanding rapidly for basic sciences and clinical disciplines. The explosion in biomedical information will continue. Finding information is key to understanding and learning rather than depending solely on memory, recall, or library trips for information. The desktop computer will benefit students, faculty, and future physicians and other health professionals as life-long learners.
The present paper is based on a review which was commissioned by the Sports Council (London) on behalf of the Open Section of the British Association of Sports Sciences (BASS). This was one of four such reviews which were collectively designed to provide information pertinent to the formulation of a strategy that would guide fundamental sports science research in the UK until the year 2000. All of the reviews were expected to focus on research that was relevant to the performance of the elite athlete and the specific brief of the Open Section Review was to concentrate on interdisciplinary research. The current paper established the unique value of interdisciplinary sports science research. Four themes were considered in some detail in order to review the extant interdisciplinary research and propose directions for future research involving an interdisciplinary approach. The four topics were talent identification, adherence, injuries and peaking. A critical review of each area revealed a lack of interdisciplinary research and recommendations for future research priorities were made. The paper is concluded with a brief outline of a strategy that would facilitate the development and expansion of interdisciplinary sports science research.
The exponentially increasing volume of scientific information is threatening to overwhelm the budgets and storage capacities of the world's academic libraries. At the same time, new information technologies are poised to revolutionize the publication infrastructure of science. In evaluating these new technologies we must pay attention to their scalability properties: how well will they perform as the amount of information they are handling increases by orders of magnitude? This article identifies some scalability criteria and evaluates some of the current information technologies with respect to them. It ends by suggesting future directions for these technologies.
Some 100 y after the description and naming of the first vitamin, this conference on the state-of-the-science has shown that remarkable and exciting advances have been made in our understanding of the biology, chemistry, and metabolism of vitamins, explaining their essentiality in the diet. A great deal more needs to be done in the translation of this knowledge into an understanding of the benefit of vitamin supplements to disease prevention and to health and well-being. Not only are advances in fundamental science and biology necessary, but more attention must be paid to genomics, epigenetics, behavioral science, and new techniques for evidence analysis of studies. Information relating individual vitamins or small combinations of vitamins to disease prevention is stronger than that for multivitamins, formulations that cry out for greater standardization. This large task of translating emerging science to better policy in the field of vitamin and multivitamin-mineral supplement use should occupy our attention intensively in the years to come. Issues needing more attention include the content and labeling of such products and the effects of the products on nutrient adequacy as well as in chronic degenerative disease prevention. In this quest, the development of more and better surrogate markers will be critical. Dose-response assessments of safety are badly needed for updating Tolerable Upper Intake Levels. At its best, all of these disparate types of research will require a robust interaction between the public and private sectors in a regulatory framework that supports and rewards investment in good science.
BACKGROUND: Controversy over the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has reduced uptake, raising concerns of a future disease epidemic. AIMS: To explore parents' accounts of decision making relating to the MMR vaccine controversy, identifying uptake determinants and education needs. DESIGN OF STUDY: Qualitative interviews analysed using the 'framework' approach. SETTING: Five general practices in the Leeds area, 2002-2003. METHOD: Sixty-nine interviews conducted with parents of children aged between 4 and 5 years, and 12 interviews with primary care practitioners, managers and immunisation coordinators serving participating sites. Participants were interviewed one-to-one in a place of their choice. RESULTS: The vaccination decision is primarily a function of parental assessments of the relative acceptability and likelihood of possible outcomes. For most parents the evidence of science and medicine plays little role in the decision. Although local general practitioners and health visitors are trusted information sources, the influence of primary care providers on the vaccination decision is limited by concerns over consultation legitimacy, discussion opportunity, and perceptions of financial and political partiality. Parents and practitioners identify a need for new approaches to support decisions and learning when faced with this and similar healthcare controversies. These include new collaborative approaches to information exchange designed to transform rather than supplant existing parent knowledge as part of an ongoing learning process. CONCLUSION: The study identified new ways in which parents and practitioners need to be supported in order to increase understanding of medical science and secure more informed decisions in the face of health controversy.
Combined, the ideas of modern genetics and those of evolutionary process form the central explanatory concepts of biological science. Over the past 30 years or so, those concepts have merged with the idea that biological processes--at every level of organization--are equivalent to information transactions. The latter idea is here called the concept of bio-informational equivalence. It appears in one or other of three basic forms or else in some combination of them. According to the view adopted in this paper, bio-informational equivalence, in all its forms, has a deeply anthropocentric core which makes it unsuited for its present role as a quasi-theoretical perspective in biological science.
This study examined the potential contribution that access to a database of biomedical information may offer in support of problem-solving exercises when personal knowledge is inadequate. Thirty-six medical students were assessed over four occasions and three domains in the basic sciences: bacteriology, pharmacology, and toxicology. Each assessment consisted of a two-pass protocol in which students were first assessed for their personal knowledge of a domain with a short-answer problem set. Then, for a sample of problems they had missed, they were asked to use a database, INQUIRER, to respond to questions which they had been unable to address with their personal knowledge. Results indicate that for a domain in which the database is well-integrated in course activities, useful retrieval of information which augmented personal knowledge increased over three assessment occasions, even continuing to increase several months after course exposure and experience with the database. For all domains, even at assessments prior to course exposure, students were able to moderately extend their ability to solve problems through access to the INQUIRER database.
It is axiomatic that the diversity and ingenuity of strategies in the study of schizophrenia bear testimony to the complexity of this disorder. Accordingly, the opportunity for investigators of diverse interests to share their latest findings and be informed of developments in key areas of science is critical to advance our understanding of schizophrenia. Nearly 700 investigators from around the world gathered at Warm Springs, Va, to present their data at the Fifth International Congress on Schizophrenia Research (April 8-12, 1995). This 5-day conference, held every other year alternating with the European Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia, is co-organized by S. Charles Schulz, MD, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, and Carol Tamminga, MD, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland at Baltimore. Drs Schulz and Tamminga first held the Congress in 1987 in Clearwater, Fla, with 170 investigators presenting. The Congress has flourished since then and is now the largest research meeting devoted solely to schizophrenia. The Congress organizers, the program coordinator (Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, Hillside Hospital, Glen Oaks, NY), and the Congress coordinator (Susan Nusbaum, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center) are congratulated on the success of this event and its contribution to fostering initiatives and collaborations within schizophrenia research.
A distinction is made between two definitions of animal cognition: the one most frequently employed in cognitive sciences considers cognition as extracting and processing information; a more phenomenologically inspired model considers it as attributing to a form of the outside world a significance, linked to the state of the animal. The respective fields of validity of these two models are discussed along with the limitations they entail, and the questions they pose to evolutionary biologists are emphasized. This is followed by a presentation of a general overview of what might be the study of the evolution of knowledge in animals.
Health care informatics has emerged as a diverse and important new field of study. The field can be very broadly defined as the science that addresses how best to use information to improve health care. The field includes the four areas of bioinformatics, medical informatics, public health informatics, and consumer health informatics. Health care informatics applications can be used to improve the quality of patient care, to increase productivity, and to provide access to knowledge. After providing an overview of the field, the 10 articles contained in this special issue are briefly discussed. The first six articles address a diverse set of topics such as the use of health care informatics to conduct research, clinical information systems used by the U.S. Air Force, electronic medical records and physician satisfaction in Oman, and a point of care documentation system used by hospice care providers. The last four articles discuss the complex issues raised by the implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).
'Consciousness' is a superordinate term for a heterogeneous array of mental state types. The types share the property of 'being experienced' or 'being experiences'--'of there being something that it is like for the subject to be in one of these states.' I propose that we can only build a theory of consciousness by deploying 'the natural method' of coordinating all relevant informational resources at once, especially phenomenology, cognitive science, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. I'll provide two examples of the natural method in action in mental domains where an adaptationist evolutionary account seems plausible: (i) visual awareness and (ii) conscious event memory. Then I will discuss a case, (iii), dreaming, where I think no adaptationist evolutionary account exists. Beyond whatever interest the particular cases have, the examination will show why I think that a theory of mind, and the role conscious mentation plays in it, will need to be built domain-by-domain with no a priori expectation that there will be a unified account of the causal role or evolutionary history of different domains and competences.