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PubMed2005

"Is Cybermedicine Killing You?"--The story of a Cochrane disaster.

This editorial briefly reviews the series of unfortunate events that led to the publication, dissemination, and eventual retraction of a flawed Cochrane systematic review on interactive health communication applications (IHCAs), which was widely reported in the media with headlines such as "Internet Makes Us Sick," "Knowledge May Be Hazardous to Web Consumers' Health," "Too Much Advice Can Be Bad for Your Health," "Click to Get Sick?," and even "Is Cybermedicine Killing You?". While the media attention helped to speed up the identification of errors, leading to a retraction of the review after only 13 days, a paper published in this issue of JMIR by Rada shows that the retraction, in contrast to the original review, remained largely unnoticed by the public. We discuss the three flaws of the review, which include (1) data extraction and coding errors, (2) the pooling of heterogeneous studies, and (3) a problematic and ambiguous scope and, possibly, some overlooked studies. We then discuss "retraction ethics" for researchers, editors/publishers, and journalists. Researchers and editors should, in the case of retractions, match the aggressiveness of the original dissemination campaign if errors are detected. It is argued that researchers and their organizations may have an ethical obligation to track down journalists who reported stories on the basis of a flawed study and to specifically ask them to publish an article indicating the error. Journalists should respond to errors or retractions with reports that have the same prominence as the original story. Finally, we look at some of the lessons for the Cochrane Collaboration, which include (1) improving the peer-review system by routinely sending out pre-prints to authors of the original studies, (2) avoiding downplay of the magnitude of errors if they occur, (3) addressing the usability issues of RevMan, and (4) making critical articles such as retraction notices open access.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1980

Algorithmic and heuristic processing of information by the nervous system.

Starting from the fact that the nervous system must discover the information it needs, the author describes the way it decodes the received message. The logical circuits of the nervous system, submitting the received signals to a process by means of which information brought is discovered step by step, participates in decoding the message. The received signals, as information, can be algorithmically or heuristically processed. Algorithmic processing is done according to precise rules, which must be fulfilled step by step. By algorithmic processing, one develops somatic and vegetative reflexes as blood pressure, heart frequency or water metabolism control. When it does not dispose of precise rules of information processing or when algorithmic processing needs a very long time, the nervous system must use heuristic processing. This is the feature that differentiates the human brain from the electronic computer that can work only according to some extremely precise rules. The human brain can work according to less precise rules because it can resort to trial and error operations, and because it works according to a form of logic. Working with superior order signals which represent the class of all inferior type signals from which they begin, the human brain need not perform all the operations that it would have to perform by superior type of signals. Therefore the brain tries to submit the received signals to intensive as possible superization. All informational processing, and especially heuristical processing, is accompanied by a certain affective color and the brain cannot operate without it. Emotions, passions and sentiments usually complete the lack of precision of the heuristical programmes. Finally, the author shows that informational and especially heuristical processes study can contribute to a better understanding of the transition from neurological to psychological activity.

Cybernetics↗
PubMed1982

Neurocybernetic control mechanisms of informational homeostasis.

This paper discusses the fact, that to be able to keep its stability in a very variable environment, alongside substantial and energetical exchanges, the human organism must maintain also a permanent informational exchange with the environment it lives in. But the communication functions of the organism are of a very limited volume and cannot transmit all the information offered by the environment. Therefore, the organism is obliged to perform a rigorous selection of information received. A first selection is performed by means of excitability threshold and of the refractory period. A more adequate selection is performed by means of inhibition, habituation, attention, tiredness, and sleep. But those mechanisms control only the signals, reception, because organism receive only some signals from the exterior. Those signals are information carriers. But, in order to be able to discover the information it carries, the nervous system must submit the received signals to some very complicated processings, as the superisation process is. Because the discovered information does not depend only on received signals, but also on the way they were processed; information discovered by the nervous system is not similar to that emitted by the source. Therefore, informational homeostasis is not similar to signal homeostasis. Along beside signals selecting means, for informational homeostasis preservation, there are also certain affective factors and especially the process of discovering and processing of discovered information. These mechanisms can assure neuropsychical equilibrium under overstressing and substressing informational condition. And their disturbance can lead to certain psychical diseases.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

Neurocybernetic basis of semantic processes.

Although semantics cannot be reduced to neurophysiology, it must have however a certain neurophysiologic basis and this paper deals with, that neurophysiologic basis which, in fact, has a neurocybernetic basis. The paper first approaches the relations between information and signification and their part within the nervous system's work. Then, it analyses semantic function discoverying neurocybernetic mechanisms which can be proper not only to the conventional signs but also to the objects and phenomena which in turn can play the sign's part. Finally, semantic levels of the nervous system, beginning with the most elementary level of unity, as letters are, and up to the level of the highest ideas and concepts the brain is working with, are described.

Brain↗