HEALTH GeoJunction: place-time-concept browsing of health publications

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The volume of health science publications is escalating rapidly. Thus, keeping up with developments is becoming harder as is the task of finding important cross-domain connections. When geographic location is a relevant component of research reported in publications, these tasks are more difficult because standard search and indexing facilities have limited or no ability to identify geographic foci in documents. This paper introduces <it><smcaps>HEALTH</smcaps> GeoJunction</it>, a web application that supports researchers in the task of quickly finding scientific publications that are relevant geographically and temporally as well as thematically.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it><smcaps>HEALTH</smcaps> GeoJunction </it>is a geovisual analytics-enabled web application providing: (a) web services using computational reasoning methods to extract place-time-concept information from bibliographic data for documents and (b) visually-enabled place-time-concept query, filtering, and contextualizing tools that apply to both the documents and their extracted content. This paper focuses specifically on strategies for visually-enabled, iterative, facet-like, place-time-concept filtering that allows analysts to quickly drill down to scientific findings of interest in PubMed abstracts and to explore relations among abstracts and extracted concepts in place and time. The approach enables analysts to: find publications without knowing all relevant query parameters, recognize unanticipated geographic relations within and among documents in multiple health domains, identify the thematic emphasis of research targeting particular places, notice changes in concepts over time, and notice changes in places where concepts are emphasized.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>PubMed is a database of over 19 million biomedical abstracts and citations maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information; achieving quick filtering is an important contribution due to the database size. Including geography in filters is important due to rapidly escalating attention to geographic factors in public health. The implementation of mechanisms for iterative place-time-concept filtering makes it possible to narrow searches efficiently and quickly from thousands of documents to a small subset that meet place-time-concept constraints. Support for a <it>more-like-this </it>query creates the potential to identify unexpected connections across diverse areas of research. Multi-view visualization methods support understanding of the place, time, and concept components of document collections and enable comparison of filtered query results to the full set of publications.</p

Improving Medication Adherence In Hypertensive Patients: A Scoping Review

Nos últimos anos, o interesse na área da adesão terapêutica tem aumentado de forma significativa. O panorama da adesão tem sido estudado particularmente na área do tratamento da hipertensão arterial; de facto, já foram desenvolvidas numerosas intervenções na tentativa de melhorar a adesão terapêutica em doentes hipertensos. No entanto, este tem sido um esforço frequentemente frustrante e desorganizado. O objetivo do presente estudo foi a realização de uma scoping review de intervenções destinadas a melhorar a adesão terapêutica em doentes hipertensos, de forma a fornecer uma visão mais clara e estruturada desta área. Além disso, desenvolveu-se um novo sistema de categorização de intervenções, baseado em evidência. A presente revisão foi realizada de acordo com o PRISMA-ScR statement. As bases de dados utilizadas foram a MEDLINE e a Web of Science, sendo que se incluíram estudos desde a criação das bases de dados até o dia 17 de agosto de 2020. De um número inicial de 2994 estudos não duplicados, 45 artigos foram incluídos após a realização das fases de screening e elegibility. Estes artigos foram analisados de acordo com o seu desenho, características dos participantes e estratégias de gestão de adesão aplicadas. De igual forma, avaliaram-se os seus outcomes relativos a indicadores de adesão terapêutica e pressão arterial, bem como os métodos utilizados para medir adesão. Posteriormente, cada intervenção descrita foi categorizada de acordo com um novo sistema de categorização, baseado em evidência e desenhado de acordo com o framework de conceptual clustering, amplamente utilizado em machine learning. Ao apresentar uma visão geral e organizada desta área de investigação, criando ainda uma nova ferramenta de categorização de intervenções, este trabalho revela-se um marco importante no desenvolvimento informado e eficiente de futuras intervenções em adesão terapêutica. Adicionalmente, para profissionais de saúde esta é uma fonte de informação valiosa sobre adesão terapêutica em doentes hipertensos.In recent years, interest in medication adherence has greatly increased. Adherence has been particularly well studied in the context of arterial hypertension treatment. Numerous interventions have addressed this issue, however, the effort to improve adherence has been often frustrating and frequently disorganized. The aim of present study was to perform a scoping review of medication adherence interventions in hypertensive patients, so that a clear overview was achieved. Moreover, an evidence-based categorization of interventions was developed. The review was performed according to the PRISMA-ScR statement. MEDLINE and Web of Science were searched, and studies published from database inception until August 17, 2020 were included. A total of 2994 non-duplicate studies were retrieved. After screening and eligibility phases, a total of 45 articles were included. Studies were analyzed regarding their design, participant characteristics and management of adherence strategies employed. Furthermore, medication adherence and blood pressure outcomes, as well as adherence measuring tools were evaluated. Each study's intervention was then categorized using a novel evidence-based system of categorization, derived from the conceptual clustering framework used in machine learning. This work is an important step in pushing for better informed and more efficient future research efforts, both by providing an overview of the research field and by creating a new, evidence-based intervention categorization tool. It also provides valuable information to clinicians about medication adherence to antihypertensive therapy

Use of H-Index and other bibliometric indicators to evaluate research productivity outcome on swine diseases

H-index is the most commonly applied tool to evaluate scientific productivity. In this study, the use of the H-index to evaluate scientific production in swine veterinary medicine was explored. A database of 137 pig infectious agents was constructed, including its taxonomic division, zoonotic potential, status as emerging pathogen and whether it was OIE-listed. The H-index and the total number of citations were calculated for those pathogens, the location of the affiliation of the first author of each paper included in the H-index core was registered and, for the ten pathogens with the highest H-index, evolution over time was measured. H-index values were compared to the M quotient, A-index, G-index, HG-index and the G/H ratio. H-indices were found to be severely affected by search accuracy and the database was hand curated. Swine pathogen H-indexes were highly dispersed ranging from 0 to 106 and were generally higher for pathogens causing endemic diseases in large pig producing countries. Indeed, the three top pathogens were Escherichia coli, Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus and Porcine circovirus type 2 with H-indices 106, 95 and 85, respectively. H-indices of viruses and bacteria were significantly higher (P 0.001) than other pathogen types. Also, non-zoonotic pathogens had higher H-indices than zoonotic pathogens (p 0.009) while no differences could be found for being listed by the OIE. For emerging diseases, only non-emerging viruses had higher H-index (p = 0.02). The study of H-indexes over time revealed three general patterns and that they had increased mainly after the 1980's. As expected, there were strong geographic patterns in terms of authorship and North America (38%) and Europe (46%) coped the majority of the papers. Finally, in order to quantify the contribution of a subject to a specific field, a new index "Deciphering Citations Organized by Subject" (Dcos) is proposed

Ependymal tumours in childhood: outcomes and prognostic factors

OBJECTIVES: To retrospectively review the patient demographics, disease profile and treatment outcomes of paediatric patients treated for ependymoma at our institution. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: 51 eligible patients were treated between 1980 and 2013. The median age at presentation was 6 years. The majority of patients were male (66,7%), had infratentorial tumours (62,7%) and had low-grade tumours (70,6%). Gross total resection (GTR) was achieved in 22 patients (43,1%). Thirtyeight patients received adjuvant radiotherapy (76,5%) and 10 (19,6%) received adjuvant chemotherapy. RESULTS: The 5-year overall survival (OS) was 63,3 % (median follow up of 46 months). The 5 year progression free survival (PFS) was 50,70%. Seventeen (33,3%) patients experienced treatment failure, of which 13 (76,5%) represented local failure. The median time to first relapse was 20 months. The 5 year PFS for children > 3 was 50,0 % and 27,7% for children ≤ 3 years of age (p = 0.0356). GTR had a superior 5- year OS of 73,9% over subtotal resection with a value of 56,7% (p = 0.0016). Similarly an improved 5-year PFS of 70,3% versus 29,1% was observed with GTR over subtotal resection (p = <0.0001). Patients who received adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) had significantly better outcomes than those in whom RT was not given (p = <0.0001, 5 year OS of 69,7% versus 37,5%). CONCLUSION: This review confirms the finding that GTR is associated with improved outcomes and that adjuvant radiation therapy positively impacts survival. The worse outcomes in the younger age group requires further evaluation and possible change in treatment protocol for this group of patients

A retrospective audit into the morbidity and mortality of open abdominal aortic aneurysm repair at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town

Background: Open AAA repair is a major, high risk surgery and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Current literature quotes an overall mortality of ruptured AAA at 85-90%, including those who do not reach the operating theatre. Mortality of elective AAA repairs is 4-8%. Many patients presenting with abdominal aortic aneurysms are elderly and have pre-existing medical conditions, therefore putting them at high risk for numerous post-operative complications, such as acute kidney injury, pulmonary and cardiac complications. These complications lead to potentially increased ICU and hospital stays. Objectives: To the author's knowledge, an audit into the morbidity and mortality at Groote Schuur Hospital has not yet been formally performed. Such a retrospective audit will be useful in establishing where this hospital stands in terms of mortality, as compared with published data from international centres. In terms of morbidity, this research focused on the development of acute kidney injury following AAA repair. Methods: The study design was an observational retrospective file audit, of both emergency and elective open abdominal aortic aneurysm repairs. 90 case reports of operations performed between October 2006 and December 2014 were analysed. The primary outcome measure was the incidence and causes of perioperative (30-day) mortality. The secondary outcome measure was the incidence of acute kidney injury and renal replacement therapy (RRT). We further analysed whether cross-clamp time and anatomical classification of the aneurysm had any effect on the subsequent need for RRT, utilising the Mann-Whitney test. Results: Of the 90 patients, 76.7% were male (n=69). The study population had a mean age of 64.9 years. Overall perioperative (30-day) mortality of both emergency and elective cases was 15 out of 90 cases (16.6%); the mortality for emergency cases was 12 out 31 (38.7%), as compared to 3/59 (5.1%). Seventeen patients (18.9%) developed KDIGO stage 3 AKI, and RRT was instituted in 12 cases (13.3% of all patients); seven patients survived, and no patients were dialysis-dependent on hospital discharge. AKI was not significantly associated with abdominal aortic cross-clamp time (46 minutes vs. 38 minutes, p=0.9021), but was significantly associated with anatomical classification of the aneurysm (supra-/juxtarenal vs. infrarenal, p=0.037). Conclusions: In comparison with research from international centres, this study population was predominantly male, with a similar age profile to that quoted. The bulk of the perioperative mortality was from emergency AAA repairs, with the mortality associated with elective open AAA surgical repair being within the ranges quoted in international literature. Of the patients who received RRT, there was a mortality of 41.6%. There were many limitations in this study, as the population analysed was extremely heterogeneous, owing to the small sample size. There is great potential for further research, especially into the outcomes of open versus endovascular repairs of AAAs

The Open Access Journals Toolkit

Contents: Getting Started 5 • Scope, aims and focus 5 • Choosing a title for your journal 6 • Types of content accepted 7 • Kick-off and ongoing funding 11 • Disciplinary considerations 16 • Journal setup checklist and timeline 18 • Running a journal 20 • Article selection criteria 20 • Publication frequency and journal issues 23 • Attracting authors 25 • Peer review and quality assurance 27 • The costs of running an online open access journal 31 • Running a journal in a local or regional language 34 • Flipping a journal to open access 36 • Indexing 38 • Building and maintaining a profile 38 • Journal and article indexing 41 • Search engine optimisation and technical improvements 43 • Journal and article level metrics 45 • Staffing 49 • Roles and responsibilities 49 • Recruiting journal staff 51 • Building an editorial board 54 • Training and staff development 57 • Policies 59 • Developing author guidelines 59 • Publication ethics and related editorial policies 61 • Compliance with funder policies and mandates 64 • Copyright and licensing 66 • Displaying licensing information 68 • Corrections and retractions 70 • Infrastructure 72 • Software and technical infrastructure 72 • Journal appearance and web design 74 • Article and journal metadata 76 • Structured content 79 • Persistent Identifiers 81 • About the Open Access Journals Toolkit 83 • About 83 • What is an open access journal? 86 • Frequently asked questions 89 • Glossary 92 • Further reading 9

Patent Coverage in Scientific and Technical Research Databases

Patents play an important role in the research process. Yet, most recent articles about patent searching and sources of patent information focus on tools and techniques used by information professionals, not researchers. This article will compare the features of a number of research databases that provide patent information. The analysis will include a chart listing cost, dates of coverage, search strategies, and the benefits and limitations of each

Cystic fibrosis in black African children in South Africa: a case control study

Background Cystic fibrosis (CF) is described more commonly in Caucasian populations in whom p.Phe508del is the most common mutation. There is a paucity of data of CF in black African children. The aim of this study was to describe and compare the presentation and outcomes of black African children with CF to those with p.Phe508del genotype. Methods A retrospective case-controlled study was conducted from January 2000 – March 2018 of children with CF attending two CF centres in South Africa. Presentation, genotype, nutrition and pulmonary function outcomes of black African children were compared to matched controls with the p.Phe508del mutation. Results Thirty-four black African children (cases) with median age of diagnosis (5.5 months, IQR 2.0- 15.0) were matched to 34 controls. Among cases, 3120+1G->A CFTR mutation was most commonly identified; homozygous n=22 (64.7%) and heterozygous=7(20.5%). Compared to controls, cases at diagnosis were more malnourished and fewer presented with neonatal bowel obstruction [cases n=2 (5.9%) vs. controls n=10 (29.4%); p = 0.03]. Nutrition and pulmonary function (FEV1 in children ≥ 6 years) outcomes and changes over time from ages 3-16 years were similar in both groups; median FEV1 z-score at age 6,10 and 14 years was -0.9 (±1.5), -1.8 (±2.0) and -1.8 (±1.9) respectively for all patients. Deaths were recorded in three cases (8.8%) and one control (2.9%) (p = 0.6). Conclusion Black African children with CF were more malnourished at diagnosis, and fewer presented with neonatal bowel obstruction. Cases and controls had comparable nutritional, pulmonary function and early mortality outcomes