Economic Analysis of Knowledge: The History of Thought and the Central Themes

Following the development of knowledge economies, there has been a rapid expansion of economic analysis of knowledge, both in the context of technological knowledge in particular and the decision theory in general. This paper surveys this literature by identifying the main themes and contributions and outlines the future prospects of the discipline. The wide scope of knowledge related questions in terms of applicability and alternative approaches has led to the fragmentation of research. Nevertheless, one can identify a continuing tradition which analyses various aspects of the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge in the economy

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Spondylocostal Dysostosis: A Literature Review and Case Report with Long-Term Follow-Up of a Conservatively Managed Patient

Introduction. Patients with spondylocostal dysostosis (SCD) have congenital spine and rib deformities associated with frequently severe thoracic insufficiency and respiratory compromise. The literature is largely composed of case reports and small cohorts, and there is little information regarding adults with this condition. In this report, we describe the natural history of a conservatively treated patient and include quality-of-life issues such as childbearing, athletic participation, and occupational selection. Case Presentation. We present a patient with SCD who was conservatively treated by a single physician from birth for 31 years. Our patient was capable of a reasonably good quality of life through adulthood, including participation in gymnastics and employment. At age 18, she became pregnant and subsequently terminated the pregnancy due to obstetrical concerns for compromised respiration. She has had intermittent respiratory complaints and occasionally experiences dyspnea with exertion, but this only has limited her during certain activities in the past three years. Currently, she takes naproxen for chronic back pain with periodic exacerbations. Discussion. Other cases in the literature have described adult SCD patients who have received nonoperative treatment and achieved a wide range of functional outcomes. This provides some limited evidence to suggest that select patients with SCD may be treated conservatively and achieve a reasonable quality of life. However, close clinical follow-up with these patients is recommended, particularly early on, considering the high rates of infant morbidity and mortality. Chest physiotherapy and early pulmonary care have been associated with favorable outcomes in infancy. Surgery to increase thoracic volume and correct scoliosis has been shown in some cases to improve respiratory function. Treatment depends on the degree of thoracic insufficiency and quality of life. The natural history of SCD remains largely unknown, but some patients are capable of relatively favorable life spans, employment, and participation in athletics

Epiphyseal Stapling and Recombinant Human Growth Hormone for the Correction of Genu Valgum in Children with Chronic Renal Insufficiency

Genu valgum (GV) and growth retardation are known complications of chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) in children. Physeal stapling is the preferred method for GV correction, provided epiphyseal growth continues after stapling. Growth retardation in these children thus renders this mode of therapy unreliable. The only alternative is corrective osteotomy with the associated risks, such as non-union of bone and recurrence. The authors sought to determine if recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) administered after stapling can bring about continued physeal growth needed for correction. The medical records of five patients with CRI, GV, and growth retardation who had physeal stapling performed and received rhGH were reviewed. Resolution of GV and improvement in linear height was achieved in four patients within 2 years. The authors conclude that children with CRI, growth retardation, and moderate GV benefit from the simultaneous use of rhGH and knee stapling for correction of GV, thus avoiding osteotomies

Epiphyseal Stapling and Recombinant Human Growth Hormone for the Correction of Genu Valgum in Children with Chronic Renal Insufficiency

Genu valgum (GV) and growth retardation are known complications of chronic renal insufficiency (CRI) in children. Physeal stapling is the preferred method for GV correction, provided epiphyseal growth continues after stapling. Growth retardation in these children thus renders this mode of therapy unreliable. The only alternative is corrective osteotomy with the associated risks, such as non-union of bone and recurrence. The authors sought to determine if recombinant human growth hormone (rhGH) administered after stapling can bring about continued physeal growth needed for correction. The medical records of five patients with CRI, GV, and growth retardation who had physeal stapling performed and received rhGH were reviewed. Resolution of GV and improvement in linear height was achieved in four patients within 2 years. The authors conclude that children with CRI, growth retardation, and moderate GV benefit from the simultaneous use of rhGH and knee stapling for correction of GV, thus avoiding osteotomies