Information and the gaining of understanding

It is suggested that, in addition to data, information and knowledge, the information sciences should focus on understanding, understood as a higher-order knowledge, with coherent and explanatory potential. The limited ways in which understanding has been addressed in the design of information systems, in studies of information behaviour, in formulations of information literacy, and in impact studies are briefly reviewed, and future prospects considered. The paper is an extended version of a keynote presentation given at the i3 conference in June 2015

Comparative study of nonlinear properties of EEG signals of a normal person and an epileptic patient

Background: Investigation of the functioning of the brain in living systems has been a major effort amongst scientists and medical practitioners. Amongst the various disorder of the brain, epilepsy has drawn the most attention because this disorder can affect the quality of life of a person. In this paper we have reinvestigated the EEGs for normal and epileptic patients using surrogate analysis, probability distribution function and Hurst exponent. Results: Using random shuffled surrogate analysis, we have obtained some of the nonlinear features that was obtained by Andrzejak \textit{et al.} [Phys Rev E 2001, 64:061907], for the epileptic patients during seizure. Probability distribution function shows that the activity of an epileptic brain is nongaussian in nature. Hurst exponent has been shown to be useful to characterize a normal and an epileptic brain and it shows that the epileptic brain is long term anticorrelated whereas, the normal brain is more or less stochastic. Among all the techniques, used here, Hurst exponent is found very useful for characterization different cases. Conclusions: In this article, differences in characteristics for normal subjects with eyes open and closed, epileptic subjects during seizure and seizure free intervals have been shown mainly using Hurst exponent. The H shows that the brain activity of a normal man is uncorrelated in nature whereas, epileptic brain activity shows long range anticorrelation.Comment: Keywords:EEG, epilepsy, Correlation dimension, Surrogate analysis, Hurst exponent. 9 page

Structural Determinants and Children's Oral Health: A Cross-National Study

Much research on children's oral health has focused on proximal determinants at the expense of distal (upstream) factors. Yet, such upstream factors-the so-called structural determinants of health-play a crucial role. Children's lives, and in turn their health, are shaped by politics, economic forces, and social and public policies. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between children's clinical (number of decayed, missing, and filled teeth) and self-reported oral health (oral health-related quality of life) and 4 key structural determinants (governance, macroeconomic policy, public policy, and social policy) as outlined in the World Health Organization's Commission for Social Determinants of Health framework. Secondary data analyses were carried out using subnational epidemiological samples of 8- to 15-y-olds in 11 countries ( N = 6,648): Australia (372), New Zealand (three samples; 352, 202, 429), Brunei (423), Cambodia (423), Hong Kong (542), Malaysia (439), Thailand (261, 506), United Kingdom (88, 374), Germany (1498), Mexico (335), and Brazil (404). The results indicated that the type of political regime, amount of governance (e.g., rule of law, accountability), gross domestic product per capita, employment ratio, income inequality, type of welfare regime, human development index, government expenditure on health, and out-of-pocket (private) health expenditure by citizens were all associated with children's oral health. The structural determinants accounted for between 5% and 21% of the variance in children's oral health quality-of-life scores. These findings bring attention to the upstream or structural determinants as an understudied area but one that could reap huge rewards for public health dentistry research and the oral health inequalities policy agenda

A QM/MM study of the nature of the entatic state in plastocyanin

Plastocyanin is a copper containing protein that is involved in the electron transfer process in photosynthetic organisms. The active site of plastocyanin is described as an entatic state whereby its structure represents a compromise between the structures favored by the oxidized and reduced forms. In this study, the nature of the entatic state is investigated through density functional theory-based hybrid quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) molecular dynamics simulations. The strain energy is computed to be 12.8 kcal/mol and 14.5 kcal/mol for the oxidized and reduced forms of the protein, indicating that the active site has an intermediate structure. It is shown that the energy gap between the oxidized and reduced forms varies significantly with the fluctuations in the structure of the active site at room temperature. An accurate determination of the reorganization energy requires averaging over conformation and a large region of the protein around the active site to be treated at the quantum mechanical level

Interaction Between Convection and Pulsation

This article reviews our current understanding of modelling convection dynamics in stars. Several semi-analytical time-dependent convection models have been proposed for pulsating one-dimensional stellar structures with different formulations for how the convective turbulent velocity field couples with the global stellar oscillations. In this review we put emphasis on two, widely used, time-dependent convection formulations for estimating pulsation properties in one-dimensional stellar models. Applications to pulsating stars are presented with results for oscillation properties, such as the effects of convection dynamics on the oscillation frequencies, or the stability of pulsation modes, in classical pulsators and in stars supporting solar-type oscillations.Comment: Invited review article for Living Reviews in Solar Physics. 88 pages, 14 figure

Clinical Outcomes of Utilization of Stress Ulcer Prophylaxis in Hospitalized, Non-ICU Patients

Goal This study is a retrospective chart review that aims to measure the effect of stress ulcer prophylaxis in hospitalized non-ICU level patients to determine the clinical effect of the presence or absence of stress ulcer prophylaxis

Psychometric assessment of the short-form Child Perceptions Questionnaire: an international collaborative study.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the factor structure and other psychometric characteristics of the most commonly used child oral-health-related quality-of-life (OHRQoL) measure (the 16-item short-form CPQ11-14 ) in a large number of children (N = 5804) from different settings and who had a range of caries experience and associated impacts. METHODS: Secondary data analyses used subnational epidemiological samples of 11- to 14-year-olds in Australia (N = 372), New Zealand (three samples: 352, 202, 429), Brunei (423), Cambodia (244), Hong Kong (542), Malaysia (439), Thailand (220, 325), England (88, 374), Germany (1055), Mexico (335) and Brazil (404). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the factor structure of the CPQ11-14 across the combined sample and within four regions (Australia/NZ, Asia, UK/Europe and Latin America). Item impact and internal reliability analysis were also conducted. RESULTS: Caries experience varied, with mean DMFT scores ranging from 0.5 in the Malaysian sample to 3.4 in one New Zealand sample. Even more variation was noted in the proportion reporting only fair or poor oral health; this was highest in the Cambodian and Mexican samples and lowest in the German sample and one New Zealand sample. One in 10 reported that their oral health had a marked impact on their life overall. The CFA across all samples revealed two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1. The first involved all items in the oral symptoms and functional limitations subscales; the second involved all emotional well-being and social well-being items. The first was designated the 'symptoms/function' subscale, and the second was designated the 'well-being' subscale. Cronbach's alpha scores were 0.72 and 0.84, respectively. The symptoms/function subscale contained more of the items with greater impact, with the item 'Food stuck in between your teeth' having greatest impact; in the well-being subscale, the 'Felt shy or embarrassed' item had the greatest impact. Repeating the analyses by world region gave similar findings. CONCLUSION: The CPQ11-14 performed well cross-sectionally in the largest analysis of the scale in the literature to date, with robust and mostly consistent psychometric characteristics, albeit with two underlying factors (rather than the originally hypothesized four-factor structure). It appears to be a sound, robust measure which should be useful for research, practice and policy

Rotation, activity, and lithium abundance in cool binary stars

We have used two robotic telescopes to obtain time-series high-resolution spectroscopy and V I and/or by photometry for a sample of 60 active stars. Orbital solutions are presented for 26 SB2 and 19 SB1 systems with unprecedented phase coverage and accuracy. The total of 6,609 R=55,000 echelle spectra are also used to systematically determine effective temperatures, gravities, metallicities, rotational velocities, lithium abundances and absolute H{\alpha}-core fluxes as a function of time. The photometry is used to infer unspotted brightness, V - I and/or b - y colors, spot-induced brightness amplitudes and precise rotation periods. Our data are complemented by literature data and are used to determine rotation-temperature-activity relations for active binary components. We also relate lithium abundance to rotation and surface temperature. We find that 74% of all known rapidly-rotating active binary stars are synchronized and in circular orbits but 26% are rotating asynchronously of which half have Prot > Porb and e > 0. Because rotational synchronization is predicted to occur before orbital circularization active binaries should undergo an extra spin-down besides tidal dissipation. We suspect this to be due to a magnetically channeled wind with its subsequent braking torque. We find a steep increase of rotation period with decreasing effective temperature for active stars. For inactive, single giants with Prot > 100 d, the relation is much weaker. Our data also indicate a period-activity relation for H{\alpha} of the form RH{\alpha} \propto P - 0.24 for binaries and RH{\alpha} \propto P -0.14 for singles. Lithium abundances in our sample increase with effective temperature. On average, binaries of comparable effective temperature appear to exhibit 0.25 dex less surface lithium than singles. We also find a trend of increased Li abundance with rotational period of form log n(Li) \propto - 0.6 log Prot

Kounis syndrome – Anaphylaxis-induced acute coronary syndrome

Kounis syndrome is an underdiagnosed condition in which anaphylaxis triggers vasospastic acute coronary syndrome, either with or without underlying coronary artery disease. The prevalence of this syndrome among hospitalized patients for allergic/hypersensitivity/anaphylactic reactions in the United States is 1.1%, with a 7% rate of all-cause inpatient mortality. This article presents an anaphylaxis-induced acute coronary syndrome case in a patient with underlying coronary artery disease. The pathophysiological mechanism of anaphylactic-induced acute coronary syndrome involves the inflammatory mediators of type I hypersensitivity reactions

Get screened: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial to increase mammography and colorectal cancer screening in a large, safety net practice

Abstract Background Most randomized controlled trials of interventions designed to promote cancer screening, particularly those targeting poor and minority patients, enroll selected patients. Relatively little is known about the benefits of these interventions among unselected patients. Methods/Design "Get Screened" is an American Cancer Society-sponsored randomized controlled trial designed to promote mammography and colorectal cancer screening in a primary care practice serving low-income patients. Eligible patients who are past due for mammography or colorectal cancer screening are entered into a tracking registry and randomly assigned to early or delayed intervention. This 6-month intervention is multimodal, involving patient prompts, clinician prompts, and outreach. At the time of the patient visit, eligible patients receive a low-literacy patient education tool. At the same time, clinicians receive a prompt to remind them to order the test and, when appropriate, a tool designed to simplify colorectal cancer screening decision-making. Patient outreach consists of personalized letters, automated telephone reminders, assistance with scheduling, and linkage of uninsured patients to the local National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection program. Interventions are repeated for patients who fail to respond to early interventions. We will compare rates of screening between randomized groups, as well as planned secondary analyses of minority patients and uninsured patients. Data from the pilot phase show that this multimodal intervention triples rates of cancer screening (adjusted odds ratio 3.63; 95% CI 2.35 - 5.61). Discussion This study protocol is designed to assess a multimodal approach to promotion of breast and colorectal cancer screening among underserved patients. We hypothesize that a multimodal approach will significantly improve cancer screening rates. The trial was registered at Clinical Trials.gov NCT00818857http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78264/1/1472-6963-10-280.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78264/2/1472-6963-10-280.pdfPeer Reviewe