Introducing Creative Multilingualism

Creative Multilingualism is a manifesto. It signals that multilingualism is fundamental to the human condition and that we are all in some way multilingual — both in terms of talent and in terms of our daily ‘language lives’. It also points to the key role languages play as a creative force in our thought and emotions, our expression and social interaction, and our activity in the world — languages are a creative force in how we live. This volume presents fruits of collaborative research cond..

The challenges of research data management in cardiovascular science: a DGK and DZHK position paper-executive summary

The sharing and documentation of cardiovascular research data are essential for efficient use and reuse of data, thereby aiding scientific transparency, accelerating the progress of cardiovascular research and healthcare, and contributing to the reproducibility of research results. However, challenges remain. This position paper, written on behalf of and approved by the German Cardiac Society and German Centre for Cardiovascular Research, summarizes our current understanding of the challenges in cardiovascular research data management (RDM). These challenges include lack of time, awareness, incentives, and funding for implementing effective RDM; lack of standardization in RDM processes; a need to better identify meaningful and actionable data among the increasing volume and complexity of data being acquired; and a lack of understanding of the legal aspects of data sharing. While several tools exist to increase the degree to which data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR), more work is needed to lower the threshold for effective RDM not just in cardiovascular research but in all biomedical research, with data sharing and reuse being factored in at every stage of the scientific process. A culture of open science with FAIR research data should be fostered through education and training of early-career and established research professionals. Ultimately, FAIR RDM requires permanent, long-term effort at all levels. If outcomes can be shown to be superior and to promote better (and better value) science, modern RDM will make a positive difference to cardiovascular science and practice. The full position paper is available in the supplementary materials

(Re)creating modern languages: conversations about the curriculum in UK higher education

This toolkit is designed to support colleagues who are planning to review the teaching in their institution. It offers frameworks for thinking through and planning comprehensive curriculum change, drawing on the experience of colleagues from a wide range of UK Modern Languages departments who have recently undertaken these changes or are working through them at the time of writing. It also showcases examples of excellent and innovative practice at module level, providing ideas for (re)thinking how language departments can work with external partners to enhance student experience. The toolkit provides a range of models for thinking about how language degrees are structured

A UMLS-based spell checker for natural language processing in vaccine safety

BACKGROUND: The Institute of Medicine has identified patient safety as a key goal for health care in the United States. Detecting vaccine adverse events is an important public health activity that contributes to patient safety. Reports about adverse events following immunization (AEFI) from surveillance systems contain free-text components that can be analyzed using natural language processing. To extract Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) concepts from free text and classify AEFI reports based on concepts they contain, we first needed to clean the text by expanding abbreviations and shortcuts and correcting spelling errors. Our objective in this paper was to create a UMLS-based spelling error correction tool as a first step in the natural language processing (NLP) pipeline for AEFI reports. METHODS: We developed spell checking algorithms using open source tools. We used de-identified AEFI surveillance reports to create free-text data sets for analysis. After expansion of abbreviated clinical terms and shortcuts, we performed spelling correction in four steps: (1) error detection, (2) word list generation, (3) word list disambiguation and (4) error correction. We then measured the performance of the resulting spell checker by comparing it to manual correction. RESULTS: We used 12,056 words to train the spell checker and tested its performance on 8,131 words. During testing, sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value (PPV) for the spell checker were 74% (95% CI: 74–75), 100% (95% CI: 100–100), and 47% (95% CI: 46%–48%), respectively. CONCLUSION: We created a prototype spell checker that can be used to process AEFI reports. We used the UMLS Specialist Lexicon as the primary source of dictionary terms and the WordNet lexicon as a secondary source. We used the UMLS as a domain-specific source of dictionary terms to compare potentially misspelled words in the corpus. The prototype sensitivity was comparable to currently available tools, but the specificity was much superior. The slow processing speed may be improved by trimming it down to the most useful component algorithms. Other investigators may find the methods we developed useful for cleaning text using lexicons specific to their area of interest

Viscerotropic disease: case definition and guidelines for collection, analysis, and presentation of immunization safety data

Viscerotropic disease (VTD) is defined as acute multiple organ system dysfunction that occurs following vaccination. The severity of VTD ranges from relatively mild multisystem disease to severe multiple organ system failure and death. The term VTD was first used shortly after the initial published reports in 2001 of febrile multiple organ system failure following yellow fever (YF) vaccination. To date, VTD has been reported only in association with YF vaccine and has been thus referred to as YF vaccine-associated viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD)

Guideline for collection, analysis and presentation of safety data in clinical trials of vaccines in pregnant women.

Vaccination during pregnancy is increasingly being used as an effective approach for protecting both young infants and their mothers from serious infections. Drawing conclusions from published studies in this area can be difficult because of the inability to compare vaccine trial results across different studies and settings due to the heterogeneity in the definitions of terms used to assess the safety of vaccines in pregnancy and the data collected in such studies. The guidelines proposed in this document have been developed to harmonize safety data collection in all phases of clinical trials of vaccines in pregnant women and apply to data from the mother, fetus and infant. Guidelines on the prioritization of the data to be collected is also provided to allow applicability in various geographic, cultural and resource settings, including high, middle and low-income countries

M4 Safety and tolerability of BN82451B in huntington’s disease

Background BN82451B is a small, orally active molecule with good CNS penetration. Preclinical studies in tgHD R6/2 mice suggested improved motor function and prolonged survival. In addition antidyskinetic activity was observed in other models. The proposed mechanisms of action (MOA) are (1) antiexcytotoxic due to a sodium channel blocking potential, (2) antioxidant, (3) anti-inflammatory due to a cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitory potential and (4) mitochondrial protective. Aims The primary objective of this phase 2a study (NCT02231580) is to investigate the safety and tolerability of BN82451B bid versus placebo for 28 days in male HD subjects. Secondary objectives include assessment of pharmacokinetics and of pharmacodynamics via the effects on quantitative motor (Q-Motor) measures. UHDRS subscales are implemented as exploratory measures. Methods Subjects: We intend to recruit 30 male HD subjects. 24 receive BN82451B and 6 placebo. The study is conducted in an inpatient setting at a single phase I unit in Germany. Design A sequential design was chosen to enable dose escalation starting with 40 mg bid with a potential maximum dose of 80 mg bid. Three subsequent cohorts of 10 patients each are randomised with different starting doses. Subjects in group one are treated with 40 mg bid for 14 days and may be increased to 60 mg bid the subsequent 14 days. In group 2, subjects may first receive 60 mg bid with possible increase to 80 mg bid. Group 3 subjects may receive 80 mg bid for 28 days. Dose increases in the consecutive groups are subject to approval by a Data Review Committee (DRC). The decision to increase the dose in individual patient will be based on the investigator’s judgement. Results Results of the study are expected for Q4/2016. Conclusions Recruitment in this trial is difficult as in-patient periods of nearly one month are logistically challenging. Safety data will be available soon and pharmacodynamics readouts such as Q-motor measures may help to guide decisions on the further path of development of BN82451B