Evidence Levels for Neuroradiology Articles: Low Agreement Among Raters

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Because evidence-based articles are difficult to recognize among the large volume of publications available, some journals have adopted evidence-based medicine criteria to classify their articles. Our purpose was to determine whether an evidence-based medicine classification used by a subspecialty-imaging journal allowed consistent categorization of levels of evidence among different raters. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred consecutive articles in the American Journal of Neuroradiology were classified as to their level of evidence by the 2 original manuscript reviewers, and their interobserver agreement was calculated. After publication, abstracts and titles were reprinted and independently ranked by 3 different radiologists at 2 different time points. Interobserver and intraobserver agreement was calculated for these radiologists. RESULTS: The interobserver agreement between the original manuscript reviewers was -0.2283 (standard error = 0.0000; 95% CI, -0.2283 to -0.2283); among the 3 postpublication reviewers for the first evaluation, it was 0.1899 (standard error = 0.0383; 95% CI, 0.1149-0.2649); and for the second evaluation, performed 3 months later, it was 0.1145 (standard error = 0.0350; 95% CI, 0.0460-0.1831). The intraobserver agreement was 0.2344 (standard error = 0.0660; 95% CI, 0.1050-0.3639), 0.3826 (standard error = 0.0738; 95% CI, 0.2379-0.5272), and 0.6611 (standard error = 0.0656; 95% CI, 0.5325-0.7898) for the 3 postpublication evaluators, respectively. These results show no-to-fair interreviewer agreement and a tendency to slight intrareviewer agreement. CONCLUSIONS: Inconsistent use of evidence-based criteria by different raters limits their utility when attempting to classify neuroradiology-related articles.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Taking the pulse of Mars via dating of a plume-fed volcano

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The attached file is the published version of the article

Antioxidant intake among Brazilian adults - The Brazilian Osteoporosis Study (BRAZOS): a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Antioxidant nutrient intake and the lesser formation of free radicals seem to contribute to chronic diseases. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the intake profile of the main dietary antioxidants in a representative sample of the adult Brazilian population and discuss the main consequences of a low intake of these micronutrients on overall health.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The sample comprised 2344 individuals aged 40 years or older from 150 cities and was based on a probabilistic sample from official data. The research was conducted through in-home interviews administered by a team trained for this purpose. Dietary intake information was obtained through 24-h recall. The Nutrition Data System for Research software program was used to analyze data on the intake of vitamins A, C and E, selenium and zinc, which was compared to Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs). Differences in intake according to sex, anthropometrics, socioeconomic status and region were also evaluated. The SPSS statistical package (version 13) was used for the statistical analysis. P-values < 0.05 were considered significant.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Higher proportions of low intake in relation to recommended values were found for vitamin E (99.7%), vitamin A (92.4%) and vitamin C (85.1%) in both genders. Intake variations were found between different regions, which may reflect cultural habits.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results should lead to the development of public health policies that encourage educational strategies for improving the intake of micronutrients, which are essential to overall health and prevention of non-communicable diseases.</p

In Vitro Surfactant Structure-Toxicity Relationships: Implications for Surfactant Use in Sexually Transmitted Infection Prophylaxis and Contraception

Background The need for woman-controlled, cheap, safe, effective, easy-to-use and easy-to-store topical applications for prophylaxis against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) makes surfactant-containing formulations an interesting option that requires a more fundamental knowledge concerning surfactant toxicology and structure-activity relationships. Methodology/Principal Findings We report in vitro effects of surfactant concentration, exposure time and structure on the viability of mammalian cell types typically encountered in the vagina, namely, fully polarized and confluent epithelial cells, confluent but non-polarized epithelial-like cells, dendritic cells, and human sperm. Representatives of the different families of commercially available surfactants – nonionic (Triton X-100 and monolaurin), zwitterionic (DDPS), anionic (SDS), and cationic (CnTAB (n = 10 to 16), C12PB, and C12BZK) – were examined. Triton X-100, monolaurin, DDPS and SDS were toxic to all cell types at concentrations around their critical micelle concentration (CMC) suggesting a non-selective mode of action involving cell membrane destabilization and/or destruction. All cationic surfactants were toxic at concentrations far below their CMC and showed significant differences in their toxicity toward polarized as compared with non-polarized cells. Their toxicity was also dependent on the chemical nature of the polar head group. Our results suggest an intracellular locus of action for cationic surfactants and show that their structure-activity relationships could be profitably exploited for STI prophylaxis in vaginal gel formulations. The therapeutic indices comparing polarized epithelial cell toxicity to sperm toxicity for all surfactants examined, except C12PB and C12BZK, does not justify their use as contraceptive agents. C12PB and C12BZK are shown to have a narrow therapeutic index recommending caution in their use in contraceptive formulations. Conclusions/Significance Our results contribute to understanding the mechanisms involved in surfactant toxicity, have a predictive value with regard to their safety, and may be used to design more effective and less harmful surfactants for use in topical applications for STI prophylaxis.Foundation for Science and Technology of the Portuguese Ministry of Science and Higher Educatio