69 research outputs found

    Bibliometric Analysis to Scan and Scrape New Datasets: It’s all about that BASS

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    Objectives The main objective of this poster is to present a pilot project in determining emerging population health themes and identifying key research-enabling datasets ahead of time. At present, large-scale databanks, such as the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank at Swansea University Medical School, already manage large quantities of health and administrative linked datasets. While these datasets are valuable for research purposes, complementary datasets may be required by collaborating researchers to answer detailed population health research questions. Dataset acquisition can take several years, which is a serious delay to a project with time-limited funding. The ability to pre-emptively acquire datasets so that these are ready for use before a researcher requests them would obviously be beneficial. However, a recent study conducted by the Farr Cipher team at Swansea University identified over 800 health and administrative datasets in Wales alone. With limited resources such as available funding and time, which of these datasets is worth its effort in acquiring? ApproachBibliometrics has long been a means of measuring the impact of papers on the wider academic community. Lately, the focus of analyses has been extended to include the topics, authorship and citations of the publications. Existing bibliometric data mining techniques suggest that it is possible to identify emerging topic trends and through this assist in prioritising dataset identification and acquisition. The project explored mining available literature through bibliometric analysis in order to predict emerging trends and through these identify potentially relevant and valuable datasets for acquisition on behalf of the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK). Literature searches were conducted for papers published on the topic of “dementia” over the last 20 years. Additional keywords and topics were extracted to identify emerging areas of research and clinical interest. These were then compared against an existing list of over 800 Welsh datasets currently not held in SAIL. ResultsResults focus on: • Using bibliometric methods in the context of DPUK cohort publications • Identifying emerging trends in the field of dementia research. • Identifying and prioritising datasets which might be useful for the SAIL Databank to acquir

    The Sense of Quality of Life Among the Elderly in the Open Protection Centres of the Elderly (KAPI) During the Economic Crisis

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    Surveys in the field of health sociology have repeatedly shown that people belonging to low socio-economic groups face health problems and live less than people belonging to high socio-economic groups. The purpose of the current survey is to investigate the socio-economic indicators that affect the health level of the elderly. A number of questionnaires were distributed to the elderly in a number of Open Protection Centres of the Elderly (KAPI) in the country. A total of 897 questionnaires were filled in. The data was processed using the IBM SPSS Statistics v. 23. Regarding the existence of correlations between economic characteristics and the sense of the quality of life of the elderly, it was established that people with economic autonomy and highest annual income perceive their quality of life as being superior compared to those lacking economic autonomy and lower annual income. There is almost complete coincidence of the research findings with the theoretical approaches of the literature survey. Specifically, there is an apparently stronger proportional relationship of the “Sense of Quality of Life” with the Health Characteristics of the respondents and a less proportional relationship of the “Sense of Quality of Life” with the Economic Characteristics of the respondents

    Mapping the Socio-Economic Indicators of Greece from the Implementation of the Monetary Policy and the Tax Administration

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    The economic crisis that led to a decline in private consumption in the period 2009-2016 is the main factor that has accelerated developments in the country's business map, in the sense that in many cases of business development in Greece there are structural weaknesses revealed by the crisis. This confirms that the country's economic crisis cannot be an alibi for the many problems of the Greek economy.The impact of the economic crisis differs not only between countries where low- and middle-income countries are more affected by developed countries but also within countries. The dramatic decline in wages and pensions has led to a decline in the purchasing power of citizens. The debt crisis, the weakening of demand in the context of addressing the competitiveness of the Greek economy and the significant structural interventions in the labor market, affected supply and demand in the labor market and its participants.The purpose of this paper is to present the social and economic indicators of our country by implementing the policy of the memorandums and the Tax Administration. In particular, a mapping exercise is being undertaken in the period 2009-2016:• The number of starts, change of tax office and business holidays• The business map of our country• Unemployment rates as they have been in our country• The degree of contribution of austerity programs and memorandum policies to addressing unemployment.• The areas and categories of occupations where the highest unemployment rates have occurred.• The role of Tax Administration in addressing these problems

    Mining academic publications to automatically identify data sources

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    Background Discovering suitable datasets is an important part of health research, particularly for projects working with cohort data, but with the proliferation of so many national and international initiatives, it is becoming increasingly difficult for research teams to locate real world datasets that are most relevant to their project objectives. Methods To assist researchers in this, we developed bibInsight, a data analysis platform to identify potentially useful data sources and more generally enable large scale research over bibliographical datasets. Data source names were identified from a broad, topic specific literature search. Context-specific terms like “annual”, “longitudinal”, and “prospective” were used to train a classifier that identified potential datasets. Results The classifier was able to identify 1588 of 1961 abstracts as containing cohort-relevant information: a precision of approximately 80%. Further analysis such as topic analysis, geographical mapping, and collaboration networks can refine and prioritise the search results to determine the most relevant data source(s) for a research project. Conclusions A very large amount of information, including data source description and use, remains unexploited in unstructured bibliographical datasets. Here, we used a thematic search to provide a more manageable starting point towards locating disease specific datasets

    Perceptions and attitudes concerning individuals with disabilities in ancient Greece: physical exercise as a means of prevention and treatment of health-related problems

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    In the history of human kind in all ethnic groups and communities there have been individuals with physical or mental disabilities. Until the 18th century not only these individuals did not receive any support or care by their community but they were rather treated as inferior with a diminishing way. More or less the same attitude occurs to the ancient Greek world, where old age, limited psychomotor skills and potential disability were perceived as evidence of deprivation of the grace of gods. A minor acknowledgment of individuals with disabilities started from Athens, since there were several benefits introduced on behalf of the disabled for the very first time in the history of human kind. In the ancient times Greeks made use of physical exercise as a mean for therapeutic as well as prevention purposes against various diseases. Thus, a great number of distinguished physicians such as Herodikos and his student Hippocrates recommended physical exercise as the ideal treatment of several health related problems

    Intelligent Growth and Macroeconomic Performance of EU Member Countries in the Framework of Europe 2020

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    Europe 2020 is the new ten-year strategy of the European Union for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. This work analyzes the role of smart growth within the Europe 2020 strategy. "Smart growth" means strengthening knowledge and innovation by improving the quality of education, enhancing research performance, promoting innovation and transferring knowledge across the EU.In this study we create a thematic smart growth index, which consists of individual indicators proposed by the European Commission and presents the ranking of EU member countries in this index. The composite indicator of Europe 2020 by Pasimeni (2011) is taken as the basis for the creation of the indicator.Then, with the help of regression models, the relationship between the index and some macroeconomic variables is examined to examine the impact of the variables on the performance of the E-28 countries and their overall competitiveness. The results show that macroeconomic indicators of public finances, such as the rate of change in GDP per capita, government debt and deficit levels, are not key success factors for smart growth

    Neurological and neurourological complications of electrical injuries

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    Electrical injury can affect any system and organ. Central nervous system (CNS) complications are especially well recognised, causing an increased risk of morbidity, while peripheral nervous system (PNS) complications, neurourological and cognitive and psychological abnormalities are less predictable after electrical injuries.PubMed was searched for English language clinical observational, retrospective, review and case studies published in the last 30 years using the key words: electrical injury, electrocution, complications, sequelae, neurological, cognitive, psychological, urological, neuropsychological, neurourological, neurogenic, and bladder.In this review, the broad spectrum of neurological, cognitive, psychological and neurourological consequences of electrical trauma are discussed, and clinical features characteristic of an underlying neurological, psychological or neurourological disorder are identified. The latest information about the most recently discovered forms of nervous system disorders secondary to electrical trauma, such as the presentation of neurological sequelae years after electrocution, in other words long-term sequelae, are presented. Unexpected central nervous system or muscular complications such as hydrocephalus, brain venous thrombosis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis are described. Common and uncommon neuropsychological syndromes after electrical trauma are defined. Neurourological sequelae secondary to spinal cord or brain trauma or as independent consequences of electrical shock are also highlighted

    Connectivity for Healthcare and Well-Being Management: Examples from Six European Projects

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    Technological advances and societal changes in recent years have contributed to a shift in traditional care models and in the relationship between patients and their doctors/carers, with (in general) an increase in the patient-carer physical distance and corresponding changes in the modes of access to relevant care information by all groups. The objective of this paper is to showcase the research efforts of six projects (that the authors are currently, or have recently been, involved in), CAALYX, eCAALYX, COGKNOW, EasyLine+, I2HOME, and SHARE-it, all funded by the European Commission towards a future where citizens can take an active role into managing their own healthcare. Most importantly, sensitive groups of citizens, such as the elderly, chronically ill and those suffering from various physical and cognitive disabilities, will be able to maintain vital and feature-rich connections with their families, friends and healthcare providers, who can then respond to, and prevent, the development of adverse health conditions in those they care for in a timely manner, wherever the carers and the people cared for happen to be
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