PubMed in progress: latest changes in MeSH and MyNCBI

PubMed interface re-engineering has moved further steps with the latest changes in the MeSH – Medical Subject Headings database and in the MyNCBI homepage. Aim of thi socntributon is to present the most relevant added feature in order to improve your query efficienc

Changing perspective on perception physiology: Can you really see what is happening?

Perception is a complex, neural mechanism that requires organization and interpretation of input meaning and it has been a key topic in medicine, neuroscience and philosophy for centuries. Gestalt psychology proposed that the underlying mechanism is a constructive process that depends on both input of stimuli and the sensory-motor state of the agent. The Bayesian Brain hypothesis reframed it as probabilistic inference of previous beliefs, which are revised to accommodate new information. The Predictive Coding Theory proposes that this process is implemented through a top-down cascade of cortical predictions of lower level input and the concurrent propagation of a bottom-up prediction error aimed at revising higher level expectations. The „Active Inference‟ theory explains both perception and action, generalising the prediction error minimisation process. In this focused-review we provide a historical overview of the topic and an intuitive approach to the new computational models

Open Access 2012: achievements, further steps, and obstacles. An interview with Stevan Harnad

On the occasion of Open Access Week (22-28 October) I had a talk with Stevan Harnad, a pioneer and one of the world’s best-known Open Access advocates, author of the Subversive proposal (1994-1995) which triggered the whole movement. Professor Harnad highlights achievements, further steps, and obstacles ten years after the Open Access manifesto of the Budapest Open Access Initiative

Open Access: panorama e scenario futuro. Impressioni e tendenze da "Berlin 5"

The International Conference "Berlin 5 - From Practice to impact. Consequences of knowledge dissemination", held in Padua from September 19th to 21st, confirmed that Open Access is a clear concept, but a complex reality, as it is a matter of digital access, of economics sustainability, of quality, of infrastructures, of policies. Following the topics pointed out in the speeches, this contribute tries to match the Open Access strategies - self-archiving and publishing in OA journals - with the current or possible behaviours of the agents involved - authors, institutions, libraries, publishers, readers - in order to draw a framework of the works in progress and to outline viable pathways, given that each science is "a" science, and has its own communication tools

PubMed in progress: latest changes in MeSH and MyNCBI

PubMed interface re-engineering has moved further steps with the latest changes in the MeSH – Medical Subject Headings database and in the MyNCBI homepage. Aim of thi socntributon is to present the most relevant added feature in order to improve your query efficienc

Knowledge and attitudes of obesity in university students

This paper reviews the literature which has measured individual’s knowledge on the health risks associated with obesity, and individual’s attitudes towards obese persons. This review primarily focuses on studies that recruited students, health care professionals, and the general population. The inclusion criteria was: students, health care professionals, general population, studies that used the Obesity Risk Knowledge (ORK-10) scale, studies that used the Attitudes Towards Obese Persons (ATOP) scale, and any other validated questionnaire which measured obesity risk knowledge (ORK), and attitudes towards obese persons. Results revealed high obesity risk knowledge among health care professionals, primarily dieticians and general practitioners, and low obesity risk knowledge amongst the general population. Negative attitudes towards obese persons were prevalent in most studies, and were evident in students, health care professionals and the general population. The variables gender and BMI yielded conflicting results among the selected studies. Education is needed to increase obesity risk knowledge among a number of health care professionals and the general population, this will aid preventative techniques towards overweight and obesity. In addition, educational tools to raise awareness and reduce weight related bias and stigma need to be implemented in employment and educational settings, amongst the general population and health care professionals

Open? The only way forward for science

This paper aims to set out the reasons underlying the need to foster as much as possible the sharing and re-use of research data as well as their FAIRness, taking into account the various interests at stake. COVID-19 showed that sharing is the only way to go and that to advance science we need data – and every bit of the research process -, not only the final synthesis of the research itself, i.e., the article on a scientific journal. Scientific journals are still at the core of research evaluation, which is being reformed to include any research output and to reward collaboration. To be openly shared, data needs to be FAIR, i.e., Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, in order to streamline the workflow, to enable reproducibility, and to booster research integrity. The paper presents the FAIR open data as one of the components of the wider Open Science ecosystem, which we shall discuss here not with the usual “connecting block” approach but with an ecological one, where the web of interactions within the ecosystem defines its elements rather than the opposite and where the focus of Open Science is on co-creating knowledge instead of only disseminating it. The data sharing fostered by the Open Science approach is certainly not indiscriminate, but rather follows the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary”. A balancing act is required that takes into account the conflicting interests at stake, such as the right to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union

OPERAS: bringing the long tail of Social Sciences and Humanities into Open Science

Presentation at the 13. Munin Conference, Tromso, November 29, 2018. The talk  presents OPERAS, a comprehensive infrastructure aimed at providing a pan-European infrastructure to rethink and reshape publishing, discovery and dissemination addressing the specificity and the critical issues of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH). OPERAS' aim is to meet the specific needs of SSH scholars in an open environment, taking care of all the steps of the scholarly communication cycle. OPERAS' unique approach is to unite researchers, libraries and publishers in a common effort, in order to take back control over scholarly communication. Not merging nor replacing, but nurturing existing realities, OPERAS provides innovative services to bring SSH into Open Science. OPERAS is designed to elaborate effective and scalable long-term strategies for the future development of the digital infrastructure and community building needed to innovate scholarly communication in the SSH. OPERAS' pervading idea of science as communication holds an immense potential for an inspiring model of Open Science with direct societal impact, based on continuous communication.</p

Alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking by Australian women: changes with pregnancy and lactation

The consumption of alcohol and smoking of cigarettes are both common practices in Australian society. With continued public health efforts exposure to both alcohol and nicotine during pregnancy has diminished, however little is known about exposure to these toxins in the postnatal period and the effect on the breastfed infant. To investigate the pattern of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking in the postnatal period and the effect on breastfeeding outcomes, a longitudinal study was conducted in two public hospitals with maternity wards in Perth, Australia. Data for the Perth Infant Feeding Study (PIFSII) were collected from 587 mothers between mid-September 2002 and mid-July 2003. While in hospital participating mothers completed a self-administered baseline questionnaire. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted at 4, 10, 16, 22, 32, 40 and 52 weeks. Data collected included sociodemographic, biomedical, hospital related and psychosocial factors. Further analysis of alcohol data was undertaken on the 1995 and 2001 National Health Survey (NHS) data sets to provide a national perspective. Alcohol and smoking related data were analysed and described using frequency distributions, means and medians. Univariate logistic regression was used to screen for potentially significant variables for subsequent incorporation in the multivariate analysis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was employed to determine the effect of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking on breastfeeding outcomes prenatally, antenatally and postnatally, after adjusting for factors identified in the literature as being associated with breastfeeding initiation and duration. The relationship between smoking status and breastfeeding duration was determined using survival analysis.Analysis of the relationship between breastfeeding duration and the level of postpartum intake was investigated using a Cox hazards model with repeated measures for alcohol consumption. Results showed that: 1. PIFSII. During pregnancy approximately 32% of women stopped drinking alcohol. Thirty five percent of pregnant women continued to consume alcohol during their pregnancy with 82.2% of these women consuming two or fewer standard drinks per week. At 4, 6 and 12 months postpartum, 46.7%, 47.4% and 42.3% of breastfeeding women were consuming alcohol, respectively. 2. NHS. Sixteen point four percent and 1.3% of pregnant women from the 1995 and 2001 NHS, respectively were consuming more than that recommended in ‘Guideline 11’ from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (ie >7 standard drinks/week). 3. NHS. Thirteen percent of lactating mothers from the 1995 NHS and 16.8% from the 2001 NHS were consuming seven or more standard drinks of alcohol in the reference week, thus exceeding the NHMRC recommended level. 4. PIFSII. After 6 months of follow up, women who consumed alcohol at levels of more than two standard drinks per day were almost twice as likely to discontinue breastfeeding earlier than women who drank below these levels (HR 1.9, 95% CI 1.1, 3.0). 5. PIFSII. With regard to smoking, 226 (39%) of mothers reported smoking pre- pregnancy. Mothers who smoked were more likely to have a partner who smoked, to have consumed alcohol prior to pregnancy and less likely to attend antenatal classes.They were also less likely to know how they were going to feed their baby before conception and be more inclined to consider stopping breastfeeding before four months postpartum. 6. PIFSII. Women who smoked during pregnancy had a lower prevalence and shorter duration of breastfeeding than non-smoking mothers (28 weeks versus 11 weeks, 95% CI: 8.3-13.7). This effect remained even after adjustment for age, education, income, father’s smoking status, mother’s country of birth, intended duration of breastfeeding >6 months and birth weight (risk ratio HR 1.59, 95% CI 1.22 to 2.08). 7. PIFSII. Two hundred and twenty six (39%) mothers reported smoking prior to pregnancy and 77 (34%) of these stopped smoking during pregnancy. Quitting smoking during pregnancy was significantly associated with breastfeeding for longer than six months (OR = 3.70, 95% CI 1.55 to 8.83; p<0.05). The results of the present study suggest a negative association between drinking alcohol in the postpartum period and breastfeeding outcomes. Similarly, smoking cigarettes before, during and after pregnancy negatively affects breastfeeding. There is a need for guidelines outlining the safe intake of alcohol during lactation and for the cessation of cigarette smoking in the prenatal and antenatal period

Monitoring and Control of Hydrocyclones by Use of Convolutional Neural Networks and Deep Reinforcement Learning

The use of convolutional neural networks for monitoring hydrocyclones from underflow images was investigated. Proof-of-concept and applied industrial considerations for hydrocyclone state detection and underflow particle size inference sensors were demonstrated. The behaviour and practical considerations of model-free reinforcement learning, incorporating the additional information provided by the sensors developed, was also discussed in a mineral processing context