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[Display omitted] • Sensitivity analysis in packaging EoL modeling to evaluate influence in EoL impacts. • Take-back presents environmental benefits due to paper and glass recycling. • Incineration with energy recovery reduces EoL impacts from pharmaceutical packaging. • Smaller pharmaceutical packaging and EoL valorization reduces impacts. • Decisions at packaging early design stage influence EoL impacts. Pharmaceutical packaging waste has increased due to a higher global demand for pharmaceutical products, leading to more waste generation and associated environmental impacts. The main goal of this article is to present a cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment of pharmaceutical packaging, evaluating end-of-life (EoL) alternatives, aiming to identify hotspots and opportunities for improvement. A life cycle model was implemented for three types of pharmaceutical packaging (blisters, sachets, bottles; 23 packaging). The functional unit is the storage and delivery of medicines containing the same active pharmaceutical ingredient, dosage, and amount of medicines. Two EoL analyses were performed: 1) compare take-back (recycling and incineration) with domestic waste collection (landfill or incineration); and 2) assess different EoL situations of pharmaceutical packaging in Europe. A life cycle impact assessment was performed for 13 categories. Analysis 1 shows that take-back presents lower environmental impacts than domestic waste collection for seven out of 13 categories due to paper and glass recycling benefits. Analysis 2 shows that in the take-back, higher amounts of packaging are recycled or incinerated, which leads to lower EoL impacts. A sensitivity analysis was performed to evaluate the influence of parameters and assumptions in packaging EoL impacts. Packaging production contributes significantly to life cycle impacts, followed by transportation, EoL, and packing process. Ecodesign initiatives are recommended, such as packaging with less material and volume, using materials with lower impacts to significantly reduce the impacts of pharmaceutical packaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though women increasingly make up the majority of medical-school and other science graduates, they remain a minority in academic biomedical settings, where they are less likely to hold leadership positions or be awarded research funding. A major factor is the career breaks that women disproportionately take to see to familial duties. They experience a related, but overlooked, hurdle upon their return: they are often too old to be eligible for 'early-career researcher' grants and 'career-development' awards, which are stepping stones to leadership positions in many institutions and which determine the demographics of their hierarchies for decades to come. Though age limits are imposed to protect young applicants from more experienced seniors, they have an unintended side effect of excluding returning workers, still disproportionately women, from the running. In this joint effort by the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, the Federation of European Microbiological Societies, the Infectious Disease Society of America, the International Society for Infectious Diseases and the Swiss Society for Infectious Diseases, we invited all European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases-affiliated medical societies and funding bodies to participate in a survey on current 'early-career' application restrictions and measures taken to provide protections for career breaks. The following simple consensus recommendations are geared to funding bodies, academic societies and other organizations for the fair handling of eligibility for early-career awards: 1. Apply a professional, not physiological, age limit to applicants. 2. State clearly in the award announcement that career breaks will be factored into applicants' evaluations such that: • Time absent is time extended : for every full-time equivalent of career break taken, the same full-time equivalent will be extended to the professional age limit. • Opportunity costs will also be taken into account : people who take career breaks risk additional opportunity costs, with work that they did before the career break often being forgotten or poorly documented, particularly in bibliometric accounting. Although there is no standardized metric to measure additional opportunity costs, organizations should (a) keep in mind their existence when judging applicants' submissions, and (b) note clearly in the award announcement that opportunity costs of career breaks are also taken into account. 3. State clearly that further considerations can be undertaken, using more individualized criteria that are specific to the applicant population and the award in question. The working group welcomes feedback so that these recommendations can be improved and updated as needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The primary objective was to inventory what is currently known about faculty development (FD) for competency-based medical educations (CBME) and identify gaps in the literature. Methods: A scoping review methodology was employed. Inclusion criteria for article selection were established with two reviewers completing a full-text analysis. Quality checks were included, along with iterative consultation on data collection and consensus decision making via a grounded theory approach. Results: The review identified 19 articles published between 2009 and 2018. Most articles (N = 15) offered suggestions as to what should happen with FD in CBME, but few (N = 4) adopted an experimental design. Six main themes were identified with three main features of FD noted across themes: (1) The importance of direct and timely feedback to faculty members on their teaching and assessment skills. (2) The role of establishing shared mental models for CBME curricula. (3) That FD is thought of longitudinally, not as a one-time bolus. Conclusion: This work illustrates that there is limited, high quality research in FD for CBME. Future FD activities should consider employing a longitudinal and multi-modal program format that includes feedback for the faculty participants on their teaching and assessments skills, including the development of faculty coaching skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on 2023 ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) was held on 5–9 May 2023 in Sydney, Australia.

Highlights • Advanced practice providers (APPs) possess multiple skill sets utilized for gynecologic oncology care. • With the aging population and future physician shortage, APPs are critical to providing gynecologic oncology care. • APPs provide revenue and add value to a gynecologic oncology practice. Understanding the nuances is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the survivors in Spain of the free distribution press is the specialized publication Diario Médico, which has been disseminating health issues among professionals of the National Health System for 25 years. We did an exploratory-descriptive study about its origins and current situation, paying attention to its labour in paper, through the printed product, and in Red, through diariomedico.com. The techniques are the interview with its deputy director and the analysis of its products. The mixed format defines Diario Médico: it maintains its commitment to offer information on paper, despite having reduced the periodicity from daily to weekly; leads its paper readers to Orbyt, the digital press kiosk of the promoter group, Unidad Editorial, where it offers seven pages a day in pdf format with information for subscribers, and on the Web, with an edition that opens to the participation of the user. The informative tone of its contents and its usefulness for society, together with the growing interest of the non-specialized public in medicine and health, lead to Diario Médico, in our opinion, to have a double objective public: society in general and professionals of the System in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly moving from an experimental phase to an implementation phase in many fields, including medicine. The combination of improved availability of large datasets, increasing computing power, and advances in learning algorithms has created major performance breakthroughs in the development of AI applications. In the last 5 years, AI techniques known as deep learning have delivered rapidly improving performance in image recognition, caption generation, and speech recognition. Radiology, in particular, is a prime candidate for early adoption of these techniques. It is anticipated that the implementation of AI in radiology over the next decade will significantly improve the quality, value, and depth of radiology's contribution to patient care and population health, and will revolutionize radiologists' workflows. The Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) is the national voice of radiology committed to promoting the highest standards in patient-centered imaging, lifelong learning, and research. The CAR has created an AI working group with the mandate to discuss and deliberate on practice, policy, and patient care issues related to the introduction and implementation of AI in imaging. This white paper provides recommendations for the CAR derived from deliberations between members of the AI working group. This white paper on AI in radiology will inform CAR members and policymakers on key terminology, educational needs of members, research and development, partnerships, potential clinical applications, implementation, structure and governance, role of radiologists, and potential impact of AI on radiology in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction to a special section brings together three papers first presented at a panel, 'Medical Professions in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Analyses', at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies, held in Vienna, Austria and online, in July 2021. All three papers deal with aspects of the professionalisation of biomedical doctors in India since its independence in 1947. The authors bring together historical and sociological approaches to illuminate the growth of specialisms, patterns of practitioner–patient interactions and efforts to maintain occupational closure and maintain status in the face of growing challenges. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these papers for the sociology of health and illness in India and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to interpret the role of the soul as ontological, intellectual or cognitive and as the moral principle within the frame of the holistic conception of human psychosomatic health that emerges from the context of Zalmoxian medicine in the proemium of Plato's Charmides. It examines what the ontological status of the soul is in relation to the body and the body–soul complex of man considered as a psychosomatic whole. By comparing the presentation of the soul as principle in the Charmides and the Phaedrus, the paper defends the thesis that in the former dialogue, Plato develops his own anthropological ontology, which paves the way for the salvation of human existence and health. The soul is bestowed with an ontological primacy that determines the philosophical and medical presuppositions for treating human illness under a holistic view. The interpretation of the ontological relation of the soul to the body and the entire human being in the context of Zalmoxian holistic medicine is based on Hermias Alexandrinus' exegesis of the conception of the soul as principle in the Phaedrus. This paper demonstrates that, from both the medical holistic viewpoint and the anthropological philosophical perspective, the soul is the principle and πρῶτον with regard to the body and the body–soul complex without being the whole that the corresponding medical epistemology must apprehend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of the very early emotional experiences in a child's life are recognized today as foundational in the mental health of becoming an adult. Unsurprisingly, clinicians and health authorities agree on the importance of early detection and treatment of any mental health issues experienced by the preschool child. This is even more important and challenging as young children do not yet have the language skills necessary to express their distress. But do the caregivers in charge of these populations have the best tools at their disposal to carry out that important mission in an efficient and scientifically robust manner reflecting the latest research findings and scientific literature? This is the question we try to answer in this paper. We revisited the theoretical underpinnings behind the concept of mentalization as playing a key role in the ability to understand the other's inner reality. We then carried out an extensive review of scientific papers written over the past 30 years on the subject. We examined mental representations of the adult on the child and analyzed those mentalizations as key inputs. We focused on extracting cross analyses of the mentalizations of one child by several adults with different functions in the life of the child. In this process, we used the PRISMA methodology applied to large international medical databases. We found that the qualitative approach, usually associated with a lengthy process, has been overwhelmingly used in trying to assess patients' mental states and to analyze the mentalizations on the patient, adult or child. Furthermore, cross analyses of mentalizations from more than one adult on a given child were almost nonexistent, despite having high epistemic and clinical potential. There is a dearth of reliable quantitative tools, able to capture and analyze the mentalizations on a patient, that are scientifically robust, transposable, and easy to implement in a clinical setting. The absence of such tools for medical professionals in charge of assessing preschool children contributes, in our view, the low detection and poor treatment of mental disorders in that particularly vulnerable population. We believe there is here an urgent unmet need and that such tools should be designed, validated, and deployed into the target populations as early as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As previous research has observed, medical students and physicians alike confront vast amounts of knowledge in their education and practice, such that no one clinician can know everything there is to know about biomedicine. Even before clerkships, medical students learn to cope with this impossibility by prioritizing certain information based on its perceived utility for exams and clinical practice. Many factors can shape this process, including teamwork, wherein individual medical students rely on one another to address gaps in knowledge at the level of the group. This paper will draw on qualitative data from two allopathic medical schools in the American Midwest to demonstrate that peer-to-peer learning, a widely utilized pedagogical modality in North American medical schools, is amongst the earliest places where future physicians learn how to rely on their peers in the profession as they make choices about what to know and what not to know about biomedicine: cultivating a culture of "intraprofessionalism" between students with different knowledges and values, as they prepare to enter the same profession. The paper will also consider how differences in the student populations at two field sites impact intraprofessional development. Drawing on scholarship of peer-based learning strategies and the sociology and anthropology of medical education, the authors argue that peer-to-peer learning is a key site in the professional socialization of medical students toward the effective management of medical knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents and explains the phenomenon of indexjacking, which involves the systematic infiltration of hijacked journals into international indexing databases, with Scopus being one of the most infiltrated among these databases. Through an analysis of known lists of hijacked journals, the study identified at least 67 hijacked journals that have penetrated Scopus since 2013. Of these, 33 journals indexed unauthorized content in Scopus and 23 compromised the homepage link in the journal's profile, while 11 did both. As of September 2023, 41 hijacked journals are still compromising the data of legitimate journals in Scopus. The presence of hijacked journals in Scopus is a challenge for scientific integrity due to the legitimization of unreliable papers that have not undergone peer review and compromises the quality of the Scopus database. The presence of hijacked journals in Scopus has far‐reaching effects. Papers published in these journals may be cited, and unauthorized content from these journals in Scopus is thus imported into other databases, including ORCID and the WHO COVID‐19 Research Database. This poses a particular challenge for research evaluation in those countries, where cloned versions of approved journals may be used to acquire publications and verifying their authenticity can be difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine into the contemporary international relations (IR) literature. In this paper, we will elucidate the perception towards subjectivity and relationality based upon the non-binary relationality of Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine, and strive to provide a refreshing understanding of the world. In order to achieve this goal, we start this article by focussing upon the way in which the essentialised subjectivity became the norm of contemporary IR even in non-Western regions. Second, we will provide a general introduction to Mahāyāna Buddhism. Here, we will explain the fluid subjectivity of this particular philosophical tradition, particularly its assumptions of subjectivity, relationality and temporality. Third, we will shift our focus to a practical application of this line of thought, Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine. We argue that Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine is extremely suggestive to contemporary colonial/postcolonial relations in the sense that it provides a practical way to cure those who are suffering from fear and anxiety generated by the assumptions of autonomy and independence. Last, we will return to the discourses of IR, in particular a recent discussion on temporality, relationality and ethics, to consider the possible contributions of Mahāyāna Buddhist medicine to IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the connection between scent and well-being (eudaimonia) in some ancient Greek and Roman sources. Focusing on the metaphor of the 'perfumer's garden' — the blend of scents in ancient perfumes used to evoke faraway lands like Arabia Felix or Egypt — the paper discusses how these aromatic creations communicate more than the fragrance of the gardens they come from. Believed to possess medicinal properties mirroring their plant sources, perfumes offer a unique window into health and social life. While all classes sought well-being through scent, specific perfumes varied based on factors like social status and gender. This work focuses on these variations, examining medical and philosophical texts about the relation of scent and health alongside literary case studies: Herodian's account of remedies used during the Antonine Plague, where class dictated perfume choice, and the use of Egyptian-inspired scents during the Hellenistic period, which expresses differences between men and women. In exploring these aromatic landscapes, we uncover a complexity where the essence of gardens and their fragrances reveal more than attempts at using scent to secure health; they show themselves to be rich sources of symbolic meaning reflecting the values and aspirations of ancient authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Nowadays, many studies discuss scholarly publishing and associated challenges, but the problem of hijacked journals has been neglected. Hijacked journals are cloned websites that mimic original journals but are managed by cybercriminals. The present study uses a topic modeling approach to analyze published papers in hijacked versions of medical journals. Methods: A total of 3384 papers were downloaded from 21 hijacked journals in the medical domain and analyzed by topic modeling algorithm. Results: Results indicate that hijacked versions of medical journals are published in most fields of the medical domain and typically respect the primary domain of the original journal. Conclusion: The academic world is faced with the third-generation of hijacked journals, and their detection may be more complex than common ones. The usage of artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool to deal with the phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based in the literature review devoted to analysis of the current status of the issue of synthesis and stabilization of the silver nanoparticles (NP) and medical claims on their basis, it has been identified that transition from the macro-scale and micro-scale to the nanoscale causes emergence of qualitative modifications in the physical -- chemical and medical -- biological properties of compounds along with polymer systems obtained on their basis. Synthesis and investigation of the silver NP stabilized in the polymer matrices are currently presenting promising trends in the polymer chemistry and medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adiponectin is an adipocyte-derived hormone that acts as a marker of insulin sensitivity. Bloodspot sampling by fingerstick onto filter paper may increase the feasibility of large-scale studies of the determinants of insulin sensitivity. We first describe the validation of an enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) for quantifying adiponectin from dried blood spots and then demonstrate its application in a large trial (PROBIT). Methods: We quantified adiponectin from 3-mm diameter discs (≈3 µL of blood) punched from dried blood spots obtained from: i) whole blood standards (validation); and ii) PROBIT trial samples (application) in which paediatricians collected blood spots from 13,879 children aged 11.5 years from 31 sites across Belarus. We examined the distribution of bloodspot adiponectin by demographic and anthropometric factors, fasting insulin and glucose. Results: In the validation study, mean intra-assay coefficients of variation (n = 162) were 15%, 13% and 10% for ‘low’ (6.78 µg/ml), ‘medium’ (18.18 µg/ml) and 'high’ (33.13 µg/ml) internal quality control (IQC) samples, respectively; the respective inter-assay values (n = 40) were 23%, 21% and 14%. The correlation coefficient between 50 paired whole bloodspot versus plasma samples, collected simultaneously, was 0.87 (95% CI: 0.78 to 0.93). Recovery of known quantities of adiponectin (between 4.5 to 36 µg/ml) was 100.3–133%. Bloodspot adiponectin was stable for at least 30 months at −80°C. In PROBIT, we successfully quantified fasting adiponectin from dried blood spots in 13,329 of 13,879 (96%) children. Mean adiponectin (standard deviation) concentrations were 17.34 µg/ml (7.54) in boys and 18.41 µg/ml (7.92) in girls and were inversely associated with body mass index, fat mass, triceps and subscapular skin-fold thickness, waist circumference, height and fasting glucose. Conclusions: Bloodspot ELISA is suitable for measuring adiponectin in very small volumes of blood collected on filter paper and can be applied to large-scale studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Ambix special issue explores premodern alchemical ideas and practices in their entanglements with medicine. It employs diverse methods, from traditional close reading to the new distant-reading framework of computational humanities, to investigate alchemical thought over a timespan of several centuries. In medieval times, everyday practices could offer heuristic models of material transformation – such as the fermentation of bread as a model for metallic transmutation (Schmechel). Paracelsus relied on "fire" to link his natural philosophy with his medical alchemy; new computational methods show how his ideas evolved over time (Hedesan). Early modern medical pluralism favoured the thriving of chemical medicine in Italy; diplomatic efforts introduced chemical remedies into acknowledged pharmacopoeias (Clericuzio). An English physician offers William Cavendish both practical distillation recipes and the hope of learning more about the principles of chemistry (Begley). In eighteenth-century France, Diderot draws on chemical ideas to blur the conceptual boundary between living and non-living matter (Wolfe). The papers largely adhere to integrated history and philosophy of science (iHPS) and to a pragmatist "operational ideal of knowledge" (Chang). They showcase the interdisciplinarity of premodern scientific thought and examine how medicine and alchemy, but also theory and (everyday) practice informed each other fruitfully across the ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Objectives Methods Results Conclusions The history of studies in the field of infertility represents a chapter of great interest in gender issues.This paper aims to delve deep into the historical roots of the aspect of gender inequality related to couple infertility, with a journey back in time, from classical antiquity to the contemporary age, reporting junctions and metaphors linked to particular historical moments as well as to cultural and religious constructs.This is a narrative review based on an extensive literature search of publications regarding the role of women in couple infertility over the centuries.Rarely in the ancient world, male infertility was taken into consideration, and the sources deal with it mainly indirectly. This attitude of “blaming” the woman for the lack of children had, in fact, strong social implications, which only the scientific research of recent years has managed to bring back into the context of a more egalitarian approach.In the “journey” narrated in this article, the reader starts from the responsibility of couple infertility attributed exclusively to women in some ancient societies, whose central role was determined by their ability to procreate, going up to the medicalization of infertility in the contemporary age, which contributed to sharing with men this participation in the impossibility of having children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity, flexibility, easy accessibility, broad continuing acceptance in developing countries and increasing popularity in developed countries, relative low cost, low levels of technological input, relative low side effects, and growing economic importance are some of the positive features of traditional medicine. In rural India, traditional medicine continues to be the only available form of care. Many communities continue to treat patients using their old methods, unaffected by contemporary medical advancements. Due to their accessibility, affordability, and ease of use, tribal tribes prefer to utilize and consult their own traditional healers. These are likewise thought to be highly effective and without any adverse effects. This paper aims to identify various traditional medicines used for treating illness and infirmities, by taking accounts from the residents of Chungtlang village, Mamit District, Mizoram. The objective here lies in discovering traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses for various infirmities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging research points to the increasingly expansive ontologies of gender that young people engage with in contemporary society. This paper examines the representations of gender that emerged in one urban site: a science gallery exhibition in London that sought to de-centre fixed binary gender categories – a site where gender is explicitly being 'redone' (West & Zimmerman, 2009). Drawing on research work on curation (Acord, 2010) we examine data (drawings and text) produced by 516 young people who attended the exhibition, exploring the ways gender is narrativised and re-curated within the physical and discursive space(s) of the gallery. Our findings show the ways that gender was felt and represented in these recurations, as fixed and unfixed, and productive and unproductive. The participants reassembled the ideas of gender presented within the gallery through representations imbued with affect. This included representations that conflated sex and gender and privileged bio-essentialist narratives, as well as representations that drew on binary models and logics. These re-curations, we argue, point to the ways that young people are making sense of gender (im)possibilities. We argue that these narratives highlight the ways young people are grappling with discourses of gender as they transition into adulthood in contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on a specific aspect of the emergence of psychology and psychiatry as scientific disciplines in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It examines how psychological knowledge, which was scattered across different fields of knowledge such as philosophy and anthropology, as well as medical subfields such as physiology, pathology and state medicine, was filtered into medical education in three medical faculties of the Habsburg Monarchy: Vienna, Prague and Pest. As education was the primary arena of producing authoritative medical knowledge, the three institutions played a key role in the transfers of knowledge within the Monarchy and in shaping 'official' medical practices acknowledged by the state. These in turn could be used to validate different measures to normalize or optimize its population. Through the lens of education and the underlying tension between the different approaches to psychological knowledge that constituted a type of 'arcane knowledge' in the period, with fluid and often dubious boundaries and questionable applicability, the article points at the epistemological uncertainty and transitory nature of the psychological field. The paper also looks at how it was nevertheless integrated into medical education with varying success by the 1840s as part of the professionalization of psychiatry and with the pronounced aim of training specialists who could cooperate in creating functioning spaces for the mad where they could not only be kept, but also normalized and (re)integrated into society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Daith piercing is a special ear‐piercing method that punctures the crus of the helix. The penetrated site at the ear's innermost point is assumed to stimulate a pressure point associated with the vagus nerve. It has been reported that the pierced spot relieves migraine and tension‐type headaches by activating vagal afferents, leading to the inhibition of neurons in the caudal trigeminal nucleus via the nucleus tractus solitarii. Objective: The objective of this narrative literature review is to summarize the current state of knowledge concerning daith piercing for the treatment of migraine and tension‐type headaches from the perspectives of the Chinese and Western auricular systems. Methods: PubMed and China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases were searched using the keywords "daith piercing," "auricular points," "headache," and "acupuncture" from database inception to September 1, 2023. Only studies on humans were eligible; otherwise, no further restrictions were applied to the study designs, type of headache, or patient population of the identified articles. Bibliographies of all eligible studies were screened for further eligible studies. The main outcome of interest was a quantitative measure of pain relief by daith piercing. Secondary outcomes were relapse time of headache and further outcomes related to daith piercing, if available. Results: From a total of 186 identified articles, one retrospective study and three case reports fulfilled the inclusion criteria. No clinical trial was identified. The obtained studies describe patients experiencing chronic headaches undergoing daith piercing without changing or reducing their usual medication. In all case studies and the retrospective study, patients reported substantial reductions in pain immediately after daith piercing; however, headache symptoms recurred several weeks to months thereafter. From the perspective of the Chinese and Western auricular systems, no sufficient explanation for the described treatment effect of daith piercing was found. Conclusion: The available literature, combined with the reported recurrence of pain as well as the associated side effects of daith piercing, indicate that current evidence does not support daith piercing for the treatment of migraine, tension‐type headaches, or other headache disorders. Plain Language Summary: This paper summarizes what we know about Daith piercing (DP) for chronic migraine and tension‐type headache and discusses how DP might work. Current evidence does not support DP as an effective treatment of chronic migraine and tension‐type headache. These findings might assist clinicians in discussing this subject with patients as well as guide future research. Plain Language Summary: This paper summarizes what we know about Daith piercing (DP) for migraine and tension‐type headache and discusses how DP might work. Current evidence does not support DP as an effective treatment of migraine and tension‐type headache. These findings might assist clinicians in discussing this subject with patients as well as guide future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient handover (handoff in America) is the transfer of information and accountability among nurses assigned to patient care. Introduction, Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation (ISBAR) is currently the most popular framework for framing handovers. However, research shows that incomplete handovers and information transfers among healthcare providers and nurses exist and are responsible for adverse patient events. Materials and Methods: The current systematic review aims to view contemporary literature on handover, especially but not exclusively in psychiatric settings, and to extract current conditions from Electronic Patient Records (EPRs) using the ISBAR framework. A total of fifty-five scientific papers were selected to support the scoping review. Eligibility criteria included structured research to analyze outcomes, completed by reviewing policy papers and professional organization guidelines on I/SBAR handovers. Results: Our systematic review shows that the application of ISBAR increases interprofessional communication skills and confidence and the quality of the transfer of clinical information about patients, resulting in increased patient safety and quality of care. Conclusions: Implementing the knowledge and application of structured patient handover will respond to current recommendations for service improvement and quality of care. Furthermore, nurses who use ISBAR also reported its benefits as they feel they can deliver what is required for patient care information in a structured, fast, and efficient way. A further increase in the efficacy of handovers is reported by using EPR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design. Bibliometric review of the literature. Objective. To analyze and quantify the most frequently cited papers in lumbar spine surgery and to measure their impact on the entire lumbar spine literature. Summary of Background Data. Lumbar spine surgery is a dynamic and complex field. Basic science and clinical research remain paramount in understanding and advancing the field. While new literature is published at increasing rates, few studies make long-lasting impacts. Methods. The Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge was searched for citations of all papers relevant to lumbar spine surgery. The number of citations, authorship, year of publication, journal of publication, country of publication, and institution were recorded for each paper. Results. The most cited paper was found to be the classic paper from 1990 by Boden et al that described magnetic resonance imaging findings in individuals without back pain, sciatica, and neurogenic claudication showing that spinal stenosis and herniated discs can be incidentally found when scanning patients. The second most cited study similarly showed that asymptomatic patients who underwent lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging frequently had lumbar pathology. The third most cited paper was the 2000 publication of Fairbank and Pynsent reviewing the Oswestry Disability Index, the outcome-measure questionnaire most commonly used to evaluate low back pain. The majority of the papers originate in the United States (n = 58), and most were published in Spine (n = 63). Most papers were published in the 1990s (n = 49), and the 3 most common topics were low back pain, biomechanics, and disc degeneration. Conclusion. This report identifies the top 100 papers in lumbar spine surgery and acknowledges those individuals who have contributed the most to the advancement of the study of the lumbar spine and the body of knowledge used to guide evidence-based clinical decision making in lumbar spine surgery today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel advantage of the use of machine learning (ML) systems in medicine is their potential to continue learning from new data after implementation in clinical practice. To date, considerations of the ethical questions raised by the design and use of adaptive machine learning systems in medicine have, for the most part, been confined to discussion of the so-called "update problem," which concerns how regulators should approach systems whose performance and parameters continue to change even after they have received regulatory approval. In this paper, we draw attention to a prior ethical question: whether the continuous learning that will occur in such systems after their initial deployment should be classified, and regulated, as medical research? We argue that there is a strong prima facie case that the use of continuous learning in medical ML systems should be categorized, and regulated, as research and that individuals whose treatment involves such systems should be treated as research subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The psychometric properties of an online test are not necessarily identical to its paper and pencil original. The aim of this study is to test whether the factor structure of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) is measurement invariant with respect to online vs. paper and pencil assessment. Method: The factor structure of CAPE items assessed by paper and pencil (N = 796) was compared with the factor structure of CAPE items assessed by the Internet (N = 21,590) using formal tests for Measurement Invariance (MI). The effect size was calculated by estimating the Signed Item Difference in the Sample (SIDS) index and the Signed Test Difference in the Sample (STDS) for a hypothetical subject who scores 2 standard deviations above average on the latent dimensions. Results: The more restricted Metric Invariance model showed a significantly worse fit compared to the less restricted Configural Invariance model (χ2(23) = 152.75, p<0.001). However, the SIDS indices appear to be small, with an average of −0.11. A STDS of −4.80 indicates that Internet sample members who score 2 standard deviations above average would be expected to score 4.80 points lower on the CAPE total scale (ranging from 42 to 114 points) than would members of the Paper sample with the same latent trait score. Conclusions: Our findings did not support measurement invariance with respect to assessment method. Because of the small effect sizes, the measurement differences between the online assessed CAPE and its paper and pencil original can be neglected without major consequences for research purposes. However, a person with a high vulnerability for psychotic symptoms would score 4.80 points lower on the total scale if the CAPE is assessed online compared to paper and pencil assessment. Therefore, for clinical purposes, one should be cautious with online assessment of the CAPE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If you are taking the time to read this essay, you are most likely interested in telemedicine and its future in some capacity. This introductory essay and accompanying series of white papers have a relatively simple goal, namely, to highlight a broad array of issues that must be addressed in order to propel telemedicine to its next stage in evolutionary development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global contemporary shift from paper-based to digital online resources has led to a revolutionary change in medical training. A multitude of online resources have been developed over the years that complement the medical professional's education, with greater access to knowledge, while enabling continuous medical education and development. These sources also allow us to keep up-to-date with medical news. The development of medical mobile applications (apps) has also facilitated medical training by providing versatility, flexibility and portability of updated medical resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) are currently receiving much attention because SHED has the potential to be widely used in regenerative medicine. The lineage-specific differentiation tendency of SHED, especially endothelial and neural differentiation, could be beneficial as neural innervation and blood vessel formation are essential in tissue regeneration. Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) is the major bacterial cause of dental caries. At the same time, Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is the bacterial cause of oral infections such as cheilitis, osteomyelitis, stomatitis, gingivitis, and dentoalveolar abscess. α-mangostin can inhibit bacterial growth by disrupting the cytoplasmic membrane of the bacteria. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) has a powerful antibacterial function, especially against gram-positive bacteria such as S. mutans and S. aureus. This study aimed to prove the inhibitory effect of SHED metabolite in combination with α-mangosteen and EGCG against S. aureus and S. mutans bacteria. Materials and methods: The study isolated and characterized metabolites from SHED in a specific medium. Subsequently, the combination of metabolites with α-mangostin and EGCG was made in a 1:1 ratio. The bacterial inhibition zones were measured on disk paper placed on bacterial growth media. Results: The combination of SHED metabolites with α-mangostin and EGCG significantly inhibited the growth of S. aureus and S. mutans bacteria. Conclusion: Combining SHED metabolites with α-mangostin and EGCG exhibits antibacterial properties against S. aureus and S. mutans bacteria. The combination of SHED metabolites with α-mangostin has higher inhibition results than the combination of SHED metabolites with EGCG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Objectives: Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) is the term used to describe a pathology (dysfunction and pain) in the masticatory muscles and temporomandibular joint (TMJ). There is an apparent upward trend in the publication of dental research and a need to continually improve the quality of research. Therefore, this study was conducted to analyse the use of sample size and effect size calculations in a TMD randomised controlled trial. Methods: The period was restricted to the full 5 years, i.e., papers published in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. The filter article type—"Randomized Controlled Trial" was used. The studies were graded on a two-level scale: 0–1. In the case of 1, sample size (SS) and effect size (ES) were calculated. Results: In the entire study sample, SS was used in 58% of studies, while ES was used in 15% of studies. Conclusions: Quality should improve as research increases. One factor that influences quality is the level of statistics. SS and ES calculations provide a basis for understanding the results obtained by the authors. Access to formulas, online calculators and software facilitates these analyses. High-quality trials provide a solid foundation for medical progress, fostering the development of personalized therapies that provide more precise and effective treatment and increase patients' chances of recovery. Improving the quality of TMD research, and medical research in general, helps to increase public confidence in medical advances and raises the standard of patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of the ASPIRE award programme of the International Association for Health Professions Education is to go beyond traditional accreditation processes. Working in partnership with the ASPIRE Academy, the programme aims to encourage and support excellence in health professions education, in part by showcasing and exemplifying best practices. Each year ASPIRE award applications received from institutions across the globe describe their greatest achievements in a variety of areas, one of which is curriculum development, where evaluation of applications is carried out using a framework of six domains. These are described in this paper as key elements of excellence, specifically, Organisational Structure and Curriculum Management; Underlying Educational Strategy; Content Specification and Pedagogy; Teaching and Learning Methods and Environment; Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation; Scholarship. Using examples from the content of submissions of three medical schools from very different settings that have been successful in the past few years, achievements in education processes and outcomes of institutions around the world are highlighted in ways that are relevant to their local and societal contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present in this paper some of the existing machine learning and sound processing techniques involved in the medical process and show how they can be applied in the context of a vocal disease detection task. The machine learning techniques are the usual, ranging from decision trees to neural networks, and when it comes to the sound processing approaches some scientists probably are familiar with them from the speech processing or music analysis areas. However, the techniques are adapted to the particularities of the medical field - data collection, verification, etc. Through the concrete example of the vocal disease detection task we worked on, we made some interesting observations, both on the classification ability of the model and on the influence of the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current attempts to understand unusually high rates of psychiatric illness in complex, chronic illnesses can be guilty of operating within an explanatory framework whereby there are two options. Either (a) that the psychiatric predicaments are secondary to the bodily condition, and (b) that they are primary. In this paper, I draw upon philosophical work on affect, contemporary empirical work, and qualitative first-person patient data to illustrate a much messier reality. I argue that affective experience is generally more complex in such conditions, and that a variety of pre- and post-morbid causal factors dynamically interact such that the resultant psychiatric predicaments do not permit to classification as strictly primary or secondary to the bodily condition. Affective scaffolding, in my view, provides an apt theoretical framework for capturing this nuance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physicians generally recommend that patients resuscitated with naloxone after opioid overdose stay in the emergency department for a period of observation in order to prevent harm from delayed sequelae of opioid toxicity. Patients frequently refuse this period of observation despiteenefit to risk. Healthcare providers are thus confronted with the challenge of how best to protect the patient's interests while also respecting autonomy, including assessing whether the patient is making an autonomous choice to refuse care. Previous studies have shown that physicians have widely divergent approaches to navigating these conflicts. This paper reviews what is known about the effects of opioid use disorder on decision-making, and argues that some subset of these refusals are non-autonomous choices, even when patients appear to have decision making capacity. This conclusion has several implications for how physicians assess and respond to patients refusing medical recommendations after naloxone resuscitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuro-fuzzy techniques have been widely used in many applications due to their ability to generate interpretable fuzzy rules. Ensemble learning, on the other hand, is an emerging paradigm in artificial intelligence used to improve performance results by combining multiple single learners. This paper aims to develop and evaluate a set of homogeneous ensembles over four medical datasets using hyperparameter tuning of four neuro-fuzzy systems: adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS), Dynamic evolving neuro-fuzzy system (DENFIS), Hybrid fuzzy inference system (HyFIS), and neuro-fuzzy classifier (NEFCLASS). To address the interpretability challenges and to reduce the complexity of high-dimensional data, the information gain filter was used to identify the most relevant features. After that, the performance of the neuro-fuzzy single learners and ensembles was evaluated using four performance metrics: accuracy, precision, recall, and f1 score. To decide which single learners/ensembles perform better, the Scott-Knott and Borda count techniques were used. The Scott-Knott first groups the models based on the accuracy to find the classifiers appearing in the best cluster, while the Borda count ranks the models based on all the four performance metrics without favoring any of the metrics. Results showed that: (1) The number of the combined single learners positively impacts the performance of the ensembles, (2) Single neuro-fuzzy classifiers demonstrate better or similar performance to the ensembles, but the ensembles still provide better stability of predictions, and (3) Among the ensembles of different models, ANFIS provided the best ensemble results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) chat programs has opened two distinct paths, one enhancing interaction and another potentially replacing personal understanding. Ethical and legal concerns arise due to the rapid development of these programs. This paper investigates academic discussions on AI in medicine, analyzing the context, frequency, and reasons behind these conversations. Methods: The study collected data from the Web of Science database on articles containing the keyword "ChatGPT" published from January to September 2023, resulting in 786 medically related journal articles. The inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed articles in English related to medicine. Results: The United States led in publications (38.1%), followed by India (15.5%) and China (7.0%). Keywords such as "patient" (16.7%), "research" (12%), and "performance" (10.6%) were prevalent. The Cureus Journal of Medical Science (11.8%) had the most publications, followed by the Annals of Biomedical Engineering (8.3%). August 2023 had the highest number of publications (29.3%), with significant growth between February to March and April to May. Medical General Internal (21.0%) was the most common category, followed by Surgery (15.4%) and Radiology (7.9%). Discussion: The prominence of India in ChatGPT research, despite lower research funding, indicates the platform's popularity and highlights the importance of monitoring its use for potential medical misinformation. China's interest in ChatGPT research suggests a focus on Natural Language Processing (NLP) AI applications, despite public bans on the platform. Cureus' success in publishing ChatGPT articles can be attributed to its open-access, rapid publication model. The study identifies research trends in plastic surgery, radiology, and obstetric gynecology, emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and reliability assessments in the application of ChatGPT in medical practice. Conclusion: ChatGPT's presence in medical literature is growing rapidly across various specialties, but concerns related to safety, privacy, and accuracy persist. More research is needed to assess its suitability for patient care and implications for non-medical use. Skepticism and thorough review of research are essential, as current studies may face retraction as more information emerges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores physicians' responses to the suicide of a female surgeon colleague in order to detail the cultural patterning of the problem of suicide within biomedicine. More broadly, it argues that suicide provides an exemplary case of reckoning with uncertainty. Data sources include 124 hours of person-centered and semistructured interviews with 65 individuals, including 54 physicians, 28 of whom are female surgeons. I argue that the cultural model of suicide articulated by physicians reflects an ultimately ineffective strategy for managing suicide's multisource uncertainty, with the suicide of a colleague exposing the moral and affective entailments of a limit case of prognostication. Examining patterns in physician responses to suicide, I define "bewilderment" as a state of having no means of getting to know, and I detail the ways in which physicians' aversive reaction to bewilderment undermine knowledge acquisition. I describe suicide's distinct challenges to biomedicine's social power, including suicide's contestation of narratives about the future. Finally, I raise questions about the degree to which biomedical framings of suicide may undermine the ability of biomedical actors to develop effective interventions to address it. Exploring responses to suicide as a form of cultural production can illustrate fundamental tensions about uncertainty and causality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2022, the Camden Coalition Medical-Legal Partnership began providing civil and criminal legal services to substance use disorder patients at Cooper University Health Care's Center for Healing. This paper discusses early findings from the program's first year on the efficacy of the provision of criminal-legal representation, which is uncommon among MLPs and critical for this patient population. The paper concludes with takeaways for other programs providing legal services in an addiction medicine setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ancient Egyptian herbal literature is sparsely documented, but recently an herbal treatise has been discovered that provides new information about ancient Egyptian medical practice. The treatise deals exclusively with a single plant and its seed, representing a specialized subtype of the herbal genre. There are also demotic papyri and isolated herbal entries that use similar constructions. The herbal books contain information about the use of herbs for treating snake bites and other injuries. It is believed that the herbal books belong to the Egyptian tradition and were already standardized in the New Kingdom. There are also indications of the use of non-native plants in Egypt. The social contexts of the herbal books are largely unknown, but they were likely used both in temples and in private households. It is believed that knowledge about plants was mainly transmitted orally, but was also documented in writing. The article also discusses the identification of plants and seeds in ancient Egyptian remedies. However, the exact identification of some plants remains unclear. The article also discusses the plant snw-p.t in ancient Egypt, which may have been imported from abroad. The article provides an overview of the herbal genre in ancient Egypt and presents various sources and texts on this topic. [Extracted from the article]

Context. The first update of the 1997 gastric lavage position paper was published by the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology and the European Association of Poisons Centres and Clinical Toxicologists in 2004. This second update summarizes the 2004 content and reviews new data. Methods. A systematic review of the literature from January 2003 to March 2011 yielded few studies directly addressing the utility of gastric lavage in the treatment of poisoned patients. Results. Sixty-nine new papers were reviewed. Recent publications continue to show that gastric lavage may be associated with serious complications. A few clinical studies have recently been published showing beneficial outcomes, however, all have significant methodological flaws. Conclusions. At present there is no evidence showing that gastric lavage should be used routinely in the management of poisonings. Further, the evidence supporting gastric lavage as a beneficial treatment in special situations is weak, as is the evidence to exclude benefit in all cases. Gastric lavage should not be performed routinely, if at all, for the treatment of poisoned patients. In the rare instances in which gastric lavage is indicated, it should only be performed by individuals with proper training and expertise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Informed consent is the cornerstone of human research subject protection. Many subjects sign consent documents without understanding the study purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, and their rights. Proof of comprehension is not required and rarely obtained. Understanding might improve by using an interactive system with multiple options for hearing, viewing and reading about the study and the consent form at the subject’s own pace with testing and immediate feedback. This prospective randomized study compared the IRB-approved paper ICF for an actual clinical research study with an interactive presentation of the same study and its associated consent form using an iPad device in two populations: clinical research professionals, and patients drawn from a variety of outpatient practice settings. Of the 90 participants, 69 completed the online test and survey questions the day after the session (maximum 36 hours post-session). Among research professionals (n = 14), there was a trend (p  = .07) in the direction of iPad subjects testing better on the online test (mean correct  =  77%) compared with paper subjects (mean correct  =  57%). Among patients (n = 55), iPad subjects had significantly higher test scores than standard paper consent subjects (mean correct  =  75% vs 58%, p < .001). For all subjects, the total time spent reviewing the paper consent was 13.2 minutes, significantly less than the average of 22.7 minutes total on the three components to be reviewed using the iPad (introductory video, consent form, interactive quiz). Overall satisfaction and overall enjoyment slightly favored the interactive iPad presentation. This study demonstrates that combining an introductory video, standard consent language, and an interactive quiz on a tablet-based system improves comprehension of research study procedures and risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, the Bio-Ontologies SIG at ISMB has provided a forum for discussion of the latest and most innovative research in the application of ontologies and more generally the organisation, presentation and dissemination of knowledge in biomedicine and the life sciences. The ten papers selected for this supplement are extended versions of the original papers presented at the 2010 SIG. The papers span a wide range of topics including practical solutions for data and knowledge integration for translational medicine, hypothesis based querying , understanding kidney and urinary pathways, mining the pharmacogenomics literature; theoretical research into the orthogonality of biomedical ontologies, the representation of diseases, the representation of research hypotheses, the combination of ontologies and natural language processing for an annotation framework, the generation of textual definitions, and the discovery of gene interaction networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Accuracy in the reporting of studies in conference abstracts is important because the majority of studies in such abstracts are never further detailed in peer-reviewed publications, and data from such abstracts may be used in systematic reviews. Previous research on interventional studies in human biomedicine indicates that there is no guarantee of consistency between a conference abstract and paper in the reporting of results and other key variables. However, no research has been done to determine if this lack of reporting consistency in abstracts and papers extends to interventional studies in pre-harvest/harvest-level food safety. The goal of this study was to compare outcome results and other key variables between conference abstracts and subsequent peer-reviewed publications describing studies of pre-harvest and abattoir-level interventions against foodborne pathogens, and to determine whether the agreement in the results or key variables was associated with the time to full publication. A systematic search identified 59 conference abstracts with matching peer-reviewed papers (matches), and data on variables including outcome measures and results, pathogens, species, interventions, overall efficacy of intervention, sample size and housing were extracted from both the conference abstracts and the papers. The matching of variables between abstracts and papers was described, and logistic regression used to test for associations between variable matching and time to publication. Sample size was only provided for both abstract and paper in 24 matches; the same sample size was reported in 20 of these matches. Most other variables were reported in the majority of abstracts/papers, and with the exception of outcomes and intervention effect, the reporting of variables was relatively consistent. There was no significant difference in the numbers of authors, with the first author the same in 78.3% of matches. Of 231 outcome measures reported in both abstracts and papers, nearly one third (77% or 32.2%) had different results, with 32 changing direction of effect. More than a quarter of matches involved at least one significant change in outcome result. The overall conclusion on the efficacy of the intervention changed in 10.7% of matches. There was a significant association between increased time to publication and differences in the number of authors, and having fewer outcome measures in the abstract reported in the paper. These results suggest that data from conference abstracts should be considered with caution. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article offers information on the updated position paper on the policies relating to HIV infection in the U.S. The position paper on HIV policy has been established in collaboration with the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the American College of Physicians. The updated HIV policy highlights major advances on the treatment of HIV infection, the expansion of HIV as a pandemic and the prevalence of HIV transmission in health care settings. Details on these updates emphasizing public health and clinical imperatives in identifying HIV infection are discussed.

Abstract: The objective of this study is to compare the results of the Symptom Check List (SCL)-90-R and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)-28 administered on paper with the results of administration via Internet. Forty university students were asked to respond to the two questionnaires, first in one format (Internet or paper), and 1 week later in the other format. For the GHQ-28, no statistically significant differences were found between the two forms of presentation, Internet or paper, except in the social dysfunction subscale. In the case of the SCL-90-R, there were differences in the Positive Symptoms Distress Index (PSDI) and in the somatization and obsession–compulsion subscales. The effect of using the two formats in combination was also analyzed. Internal consistency of the instruments is high for both types of presentation (α=0.91 in GHQ-28; α=0.97 in SCL-90-R). Correlation between the two formats is also high, with values ranging between 0.76 and 0.92, p<0.001, except in the social dysfunction subscale. Finally, correlation between the GHQ-28 and SCL-90-R is also high, for both the paper and Internet results (r=0.88, p<0.01 on paper and r=0.83, p<0.01 via Internet). The differences found should be verified in future research with other types of sample. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recently, there has been a growing emphasis on basic number processing competencies (such as the ability to judge which of two numbers is larger) and their role in predicting individual differences in school-relevant math achievement. Children’s ability to compare both symbolic (e.g. Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (e.g. dot arrays) magnitudes has been found to correlate with their math achievement. The available evidence, however, has focused on computerized paradigms, which may not always be suitable for universal, quick application in the classroom. Furthermore, it is currently unclear whether both symbolic and nonsymbolic magnitude comparison are related to children’s performance on tests of arithmetic competence and whether either of these factors relate to arithmetic achievement over and above other factors such as working memory and reading ability. In order to address these outstanding issues, we designed a quick (2 minute) paper-and-pencil tool to assess children’s ability to compare symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical magnitudes and assessed the degree to which performance on this measure explains individual differences in achievement. Children were required to cross out the larger of two, single-digit numerical magnitudes under time constraints. Results from a group of 160 children from grades 1–3 revealed that both symbolic and nonsymbolic number comparison accuracy were related to individual differences in arithmetic achievement. However, only symbolic number comparison performance accounted for unique variance in arithmetic achievement. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed which include the use of this measure as a possible tool for identifying students at risk for future difficulties in mathematics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the 15 years, the Bio-Ontologies SIG at ISMB has provided a forum for discussion of the latest and most innovative research in the bio-ontologies development, its applications to biomedicine and more generally the organisation, presentation and dissemination of knowledge in biomedicine and the life sciences. The seven papers and the commentary selected for this supplement span a wide range of topics including: web-based querying over multiple ontologies, integration of data, annotating patent records, NCBO Web services, ontology developments for probabilistic reasoning and for physiological processes, and analysis of the progress of annotation and structural GO changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drug therapy is a very powerful tool to improve the medical outcome of children. Despite this fact, pediatricians still commonly prescribe drug formulations that were developed for adults. In this series of educational papers related to pediatric clinical pharmacology, we aim to raise awareness on different aspects of clinical pharmacology in children, covering neonatal clinical pharmacology, formulation-related issues, ethical aspects of clinical research, pharmacovigilance, and training in pediatric clinical pharmacology. We want to illustrate the relevance of this re-emerging research field for the practicing clinician, although we are very much aware that these topics do not fully cover the multifaceted landscape of pediatric clinical pharmacology. We hope that many readers will reconsider their daily clinical practices and will be stimulated to collaborate to further improve pediatric drug therapy throughout Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]