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Avtor kritično obravnava belo knjigo ministrstva za zdravje, v kateri se predlaga reforma zdravstvenega sistema Slovenije. Strinja se s potrebo po reformi, ki bo imela pomembne posledice tudi za javni sektor, pri čemer pa meni, da reforma zdravstva ni samo sprememba financiranja, kar je glavni poudarek v beli knjigi, temveč je treba rešiti številna vsebinska vprašanja učinkovitosti izvajalcev in regulatorjev, predvsem pa odgovoriti na vprašanje prihodnje organizacije izvajalcev in njihovega lastništva. Z analizo ekonomskih, javnofinančnih, regulatornih in upravljavskih vidikov reforme avtor pokaže, da je treba predhodno odgovoriti na naslednja vprašanja: i) kakšna je učinkovitost in organiziranost izvajalcev v sedanjem sistemu, ii) kolikšne so finančne rezerve obstoječega sistema, iii) kako vzpostaviti učinkovit sistem ekonomske regulacije, iv) kakšne zakonodajne spremembe so potrebne in v) kakšni drugi ukrepi so potrebni za učinkovito izvedbo reforme. Predlaga nadaljevanje priprav na reformo (Bela knjiga II), s čimer bi bilo pripravljeno izhodišče za njeno kakovostno izvedbo.

The position, shape and size of the embryo in buckwheat seed were not yet resolved, although they were studied by several authors. In this study we used computer aided three-dimensional reconstruction to analyse the two-dimensional images obtained by progressively grinding the seeds. We found out, that in the proximal part, the cotyledons are double curved and they reach the testa only with their margins. In the distal part, the two cotyledons extend tightly by the testa. In some seeds the cotyledons form a spiral in a clockwise direction and in the others in anticlockwise direction. The variability of the embryo proper length is much higher than the variability of the seed length. The embryo proper length was found to be in a range of 31 - 56 % of the seed length (in average 42%).

U okrugu Веоgrad su podaci iz prijava obolelih od zaraznih bolesti za period od 1991. dо 1996. godine, sadržani u kompjuterizovanim bаzаmа podataka i vodi ih Služba za epidemiologiju Gradskog zavoda za zaštitu zdravlja. Podaci se koriste za operativne роtrebе epidemiološke službe radi nadzora zaraznih bolesti na području okruga, analiziraju se u cilju sagledavanja рroblemа zaraznih bolesti u celini i svake od njih роsеbnо, рri čеmu se prati distribucija bolesti ро polu, starosti i opštinama. U periodu 1991-1996. u stanovništvu Beograda niје bilo obolelih od osobito opasnih zaraznih bolesti. Nајmanјi broj obolelih је registrovan u toku 1991. godine (14788), а najviše u toku 1994. (27368). U 1996. godini је brој obolelih bio za 33% veći nеgо u 1991. Među najbrојnijim zaraznim bolestima su ovčije boginje (njihov udeo se krеćе od 22,5% do 54,6%), zarazni proliv (od 7,4% dо 17,3%), salmoneloza (od 2,9% do 6,1 %), angina (ос.1 2,6% do 5,6%). Ove četiri bolesti se u posmatranom periodu pojavljuju među 10 najčešćih zaraznih bolesti. U toku 1993. godine su se među naјčešće zarazne bolesti uvrstile male boginje, koje su se pojavile u epidemijskom оbliku. Obolelo је 3524 stanovnika Beograda (44,7% dеса mlađa оd 14 godina i 32% omladina starosti 15-19 godina). Uzroci epidemije su prekid redovne vakcinacije dece protiv mаlih boginja usled nedostatka uvоznе vakcine i migracija stanovništva. Iste godine se u epidemijskom obliku pojavila сrvеnkа. Epidemija se protegla nа 1994. i nа 1995. godinu. Distribucija obolelih ро роlu kretala se od 51,0% do 52,9% za muški i od 47,1 % do 49,0% za ženski. Najveći brој obolelih је u gп1parna starosti 5-9 i 0-4 godina, а najmanji u najstarijih stanovnika. Najmlađe stanovništvo nајčеšćе је obolevalo оd ovčijih boginja (od 35,6% ukupnоg brоја obolelih u tim starosnim grupama do 69,4%), zaraznog proliva (od 4,5% do 17,5%), salmoneloze (od 3,1 % do 7,4%), аnginе (od 3,4% do 9,7%) i šarlaha (od 3,1 % do 7,3%). U posmatranom реriоdu је registrovano 69 umrlih оd zaraznih bolesti. Mortalitet od zaraznih bolesti је imао najmanju vrednost u 1992. i 1993. godini (3,1 i 3,4 nа milion), postepeno је rastao i dostigao је najveću vrednost u 1996. godini (12,6 nа milion). Najveći broј obolelih bio је prijavljivan u opštinama Novi Веоgrаd, Zеmun i Čukarica.

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Abstract Background An adequate and expressive ontological representation of biological organisms and their parts requires formal reasoning mechanisms for their relations of physical aggregation and containment. Results We demonstrate that the proposed formalism allows to deal consistently with "role propagation along non-taxonomic hierarchies", a problem which had repeatedly been identified as an intricate reasoning problem in biomedical ontologies. Conclusion The proposed approach seems to be suitable for the redesign of compositional hierarchies in (bio)medical terminology systems which are embedded into the framework of the OBO (Open Biological Ontologies) Relation Ontology and are using knowledge representation languages developed by the Semantic Web community.

Background: Definitory expressions about clinical procedures, findings and diseases constitute a major benefit of a formally founded clinical reference terminology which is ontologically sound and suited for formal reasoning. SNOMED CT claims to support formal reasoning by description-logic based concept definitions.Methods: On the basis of formal ontology criteria we analyze complex SNOMED CT concepts, such as "Concussion of Brain with(out) Loss of Consciousness", using alternatively full first order logics and the description logic EL.Results: Typical complex SNOMED CT concepts, including negations or not, can be expressed in full first-order logics. Negations cannot be properly expressed in the description logic EL underlying SNOMED CT. All concepts concepts the meaning of which implies a temporal scope may be subject to diverging interpretations, which are often unclear in SNOMED CT as their contextual determinants are not made explicit.Conclusion: The description of complex medical occurrents is ambiguous, as the same situations can be described as (i) a complex occurrent C that has A and B as temporal parts, (ii) a simple occurrent A' defined as a kind of A followed by some B, or (iii) a simple occurrent B' defined as a kind of B preceded by some A. As negative statements in SNOMED CT cannot be exactly represented without a (computationally costly) extension of the set of logical constructors, a solution can be the reification of negative statments (e.g., "Period with no Loss of Consciousness"), or the use of the SNOMED CT context model. However, the interpretation of SNOMED CT context model concepts as description logics axioms is not recommended, because this may entail unintended models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dichoptic therapy is a promising method for improving vision in pediatric and adult patients with amblyopia. However, a systematic understanding about changes in specific visual functions and substantial variation of effect among patients is lacking. Utilizing a novel stereoscopic augmented-reality based training program, 24 pediatric and 18 adult patients were trained for 20 h along a three-month time course with a one-month post-training follow-up for pediatric patients. Changes in stereopsis, distance and near visual acuity, and contrast sensitivity for amblyopic and fellow eyes were measured, and interocular differences were analyzed. To reveal what contributes to successful dichoptic therapy, ANCOVA models were used to analyze progress, considering clinical baseline parameters as covariates that are potential requirements for amblyopic recovery. Significant and lasting improvements have been achieved in stereoacuity, interocular near visual acuity, and interocular contrast sensitivity. Importantly, astigmatism, fixation instability, and lack of stereopsis were major limiting factors for visual acuity, stereoacuity, and contrast sensitivity recovery, respectively. The results demonstrate the feasibility of treatment-efficacy prediction in certain aspects of dichoptic amblyopia therapy. Furthermore, our findings may aid in developing personalized therapeutic protocols, capable of considering individual clinical status, to help clinicians in tailoring therapy to patient profiles for better outcome., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

Monitoring the occurrence of adverse events in the scientific literature is a mandatory process in drug marketing surveillance. This is a very time-consuming and complex task to fulfill the compliance and, most importantly, to ensure patient safety. Therefore, a machine learning (ML) algorithm has been trained to support this manual intellectual review process, by automatically providing a classification of the literature articles into two types. An algorithm has been designed to automatically classify "relevant articles" which are reporting any kind of drug safety relevant information, and those which are not reporting an adverse drug reaction as "not relevant." The review process is consisted of many rules and aspects which needed to be taken into consideration. Therefore, for the training of the algorithm, thousands of documents from previous screenings have been used. After several iterations of adjustments and fine tuning, the ML approach is definitively a great achievement in pre-sorting the articles into "relevant" and "non-relevant" and supporting the intellectual review process., (© 2022 The Authors. Clinical and Translational Science published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.)

During neural tissue genesis, neural stem/progenitor cells are exposed to bioelectric stimuli well before synaptogenesis and neural circuit formation. Fluctuations in the electrochemical potential in the vicinity of developing cells influence the genesis, migration and maturation of neuronal precursors. The complexity of the in vivo environment and the coexistence of various progenitor populations hinder the understanding of the significance of ionic/bioelectric stimuli in the early phases of neuronal differentiation. Using optogenetic stimulation, we investigated the in vitro motility responses of radial glia-like neural stem/progenitor populations to ionic stimuli. Radial glia-like neural stem cells were isolated from CAG loxp Stop loxp ChR2(H134)-eYFP transgenic mouse embryos. After transfection with Cre-recombinase, ChR2(channelrhodopsin-2)-expressing and non-expressing cells were separated by eYFP fluorescence. Expression of light-gated ion channels were checked by patch clamp and fluorescence intensity assays. Neurogenesis by ChR2-expressing and non-expressing cells was induced by withdrawal of EGF from the medium. Cells in different (stem cell, migrating progenitor and maturing precursor) stages of development were illuminated with laser light (λ = 488 nm; 1.3 mW/mm 2 ; 300 ms) in every 5 min for 12 h. The displacement of the cells was analyzed on images taken at the end of each light pulse. Results demonstrated that the migratory activity decreased with the advancement of neuronal differentiation regardless of stimulation. Light-sensitive cells, however, responded on a differentiation-dependent way. In non-differentiated ChR2-expressing stem cell populations, the motility did not change significantly in response to light-stimulation. The displacement activity of migrating progenitors was enhanced, while the motility of differentiating neuronal precursors was markedly reduced by illumination.

Arginine vasopressin (AVP) made by hypothalamic neurons is released into the circulation to stimulate water resorption by the kidneys and restore water balance after blood loss. Patients who lack this antidiuretic hormone suffer from central diabetes insipidus. We observed that many of these patients were anemic and asked whether AVP might play a role in red blood cell (RBC) production. We found that all three AVP receptors are expressed in human and mouse hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells. The AVPR1B appears to play the most important role in regulating erythropoiesis in both human and mouse cells. AVP increases phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 5, as erythropoietin (EPO) does. After sublethal irradiation, AVP-deficient Brattleboro rats showed delayed recovery of RBC numbers compared to control rats. In mouse models of anemia (induced by bleeding, irradiation, or increased destruction of circulating RBCs), AVP increased the number of circulating RBCs independently of EPO. In these models, AVP appears to jump-start peripheral blood cell replenishment until EPO can take over. We suggest that specific AVPR1B agonists might be used to induce fast RBC production after bleeding, drug toxicity, or chemotherapy., (Copyright © 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.)

The vast amount of clinical data in electronic health records constitutes a great potential for secondary use. However, most of this content consists of unstructured or semi-structured texts, which is difficult to process. Several challenges are still pending: medical language idiosyncrasies in different natural languages, and the large variety of medical terminology systems. In this paper we present SEMCARE, a European initiative designed to minimize these problems by providing a multi-lingual platform (English, German, and Dutch) that allows users to express complex queries and obtain relevant search results from clinical texts. SEMCARE is based on a selection of adapted biomedical terminologies, together with Apache UIMA and Apache Solr as open source state-of-the-art natural language pipeline and indexing technologies. SEMCARE has been deployed and is currently being tested at three medical institutions in the UK, Austria, and the Netherlands, showing promising results in a cardiology use case.

Purpose: P1 is the major positive component of pattern-reversal visual evoked potentials (PR-VEPs). The rapid decrease of its latency correlates with the progressive myelination in the developing infant brain, which affects signal transmission in the visual system. An age-dependent phase shift, analogous to P1 peak latency, can be observed in dynamic random dot correlogram (DRDC)-evoked VEPs (DRDC-VEPs), a method used to assess binocular function. Our goal was to study the relationship between cyclopean DRDC-VEP phases and PR-VEP P1 latencies in full-term and preterm infants so as to further explore the experience dependence of early binocular developmental processes., Methods: DRDC-VEPs and PR-VEPs were recorded in 128 full-term and 47 preterm healthy infants and toddlers. DRDC stimuli were presented on the red and green channels of a CRT monitor while infants wore red-green goggles for dichoptic viewing. Reliability of VEP responses was assessed by the statistic. Logistic function was fit to the phase and latency data as a function of age, and goodness of fit was assessed by analysis of residuals., Results: The phase shift of DRDC-VEPs and the rapid decrease of P1 latencies occur at identical postconceptual ages. A correlation also was found between P1 latencies and DRDC-VEP phases., Conclusions: Although development of binocularity is an extremely experience-dependent process, our data suggest that DRDC-VEP phase and P1 latency mature independently from visual experience. We propose that both the phase shift and decreasing P1 latency are indicators of myelination and increasingly faster signal transmission in the developing visual system.

Retinoic acid (RA) is present at sites of neurogenesis in both the embryonic and adult brain. While it is widely accepted that RA signaling is involved in the regulation of neural stem cell differentiation, little is known about vitamin A utilization and biosynthesis of active retinoids in the neurogenic niches, or about the details of retinoid metabolism in neural stem cells and differentiating progenies. Here we provide data on retinoid responsiveness and RA production of distinct neural stem cell/neural progenitor populations. In addition, we demonstrate differentiation-related changes in the expression of genes encoding proteins of the retinoid machinery, including components responsible for uptake (Stra6) and storage (Lrat) of vitamin A, transport of retinoids (Rbp4, CrbpI, CrabpI-II), synthesis (Rdh10, Raldh1-4), degradation of RA (Cyp26a1-c1) and RA signaling (Rarα,β,γ, Rxrα,β,γ). We show that both early embryonic neuroectodermal (NE-4C) stem cells and late embryonic or adult derived radial glia like progenitors (RGl cells) are capable to produce bioactive retinoids but respond differently to retinoid signals. However, while neuronal differentiation of RGl cells can not be induced by RA, neuron formation by NE-4C cells is initiated by both RA and RA-precursors (retinol or retinyl acetate). The data indicate that endogenous RA production, at least in some neural stem cell populations, may result in autocrine regulation of neuronal differentiation.

The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of a potent and specific vascular adhesive protein-1/semicarbazide-sensitive amine oxidase (VAP-1/SSAO) inhibitor, LJP 1207, as a potential antiangiogenic and anti-inflammatory agent in the therapy of corneal neovascularization. Corneal neovascularization was induced with intrastromal suturing in rabbits (n = 20). Topical treatment with VAP-1/SSAO inhibitor LJP 1207 (n = 5, 4 times a day), bevacizumab (n = 5, daily), their combination (n = 5) and vehicle only (n = 5, 4 times a day) were applied postoperatively for 2 weeks. The development and extent of corneal neovascularization were evaluated by digital image analysis. At the end of the observation period, the level of corneal and serum VAP-1/SSAO activity was measured fluorometrically and radiochemically. The corneal VAP-1/SSAO activity was significantly elevated in the suture-challenged vehicle-treated group (3,075 ± 1,009 pmol/mg/h) as compared to unoperated controls (464.2 ± 135 pmol/mg/h, p < 0.001). Treatment with LJP 1207 resulted in slower early phase neovascularization compared to vehicle-treated animals (not significant). At days 7-14, there was no significant difference in the extent of corneal neovascularization between inhibitor- and vehicle-treated corneas, even though inhibitor treatment caused a normalization of corneal VAP-1/SSAO activity (885 ± 452 pmol/mg/h). Our results demonstrate that the significant elevation of VAP-1/SSAO activity due to corneal injury can be prevented with VAP-1/SSAO inhibitor LJP 1207 treatment. However, normalization of VAP-1/SSAO activity in this model does not prevent the development of corneal neovascularization.

Seeding of bone implants with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) may promote osseointegration and bone regeneration. However, implant material surfaces, such as titanium or bovine bone mineral, fail to support rapid and efficient attachment of MSCs, especially under serum-free conditions that may be desirable when human applications or tightly controlled experiments are envisioned. Here we demonstrate that a branched poly[Lys(Ser(i)-DL-Ala(m))] polymer functionalized with cyclic arginyl-glycyl-aspartate, when immobilized by simple adsorption to tissue culture plastic, surgical titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V), or Bio-Oss(®) bovine bone substitute, significantly accelerates serum-free adhesion and enhances seeding efficiency of human adipose tissue-derived MSCs. Moreover, when exposed to serum-containing osteogenic medium, MSCs survived and differentiated on the peptide-coated scaffolds. In summary, the presented novel polypeptide conjugate can be conveniently used for coating various surfaces, and may find applications whenever quick and efficient seeding of MSCs is required to various scaffolds in the absence of serum.

Although there is a great deal of knowledge regarding the phylo- and ontogenetic plasticity of the neocortex, the precise nature of environmental impact on the newborn human brain is still one of the most controversial issues of neuroscience. The leading model-system of experience-dependent brain development is binocular vision, also called stereopsis. Here, we show that extra postnatal visual experience in preterm human neonates leads to a change in the developmental timing of binocular vision. The onset age of binocular function, as measured by the visual evoked response to dynamic random dot correlograms (DRDC-VEP), appears to be at around the same time after birth in preterm (4.07 mo) and full-term (3.78 mo) infants. To assess the integrity of the visual pathway in the studied infants, we also measured the latency of the visual-evoked response to pattern reversal stimuli (PR-VEP). PR-VEP latency is not affected by premature birth, demonstrating that the maturation of the visual pathway follows a preprogrammed developmental course. Despite the immaturity of the visual pathway, clearly demonstrated by the PR-VEP latencies, our DRCD-VEP data show that the visual cortex is remarkably ready to accept environmental stimulation right after birth. This early plasticity makes full use of the available extra stimulation time in preterm human infants and results in an early onset of cortical binocularity. According to our data, the developmental processes preceding the onset of binocular function are not preprogrammed, and the mechanisms turning on stereopsis are extremely experience-dependent in humans.

Although dynamic random-dot correlogram evoked visual potentials (DRDC-VEPs) are a three-decade-old method to detect the cortical binocularity in humans and animals, our knowledge of the influence of fundamental stimulus parameters and the underlying cerebral processing mechanisms has remained limited. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of luminance on DRDC-VEPs in adults. The variability and detectability of DRDC-VEPs were investigated under different stimulus luminance conditions with neutral density filters. Our results have demonstrated that DRDC-VEPs can be evoked in a wide luminance range, and the response amplitude was practically independent of luminance between 4.75 cd m(-2) and 0.015 cd m(-2), while DRDC-VEP latencies showed a strong linear correlation with log luminance. There is, however, a limit (0.06 cd m(-2)) below which DRDC-VEPs are not reliably recordable. Luminance reduction-induced delays in DRDC-VEP latencies cannot be explained simply by retinal mechanisms, since their regression slope does not follow the course of electroretinogram and cortical evoked potential latencies. Luminance independence of DRDC-VEP amplitude suggests that binocular correlation-processing cortical neurons receive input predominantly from the magnocellular visual pathway.

We investigate the effect of myosin II inhibition on cell shape and nuclear motility in cultures of mouse radial glia-like neural progenitor and rat glioma C6 cells. Instead of reducing nucleokinesis, the myosin II inhibitor blebbistatin provokes an elongated bipolar morphology and increased nuclear motility in both cell types. When myosin II is active, time-resolved traction force measurements indicate a pulling force between the leading edge and the nucleus of C6 cells. In the absence of myosin II activity, traction forces during nucleokinesis are diminished below the sensitivity threshold of our assay. By visualizing the centrosome position in C6 cells with GFP-centrin, we show that in the presence or absence of myosin II activity, the nucleus tends to overtake or lag behind the centrosome, respectively. We interpret these findings with the help of a simple viscoelastic model of the cytoskeleton consisting active contractile and passive compressed elements., (Copyright © 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

Preferential adhesion of neural stem cells to surfaces covered with a novel synthetic adhesive polypeptide (AK-cyclo[RGDfC]) provided a unique, rapid procedure for isolating radial glia-like cells from both fetal and adult rodent brain. Radial glia-like (RGl) neural stem/progenitor cells grew readily on the peptide-covered surfaces under serum-free culture conditions in the presence of EGF as the only growth factor supplement. Proliferating cells derived either from fetal (E 14.5) forebrain or from different regions of the adult brain maintained several radial glia-specific features including nestin, RC2 immunoreactivity and Pax6, Sox2, Blbp, Glast gene expression. Proliferating RGl cells were obtained also from non-neurogenic zones including the parenchyma of the adult cerebral cortex and dorsal midbrain. Continuous proliferation allowed isolating one-cell derived clones of radial glia-like cells. All clones generated neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes under appropriate inducing conditions. Electrophysiological characterization indicated that passive conductance with large delayed rectifying potassium current might be a uniform feature of non-induced radial glia-like cells. Upon induction, all clones gave rise to GABAergic neurons. Significant differences were found, however, among the clones in the generation of glutamatergic and cathecolamine-synthesizing neurons and in the production of oligodendrocytes.

Translocator protein 18 kDa, the peripheral benzodiazepine receptor by its earlier name, is a mitochondrial membrane protein associated with the mitochondrial permeability pore. While the function of the protein is not properly understood, it is known to play roles in necrotic and apoptotic processes of the neural tissue. In the healthy adult brain, TSPO expression is restricted to glial cells. In developing or damaged neural regions, however, TSPO appears in differentiating/regenerating neurons. Using immunocytochemical, molecular biological and cell biological techniques, we demonstrate that TSPO mRNA and protein, while missing from mature neurons, are present in neural stem cells and also in postmitotic neuronal precursors. Investigating some distinct stages of in vitro differentiation of NE-4C neural stem cells, TSPO 18 kDa was found to be repressed in a relatively late phase of neuron formation, when mature neuron-specific features appear. This timing indicates that mitochondria in fully developed neurons display specific characteristics and provides an additional marker for characterising neuronal differentiation.

Dynamic random dot correlograms (DRDCs) are binocular stimuli that evoke a percept and a visual evoked potential (VEP) only in case of a mature and functional binocular system. DRDC-VEP is a method extensively used to study cortical binocularity in human infants and nonverbal children. Although the DRDC-VEP was invented 3 decades ago, neither the fundamental parameters, including contrast, of the stimulation nor the cerebral processing mechanisms have been clarified. The objective of the present study was to investigate the variability and detectability of adults' VEPs to DRDC under different stimulus contrast conditions. DRDCs were presented on the red and green channels of a computer monitor and were viewed with red-green goggles. The steady state DRDC-VEPs were recorded in healthy adult volunteers, and response reliability was assessed by the T(circ)(2) statistic. DRDC-VEP amplitude was independent of contrast, while VEP phases showed a weak correlation with contrast. Contrast invariance of DRDC-VEP amplitude suggests a very high contrast gain and dominant magnocellular input to the binocular correlation processing system.

It has been shown that a human salivary gland cell line (HSG) is capable of differentiation into gland-like structures, though little is known of how morphological features are formed or controlled. Here we investigated the changes in cell proliferation and apoptosis upon terminal differentiation of HSG cells in Matrigel, an extracellular matrix derivative. Changes in the expression of survivin, a prominent anti-apoptotic factor, and caspase-3, a key apoptotic factor were also measured. In order to better understand the involvement of key signal transduction pathways in this system we pharmacologically blocked the activity of tyrosine kinase, nuclear factor kappa B(NF kappa B), protein kinase C (PKC), phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and matrix metalloproteases (MMP). Results of these studies demonstrate that cytodifferentiation of HSG cells to an acinar phenotype is accompanied first by a decrease of cell proliferation and then by a massive programmed cell death, affected by multiple signal transduction pathways. Thus, Matrigel alone is insufficient for the full maturation and long term survival of the newly formed acini: the presence of other factors is necessary to complete the acinar differentiation of HSG cells., (Copyright (c) 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

Purpose: We present a method for the automated acquisition of a multilingual medical lexicon (for Spanish, French and Swedish) to be used within the framework of a medical cross-language text retrieval system., Methods: For the lexical acquisition process, we incorporate seed lexicons and lists of trusted term translations derived from the UMLS Metathesaurus. The seed lexicons for Spanish, French and Swedish are automatically generated from (previously manually constructed) Portuguese, German and English sources by simple string transformations. Lexical and semantic hypotheses are then validated by processing pairs of term translations. In a last step, we use the cleaned list of "approved" translations in order to augment, step by step, the target dictionaries by processing the parallel corpora in terms of co-occurrence patterns of hypothesized translation equivalents which cannot be derived by simple character substitutions., Results: An existing multilingual lexicon for the medical domain with about 60,000 entries for English, German, and Portuguese was automatically augmented by more then 17,000 new lexemes for Spanish, French, and Swedish., Conclusions: Our approach constitutes a promising method for the automated creation of new lexicon entries and their linkage to semantic identifiers.

In this paper we want to describe how the promising technology of biomedical data mining can improve the use of hospital information systems: a large set of unstructured, narrative clinical data from a dermatological university hospital like discharge letters or other dermatological reports were processed through a morpho-semantic text retrieval engine ("MorphoSaurus") and integrated with other clinical data using a web-based interface and brought into daily clinical routine. The user evaluation showed a very high user acceptance - this system seems to meet the clinicians' requirements for a vertical data mining in the electronic patient records. What emerges is the need for integration of biomedical data mining into hospital information systems for clinical, scientific, educational and economic reasons.

We propose an approach to multilingual medical document retrieval in which complex word forms are segmented according to medically relevant morpho-semantic criteria. At its core lies a multilingual dictionary, in which entries are equivalence classes of subwords, i.e. semantically minimal units. Using two different standard test collections for the medical domain, we evaluate our approach for six languages covered by our system.

We propose a method that aligns biomedical acronyms and their definitions across different languages. The approach is based upon a freely available tool for the extraction of abbreviations together with their expansions, and the subsequent normalization of language-specific variants, synonyms, and translations of the extracted acronym definitions. In this step, acronym expansions are mapped onto a language-independent concept-layer on which intra- as well as interlingual comparisons are drawn.

We propose a pipelined system for the automatic classification of medical documents according to their language (English, Spanish and German) and their target user group (medical experts vs. health care consumers). We use a simple n-gram based categorization model and present experimental results for both classification tasks. We also demonstrate how this methodology can be integrated into a health care document retrieval system.

We present a unique technique to create a multilingual biomedical dictionary, based on a methodology called Morpho-Semantic indexing. Our approach closes a gap caused by the absence of free available multilingual medical dictionaries and the lack of accuracy of non-medical electronic translation tools. We first explain the underlying technology followed by a description of the dictionary interface, which makes use of a multilingual subword thesaurus and of statistical information from a domain-specific, multilingual corpus.

We present a method for the automated acquisition of a multilingual medical lexicon (for Spanish and Swedish) to be used within the framework of a medical cross-language text retrieval system. We incorporate seed lexicons and parallel corpora derived from the UMLS Metathesaurus. The seed lexicons for Spanish and Swedish are automatically generated from (previously manually constructed) Portuguese, German and English sources. Lexical and semantic hypotheses are then validated making iterative use of co-occurrence patterns of hypothesized translation synonyms in the parallel corpora.

Medical document retrieval presents a unique combination of challenges for the design and implementation of retrieval engines. We introduce a method to meet these challenges by implementing a multilingual retrieval interface for biomedical content in the World Wide Web. To this end we developed an automated method for interlingual query construction by which a standard Web search engine is enabled to process non-English queries from the biomedical domain in order to retrieve English documents.

gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) has been known to function as an autocrine/paracrine signal molecule in addition to its well-known inhibitory neurotransmitter function. Studies on the developing brain and on primary brain cell cultures provided evidence for a variety of GABA functions in periods preceding the formation of synapses. The exact role of GABA in the early neural development, however, is still not well understood. In this study, one-cell-derived NE-4C neuroectodermal stem cells were induced to form neurons and astrocytes in vitro, and the role of GABA was investigated in defined phases of neurogenesis. Noninduced NE-4C cells contained GABA, expressed GABA(A)R alpha subunits, and carried functional GABA(A) ion channels. A moderate cytoplasmic GABA content was detected during the entire period of differentiation. By the time of the formation of differentiated neurons, neuron-like cells with both high and low GABA content were clearly distinguishable. HPLC analysis indicated that NE-4C cells released GABA into their fluid environment during all stages of neuronal development. By using the patch-clamp technique, GABA-evoked currents were recorded during the entire proliferation/differentiation period, whereas a GABA-evoked increase in intracellular Ca(2+) was detected only during the maturation of postmitotic neuronal precursors. Bicuculline blocked both the ion currents and the [Ca(2+)](i) increase in response to GABA. Neuron formation was facilitated by GABA through GABA(A) ion channels during postmitotic differentiation, but not earlier during the phases of cell fate commitment. Although the data clearly demonstrate an early responsiveness to GABA, understanding the significance of GABA influence in early neural cell fate decisions will require further investigation., (Copyright 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.)

We consider three alternative procedures for the automatic indexing of medical documents using MeSH thesaurus identifiers as target units (document descriptors). Rather than considering complete words as the starting point of the indexing procedure, we here propose morphologically plausible subwords as basic units from which MeSH terms are derived. We describe the morphological segmentation and normalization procedures, as well as the mappings from subwords to MeSH terms, and discuss results from an evaluation carried out on a German-language corpus.