Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research

Case Report - Pulmonary Nocardiosis in Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection: A Tuberculosis Mimic

Patients with human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] infection are prone to develop pulmonary infections like nocardiosis. It is often misdiagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis since the manifestations are similar. A twenty-seven years old male presented with fever, cough with expectoration and weight loss for two months. Chest radiograph showed opacity in the right mid zones. Sputum smears were negative for acid fast bacilli (AFB) and revealed gram positive panching filamentous organisms resembling Nocardia species. Subsequently, Nocardia was grown on sputum culture. HIV antibody was positive by ELISA test. He was treated with co-trimoxazole. If sputum is repeatedly tested negative for AFB in the setting of radiological suspicion of tuberculosis, testing for Nocardia species should be considered in the HIV-infected patients

Letter to Editor - Tuberculosis Associated Haemophagocytic Syndrome

A twenty-nine year old lady presented with six-month history of intermittent fever, chills, anorexia and weight loss. She also had history of diffuse abdominal pain and progressive abdominal distension of two months duration. Her past medical and family history was unremarkable..

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Not AvailableA double row manual-cum-bullock drawn seed-cum-fertilizer drill (Vivek seed-cum-fertilizer drill; cost INR 2000/=) suitable for sowing rice, wheat and lentil has been developed at Vivekananda Institute of Hill Agriculture, Almora, India. The machine was fabricated using locally available materials. It consists of an MS body, inverted T-type furrow opener with 25º rake angle, adjustable MS beams for man and bullock power, seed box with fluted feed metering device, fertilizer box with agitator, plastic delivery tube, and MS transportationcum-power wheel. The weight of the seed-cum-fertilizer drill is 23 kg. It can be operated by two persons for sowing in a prepared seedbed and by a pair of bullocks in case of no-till sowing. The machine has the capacity to sow 0.025 to 0.04 ha/hr. Line sowing of wheat and lentil with zerotill seed-cum-fertilizer drill (power source: 2 men) resulted in saving of INR 5059 and INR 4206 respectively as compared to traditional practice (two passes of ploughing with indigenous plough+ Manual clod crushing+ Two pass of wooden plank+ Manual broadcasting; Power source: 1 Man and 1 bullock pair). Energy savings in wheat and lentil sown with zero-till seed drill were 1,305.3 MJ/ha and 1,106.6 MJ/ha, respectively, as compared to the traditional method of broadcast sowing. Study of soil physical properties showed that soil water content at all the studied soil depths were higher in plots under line sowing without seedbed preparation (T2) than those in plots under line sowing with seed bed preparation (T1). The values of soil bulk density at harvest under T2 were higher in 0-15 cm soil depth.ICA

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Not AvailableConsidering the quarantine importance of the red-banded mango caterpillar, Deanolis sublimbalis (Crambidae: Lepidoptera), studies were carried out to predict the impact of climate change on its geographical distribution using the ecological niche modeling. Predictions were made based on the analysis of the relationship between occurrence points of D. sublimbalis and the corresponding current and future climate data of the study area, which was retrieved from the worldclim database. Spatial analysis software DIVA-GIS was used for visualization of the maps. The maximum entropy algorithm provided reasonable estimates of the species range in respect of discrimination of suitable and unsuitable areas for its occurrence in both present and future climatic conditions. The model provided a good fit for species distribution with a high value of area under the curve (0.971). Jackknife test indicated temperature seasonality to be the most important bioclimatic variable determining the potential geographical distribution of D. sublimbalis. The model predicted higher suitability areas for the pest occurrence in eastern parts of Andhra Pradesh, coastal regions of Orissa, southern parts of West Bengal, and some parts of Tripura. In future climate scenarios of 2030, 2050, 2070, and 2080, model-predicted relative increase in its distribution. Prediction of likely changes in the pest distribution with climate change will be useful in formulating effective management strategies against mango fruit borer.Not Availabl

The impact of diabetes on tuberculosis treatment outcomes: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Multiple studies of tuberculosis treatment have indicated that patients with diabetes mellitus may experience poor outcomes.We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize evidence for the impact of diabetes on tuberculosis outcomes. METHODS: We searched PubMed, EMBASE and the World Health Organization Regional Indexes from 1 January 1980 to 31 December 2010 and references of relevant articles for reports of observational studies that included people with diabetes treated for tuberculosis. We reviewed the full text of 742 papers and included 33 studies of which 9 reported culture conversion at two to three months, 12 reported the combined outcome of failure and death, 23 reported death, 4 reported death adjusted for age and other potential confounding factors, 5 reported relapse, and 4 reported drug resistant recurrent tuberculosis. RESULTS: Diabetes is associated with an increased risk of failure and death during tuberculosis treatment. Patients with diabetes have a risk ratio (RR) for the combined outcome of failure and death of 1.69 (95% CI, 1.36 to 2.12). The RR of death during tuberculosis treatment among the 23 unadjusted studies is 1.89 (95% CI, 1.52 to 2.36), and this increased to an effect estimate of 4.95 (95% CI, 2.69 to 9.10) among the 4 studies that adjusted for age and other potential confounding factors. Diabetes is also associated with an increased risk of relapse (RR, 3.89; 95% CI, 2.43 to 6.23). We did not find evidence for an increased risk of tuberculosis recurrence with drug resistant strains among people with diabetes. The studies assessing sputum culture conversion after two to three months of tuberculosis therapy were heterogeneous with relative risks that ranged from 0.79 to 3.25. CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes increases the risk of failure and death combined, death, and relapse among patients with tuberculosis. This study highlights a need for increased attention to treatment of tuberculosis in people with diabetes, which may include testing for suspected diabetes, improved glucose control, and increased clinical and therapeutic monitoring

Use Of Invasive Blood Pressure Monitoring In Asymptomatic Mildly Hypotensive Cardiac Patients

Beta-blockers and Angiotensin Converting Enzme Inhibitor (ACE-I) are still underused drugs by CAD or CHF patients. ' Patients with mild hypotension (noninvasive Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP): 80 — 90mm Hg) are often not prescribed these medications.</jats:p

Pharmacological Cardioversion of Atrial Fibrillation In Nepalese Population

Intravenous Procainamide and Oral Flecainide are often used for cardioversion of Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation (AF). Hypertensive patients may have problems ofproarrythmias with these agents and Intravenous Amiodarone may be an effective safer alternative. The utility of Intravenous Amiodarone in such group of patients in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal has never been assessed.</jats:p