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Health Sciences Descriptors
DeCS – Health Sciences Descriptors is a structured and trilingual thesaurus created by BIREME – Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information – in 1986 for indexing scientific journal articles, books, proceedings of congresses, technical reports and other types of materials, as well as for searching and recovering scientific information in LILACS, MEDLINE and other databases. In the VHL, Virtual Health Library, DeCS is the tool that permits the navigation between records and sources of information through controlled concepts and organized in Portuguese, Spanish and English. It was developed from MeSH – Medical Subject Headings from the NLM – U.S. National Library of Medicine – in order to permit the use of common terminology for searching in three languages, providing a consistent and unique environment for information retrieval regardless of the language. In addition to the original MeSH terms, four specific areas were developed: Public Health (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thesaurus
A thesaurus (plural ''thesauri'' or ''thesauruses'') or synonym dictionary is a reference work for finding synonyms and sometimes antonyms of words. They are often used by writers to help find the best word to express an idea: Synonym dictionaries have a long history. The word 'thesaurus' was used in 1852 by Peter Mark Roget for his ''Roget's Thesaurus''. While some thesauri, such as ''Roget's Thesaurus'', group words in a hierarchical hypernymic taxonomy of concepts, others are organized alphabetically or in some other way. Most thesauri do not include definitions, but many dictionaries include listings of synonyms. Some thesauri and dictionary synonym notes characterize the distinctions between similar words, with notes on their "connotations and varying shades of meaning".''American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', 5th edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011, , p. xxvii Some synonym dictionaries are primarily concerned with differentiating synonyms by mea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Information Retrieval
Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other content-based indexing. Information retrieval is the science of searching for information in a document, searching for documents themselves, and also searching for the metadata that describes data, and for databases of texts, images or sounds. Automated information retrieval systems are used to reduce what has been called information overload. An IR system is a software system that provides access to books, journals and other documents; stores and manages those documents. Web search engines are the most visible IR applications. Overview An information retrieval process begins when a user or searcher enters a query into the system. Queries are formal statements of information needs, for example search strings in web search engines. In inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Library Cataloging And Classification
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a virtual space, or both. A library's collection can include printed materials and other physical resources in many formats such as DVD, CD and cassette as well as access to information, music or other content held on bibliographic databases. A library, which may vary widely in size, may be organized for use and maintained by a public body such as a government; an institution such as a school or museum; a corporation; or a private individual. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are trained and experts at finding, selecting, circulating and organizing information and at interpreting information needs, navigating and analyzing very large amounts of information with a variety of resources. Li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health Sciences
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to health sciences: Health sciences are those sciences which focus on health, or health care, as core parts of their subject matter. Health sciences relate to multiple academic disciplines, including STEM disciplines and emerging patient safety disciplines (such as social care research). Medicine and its branches Medicine – applied science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Some of the branches of medicine are: *Anesthesiology – branch of medicine that deals with life support and anesthesia during surgery. *Angiology - a branch of medicine that deals with the diseases of the circulatory system. *Audiology - focuses on preventing and curing hearing damage. *Bariatrics - the branch of medicine that deals with the causes, prevent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unified Medical Language System
The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is a compendium of many controlled vocabularies in the biomedical sciences (created 1986). It provides a mapping structure among these vocabularies and thus allows one to translate among the various terminology systems; it may also be viewed as a comprehensive thesaurus and ontology of biomedical concepts. UMLS further provides facilities for natural language processing. It is intended to be used mainly by developers of systems in medical informatics. UMLS consists of Knowledge Sources (databases) and a set of software tools. The UMLS was designed and is maintained by the US National Library of Medicine, is updated quarterly and may be used for free. The project was initiated in 1986 by Donald A.B. Lindberg, M.D., then Director of the Library of Medicine, and directed by Betsy Humphreys. Purpose and applications The number of biomedical resources available to researchers is enormous. Often this is a problem due to the large volume o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important concept in a wide variety of fields, such as architecture, philosophy, design, mathematics, computer science, organizational theory, systems theory, systematic biology, and the social sciences (especially political philosophy). A hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly, and either vertically or diagonally. The only direct links in a hierarchy, insofar as they are hierarchical, are to one's immediate superior or to one of one's subordinates, although a system that is largely hierarchical can also incorporate alternative hierarchies. Hierarchical links can extend "vertically" upwards or downwards via multiple links in the same direction, following a path. All parts of the hierarchy that are not linked vertically to one ano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clinical Surveillance
Public health surveillance (also epidemiological surveillance, clinical surveillance or syndromic surveillance) is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice."Public health surveillance (accessed January 14, 2016). Public health surveillance may be used to track emerging health-related issues at an early stage and find active solutions in a timely manner. Surveillance systems are generally called upon to provide information regarding when and where heal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homeopathy
Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called '' similia similibus curentur'', or "like cures like". Homeopathic preparations are termed ''remedies'' and are made using homeopathic dilution. In this process, the selected substance is repeatedly diluted until the final product is chemically indistinguishable from the diluent. Often not even a single molecule of the original substance can be expected to remain in the product. Between each dilution homeopaths may hit and/or shake the product, claiming this makes the diluent remember the original substance after its removal. Practitioners claim that such preparations, upon oral intake, can treat or cure disease. All relevant scientific knowledge about ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the determinants of health of a population and the threats it faces is the basis for public health. The ''public'' can be as small as a handful of people or as large as a village or an entire city; in the case of a pandemic it may encompass several continents. The concept of ''health'' takes into account physical, psychological, and social well-being.What is the WHO definition of health? from the Preamble to the Constitution of WHO as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19 June - 22 July 1946; signed on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Library Of Medicine
The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. Its collections include more than seven million books, journals, technical reports, manuscripts, microfilms, photographs, and images on medicine and related sciences, including some of the world's oldest and rarest works. The current director of the NLM is Patricia Flatley Brennan.National Library of Medicine Welcomes New Director Dr. Patricia Flatley Brennan . ''National Library of Medicine''. August 15, 2016. History The precursor o ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin American And Caribbean Center On Health Sciences Information
The Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences Information or BIREME was founded in São Paulo in 1967 as the Biblioteca Regional de Medicina, a specialized center of the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) / World Health Organization (WHO). BIREME coordinates the development of the '' Virtual Health Library'' model which includes access to around 30 million references to scientific and technical literature in the four official languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Description The center is located in the campus of the Universidade Federal de São Paulo – Unifesp (Federal University of São Paulo). Since its foundation in 1967, BIREME is established by the agreement between ''PAHO'', ''Brazilian Ministry of Health'', ''Brazilian Ministry of Education'', ''Secretary of Health of the State of São Paulo'', and ''Unifesp''. Since 2009, the agreement coexists with the process of implementation of the new legal statute approved by the 49th Directing Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medical Subject Headings
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus that facilitates searching. Created and updated by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), it is used by the MEDLINE/PubMed article database and by NLM's catalog of book holdings. MeSH is also used by ClinicalTrials.gov registry to classify which diseases are studied by trials registered in ClinicalTrials. MeSH was introduced in the 1960s, with the NLM's own index catalogue and the subject headings of the Quarterly Cumulative Index Medicus (1940 edition) as precursors. The yearly printed version of MeSH was discontinued in 2007; MeSH is now available only online. It can be browsed and downloaded free of charge through PubMed. Originally in English, MeSH has been translated into numerous other languages and allows retrieval of documents from different origins. Structure MeSH vocabulary is divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
