Search results for " Standardization"

Effects of diabetes definition on global surveillance of diabetes prevalence and diagnosis: a pooled analysis of 96 population-based studies with 331…

2015

Diabetes has been defined on the basis of different biomarkers, including fasting plasma glucose (FPG), 2-h plasma glucose in an oral glucose tolerance test (2hOGTT), and HbA1c. We assessed the effect of different diagnostic definitions on both the population prevalence of diabetes and the classification of previously undiagnosed individuals as having diabetes versus not having diabetes in a pooled analysis of data from population-based health examination surveys in different regions.

Standardization trends in medical language in the European Union

2011

Production of mass-separated Erbium-169 towards the first preclinical in vitro investigations

2021

The β−-particle-emitting erbium-169 is a potential radionuclide toward therapy of metastasized cancer diseases. It can be produced in nuclear research reactors, irradiating isotopically-enriched 168Er2O3. This path, however, is not suitable for receptor-targeted radionuclide therapy, where high specific molar activities are required. In this study, an electromagnetic isotope separation technique was applied after neutron irradiation to boost the specific activity by separating 169Er from 168Er targets. The separation efficiency increased up to 0.5% using resonant laser ionization. A subsequent chemical purification process was developed as well as activity standardization of the radionuclid…

Inter-laboratory evaluation of the ISO standard 11063 "Soil quality - Method to directly extract DNA from soil samples"

2011

International audience; Extracting DNA directly from micro-organisms living in soil is a crucial step for the molecular analysis of soil microbial communities. However, the use of a plethora of different soil DNA extraction protocols, each with its own bias, makes accurate data comparison difficult. To overcome this problem, a method for soil DNA extraction was proposed to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2006. This method was evaluated by 13 independent European laboratories actively participating in national and international ring tests. The reproducibility of the standardized method for molecular analyses was evaluated by comparing the amount of DNA extracted, …

Minimum information about a biofilm experiment (MIABiE): standards for reporting experiments and data on sessile microbial communities living at inte…

2014

The minimum information about a biofilm experiment (MIABiE) initiative has arisen from the need to find an adequate and scientifically sound way to control the quality of the documentation accompanying the public deposition of biofilm-related data, particularly those obtained using high-throughput devices and techniques. Thereby, the MIABiE consortium has initiated the identification and organization of a set of modules containing the minimum information that needs to be reported to guarantee the interpretability and independent verification of experimental results and their integration with knowledge coming from other fields. MIABiE does not intend to propose specific standards on how biof…

A human post-mortem brain model for the standardization of multi-centre MRI studies

2015

Multi-centre MRI studies of the brain are essential for enrolling large and diverse patient cohorts, as required for the investigation of heterogeneous neurological and psychiatric diseases. However, the multi-site comparison of standard MRI data sets that are weighted with respect to tissue parameters such as the relaxation times (T1, T2) and proton density (PD) may be problematic, as signal intensities and image contrasts depend on site-specific details such as the sequences used, imaging parameters, and sensitivity profiles of the radiofrequency (RF) coils. Water or gel phantoms are frequently used for long-term and/or inter-site quality assessment. However, these phantoms hardly mimic t…

How to standardize (if you must)

2017

In many situations we are interested in appraising the value of a certain characteristic for a given individual relative to the context in which this value is observed. In recent years this problem has become prominent in the evaluation of scientific productivity and impact. A popular approach to such relative valuations consists in using percentile ranks. This is a purely ordinal method that may sometimes lead to counterintuitive appraisals, in that it discards all information about the distance between the raw values within a given context. By contrast, this information is partly preserved by using standardization, i.e., by transforming the absolute values in such a way that, within the s…

Are Endothelial Progenitor Cells the Real Solution for Cardiovascular Diseases? Focus on Controversies and Perspectives

2015

Advanced knowledge in the field of stem cell biology and their ability to provide a cue for counteracting several diseases are leading numerous researchers to focus their attention on “regenerative medicine” as possible solutions for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). However, the lack of consistent evidence in this arena has hampered the clinical application. The same condition affects the research on endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), creating more confusion than comprehension. In this review, this aspect is discussed with particular emphasis. In particular, we describe biology and physiology of EPCs, outline their clinical relevance as both new predictive, diagnostic, and prognostic CVD b…

1977: Hopes Fulfilled—Building Democracy in Turbulent Economic Times

2020

This chapter offers an analysis of the main economic and institutional transformations in Spain from 1977 onwards. The severe economic and financial crisis that hit Spain in the mid-1970s coincided with the arrival of democracy after Franco’s death and shaped the nature and scope of the implemented reforms (Pactos de la Moncloa). While the crisis and political instability limited the possibility of making a more radical adjustment, the consensus among different social actors, unions and political parties was fundamental to the reforms. This time hopes were fulfilled and although some reforms were left pending, those that were adopted played a seminal role in putting the Spanish economy and …

An aggregate AQI: comparing different standardizations and introducing a variability index

2012

Many studies demonstrate a strong relationship between air pollution and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. For this reason, assessing air pollution, and conveying information about its possible adverse health effects, may encourage population and policy makers to reduce those activities increasing pollution levels. In this paper a relative index of variability, to be associated with the aggregate Air Quality Index (AQI) among pollutants proposed by Ruggieri and Plaia (2011), is developed in order to better investigate air pollution conditions for the whole area of a city/region. The most widely-used and up to date pollution indices, based mainly on AQI computed by the US Environmenta…