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Jan 17 2014

Food, Diet & Nutrition: Popular Subject, Difficult PubMed Search

By Eric Rumsey and Janna Lawrence

In December, Altmetric published a list of the most popular research papers of 2013 <http://www.altmetric.com/top100>. The Altmetric site has developed a method to quantify popularity by using social media and traditional media to measure the “buzz” about particular articles. Of the top 64 articles on the altmetric list, a surprisingly high 19% of them (12 articles) are on food, diet and nutrition (FDN). In comparison, by our count the number of citations in the top 64 for other popular topics are: Brain/Neuro 9, Sleep 5, Heart/Cardio 3, and Cancer 3.

The popularity of FDN strikes us especially because we have recently written on this blog about the difficulty of searching FDN subjects in PubMed. The Altmetric list provides a good opportunity to test our ideas on FDN subjects that are identified by Altmetric data as being especially  popular.

Shown below are the 12 articles in the top 64 articles in the Altmetric ranking that are on FDN, with PubMed links and FDN-related MeSH terms that are used for each of the articles (the asterisk after some headings indicates that the subject is given major emphasis in the article). At the end of the list, we’ll have a few brief comments on MeSH indexing problems.

FDN-related articles on the Altmetric Top 100 Research Articles of 2013

#2 (See comments on this article at bottom)
Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet
New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23432189
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Diet, Fat-Restricted
Diet, Mediterranean*
Dietary Supplements
Nuts*
Plant Oils*

#8
Association of Nut Consumption with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality
New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24256379
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Diet*
Diet Surveys
Nuts*

#15 (See comments on this article at bottom)
Impact of insufficient sleep on total daily energy expenditure, food intake, and weight gain
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23479616
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Eating/physiology*
Weight Gain/physiology*

#19
The Autopsy of Chicken Nuggets Reads “Chicken Little”
The American Journal of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24035124
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Dietary Fats/analysis
Dietary Proteins/analysis
Fast Foods/analysis*
Poultry Products/analysis*

#23
Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity
New England Journal of Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23363498
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Breast Feeding
Diet, Reducing
Obesity*/physiopathology
Obesity*/prevention & control
Obesity*/therapy
Weight Loss*

#26
Prospective Study of Breakfast Eating and Incident Coronary Heart Disease in a Cohort of Male US Health Professionals
Circulation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23877060
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Breakfast*
Food Habits*

#33
DNA barcoding detects contamination and substitution in North American herbal products
BMC Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24120035
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Not yet indexed

#38
Persistence of Salmonella and E. coli on the surface of restaurant menus
Journal of Environmental Health
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23505769
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Food Microbiology*
Foodborne Diseases/microbiology
Foodborne Diseases/prevention & control*

#54
Meat consumption and mortality – results from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23497300
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Diet/adverse effects*
Feeding Behavior*
Meat*
Nutrition Surveys

#58
The Relationship of Sugar to Population-Level Diabetes Prevalence: An Econometric Analysis of Repeated Cross-Sectional Data
PLOS ONE OPEN ACCESS
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23460912
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Carbohydrates/analysis*
Obesity/epidemiology

#60
Inverse relationship of food and alcohol intake to sleep measures in obesity
Nutrition & Diabetes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23357877
FDN-related MeSH terms:
This journal is not currently indexed in PubMed/MEDLINE

#64 (See comments on this article at bottom)
Intestinal microbiota metabolism of l-carnitine, a nutrient in red meat, promotes atherosclerosis
Nature Medicine
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23563705
FDN-related MeSH terms:
Meat

Our comments on the Altmetric list

The twelve FDN citations in the Altmetric rankings cluster around three subjects – Plant-based foods: #2, #8, # 33; Obesity & Weight Gain: #15, #23, #58, #60; and Meat: #19, #54, #64. In a brief examination of the list, we can see that there are MeSH problems in each of these areas, most notably in these citations, one in each of the three clusters:

  • Plant-Based Foods – #2 (Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease with a Mediterranean Diet) – Olive oil, a major top of this article, is indexed in MeSH as Plant Oils. This is not in the Food explosion, or any other FDN explosion, so it’s not picked up by a comprehensive search for FDN subjects.
  • Obesity and Weight Gain – #15 (Impact of insufficient sleep on … food intake, and weight gain). This is indexed in MeSH as Weight gain, and not as Obesity. The latter term is retrieved by a broad FDN search because it’s in the Nutrition disorders explosion. The seemingly closely-related term Weight gain is not in that explosion, and is therefore not retrieved in a broad FDN search.
  • Meat – #64 (Intestinal microbiota metabolism of … red meat, promotes atherosclerosis) – “Red Meat” is generally considered to be beef, pork and lamb – Because none of these has separate MeSH terms, the article is indexed only as Meat. This is a problem because when that term is searched in PubMed, it is automatically exploded, and the exploded heading includes not just meat, but also fish and poultry. Even searching for Meat as an unexploded MeSH term retrieves some articles for poultry and fish.

We have written previously on the problems of searching in PubMed for Plant-Based Foods. We will write in the future here on the other topics above – Obesity and Meat.

Acknowledgements:

  • Thanks to Colby Vorland (‏@nutsci) who first noted in a tweet the popularity of FDN in the Altmetric ranking.
  • Thanks to Chris Shaffer, for a close reading of our article and useful comments.
Jan 17 2014

Improve Your Research Skills with PubMed: Going Beyond the Basics

PubMed is the National Library of Medicine’s index to medical literature and includes over 22 million bibliographic citations in life sciences. This one-hour session will show you how to improve your search results by using subject headings (MeSH) and advanced keyword searching techniques.

Our next session takes place:

Tuesday, January 21 from 9-10 am (Location: Hardin Library East Information Commons)

This session is free for UI students and affiliates.

Full schedule? Check out our PubMed tutorial.

 

Jan 15 2014

Women on the Chautauqua Circuit: Winsome Lasses and Ardent Advocates

This post by Kären Mason, Curator of the Iowa Women’s Archives, was originally written for Akashic Books.

Chautauqua was an eagerly anticipated event in towns across the United States in the early 20th century. Huge tents were erected and a variety of speakers, performances, and children’s activities took place over the week the Chautauqua was in town. Red Oak, Iowa even constructed a permanent Chautauqua Pavilion in 1907, which is still standing and reputed to be the largest covered pavilion west of the Mississippi.

Many women lectured or performed on the Chautauqua circuit. Some, like Marian Elliot Adams, the main character of Unmentionables, lectured on women’s reform issues. Women’s suffrage was a popular topic in the years leading up to 1920, when the 19th Amendment at long last gave women the vote. Chautauqua provided an important venue for reformers to reach audiences all across the country.

Photo-1

Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) became an ardent suffragist while in high school and served as a field secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association after college. She advocated for suffrage and other reforms as a Chautauqua lecturer and was billed as “a fluent speaker sure to interest her audiences.” In 1916 she became the first woman elected to Congress, only possible because Montana had granted its women the right to vote in 1914.

While Jeannette Rankin and the fictional Marian Elliot Adams were very serious about promoting women’s issues on the Chautauqua stage, other women viewed Chautauqua as a lark. During the summer of 1926 Abbie McHenry (Romey) (1905-1994), a University of Iowa student, performed throughout the Midwest with five other students known as the Metropolitan Players. “Most of the audience turned its applause to Abbie Ann,” wrote a reporter in Greensburg, Indiana, charmed by the winsome lass he called “Amiable Abbie Ann.”  She recorded the summer’s travels in a diary and scrapbook, now in the Iowa Women’s Archives.

Abbie Ann McHenry’s sketch of the
platform manager in Kokomo, Indiana,
July 12, 1926.
 

Katharine La Sheck

For Katharine La Sheck (1891-1971), who had grown up in Iowa City, Iowa, Chautauqua offered a venue for showcasing her musical and theatrical talents. From 1911-1920 she performed with The College Girls and the Marigold Quartette, singing, acting, dancing, and playing musical instruments. Booked by the Redpath Chautauqua, the College Girls travelled to Panama in 1913 and 1914 to entertain Americans working on the canal, and performed on the cruise ships of the United Fruit Company Steamship Service.

Picture-4        Picture-5

The Marigolds let their hair down

And have fun with some fellow travelers.

To learn more about Chautauqua, visit the website Traveling Culture: Circuit Chautauqua in the Twentieth Century.

 

Picture-7All photographs from the Iowa Women’s Archives and Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.  Do not reproduce without permission. Contact the Iowa Women’s Archives at lib-women@uiowa.edu or the Special Collections Department at lib-spec@uiowa.edu.

Jan 13 2014

AccessMedicine and AccessPharmacy Changes

Last week, McGraw-Hill released new versions of AccessMedicine and AccessPharmacy.  Because of this, some of the links to electronic books in the InfoHawk and Smart Search catalogs no longer work.  We are aware of this and are working to fix it.  In the meantime, if you are looking for a book whose link no longer works and you know you previously used it in either AccessMedicine or AccessPharmacy, you can go directly into the resource from the link under Popular Resources on Hardin’s home page.  Once you are in AccessMedicine or AccessPharmacy, click on Readings.  From the Readings page, you will see thumbnails of book covers, arranged alphabetically. Click on the cover of the book you are looking for to go into it.

At this point, we know of three  books which has been removed from AccessMedicine:

  • Current Diagnosis and Treatment in Orthopedics (Hardin owns this in print.  Call number RD 734 .C87 2006)
  • Current Diagnosis and Treatment Otolaryngology (We have ordered a print copy of this title, since electronic access is no longer feasible.)
  • Smith’s General Urology, 17th ed. (Hardin owns print of this edition and of the 18th edition, which is on Permanent Reserve.  Call number RC 871 .S5  2013)

If you have questions about these changes, please contact your liaison, or the Hardin Library Reference staff at 319-335-9151 or lib-hardin@uiowa.edu.

Jan 9 2014

Our daughter sends a kiss to “Ucco Frank and Autie Cuvver” she can say “Dixie dress” as plain as any baby can

Joseph Culver Letter, January 9, 1864, Page 1Pontiac Jan 1st 1864

Dear Brother & Sister

I feel ashamed of myself for not writing to you before this time, and also for not thanking you, for our daughter, for the beautiful present she received from you. She sends a kiss to “Ucco Frank and Autie Cuvver” she can say “Dixie dress” as plain as any baby can, it is a beautiful color. I had just made her one, I will send you a sample, it was 60 cts per yd. in Mr. Maxwells store, (Mr. (Henry Babcocks) I dont think I will make up her “Dixie dress” this winter for she has plenty without it, besides, it is too nice a dress for her to wear until she gets old enough to keep off the floor, and take care of it better than she can now. Accept our thanks for it. I shall endeavor to have her keep it a long time to remember the donors by. She often speaks of Dear little Frankie, nearly every day she says something about him, one day when she was playing and talking to herself she said “Poor Frankie dead – Frankie gone – heaven – sky – moon – God – is.” Albert makes me think so much of the time when he was here last winter. Albert has the whooping-cough now, has had it about five weeks, he does not cough as hard as Mary did I am in hopes he has the worst over, although I presume he will cough some all winter.

I am my own “[Briget?]” now, and have been for about six weeks, and will be for the next six months and longer if it is a possible thing. Oh! it is so much pleasenter to be alone with my Husband and Babies, besides I feel that I ought to be as economical these hard times as possible, Nancy charged us $1,50 per week, that was a little too much to give for our family.

We are having extremely cold weather now, and have had for a fortnight some of the time we didnt pretend to do anything except to get something to eat and keep warm; last week we had two of the coldest days I ever knew, There was a great deal of suffering in Chicago and on the railroads. We have good sleighing but it is a little too cold to enjoy it much. Mollie do you remember last Christmas eve and day? I mean the last you spent here, you have been in my mind many times during the last three weeks. I had a new dress, (when I cut it I will send you a sample) and a new cloak black cloth cut circular trimed with silk up the front I am going to have a new bonnet I dont know what it will be, whatever L. may choose, the other articles are of his choosing, this dont look much like being economical but I really needed a cloak and bonnet and when I save I dont have such a guilty conscience when I spend only the day before yesterday I sent 4 lbs. of butter to town and got a gal. of Kerosine at 75 cts, and a whole 25 cts over, Old “Flora cow” gives about [2?] qts in a day, while Nancy was here, we made only enough butter for ourselves, since I attend to the milk myself I have had plenty to eat and cook with and packed nearly 15 lbs besides so you see it is not in her wages alone that I am saving but in board and almost every thing I wish you could have a cake of my nice frozen milk that so many are so glad to get in town.

Leander is in town today he is improving the sleighing in breaking colts, he commenced a letter to Frank awhile ago and I am sure I could not tell you whether it is finished or not.

I have not much news to write as I am not in town very often, Mrs. Fellows is in Mr. Dye’s I went to call on her, but she had just gone to visit Mrs. Joe Dehner who has a young son 4 weeks old.

I hope to hear from one or both of you very soon I must close for mother wants me to write for her Accept much love My Dear Brother & sister

from your Aff Sister
Maggie A Utley

P.S. Frank did you ever get the package that I sent you out of your secratary. I am anxious to know. I mailed it the next day after receiving your letter

Jan 8 2014

Asitha Jayawardena: “Expedited ‘Diffusion of Innovation’: A Reflection on the Ponseti Method in the current era of medicine”

The University of Iowa History of Medicine Society invites you to hear: Asitha Jayawardena on Thursday, January 23 from 5:30-6:30 in Room 401.

Sparks Essay Contest winner and College of Medicine Student Jayawardena will describe the history and cultural context of clubfoot and treatments developed by Dr. Ignacio Ponseti. He will then describe diffusion theory as Ponseti’s treatment spread through the world. Visit the UI History of Medicine Society for more info or call Donna Hirst in the Rare Book Room at 335-9154.

Photo: Exciting new voices are coming to the Rare Book Room at Hardin!</p> <p>The University of Iowa History of Medicine Society invites you to hear Asitha Jayawardena, College of Medicine student and winner of the Sparks Essay Contest, on the history and diffusion of the Ponseti Method for treating clubfoot. This event will be held in Room 401 from 5:30-6:30 on Thursday, January 23.” src=”https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/1528692_10152101790824350_1771015885_n.jpg” width=”185″ height=”241″ /></p> </div><!-- .entry-content --> <footer class= Posted byBryanne EstesPosted inCombo

Jan 8 2014

Upstairs and downstairs in historic cookbooks

Anne Bayne cookbook, circa 1700 | Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks

Anne Bayne cookbook, circa 1700 | Szathmary Culinary Manuscripts and Cookbooks

While “Downton Abbey” fans tune in to season 4 in record numbers and our Special Collections department celebrates with an exhibition of period cookbooks, volunteers at the Libraries’ DIY History crowdsourcing site continue to transcribe historic recipes handwritten by real-life Mrs. Patmores.

Notes on how to “send up” a dish – a final step in some of the recipes from our Szathmary collection of manuscript cookbooks – might seem a little mysterious to the uninitiated. But “Downton Abbey” viewers have become familiar with the geography of meal preparation in historic upper-class households, with servants cooking elaborate dishes in kitchens located below stairs, then presenting them with fanfare in the dining room above.

For food historians, tracking down specific information like this in the Szathmary collection used to involve countless hours skimming thousands of hard-to-read manuscript pages. Now, thanks to the painstaking efforts of our volunteer transcribers who provide data for full text searches, it can be found in seconds.

Below we present a few of our favorite “send it up” examples, in case anyone wants to get fancy and “stik a light flower in the centre” of dinner tonight.

To frigasy rabbits (Anne Bayne cookbook, circa 1700)
…when you send it up put in 2 or 3 spoonfulls of white wine so serve it up. if you would have it a browne frigasy. You must take it out of your pan after it is boiled & fry it browne & strain in some broth. After you have powdered it put in your butter you fryed it in & grate in a little nutmeg & work up a little butter in a little flower & shake all well together. So dish it up with what pickles you please.

Gravi sase for torkie chickins pollits Ducks wild & tame & all sorts of wild fowle & hare & venson (Penelope Pemberton cookbook, 1716)
…send it up in poringers: ye venson & hare must have gravis sase in ye dish: ye tong & uder nothing I had forgot to tel yu: yu must sweeten ye venson sase with powder suger to yr tast: not to sweet.

Savoury Sauce for a Rosted Goose (English cookbook, 1799)
… pour this into the body of the goose by a slit in the apron just before you send it up.

Raspberry Cream (Susan Gilbert cookbook, 1848-1887)
…put the remainder of your cream into a deep china dish and your frothed cream upon it as high as it will lie on. Stik a light flower in the centre & send it up. It is proper for a middle at supper, or corner at dinner.

View more results

Transcribe handwritten cookbooks at DIY History

Jan 7 2014

New Resource: Astronomy Image Explorer

Astronomy Image Explorer: http://www.astroexplorer.org/.

“The Astronomy Image Explorer (AIE) has been designed as a convenient and efficient tool for researchers working in the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics to gain access to images published in peer-reviewed journals.  At its launch in December of 2013, the AIE was populated with hundreds of thousands of images published in the journals of the American Astronomical Society.”

Jan 2 2014

Study: 1990s Research Data Lost

From MSN News: “According to a study by Timothy H. Vines, et al. titled ‘The Availability of Research Data Declines Rapidly with Article Age,’ published last week in Current Biology, most raw data from scientific papers published twenty years ago is unobtainable – either because authors have since changed their contact information and can’t be reached or because the data was stored using outdated technology, like floppy disks.”

This study confirms the importance of policies requiring proper archiving of research data. For more information about data archiving, please contact the Sciences Library.