For the status of NLM's system reinvention efforts, please see http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/conversion/
The National Library of Medicine has created a Web site aimed at the special needs of the inhabitants of the Arctic. The new site, Arctic Health, has sections devoted to chronic diseases, behavioral issues, traditional medicine, environment/pollution, and environmental justice. It is the first in what may become a series of health information Web sites for special populations and the health professionals who serve them. For more information on the Arctic Health Web site see the press release at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/press_releases/arcticpr01.html.
The National Eye Institute has issued a new Clinical Advisory, Antioxidant Vitamins and Zinc Reduce Risk of Vision Loss from Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Same Nutrients Have No Effect on the Development of Cataract.
A nationwide clinical trial reported that high levels of antioxidants and zinc significantly reduce the risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and its associated vision loss. These same nutrients had no significant effect on the
development or progression of cataract. These findings were reported in the October 2001 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology:
On November 15, 2001, a new version of the NLM Gateway was released. Please see What's New on the NLM Gateway sidebar for details.
The 2002 version of the MeSH vocabulary in ASCII and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) format may now be downloaded at no charge from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/filelist.html after completion of a brief online Memorandum of Understanding. This is the first year that MeSH data are available in XML format. A sample XML file, three MeSH-related DTDs (Document Type Definition), and documentation are also available from this Web site. The three DTDs are: Descriptor DTD for MeSH Heading records, Qualifier DTD for subheading records, and SCR DTD for Supplementary Concept Records (formerly known as Supplementary Chemical Records).
The MeSH files available for download are:
The 2002 MeSH tools may also be ordered from National Technical Information Service (NTIS) in printed format. See the Technical Note in the September-October 2001 issue of the NLM Technical Bulletin, titled MeSH® Tools 2002 Available for Purchase.
[Tree Number Change Made on December 10, 2001: NLM made a last minute change to the 2002 tree number for the MeSH Heading Albania. The 2002 tree number has changed from Z01.542.248.000 to Z01.542.248.020. The MeSH files available for download on Monday December 10, 2001 from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/ include this change.]
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has issued a new Clinical Advisory, Women with Rare Lung Disease Found to Also Have High Prevalence of Meningiomas, First Study to Document Tumor Connection; Possible Hormonal Cause.
Scientists at the NHLB Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) report that women with a rare lung disease known as LAM (lymphangioleiomyomatosis) have a high prevalence of meningiomas, a type of brain tumor.
The study was published in the October 17 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association:
The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) has decided to standardize the names of fields for the Entrez databases, including PubMed. The following changes for field names have been made on the pull-down menu on the Preview/Index screen and also the Fields pull-down menu on the Limits screen.
These new field names have been added as search tags. (Old search tags remain in use.) No changes have been made to the display tags used in the MEDLINE and XML formats.
PubMed's Help has been revised to use the new field names.
On December 17, 2001, a new version of the NLM Gateway was released. Please see What's New on the NLM Gateway sidebar for details.