ShareThis


Friday, March 22, 2013

The Rare Disease Search Engine That Outperforms Google | MIT Technology Review

Logo of the Office of Rare Diseases, part of t...
Logo of Office of Rare Diseases, part of United States National Institutes of Health. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Rare Disease Search Engine That Outperforms Google | MIT Technology Review


Exerpt:

"The problem (using google to search for rare diseases), of course, is that  common-or-garden search engines are not optimised for this process. Google, for example, considers pages important if they are linked to by other important pages, the basis of its famous PageRank algorithm. However, rare diseases by definition are unlikely to have a high profile on the web. What’s more, searches are likely to be plagued with returns from all sorts of irrelevant sources.

Although still a research project, Dragusin and co have made their rare disease search engine publicly available at www.findzebra.com. This could clearly become a valuable tool for the medical community.

What is less clear, however, is how this tool will be used by the general public. The site comes with the forlorn message: “Warning! FindZebra is a research project and it is to be used only by medical professionals” ."

Read the full article here.
Enhanced by Zemanta

0 comments:

About Onco-PRN

Welcome and thanks for visiting Onco-P.R.N. - The oncology website with a focus on all things oncology pharmacy/pain/palliative care-related. It is intended to be an information resource for those pharmacist and relevant health care professionals involved in whatever fashion with cancer and palliative care. Stay tuned for the latest and greatest links and information with respect to: oncology medications, continuing education, pharmaceutical care initiatives, pain and symptom control, supportive care topics, and whatever else that might fit into the theme.

*Note: This website is not affiliated with Alberta Health Services (AHS) or CAPhO and the opinions expressed herewithin are that of the author(s).

Pharmacy History

"The earliest known compilation of medicinal substances was ARIANA the Sushruta Samhita, an Indian Ayurvedic treatise attributed to Sushruta in the 6th century BC. However, the earliest text as preserved dates to the 3rd or 4th century AD.
Many Sumerian (late 6th millennium BC - early 2nd millennium BC) cuneiform clay tablets record prescriptions for medicine.[3]

Ancient Egyptian pharmacological knowledge was recorded in various papyri such as the Ebers Papyrus of 1550 BC, and the Edwin Smith Papyrus of the 16th century BC.

The earliest known Chinese manual on materia medica is the Shennong Bencao Jing (The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic), dating back to the 1st century AD. It was compiled during the Han dynasty and was attributed to the mythical Shennong. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by a manuscript "Recipes for 52 Ailments", found in the Mawangdui tomb, sealed in 168 BC. Further details on Chinese pharmacy can be found in the Pharmacy in China article."

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacy#History_of_pharmacy

Medscape Pharmacists Headlines

  © Blogger templates Newspaper III by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP