Abbreviations as Topic: Shortened forms of written words or phrases used for brevity.Dictionaries as Topic: Lists of words, usually in alphabetical order, giving information about form, pronunciation, etymology, grammar, and meaning.Abbreviations: Works consisting of lists of shortened forms of written words or phrases used for brevity. Acronyms are included here.Natural Language Processing: Computer processing of a language with rules that reflect and describe current usage rather than prescribed usage.Unified Medical Language System: A research and development program initiated by the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE to build knowledge sources for the purpose of aiding the development of systems that help health professionals retrieve and integrate biomedical information. The knowledge sources can be used to link disparate information systems to overcome retrieval problems caused by differences in terminology and the scattering of relevant information across many databases. The three knowledge sources are the Metathesaurus, the Semantic Network, and the Specialist Lexicon.MEDLINE: The premier bibliographic database of the NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE. MEDLINE® (MEDLARS Online) is the primary subset of PUBMED and can be searched on NLM's Web site in PubMed or the NLM Gateway. MEDLINE references are indexed with MEDICAL SUBJECT HEADINGS (MeSH).Terminology as Topic: The terms, expressions, designations, or symbols used in a particular science, discipline, or specialized subject area.Abstracting and Indexing as Topic: Activities performed to identify concepts and aspects of published information and research reports.Databases, Bibliographic: Extensive collections, reputedly complete, of references and citations to books, articles, publications, etc., generally on a single subject or specialized subject area. Databases can operate through automated files, libraries, or computer disks. The concept should be differentiated from DATABASES, FACTUAL which is used for collections of data and facts apart from bibliographic references to them.Subject Headings: Terms or expressions which provide the major means of access by subject to the bibliographic unit.Pattern Recognition, Automated: In INFORMATION RETRIEVAL, machine-sensing or identification of visible patterns (shapes, forms, and configurations). (Harrod's Librarians' Glossary, 7th ed)Information Storage and Retrieval: Organized activities related to the storage, location, search, and retrieval of information.Databases as Topic: Organized collections of computer records, standardized in format and content, that are stored in any of a variety of computer-readable modes. They are the basic sets of data from which computer-readable files are created. (from ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983)Biological Ontologies: Structured vocabularies describing concepts from the fields of biology and relationships between concepts.Online Systems: Systems where the input data enter the computer directly from the point of origin (usually a terminal or workstation) and/or in which output data are transmitted directly to that terminal point of origin. (Sippl, Computer Dictionary, 4th ed)Internet: A loose confederation of computer communication networks around the world. The networks that make up the Internet are connected through several backbone networks. The Internet grew out of the US Government ARPAnet project and was designed to facilitate information exchange.Libraries: Collections of systematically acquired and organized information resources, and usually providing assistance to users. (ERIC Thesaurus, http://www.eric.ed.gov/ accessed 2/1/2008)Libraries, MedicalBritish Columbia: A province of Canada on the Pacific coast. Its capital is Victoria. The name given in 1858 derives from the Columbia River which was named by the American captain Robert Gray for his ship Columbia which in turn was named for Columbus. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p178 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p81-2)Health Education: Education that increases the awareness and favorably influences the attitudes and knowledge relating to the improvement of health on a personal or community basis.Health Level Seven: An American National Standards Institute-accredited organization working on specifications to support development and advancement of clinical and administrative standards for healthcare.MichiganGene Library: A large collection of DNA fragments cloned (CLONING, MOLECULAR) from a given organism, tissue, organ, or cell type. It may contain complete genomic sequences (GENOMIC LIBRARY) or complementary DNA sequences, the latter being formed from messenger RNA and lacking intron sequences.Thiophanate: Nematocide used in livestock; also has fungicidal properties.European Union: The collective designation of three organizations with common membership: the European Economic Community (Common Market), the European Coal and Steel Community, and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). It was known as the European Community until 1994. It is primarily an economic union with the principal objectives of free movement of goods, capital, and labor. Professional services, social, medical and paramedical, are subsumed under labor. The constituent countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1997, p842)Advance Directives: Declarations by patients, made in advance of a situation in which they may be incompetent to decide about their own care, stating their treatment preferences or authorizing a third party to make decisions for them. (Bioethics Thesaurus)Crops, Agricultural: Cultivated plants or agricultural produce such as grain, vegetables, or fruit. (From American Heritage Dictionary, 1982)Pesticide Residues: Pesticides or their breakdown products remaining in the environment following their normal use or accidental contamination.Biological Science Disciplines: All of the divisions of the natural sciences dealing with the various aspects of the phenomena of life and vital processes. The concept includes anatomy and physiology, biochemistry and biophysics, and the biology of animals, plants, and microorganisms. It should be differentiated from BIOLOGY, one of its subdivisions, concerned specifically with the origin and life processes of living organisms.Food, Genetically Modified: Food derived from genetically modified organisms (ORGANISMS, GENETICALLY MODIFIED).Video Games: A form of interactive entertainment in which the player controls electronically generated images that appear on a video display screen. This includes video games played in the home on special machines or home computers, and those played in arcades.WingNew Zealand: A group of islands in the southwest Pacific. Its capital is Wellington. It was discovered by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in 1642 and circumnavigated by Cook in 1769. Colonized in 1840 by the New Zealand Company, it became a British crown colony in 1840 until 1907 when colonial status was terminated. New Zealand is a partly anglicized form of the original Dutch name Nieuw Zeeland, new sea land, possibly with reference to the Dutch province of Zeeland. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p842 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p378)Birds: Warm-blooded VERTEBRATES possessing FEATHERS and belonging to the class Aves.Software: Sequential operating programs and data which instruct the functioning of a digital computer.Myanmar: A republic of southeast Asia, northwest of Thailand, long familiar as Burma. Its capital is Yangon, formerly Rangoon. Inhabited by people of Mongolian stock and probably of Tibetan origin, by the 3d century A.D. it was settled by Hindus. The modern Burmese state was founded in the 18th century but was in conflict with the British during the 19th century. Made a crown colony of Great Britain in 1937, it was granted independence in 1947. In 1989 it became Myanmar. The name comes from myanma, meaning the strong, as applied to the Burmese people themselves. (From Webster's New Geographical Dictionary, 1988, p192 & Room, Brewer's Dictionary of Names, 1992, p367)Human Rights: The rights of the individual to cultural, social, economic, and educational opportunities as provided by society, e.g., right to work, right to education, and right to social security.Thailand: Formerly known as Siam, this is a Southeast Asian nation at the center of the Indochina peninsula. Bangkok is the capital city.Human Rights Abuses: Deliberate maltreatment of groups of humans beings including violations of generally-accepted fundamental rights as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948.Refugees: Persons fleeing to a place of safety, especially those who flee to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution in their own country or habitual residence because of race, religion, or political belief. (Webster, 3d ed)Protein Biosynthesis: The biosynthesis of PEPTIDES and PROTEINS on RIBOSOMES, directed by MESSENGER RNA, via TRANSFER RNA that is charged with standard proteinogenic AMINO ACIDS.Food Supply: The production and movement of food items from point of origin to use or consumption.Tissue Engineering: Generating tissue in vitro for clinical applications, such as replacing wounded tissues or impaired organs. The use of TISSUE SCAFFOLDING enables the generation of complex multi-layered tissues and tissue structures.Protein Engineering: Procedures by which protein structure and function are changed or created in vitro by altering existing or synthesizing new structural genes that direct the synthesis of proteins with sought-after properties. Such procedures may include the design of MOLECULAR MODELS of proteins using COMPUTER GRAPHICS or other molecular modeling techniques; site-specific mutagenesis (MUTAGENESIS, SITE-SPECIFIC) of existing genes; and DIRECTED MOLECULAR EVOLUTION techniques to create new genes.Genetic Engineering: Directed modification of the gene complement of a living organism by such techniques as altering the DNA, substituting genetic material by means of a virus, transplanting whole nuclei, transplanting cell hybrids, etc.Metabolic Engineering: Methods and techniques used to genetically modify cells' biosynthetic product output and develop conditions for growing the cells as BIOREACTORS.Biomedical Engineering: Application of principles and practices of engineering science to biomedical research and health care.Tissue Scaffolds: Cell growth support structures composed of BIOCOMPATIBLE MATERIALS. They are specially designed solid support matrices for cell attachment in TISSUE ENGINEERING and GUIDED TISSUE REGENERATION uses.Bioengineering: The application of engineering principles and methods to living organisms or biological systems.Swimming PoolsHealth ResortsDisease Outbreaks: Sudden increase in the incidence of a disease. The concept includes EPIDEMICS and PANDEMICS.Legionellosis: Infections with bacteria of the genus LEGIONELLA.Population Surveillance: Ongoing scrutiny of a population (general population, study population, target population, etc.), generally using methods distinguished by their practicability, uniformity, and frequently their rapidity, rather than by complete accuracy.Gastrointestinal Diseases: Diseases in any segment of the GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT from ESOPHAGUS to RECTUM.