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PubMed2003

Classifying client goals in community-based ABI rehabilitation: a taxonomy for profiling service delivery and conceptualizing outcomes.

PURPOSE: To develop, confirm and trial a framework for analysing the content of goals set within community-based rehabilitation. This framework (taxonomy) is proposed as a tool to assist in service evaluation and outcome exploration. METHOD: Qualitative thematic analysis and categorization of 1765 rehabilitation goal statements in a four phase process of synthesis, refinement, verification and application. RESULTS: A taxonomy of goal content was developed comprising 21 categories within five domains, utilizing 125 descriptors. The taxonomy demonstrated good inter-rater consistency and was able to discriminate between similar but related data sets comprising goal statements. CONCLUSION: Structured analysis of the content of goal setting (particularly in community rehabilitation) utilizing a framework such as the proposed taxonomy has considerable potential as a 'window' into service delivery to broaden the parameters of existing service evaluation and to more clearly link outcome exploration to intervention.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed2001

Taxonomy workbench.

UNLABELLED: At advanced stages of working with user-defined protein and gene sequence collections, it is frequently necessary to link these data to the taxonomic tree and to extract subsets in accordance with taxonomic considerations. Since no general automatic tools had been available, this was a tedious manual effort. Our taxonomy workbench allows processing of sequence sets, mapping of these sets onto the taxonomic tree, collection of taxonomic subsets from them and printing of the whole tree or some part of it. As a side effect, the system enables queries to and navigation within the taxonomy database. AVAILABILITY: An implementation of the taxonomy workbench is accessible for public use as a www-service at http://mendel.imp.univie.ac.at/taxonomy/. Software components for the command-line and for the www-version are available on request. CONTACT: Georg.Schneider@nt.imp.univie.ac.at; Frank.Eisenhaber@nt.imp.univie.ac.at SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Documentation for the taxonomy workbench can be accessed at http://mendel.imp.univie.ac.at/taxonomy/help.html.

Databases, Nucleic Acid↗

PubMed1995

Molecular biology as a tool for taxonomy.

Bacterial taxonomy based on phenotypic properties has encountered several problems: many organisms grow to poorly under laboratory conditions to be studied; the same phenotypic property often arises independently in more than one branch of a phylogenetic tree; and phenotypic schemes sometimes become unwieldy. Thus, molecular approaches have found a niche in taxonomy. Measurement of DNA hybridization between strains is the single most definitive tool for defining a species. Data on sequences of DNA and amino acids can be used to infer phylogeny. The molecular phylogenetic approach is most useful at levels ranging from kingdom to species. Restriction fragment length polymorphisms or variability in random polymerase chain reactions often differentiates strains. In the majority of cases, different molecular approaches tend to confirm established taxonomic schemes for bacteria. However, discrepancies between standard taxonomy and molecular data are not rare, especially when dealing with anaerobes. The contemporary approach to taxonomy takes into account both standard and molecular data.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2002

Development and use of a taxonomy to carry out a systematic review of the literature on methods described to effect distal movement of maxillary molars.

OBJECTIVE: To devise a taxonomy for the assessment of the orthodontic literature on methods described to effect distal movement of maxillary molars, to test the taxonomy for inter-assessor reliability, and to use it to classify studies in a systematic review of the literature. DATA SOURCES: Articles appearing in the American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Angle Orthodontist, (British) Journal of Orthodontics, European Journal of Orthodontics, and the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics between 1988 and 1998. Data selection Articles describing or evaluating the effect of appliances known or thought to have a distalizing effect on maxillary molars. DATA EXTRACTION: A taxonomy was designed, tested by two reviewers independently to assess levels of agreement, and then used to record the features of the articles in a systematic review of the literature. DATA SYNTHESIS: Kappa scores were used to assess the level of agreement between reviewers and found to be satisfactory. Studies were grouped according to study design and features of their methodology quantified. CONCLUSIONS: Having devised and tested the taxonomy, we found that the quality of evidence for any method of moving maxillary molars distally was not high.

Humans↗

PubMed2000

A taxonomy of community-based medical education.

The authors propose a classification of community-based education (CBE) as it is implemented all over the world. To create this taxonomy, they used reports in the literature of 31 active programs in many locations. A CBE program is an instructional program carried out in a community context, outside the academic hospital. The authors distinguish between programs that are developed primarily to provide services to an underserved community; programs that have a research focus; and programs that have as their primary goal the (clinical) training of students. These three major types can be subdivided in six minor types, among them community development programs, health intervention programs, and simple community-exposure programs. The ultimate goal of creating the taxonomy is to contribute to the development of a theory of CBE and provide a more systematic way to study CBE. In addition, the proposed taxonomy clearly demonstrates the various ways in which medical schools, their staffs, and their students can become involved with the communities served. CBE is not a unitary concept but a set of attempts to contribute to the quality of life in a particular community and, at the same time, create conditions for students to acquire hands-on understanding of the nature of the problems to be faced in future professional practice, and to develop relevant skills. The taxonomy also enables those involved in the development of CBE programs in their medical schools to see alternative approaches, which will help them choose the approaches that fit their particular educational goals. Last, it demonstrates the intricacies involved in the implementation of CBE, in particular the complexity of building a learning environment that is productive for students and, at the same time, responsive to community needs.

Community Medicine↗

PubMed2005

Toward a taxonomy of assistive technology device outcomes.

The advancement of assistive technology device (ATD) outcomes research requires a substantive taxonomy for ATD outcomes. This article describes the assumptions and principles that should underlie such a taxonomy. It advocates for an approach to classifying outcomes that would promote consistency in how ATDs are distinguished, based on their intended effect on the user. The approach is designed to accommodate the widest variety of ATD applications, reflecting combinations of user population, ATD type, service, and context for use. In essence, the provisional taxonomy proposes that ATD outcomes can be effectively operationalized from three vantages--effectiveness, social significance, and subjective well-being. It emphasizes a distinction between the proximal effect of ATDs and the more distal outcomes associated with their use. Because it promotes consistency in the language used for categorizing outcomes, the taxonomic approach should facilitate the development of ATD-specific causal models. The utility of a taxonomy in ATD outcomes research is discussed.

Persons with Disabilities↗

PubMed2004

Unitary or unified taxonomy?

Taxonomic data form a substantial, but scattered, resource. The alternative to such a fragmented system is a 'unitary' one of preferred, consensual classifications. For effective access and distribution the (Web) revision for a given taxon would be established at a single Internet site. Although all the international codes of nomenclature currently preclude the Internet as a valid medium of publication, elements of unitary taxonomy (UT) still exist in the paper system. Much taxonomy, unitary or not, already resides on the Web. Arguments for and against adopting a unitary approach are considered and a resolution is attempted. Rendering taxonomy essentially Web-based is as inevitable as it is desirable. Apparently antithetical to the UT proposal is the view that in reality multiple classifications of the same taxon exist, since different taxonomists often hold different concepts of their taxa: a single name may apply to many different (frequently overlapping) circumscriptions and more than one name to a single taxon. However, novel means are being developed on single Internet sites to retain the diversity of multiple concepts for taxa, providing hope that taxonomy may become established as a Web-based information discipline that will unify the discipline and facilitate data access.

Biodiversity↗

PubMed2004

Taxonomy and environmental policy.

In 1992, with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro and the subsequent Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the world changed for the science of taxonomy. Many taxonomists appear not to have noticed this change, but it has significantly altered the political climate in which taxonomic research is undertaken. By the late 1990s it was clear that effective implementation of the CBD needed the participation of and funding for the taxonomic community. In this paper, I chart the rise of the Global Taxonomy Initiative (GTI), review some of its goals and explore how it interacts with the CBD. The interactions of the GTI with the Global Environment Facility, a potential funding body, are explored, as are the possible synergies between the GTI and the many other global initiatives linking to taxonomy. Finally, I explore some of the challenges ahead as taxonomy begins to take a front seat in the implementation of environmental policy on the world stage.

Biodiversity↗

PubMed2006

An empirically derived taxonomy of factors affecting physicians' willingness to disclose medical errors.

BACKGROUND: Physician disclosure of medical errors to institutions, patients, and colleagues is important for patient safety, patient care, and professional education. However, the variables that may facilitate or impede disclosure are diverse and lack conceptual organization. OBJECTIVE: To develop an empirically derived, comprehensive taxonomy of factors that affects voluntary disclosure of errors by physicians. DESIGN: A mixed-methods study using qualitative data collection (structured literature search and exploratory focus groups), quantitative data transformation (sorting and hierarchical cluster analysis), and validation procedures (confirmatory focus groups and expert review). RESULTS: Full-text review of 316 articles identified 91 impeding or facilitating factors affecting physicians' willingness to disclose errors. Exploratory focus groups identified an additional 27 factors. Sorting and hierarchical cluster analysis organized factors into 8 domains. Confirmatory focus groups and expert review relocated 6 factors, removed 2 factors, and modified 4 domain names. The final taxonomy contained 4 domains of facilitating factors (responsibility to patient, responsibility to self, responsibility to profession, responsibility to community), and 4 domains of impeding factors (attitudinal barriers, uncertainties, helplessness, fears and anxieties). CONCLUSIONS: A taxonomy of facilitating and impeding factors provides a conceptual framework for a complex field of variables that affects physicians' willingness to disclose errors to institutions, patients, and colleagues. This taxonomy can be used to guide the design of studies to measure the impact of different factors on disclosure, to assist in the design of error-reporting systems, and to inform educational interventions to promote the disclosure of errors to patients.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1993

The NIC taxonomy structure. Iowa Intervention Project.

Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to construct a three level taxonomy of nursing interventions. The top level consists of six domains; the second level consists of 26 classes; and the third level consists of 357 interventions. The taxonomy is the organizing framework for the recently published Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC). This article reports the research done to construct the taxonomy and advantages for its use. The taxonomy has applications for clinicians, educators, scholars and health policy makers.

Cluster Analysis↗

PubMed1990

Suitability of Krathwohl's affective taxonomy for evaluating patient attitudes to dental care.

The aims were to develop a questionnaire for dental health education based on Krathwohl's taxonomy, which measures the affective domain, and to examine correlations between the attitude determined by this questionnaire and sex, age, education, and dental behavior. The material consisted of young and middle-aged persons, 206 women and 183 men, visiting two occupational health centers in Oulu. The questionnaire comprised four questions under each of three headings: preventive dentistry, gingivitis, and dental check-up. The questions under each heading were formulated to correspond to given levels in Krathwohl's taxonomy. Factor analysis showed the questionnaire to be valid and suitable for studying different levels of the affective domain. Krathwohl's taxonomy includes the notion of cumulative adoption of a value, and Guttman scaling was used to show the cumulativeness of the scales. Groups of persons with the most and least positive attitudes were identified, 83% of the patients with the most positive attitude having visited a dentist within a year, whereas 65% of those with the least positive attitude had last done so more than 2 yr earlier. The women had a more positive attitude than the men, but education was not a decisive factor in determining attitude. All the persons with the most positive attitude were over 25 yr old. It was concluded that it was possible to formulate a questionnaire on the basis of Krathwohl's taxonomy which would measure attitudes towards dental care and that it is possible to use this questionnaire in practical situations in order to help the dentist to instruct his patients.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Taxonomy of nursing practice: adding an administrative domain.

PURPOSE: To propose the addition of a fifth domain, Administrative, to the Taxonomy of Nursing Practice, and to introduce the related concept of organization nursing diagnoses. DATA SOURCES: The Taxonomy of Nursing Practice, organizational and nursing management/leadership literature, experience of the authors. DATA SYNTHESIS: Analyzing the concept of a taxonomy to capture nursing practice revealed an omission of the management/leadership roles assumed by nurses in organizational, nurse manager, and staff nurse practice levels. To incorporate this administrative practice, an additional domain, Administrative, was developed. Nursing diagnoses were oriented to the organization as client, hence the addition of organization nursing diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS: Including an Administrative Domain in the Taxonomy of Nursing Practice will cover the scope of nursing practice and will provide a basis for developing the diagnoses for which nurses are accountable within organizations. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Nurses' contributions to healthcare organizational function and their effect on patient care outcomes will be made more explicit and can more readily be measured with terminology that captures the nursing administrative roles at three levels of practice.

Humans↗

PubMed2005

Towards a genome-based taxonomy for prokaryotes.

The ranks higher than the species in the prokaryotic taxonomy are primarily designated based on phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequences, but no definite standards exist for the absolute relatedness (measured by 16S rRNA or other means) between the ranks. Accordingly, it remains unknown how comparable the ranks are between different organisms. To gain insights into this question, we studied the relationship between shared gene content and genetic relatedness for 175 fully sequenced strains, using as a robust measure of relatedness the average amino acid identity (AAI) of the shared genes. Our results reveal that adjacent ranks (e.g., phylum versus class) frequently show extensive overlap in terms of genetic and gene content relatedness of the grouped organisms, and hence, the current system is of limited predictive power in this respect. The overlap between nonadjacent ranks (e.g., phylum versus family) is generally limited and attributable to clear inconsistencies of the taxonomy. In addition to providing means for standardizing taxonomy, our AAI-based approach provides a means to evaluate the robustness of alternative genetic markers for phylogenetic purposes. For instance, the 23S rRNA gene was found to be as good a marker as the 16S rRNA gene, while several of the widely distributed protein-coding genes, such as the RNA polymerase and gyrase subunits, show a strong phylogenetic signal, albeit less strong than the rRNA genes (0.78 > R2 > 0.69 for the protein-coding genes versus R2 = 0.84 for the rRNA genes). The AAI approach outlined here could contribute significantly to a genome-based taxonomy for all microbial organisms.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

PubMed2006

[Modern bacterial taxonomy: techniques review--application to bacteria that nodulate leguminous plants (BNL)].

Taxonomy is the science that studies the relationships between organisms. It comprises classification, nomenclature, and identification. Modern bacterial taxonomy is polyphasic. This means that it is based on several molecular techniques, each one retrieving the information at different cellular levels (proteins, fatty acids, DNA...). The obtained results are combined and analysed to reach a "consensus taxonomy" of a microorganism. Until 1970, a small number of classification techniques were available for microbiologists (mainly phenotypic characterization was performed: a legume species nodulation ability for a Rhizobium, for example). With the development of techniques based on polymerase chain reaction for characterization, the bacterial taxonomy has undergone great changes. In particular, the classification of the legume nodulating bacteria has been repeatedly modified over the last 20 years. We present here a review of the currently used molecular techniques in bacterial characterization, with examples of application of these techniques for the study of the legume nodulating bacteria.

Bacteria↗

PubMed2001

The role of taxonomies in the study of human memory.

The idea that memory is not unitary but is instead composed of multiple systems has a long history and has been debated with particular vigor in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, whether or not there are multiple memory systems remains unsettled. In this article, we suggest that psychologists wishing to classify memory can learn from biological systematics, the discipline that creates taxonomies of species. In so doing, we suggest that psychologists have made two assumptions in classifying memory: that features of memory are perfectly correlated, and that there is a straightforward mapping between taxonomy and theory. We argue that these assumptions are likely to be incorrect, but we also argue that there is a place for taxonomy in the study of memory. Taxonomies of memory are organizational schemes for data--they are descriptive, not explanatory--and so can inspire theory, although they cannot serve as theories themselves.

Animals↗

PubMed2002

Toward a cognitive taxonomy of medical errors.

One critical step in addressing and resolving the problems associated with human errors is the development of a cognitive taxonomy of such errors. In the case of errors, such a taxonomy may be developed (1) to categorize all types of errors along cognitive dimensions, (2) to associate each type of error with a specific underlying cognitive mechanism, (3) to explain why, and even predict when and where, a specific error will occur, and (4) to generate intervention strategies for each type of error. Based on Reason's (1992) definition of human errors and Norman's (1986) cognitive theory of human action, we have developed a preliminary action-based cognitive taxonomy of errors that largely satisfies these four criteria in the domain of medicine. We discuss initial steps for applying this taxonomy to develop an online medical error reporting system that not only categorizes errors but also identifies problems and generates solutions.

Cognition↗

PubMed1990

[Clinical laboratory works and taxonomy in bacteriology].

Taxonomy is the basic stand point for every field of bacteriology and provides a common language to each worker and researcher in bacteriology throughout the world. Proper identification of isolates from human pathological specimens or from hospital environments is one of the five principal fields of bacterial taxonomy. Before the establishment of classification and stabilization of nomenclature, any isolate can not be identified. Collection of unidentifiable strains is the starting point of new taxonomic investigation. Doctors in medical fields tend to be too much concerned to the infrasubspecific subdivisions, such as serological classification, toxigenicity, resistance to antimicrobics, rather ignoring the classification above the rank of subspecies. Doctors who take care patients and workers in clinical bacteriology laboratories should recognize the importance of bacterial taxonomy in general and use the necessary information in taxonomy selectively.

Bacteria↗

PubMed1994

Psychosocial problems in primary care. Pilot study of a new taxonomy.

BACKGROUND: In this study, the Massachusetts Academy of Family Practice Research Network (MAFP ReNet) was used to test a new taxonomy of psychosocial problems presenting to family physicians and to examine physician variability in determining when a psychosocial problem plays a role in a patient's visit. METHODS: Thirty physicians completed a form listing the taxonomy of psychosocial issues for 19 standard case vignettes. These physicians then completed the same form for every patient seen in their practices over a 2-week period. RESULTS: The proposed taxonomy was well received by practicing physicians as appropriate for how they think about their patients and practices. The case vignettes demonstrated a large variability in physician identification of psychosocial problems. The 30 physicians who participated in all phases of the study completed evaluations of 2876 patient visits, identifying 43% of these as involving one or more psychosocial problems. The frequency of psychosocial problem identification among the physicians ranged from 23% to 81%, with a standard deviation of 15%. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed new taxonomy may be helpful in both future research and teaching. The high degree of variation in physician responses both to the same clinical vignettes and to patients in their practices suggests that physicians vary widely in their identification of psychosocial issues.

Adult↗