An-Najah Staff

Interoperability between building information models (BIM) and geographic information models has a strong potential to bring benefit to different demands in construction analysis, urban planning, homeland security and other applications. Therefore, different research and commercial efforts have been initiated to integrate the most prominent semantic models in BIM and geospatial applications. These semantic models are the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and City Geography Markup Language (CityGML) respectively. However, these efforts mainly: a) use a unidirectional approach (mostly from IFC to CityGML) for converting data, or b) Extending CityGML by conceptual requirements for converting CityGML to IFC models. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential of unidirectional conversion between IFC and CityGML. The different IFC concepts and its corresponding concepts in CityGML is studied and evaluated. The investigation goes beyond building objects, also including other concepts that are represented implicitly in building schemas such as building objects relations, hierarchies of building objects, appearance and other building characteristics. Due to the large semantic differences between IFC and CityGML standards, the schema mapping is based on a manual pragmatic approach without automatic procedures. The mappings are classified into three categories, namely ‘full matching’, ‘partial matching’ and ‘no matching’. The result of the study shows that only a few concepts are classified as ‘direct matching’, a few as well as ‘no matching’ while most of the building concepts are classified as ‘partial matching’. It is concluded that unidirectional approaches cannot translate all the needed concepts from both IFC and CityGML standards. Instead, we propose a meta-based unified building model, based on both standards, which shows a high potential for overcoming the shortages of the unidirectional conversion approaches.

Background and Objective: The patient package insert is an important source of drug information. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the PPI of the anti-infective agents manufactured in Palestine with the imported equivalents.
Method: The selection criteria generated 15 different anti-infective agents available as 36 locally manufactured products and 15 imported equivalents. The design of the patient package insert was evaluated in terms of the number of words used in eight main headings and the presence or absence of certain information regarding nine statements.
Results: Inserts of locally manufactured products have significantly fewer words than those of imported products with respect to warnings, dosage and administration, and side effects. The most significant difference was found in the warnings. Moreover, differences were found between inserts of local and imported products in terms of the presence of the nine informative statements. Locally manufactured products did not mention inactive ingredients, clinical pharmacology or date of last revision, but all of them provided information on the use of the drug during pregnancy and lactation and on the duration of therapy. However, in general they provided less information than the imported equivalents.
Conclusion: Palestinian authorities and local manufacturers should implement appropriate measures to regulate the quality and quantity of information in the patient package insert of locally produced anti-infective agents. PPI improvement will better direct health practices to the benefit of the patients. Key words: patient package insert, evaluation, Palestine, drug information.

Background and Objective: The patient package insert is an important source of drug information. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the PPI of the anti-infective agents manufactured in Palestine with the imported equivalents. Method: The selection criteria generated 15 different anti-infective agents available as 36 locally manufactured products and 15 imported equivalents. The design of the patient package insert was evaluated in terms of the number of words used in eight main headings and the presence or absence of certain information regarding nine statements. Results: Inserts of locally manufactured products have significantly fewer words than those of imported products with respect to warnings, dosage and administration, and side effects. The most significant difference was found in the warnings. Moreover, differences were found between inserts of local and imported products in terms of the presence of the nine informative statements. Locally manufactured products did not mention inactive ingredients, clinical pharmacology or date of last revision, but all of them provided information on the use of the drug during pregnancy and lactation and on the duration of therapy. However, in general they provided less information than the imported equivalents. Conclusion: Palestinian authorities and local manufacturers should implement appropriate measures to regulate the quality and quantity of information in the patient package insert of locally produced anti-infective agents. PPI improvement will better direct health practices to the benefit of the patients. Key words: patient package insert, evaluation, Palestine, drug information.

Background and Objective: The patient package insert is an important source of drug information. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the PPI of the anti-infective agents manufactured in Palestine with the imported equivalents.
Method: The selection criteria generated 15 different anti-infective agents available as 36 locally manufactured products and 15 imported equivalents. The design of the patient package insert was evaluated in terms of the number of words used in eight main headings and the presence or absence of certain information regarding nine statements.
Results: Inserts of locally manufactured products have significantly fewer words than those of imported products with respect to warnings, dosage and administration, and side effects. The most significant difference was found in the warnings. Moreover, differences were found between inserts of local and imported products in terms of the presence of the nine informative statements. Locally manufactured products did not mention inactive ingredients, clinical pharmacology or date of last revision, but all of them provided information on the use of the drug during pregnancy and lactation and on the duration of therapy. However, in general they provided less information than the imported equivalents.
Conclusion: Palestinian authorities and local manufacturers should implement appropriate measures to regulate the quality and quantity of information in the patient package insert of locally produced anti-infective agents. PPI improvement will better direct health practices to the benefit of the patients.