Variations of the musculature within the upper extremity have been widely documented, with clinical implications ranging from motor dysfunction to compressive neuropathies. Herein, we described an aberrant muscle that originated from the anterior proximal forearm, formed a tendon that coursed through the carpal tunnel, and converged with the flexor digitorum profundus muscle to contribute to the first lumbrical. Additionally, the second lumbrical consisted of two heads, originating from the index and middle finger tendons of flexor digitorum profundus. Documentation and recognition of such anatomic variants is important, as this anatomic pattern may contribute to anterior interosseous or median nerve compression, incoordination, complications during surgery, and other clinical manifestations.

OBJECTIVES: Efficient identification of subject experts or expert communities is vital for the growth of any organization. Most of the available expert finding systems are based on self-nomination, which can be biased, and are unable to rank experts. Thus, the objective of this work was to develop a robust and unbiased expert finding system which can quantitatively measure expertise. METHODS: Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) is a controlled vocabulary developed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) for indexing research publications, articles and books. Using the MeSH terms associated with peer-reviewed articles published from India and indexed in PubMed, we developed a Web-based program which can be used to identify subject experts and subjects associated with an expert. RESULTS: We have extensively tested our system to identify experts from India in various subjects. The system provides a ranked list of experts where known experts rank at the top of the list. The system is general; since it uses information available with the PubMed, it can be implemented for any country. CONCLUSIONS: The expert finding system is able to successfully identify subject experts in India. Our system is unique because it allows the quantification of subject expertise, thus enabling the ranking of experts. Our system is based on peer-reviewed information. Use of MeSH terms as subjects has standardized the subject terminology. The system matches requirements of an ideal expert finding system.
Abstracting and Indexing as Topic ; Bias (Epidemiology) ; Data Mining ; Expert Systems ; India ; Medical Subject Headings* ; National Library of Medicine (U.S.) ; Online Systems ; Professional Competence ; Vocabulary, Controlled