Softening of bones that is often caused due to vitamin D deficiency is referred to as osteomalacia. Osteomalacia is different from that of osteroporesis, a disorder that may lead to bone fractures. Osteomalacia symptoms may not be seen in the initial stages, as it worsens individuals may experience muscle weakness and bone pains. The causes may be either deficiency of calcium and phosphate minerals which are required for strong bones or if the body does not absorb these minerals from the diet. If sunlight deficiency is the cause then replenishing the low levels of vitamin D may cure osteomalacia. If calcium or phosphorous are in low quantities in blood then supplements containing those minerals may be used for curing the disorder.
Open access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers (including price barriers) from accessing scholarly work. There are two parallel roads towards open access: Open Access articles and self-archiving. Open Access articles are immediately, freely available on their Web site, a model mostly funded by charges paid by the author (usually through a research grant). The alternative for a researcher is self-archiving (i.e., to publish in a traditional journal, where only subscribers have immediate access, but to make the article available on their personal and/or institutional Web sites (including so-called repositories or archives)), which is a practice allowed by many scholarly journals.
Last date updated on April, 2024
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