bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Key Factors for a Successful Implementation of Personalized e-Health Services
Authors: Griebel Lena  , Sedlmayr Brita  , Prokosch Hans-Ulrich  , Criegee-Rieck Manfred  , Sedlmayr Martin
Published: February 2025

Personalized e-health services hold many promises, e.g. the improvement of health care quality or the reduction of costs. However, such services can't tap their full potential if they will not be used. That's why it is essential to understand what brings potential users to accept them. In the literature many acceptance models exist that predict the usage of innovations, but none of them specifically refers to the adoption of e-health services. Therefore we combined the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and the e-health literacy concept and enhanced the resulting model with additional factors. MEDLINE® was searched; 75 studies were included for final analysis. Apart from the UTAUT variables and e-health literacy, 10 additional factors were identified: anxiety, trust, attitude toward using, computer self-efficacy, perceived system quality, search strategy, user's condition, health specific knowledge, Internet dependency and satisfaction with medical care. Future research will include the devolvement of an instrument for assessing these factors and testing the initial research model in an international context.
A Data Model Based on Semantically Enhanced HL7 RIM for Sharing Patient Data of Breast Cancer Clinical Trials
Authors: Moratilla Juan M.  , Alonso-Calvo Raul  , Molina-Vaquero Gema  , Paraiso-Medina Sergio  , Perez-Rey David  , Maojo Victor
Published: February 2025

Breast cancer clinical trial researchers have to handle heterogeneous data coming from different data sources, overloading biomedical researchers when they need to query data for retrospective analysis. This paper presents the Common Data Model (CDM) proposed within the INTEGRATE EU project to homogenize data coming from different clinical partners. This CDM is based on the Reference Information Model (RIM) from the Health Level 7 (HL7) version 3. Semantic capabilities through an SPARQL endpoint were also required to ensure the sustainability of the platform. For the SPARQL endpoint implementation, a comparison has been carried out between a Relational SQL database + D2R and a RDF database. The results show that the first option can store all clinical data received from institutions participating in the project with a better performance. It has been also evaluated by the EU Commission within a patient recruitment demonstrator.
The Core Clinical Protocol Ontology (C2PO): A Realist Ontology for Representing the Recommendations within Clinical Guidelines
Authors: Slaughter Laura  , Brochhausen Mathias  , Hogan William  , Nytrø Øystein
Published: February 2025

We present an initial version of the Core Clinical Protocol Ontology (C2PO). C2PO is an application ontology being developed for the semantic markup of clinical guidelines within the Evicare project. Evicare's goals are to learn more about the actual use of guidelines in the context of clinical care and develop systems to support physicians in answering their clinical questions. The initial implementation of C2PO includes definitions for clinical guideline recommendations, and the process of recommending. We followed a realist approach to ontology design. Design methodology for C2PO, including methods for class selection, is discussed. A collection of guidelines has been manually marked-up and a demonstration system developed in which specific clinical queries will retrieve relevant ranked recommendations. C2PO forms the basis for a lightweight approach to clinical decision support that uses a text-based representation. A future objective is to expand the system to support semantic search of normative medical texts including health records, order sets, and process descriptions.
Clinical Professional Governance for Detailed Clinical Models
Authors: Goossen William  , Goossen-Baremans Anneke
Published: February 2025

This chapter describes the need for Detailed Clinical Models for contemporary Electronic Health Systems, data exchange and data reuse. It starts with an explanation of the components related to Detailed Clinical Models with a brief summary of knowledge representation, including terminologies representing clinic relevant “things” in the real world, and information models that abstract these in order to let computers process data about these things. Next, Detailed Clinical Models are defined and their purpose is described. It builds on existing developments around the world and accumulates in current work to create a technical specification at the level of the International Standards Organization. The core components of properly expressed Detailed Clinical Models are illustrated, including clinical knowledge and context, data element specification, code bindings to terminologies and meta-information about authors, versioning among others. Detailed Clinical Models to date are heavily based on user requirements and specify the conceptual and logical levels of modelling. It is not precise enough for specific implementations, which requires an additional step. However, this allows Detailed Clinical Models to serve as specifications for many different kinds of implementations. Examples of Detailed Clinical Models are presented both in text and in Unified Modelling Language. Detailed Clinical Models can be positioned in health information architectures, where they serve at the most detailed granular level. The chapter ends with examples of projects that create and deploy Detailed Clinical Models. All have in common that they can often reuse materials from earlier projects, and that strict governance of these models is essential to use them safely in health care information and communication technology. Clinical validation is one point of such governance, and model testing another. The Plan Do Check Act cycle can be applied for governance of Detailed Clinical Models. Finally, collections of clinical models do require a repository in which they can be stored, searched, and maintained. Governance of Detailed Clinical Models is required at local, national, and international levels.
Stasis and Adaptation
Authors: Coiera Enrico
Published: February 2025

Many of our most pressing societal challenges arise from our inability to move on from present practices and structures and do what is needed. Healthcare struggles to improve safety and quality. It resists adoption of best practices and persists in high levels of unwarranted variation in care delivery, and clings to financially unsustainable models of care. One explanation for this state of affairs is not a lack of will, but that we are experiencing system inertia - a consequence of the increasing complexity of our human systems. In this paper I explore three possible system level interventions that may help design systems that are less likely to approach inertia, as well as help change our current systems so that they again become adaptive, and move to the outcomes we desire. Firstly, I question our religious belief in the power of standards, an intervention designed to minimise adaptation and almost from first principles designed to lead to inertia. Next I explore the power of apoptosis, a process that sees existing structures and practices programmatically removed to free up resource for adaptation. Finally I explore a flexible but controversial approach to system management called market-based control. Whether any of these, together or in tandem, are a way out of inertia is an open question. However, it is time for us to engage with the challenge of system inertia, and find a way out.
Impact of the context of use analysis for the extension of an existing medical device: an analgesia monitor case study
Authors: Marcilly Romaric  , Bras Da Costa Sabrina  , Boog Cesar  , Beuscart-Zephir Marie-Catherine  , De Jonckheere Julien  , Pelayo Sylvia
Published: February 2025

The EU revised Medical Device Directive introduces a major change in the CE marking of medical devices (MD) aiming at improving their safety. Manufacturers must now comply with an “ergonomics” essential requirement to prevent risks of use errors. This requirement is characterized by the integration of a usability engineering process in the MD design cycle to be documented in a usability engineering file. This study focuses on the first step of the usability engineering process, i.e. the analysis of the intended context of use of the MD, and shows the benefits of this analysis when performed early in the MD design cycle. Usability experts have conducted an analysis of the intended contexts of use for the extension of an existing device (analgesia monitor) in order to support manufacturer's design choices. Observations and interviews were carried out in two neonatology units (Maternity and Neonatology Intensive Care units) with a particular focus on pain management activities performed by physicians and nursery nurses. The results highlight irreducible differences between the two environments which led to identify different risks of use errors and specific ergonomics requirements. The results provided the manufacturer enough information to make informed decision about the extension of the device.
An Efficient Closed Frequent Itemset Miner for the Moa Stream Mining System
Authors: Quadrana Massimo  , Bifet Albert  , Gavaldà Ricard
Published: February 2025

We describe and evaluate an implementation of the IncMine algorithm due to Cheng, Ke, and Ng (2008) for mining frequent closed itemsets from data streams, working on the MOA platform. The goal was to produce a robust, efficient, and usable tool for that task that can both be used by practitioners and used for evaluation of research in the area. We experimentally confirm the excellent performance of the algorithm and its ability to handle concept drift.
Comparison of MOMDP and Heuristic Methods to Play Hide-and-Seek
Authors: Goldhoorn Alex  , Sanfeliu Alberto  , Alquézar René
Published: February 2025

The hide-and-seek game is considered an excellent domain for studying the interactions between mobile robots and humans. Prior to the implementation and test in our mobile robots TIBI and DABO, we have been devising different models and strategies to play this game and comparing them extensively in simulations. We propose the use of MOMDP (Mixed Observability Markov Decision Processes) models to learn a good policy to be applied by the seeker. For two players the amount of states is quadratic in the number of discrete map cells. The number of cells were reduced by using a two-level MOMDP, where the policy is computed on-line at the top level with a reduced number of states independent of the grid size. In this paper, we also introduce a new fast heuristic method for the seeker and compare its performance to both off-line and on-line MOMDP approaches. We show simulation results in maps of different sizes against two types of automated hiders.
Learning inverse kinematics problem in changing task environment
Authors: Valaitis Vytautas
Published: February 2025

Underlearning and overlearning effect of neural network was observed, while solving inverse kinematics problem of 2 degrees of freedom robotic arm in changing task environment. The future plan is to create a motion control algorithm of a robotic arm, based on neural networks. The development will take into account neural motions, neural network ability to learn and adopt to a changing task.
A Proposal for Introducing the ECLI Standard in the Italian Judicial Documentary System
Authors: Bacci Lorenzo  , Francesconi Enrico  , Sagri Maria Teresa
Published: February 2025

In this paper the activities for introducing the ECLI standard in the Italian judicial documentary system are described. Firstly, the specifications of ECLI for Italian case-law are proposed. Then, the ECLI implementation activities at the Court of Milan as a pilot case are illustrated, in particular a parsing strategy, based on regular expressions, able to detect case law citations, extract the metadata used by the ECLI grammar (typically used in citations) and providing automatic annotation of the references by the ECLI of the target documents.
Development of a Patient-Specific Surgical Simulator for Pediatric Laparoscopic Procedures
Authors: Saber Nikoo R.  , Menon Vinay  , St-Pierre Jean C.  , Looi Thomas  , Drake James M.  , Cyril Xavier
Published: February 2025

The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate a pediatric patient-specific surgical simulator for the planning, practice, and validation of laparoscopic surgical procedures prior to intervention, initially focusing on the choledochal cyst resection and reconstruction scenario. The simulator is comprised of software elements including a deformable body physics engine, virtual surgical tools, and abdominal organs. Hardware components such as haptics-enabled hand controllers and a representative endoscopic tool have also been integrated. The prototype is able to perform a number of surgical tasks and further development work is under way to simulate the complete procedure with acceptable fidelity and accuracy.
Cardiovascular Blood Flow Analysis Under Normal and Open Injury Conditions
Authors: Santhanam Anand  , Eldredge Jeff  , Benharash Peyman  , Teran Joseph  , Kupelian Patrick  , Dutson Erik
Published: February 2025

The aim of this paper is to enable a simulation tool for cardiovascular blood flow in order to better understand normal and hemorrhage conditions. A second order partial differential model for cardiovascular blood flow is employed. The individual components of the model is represented as an RLC circuit representation. Injury behavior is simulated by varying the circuit system parameters for the section representing different arterial levels. Our results show that significant changes in the blood flow inside the cardiovascular system can be observed when different injury conditions are modeled.
Inter-BAN Interference Mitigation: A Correlated Equilibrium Perspective
Authors: Marbukh Vladimir  , Sayrafian Kamran  , Barbi Martina  , Alasti Mehdi
Published: February 2025

A Body Area Network (BAN) is a wireless network of wearable or implantable computing devices. A BAN typically consists of several miniaturized radio-enabled body sensor/actuator that communicate with a single coordinator. Medical applications usually impose stringent constraints on the BAN operational reliability, quality of service, and power consumption. However, as there is no coordination among multiple co-located BANs, cross-interference could make achieving these objectives a challenging problem. Assuming Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) at each BAN, this paper investigates the ability of regret matching based transmission scheduling algorithm to ease the impact of inter-BAN interference. This scheduling algorithm uses pattern of past interference for implicit coordination between different BAN transmissions. Simulation results demonstrate potential benefits of the proposed scheme for inter-BAN interference mitigation.
A Mobile System for the Collection of Clinical Data and EEG Signals By Using The Sana Platform
Authors: Insuasty Diego F.  , Ceron Rafael E.  , López Diego M.
Published: February 2025

Nowadays, more than 450 millions of people around the world suffer from mental disorders. One of the main problems of that type of illnesses is the lack of early detection, generally due to the reduced number of professionals specialized in mental health, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This article aims at describing the process of construction of an m-Health system that supports the collection of clinical data, including EEG signals, in order to assist the initial assessment of neurologic problems. The system has been mainly developed by using low-cost technology, implemented under the open-source platform SANA, and integrating a non-professional EEG device for the acquisition of bioelectric signals of the brain. The functionalities of this application and its usefulness have been evaluated by a group of six experts who concluded that a) the system implements 100% of the functionalities described in the system design phase, and b) the usefulness of the system's functionalities is 96%.
Embedded Sensor Systems for Health – Providing the Tools in Future Healthcare
Authors: Lindén Maria  , Björkman Mats
Published: February 2025

Wearable, embedded sensor systems for health applications are foreseen to be enablers in the future healthcare. They will provide ubiquitous monitoring of multiple parameters without restricting the person to stay at home or in the hospital. By following trend changes in the health status, early deteriorations will be detected and treatment can start earlier. Also health prevention will be supported. Such future healthcare requires technology development, including miniaturized sensors, smart textiles and wireless communication. The tremendous amount of data generated by these systems calls for both signal processing and decision support to guarantee the quality of data and avoid overflow of information. Safe and secure communications have to protect the integrity of the persons monitored.
Validating EHR Documents: Automatic Schematron Generation using Archetypes
Authors: Pfeiffer Klaus  , Duftschmid Georg  , Rinner Christoph
Published: February 2025

The goal of this study was to examine whether Schematron schemas can be generated from archetypes. The openEHR Java reference API was used to transform an archetype into an object model, which was then extended with context elements. The model was processed and the constraints were transformed into corresponding Schematron assertions. A prototype of the generator for the reference model HL7 v3 CDA R2 was developed and successfully tested. Preconditions for its reusability with other reference models were set. Our results indicate that an automated generation of Schematron schemas is possible with some limitations.
OphthalNet Vienna: Constructive Quality Assurance and Resource Optimization in Ophthalmology
Authors: Mitsch Christoph  , Bolz Matthias  , Sacu Stefan  , Vass Clemens  , Scholda Christoph  , Huber Patrick  , Sabutsch Stefan  , Schmidt-Erfurth Ursula
Published: February 2025

Significant improvements in the field of diagnostic methods and therapeutic options achieved during the last decade allow the early diagnosis, accurate follow-up and individual indication for the treatment with highly efficacious therapeutic agents in a wide range of ophthalmological pathologies. The burden on health care systems is extremely high, as treatment and diagnostic follow up has to be repeated in a regular manner. Whereas the treatment can only be applied in tertiary care centers (eye clinics), follow-up and management mainly depends on the OCT technology, which is becoming available at many field ophthalmologists' practices. This article describes the OphthalNet project, a network which optimizes collaboration between eye clinics and field ophthalmologists based on medical guidelines, workflow support and the future use of electronic infrastructure.
Certification Programs for eHealth – Status Quo
Authors: Urbauer Philipp  , Herzog Juliane  , Pohn Birgit  , Forjan Mathias  , Sauermann Stefan
Published: February 2025

The skills of the workforce are a core factor for the quality of healthcare systems. On top of the basic education, postgraduate training is an important factor for continuously maintaining as well as improving the workforce qualification level. Advanced training often provides certification of the acquired skills. This paper analyses the status quo of international certification programs in the sector of eHealth (EU, US, Global). It uses available literature and observations from international educational expert's workgroups. It identifies gaps regarding certifications in eHealth and suggests steps for solutions. Despite little attention to legal and financial eHealth related content in certification programs in the EU as well as a low degree of harmonization of international certifications in general, there are strong activities especially in the international scope towards personal certification programs in eHealth. Major changes are to be expected within the coming years.
Healthcare-Associated Infection Surveillance and Bedside Alerts
Authors: Adlassnig Klaus-Peter  , Berger Angelika  , Koller Walter  , Blacky Alexander  , Mandl Harald  , Unterasinger Lukas  , Rappelsberger Andrea
Published: February 2025

Expectations and requirements concerning the identification and surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are increasing, calling for differentiated automated approaches. In an attempt to bridge the “definition swamp” of these infections and serve the needs of different users, we improved the monitoring of nosocomial infections (MONI) software to create better surveillance reports according to consented national and international definitions, as well as produce infection overviews on complex clinical matters including alerts for the clinician's ward and bedside work. MONI contains and processes surveillance definitions for intensive-care-unit-acquired infections from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Sweden, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USA. The latest release of MONI also includes KISS criteria of the German National Reference Center for Surveillance of Nosocomial Infections. In addition to these “classic” surveillance criteria, clinical alert criteria—which are similar but not identical to the surveillance criteria—were established together with intensivists. This is an important step to support both infection control and clinical personnel; and—last but not least—to foster co-evolution of the two groups of definitions: surveillance and alerts.
Visualization of CDA Laboratory Reports and Long Term Trends as a Possible EHR Application for Patients and Physicians
Authors: Obenaus Manuel  , Burgsteiner Harald
Published: February 2025

To increase the patient's acceptance of electronic health records and understanding for their laboratory findings a web application was developed which presents all parameters and possible deviations of standard values in a clear way and visualizes the time based trend of all recorded parameters graphically. Documents corresponding to the Clinical document architecture (CDA) R2 laboratory reports standard and a rapid prototyping framework called Groovy on Grails were used. This work shows, that it is possible to create a useful, standards based tool for patients and physicians with comparatively few resources – an application that could be in similar form a part of an electronic Health Record (EHR) system like the Austrian electronic Health Record (ELGA).
Knowledge Management And Data Mining: Emerging Business Intelligence Research Subspecialties
Authors: Eom Sean
Published: February 2025

Over the past five decades, the area of decision support systems has made a significant progress toward becoming a solid academic discipline. A number of prior studies have been conducted to assess the extent of progress within these stages in the DSS area. Among them, a study of Eom [1] has provided biblio-metric evidence that the decision support system has made meaningful progress over the past four and a half decades (1969–2004). The primary data for this study were gathered from a total of 498 citing articles in the BI area over the past eight years (2005–2012). This study uses author cocitation analysis (ACA). ACA is a technique of bibliometrics that applies quantitative methods to various media of communication such as books, journals, conference proceedings, and so on. Indeed, the results of this study showed the substantial changes in the intellectual structure of BI research. First, many research subspecialties appeared in the previous investigations up to 2004 have disappeared. They are individual differences/user interfaces, model management, and evaluation research during the period of 1969–2004. Second, through this research, we also noticed that the group support systems and foundation research are weakening in terms of the number of researchers and therefore the substantiality of these research topics are diminishing. On the other hand, the focus of business intelligence research is shifting to knowledge management and data mining.
Decision Making on Open Innovation Websites
Authors: Pee L.G.
Published: February 2025

Firms are increasingly organizing virtual new product development (NPD) initiatives to solicit ideas and suggestions from external parties such as customers. While virtual NPD provides firms with unprecedented access to external knowledge, the diversity of input and participants also poses challenges to decision making. This study develops the concept of decision openness and examines whether making decisions with respect to the opinion of external participants influences product sales growth over time. Decision openness in product development activities is distinguished from that in commercialization activities to examine their differential impacts.
Modeling Glocal Search in a Decision-Making Process
Authors: Brézillon Patrick  , Attieh Elham  , Capron Frédérique
Published: February 2025

This work focuses on the formalization of medical practices in chronic inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis as a contextual graph to identify a consensual methodology. Expert knowledge is more than domain knowledge because expert knowledge emerges from a contextualization process and expertise appears as “chunks of contextual knowledge”. The knowledge acquisition phase and the modeling of the expertise were organized around three workshops about the choice of diseases to study, the observation of how pathologists worked, the identification of similarity of pathologists' approaches and the proposal of a unified view. The “knowledge manager” was a physician knowing the expert knowledge used by experts but without their experience. A glocal search was identified in the decision-making process with a global exploration for detecting zones of interest, and a zoom inside zones of interest. This search concerns contextual elements at different levels of granularity as identified from the analysis of digital slides. The rest of the decision-making process includes the application of a set of criteria that are managed by a voting system that offers flexibility to address the variety of expert approaches. We discuss the role of the glocal approach in other domains like Control & Command rooms for the army and subway-line monitoring.
Usability Assessment of the Virtual Multitasking Test (V-MT) for Elderly People
Authors: Corno Giulia  , Bouchard Stéphane  , Forget Hélène
Published: February 2025

In the last decades an increasing number of psychological researches have used Virtual Reality (VR) technology in different fields. Nevertheless, few studies used Virtual Environments (VEs) with a sample of older users. The aim of the present study is to assess the usability of the Virtual Multitasking Test (V-MT), which consists in a virtual apartment created to assess cognitive functions in elderly people. This study reports the preliminary results to support the development of a VE in which elderly people feel present and fully immersed.
A Personal Health Information Toolkit for Health Intervention Research
Authors: Kizakevich Paul N.  , Eckhoff Randall  , Weger Stacey  , Weeks Adam  , Brown Janice  , Bryant Stephanie  , Bakalov Vesselina  , Zhang Yuying  , Lyden Jennifer  , Spira James
Published: February 2025

With the emergence of mobile health (mHealth) apps, there is a growing demand for better tools for developing and evaluating mobile health interventions. Recently we developed the Personal Health Intervention Toolkit (PHIT), a software framework which eases app implementation and facilitates scientific evaluation. PHIT integrates self-report and physiological sensor instruments, evidence-based advisor logic, and self-help interventions such as meditation, health education, and cognitive behavior change. PHIT can be used to facilitate research, interventions for chronic diseases, risky behaviors, sleep, medication adherence, environmental monitoring, momentary data collection health screening, and clinical decision support. In a series of usability evaluations, participants reported an overall usability score of 4.5 on a 1-5 Likert scale and an 85 score on the System Usability Scale, indicating a high percentile rank of 95%.
A (Cyber)place For Wellbeing: Managing Interactions in eHealth
Authors: Galimberti Carlo  , Brivio Eleonora  , Gatti Fabiana  , Gambini Paolo  , Binello Maurizio
Published: February 2025

Yukendu is a personal mobile coaching service that supports people in reaching good levels of psychological and physical wellbeing through the use of an app and a relationship with a health coach. Presenting Yukendu's app functioning, this paper aims not only to show that by means of web 2.0 tools is possible to manage in a functional way effective eHealth coaching interactions, but also that relationships between a coach and a coachee managed in such a way give birth to what we could call a ‘cyber-wellbeing-place’.
Dominant Approaches of Synthesizing Scores in AHP with its Alternatives Categorized
Authors: Mizuno Takafumi  , Kinoshita Eizo
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we describe methods which synthesize scores of AHP with its alternatives categorized. First, we proposed simple way to synthesize the scores, and we show that this approach occurs a rank reversal problem. Then we improve the method by combining Dominant AHP to overcome the problem.
Alleviating Cognitive Overload in Collaboration Support Systems
Authors: Tzagarakis Manolis  , Christodoulou Spyros  , Karacapilidis Nikos
Published: February 2025

Existing collaboration support systems cope poorly with today's working environments. Although they offer functionalities to overcome cognitive overhead, these prove to be insufficient in data-intensive situations. In this paper, we identify the main causes of cognitive complexity in contemporary collaboration support systems and present the approach adopted in the Dicode project to address such concerns. We discuss how Dicode mitigates the effects of cognitive overload issues through an adaptive collaboration support infrastructure that allows organizational aspects of the discourse to change according to the user's needs, interests and specific tasks during the evolution of the collaboration.
Multifactorial user models for personalized mobile-assisted language learning
Authors: Troussas Christos  , Virvou Maria  , Alepis Efthimios
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we present our multilingual mobile-assisted language learning system which incorporates multifactorial clustering. This means that it provides machine learning techniques for clustering of multiple user characteristics. Multifactorial classification is conducted by the k-means clustering algorithm which takes as input seven important users' characteristics in order to initialize the process. The clustering is conducted by k-means clustering algorithm, which takes as input multiple user characteristics, in order to initialize the process. The aforementioned characteristics tend to influence the educational procedure. K-means algorithm creates clusters based on data from empirical studies. After determining in which cluster each new student belongs, the system can reason about this specific student, adapting its behavior to the user's needs. The resulting adaptation emerges from the analysis of each cluster's characteristics that derive from each cluster as a superset of already existing user models. The communication between the system and its potential users as students is accomplished through the use of web services.
A Functional Workplace Architecture for Presentation Slide Composition
Authors: Watanabe Toyohide  , Maeda Kenta  , Asakura Koichi
Published: February 2025

The presentation slides take important roles to inform audiences of the impressive messages. Today, the slides themselves are looked upon as powerful means in the presentation though the slides might have been regarded as a presentation assist tool. The proverb “seeing is believing” is very impressive and suitable for our human beings. In this paper, we address an architectural framework for composing presentation slides. Our basic feature is the hierarchical processing view in 4 layers framework: story, unit, page and layout. The story and unit layers in the upper section are dependent on human operations for data input, form definition, etc., while the page and layout layers in the lower section are independent of human operations, and are effective under the functionality-oriented mechanism. The key concept for designing this architecture is “flexible slide composition”. Through this paper, we make this concept clear under 4 layers.
Construction of Transformation Basis for Video and Image Masking Procedures
Authors: Balonin Nikolay  , Sergeev Mikhail
Published: February 2025

This article discusses the procedure of image masking using M-matrixes as an orthogonal basis. An overview of some classical matrix calculation algorithms like Silvester, Paley, Scarpis and other, which are common for video bases, is presented. A typical image masking processing chain is commented. Generalized masking algorithms based on new Mersenne, Euler and Fermat matrixes are considered. Examples of Portraits of Hadamard-Mersenne matrixes of 15thand 63rdorders with the levels of elements {1,-b} are presented. A Hadamard-Mersenne matrixes computing algorithm, including equations and formulas applied to calculate their levels, is described. The feasibility of application of such matrixes in antijamming (error-control) processing and image masking tasks is considered.
Mockup Design of Personal Health Diary App for Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease
Authors: Lin Hsiu-Wen  , Wang Yu-Jen  , Jing Ling-Fang  , Chang Polun
Published: February 2025

Health self-management is important in the care of patients with chronic kidney disease. It is possible to improve the efficiency of patient self-management through the use of mobile technology and related software. This study is divided into three stages: 1. analysis of need: through observation, interview and content analysis of the chronic kidney disease health management manual; 2. design of system prototype: establish interface and system function; 3. prototype evaluation: evaluate whether the prototype designed by this study meets user needs. The system prototype includes: daily record, laboratory examination results, trend graphs, information search, sharing, communications and settings. Prototyping is done with Pencil Project for interface design and linking. The prototype is then exported in PDF format for mock-up simulation. Evaluation results: overall score was 4.01±0.60 leaning towards “agree”, the highest score was ease of use (4.25±0.6), followed by easy to learn (4.15±0.68), acceptance (4.01±0.61), reliability (3.87±0.6) and functionality (3.83±0.49). The results show positive attitude towards the system.
Developing and Testing a Mobile Application Programme to Support Self-Management in Patients with Stable Angina: a Feasibility Study Protocol
Authors: Wang Wenru  , Chan Sally  , He Hong-Gu
Published: February 2025

This study aims to develop and test the feasibility of a 12-week Mobile Application Programme (M.A.P.) to support self-management in cardiac patients with stable angina. A Mobile Application Programme will be developed by the study team. A pilot randomized controlled trial will be adopted to examine the feasibility and potential effectiveness of the M.A.P.. A convenience sample of 40 stable angina patients recruited from the National University Heart Centre will be randomly assigned either to the 12-week M.A.P. intervention group or the control group. Data will be collected at baseline, at the 4th and 12th week of the programme. At the end of the intervention period, a process evaluation will be conducted to further assess the acceptability, usability, strengths and weaknesses of the M.A.P. intervention based on the participants' perspectives. All quantitative data obtained will be analysed using IBM SPSS 21.0, while content analysis will be used for qualitative datasets.
Considerations for Design of an e-Learning Program Augmenting Advanced Geriatric Nurse Practitioner's Clinical Skills Training
Authors: Rostad Hanne M.  , Grov Ellen Karine  , Moen Anne
Published: February 2025

E-learning programs offer learners flexibility, more control over their learning experience, possibilities for repetition and allows for learning to be more individualized compared to traditional teaching methods. This paper presents considerations for an interdisciplinary project to design an e-learning program for graduate students enrolled in a master's program in Advanced Geriatric Nursing. The e-learning program offers new opportunities for learners to apply theoretical knowledge and develop their skills in the process of collaborative knowledge creation. A model based on the systematic development of instruction and learning and a pedagogical framework for e-learning has guided the design process. This paper explains how the e-learning program was created and how content was developed and implemented in an e-learning environment.
From Unmet Clinical Need to Entrepreneurship: Taking Your Informatics Solution to Market
Authors: Bowles Kathryn H.  , Heil Eric
Published: February 2025

This paper will describe the process for taking a decision support solution to market as a start-up business. The nurse inventor and Co-Founder of RightCare Solutions, Inc. will share the steps from answering a clinical question, to registering an invention, creating a business plan and company, obtaining venture funding, and launching a commercial product. We will share positives about the experience such as how to get start-up funds, gaining national exposure and access to an excellent team, disseminating your work broadly, further enhancing the product, and obtaining equity, and financial rewards. We will discuss cons such as losing control, dilution of ownership, and conflict of interest. This paper will encourage nurse informaticians to think differently and learn about the steps in the process from an experienced team.
Utility-Based HTN Planning
Authors: Georgievski Ilche  , Lazovik Alexander
Published: February 2025

We propose the use of HTN planning for risk-sensitive planning domains. We suggest utility functions that reflect the risk attitude of compound tasks, and adapt a best-first search algorithm to take such utilities into account.
Heuristics to Increase Observability in Spectrum-based Fault Localization
Authors: Landi Claudio  , van Gemund Arjan  , Zanella Marina
Published: February 2025

The high abstraction level of Spectrum-based Fault Localization (SFL) reasoning, on the one hand, offers the advantage of a model-free approach to diagnosis, while, on the other, reduces the inherently limited testability of many hardware and software systems. Thus, along with substantial complexity gains, SFL exhibits limited diagnostic performance, compared to Model-Based Diagnosis. This paper describes two algorithms (Lion and Tiger) that exploit low cost heuristics to determine the best location to insert additional test oracles (monitors, probes, invariants) so as to increase the observability within the systems. Experiments show that even simple algorithms can considerably improve SFL's diagnostic accuracy.
Efficient Policy Iteration for Periodic Markov Decision Processes
Authors: Osogami Takayuki  , Raymond Rudy
Published: February 2025

We propose a solution to a new problem that is faced by steelworks, who own private thermal power-plants and plan to use batteries to absorb fluctuations in power demand. A major challenge is in controlling both the power generation and the use of batteries under such fluctuations. We formulate a Markov decision process (MDP) and design the states of the MDP so that it has a periodic structure to avoid the explosion of its state space. We then develop a policy iteration algorithm that exploits the periodic structure for computational efficiency. Numerical experiments suggest that the combination of the proposed MDP and the policy iteration allows us to find a control policy that can significantly reduce the electricity cost.
Stop-Free Strategies for Traffic Networks: Decentralized On-line Optimization
Authors: Tlig Mohamed  , Buffet Olivier  , Simonin Olivier
Published: February 2025

Traffic management in large networks remains an important challenge in transportation systems. The best approach would be to use existing infrastructure and find a solution to manage the increasing flows of vehicles. Multi-agent systems and autonomous vehicles are today considered as a promising approach to deal with traffic control. In this paper, we propose a two-level decentralized multi-agent system which allows autonomous vehicles crossing the network intersections without stopping. At the first level, we use a control agent at each intersection which (1) lets the vehicles from each road pass alternately, and (2) allows them to optimally regulate their speed in its vicinity. At the second level, each agent coordinates with its neighboring agents in order to optimize the flows inside the network. We evaluate this approach empirically, with a comparison with a more opportunistic First-Come First-Served strategy. Experimental results (in simulation) are presented (measuring energy consumption), showing the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.
Mobile Tourist Guide: Bridging the Gap between Recommending, Planning and User-Centered Interaction
Authors: Schaller Richard  , Hacker Martin
Published: February 2025

We present a mobile tourist guide for planning and conducting sightseeing day trips. The system combines a hybrid recommender system for sights, events and other points of interest with a tour planner for time-constrained activities taking additional constraints for public transport connections into account. A novelty of the implemented approach compared to existing solutions for tourists is that the user retains full control over the tour by being able to directly edit any detail at any time, even if there are existing constraints that hinder the direct execution of an edit operation. Moreover, recommender and planner are closely interconnected by regarding the reachability of recommended items with respect to the current selection as well as filling unavoidable gaps with fitting recommendations. The application is tailored to the city of Nuremberg, Germany, but can be extended by additional data for other destinations as well.
Multi-Context Systems for Reactive Reasoning in Dynamic Environments
Authors: Brewka Gerhard  , Ellmauthaler Stefan  , Pührer Jörg
Published: February 2025

We show in this paper how managed multi-context systems (mMCS) can be turned into a reactive formalism suitable for continuous reasoning in dynamic environments. We extend mMCS with (abstract) sensors and define the notion of a run of the extended systems. We then show how typical problems arising in online reasoning can be addressed: handling potentially inconsistent sensor input, modeling intelligent forms of forgetting, and controlling the reasoning effort spent by contexts. We also investigate the complexity of some important related decision problems.
An Evolutionary Spatial Game-based Approach for the Self-regulation of Social Exchanges in MAS
Authors: Macedo Luís F. K.  , Dimuro Graçaliz P.  , Aguiar Marilton S.  , Coelho Helder
Published: February 2025

An open problem in social simulation and MAS applications is the self-regulation of social exchange processes, aiming at the achievement/maintenance of equilibrated exchanges by the agents themselves, providing the continuation of the interactions in time. This paper faces this problem through an approach based on the proposed spatial and evolutionary Game of Self-Regulation of Social Exchange Processes. The agents, adopting different social exchange strategies, which take into account both the short and long-term aspects of interactions, evolve such strategies by themselves in time, in order to maximize their respective strategy-based fitness functions. In consequence, the agents happen to perform more equilibrated and fair interactions, increasing the number of successful exchanges.
Efficient Autarkies
Authors: Marques-Silva J.  , Ignatiev A.  , Morgado A.  , Manquinho V.  , Lynce I.
Published: February 2025

Autarkies are partial truth assignments that satisfy all clauses having literals in the assigned variables. Autarkies provide important information in the analysis of unsatisfiable formulas. Indeed, clauses satisfied by autarkies cannot be included in minimal explanations or in minimal corrections of unsatisfiability. Computing the maximum autarky allows identifying all such clauses. In recent years, a number of alternative approaches have been proposed for computing a maximum autarky. This paper develops new models for representing autarkies, and proposes new algorithms for computing the maximum autarky. Experimental results, obtained on a large number of problem instances, show orders of magnitude performance improvements over existing approaches, and solving instances that could not otherwise be solved.
Quality-based Rewards for Monte-Carlo Tree Search Simulations
Authors: Pepels Tom  , Tak Mandy J.W.  , Lanctot Marc  , Winands Mark H. M.
Published: February 2025

Monte-Carlo Tree Search is a best-first search technique based on simulations to sample the state space of a decision-making problem. In games, positions are evaluated based on estimates obtained from rewards of numerous randomized play-outs. Generally, rewards from play-outs are discrete values representing the outcome of the game (loss, draw, or win), e.g., r∈{−1,0,1}, which are backpropagated from expanded leaf nodes to the root node. However, a play-out may provide additional information. In this paper, we introduce new measures for assessing the a posteriori quality of a simulation. We show that altering the rewards of play-outs based on their assessed quality improves results in six distinct two-player games and in the General Game Playing agent CADIAPLAYER. We propose two specific enhancements, the Relative Bonus and Qualitative Bonus. Both are used as control variates, a variance reduction method for statistical simulation. Relative Bonus is based on the number of moves made during a simulation and Qualitative Bonus relies on a domain-dependent assessment of the game's terminal state. We show that the proposed enhancements, both separate and combined, lead to significant performance increases in the domains discussed.
A Semantic Account of Iterated Belief Revision in the Situation Calculus
Authors: Schwering Christoph  , Lakemeyer Gerhard
Published: February 2025

Recently Shapiro et al. explored the notion of iterated belief revision within Reiter's version of the situation calculus. In particular, they consider a notion of belief defined as truth in the most plausible situations. To specify what an agent is willing to believe at different levels of plausibility they make use of so-called belief conditionals, which themselves neither refer to situations or plausibilities explicitly. Reasoning about such belief conditionals turns out to be complex because there may be too many models satisfying them and negative belief conditionals are also needed to obtain the desired conclusions. In this paper we show that, by adopting a notion of only-believing, these problems can be overcome. The work is carried out within a modal variant of the situation calculus with a possible-world semantics which features levels of plausibility. Among other things, we show that only-believing a knowledge base together with belief conditionals always leads to a unique model, which allows characterizing the beliefs of an agent, after any number of revisions, in terms of entailments within the logic.