bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Framework for Information Processing in the Diagnosis of Sleep Apnea
Authors: Abeyratne Udantha R.
Published: May 2010

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is one of the most common sleep disorders. It is characterized by repetitive obstruction of the upper airways during sleep. The frequency of such events can range up to hundreds of events per sleep-hour. Full closure of the airways is termed apnea, and a partial closure is known as hypopnea. The number of apnea/hypopnea events per hour is known as the AHI-index, and is used by clinical community as a measure of the severity of OSA. OSA, when untreated, presents as a major public health concern throughout the world. OSA patients use health facilities at twice the average rate (Delaive, Roos, Manfreda, & Kryger, 1998), causing huge pressures on national healthcare systems. OSA is associated with serious complications such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, (Barber & Quan, 2002; Kryger, 2000,), and sexual impotence. It also causes cognitive deficiencies, low IQ in children, fatigue, and accidents. Australian Sleep Association reported (ASA, 1999) that in the state of New South Wales alone 11,000–43,000 traffic accidents per year were attributable to untreated-OSA.
Functional Characteristics and Supporting Methods for Maintaining Independent Life of the Elders
Authors: Nishiguchi Hiromi
Published: May 2010

At first, it is necessary to measure physical and intellectual function objectively to support independence of the elders who need care in daily life, and to analyze the reason why the elders cannot move or take action, and why the barrier occurs. An effective use of a survival or a substituted function and also the improvement of physical environment, such as housing accommodation in private and public sectors require for removing barriers. Besides, social resources are useful to support independence of the elders in their daily lives. In this chapter, two issues was focused, functional characteristics which change in accordance with the increase of age, and the methods of removing barriers for elders to move as they like.
Healthcare Information Systems and the Semantic Web
Authors: Parry David
Published: May 2010

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a critical source of information for healthcare. Because of this, systems for allowing increased efficiency and effectiveness of information retrieval and discovery are critical. Increased intelligence in web pages will allow information sharing and discovery to become vastly more efficient .The semantic web is an umbrella term for a series of standards and technologies that will support this development.
How Human Technology Improve the Scheduling of Unplanned Surgical Cases
Authors: Fitzgerald Janna Anneke , Lum Martin , Dadich Ann
Published: May 2010

Human technology in health care includes managerial knowledge required to marshal a health care workforce, operate hospitals and equipment, obtain and administer funds, and, increasingly, identify and establish markets. In this article, the authors focus on human technology and improvement of decision-making processes in the context of operating theatre scheduling of unplanned surgical cases. Unplanned surgery refers to unscheduled and unexpected surgical procedures in distinction to planned, elective surgery. The management of unplanned surgery is a strategic function in hospitals with potential clinical, administrative, economical, social, and political implications. Making health care management decisions is complex due to the multidisciplinary and the multifocussed nature of decision-making processes. The complexity of multidisciplinary and multifocussed decision-making is further exacerbated by perceived professional identity differences. This article presents findings from interviews with doctors and nurses about the scheduling of unplanned surgical cases. The interviews focused on current decision- making determinants, the acceptability of using a model to guide decision-making, and enablers and barriers to implementing the model. The key finding was the limited practicality of a model to guide the scheduling of unplanned surgery. While it could guide decisions around clinical determinants, logistical determinants, and ideal timeframes, it would have difficulty reshaping inter- and intra-professional dynamics.
Innovative Piezoelectric Extracorporeal Lithotripter
Authors: Loske Achim M. , Fernández Francisco , Fernández Gilberto
Published: May 2010

Before 1980, the majority of patients with urolithiasis and nephrolithiasis needed surgery (Kerbl, Rehman, Landman, Lee, Sundaram, & Clayman, 2002; Soucie et al., 1994). Fortunately, percutaneous nephrolithotomy, ureteroscopic intrarenal surgery, laparoscopic surgery, and extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) now allow almost any calculus to be removed without open surgery. SWL refers to the use of high intensity pressure pulses, generated outside the body, to break up kidney stones (Chaussy, Brendel, & Schmiedt, 1980; Loske, 2007). It has become the standard treatment for the majority of patients and an alternative in the management of gallbladder stones, pancreatic concrements, and salivary gland stones. Even though initial studies concluded that shock waves had no damaging effect on renal tissue, later several authors reported that shock waves may cause tissue trauma (Evan, Willis, Connors, McAteer, & Lingeman, 1991; Evan, Willis, & Lingeman, 2003 Willis et al., 1999). Fortunately, techniques and devices are still evolving and improvements to increase stone fragmentation efficiency and reduce tissue trauma are being constantly sought.
Interactive Video Game-Based Tool for Dynamic Rehabilitation Movements
Authors: Betker Aimee L. , Szturm Tony , Moussavi Zahra
Published: May 2010

In being seated, standing, and walking, many uncontrollable factors contribute to the degradation of our balance system. The maintenance of balance involves many essential sensory (visual, vestibular, and somatosensory) and motor processes. Each sensory input provides unique internal and external reference frame information to the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS interprets the sensory information, from which preplanned and/or preventative (feedforward controls) and corrective (feedback controls) actions can be taken and conflicting sensory information can be mediated (Peterka, 2002). In the absence of a sensory input, balance can still be maintained; however, the compensatory actions become larger and different balance strategies may be employed. Serious problems facing older adults and many people with neurological disorders (e.g., stroke, traumatic head injuries, incomplete spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, and osteoarthritis) are balance impairment, mobility restriction, and falling (Gill et al., 2001; Harris, Eng, Marigold, Tokuno, & Louis, 2005). In these cases, even small disturbances may result in a fall and injuries are very likely to occur. This increased risk of falling combined with mobility limitations precipitates patient dependency in instrumental and basic activities of daily living; in turn, this results in reduced levels of physical activity.
IT-Based Virtual Medical Centres and Structures
Authors: Staudinger Bettina , Ostermann Herwig , Staudinger Roland
Published: May 2010

The management of the information technology in a virtual medical service centre is subject to different requirements than the IT-management of a hospital resembling more a closed shop. Building a virtual centre calls for performance of an open shop principle, because the entire treatment chain cannot be mapped within one single institution, but requires integrated cooperation in order to manage a patient’s clinical pathway. Not only the spatial displacement, but also the unavoidable higher process orientation within a virtual cooperation deserves particular consideration. Additionally, the information management is challenged by the fact that the provision of relevant information in standardised form is an indispensable element of a virtual centre. In this context, the question about potential structural assembling, and organisational principles and elements of virtual medical service centres has to be answered in order to conclude on the basic requirements of data management and the appropriate solution approaches. This shall be presented partly using the example of the virtual oncological medical centre in Tyrol.
Managing Operating Room Cost in Cardiac Surgery with Three Process Interventions
Authors: Peltokorpi Antti , Lehtonen Juha-Matti , Kujala Jaakko , Kouri Juhani
Published: May 2010

Healthcare providers in both public and private sectors are facing increasing pressure to improve their cost efficiency and productivity. The increasing cost of new technological solutions has enforced to apply operations management techniques developed for industrial and service processes. Meyer’s (2004) review of existing research shows that, on average, operating rooms (ORs) operate only at 68% of capacity. Using OR time efficiently is especially challenging when long operations are scheduled to fixed OR block time. This situation is typical in open heart surgeries, where a high variability in the length of required OR time combined with four and a half hour average OR time duration makes scheduling two operations during a normal eight hour workday difficult. The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect that three different process interventions have on the OR cost in OR performing open heart surgeries. The investigated process interventions are 4 days OR week (4D), the better accuracy of operating room time forecast (F) and doing anesthesia induction outside the OR (I). These interventions were emerged from practical organization context. This paper is organized as follows. First we provide a review of the existing literature on measures of OR utilization and investigated three interventions. Based on existing literature we construct a simulation model to test the interventions’ effect on OR utilization. Conclusions of results are presented and practical implications and new contribution to existed theory of operating room management is discussed.
Master-Slave Robotic System for Therapeutic Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Procedures
Authors: Low Soon Chiang , Phee Soo Jay , Tang S. W. , Thant Z. M. , Ho K. Y. , Chung S. C.
Published: May 2010

Flexible endoscopy is used to inspect and treat disorders of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract without the need for creating an artificial opening on the patient’s body (Phee, Ng, Chen, Seow, & Davies, 1997). The endoscope is introduced via the mouth or anus into the upper or lower GI tracts respectively. A miniature camera at the distal end captures images of the GI wall that help the clinician in diagnosis of the GI diseases. Simple surgical procedures (like polypectomy and biopsy) can be performed by introducing a flexible tool via a working channel to reach the site of interest at the distal end. The types of procedures that can be performed in this manner are limited by the lack of maneuverability of the tool. More technically demanding surgical procedures like hemostasis for arterial bleeding, suturing to mend a perforation, and fundoplication for gastrooesophageal reflux cannot be effectively achieved with flexible endoscopy. These procedures are often presently being performed under opened or laparoscopic surgeries.
Minimal Invasive Surgery and Therapy (MIS and MIT) in Hirschsprung's Patients
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Turchetti Giuseppe , Labella Barbara , Moglia Andrea , Menciassi Arianna , Dario Paolo
Published: May 2010

The generally accepted treatment for Hirschsprung’s disease is through surgical intervention. Currently, the recognized techniques include the Swenson technique, which is less frequently used as the operation is delicate and can give rise to complications; the Duhamel technique, which is arguably the simplest approach and consistently provides good results; and the Soave technique, which also provides good results but is often more complex than the Duhamel approach. However, surgical and diagnostic procedures of the future will evolve from embracing current technologies that enable minimally invasive approaches to extremely targeted, localized, and high-precision endoluminal techniques. This requires entirely new types of surgical tools capable of entering the human body through natural orifices (by insertion, ingestion, or inhalation), very small incisions (injections), or even through skin absorption and maybe configuring themselves in complex kinetic structures at the specific site of intervention. Moreover, such approaches necessitate modification of classic surgical techniques. While the advantages of minimally invasive surgery and minimally invasive therapy (MIS and MIT) are widely acknowledged, this chapter serves to highlight the advantages of such procedures in pediatric medicine, both at the diagnostic and intervention levels and the consequent implications to classic surgical techniques. The particular focus of the chapter pertains to the specific advantages the following techniques can bring into pediatric diagnostic and surgical techniques in the case of Hirschsprung’s disease: (1) endoluminal miniaturized tools for gastrointestinal endoscopy, (2) gastrointestinal capsules for digestion (e.g., M2A capsule), and (3) laparoscopic tools for surgery. Both technological and economic perspectives are discussed.
Modification of Arruda's Accessory Pathway Localization Method to Improve the Performance of WPW Syndrome Interventions
Authors: Szilágyi Sándor Miklós , Szilágyi László , Luca Constantin T. , Cozma Dragos , Ivanica Gabriel , Benyó Zoltán
Published: May 2010

The Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome is characterized by an accessory pathway (by-pass tract) between the atria and ventricles that conducts parallel with the atrioventricular (AV) node-His bundle, but faster (Wolff, Parkinson, & White, 1930; Yee, Klein, & Guiraudon, 1995). An accessory AV connection can conduct in both directions. The presence of these bypass tracts may predispose to atria-ventricular reentrant tachycardia. Moreover, in the setting of atrial fibrillation, the WPW syndrome may cause a catastrophically rapid ventricular response with degeneration to ventricular fibrillation (VF).
Modified Beamspace Method for the Spatial Filtering of Magnetoencephalographic Data
Authors: Özkurt Tolga Esat , Sun Mingyu , Sclabassi Robert J.
Published: May 2010

In this article, we propose a novel preprocessing method in the spherical harmonics domain to decompose the MEG signal into specific parts, whose sources arise from user-prescribed concentric spherical regions. A particular case of this approach is presented to separate the data into parts corresponding to deep and superficial regions of the brain, without using inverse solutions. Throughout this article, plain italics denote scalars, lower case boldface symbols denote vectors, uppercase boldface symbols denote matrices, superscripts T and H stand for transpose and Hermitian transpose, and ||.||, tr(.), * indicate Euclidean norm, and trace and complex conjugate operations, respectively.
MRI Induced Heating on Pacemaker Leads
Authors: Mattei Eugenio , Calcagnini Giovanni , Triventi Michele , Censi Federica , Bartolini Pietro , Kainz Wolfgang , Bassen Howard
Published: May 2010

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a widely accepted tool for the diagnosis of a variety of disease states. The presence of a metallic implant, such as a cardiac pacemaker (PM), or the use of conductive structures in interventional therapy, such as guide wires or catheters, are currently considered a strong contraindication to MRI (Kanal, Borgstede, Barkovich, Bell, Bradley, Etheridge, Felmlee, Froelich, Hayden, Kaminski, Lester, Scoumis, Zaremba, & Zinninger, 2002; Niehaus & Tebbenjohanns, 2001; Shellock & Crues, 2002). Potential effects of MRI on PMs’ implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICDs) include: force and torque effects on the PM (Luechinger, Duru, Scheidegger, Boesiger, & Candinas, 2001; Shellock, Tkach, Ruggieri, & Masaryk, 2003); undefined reed-switch state within the static magnetic field (Luechinger, Duru, Zeijlemaker, Scheidegger, Boesiger, & Candinas, 2002); potential risk of heart stimulation and inappropriate pacing (Erlebacher, Cahill, Pannizzo, & Knowles, 1986; Hayes, Holmes, & Gray, 1987); and heating effects at the lead tip (Achenbach, Moshage, Diem, Bieberle, Schibgilla, & Bachmann, 1997; Luechinger, Zeijlemaker, Pedersen, Mortensen, Falk, Duru, Candinas, & Boesiger, 2005; Sommer, Vahlhaus, Lauck, von Smekal, Reinke, Hofer, Block, Traber, Schneider, Gieseke, Jung, & Schild, 2000). In particular, most of the publications dealing with novel MRI techniques on patients with implanted linear conductive structures (Atalar, Kraitchman, Carkhuff, Lesho, Ocali, Solaiyappan, Guttman, & Charles, 1998; Baker, Tkach, Nyenhuis, Phillips, Shellock, Gonzalez-Martinez, & Rezai, 2004; Nitz, Oppelt, Renz, Manke, Lenhart, & Link, 2001) point out that the presence of these structures may produce an increase in power deposition around the wire or the catheter. Unfortunately, this increased local specific absorption rate (SAR) is potentially harmful to the patient, due to an excessive temperature increase which can bring living tissues to necrosis. The most direct way to get a measure of the SAR deposition along the wire is by using a temperature probe: the use of fluoroptic® thermometry to measure temperature has become “state-of-the-art,” and is the industry standard in this field (Shellock, 1992; Wickersheim et al., 1987). When the investigation involves small objects and large spatial temperature gradients, the measurement of the temperature increase and of the local SAR may become inaccurate, unless several precautions are taken. It seems obvious to: (1) evaluate the error associated with temperature increase and SAR measurements; (2) define a standard protocol for probe positioning, which minimizes the error associated with temperature measurement.
New Ensemble Machine Learning Method for Classification and Prediction on Gene Expression Data
Authors: Wang Ching Wei
Published: May 2010

One of the most active areas of research in supervised machine learning has been to study methods for constructing good ensembles of classifiers. The main discovery is that the ensemble classifier often performs much better than single classifiers that make them up. Recent researches (Dettling, 2004, Tan & Gilbert, 2003) have confirmed the utility of ensemble machine learning algorithms for gene expression analysis. The motivation of this work is to investigate a suitable machine learning algorithm for classification and prediction on gene expression data. The research starts with analyzing the behavior and weaknesses of three popular ensemble machine learning methods—Bagging, Boosting, and Arcing—followed by presentation of a new ensemble machine learning algorithm. The proposed method is evaluated with the existing ensemble machine learning algorithms over 12 gene expression datasets (Alon et al., 1999; Armstrong et al., 2002; Ash et al., 2000; Catherine et al., 2003; Dinesh et al., 2002; Gavin et al., 2002; Golub et al., 1999; Scott et al., 2002; van ’t Veer et al., 2002; Yeoh et al., 2002; Zembutsu et al., 2002). The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm greatly outperforms existing methods, achieving high accuracy in classification. The outline of this chapter is as follows: Ensemble machine learning approach and three popular ensembles (i.e., Bagging, Boosting, and Arcing) are introduced first in the Background section; second, the analyses on existing ensembles, details of the proposed algorithm, and experimental results are presented in Method section, followed by discussions on the future trends and conclusion.
A Novel Radiotherapy Technique
Authors: Chan Maria F. , Song Yan
Published: May 2010

Cancer is the second leading cause of death behind heart disease in the United States (National Center for Health Statistics, 2006). Various caner treatments are available now, but the three most common types are surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Radiotherapy uses radiation—in the form of a special kind of x-rays, ?-rays, electrons, or protons to kill cancer cells. The advance of modern radiotherapy is closely linked to the evolution of computer and information technology. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced form of three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT). It has become today’s standard for state-of-the-art radiation treatment. IMRT is based on the concept of inverse treatment planning. By optimizing a constrained objective function, IMRT can modulate the shape and intensity of radiation beams to create a dose distribution highly conformal to the target volume. In this article, we report the results of our investigation on the feasibility and potential benefits of combining electrons with intensity-modulated photons, called IMRT+e, for selected types of caner, particularly for superficial tumors with critical organs underneath. The aim is to deliver high radiation dose to the tumor while sparing all the surrounding normal tissues, thereby minimizing radiation induced side-effects.
Online Nurse Education
Authors: Klobas Jane , Sementina Ciro , Renzi Stefano
Published: May 2010

In many countries, healthcare professionals are required to participate annually in compulsory continuing medical education (CME). The effort involved in providing wide-scale training led the Italian Ministry of Health to support pilot courses using online distance learning. This article reports the results of a short survey which aimed to gauge the potential of online CME for nurses in Italy. Most of the 152 respondents, all of whom had completed an online course, supported the inclusion of some form of collaborative learning. Three possible market segments for online learning emerged from the study: nurses who prefer to study alone, those who would appreciate collaborative activities well-integrated into course design, and those who would prefer courses that include online collaboration of any kind. The authors conclude that online learning is a suitable mode for enabling participation in CME for accreditation, but caution that further research is required to confirm that the preferences of nurses who have experienced online distance learning are shared by those who have not.
Populomics, an Emerging E-Health Response to Contemporary Healthcare Realities
Authors: Gibbons Michael Christopher
Published: May 2010

There is increasing interest in the role of technology in health care and public health. Several researchers have predicted a coming revolution in health care similar to the transformations that occurred in the finance and retail industries upon the widespread adoption of computer technology (Abrams, 2006; Crane & Raymond, 2003; Gibbons, 2005, 2006). In biomedical research, computer technology has catalyzed the emergence of whole new disciplines such as regulomics, proteomics, phenomics, and pharmacogenetics (Gibbons, 2005). Telemedicine, e-prescribing, Electronic Medical Records, and computerized physician order entry systems are emerging as important tools to improve the quality of health care even though the broad health care transformation historically envisioned has not yet occurred (Crane & Raymond, 2003).
Prevalence of Bullwhip Effect in Hospitals
Authors: Sethuraman Kannan , Tirupati Devanath
Published: May 2010

Lee, et al. (1997b) state the impact of increased volatility as, “Distorted information from one end of the supply chain to the other can lead to excessive inventory investment, poor customer service, lost revenues, ineffective transportation, and missed production schedules.” Although there is a growing body of research on managing the bullwhip effect in manufacturingbased supply chains (Baganha & Cohen, 1998; Chen, Drezner, Ryan & Simchi-Levi, 2000; Chen, Ryan & Simchi-Levi, 1997; Metter, 1997), little research exists on its presence in service chains, and we are unaware of any reported research on this subject. In this chapter, we present several examples of distorted information in hospitals resulting in variability amplification and causing inefficiencies similar to the bullwhip effect. We highlight the underlying causes for this phenomenon and propose actions that can mitigate the detrimental impact of this distortion.
Process Level Benefits of an Electronic Medical Records System
Authors: Radhakrishnan Abirami , David Dessa , Zaveri Jigish
Published: May 2010

The challenges faced by U.S. health care system are vividly explained in the U.S. Government’s health information technology plan, The U.S. health care system faces major challenges. Health care spending and health insurance premiums continue to rise at rates much higher than the rate of inflation. Despite spending over $1.6 trillion on health care, there are still serious concerns about preventable errors, uneven health care quality, and poor communication among doctors, hospitals, and many other health care providers involved in the care of any one person. The Institute of Medicine estimates that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die each year from medical errors. Many more die or have permanent disability because of inappropriate treatments, mistreatments, or missed treatments in ambulatory settings. It has been found that as much as $300 billion is spent each year on health care that does not improve patient outcomes – treatment that is unnecessary, inappropriate, inefficient, or ineffective. All these problems – high costs, uncertain value, medical errors, variable quality, administrative inefficiencies, and poor coordination – are closely connected to inadequate use of health care information technology. (U.S. Federal Government Health Information Technology Plan, 2004).
Programming Body Sensor Networks
Authors: Iwens Gervásio , Sampaio Carval Hervaldo , Gonçalves de Andrade Barbosa Talles Marcelo
Published: May 2010

According to Barbosa, Sene, Carvalho, da Rocha, Nascimento, and Camapum (2006), two important concepts related to programmability in BSNs are: (i) deployment-time programmability, and (ii) run-time set-up. The deployment-time programmability refers to the definition of software artifacts and algorithms that are embedded in the sensor node. In BSNs, the inclusion of this functionality requires a programming interface that is suitable for healthcare personnel, as well as intelligent compilers. Intelligent compilers should be capable of handling implicit functional and nonfunctional requisites of a program. As an example, the inclusion of mechanisms and policies for energy saving could be treated by these structures. The run-time set-up refers to the capability for adjustments in run-time. The BSN should provide interactivity between the healthcare professional (the BSN manager) and the system. As a requisite, sensor nodes need mechanisms that allow a better control of the tasks that are being run. A possible solution is the use of data structures that allow preemptive multitasking. The goal of this article is to present the current state of the art, regarding programmability in BSNs. Moreover, we want to present potential benefits of a paradigm shift in which healthcare professionals become the actual programmers and maintainers of the BSNs. With that in mind, we briefly present a software architecture that has been developed with the goal of allowing programmability at network and sensor node levels.
Prospects for Development of Shock Wave Therapy
Authors: Garilevich B. A. , Kudryavtsev Y. V. , Olefir Y. V. , Andrianov Y. V. , Rotov A. E.
Published: May 2010

Nowadays the world medical practice widely uses the method of extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for treatment of patients with urolithiasis bay means of pulverizing action of focused shock waves (FSW). In the early 1980s in Germany, the Dornier Medical Systems Company fabricated the first lithotriptor based on the electrohydraulic principle of shock wave generation. By 1988, practically all countries had applied lithotriptors developed by Dornier Medical Systems. Later, more than 15 countries started to fabricate their own lithotriptors, which use various methods of FSW generation, such as electrohydraulic, electromagnetic, and piezoelectric. These countries were Germany, USA, Russia, China, Italy, France, Israel, Turkey, Slovakia, Poland, Austria, Sweden, and so forth. However, the given method of the physical effects can be used not only for the extracorporeal fragmentation of calculi. The biological effects of shock waves presume a perspective of their use for treatment and aftertreatment of the patients with other disorders and pathological conditions using their stimulatory and inhibitory actions.
Reducing Patient Delays in a Day Surgery Unit of a Hospital
Authors: Hanna Victoria , Sethuraman Kannan
Published: May 2010

In this article, we illustrate the relevance of queuing theory principles to the healthcare sector through a case study of a day surgery unit in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia. The hospital has an acknowledged problem: patients are spending longer-than-anticipated periods of time in the day surgery unit, and they are facing excessive waiting times at all stages of their healthcare delivery process. The hospital is operated on a not-forprofit basis, and the executive board members are keen to understand the root causes of the problem, so they can direct their investment in the system to improve its responsiveness.
Reforming Nursing with Information Systems and Technology
Authors: Abraham D. Chon
Published: May 2010

Much of healthcare improvement via technology initiatives address gaining physician by-in (Reinertsen, 2005) and does not adequately address engaging nurses, despite the fact that nurses serve as the front-line care givers and are a primary user group (Wiley-Patton and Malloy, 2004). However, the tide is changing and visibility of nurses as information gatherers and processors in the patient care process is increasing (Romano, 2006). Nurses perform the majority of the data oriented tasks involved in patient care and would benefit most from having access to information at the point of care (Bove, 2006). RADM Romano, Chief Professional Officer of Nursing and advisor to the US Surgeon General concerning public health, recently addressed the American Informatics Nursing Informatics Association and stated “This is the year of the nurse. The technologies that have the means to improve the efficiencies in patient care are in the hands of the nurses.” Nurses need to embrace technology in everyday work or continue suffering the consequences of antiquated methods of computing that take us away from where we work – at the point of care (Abbott, 2006).
RFID Tagging of Pharmaceuticals
Authors: Wyld David C.
Published: May 2010

Pharmaceuticals play a more prominent role in American health care than in any other nation. The North American market today comprises 47% of the global prescription drug market, which now exceeds half a trillion dollars, with Americans spending approximately $251.8 billion annually on pharmaceuticals. This is up significantly from a decade earlier, when American consumption represented approximately one-third of the world market (IMS Health, 2006a). America’s insatiable demand for prescription drugs has led to serious cracks in the drug supply chain of the world’s leading pharmaceutical market. This chapter examines the size and scope of the problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, both globally and in the United States. It looks at the impact this crisis is having both on public health and the pharmaceutical industry. Today, leaders in both the pharmaceutical industry and government are looking to more stringent regulations and radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging of pharmaceuticals as a way to head off the problems associated with an increasingly leaky drug supply chain. This chapter outlines the steps being taken in the United States to help secure this vital supply chain. Finally, an analysis is given of the impact the shift to electronic pedigrees of pharmaceuticals will have both on the pharmaceutical and RFID market spaces.
A Role-Based Agent-Oriented Approach to Medical Device Integration
Authors: De Mola Francesco , Cabri Giacomo
Published: May 2010

Monitoring heterogeneous medical devices is a key issue for efficient medical information management in highquality health care delivery. Collecting vital signs and integrating data from various sources is very important in order to make precise diagnosis and provide effective emergency response. Current commercial rules and the scarce adoption of standard protocols are the first main obstacle to achieve a real integration. We propose a work-in-progress, role-based, agentoriented solution to overcome this obstacle: proper mobile agents are in charge of acquiring data from each kind of medical device (e.g., electrocardiograms, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation gauges), providing a uniform interface toward the business logic; in its turn, each medical device is provided by a vendor-specific role, embodying the capability to interface with the device by means of its own protocol. Thus, each time a new medical device requires the integration in a wider system, a generic mobile agent migrates to the device node; here, it assumes the role of the specific device manufacturer and starts delivering the acquired data hiding the heterogeneity of the device. We will propose such a solution describing the implementation of a demonstrative prototype exploiting the RoleSystem infrastructure, which dynamically makes role capabilities available to the agents.
Security-Aware Service Specification for Healthcare Information Systems
Authors: Khan Khaled M.
Published: May 2010

With the rapid advancement of Web-based technologies, healthcare information systems are becoming increasingly heterogeneous in terms of their architecture, composition, and runtime characteristics. A healthcare system can be composed of several stand-alone service components, such as Web services available from various distributed sources for runtime execution. We use the terms Web services and service interchangeably in this chapter to refer to the same concept. A healthcare application system can be composed of multiple autonomous geographically dispersed software services. A healthcare software service is autonomous as it has its own executable code and uses its own data or files. The composition of a healthcare system can be dynamic or static, depending on how services are connected to each other to provide the services. Some of the services are downloaded directly from the Internet and executed dynamically with the application system. The use of independent services in the healthcare information system is appealing because it supports reusability of code and far efficient utilization of network resources, and it might be cost efficient.
Similarity Metrics for Medical Image Registration
Authors: Tait Roger , Schaefer Gerald
Published: May 2010

The most important component of an image registration algorithm is the similarity metric used to determine when images are in accurate alignment (Penney, Weese, Little, Desmedt, Hill, & Hawkes, 1998). In Figure 1, the inputs to and output from a basic metric are illustrated. In general, a metric works by examining corresponding pixel values in both fixed and moving images and then formulating a measure of similarity based on the relationship between these intensities. The metric assumes that the relationship changes with variations in the spatial transformation used to map between images and a maximum similarity is achieved when the images are in close alignment (Brown, 1992). Intensity equality which is high when pixels are similar is one such relationship employed as a similarity metric in single-modal registration where images are captured using the same sensor type. Total equality, however, is seldom reached due to noise and image acquisition inconsistencies. Additional robustness is therefore achieved by assessing the ratio of intensities and minimising the variance of such ratios. When images are acquired with different sensor types, as is typically the case in multimodal registration, an extension of the ratio method which maximises the weighted sum of variances can be employed. Alternatively, a relationship estimating the entropy of corresponding intensity pairs can be formulated where entropy, derived from information theory (Shannon, 1948), is the measure of the amount of information contained within a signal. Although many algorithms have been proposed, similarity calculation remains a complex task.
Strategic Fit in the Healthcare IDS
Authors: Thrasher Evelyn H. , Byrd Terry A.
Published: May 2010

Interorganizational networks are defined as “clusters of organizations that make decisions jointly and integrate their efforts to produce a product or service” (Alter & Hage, 1993, p.2) and “advanced organizational structures perceived to improve efficiency, flexibility, and innovativeness and described as decoupled units developed because of rapid growth or knowledge and technology” (Schumaker, 2002). The healthcare integrated delivery system (IDS) is a distinct example of an interorganizational network. Defined as networks of healthcare organizations linked for the goals of clinical integration and an effective patient care continuum (Zucherman, Kaluzny, & Ricketts, 1995; Kilbridge, 1998; Young & McCarthy, 1999; Deluca & Enmark, 2002), IDSs may assume various organizational forms, namely strategic alliances, contracted networks, or joint ventures and may be comprised of multiple forms within a single network (Page, 2003). Also of interest is the distinction of the IDS as a lateral network of stakeholders, all directly serving the patient. This study uses the healthcare IDS to test a model of strategic fit and to examine differences in the nature and strength of the strategic fit to performance relationship across two distinct levels of IDS development.
Theory Driven Organizational Metrics
Authors: Lawless W.F. , Wood Joseph , Tung Hui-Lien
Published: May 2010

The inability to establish first principles has kept organizational theory from being successful. Moreover, due to snapshots in time and researcher biases, case studies are limited to hindsight, rather than serving as a proactive source of solutions to organizational problems. Yet case studies guided by theory have illuminated and tested the first principles that we have discovered. Unlike simple Newtonian mechanics, however, socialpsychological mechanics among organizational members are hidden behind and within explanations and discourse, eluding a science of fundamental interactions. When an interaction stops for measurement (e.g., case studies), significant information from the collapse of organizational interdependence is lost. The path forward is to predict the uncertainty left from the collapse of interdependent variables: planning and execution; or resources and time. In this article, we develop a new organization theory; in a related article (“Restructering a Military Medical Department Research Center” in this encyclopedia), we apply the theory to a case study of a military medical research center (MDRC) with access to advanced information systems (IS), yet struggling to determine the quality of its residents in training, and their scholarly productivity.
Time-Frequency Analysis for EGM Rhythm Classification
Authors: Sheikhzadeh Hamid , Brennan Robert L.
Published: May 2010

In this article, we study the problem of rhythm classification and event detection based on intracardiac electrogram (EGM) signals. At present, only a very limited scope of signal processing is possible in implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), due to the scarcity of available resources. As a result, relatively simple beat-by-beat time-domain analysis of the EGM signal(s) is employed for rhythm detection. Recently, researchers have attempted to exploit more sophisticated signal processing methods, such as wavelet transforms and template matching (Astrom, Olmos, & Sornmo, 2006; Brown, Christensen, & Gillberg, 2002; Koyrakh, Gillberg, & Wood, 1999). However, the new methods have rarely been employed in practical systems because of their computational and power demands.
Visual Methods for Analyzing Human Health Data
Authors: Tominski C. , Schulze-Wollgast P. , Schumann H.
Published: May 2010

This article focuses on the visual analysis of human health data that describe the number of cases of different diagnoses in a spatial and temporal frame of reference. To build a common basis for the later description of different visualization methods, basic concepts of visualization as well as an abstract data model are illustrated in Section 2. In the main part of this article we describe the visualization of human health data at different levels (see Section 3). Whereas basic visual methods for representing human health data abstractly are presented only briefly, the visualization of data with respect to space and time is described in more detail. This article concludes with remarks on future work and trends in Section 4 and a brief summary of the key issues described in this article (see Section 5).
Web-Enabled System Design for Managing Clinical Information
Authors: Teixeira Leonor , Ferreira Carlos , Sousa Santos Beatriz
Published: May 2010

Healthcare is characterized by a highly complex environment where the process of patient care requires an unusual amount of communication between different healthcare professionals (HCPs). For a better patient care, the various HCPs have to cooperate, a processed often called shared care (Garde & Knaup, 2006; Schabetsberger, Ammenwerth, Andreatta, Gratl, Haux, & Lechleitner, 2006). Nowadays, there is an increasing incorporation of a heterogeneous set of Information Systems (ISs)—paper-based and computer-based—on the daily work of HCPs, in order to retrieve information about patients (Coiera, 2003; Van-Bemmel & Musen, 1997). The complexity of the patient care process combined with the heterogeneity of the information resources leads to a paradigm of data redundancy in the healthcare services in general, and hemophilia care in particular.
On Document Representation and Term Weights in Text Classification
Authors: Liu Ying
Published: May 2010

In the automated text classification, a bag-of-words representation followed by the tfidf weighting is the most popular approach to convert the textual documents into various numeric vectors for the induction of classifiers. In this chapter, we explore the potential of enriching the document representation with the semantic information systematically discovered at the document sentence level. The salient semantic information is searched using a frequent word sequence method. Different from the classic tfidf weighting scheme, a probability based term weighting scheme which directly reflect the term’s strength in representing a specific category has been proposed. The experimental study based on the semantic enriched document representation and the newly proposed probability based term weighting scheme has shown a significant improvement over the classic approach, i.e., bag-of-words plus tfidf, in terms of Fscore. This study encourages us to further investigate the possibility of applying the semantic enriched document representation over a wide range of text based mining tasks.
Automatic Syllabus Classification Using Support Vector Machines
Authors: Yu Xiaoyan , Tungare Manas , Yuan Weigo , Yuan Yubo , Pérez-Quiñones Manuel , Fox Edward A.
Published: May 2010

Syllabi are important educational resources. Gathering syllabi that are freely available and creating useful services on top of the collection presents great value for the educational community. However, searching for a syllabus on the Web using a generic search engine is an error-prone process and often yields too many irrelevant links. In this chapter, we describe our empirical study on automatic syllabus classification using support vector machines (SVM) to filter noise out from search results. We describe various steps in the classification process from training data preparation, feature selection, and classifier building using SVMs. Empirical results are provided and discussed. We hope our reported work will also benefit people who are interested in building other genre-specific repositories.
Improving Techniques for Naïve Bayes Text Classifiers
Authors: Kim Han-joon
Published: May 2010

This chapter introduces two practical techniques for improving Naïve Bayes text classifiers that are widely used for text classification. The Naïve Bayes has been evaluated to be a practical text classification algorithm due to its simple classification model, reasonable classification accuracy, and easy update of classification model. Thus, many researchers have a strong incentive to improve the Naïve Bayes by combining it with other meta-learning approaches such as EM (Expectation Maximization) and Boosting. The EM approach is to combine the Naïve Bayes with the EM algorithm and the Boosting approach is to use the Naïve Bayes as a base classifier in the AdaBoost algorithm. For both approaches, a special uncertainty measure fit for Naïve Bayes learning is used. In the Naïve Bayes learning framework, these approaches are expected to be practical solutions to the problem of lack of training documents in text classification systems.
Featureless Data Clustering
Authors: Wong Wilson
Published: May 2010

Feature-based semantic measurements have played a dominant role in conventional data clustering algorithms for many existing applications. However, the applicability of existing data clustering approaches to a wider range of applications is limited due to issues such as complexity involved in semantic computation, long pre-processing time required for feature preparation, and poor extensibility of semantic measurement due to non-incremental feature source. This chapter first summarises the many commonly used clustering algorithms and feature-based semantic measurements, and then highlights the shortcomings to make way for the proposal of an adaptive clustering approach based on featureless semantic measurements. The chapter concludes with experiments demonstrating the performance and wide applicability of the proposed clustering approach.
Frequent Mining on XML Documents
Authors: Kutty Sangeetha
Published: May 2010

With the emergence of XML standardization, XML documents have been widely used and accepted in almost all the major industries. As a result of the widespread usage, it has been considered essential to not only store these XML documents but also to mine them to discover useful information from them. One of the very popular techniques to mine XML documents is frequent pattern mining, which has huge potential in varied domains such as bio-informatics, network analysis. This chapter presents some of the existing techniques to discover frequent patterns from XML documents. It also covers the applications and addresses the major issues in mining XML documents. Frequent Patterns: Patterns which occurs more than a user-specified threshold limit (minimum support or min_supp) in a given database.
Statistical Methods for User Profiling in Web Usage Mining
Authors: Pecoraro Marcello
Published: May 2010

This chapter aims at providing an overview about the use of statistical methods supporting the Web Usage Mining. Within the first part is described the framework of the Web Usage Mining as a branch of the Web Mining committed to the study of how to use a Website. Then, the data (object of the analysis) are detailed together with the problems linked to the pre-processing. Once clarified, the data origin and their treatment for a correct development of a Web Usage analysis,the focus shifts on the statistical techniques that can be applied to the analysis background, with reference to binary segmentation methods. Those latter allow the discrimination through a response variable that determines the affiliation of the users to a group by considering some characteristics detected on the same users.