bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Addressing Privacy in Traditional and Cloud-Based Systems
Authors: Kalloniatis Christos , Kavakli Evangelia , Gritzalis Stefanos
Published: November 2017

A major challenge in the field of software engineering is to make users trust the software that they use in their everyday activities for professional or recreational reasons. Amid the main criteria that formulate users' trust is the way that that their privacy is protected. Indeed, privacy violation is an issue of great importance for active online users that daily accomplish several transactions that may convey personal data, sensitive personal data, employee data, credit card data and so on. In addition, the appearance of cloud computing has elevated the number of personally identifiable information that users provide in order to gain access to various services, further raising user concerns as to how and to what extend information about them is communicated to others. The aim of this work is to elevate the modern practices for ensuring privacy during software systems design. To this end, the basic privacy requirements that should be considered during system analysis are introduced. Additionally, a number of well-known methods that have been introduced in the research area of requirements engineering which aim on eliciting and modeling privacy requirements during system design are introduced and critically analyzed. The work completes with a discussion of the additional security and privacy concepts that should be considered in the context of cloud-based information systems and how these affect current research.
Public Health Legislation and Patient's Rights
Authors: Mokrzycka Anna , Kowalska-Bobko Iwona
Published: November 2017

The right to health care in a contemporary world is widely recognized as one of the fundamental rights included into human rights concept. Despite such general acceptation the meaning and scope of right to healthcare is not universally understood in the same manner. The process of unification has been initiated some years ago and is still being developed. The very first grounds in this regard are: legislation and political documents, like health strategies, programs and plans - both at the common and national levels. The two most important documents influencing and changing the right to health care today in Europe are Health 2020 Strategy and EU Directive on Patient's rights in cross-border care. These documents have important impact on national legislation of EU countries. They change the systemic perspective and create new approach towards patient's rights in this region. Hereby, the main features of the process and analysis of the documents referring to the Polish example are presented.
Optimizing the Use and Adoption of Healthcare Information Systems
Authors: Bonney Wilfred
Published: November 2017

Advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have led to the development of various forms of electronic records to support general practitioners and healthcare providers in capturing, storing, and retrieving routinely collected medical records and/or clinical information for optimal primary care and translational research. These advancements have resulted in the emergence of interoperable Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) and Personal Health Records (PHRs). However, even as these systems continue to evolve, the research community is interested in understanding how the use and adoption of HIS can be optimized to support effective and efficient healthcare delivery and translational research. In this chapter, a systematic literature review methodology was used not only to explore the key benefits and technical challenges of HIS, but also to discuss the optimization approaches to maximizing the use and adoption of HIS in healthcare delivery.
A Transaction Cost Economics Perspective for Pervasive Technology
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Troshani Indrit , Goldberg Steve
Published: November 2017

Numerous mobile technology solutions are being developed and implemented today to address a myriad of healthcare problems. However, it remains unclear what the true cost/benefit of these solutions is and who benefits from them. To investigate this we apply a transaction cost economics framework to a pervasive mobile solution that has been designed and developed to enhance diabetes self-care. Diabetes is one of the leading chronic diseases and its prevalence continues to rise. The solution examined in this paper relies on pervasive wireless technology and is designed to facilitate the effective management of diabetes in the context of gestational diabetes, a conditions that affects up to 8% of pregnant women. A transactions cost assessment of this solution is provided.
Innovating Healthcare through Remote Monitoring
Authors: Acheampong Faustina , Vimarlund Vivian
Published: November 2017

Information technology has been suggested to improve patient health outcomes and reduce healthcare cost. This study explored the business model and effects of collaborative innovation between caregivers and patients on healthcare delivery through remote patient monitoring by interviewing caregivers and surveying atrial fibrillation patients. Findings indicate that remote monitoring enhanced early detection of potential risks and quality of clinical decision-making with patients feeling more empowered and involved in their own care. The remote monitoring system which consisted of a home-based ECG and a web-based service and was offered free to patients, brought together caregivers, patients, service provider and the government as actors. The introduction of remote monitoring increased the workload of caregivers and facilitation of timely diagnostics and decision-making were not realized. IT is an enabler of innovation in healthcare, but it must be integrated into work processes with a viable business model to realize potential benefits and sustain it.
A Multidisciplinary Remote Healthcare Delivery System to Increase Health Care Access, Pathology Screening, and Treatment in Developing Countries
Authors: Edoh Thierry Oscar , Pawar Pravin Amrut , Brügge Bernd , Teege Gunnar
Published: November 2017

In this paper, the authors describe a case study of the poor access to healthcare in developing world, case of Benin, a West African developing country. The authors identify problems and the existing obstacles for applying standard Telemedicine and eHealth solutions. The authors particularly describe an adapted multidisciplinary remote care delivery system approach for improving and increasing the use of existing health services as well as the access to healthcare by overcoming some cultural, social, financial, and at least linguistic barriers. The multidisciplinary remote care delivery system integrates traditional practitioners, because most people are more confident with the traditional medicine. The authors further present a practical test which has shown that their approach has the potential to improve the quality and effectiveness of health care in rural and other concerned regions and also increase the accessibility to health care system.
Healthcare Services for Nomadics Through a Mobile Framework
Authors: Hamunyela Suama , Iyamu Tiko
Published: November 2017

Many patients are often associated with various types of health related records, needing care and attentions. Healthcare system is intended for all that live in the country. Normally, there is spread of people across the geographical locations, of both the rural and urban communities. Even though the healthcare service is intended to spread across the country, the services are not always available as individuals require it. Hence, there is need for Mobility of healthcare services at both primary and secondary healthcare levels, particularly in the developing countries such as Namibia. In Namibia, the population is scantly spread far apart in the average of about 175 kilometres between major towns, necessitating movements of individuals and groups, particularly the old, poor, and nomadic people. The challenge is, healthcare records in the country are not centralised or virtualised, making accessibility into patients' records difficult or impossible. As a result, healthcare service delivering is challenged. This chapter explored the possibility healthcare services through virtualisation or centralisation as empowered by different translation of activities. The objectives of the study were to identify and discuss actors in the mobility of healthcare services. Mobility in this paper refers to the availability of services to the nomadic patients. The study employed the qualitative approach, within which data was gathered from primary healthcare services providers using open-ended questionnaires. The moments of Translation from the perspective of ANT was used a lens to analyse the data to examine and understand the power and factors which could influences mobility of healthcare service in Namibia.
Accountable Care and Evidence-Based Decision Making
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Goldberg Steve
Published: November 2017

In today's cost challenged healthcare environment accountable care and evidence-based decision making have become important considerations. Contemporaneous to this is the fact that the superior management of diabetes has become a global priority especially given the exponential increase in the number of diabetes patients as well as the financial implications of treating this silent epidemic. Thus, this research focuses on trying to address these respective yet critical issues by examining the possibility of using a mobile web-based reporting system that taps into existing widely available resources to monitor and manage gestational diabetes. To test this solution, we adopted a randomized control trial with two-arm cross over applied to a not-for profit hospital in Victoria, Australia. From the perspective of practice, we have uncovered far reaching implications for hospital management's cost vs. quality care to patients. In particular, it appears that the adoption of smartphones to support many aspects of care and patient-clinician interactions is prudent.
Application of Quality Management in Promoting Patient Safety and Preventing Medical Errors
Authors: Mosadeghrad Ali Mohammad , Woldemichael Abraha
Published: November 2017

The combination of healthcare professionals, processes and technologies bring significant benefits for patients. However, it also involves an inevitable risk of adverse events. Patients receiving health care in health institutions have the potential to experience some forms of medical errors. The word medical error commonly encompasses terms such as mistakes, near misses, active and latent errors. This signifies the complexity and multidimensional nature of the error. The consequences can be costly to the patients, the health professionals, the health care institutions, and the entire health care system. The costs may involve human, economic, and social aspects. Thus, ensuring quality health care can contribute to patients' safety by reducing potential medical errors in practice. This chapter aims to introduce a quality management framework for improving the quality and effectiveness of services, reducing medical errors and making the healthcare system safer for patients.
Operational Strategies Associated With RFID Applications in Healthcare Systems
Authors: Smith Alan D.
Published: November 2017

An effective information system is essential for a business or industry to be successful in today's highly competitive market. Perhaps the most compelling case for RFID-embedded technologies in the healthcare field has been increased efficiency in supply chain performance measurements, which generally consist of financial and non-financial indicators. Many research studies have assumed that these efficiency measures are transferrable in the medical services field. Such optimism is fuelled by the expectations that such supply chain measures will result in equally impressive results in the healthcare field. Although this transfer may be somewhat flawed and imperfectly applied, research has verified certain elements of operational optimism. There are still a number of technical, ethical, and legal issues or hurdles that surround RFID applications in the healthcare industry that must be successfully overcome. However, few can successfully argue against freeing hospital staff from the routine duties associated with traditional inventory so that they may be free to serve patients. With recent governmental regulations and the concern for increased access to universal medical care and its astronomical costs, these issues need to be addressed.
Mathematical Programming and Heuristics for Patient Scheduling in Hospitals
Authors: Gartner Daniel , Padman Rema
Published: November 2017

The effective and efficient treatment of individual patients subject to scarce hospital resources is an increasingly important and challenging problem for decision makers to address. A recent study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics listed Registered Nursing among the top occupations in terms of job growth until the year 2022 (American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2015)). This growing demand can be explained in part by the large number of aging baby boomers with multi-morbid health conditions who typically require more treatments and longer length of stay in a variety of healthcare delivery settings (Vetrano et al. (2014)). Given the projected demand growth and reduced mobility of elderly patients, efficient operational research methods have to be developed and deployed for optimizing the process of scheduling the treatment of individual patients in highly resource constrained environments. We will henceforth denote this process as ‘patient scheduling' and provide a problem definition and a review of current approaches in the course of this chapter.
Hospital Social Media Strategies
Authors: Payton Fay Cobb , Pinto Natasha
Published: November 2017

This chapter describes the role social media plays in patient communication at hospitals. The chapter explores how social media platforms are used by national and local hospitals to deliver higher quality healthcare and increase patient engagement. Using an in-depth literature review and semi-structured interviews at two local hospitals, the chapter assesses how hospitals approach traditional and social media strategies. The chapter identifies the importance of using both online and offline communication strategies for the most comprehensive and effective delivery of healthcare. The chapter also includes a discussion of how social media has the ability to influence health information seeking and the patient-physician relationship.
How the Rich Lens of ANT Can Help Us to Understand the Advantages of Mobile Solutions
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Tatnall Arthur , Goldberg Steve
Published: November 2017

The WHO has labelled diabetes the silent epidemic. This is because the instances of diabetes worldwide continue to grow exponentially. In fact, by 2030 it is expected that there will be a 54% global increase. Thus, it behooves all to focus on solutions that can result in superior management of this disease. Hence, this chapter presents findings from a longitudinal exploratory case study that examined the application of a pervasive technology solution, a mobile phone to provide superior diabetes self-care. Notably, the benefits of a pervasive technology solution for supporting superior self-care in the context of chronic disease are made especially apparent when viewed through the rich lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), and thus, the chapter underscores the importance of using ANT in such contexts to facilitate a deeper understanding of all potential advantages.
Study of Real-Time Cardiac Monitoring System
Authors: Arun Uma , Sriraam Natarajan
Published: November 2017

Today's healthcare technology provides promising solutions to cater to the needs of patients. The development of wearable physiological monitoring system has reached home-centric patients by ensuring faster healthcare services. The primary advantage of this system is activation of alarms to alert the specialist in a nearby hospital to attend to any sort of emergency. Specifically, cardiac-related problems need special attention when a 24-hour Holter monitors ECG signals and identifies the level of abnormalities under various circumstances. Although several brands of Holters exist in market, there is a huge demand for digitized Holter recorders. These recorders can simultaneously analyse cardiac signals in real time mode and store the data and reuse them for next 24 hours. As home-centric based wearable cardiac monitoring system gains much attention recently, there is a need to design and develop a cardiac monitoring system by establishing a trade-off between the required clinical diagnostic quality and cost. This research study highlights a comprehensive survey of various cardiac monitoring systems under wire, wireless and wearable modes. This provides an insight into the need of the hour in bringing a cost-effective wearable system. The study provides an insight of the technological aspects of the existing cardiac monitoring system and suggests a viable design suitable for developing countries.
An ANT Analysis of Healthcare Services for the Nomadic Patients of Namibia
Authors: Iyamu Tiko , Hamunyela Suama
Published: November 2017

Patients seek attention and treatments to various types of diseases and symptoms. Diseases infection and symptoms are often not predictive. Normally, there is a spread and movement of people across the geographical locations, of both the rural and urban communities, in countries including Namibia. As such, healthcare could be needed at any location, and at any time. There is significant mobility of individuals and groups within a country. Unfortunately, the healthcare services are not always as mobile at the level and speed that individuals and groups does in Namibia. Hence, there is need for the mobility of healthcare services at both primary and secondary healthcare levels, particularly in the developing countries, such as Namibia. The population of Namibia is scantly spread among its towns and cities. The major towns and cities are situated, in the average of 175km far apart from each other, in the country's 825, 418km square landscape. The spread necessitates movements of individuals and groups, particularly the old, poor, and nomadic people. Unfortunately, healthcare records in the country are not centralised and virtualised, making accessibility into patients' records difficult or impossible, from any location. As a result, healthcare service delivering is challenged. This study therefore explored and examined the possibility of mobility of healthcare services to those who live in the country. The study employed the qualitative research method, within which data was gathered from primary healthcare service providers, using open-ended questionnaires. The Moments of Translation from the perspective of actor-network theory (ANT) was used as a lens in the analysis of the data, to examine and understand the power and factors, which influences mobility of healthcare service in Namibia. Categorisation of Patients, Response Time, Understanding the Actors, Actors' participatory to service delivery, and Actors' Alliance were found to be the influencing factors in the provision of mobility of healthcare services.
Document Management Mechanism for Holistic Emergency Healthcare
Authors: Poulymenopoulou M. , Malamateniou F. , Vassilacopoulos G.
Published: November 2017

A number of recent studies have showed that early and specialized pre-hospital patient management contributes significantly to emergency case survival. Along with the deployment and availability of appropriate emergency care resources, this also requires the availability of timely and relevant patient information to emergency medical service professionals. However, current healthcare information systems are characterized by heterogeneity and fragmentation, hindering emergency care professionals to have access to holistic or integrated patient information from the various organizations that participate in emergency care processes where and when needed. At the same time, many e-health programs have been undertaken worldwide in the area of emergency and unscheduled care with the objective to facilitate sharing of electronic patient information that may be considered important for the delivery of high quality emergency care and, hence, need to be readily available. In this vein, this paper takes a holistic view of the information needed in emergency healthcare and focuses on developing an appropriate tool for providing timely access to holistic care information by authorized users while retaining existing investments. Thus, a special purpose document management mechanism (DMM) is proposed that facilitates creating standardized XML documents from existing healthcare systems and that enables access to such documents at the point of care. For illustrative purposes, the mechanism has been incorporated into a prototype, cloud-based holistic EMS system.
Utilisation of Health Information Systems for Service Delivery in the Namibian Environment
Authors: Karon Ronald
Published: November 2017

The use of Health Information Systems (HIS) is considered to be a major contributing factor to healthcare service delivery. However, the utilisation of HIS which includes use and management is critically challenging in the public health sector in many developing countries. The manifestation of the challenges results in poor service delivery, which includes patient deaths. This is the main motivation for this study, to investigate how HIS can be used to improve service delivering in the hospitals from developing countries perspective. The study was carried out in Namibia, using two hospitals in the public healthcare. The study adopted the qualitative case study. The study revealed that the use of parallel systems, lack of systems integration, lack of portable devices and users' incompetency are some of the factors which impact the use and management of HIS in hospitals.
Why, What and When in-Home Physiotherapy?
Authors: Postolache Gabriela , Oliveira Raul , Moreira Isabel , Postolache Octavian
Published: November 2017

In the last decade, rehabilitation process has shifted from medical management to issues that enhance quality of life, community participation, treatment and cost effectiveness. In this context physiotherapists design and implement new and/or tailored interventions that enhance physical and functional abilities, restore, maintain, and promote optimal physical function, wellness, fitness and quality of life. The aim of this review was to assess the extent, content, and outcomes of in-home physiotherapy interventions. A search was conducted in Medline, PEDro, and Cochrane Library and IEEE Xplore. RE-AIM and GRADE guidelines were used to report this review. The findings suggest that in-home physiotherapy tailored specifically to the people needs, functioning and disability has positive results, including patients' engagement in their healthcare. Integration of information and communication technology in-home physiotherapy has great potential to increase accessibility, quality and effectiveness of various interventions provided by physiotherapists.
From Healthcare Services to E-Health Applications
Authors: Spinelli Riccardo , Benevolo Clara
Published: November 2017

The increasing adoption of ICT – and especially Internet-based technologies – in healthcare has been very fruitful and has led to the innovative approach to healthcare practice commonly known as e-health. However, the boundaries of this new approach to healthcare are not clear, as it is reflected by the various properties and taxonomies of e-health applications which have been proposed. In this chapter, we first review the definition of e-health and the main taxonomies for its constituents. Then we propose an original taxonomy for e-health applications, based on the structural features of the delivery system of the services which are digitalized: the need for a physical interaction between the subjects involved in the service provisioning and the possibility of delivering the services through Internet-based technology.
A Reconfigurable Supporting Connected Health Environment for People With Chronic Diseases
Authors: Amira Abbes , Ramzan Naeem , Grecos Christos , Wang Qi , Casaseca-de-la-Higuera Pablo , Pervez Zeeshan , Wang Xinheng , Luo Chunbo
Published: November 2017

Digital healthcare is becoming increasingly important as the ageing population and the number of people diagnosed with chronic diseases is increasing. The face of healthcare delivery has changed radically and at its core is a digital and customer revolution. Connected health is the convergence of medical devices, security devices, and communication technologies. It enables patients to be monitored and treated remotely from their home or primary care facility rather than attend outpatient clinics or be admitted to hospital. This chapter discusses the recent advances in connected health technologies and applications. The authors investigate a reconfigurable supporting connected health solution for people with chronic diseases using reconfigurable hardware and intelligent data interpretation and analysis. In addition, a thorough review of the existing information and communications technologies and challenges in the area of connected health including embedded medical devices, sensors, social networking, knowledge management, data fusion, and cloud computing is presented in this chapter. Finally, future directions and ongoing research in the area of connected health are presented.
Patient Privacy and Security in E-Health
Authors: Gürsel Güney
Published: November 2017

In the digital era, undoubtedly, e-health is a major contributor for decision support, education, research and management activities in healthcare. It provides tremendous benefits by easy store and access to data. This easiness brings a big problem together with the benefits. Users have easy access to vast amount of sensitive health data about patients. This may give way to misuse and abuse. That is why the concepts of privacy and security becomes very popular and point of major concern. This chapter is a descriptive study aimed to give principles of these concepts and invoke awareness about.
Exploring Physicians' Resistance to Using Mobile Devices
Authors: Gonzalez Paola A. , Chan Yolande E.
Published: November 2017

Mobile communication technology is emerging as an area of major importance in healthcare. By enabling ubiquitous real-time access to patient information and state-of-the-art medical knowledge, this technology has the potential to support the integration of health records, the practice of evidence-based medicine, and to improve productivity among provider organizations. However, its adoption and implementation have faced many challenges; an important one has been users' resistance. For instance, many physicians are still reluctant to embed these technologies in their medical practices. This chapter, hence, explores factors that influence this resistance to using mobile devices, thereby hindering the potential benefits that these technologies can bring to healthcare. Specifically, the authors present the results of an empirical study conducted at a local hospital where two mobile technologies were examined. The findings highlight several important factors that, if not addressed in healthcare settings, can result in user resistance to the implementation of this technology.
Monitoring Time Consumption in Complementary Diagnostic and Therapeutic Procedure Requests
Authors: Alpuim Ana , Esteves Marisa , Pereira Sónia , Santos Manuel Filipe
Published: November 2017

Over the years, information technologies and computer applications have been widespread amongst all fields, including healthcare. The main goal of these organizations is focused on providing quality health services to their patients, ensuring the provision of quality services. Therefore, decisions have to be made quickly and effectively. Thus, the increased use of information technologies in healthcare has been helping the decision-making process, improving the quality of their services. For an example, the insertion of Business Intelligence (BI) tools in healthcare environments has been recently used to improve healthcare delivery. It is based on the analysis of data in order to provide useful information. BI tools assist managers and health professionals through decision-making, since they allow the manipulation and analysis of data in order to extract knowledge. This work aims to study and analyze the time that physicians take to prescribe medical exams in Centro Hospitalar do Porto (CHP), though BI tools. The main concern is to identify the physicians who take more time than average to prescribe complementary means of diagnosis and treatment, making it possible to identify and understand the reason why it occurs. To discover these outliners, a BI platform was developed using the Pentaho Community. This platform presents means to represent information through tables and graphs that facilitate the analysis of information and the knowledge extraction. This information will be useful to represent knowledge concerning not only the prescription system (auditing it) but also its users. The platform evaluates the time prescription, by specialty and physician, which can afterwards be applied in the decision-making process. This platform enables the identification of measures to unravel the time differences that some physicians exhibit, in order to, subsequently, improve the whole process of electronic medical prescription.
Influence of Corporate Social Media in Strategic Decision Processes
Authors: Venkataraman S. , Das Ranjan
Published: November 2017

This chapter discusses conceptually with some anecdotal evidence how social media engagement by business firms can influence their strategic decision making. It suggests a model of influence and proposes a knowledge integration mechanism through which such influence materializes. Social media engagement by business firms has been steadily on the rise, with its application extending to a range of corporate functions beyond marketing and customer engagement, many of which can be construed as strategic. However, the potential influence of social media on strategy process or strategic decision making has not been fully explored. In addressing this gap, this chapter conceptually explores the likely influence of social media on the issue of strategic decision making and the mechanism of such influence. Embellished by some illustrative anecdotes from practice, this chapter suggests a plausible model whereby corporate social media engagement influences the strategy process in firms through the three key dimensions – environmental factors, strategic characteristics, and decision issue characteristics. In particular, social media engagement is conceived as ingraining knowledge creation and integration through socialization within an extended value network.
Online Gambling Advertising and the Third-Person Effect
Authors: Guerrero-Solé Frederic , Lopez-Gonzalez Hibai , Griffiths Mark D.
Published: November 2017

Gambling disorder is known to have a negatively detrimental impact on affected individual's physical and psychological health, social relationships, and finances. Via remote technologies (e.g., Internet, mobile phones, and interactive television), gambling has come out of gambling venues and has brought the potential for online gambling to occur anywhere (e.g., the home, the workplace, and on the move). Alongside the rise of online gambling, online gambling advertising have spread throughout all type of media. In a sample of 201 Spanish university students, the present study explored the perceived influence of online gambling advertising. More specifically it examined the Third-Person Effect (TPE), and its consequences on individuals' willingness to support censorship or public service advertising. The findings demonstrate that despite the difference on the perception of the effects of online gambling advertising, it scarcely accounts for the behavioural outcomes analysed. On the contrary, awareness of problem gambling and, above all, paternalistic attitudes appear to explain this support.
Referencing in the Virtual World
Authors: Deshmukh G. K. , Joseph Sanskrity
Published: November 2017

The fact that ‘Man is a social being' is seen and felt in real as well as in virtual world. The paper discusses the advent of concept of social customer. All customers who use social media to share their experience through their positive or negative comments related with goods and services used as well as those who browse social media for getting reference to arrive at a decision to buy or choose are social customers. In the above backdrop the researchers have tried to highlight following issues: (i) definition of Social Customers, (ii) impact of Social media as a reference group on social customer. The researchers have conducted an empirical study and analyzed the data through Structural equation modeling and provided guidelines to marketers on the impact of social media in general and e-WOM in particular on buying behavior of social customers.
The Neuroscience of Social Television
Authors: Seixas Shaun A , Nield Geoffrey E , Pynta Peter , Silberstein Richard B
Published: November 2017

In a short few years, social media has become the dominant way in which we communicate with the outside world. It has become prevalent in almost every aspect of our daily lives, but one of the most significant changes social media has had, has been on the way we watch television. This phenomenon, known as dual screening, has caused some concern amongst marketers and advertisers, who believed that this behaviour was having an overall negative impact on consumer engagement with television. This chapter attempts to address some of these concerns by providing evidence obtained from the neurosciences and from a case study. The evidence we present in this chapter demonstrates the opposite effect, whereby social media can actually be used to enhance viewer engagement.
Old Media, New Media, and Public Engagement With Science and Technology
Authors: Strekalova Yulia A. , Krieger Janice L. , Damiani Rachel E. , Kalyanaraman Sriram , Wang Daisy Zhe
Published: November 2017

Mass media are, collectively, an effective mechanism for the engagement of the general public in a debate and exchange of information related to science and technology innovations. Whether the aim is to affect change at the individual, population, or policy-making level, public understanding of science and interaction between experts and lay audiences are paramount. This chapter describes a case study of a cybersecurity forum that provided an opportunity for information technology experts to share their knowledge with studio and social media audiences. Reviewing conceptual and practical implications of the case study, the chapter discusses how public engagement efforts could capitalize on the strength of both traditional and online media and introduce interactive programs that cross these two media spaces.
Social Media Engagement
Authors: Fletcher Kathy-Ann P. , Emmanuel-Stephen Christiana M.
Published: November 2017

Generation Y is at the forefront of the rise in consumer engagement with brands due to the participatory nature of social media. Social media is largely user generated and is instrumental in the information uprising facilitated by the internet (Kamel & Hussein, 2014). The platform of social media has changed how people interact with each other and even with brands as well as how they make consumption decisions. This transformation has led to research to determine the parameters of said influence on the consumer-decision process within the developed world. This chapter reviews this research and gives directions on future research to include developing nations within Latin America and the Caribbean. Research in this area is important due to the fact that there are limited studies addressing the developing world's use of social media to inform consumption decisions even though consumers within these markets are using these platforms similarly to their developed world counterparts.
An Assessment of Media Contribution to Behaviour Change and HIV Prevention in Nigeria
Authors: Elegbe Olugbenga
Published: November 2017

This chapter explores media influence on behaviour change and its implication for HIV prevention programmes in Nigeria. Using the agenda setting, and the uses and gratifications theories, it analyzes how the media set agenda for public opinion and the gratification that audience receive from media information vis-a-vis behaviour change initiatives in reducing HIV epidemic in Nigeria. The chapter through a descriptive and literature review approach assesses effective communication framework for behaviour change and some of the factors contributing to HIV prevalence in Nigeria. The chapter sums up case studies of interventions that have documented the effectiveness of the media in HIV prevention initiatives. The chapter concludes on the positive influence of media intervention in sexual behaviour change programmes but notes that behaviour change still lies with individual decisions. Therefore it recommends other forms of communication like interpersonal communication, community mobilization and advocacy to support media strategies for effective HIV prevention initiatives in Nigeria.
Review Spam Detection by Highlighting Potential Spammers and Diminishing Their Effect
Authors: Keshavarz Fatemeh , Waheed Ayeshaa Abdul , Rachdi Btissam , Alhajj Reda
Published: November 2017

Nowadays, millions of products and services are available to the public online. Therefore, searching for the best products which meets individuals' expectations would be difficult due to the existence of too many alternative choices. One of the most reliable approaches to choose a product or service is to exploit the experience of people who have already tried them, and are expected to have reported their almost honest opinions about them. A reviewing system is a place where individuals share their experience on products and services. Individuals may read and/or write their reviews which may be neutral and professional or biased. Moreover, companies utilize reviewing systems to apply opinion mining techniques in order to improve their goods or services and may be to watch their competitors. However, the popularity of reviewing systems ignites this motivation for some people to try to influence viewers by entering their fake reviews to promote some products or defame some others. These spam reviews should be detected and eliminated to prevent misleading potential customers and unethically affect the market. Opinion mining should be adapted to locate and eliminate potential spam reviews. In this paper, some review spam detection approaches have been proposed and examined over a sample dataset. The proposed approaches consider patterns that existed in trends of reviews, as well as reviewers' behavior. The approaches depend on various strategies such as observing abnormal trends, detecting uncommon or suspicious behaviors, investigating group activities, among others. The reported test results revealed some promising outcome.
Access to Device Reachability Data as a Component of Horizontal M2M Service Platform
Authors: Pencheva Evelina
Published: November 2017

The variety of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications based on very heterogeneous forms of platforms, technology, and data models has resulted in vertical solutions where interoperability is very limited. In order to develop horizontal platforms across different business domains, networks and devices, it is necessary to outline generic capabilities. Service Capabilities provide data mediation functions that may be shared by different applications through application programming interfaces. The paper presents an approach to design RESTful Web Services for access to location and presence status information of M2M devices. The Device Reachability Service Capability provides access to device location and allows device presence information to be registered and obtained. Web Service operations are identified by analysis on typical use cases. M2M device reachability information is modelled as REST resources organized in a tree structure. Web Service performance characteristics are evaluated by simulation.
Disruption of Pathogenic Cellular Networks by IL-21 Blockade Leads to Disease Amelioration in Murine Lupus
Authors: Choi Jin-Young , Seth Abhinav , Kashgarian Michael , Terrillon Sonia , Fung Emma , Huang Lili , Wang Li Chun , Craft Joe
Published: November 2017

Systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) is characterized by autoantibody-mediated organ injury. Follicular Th (Tfh) cells orchestrate physiological germinal center (GC) B cell responses, whereas in lupus they promote aberrant GC responses with autoreactive memory B cell development and plasma cell–derived autoantibody production. IL-21, a Tfh cell–derived cytokine, provides instructional cues for GC B cell maturation, with disruption of IL-21 signaling representing a potential therapeutic strategy for autoantibody-driven diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus. We used blockade of IL-21 to dissect the mechanisms by which this cytokine promotes autoimmunity in murine lupus. Treatment of lupus-prone B6.Sle1.Yaa mice with an anti–IL-21 blocking Ab reduced titers of autoantibodies, delayed progression of glomerulonephritis and diminished renal-infiltrating Tfh and Th1 cells, and improved overall survival. Therapy inhibited excessive accumulation of Tfh cells coexpressing IL-21 and IFN-γ, and suppressed their production of the latter cytokine, albeit while not affecting their frequency. Anti–IL-21 treatment also led to a reduction in GC B cells, CD138hi plasmablasts, IFN-γ–dependent IgG2c production, and autoantibodies, indicating that Tfh cell–derived IL-21 is critical for pathological B cell cues in lupus. Normalization of GC responses was, in part, caused by uncoupling of Tfh–B cell interactions, as evidenced by reduced expression of CD40L on Tfh cells and reduced B cell proliferation in treated mice. Our work provides mechanistic insight into the contribution of IL-21 to the pathogenesis of murine lupus, while revealing the importance of T–B cellular cross-talk in mediating autoimmunity, demonstrating that its interruption impacts both cell types leading to disease amelioration.
Relationship between CD4 Regulatory T Cells and Anergy In Vivo
Authors: Kalekar Lokesh A. , Mueller Daniel L.
Published: November 2017

Selective suppression of effector CD4+ T cell functions is necessary to prevent immune cell–mediated damage to healthy tissues. This appears especially true during pregnancy or in individuals predisposed to autoimmunity. Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells and induction of anergy, an acquired state of T cell functional unresponsiveness in Foxp3− cells, have both been implicated as mechanisms to suppress dangerous immune responses to tissue-restricted self-Ags. Anergic CD4+ T cells and Treg cells share a number of phenotypic and mechanistic traits—including the expression of CD73 and folate receptor 4, and the epigenetic modification of Treg cell signature genes—and an interesting relationship between these two subsets has recently emerged. In this review, we will compare and contrast these two subsets, as well as explore the role of anergy in the generation of peripheral Treg cells.
JingleBells: A Repository of Immune-Related Single-Cell RNA–Sequencing Datasets
Authors: Ner-Gaon Hadas , Melchior Ariel , Golan Nili , Ben-Haim Yael , Shay Tal
Published: November 2017

Recent advances in single-cell RNA–sequencing (scRNA-seq) technology increase the understanding of immune differentiation and activation processes, as well as the heterogeneity of immune cell types. Although the number of available immune-related scRNA-seq datasets increases rapidly, their large size and various formats render them hard for the wider immunology community to use, and read-level data are practically inaccessible to the non-computational immunologist. To facilitate datasets reuse, we created the JingleBells repository for immune-related scRNA-seq datasets ready for analysis and visualization of reads at the single-cell level (http://jinglebells.bgu.ac.il/). To this end, we collected the raw data of publicly available immune-related scRNA-seq datasets, aligned the reads to the relevant genome, and saved aligned reads in a uniform format, annotated for cell of origin. We also added scripts and a step-by-step tutorial for visualizing each dataset at the single-cell level, through the commonly used Integrated Genome Viewer (www.broadinstitute.org/igv/). The uniform scRNA-seq format used in JingleBells can facilitate reuse of scRNA-seq data by computational biologists. It also enables immunologists who are interested in a specific gene to visualize the reads aligned to this gene to estimate cell-specific preferences for splicing, mutation load, or alleles. Thus JingleBells is a resource that will extend the usefulness of scRNA-seq datasets outside the programming aficionado realm.
Phylogenetic Applications of the Minimum Contradiction Approach on Continuous Characters
Authors: Thuillard Marc , Fraix-Burnet Didier
Published: November 2017

We describe the conditions under which a set of continuous variables or characters can be described as an X-tree or a split network. A distance matrix corresponds exactly to a split network or a valued X-tree if, after ordering of the taxa, the variables values can be embedded into a function with at most a local maximum and a local minimum, and crossing any horizontal line at most twice. In real applications, the order of the taxa best satisfying the above conditions can be obtained using the Minimum Contradiction method. This approach is applied to 2 sets of continuous characters. The first set corresponds to craniofacial landmarks in Hominids. The contradiction matrix is used to identify possible tree structures and some alternatives when they exist. We explain how to discover the main structuring characters in a tree. The second set consists of a sample of 100 galaxies. In that second example one shows how to discretize the continuous variables describing physical properties of the galaxies without disrupting the underlying tree structure.
Phylogenetic Analyses Reveal Monophyletic Origin of the Ergot Alkaloid Gene dmaW in Fungi
Authors: Liu Miao , Panaccione Daniel G. , Schardl Christopher L.
Published: November 2017

Ergot alkaloids are indole-derived mycotoxins that are important in agriculture and medicine. Ergot alkaloids are produced by a few representatives of two distantly related fungal lineages, the Clavicipitaceae and the Trichocomaceae. Comparison of the ergot alkaloid gene clusters from these two lineages revealed differences in the relative positions and orientations of several genes. The question arose: is ergot alkaloid biosynthetic capability from a common origin? We used a molecular phylogenetic approach to gain insights into the evolution of ergot alkaloid biosynthesis. The 4- γ,γ-dimethylallyltryptophan synthase gene, dmaW, encodes the first step in the pathway. Amino acid sequences deduced from dmaW and homologs were submitted to phylogenetic analysis, and the results indicated that dmaW of Aspergillus fumigatus (mitosporic Trichocomaceae) has the same origin as corresponding genes from clavicipitaceous fungi. Relationships of authentic dmaW genes suggest that they originated from multiple gene duplications with subsequent losses of original or duplicate versions in some lineages.