bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Off-line Signature Verification Based on Structural Similarity
Authors: Favorskaya Margarita  , Baranov Roman
Published: February 2025

The off-line signature verification is demanded in business and marketing, bank transactions, security control, and document authentication. The off-line signature verification is the difficult process in against of the on-line verification. In this paper, the extension of feature set including global, local, and special features for simple and cursive types of signatures is proposed. The global features are required to create a decision tree, which limits a field of the search. The pre-processing procedures remove noises and artifacts of scanning and luminance. The Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) and detection of special points are based on a skeleton signature representation. SSIM shows the well results of verification and demonstrates low values of False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR) for the GPDS-100 signature corpus.
Facilitating Creative Collaborative Activities with Dedicated Tools in a 3D Virtual World
Authors: Fominykh Mikhail  , Prasolova-Førland Ekaterina  , Morozov Mikhail  , smorkalov Andrey  , Divitini Monica
Published: February 2025

In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary exploratory study that is aiming at exploring the means for facilitating creative collaborative activities in educational context. We argue that 3D virtual worlds can be successfully used for facilitating such activities. The goal of this preliminary study was to evaluate several features and use the results as an input for the future studies. We conducted test collaborative sessions in 3D virtual worlds and several other sessions in a classroom that we used as points of reference for comparison. The data were collected from the direct observation, 3D virtual recordings, and individual and group text assignments. The analysis of the data allowed us to formulate a set of advantages and limitations of 3D virtual worlds for supporting creative collaborative process against the face-to-face settings.
Improving and Harmonizing Professional Skills in Healthcare Sector: Organizational and Economical Aspects
Authors: Casalino Nunzio  , Taranto Giuseppe
Published: February 2025

The paper describes activities and results achieved together the organizational and economical aspects of the project EETAH-on-line (European Education, Training and Accreditation in Hematology on-line). The main goal is to improve and harmonize professional skills and competences in this medical field. The target groups are the following: students, physicians, nurses and technical staff involved in the hematological education and training; expert hematologists who need continuing training; all physicians of linked specialties who may take advantage of these scientific contents; instimtions running certified programs in hematological education, training and accreditation.
Designing a Public Smart Registry for an Innovative and Transparent Governance of European Ground Infrastructures
Authors: Casalino Nunzio  , Ciarlo Marisa  , Lombardo Salvatore
Published: February 2025

The purpose of this paper is to present the main results of a project on European cloud registry of infrastructures and the development of an e-course for acquiring knowledge concerning cloud advantages. In order to create a harmonized virtual registry of infrastructures at European level, the research intends to develop procedures for the preparation and providing of maps and regulatory provisions as well as an effectiveness cloud smart registry. To test the efficacy and efficiency of the system, the project develops three pilots in Italy, Portugal and Romania characterized by the following two features: geographical coverage and type of utilities included. The integrated system will deliver to several end-users (public administrations, citizens and companies, especially operators working on infrastructures) numerous smart services leading to optimizing public spending, improving the coordination of operators and managers involved and reducing the environmental impact of the interventions.
Generating A Clash-Free Teaching Timetable
Authors: Beckford Carl  , Mugisa Ezra
Published: February 2025

Higher Education Institutions are required to solve the problem of scheduling teaching activities each semester throughout its existence. Institutions may develop a workable solution over a significant series of attempts but are required to re-solve the problem whenever there are new courses or new course group selections as determined by student preferences. Within an institution, the existing process is time consuming, tedious and error prone resulting in unacceptable levels of timetable clashing for a student and frequent clashing of course activities. We examine the teaching scheduling problem, various scheduling algorithms, and use these as the basis for purporting a solution that ensures no room clashes, a best fit use of facilities and minimal or zero time clashes, and inter-department and intra-department clashes. Our solution provides for the usage of prior or current year registration, priority teaching times, course concurrency and the generation of a usable clash matrix. We propose Ricoché, a scheduling system that uses graph coloring with heuristics as the basis for a solution towards optimality. Ricoché provides for ease of adaptability as curricula, teacher preferences and students' course needs change.
Developing the Greek Reference Index for the Social Sciences and Humanities
Authors: Tsoukala Victoria  , Panagopoulou Alexia  , Stavrou Giorgos  , Angelidi Eleni  , Sachini Evi  , Nafpliotis Alexandros
Published: February 2025

The Greek Reference Index for the Social Sciences and Humanities (GRISSH) is a service that collects, documents, stores and, where possible, provides access to peer-reviewed publications in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (SSH) by Greek publishers. It also provides long-term preservation for the digital and print files of the publications. The GRISSH was conceived by the National Documentation Centre (EKT) and the documentation and access platform is developed by the organization itself (OpenABEKT). The GRISSH is, in essence, a collaborative project that advances with the assistance and active participation of the publishing and scholarly community in Greece. It is intended as an essential reference service for the research and publishing community in Greece and abroad. The present contribution presents the goals, objectives and key benefits of the project; the evaluation criteria for the selection of content; the specifications for the development of the index; the methodology of documentation; the emerging collaborations with stakeholders. It also, present how the GRISSH project is aligned with the national and international agendas in view of a coordinated development and e-infrastructure that will support the sectors of academia, research and academic publishing.
Collaborative Software Development for a Brazilian Telehealth Program
Authors: Sanches Luiz M. P.  , Harris Marcelline R.  , Abbott Patricia A.  , Novaes Magdala A.  , Lopes Maria H. B. M.
Published: February 2025

Telehealth services in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil are led by the Telehealth Center (RedeNUTES) and based on HealthNet 2.0 software. Among the tele-assistance services, health professionals have clinical discussions focused on second opinions. This paper reports the experience in a PhD study through mixed-methods, to evaluate the telehealth services, planning and modeling a new tool to improve a telehealth system. We described the nurse's role in each phase of this study. The method of User-Centered Design was explored in three phases as Identification of work process, User's perception and collaborative modeling, Observational usability study. The main frame was based on collaborative techniques as Collaborative Prototype Design Process, cognitive walkthrough, and thinking-aloud. The users also identified all usability problems identified by the evaluators. The methods were useful in identifying usability problems, and easy to employ using standard equipment and software thus a relatively low cost approach to usability testing.
Developing Entry-to-Practice Nursing Informatics Competencies for Registered Nurses
Authors: Nagle Lynn M.  , Crosby Kristine  , Frisch Noreen  , Borycki Elizabeth  , Donelle Lorie  , Hannah Kathryn  , Harris Alexandra  , Jetté Sylvie  , Shaben Tracy
Published: February 2025

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have brought about significant changes to the processes of health care delivery and changed how nurses perform in clinical, administrative, academic, and research settings. Because the potential benefits of ICT are significant, it is critical that new nurses have the knowledge and skills in informatics to provide safe and effective care. Despite the prevalence of technology in our day to day lives, and the potential significant benefits to patients, new nurses may not be prepared to work in this evolving reality. An important step in addressing this need for ICT preparation is to ensure that new graduates are entering the work force ready for technology-enabled care environments. In this paper, we describe the process and outcomes of developing informatics entry-to-practice competencies for adoption by Canadian Schools of Nursing.
Prime Implicates Based Inconsistency Characterization
Authors: Jabbour Said  , Ma Yue  , Raddaoui Badran  , Sais Lakhdar
Published: February 2025

Measuring inconsistency is recognized as an important issue for handling inconsistencies [5, 6]. Based on prime implicates canonical representation, we first characterize the conflicting variables allowing us to refine an existing inconsistency measure. Secondly, we propose a new measure, to circumscribe the internal conflicts in a knowledge base. This measure is proved to satisfy a new but weaker form of dominance.
How Hard Is It to Control an Election by Breaking Ties?
Authors: Mattei Nicholas  , Narodytska Nina  , Walsh Toby
Published: February 2025

We study the computational complexity of controlling the result of an election by breaking ties strategically. This problem is equivalent to the problem of deciding the winner of an election under parallel universes tie-breaking. When the chair of the election is only asked to break ties to choose between one of the co-winners, the problem is trivially easy. However, in multi-round elections, we prove that it can be NP-hard for the chair to compute how to break ties to ensure a given result. Additionally, we show that the form of the tie-breaking function can increase the opportunities for control.
Finding good stochastic factored policies for factored Markov decision processes
Authors: Radoszycki Julia  , Peyrard Nathalie  , Sabbadin Régis
Published: February 2025

We propose a framework for approximate resolution of MDPs with factored state space, factored action space and additive reward, based on (i) considering stochastic factored policies (SFPs) with a given structure, (ii) using variational approximations to estimate SFP values and (iii) using local continuous optimization algorithms to compute “good” SFPs. We have implemented and tested an algorithm (CA-LBP), involving a loopy belief propagation algorithm and a coordinate ascent procedure. Experiments show that CA-LBP performs as well as a state-of-the-art algorithm dedicated to a specific sub-class of FA-FMDPs, and that CA-LBP can be applied to general FA-FMDPs with up to 100 binary state variables and 100 binary action variables.
Multi Agent Learning of Relational Action Models
Authors: Rodrigues Christophe  , Soldano Henry  , Bourgne Gauvain  , Rouveirol Céline
Published: February 2025

Multi Agent Relational Action Learning considers a community of agents, each rationally acting following some relational action model. The observed effect of past actions that led an agent to revise its action model can be communicated, upon request, to another agent, speeding up its own revision. We present a frame-work for such collaborative relational action model revision.
Probabilistic Two-Level Anomaly Detection for Correlated Systems
Authors: Tong Bin  , Morimura Tetsuro  , Suzuki Einoshin  , Idé Tsuyoshi
Published: February 2025

We propose a novel probabilistic semi-supervised anomaly detection framework for multi-dimensional systems with high correlation among variables. Our method is able to identify both abnormal instances and abnormal variables of an instance.
From Disjunctive to Normal Logic Programs via Unfolding and Shifting
Authors: Zhou Yi
Published: February 2025

We show that every propositional disjunctive logic program under the answer set semantics can be equivalently transformed into a normal one via unfolding and shifting. More precisely, after iteratively applying the unfolding operator for some rules in a disjunctive program, its shifted program, which is a normal program, must have the same answer sets as the original disjunctive program.
Clustering weather situations with respect to prediction of solar irradiance by multiple NWP models
Authors: Krč Pavel  , Eben Kryštof  , Pelikán Emil
Published: February 2025

With the photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) forming a growing portion of European power sources, there is a strong demand for a reliable prediction of solar power. Such predictions are mostly provided by physical or statistical models, both of which rely on accurate forecast of solar irradiance. For the short-to-medium-term forecast horizon (hours to days), irradiance forecast is provided mostly by numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. However, in spite of a recent effort to improve irradiance prediction within current NWP models, its quality is still not satisfactory and it is responsible for a majority of uncertainty in photovoltaic power forecasting. A promising method of improving NWP solar irradiance prediction is multi-model approach. This paper presents preliminary results from a data mining approach to combining irradiance forecasts from multiple NWP models.
Planning and Execution of Robot Tasks Based on a Platform-Independent Model of Robot Capabilities
Authors: Buehler Jennifer  , Pagnucco Maurice
Published: February 2025

The diversity of robotic architectures is a major factor in developing platform-independent algorithms. There is a need for a widely usable model of robot capabilities which can help to describe and reason about the diversity of robotic systems. We propose such a model and present an integrated framework for task planning and task execution using this model. Existing planning techniques need to be extended to support this model, as it requires 1) generating new objects during planning time; and, 2) establishing concurrency based on data flow within the robotic system. We present results on planning and execution of an object transportation task in simulation.
A GPU Implementation of Large Neighborhood Search for Solving Constraint Optimization Problems
Authors: Campeotto F.  , Dovier A.  , Fioretto F.  , Pontelli E.
Published: February 2025

Constraint programming has gained prominence as an effective and declarative paradigm for modeling and solving complex combinatorial problems. Techniques based on local search have proved practical to solve real-world problems, providing a good compromise between optimality and efficiency. In spite of the natural presence of concurrency, there has been relatively limited effort to use novel massively parallel architectures, such as those found in modern Graphical Processing Units (GPUs), to speedup local search techniques in constraint programming. This paper describes a novel framework which exploits parallelism from a popular local search method (the Large Neighborhood Search method), using GPUs.
Concept Dissimilarity Based on Tree Edit Distances and Morphological Dilations
Authors: Distel Felix  , Atif Jamal  , Bloch Isabelle
Published: February 2025

A number of similarity measures for comparing description logic concepts have been proposed. Criteria have been developed to evaluate a measure's fitness for an application. These criteria include on the one hand those that ensure compatibility with the semantics, such as equivalence soundness, and on the other hand the properties of a metric, such as the triangle inequality. In this work we present two classes of dissimilarity measures that are at the same time equivalence sound and satisfy the triangle inequality: a simple dissimilarity measure, based on description trees for the lightweight description logic EL; and an instantiation of a general framework, presented in our previous work, using dilation operators from mathematical morphology, and which exploits the link between Hausdorff distance and dilations using balls of the ground distance as structuring elements.
Strategic Argumentation is NP-Complete
Authors: Governatori G.  , Olivieri F.  , Scannapieco S.  , Rotolo A.  , Cristani M.
Published: February 2025

We study the complexity of the Strategic Argumentation Problem for 2-player dialogue games where a player should decide what move (set of rules) to play at each turn in order to prove (disprove) a given thesis. We show that this is an NP-complete problem.
Privacy Preserving Landmark Detection
Authors: Maliah Shlomi  , Shani Guy  , Stern Roni
Published: February 2025

In many cases several entities, such as commercial companies, need to work together towards the achievement of joint goals, while hiding certain private information. Multi-agent STRIPS (MA-STRIPS) is a new and attractive model for describing collaborative multi-agent privacy preserving planning, which is appropriate for such problems. In single agent classical planning, landmarks are key to constructing strong heuristics for state space search. In this paper we propose a method for identifying landmarks in MA-STRIPS in a privacy preserving distributed setting. The agents collaborate to find sound landmarks without revealing their private actions or goals. In addition, we also propose a novel MA-STRIPS planner that uses these landmarks. We empirically show that our detected landmarks improve the performance of previous approaches, and that our new planner is faster than all existing planners for multi-agent problems.
Compact Argumentation Frameworks
Authors: Baumann Ringo  , Dvořák Wolfgang  , Linsbichler Thomas  , Strass Hannes  , Woltran Stefan
Published: February 2025

Abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) are one of the most studied formalisms in AI. In this work, we introduce a certain subclass of AFs which we call compact. Given an extension-based semantics, the corresponding compact AFs are characterized by the feature that each argument of the AF occurs in at least one extension. This not only guarantees a certain notion of fairness; compact AFs are thus also minimal in the sense that no argument can be removed without changing the outcome. We address the following questions in the paper: (1) How are the classes of compact AFs related for different semantics? (2) Under which circumstances can AFs be transformed into equivalent compact ones? (3) Finally, we show that compact AFs are indeed a non-trivial subclass, since the verification problem remains coNP-hard for certain semantics.
An argumentation system for reasoning with LPm
Authors: Qiao Wenzhao  , Roos Nico
Published: February 2025

Inconsistent knowledge-bases can entail useful conclusions when using the three-valued semantics of the paraconsistent logic LP. However, the set of conclusions entailed by a consistent knowledge-base under the three-valued semantics is smaller than set of conclusions entailed by the knowledge-base under a two-valued semantics. Preferring conflict-minimal interpretations of the logic LP; i.e., LPm, reduces the gap between these two sets of conclusions.
Model Checking Auctions as Artifact Systems: Decidability via Finite Abstraction
Authors: Belardinelli Francesco
Published: February 2025

The formal verification of auctions has recently received considerable attention in the AI and logic community. We tackle this problem by adopting methodologies and techniques originally developed for Artifact Systems, a novel paradigm in Service Oriented Computing. Specifically, we introduce a typed version of artifactcentric multi-agent systems (AC-MAS), a multi-agent setting for Artifact Systems, and consider the model checking problem against typed first-order temporal epistemic specifications. Notably, this formal framework is expressive enough to capture a relevant class of auctions: parallel English (ascending bid) auctions. We prove decidability of the model checking problem for AC-MAS via finite abstraction. In particular, we put forward a methodology to formally verify interesting properties of auctions.
Coherence and Compatibility of Markov Logic Networks
Authors: Thimm Matthias
Published: February 2025

Markov logic is a robust approach for probabilistic relational knowledge representation that uses a log-linear model of weighted first-order formulas for probabilistic reasoning. This log-linear model always exists but may not represent the knowledge engineer's intentions adequately. In this paper, we develop a general framework for measuring this coherence of Markov logic networks by comparing the resulting probabilities in the model with the weights given to the formulas. Our measure takes the interdependence of different formulas into account and analyzes the degree of impact they have on the probabilities of other formulas. This approach can be used by the knowledge engineer in constructing a well-formed Markov logic network if data for learning is not available. We also apply our approach to the problem of assessing the compatibility of multiple Markov Logic networks, i. e., to measure to what extent the merging of these networks results in a change of probabilities.
Actions with Durations and Failures in BDI Languages
Authors: Dennis Louise A.  , Fisher Michael
Published: February 2025

BDI programming languages provide a well developed route to implementing intelligent agents. However, as such agents are increasingly being used in physical environments their treatment of external actions needs to be improved. In this paper we outline a mechanism for handling actions which have durations and failures.
Semantifying Triples from Open Information Extraction Systems
Authors: Dutta Arnab  , Meilicke Christian  , Stuckenschmidt Heiner
Published: February 2025

The last few years have witnessed some remarkable success of the state-of-the art unsupervised knowledge extraction systems like NELL and REVERB. These systems are gifted with typically web-scale coverage but are often plagued with ambiguity due to lack of proper schema or unique identifiers for the instances. This classifies them apart from extraction systems like DBPEDIA, YAGO or FREE-BASE which have precise information content but have smaller coverage. In this work we bring together the former to enrich the later with high precision novel facts and present a statistical approach to discover new knowledge. In particular, we semantify NELL triples using DBPEDIA.
Value Iteration for Relational MDPs in Rewriting Logic
Authors: Belzner Lenz
Published: February 2025

Relational approaches to represent and solve MDPs exploit structure that is inherent to modelled domains in order to avoid or at least reduce the impact of the curse of dimensionality that propositional representations suffer from. By explicitly reasoning about relational structure, policies that lead to specific goals can be derived on a very general, abstract level; thus, these policies are valid for numerous domain instantiations, regardless of the particular objects participating in it. This paper describes the encoding of relational MDPs as rewrite theories, allowing for highly domain-specific domain encoding and abstraction. Narrowing is employed to solve these relational MDPs symbolically. Resulting symbolic value functions are simplified by Ax-matching abstract state terms. It is shown that relational state representations significantly reduce the size of state space and value function when compared to propositional representations.
Patients Classification on Weaning Trials Using Neural Networks and Wavelet Transform
Authors: Arizmendi Carlos  , Viviescas Juan  , González Hernando  , Giraldo Beatriz
Published: February 2025

The determination of the optimal time of the patients in weaning trial process from mechanical ventilation, between patients capable of maintaining spontaneous breathing and patients that fail to maintain spontaneous breathing, is a very important task in intensive care unit. Wavelet Transform (WT) and Neural Networks (NN) techniques were applied in order to develop a classifier for the study of patients on weaning trial process. The respiratory pattern of each patient was characterized through different time series. Genetic Algorithms (GA) and Forward Selection were used as feature selection techniques. A classification performance of 77.00±0.06% of well classified patients, was obtained using a NN and GA combination, with only 6 variables of the 14 initials.
A Patient Centered Electronic Health System: An Example for Cyprus
Authors: Neokleous Kleanthis C.  , Schiza Eirini C.  , Pattichis Constantinos S.  , Schizas Christos N.
Published: February 2025

The design and implementation of a healthcare system needs to follow a specific philosophy regarding its operational structure and must be adapted gradually with one step at a time, depending on the level of maturity of a country on certain key issues. The main goal of this paper is to present an overall recommendations framework for implementing an Electronic Health System at national level, guided by the Patient Centered Philosophy. Certain prerequisites for implementing such systems are analyzed together with guiding principles for identifying the maturity level of an organization or country. The maturity level analysis for Cyprus is presented and is accompanied by some recommendations that determine the steps needed to prepare the ground for a complete patient centered national healthcare system.
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for indexing and retrieving open-source healthcare data
Authors: Marc David T.  , Khairat Saif S.
Published: February 2025

The US federal government initiated the Open Government Directive where federal agencies are required to publish high value datasets so that they are available to the public. Data.gov and the community site Healthdata.gov were initiated to disperse such datasets. However, data searches and retrieval for these sites are keyword driven and severely limited in performance. The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of extracting relevant open-source data by proposing a method of adopting the MeSH framework for indexing and data retrieval. A pilot study was conducted to compare the performance of traditional keywords to MeSH terms for retrieving relevant open-source datasets related to “mortality”. The MeSH framework resulted in greater sensitivity with comparable specificity to the keyword search. MeSH showed promise as a method for indexing and retrieving data, yet future research should conduct a larger scale evaluation of the performance of the MeSH framework for retrieving relevant open-source healthcare datasets.
Revisiting the Impact of Mobile Phone Screen Size on User Comprehension of Health Information
Authors: Alghamdi Ebtisam  , Yunus Faisel  , Househ Mowafa
Published: February 2025

Abstract goes here. This is completion of the research and update of the previous work that was published in 2013[1]. The paper describes our recent experimental study of the impact of mobile screen size on the user comprehension of health information and application structures. An experiment was conducted to measure the impact of screen size on user comprehension and retention. Participants were given the same simple scenario, which consisted of searching from different menus, navigating and reading some contents. They were timed and tracked for correctness. Also, a follow-up survey was given to each participant that consisted of a rating scale to assess usability features, comprehension and retention abilities of the participants based on different mobile screen sizes. Results showed that there was a significant difference between mobile phone screen size and the time taken to read the contents, which was at its highest on small screens (p-value=0.02). Also, reading characters was hardest on a small screen (p-value=0.003). In addition, there was a significant difference between the three screen sizes regarding the organization of the application's information, showing that the smaller the screen size, the more organized the information. On the other hand, there was no significant impact of screen size on user comprehension, retention scores, number of errors or effective task completion but it was generally better if a large screen size was used. This study concludes that the screen size is not the main concern in comprehension of the contents or application structure. However, reading speed improves with the larger screen size and positively influences the task completion and understanding of the application elements.
App-Synopsis: Self-Assessment on Trust or Distrust of Health-Apps
Authors: Albrecht Urs-Vito  , Noll Christoph  , Von Jan Ute
Published: February 2025

Mobile devices and the apps running on them have become an integral part of daily life and this also includes the areas of medicine and health. Target audiences include those interested in their health, patients, and professional users. Nevertheless, the sheer number of available apps makes it hard for users to decide whether an app they are interested in is trustable or not. Nevertheless, such a decision should be based on a careful analysis of the available information. If left to their own devices, especially casual users may tend to forget certain aspects when performing such an evaluation. In order to provide them with a guideline on how to perform their evaluations, we propose a checklist covering the most important aspects for deciding whether an app can be entrusted with information that – especially when it comes to personal, health related information – is usually of a highly sensitive nature.
Exploring the Biomedical and Health Informatics Educational Programs in Europe
Authors: Manifava Eirini  , Kolokathi Aikaterini  , Mantas John
Published: February 2025

The Health Information Technology can improve public health, quality of health care etc. Thus, it is important for professionals to be well educated by training programs. The aim of this paper is to record all the educational programs with specializations in Health Informatics, Medical Informatics, Bioinformatics, Biomedical Informatics and Biomedical Engineering in European Universities and Institutions. An on-line research was conducted on Scopus, PubMed, Scholar Google, and Google. More than 150 universities and colleges in Europe conduct educational programs for these domains. The majority them, expertise in Biomedical Engineering (31%), 22% of the educational programs correspond to Bioinformatics, while Health Informatics studies have 18%. On the last few years, a growth of Health informatics professionals has been observed in Europe.
Proposal for a Standardised Reporting Guideline to Annotate Health-related Self-Quantification Experiments
Authors: Lopez-Campos Guillermo H.  , Almalki Manal  , Martin-Sanchez Fernando
Published: February 2025

Self-monitoring experiments are becoming increasingly common as it is the case in other complex environments their interpretation and reproducibility relies heavily in the amount of associated meta-data available. In this work we propose a standardised reporting guideline to annotate these experiments and facilitate their interpretation. The existence of such reporting guideline may lead the development of future standards that would facilitate platform interoperability, data sharing and the improvement in the interpretation of such experiments as well as their reproducibility.
The Development and Evaluation of a New Coding System for Medical Records
Authors: Papazissis Elias
Published: February 2025

Purpose: The present study aims to develop a simple, reliable and easy tool enabling clinicians to codify the major part of individualized medical details (patient history and findings of physical examination) quickly and easily in routine medical practice, by entering data to a purpose-built software application, using structure data elements and detailed medical illustrations.
Food for Healthy Living and Active Ageing
Authors: Ajmone Marsan Paolo  , Cocconcelli Pier Sandro  , Masoero Francesco  , Miggiano Giacinto  , Morelli Lorenzo  , Moro Daniele  , Rossi Filippo  , Sckokai Paolo  , Trevisi Erminio
Published: February 2025

The link between diet and health has been recognized since the Grecian period; as Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. Although the primary goals of diet are meeting nutritional requirements and providing energy, there is increasing awareness that a correct and balanced diet may prevent the insurgence of diet-related pathologies and/or improve well-being and life expectancy, also reflecting on the ageing process. Research on the interaction among nutrients, gut microbiota and host metabolism is presently unravelling the molecular mechanisms underlying the positive and negative effects of traditional diets on health and ageing, providing useful information for the design of innovative foods targeting specific needs and segments of the population. The food supply chain plays a key role in ensuring quality and safety through both comprehensive quality management and inspection systems and a focused innovation process mainly devoted to the creation of functional foods. However, innovation and scientific development pose a problem of information asymmetry towards final consumers; thus, regulatory aspects and private and public communication strategies must be efficiently developed.
Does CPOE support nurse-physician communication in the medication order process? A nursing perspective
Authors: Saddik Basema  , Al-Mansour Shaha
Published: February 2025

Introduction: The benefits of CPOE are many and have been recognised in the literature as important components for improving patient safety and clinician performance. However, there remain concerns about adverse effects CPOE systems may have on the medication order process and workflow processes. This study explores the perception of nurses regarding the CPOE support on nurse physician communication in the medication order process. Methods: A survey was developed measuring perceptions of CPOE features on workflow and nurse physician communication on a Likert scale. Results: The majority of nurses felt that CPOE features supported the medication order process and perceived proper nurse physician communication. Conclusions: CPOE characteristics supported medication order processes and nurse physician communication although nurses reported additional work was required for follow up of physicians. Additional studies utilising in depth methods are recommended to fully understand medication order processes with further CPOE implementation.
Combining patient journey modelling and visual multi-agent computer simulation: A framework to improving knowledge translation in a healthcare environment
Authors: Curry Joanne  , Fitzgerald Anneke  , Prodan Ante  , Dadich Ann  , Sloan Terry
Published: February 2025

This article focuses on a framework that will investigate the integration of two disparate methodologies: patient journey modelling and visual multi-agent simulation, and its impact on the speed and quality of knowledge translation to healthcare stakeholders. Literature describes patient journey modelling and visual simulation as discrete activities. This paper suggests that their combination and their impact on translating knowledge to practitioners are greater than the sum of the two technologies. The test-bed is ambulatory care and the goal is to determine if this approach can improve health services delivery, workflow, and patient outcomes and satisfaction. The multidisciplinary research team is comprised of expertise in patient journey modelling, simulation, and knowledge translation.
Cause-of-death Certification in Africa: Analysis of a Model Implemented at the Teaching Hospital of Souro Sanou of Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso)
Authors: Barro Seydou Golo  , Dufour Jean Charles  , Somda Modeste  , Malo Sadouanouan  , Staccini Pascal
Published: February 2025

: Introduction: In Africa, mortality statistics are not reliable due to the low performance of the death registering systems. Our aim is to implement an efficient system. In this article we make a comparison between the existing system model and the new system that will be set up.
Visualizing Unstructured Patient Data for Assessing Diagnostic and Therapeutic History
Authors: Deng Yihan  , Denecke Kerstin
Published: February 2025

Having access to relevant patient data is crucial for clinical decision making. The data is often documented in unstructured texts and collected in the electronic health record. In this paper, we evaluate an approach to visualize information extracted from clinical documents by means of tag cloud. Tag clouds will be generated using a bag of word approach and by exploiting part of speech tags. For a real word data set comprising radiological reports, pathological reports and surgical operation reports, tag clouds are generated and a questionnaire-based study is conducted as evaluation. Feedback from the physicians shows that the tag cloud visualization is an effective and rapid approach to represent relevant parts of unstructured patient data. To handle the different medical narratives, we have summarized several possible improvements according to the user feedback and evaluation results.
A perspective of adaptation in healthcare
Authors: Mezghani Emna  , Da Silveira Marcos  , Pruski Cédric  , Exposito Ernesto  , Drira Khalil
Published: February 2025

Emerging new technologies in healthcare has proven great promises for managing patient care. In recent years, the evolution of Information and Communication Technologies pushes many research studies to think about treatment plan adaptation in this area. The main goal is to accelerate the decision making by dynamically generating new treatment due to unexpected situations. This paper portrays the treatment adaptation from a new perspective inspired from the human nervous system named autonomic computing. Thus, the selected potential studies are classified according to the maturity levels of this paradigm. To guarantee optimal and accurate treatment adaptation, challenges related to medical knowledge and data are identified and future directions to be explored in healthcare systems are discussed.
Telepulmonology and telespirometry
Authors: Thijssing Leonie  , van der Heijden Job  , Melissant Christian  , Chavannes Niels  , Witkamp Leonard  , Jaspers Monique
Published: February 2025

Taking and interpreting spirometry tests has proven difficult in primary care practice. This may lead to mis- or underdiagnosis of pulmonary diseases, among others chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Telespirometry and telepulmonology consultation (TPC) may play a role in monitoring and improving the quality of the spirometry tests, supporting GPs in interpreting spirometry test results and reducing the number of physical referrals to the pulmonologist. In telespirometry up to 10% of spirometry results uploaded by GPs were randomly sent to a pulmonologist. Both the GP or practice nurse and the pulmonologist interpreted the spirometry results and gave their diagnostic findings. Additionally the pulmonologist assessed the quality of the test. In TPC a GP could digitally consult a pulmonologist for advice or referral of patients. On sending and closing the TPC consult the GP was presented a number of questions. Based on these questions the percentage of prevented physical referrals and the educational effect experienced by the GPs were determined. Almost a third of the 227 telespirometry tests was of Moderate or Bad quality. The Kappa of the interobserver agreement on diagnostic findings between GP and pulmonologist was 0.38. Between April 2009 and January 2014, GPS sent 4.488 TPCs to pulmonologists. Sixty-nine percent of the TPCs were sent to gain advice, the others were sent in order to prevent a physical referral. Overall telepulmonology reduced the number of physical referrals by 22%. In 90% of the TPCs the GPs indicated they had learned from the consult.
Using Design Science Research to develop Online Enhanced Pharmaceutical Care Services
Authors: Lapão Luís Velez  , Gregório João  , Mello Diogo  , Cavaco Afonso  , Mira Da Silva Miguel  , Lovis Christian
Published: February 2025

The ePharmaCare project aims at assessing the potential of eHealth services for the provision of pharmaceutical services interacting actively with patients. The results presented here focus on the first three steps of Design Science Research Methodology. A mixed methods approach was used with an online survey to collect data on use of information technologies in community pharmacy, followed by an exploratory observational time and business processes study, which use the shadowing method to identify and assess the opportunity to lunch online services. Combining this with the Service Experiment Blueprint and the Dáder method an enhanced pharmaceutical service was designed. Next, an artifact is developed and a prototype is implemented to demonstrate the value of online pharmaceutical services' delivery. This new service could represent a new perspective for pharmaceutical services integration within the health system.
The Data Model for Social Welfare in Finland
Authors: Kärki Jarmo  , Ailio Erja
Published: February 2025

A client data model for social welfare was gradually developed in the National Project of IT in Social Services in Finland. The client data model describes the nationally uniformed data structures and relationships between the data elements needed in production of social services. It contains the structures of social care client records, unique core components and distinct classifications. The modeling method guaranteed the coverage, integrity, flexibility and device independency of the model. The model is maintained and developed by the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) together with the social workers and other experts of social welfare. It forms the basis of the electronic information management of the social services. Implementation of the data model in information systems enables the availability of the client data where and when ever a client has to be helped.
A model for Consent-Based Privilege Management in Personal Electronic Health Records
Authors: Heinze Oliver  , Bergh Björn
Published: February 2025

One of the biggest issues in the domain of standardized, regional, crossinstitutional, personal, electronic health records is the privilege management. While many health information exchange projects use IHE-based architectures there are still unsolved questions regarding the restricting parameters a patient can use in the electronic consent configuring access control. This work determines these parameters, derives an information model of privilege management, introduces a set representation of the model and shows how to apply them to EHR architectures. The introduced model can serve as framework for health information exchanges using a consent-based privilege management. The set representation can help to understand the complexity of consent representations.
Predicting the Disease of Alzheimer With SNP Biomarkers and Clinical Data Using Data Mining Classification Approach: Decision Tree
Authors: Erdoğan Onur  , Aydin Son Yeşim
Published: February 2025

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most common genomic variations where only a single nucleotide differs between individuals. Individual SNPs and SNP profiles associated with diseases can be utilized as biological markers. But there is a need to determine the SNP subsets and patients' clinical data which is informative for the diagnosis. Data mining approaches have the highest potential for extracting the knowledge from genomic datasets and selecting the representative SNPs as well as most effective and informative clinical features for the clinical diagnosis of the diseases. In this study, we have applied one of the widely used data mining classification methodology: “decision tree” for associating the SNP biomarkers and significant clinical data with the Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is the most common form of “dementia”. Different tree construction parameters have been compared for the optimization, and the most accurate tree for predicting the AD is presented.
Correlation Between Symbolic Dynamics Analysis Indexes and Neurohormonal and Functional Parameters in Heart Failure Patients
Authors: Cesarelli Mario  , Romano Maria  , Maestri Roberto  , La Rovere Maria Teresa  , Bifulco Paolo  , D'Addio Giovanni
Published: February 2025

Heart failure (HF) is a cardiac disease associated with prominent alterations in the autonomic control of the cardiovascular system and high neurohormonal activation levels. Useful assessment tools may be heart rate variability (HRV) analysis and/or the study of norepinephrine (NPE) level. Nevertheless, traditional techniques of HRV analysis have proved not sufficient and the second is an invasive measurement. In this work the correlation between a parameter (kurtosis-K) computed by an emerging nonlinear technique, the symbolic dynamics analysis, and neurohormonal and functional parameters has been investigated. Results obtained show an interesting relationship between K and both ejection fraction and NPE. In particular, higher K values are associated to increasing NPE levels This finding could be useful for highlighting changes in HF patients otherwise detectable only with invasive examinations.
Towards a decision support system for hand dermatology
Authors: Mazzola Luca  , Cavazzina Alice  , Pinciroli Francesco  , Bonacina Stefano  , Pigatto Paolo  , Ayala Fabio  , De Pità Ornella  , Marceglia Sara
Published: February 2025

The complexity of the medical diagnosis is faced by practitioners relying mainly on their experiences. This can be acquired during daily practices and on-the-job training. Given the complexity and extensiveness of the subject, supporting tools that include knowledge extracted by highly specialized practitioners can be valuable. In the present work, a Decision Support System (DSS) for hand dermatology was developed based on data coming from a Visit Report Form (VRF). Using a Bayesian approach and factors significance difference over the population average for the case, we demonstrated the potentiality of creating an enhanced VRF that include a diagnoses distribution probability based on the DSS rules applied for the specific patient situation.
Medication Information Management: Capturing Multiprofessional Perspective
Authors: Luukkonen Irmeli  , Mykkänen Juha  , Kivekäs Eija  , Saranto Kaija
Published: February 2025

Medication information management (MIM) is a crucial activity for good quality of medication, but unfortunately not without problems. In order to improve medication information management the core activity of medication as a cooperative activity is to be studied as a whole, and the multiprofessional viewpoint for the improvement needs must be captured. In this paper we present our approach to gain such shared understanding, based on our regional development project experiences in Northern Savonia, Finland. The central features of the approach include thematic interviews supported by activity-driven models and a workshop with professionally mixed groups. Participants agreed strongly on the usefulness of the approach.