bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Screening for Behavioral Risks: A Precision Healthcare Driven Approach for Chronic Pain Evaluation in Pediatric Specialty Care
Authors: Anand Vibha  , Zeft Andrew S.  , Spalding Steven J.
Published: February 2025

We previously described an informatics tool (PROBE) to automate screening for behavioral risks for pain in children and adolescents. PROBE was deployed for a one year pilot study in our pediatric specialty care practice. Here we describe evaluation of this tool to assess self-report of pain, chronic disease activity and behavioral risks in 109 patients who sought routine care in the busy outpatient pediatric rheumatology practice of our large healthcare system. Results show that patients who self-report poorer self-efficacy and coping skills and night-time awakenings have significantly higher odds (8 and 5 times higher respectively) of reporting chronic pain even after accounting for their chronic disease activity. Our results show that automating screening in specialty care waiting rooms can not only inform the clinicians of patient's unknown risks but may even help drive the judicious use of precision healthcare resources such as cognitive behavioral therapy.
Prediction and Factor Extraction of Drug Function by Analyzing Medical Records in Developing Countries
Authors: Hu Min  , Nohara Yasunobu  , Nakamura Masafumi  , Nakashima Naoki
Published: February 2025

The World Health Organization has declared Bangladesh one of 58 countries facing acute Human Resources for Health (HRH) crisis. Artificial intelligence in healthcare has been shown to be successful for diagnostics. Using machine learning to predict pharmaceutical prescriptions may solve HRH crises. In this study, we investigate a predictive model by analyzing prescription data of 4,543 subjects in Bangladesh. We predict the function of prescribed drugs, comparing three machine-learning approaches. The approaches compare whether a subject shall be prescribed medicine from the 21 most frequently prescribed drug functions. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) were selected as a way to evaluate and assess prediction models. The results show the drug function with the best prediction performance was oral hypoglycemic drugs, which has an average AUC of 0.962. To understand how the variables affect prediction, we conducted factor analysis based on tree-based algorithms and natural language processing techniques.
An Incremental Adoption Pathway for Developing Precision Medicine Based Healthcare Infrastructure for Underserved Settings
Authors: Kasthurirathne Suranga N.  , Biondich Paul G.  , Mamlin Burke W.  , Cullen Theresa A.  , Grannis Shaun J.
Published: February 2025

Recent focus on Precision medicine (PM) has led to a flurry of research activities across the developed world. But how can understaffed and underfunded health care systems in the US and elsewhere evolve to adapt PM to address pressing healthcare needs? We offer guidance on a wide range of sources of healthcare data / knowledge as well as other infrastructure / tools that could inform PM initiatives, and may serve as low hanging fruit easily adapted on the incremental pathway towards a PM based healthcare system. Using these resources and tools, we propose an incremental adoption pathway to inform implementers working in underserved communities around the world on how they should position themselves to gradually embrace the concepts of PM with minimal interruption to existing care delivery.
Characterising the Scope of Exposome Research: A Generalisable Approach
Authors: Kiossoglou Philip  , Borda Ann  , Gray Kathleen  , Martin-Sanchez Fernando  , Verspoor Karin  , Lopez-Campos Guillermo
Published: February 2025

Scientific advancement and the development of new research fields bring uncertainties about what the current topics of research emphasis are and thus, what new knowledge might need to be represented. The exposome is an example of one such new field for which these uncertainties exist. The exposome is the analogue to the genome, from an environmental exposure perspective; research on the exposome has gained momentum only since 2011. In this work, we propose a generally applicable methodology that aims to characterise the landscape of a new research area based on linguistic analysis of its associated publications. Using abstracts of 261 exposome research articles, we illustrate a methodology that combines (1) inductive analysis based on word frequency counts, and term analysis to identify the topics, methods and applications of the new field and (2) deductive analysis using the NCBO Ontology Recommender to identify to what extent this new area is covered by current knowledge representation tools. Applying this method to the exposome literature, we uncover both the current focus of exposome research and the ontologies that are most relevant to the domain.
Detecting Adverse Drug Event Signals from a Clinical CaseBase
Authors: Qin Weifeng  , Zeng Xian  , Jia Zheng  , Zheng Xiang  , Duan Huilong  , Lu Xudong  , Li Haomin
Published: February 2025

With the rapid development of medical information systems in Chinese hospitals over the last two decades, many of these organizations have accumulated astronomical amounts of structured and unstructured clinical data, including patient diagnostic data, treatment data, lab test data, etc. Secondary use of these data for research, such as Real World Evidence (RWE) studies, has the potential to improve medical quality and safety in daily clinical practice. In this study, we describe CaseBase, a Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW) that extracts structured clinical symptoms or findings and related temporal information from narrative clinical documents and integrates medication information from the CPOE system. An Adverse Drug Event (ADE) signals detection platform has also been developed based on CaseBase to analyze and visualize drug-symptom relations in clinical data. A prototype of this platform has been evaluated in a 2,000-bed hospital and some initial results are reported here.
Extraction of Data from a Hospital Information System to Perform Process Mining
Authors: Neira Ricardo Alfredo Quintano  , de Vries Gert-Jan  , Caffarel Jennifer  , Stretton Erin
Published: February 2025

The aim of this work is to share our experience in relevant data extraction from a hospital information system in preparation for a research study using process mining techniques. The steps performed were: research definition, mapping the normative processes, identification of tables and fields names of the database, and extraction of data. We then offer lessons learned during data extraction phase. Any errors made in the extraction phase will propagate and have implications on subsequent analyses. Thus, it is essential to take the time needed and devote sufficient attention to detail to perform all activities with the goal of ensuring high quality of the extracted data. We hope this work will be informative for other researchers to plan and execute extraction of data for process mining research studies.
Use of Flowchart for Automation of Clinical Protocols in mHealth
Authors: Dias Karine Nóra  , Welfer Daniel  , Cordeiro d'Ornellas Marcos  , Pereira Haygert Carlos Jesus  , Dotto Gustavo Nogara
Published: February 2025

For healthcare professionals to use mobile applications we need someone who knows software development, provide them. In healthcare institutions, health professionals use clinical protocols to govern care, and sometimes these documents are computerized through mobile applications to assist them. This work aims to present a proposal of an application of flow as a way of describing clinical protocols for automatic generation of mobile applications to assist health professionals. The purpose of this research is to enable health professionals to develop applications from the description of their own clinical protocols. As a result, we developed a web system that automates clinical protocols for an Android platform, and we validated with two clinical protocols used in a Brazilian hospital. Preliminary results of the developed architecture demonstrate the feasibility of this study.
Information and Communication Gaps in Intersectoral Healthcare Processes for Dementia Patients
Authors: Oppermann Bianca  , Zippel-Schultz Bettina  , Augustin Uta  , Popa Andrea  , Schultz Carsten  , Haux Reinhold
Published: February 2025

In addition to general barriers of information exchange and communication in intersectoral healthcare processes, the healthcare process of dementia patients has unique requirements regarding the communication and information exchange of the various healthcare professionals and non-professional caregivers, such as relatives or their legal caregivers. We conduct a process analysis to determine the status quo of such healthcare processes in the region of Darmstadt, Germany and elicit existing gaps in the information and communication exchange. We identify key processes by performing a document analysis and conducting interviews with seven different healthcare professionals. The results of a weak point analysis based on advanced event driven process chains (EPC) point out 32 information and communication gaps summarized in four categories: “information exchange”, “information transfer” “information provision” and “activity impulse”. Our results show further opportunities regarding the support of caring relatives and primary care physicians.
Shiny FHIR: An Integrated Framework Leveraging Shiny R and HL7 FHIR to Empower Standards-Based Clinical Data Applications
Authors: Hong Na  , Prodduturi Naresh  , Wang Chen  , Jiang Guoqian
Published: February 2025

In this study, we describe our efforts in building a clinical statistics and analysis application platform using an emerging clinical data standard, HL7 FHIR, and an open source web application framework, Shiny. We designed two primary workflows that integrate a series of R packages to enable both patient-centered and cohort-based interactive analyses. We leveraged Shiny with R to develop interactive interfaces on FHIR-based data and used ovarian cancer study datasets as a use case to implement a prototype. Specifically, we implemented patient index, patient-centered data report and analysis, and cohort analysis. The evaluation of our study was performed by testing the adaptability of the framework on two public FHIR servers. We identify common research requirements and current outstanding issues, and discuss future enhancement work of the current studies. Overall, our study demonstrated that it is feasible to use Shiny for implementing interactive analysis on FHIR-based standardized clinical data.
An Innovative Approach to Jointly Scheduling and Assigning a Consultation Time to Patients Arriving in the Emergency Department
Authors: Ajmi Faten  , Othman Sarah Ben  , Zgaya Hayfa  , Hammadi Slim  , Renard Jean-Marie
Published: February 2025

Emergency departments (ED) are facing problems related to the growing demand of care. Patients' management is carried out according to the type of patient and care required: already scheduled patients and non-scheduled urgent and non-urgent patients arriving in the ED. One of the main problems confronted in hospitals is the permanent interference between these different types of patients to be treated under the stochastic behaviors of consultation time and arrival flows, which prevents any prior planning. The present work proposes a dynamic scheduling method, considering the impact of new patients' arrivals on the treatment of patients already scheduled to minimize the mean waiting time of patients in the ED. The originality of this work is to assign, at the time of arrival, a scheduled time to each patient in order to reduce their stress. The performance of the proposed method is examined through a concrete application in the Pediatric Emergency Department of CHRU of Lille.
Web Information Systems for High and Low Context Cultures
Authors: Jaakkola Hannu  , Thalheim Bernhard
Published: February 2025

Website design is often performed either by technology-biased people or by artisans and thus results either in a domination of technological solutions or fancy artistic solutions. Observing however which websites evolve successfully over a dozen of years we realise that these are those that properly match their layout and playout to the expectations and especially the cultures of their users. A website may be characterised by six dimensions: presentation, content, functionality, stories to be played, context and user intentions and needs. The last two dimensions heavily depend on the culture of the website customer. Culture studies developed models on passivity resp. multi-tasking or on general pattern of thinking or feeling or acting of users. In this paper we study the desiderata of low and high context of culture for website design and compare them to the Lewis and Hofstede model.
VisualLabel: An Integrated Multimedia Content Management and Access Framework
Authors: Ahmad Iftikhar  , Rantanen Petri  , Sillberg Pekka  , Laaksonen Jorma  , Liu Shuhua  , Forss Thomas  , Malik Aqdas  , Nieminen Marko  , Shetty Rakshith  , Ishikawa Satoru  , Kallio Jarno  , Saarinen Jukka P.  , Gabbouj Moncef  , Soini Jari
Published: February 2025

With the rapid growth of image and video data as well as the fast spread of user-generated content in social media and cloud services, it has become increasingly difficult for users to have efficient access and effective management of their digital content. In this paper we present a novel integrated open source multimedia content management and access framework, called VisualLabel, that enables smart photo services based on automated visual content analysis, annotation, search and retrieval using state of the art analysis back ends for services such as Facebook and Flickr. This paper includes detailed descriptions of the high-level architecture used in the VisualLabel framework and proof-of-concept implementations of a front-end service, along with three analysis back ends and a web client, all of which demonstrate the basic functionality provided by the framework.
A Semi-Supervised Training Method for Semantic Search of Legal Facts in Canadian Immigration Cases
Authors: Nejadgholi Isar  , Bougueng Renaud  , Witherspoon Samuel
Published: February 2025

A semi-supervised approach was introduced to develop a semantic search system, capable of finding legal cases whose fact-asserting sentences are similar to a given query, in a large legal corpus. First, an unsupervised word embedding model learns the meaning of legal words from a large immigration law corpus. Then this knowledge is used to initiate the training of a fact detecting classifier with a small set of annotated legal cases. We achieved 90% accuracy in detecting fact sentences, where only 150 annotated documents were available. The hidden layer of the trained classifier is used to vectorize sentences and calculate cosine similarity between fact-asserting sentences and the given queries. We reached 78% mean average precision score in searching semantically similar sentences.
Automated Detection of Unfair Clauses in Online Consumer Contracts
Authors: Lippi Marco  , Palka Przemyslaw  , Contissa Giuseppe  , Lagioia Francesca  , Micklitz Hans-Wolfgang  , Panagis Yannis  , Sartor Giovanni  , Torroni Paolo
Published: February 2025

Consumer contracts too often present clauses that are potentially unfair to the subscriber. We present an experimental study where machine learning is employed to automatically detect such potentially unfair clauses in online contracts. Results show that the proposed system could provide a valuable tool for lawyers and consumers alike.
Risk Prediction of Diabetic Nephropathy via Interpretable Feature Extraction from EHR Using Convolutional Autoencoder
Authors: Katsuki Takayuki  , Ono Masaki  , Koseki Akira  , Kudo Michiharu  , Haida Kyoichi  , Kuroda Jun  , Makino Masaki  , Yanagiya Ryosuke  , Suzuki Atsushi
Published: February 2025

This paper describes a technology for predicting the aggravation of diabetic nephropathy from electronic health record (EHR). For the prediction, we used features extracted from event sequence of lab tests in EHR with a stacked convolutional autoencoder which can extract both local and global temporal information. The extracted features can be interpreted as similarities to a small number of typical sequences of lab tests, that may help us to understand the disease courses and to provide detailed health guidance. In our experiments on real-world EHRs, we confirmed that our approach performed better than baseline methods and that the extracted features were promising for understanding the disease.
Extracting the Population, Intervention, Comparison and Sentiment from Randomized Controlled Trials
Authors: Zlabinger Markus  , Andersson Linda  , Brassey Jon  , Hanbury Allan
Published: February 2025

In this paper, an identification approach for the Population (e.g. patients with headache), the Intervention (e.g. aspirin) and the Comparison (e.g. vitamin C) in Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) is proposed. Contrary to previous approaches, the identification is done on a word level, rather than on a sentence level. Additionally, we classify the sentiment of RCTs to determine whether an Intervention is more effective than its Comparison. Two new corpora were created to evaluate both approaches. In the experiments, an average F1 score of 0.85 for the PIC identification and 0.72 for the sentiment classification was achieved.
XplOit: An Ontology-Based Data Integration Platform Supporting the Development of Predictive Models for Personalized Medicine
Authors: Weiler Gabriele  , Schwarz Ulf  , Rauch Jochen  , Rohm Kerstin  , Lehr Thorsten  , Theobald Stefan  , Kiefer Stephan  , Götz Katharina  , Och Katharina  , Pfeifer Nico  , Handl Lisa  , Smola Sigrun  , Ihle Matthias  , Turki Amin T.  , Beelen Dietrich W.  , Rissland Jürgen  , Bittenbring Jörg  , Graf Norbert
Published: February 2025

Predictive models can support physicians to tailor interventions and treatments to their individual patients based on their predicted response and risk of disease and help in this way to put personalized medicine into practice. In allogeneic stem cell transplantation risk assessment is to be enhanced in order to respond to emerging viral infections and transplantation reactions. However, to develop predictive models it is necessary to harmonize and integrate high amounts of heterogeneous medical data that is stored in different health information systems. Driven by the demand for predictive instruments in allogeneic stem cell transplantation we present in this paper an ontology-based platform that supports data owners and model developers to share and harmonize their data for model development respecting data privacy.
Standardising the Development of ODM Converters: The ODMToolBox
Authors: Soto-Rey Iñaki  , Neuhaus Philipp  , Bruland Philipp  , Geßner Sophia  , Varghese Julian  , Hegselmann Stefan  , Brix Tobias  , Dugas Martin  , Storck Michael
Published: February 2025

CDISC's Operational Data Model (ODM) is a flexible standard for exchanging and archiving metadata and subject clinical data in clinical trials. The Portal of Medical Data Models (MDM-Portal) uses ODM to store more than 15000 medical forms. As not every electronic health system accepts ODM as input format, there is a need for conversion between ODM and other data standards and formats. This research proposes a standardised template-based process to develop ODM converters. So far, ten converters have been developed and integrated in the MDM-Portal following this process and new ones should be included soon. The template, programming utilities and an ODM test suite have been made online available and can be used to easily develop new converters.
eHealth-Platforms – The Case of Europe
Authors: Benedict Martin  , Herrmann Hanno  , Esswein Werner
Published: February 2025

Platform approaches to improve interorganisational integration and eHealth innovation have gained a lot of attention. A variety of platform projects have been established in Europe. However, a systematic view is missing. Based on a multiple source analysis, this paper collects existing European eHealth-platforms and systematizes them with regard to their functional adjustment. We contribute by proving a functional cluster of platforms. The paper describes classification dimensions and identifies two general classes of platforms in the healthcare sector.
Medical Records Online for Patients and Effects on the Work Environment of Nurses
Authors: Cajander Åsa  , Moll Jonas  , Englund Sara  , Hansman Anastasia
Published: February 2025

In 2012 Patients Accessible Electronic Health Records (PAEHR) was introduced in Region Uppsala, Sweden. When PAEHR was introduced heath care professionals were very concerned especially in relation to potential negative effects on their work environment. However, few studies exist that investigate in what way work environments have been affected, and no studies have focused on the nurses' working in primary care. Hence, the purpose of this study was to fill this gap through seven interviews with primary care nurses that were transcribed and thematically analysed. The study shows that the nurses' experiences an altered contact as patients accessing PAEHR came prepared to meetings with more informed questions. They also experienced that the service had increased their work load and that it creates uncertainty for nurses who do not know when to inform the patient about test results etc. Finally, some implications are discussed in relation to the patients' role in shared decision making.
Collecting Patient Reported Outcomes in the Wild: Opportunities and Challenges
Authors: Cabitza Federico  , Dui Linda Greta
Published: February 2025

Collecting Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) is generally seen as an effective way to assess the efficacy and appropriateness of medical interventions, from the patients' perspective. In 2016 the Galeazzi Orthopaedic Institute established a digitized program of PROs collection from spine, hip and knee surgery patients. In this work, we re-port the findings from the data analysis of the responses collected so far about the complementarity of PROs with respect to the data reported by the clinicians, and about the main biases that can undermine their validity and reliability. Although PROs collection is recognized as being far more complex than just asking the patients “how they feel” on a regular basis and it entails costs and devoted electronic platforms, we advocate their further diffusion for the assessment of health technology and clinical procedures.
Introducing Technical Aspects of Research Data Management in the Leipzig Health Atlas
Authors: Meineke Frank A.  , Löbe Matthias  , Stäubert Sebastian
Published: February 2025

Medical research is an active field in which a wide range of information is collected, collated, combined and analyzed. Essential results are reported in publications, but it is often problematic to have the data (raw and processed), algorithms and tools associated with the publication available. The Leipzig Health Atlas (LHA) project has therefore set itself the goal of providing a repository for this purpose and enabling controlled access to it via a web-based portal. A data sharing concept in accordance to FAIR and OAIS is the basis for the processing and provision of data in the LHA. An IT architecture has been designed for this purpose. The paper presents essential aspects of the data sharing concept, the IT architecture and the methods used.
NeuroKinect 3.0: Multi-Bed 3Dvideo-EEG System for Epilepsy Clinical Motion Monitoring
Authors: Pereira Choupina Hugo Miguel  , Rocha Ana Patrícia  , Fernandes José Maria  , Vollmar Christian  , Noachtar Soheyl  , Silva Cunha João Paulo
Published: February 2025

Epilepsy diagnosis is typically performed through 2Dvideo-EEG monitoring, relying on the viewer's subjective interpretation of the patient's movements of interest. Several attempts at quantifying seizure movements have been performed in the past using 2D marker-based approaches, which have several drawbacks for the clinical routine (e.g. occlusions, lack of precision, and discomfort for the patient). These drawbacks are overcome with a 3D markerless approach. Recently, we published the development of a single-bed 3Dvideo-EEG system using a single RGB-D camera (Kinect v1). In this contribution, we describe how we expanded the previous single-bed system to a multi-bed departmental one that has been managing 6.61 Terabytes per day since March 2016. Our unique dataset collected so far includes 2.13 Terabytes of multimedia data, corresponding to 278 3Dvideo-EEG seizures from 111 patients. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this system is unique and has the potential of being spread to multiple EMUs around the world for the benefit of a greater number of patients.
Acceptance of a Mobile Application Supporting Nurses Workflow at Patient Bedside: Results from a Pilot Study
Authors: Ehrler Frederic  , Ducloux Pascal  , Wu Danny T.Y.  , Lovis Christian  , Blondon Katherine
Published: February 2025

Supporting caregivers' workflow with mobile applications (apps) is a growing trend. At the bedside, apps can provide new ways to support the documentation process rather than using a desktop computer in a nursing office. Although these applications show potential, few existing reports have studied the real impact of such solutions. At the University Hospitals of Geneva, we developed BEDside Mobility, a mobile application supporting nurses' daily workflow. In a pilot study, the app was trialed in two wards for a period of one month. We collected data of the actual usage of the app and asked the users to complete a tailored technology acceptance model questionnaire at the end of the study period. Results show that participation remain stable with time with participants using in average the tool for almost 29 minutes per day. The technology acceptance questionnaires revealed a high usability of the app and good promotion from the institution although users did not perceive any increase in productivity. Overall, intent of use was divergent between promoters and antagonist. Furthermore, some participants considered the tool as an addition to their workload. This evaluation underlines the importance of helping all end users perceive the benefits of a new intervention since coworkers strong influence each other.
Implementing an Antibiotic Stewardship Information System to Improve Hospital Infection Control: A Co-Design Process
Authors: Maia Mélanie R.  , Simões Alexandra  , Lapão Luís V.
Published: February 2025

HAITooL information system design and implementation was based on Design Science Research Methodology, ensuring full participation, in close collaboration, of researchers and a multidisciplinary team of healthcare professionals. HAITooL enables effective monitoring of antibiotic resistance, antibiotic use and provides an antibiotic prescription decision-supporting system by clinicians, strengthening the patient safety procedures. The design, development and implementation process reveals benefits in organizational and behavior change with significant success. Leadership commitment multidisciplinary team and mainly informaticians engagement was crucial to the implementation process. Participants' motivation and the final product delivery and evolution depends on that.
Retrieving the Vital Status of Patients with Cancer Using Online Obituaries
Authors: Sylvestre Emmanuelle  , Bouzille Guillaume  , Breton Mathias  , Cuggia Marc  , Campillo-Gimenez Boris
Published: February 2025

The aim of this study was to develop a methodology to link mortality data from Internet sources with administrative data from electronic health records and to assess the performance of different record linkage methods. We extracted the electronic health records of all adult patients hospitalized at Rennes comprehensive cancer center between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2015 and separated them in two groups (training and test set). We also extracted all available online obituaries from the most exhaustive French funeral home website using web scraping techniques. We used and evaluated three different algorithms (deterministic, approximate deterministic and probabilistic) to link the patients' records with online obituaries. We optimized the algorithms using the training set and then evaluated them in the test set. The overall precision was between 98 and 100%. The three classification algorithms performed better for men than women. The probabilistic classification decreased the number of manual reviews, but slightly increased the number of false negatives. To address the problem of long delays in the publication or sharing of mortality data, online obituary data could be considered for real-time surveillance of mortality in patients with cancer because they are easily available and time-efficient.
Electronic Health Services in the Patients' Daily Activities – Willingness to Use Health Village Services
Authors: Saranto Kaija  , Kivekäs Eija  , Kuosmanen Pasi  , Kinnunen Ulla-Mari
Published: February 2025

Patients and citizens are experienced in Internet use. Earlier studies have suggest that citizens' interest in electronic healthcare services has increased, and there is a need of healthcare professionals to inform patients and their families about this new format and provide them with guidance. The purpose of this study was to find out how patients accept electronic healthcare services and determine their intention to use them based on their opinions of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. A survey (N=150) was carried out at a university hospital before electronic services (e-service) were implemented. Participants were motivated to monitor their wellness based on their previous experiences of using electronic services. Patients were confident about the effectiveness of e-service provision.
The Need of an Open Data Quality Policy: The Case of the “Transparency – Health” Database in the Prevention of Conflict of Interest
Authors: Jantzen Rodolphe  , Rance Bastien  , Katsahian Sandrine  , Burgun Anita  , Looten Vincent
Published: February 2025

Open data available largely and with minimal constraints to the general public and journalists are needed to help rebuild trust between citizens and the health system. By opening data, we can expect to increase the democratic accountability, the self-empowerment of citizens. This article aims at assessing the quality and reusability of the Transparency - Health database with regards to the FAIR principles. More specifically, we observe the quality of the identity of the French medical doctors in the Transp-db. This study shows that the quality of the data in the Transp-db does not allow to identity with certainty those who benefit from an advantage or remuneration to be confirmed, reducing noticeably the impact of the open data effort.
The Reliability of Using Tablet Technology for Screening the Health of Older Adults
Authors: van Velsen Lex  , Frazer Sanne  , N'dja Aurèle  , Ammour Nadir  , Del Signore Susanna  , Zia Gianluca  , Hermens Hermie
Published: February 2025

In this study, we assessed the reliability of using a tablet application for collecting health data among older adults, in comparison to using paper surveys for this goal. Test-retest reliability between the two modalities, usability, user experience factors, and older adults' preference were determined. The results show perfect agreement between tablet and paper for the SARC-F and high agreement for the SF-36 physical scale and EQ-5D. Usability and user experience factors were perceived the same for both modalities. The majority of the participants preferred the tablet for health screening purposes, mainly because of its ease of use. This study shows that using tablets for health screenings among older adults does not affect test reliability, and that older adults prefer the tablet to paper for completing these tests.
Analysis of MeSH Indexing Patterns and Frequency of Predicates
Authors: Miñarro-Giménez Jose Antonio  , Schulz Stefan
Published: February 2025

Organised repositories of published scientific literature represent a rich source for research in knowledge representation. MEDLINE, one of the largest and most popular biomedical literature databases, provides metadata for over 24 million articles each of which is indexed using the MeSH controlled vocabulary. In order to reuse MeSH annotations for knowledge construction, we processed this data and extracted the most relevant patterns of assigned descriptors over time. The patterns consist of UMLS semantic groups related to the MeSH headings together with their associated MeSH subheadings. Then, we connected the patterns with the most frequent predicates in their corresponding MEDLINE abstracts. Thereafter, we conducted a time series analysis of the extracted patterns from MEDLINE records and their associated predicates in order to study the evolution of manual MeSH indexing. The results show an increasing diversity of the assigned MESH terms over time, along with the increase of scientific publication per year. We obtained evidence of consistency of the relevant predicates associated with the extracted patterns. Moreover, for the most frequent patterns some predicates predominate over others such as Treats between substances and disorders, Causes between pairs of disorders, or Interacts between pairs of substances.
Improving Layman Readability of Clinical Narratives with Unsupervised Synonym Replacement
Authors: Moen Hans  , Peltonen Laura-Maria  , Koivumäki Mikko  , Suhonen Henry  , Salakoski Tapio  , Ginter Filip  , Salanterä Sanna
Published: February 2025

We report on the development and evaluation of a prototype tool aimed to assist laymen/patients in understanding the content of clinical narratives. The tool relies largely on unsupervised machine learning applied to two large corpora of unlabeled text – a clinical corpus and a general domain corpus. A joint semantic word-space model is created for the purpose of extracting easier to understand alternatives for words considered difficult to understand by laymen. Two domain experts evaluate the tool and inter-rater agreement is calculated. When having the tool suggest ten alternatives to each difficult word, it suggests acceptable lay words for 55.51% of them. This and future manual evaluation will serve to further improve performance, where also supervised machine learning will be used.
Older Adults Co-Creating Meaningful Individualized Social Activities Online for Healthy Ageing
Authors: Blusi Madeleine  , Nilsson Ingeborg  , Lindgren Helena
Published: February 2025

Social isolation and loneliness among older people is a growing problem with negative effects on physical and mental health. In co-creation with older adults individualized social activities were designed where older adults through computer mediated communication were able to participate in social activities without leaving their homes. Four types of activities were designed; outdoor activity, music event, visiting a friend and leisure activity. A participatory action research design was applied, where end users together with scientists from two research fields developed, tested and evaluated online participation in the activities. Usability and safety of the systems were major concerns among older adults. The evaluation pointed out that level of simplicity, usability and audio-video quality determined the level of satisfaction with the human interaction during the activity, thereby affecting the meaningfulness of the activity. The research presented in this paper constitutes the first step in a long-term research process aiming at developing a digital coaching system that gives older adults personalized support for increasing participation in meaningful social activities.
A Synthesis of Students' Theses in the Accredited HHSI Master's Programme
Authors: Kinnunen Ulla-Mari  , Saranto Kaija
Published: February 2025

Education in Health Informatics (HI) has been a key priority to guarantee knowledge and skills for professionals working in healthcare settings. One of the early academic models to teach HI are the recommendations provided by the International Medical Informatics Association. The paper describes the curriculum developed for master's degrees and the status of a paradigm used in informatics education, as well as research in the health and human services fields. The aim is to synthesise the methodological focuses in students' theses and discuss the future needs for development. The paradigm guides informatics research. The research focuses, questions and applied research methods were coded for 152 master's degree theses. Based on the results, the most often used method was qualitative. The most frequent research area was steering and organising of information management in work processes. The results guide teachers in supervising the theses of the Health and Human Services Informatics (HHSI) programme and tutoring new students.
Selection of Semantic Relevant Healthcare Services Subsets
Authors: Ávila Pilar  , Castaño José  , Berinsky Hernán  , Gambarte Laura  , Park Hee  , Pérez David  , Otero Carlos  , Albornoz Mario  , Luna Daniel
Published: February 2025

We describe an approach to select semantically coherent specialty subsets based on the historical use of terminology by different service areas. Our approach uses rule-based and machine learning techniques to obtain a reduced set of 29 specialties.
Developing an eHealth Tool to Support Patient Empowerment at Home
Authors: Schildmeijer Kristina  , Wannheden Carolina  , Nilsson Lina  , Frykholm Oscar  , Hellström Amanda  , Flink Maria  , Ekstedt Mirjam
Published: February 2025

In previous research we have learned that patients with chronic or complex diseases often experience difficulties when transitioning from hospital care to self-care in their home. We address these difficulties by developing an eHealth tool for patients – ePATH (electronic Patient Activation in Treatment at Home) – intended to empower each patient to manage their individual situation. We have employed a user-centered design process involving both patients and healthcare personnel to specify the content and functionality of ePATH. The system is deployed as a web application with secure login for patients. In this article, we describe the main content and functionality of the system that makes it possible for a patient to manage symptoms development in relation to treatment progression Interactive functionality, e.g., reminders and social support, is included to make the ePATH a useful and informative bridge between patients, next-of-kin and different caregivers. One lesson learned is that it is necessary to incorporate motivational components in the development of an eHealth tool to successfully overcome the “intention-behavior” gap. The self-determination theory of motivation can be used to ensure that important aspects are not missed.
Two-Stage Evaluation of a Telehealth Nutrition Management Service in Support of Diabesity Therapy
Authors: Schusterbauer Veronika  , Feitek Dieter  , Kastner Peter  , Toplak Hermann
Published: February 2025

Background: Diabesity, a combination of diabetes mellitus type 2 and obesity, is one of the biggest global health problems. Individual nutrition therapy and physical activity are effective measures in prevention and treatment.
Use of Mobile Apps Among Medical and Nursing Students in Iran
Authors: Sheikhtaheri Abbas  , Kermani Farzaneh
Published: February 2025

Mobile technologies have a positive impact on patient care and cause to improved decision making, reduced medical errors and improved communication in care team. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of mobile technologies by medical and nursing students and their tendency in future. This study was conducted among 372 medical and nursing students of Tehran University of Medical Science. Respectively, 60.8% and 62.4% of medical and nursing students use smartphone. The most commonly used apps among medical students were medical dictionary, drug apps, medical calculators and anatomical atlases and among nursing students were medical dictionary, anatomical atlases and nursing care guides. Also, the use of decision support systems, remote monitoring, patient imagery and remote diagnosis, patient records documentation, diagnostic guidelines and laboratory tests will be increased in the future.
Assistive Medication Management System for Users with Visual Impairment
Authors: Farhadyar Kiana  , Safdari Reza  , Behpajooh Ahmad  , Nematollahi Iman
Published: February 2025

Medication management is a complex process and is taken into account of daily activities. Moreover, participation in daily activities could define the wellbeing. On the other hand, the medication management process for visually impaired individuals is more difficult. Nowadays, the technologies like mHealth and RFID, have caused a significant progress in both areas of medication management systems and visually impaired Independent Living. Therefore the aim of this work was to develop an assistive medication management system for visually impaired people in order to improve the medication adherence among them. The development process started by requirements extraction according to goal directed design methodology introduced by Cooper. Then the system, called MedVision was developed, consisting of an android mobile application, RFID device and a medication box with vibration motors and it is developed for Iranian visually impaired individuals in Persian language. At the final step of this study, a functional assessment was performed in order to improve the system even more in next prototypes.
Shape Optimization by Means of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and Dynamic Mode Decomposition
Authors: Demo Nicola  , Tezzele Marco  , Gustin Gianluca  , Lavini Gianpiero  , Rozza Gianluigi
Published: February 2025

Shape optimization is a challenging task in many engineering fields, since the numerical solutions of parametric system may be computationally expensive. This work presents a novel optimization procedure based on reduced order modeling, applied to a naval hull design problem. The advantage introduced by this method is that the solution for a specific parameter can be expressed as the combination of few numerical solutions computed at properly chosen parametric points. The reduced model is built using the proper orthogonal decomposition with interpolation (PODI) method. We use the free form deformation (FFD) for an automated perturbation of the shape, and the finite volume method to simulate the multiphase incompressible flow around the deformed hulls. Further computational reduction is done by the dynamic mode decomposition (DMD) technique: from few high dimensional snapshots, the system evolution is reconstructed and the final state of the simulation is faithfully approximated. Finally the global optimization algorithm iterates over the reduced space: the approximated drag and lift coefficients are projected to the hull surface, hence the resistance is evaluated for the new hulls until the convergence to the optimal shape is achieved. We will present the results obtained applying the described procedure to a typical Fincantieri cruise ship.
Nonlinear Computations of Heave Motions for a Generic Wave Energy Converter
Authors: Janson Carl-Erik  , Shiri Abolfazl  , Jansson Johan  , Moragues Margarida  , Castanon Daniel  , Saavedra Laura  , Degirmenci Cem  , Leoni Massimiliano
Published: February 2025

A bench-marking activity of numerical methods for analysis of Wave Energy Converters (WEC) was proposed under the Ocean Energy Systems (OES) International Energy Agency (IEA) Task 10 in 2015. The purpose of the benchmark is to do a code-2-code comparison of the predicted motions and power take out for a WEC. A heaving sphere was used as a first simple test case. The participants simulated heave decay and regular and irregular wave cases. The numerical methods ranged from linear methods to viscous methods solving the Navier-Stokes equations (CFD). An overview of the results from the first phase of the benchmark was reported in [1]. The present paper focus on the simulations of the sphere using one fully nonlinear time-domain BEM one transient RANS method and one transient Direct FE method with no turbulence model. The theory of the three methods as well as the modeling of the sphere are described. Heave decay and heave motions for steep regular waves were selected as test cases in order to study and compare the capability to handle nonlinear effects. Computational efficiency and applicability of the three methods are also discussed.
Experimental Investigation of Sloshing in the Rectangular Tank Under the Hydrophobic Effect
Authors: Korkmaz Fatih Cuneyd  , Yigit Kenan  , Guzel Bulent
Published: February 2025

Liquid sloshing causes ship tank's surface to be damaged. In this study, this phenomenon was analyzed experimentally in rectangular tank model. Partially filled tank has been experienced and it was excited at single frequency range by direction of sway. Experiments were carried out with uncoated and hydrophobic coated tank. Only one water level was chosen for demonstrate sloshing effects on the different tank surface parameters. Wave path, wave breaking and shape of wave during flip-through were cough by high speed camera images. Strain gages have also been implemented to lateral side of tank to show local reaction of structure by measuring liquid induce deformation. Besides that, all experiments have been repeated by changed surface parameters at two contrast lateral sides on tanks. The surface parameter has been modified by applying hydrophobic coat. The coated surfaces propose to increase degrees of the contact angle between water drop and structure surface. The comparisons have been conducted within considering the images and measured results in coated, non-coated surface at tank sloshing experiments. The results show that the hydrophobic surface decreased the sloshing force on lateral sides, wave propagated more splay and water couldn't reach the level of wave as non-coated surface.
An Innovative Thermal and Acoustic Insulation Foam for Naval Fire Doors Characterization and Study with FEM Analysis
Authors: Kyaw Oo D'Amore Giada  , Caniato Marco  , Schmid Chiara  , Marsich Lucia  , Ferluga Alessio  , Cozzarini Luca  , Marinò Alberto
Published: February 2025

An innovative acoustic and thermal insulating foam was developed starting from fiberglass waste. In this work, the thermo-mechanical response of a fire door containing the foam as insulating material is considered and also the acoustic properties are investigated. In order to comply with the certification process provided by 2010 FTP Code, fire doors must undergo a standard fire test where a prototype is subjected to temperature up to 950°C. A realistic simulation of the heating process is useful during the design phase for the evaluation of the fire door behaviour without prototype construction. A RINA report of a standard fire test performed on the same fire door containing rock wool as insulating material is used to validate the model. Foam thermal and mechanical properties needed for the numerical analysis (e.g. thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, Young's modulus) are obtained through experimental tests. The results pointed out an improved acoustic insulating performance respect to rock wool and comparable thermo-mechanical properties. The foam is a promising alternative to rock wool thanks to the environmental benefits derived from fibreglass recycling and the absence of fibre release.