bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Checking the Conformance of Requirements in Agent Designs Using ATL
Authors: Yadav Nitin  , Thangarajah John
Published: February 2025

Intelligent agent systems built using the BDI model of agency have grown in popularity for implementing complex systems such as UAVs, military simulations, trading agents and intelligent games. The robust and flexible behaviours that these systems afford also makes testing the ‘correctness’ of these systems a non-trivial task. Whilst the main focus on existing work has been on checking the correctness of agent-programs, in this work we present an approach to formally verify agent-based designs for a particular BDI agent design methodology. The focus is on verifying whether the detailed design of the agents conform to the requirements specification. We present a sound and complete approach, formally verifiable properties, and an evaluation with respect to time and effectiveness.
Value Based Reasoning and the Actions of Others
Authors: Atkinson Katie  , Bench-Capon Trevor
Published: February 2025

Practical reasoning, reasoning about what actions should be chosen, is highly dependent both on the individual values of the agent concerned and on what others choose to do. We discuss how value based argumentation about what to do can be performed without making assumptions about the preferences of the other agents. We then show how expected utility calculations relate to the value-based argumentation approach, and express the reasoning as arguments and objections, so that they can be integrated value-based practical reasoning. We illustrate our discussion with examples of value based reasoning in public goods games as used in experimental economics and present an initial evaluation of the approach in terms of these experiments.
Crowdfunding Public Projects with Provision Point: A Prediction Market Approach
Authors: Chandra Praphul  , Gujar Sujit  , Narahari Y.
Published: February 2025

Crowdfunding is emerging as a popular means to generate funding from citizens for public projects. This is popularly known as civic crowdfunding. In this paper, we focus on crowdfunding public projects with provision point: these are projects in which contributions must reach a predetermined threshold in order for the project to be provisioned. On web based civic crowdfunding platforms, the success of crowdfunding public projects has been somewhat mixed. In this paper, our objective is to design a mechanism that improves the success of crowdfunding public projects. In particular, we propose a class of mechanisms for crowdfunding platforms with sequentially arriving agents. This class of mechanisms induces an extensive form game for agents arriving on the platform and we show that the game has a non-empty set of sub-game perfect equilibria at which the project is fully funded. We call this new class of mechanisms Provision Point Mechanism with Securities (PPS). The novelty of PPS lies in the use of a prediction market to incentivize agents to contribute in proportion to their true value for the project and to contribute as soon as they arrive at the crowdfunding platform. Different variations of PPS are possible depending on the underlying prediction market. In this paper, we use a cost function (or equivalently, scoring rule) based prediction market; in fact, we specify the requirements that a cost function should satisfy to be used in PPS. We study and compare two specific instances of PPS: (1) Logarithmic Market Scoring Rule based and (2) Quadratic Scoring Rule based. We also discuss the considerations that should guide the choice of the cost function when deploying our mechanism on crowdfunding platforms.
Evaluation of Secure Computation in a Distributed Healthcare Setting
Authors: Kimura Eizen  , Hamada Koki  , Kikuchi Ryo  , Chida Koji  , Okamoto Kazuya  , Manabe Shirou  , Kuroda Tomohiko  , Matsumura Yasushi  , Takeda Toshihiro  , Mihara Naoki
Published: February 2025

Issues related to ensuring patient privacy and data ownership in clinical repositories prevent the growth of translational research. Previous studies have used an aggregator agent to obscure clinical repositories from the data user, and to ensure the privacy of output using statistical disclosure control. However, there remain several issues that must be considered. One such issue is that a data breach may occur when multiple nodes conspire. Another is that the agent may eavesdrop on or leak a user's queries and their results. We have implemented a secure computing method so that the data used by each party can be kept confidential even if all of the other parties conspire to crack the data. We deployed our implementation at three geographically distributed nodes connected to a high-speed layer two network. The performance of our method, with respect to processing times, suggests suitability for practical use.
Terminology-Based Recording of Clinical Data for Multiple Purposes Within Oncology
Authors: Brønnum Dorthe  , Højen Anne Randorff  , Gøeg Kirstine Rosenbeck  , Elberg Pia Britt
Published: February 2025

Introduction: Collecting clinical data once for the use in both electronic health record (EHR) and registries requires semantic interoperability. This paper presents the results of a systematic semantic analysis of similarities and differences in clinical documentation across regional EHR and a national oncology registry to assess options for an integration of recording templates.
Automated Import of Clinical Data from HL7 Messages into OpenClinica and tranSMART Using Mirth Connect
Authors: Camacho Rodriguez Juan Carlos  , Stäubert Sebastian  , Löbe Matthias
Published: February 2025

Electronic data capture (EDC) tools are designed to simplify data acquisition, improving data quality and managing clinical data electronically. Some data are collected from the laboratory information management system (LIMS), which is an important data source for a study. OpenClinica is an open source clinical data management system (CDMS) for web-based electronic data capture (EDC), which is used widely in academic clinical research. TranSMART is also an open source web-based platform used for the management and analysis of different data types common in clinical and translational research. Many LIMS use the Health Level 7 standard – Version 2.x (HL7) as a message exchange protocol. In this paper, we implement Mirth Connect as a Communication Server (CS) to convert these HL7 messages either to Operational Data Model (ODM) data for the automatic import in OpenClinica or tabular-delimited text format files, whose data is uploaded in tranSMART using the tMDataLoader tool.
An Approach to Support Collaborative Ontology Construction
Authors: Tahar Kais  , Schaaf Michael  , Jahn Franziska  , Kücherer Christian  , Paech Barbara  , Herre Heinrich  , Winter Alfred
Published: February 2025

The increasing number of terms used in textbooks for information management (IM) in hospitals makes it difficult for medical informatics students to grasp IM concepts and their interrelations. Formal ontologies which comprehend and represent the essential content of textbooks can facilitate the learning process in IM education. The manual construction of such ontologies is time-consuming and thus very expensive [3]. Moreover, most domain experts lack skills in using a formal language like OWL [2] and usually have no experience with standard editing tools like Protégéhttp://protege.stanford.edu
Development of a Knowledge Base for Enduser Consultation of AAL-Systems
Authors: Röll Natalie  , Stork Wilhelm  , Rosales Bruno  , Stephan René  , Knaup Petra
Published: February 2025

Manufacturer information, user experiences and product availability of assistive living technologies are usually not known to citizens or consultation centers. The different knowledge levels concerning the availability of technology shows the need for building up a knowledge base. The aim of this contribution is the definition of requirements in the development of knowledge bases for AAL consultations. The major requirements, such as a maintainable and easy to use structure were implemented into a web based knowledge base, which went productive in ~3700 consulting interviews of municipal technology information centers. Within this field phase the implementation of the requirements for a knowledge base in the field of AAL consulting was evaluated and further developed.
Analysis of Existing Guidelines for the Systematic Planning Process of Clinical Registries
Authors: Löpprich Martin  , Knaup Petra
Published: February 2025

Clinical registries are a powerful method to observe the clinical practice and natural disease history. In contrast to clinical trials, where guidelines and standardized methods exist and are mandatory, only a few initiatives have published methodological guidelines for clinical registries. The objective of this paper was to review these guidelines and systematically assess their completeness, usability and feasibility according to a SWOT analysis. The results show that each guideline has its own strengths and weaknesses. While one supports the systematic planning process, the other discusses clinical registries in great detail. However, the feasibility was mostly limited and the special requirements of clinical registries, their flexible, expandable and adaptable technological structure was not addressed consistently.
Using SNOMED CT Expression Constraints to Bridge the Gap Between Clinical Decision-Support Systems and Electronic Health Records
Authors: Martínez-Salvador Begoña  , Marcos Mar  , Mañas Alejandro  , Maldonado José Alberto  , Robles Monserrat
Published: February 2025

Clinical decision-support systems (CDSSs) should be able to interact with the electronic health record (EHR) to obtain the patient data they require. A recent solution for the interoperability of CDSSs and EHR systems consists in the use of a mediated schema which provides a unified view of their two schemas. The use of such a mediated schema requires the definition of a mapping between this schema and the EHR one. In this paper we investigate the use of the SNOMED CT Expression Constraint Language to characterize these mappings.
A Digital Health System to Assist Family Physicians to Safely Prescribe NOAC Medications
Authors: Abidi Samina Raza  , Cox Jafna  , Abusharekh Ashraf  , Hashemian Nima  , Abidi Syed Sibte Raza
Published: February 2025

Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia. Generally, the therapeutic options for managing AF include the use of anticoagulant drugs that prevent the coagulation of blood. New Oral Anticoagulants (NOACs) are not optimally prescribed to patients, despite their efficacy. In Canada, NOAC medications are not directly available to patients who belong to provincial benefits programs, rather a NOAC special authorization process establishes the eligibility of a patient to receive a NOAC and be paid by the provincial Pharmacare program. This special authorization process is tedious and paper-based which inhibits physicians to prescribe NOAC leading to suboptimal AF care to patients. In this paper, we present a computerized NOAC Authorization Decision Support System (NOAC-ADSS), accessible to physicians to help them (a) determine a patient eligibility for NOAC based on Canadian AF clinical guidelines, and (b) complete the special authorization form. We present a semantic web based system to ontologically model the NOAC eligibility criteria and execute the knowledge to determine a patient NOAC eligibility and dosage.
Feature++: Automatic Feature Construction for Clinical Data Analysis
Authors: Sun Wen  , Hao Bibo  , Yu Yiqin  , Li Jing  , Hu Gang  , Xie Guotong
Published: February 2025

With the rapid growth of clinical data and knowledge, feature construction for clinical analysis becomes increasingly important and challenging. Given a clinical dataset with up to hundreds or thousands of columns, the traditional manual feature construction process is usually too labour intensive to generate a full spectrum of features with potential values. As a result, advanced large-scale data analysis technologies, such as feature selection for predictive modelling, cannot be fully utilized for clinical data analysis. In this paper, we propose an automatic feature construction framework for clinical data analysis, namely, Feature++. It leverages available public knowledge to understand the semantics of the clinical data, and is able to integrate external data sources to automatically construct new features based on predefined rules and clinical knowledge. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Feature++ in a typical predictive modelling use case with a public clinical dataset, and the results suggest that the proposed approach is able to fulfil typical feature construction tasks with minimal dataset specific configurations, so that more accurate models can be obtained from various clinical datasets in a more efficient way.
Online Medical Device Use Prediction: Assessment of Accuracy
Authors: Maktabi Marianne  , Neumuth Thomas
Published: February 2025

Cost-intensive units in the hospital such as the operating room require effective resource management to improve surgical workflow and patient care. To maximize efficiency, online management systems should accurately forecast the use of technical resources (medical instruments and devices). We compare several surgical activities like using the coagulator based on spectral analysis and application of a linear time variant system to obtain future technical resource usage. In our study we examine the influence of the duration of usage and total usage rate of the technical equipment to the prediction performance in several time intervals. A cross validation was conducted with sixty-two neck dissections to evaluate the prediction performance. The performance of a use-state-forecast does not change whether duration is considered or not, but decreases with lower total usage rates of the observed instruments. A minimum number of surgical workflow recordings (here: 62) and >5 minute time intervals for use-state forecast are required for applying our described method to surgical practice. The work presented here might support the reduction of resource conflicts when resources are shared among different operating rooms.
Unlocking Data for Statistical Analyses and Data Mining: Generic Case Extraction of Clinical Items from i2b2 and tranSMART
Authors: Firnkorn Daniel  , Merker Sebastian  , Ganzinger Matthias  , Muley Thomas  , Knaup Petra
Published: February 2025

In medical science, modern IT concepts are increasingly important to gather new findings out of complex diseases. Data Warehouses (DWH) as central data repository systems play a key role by providing standardized, high-quality and secure medical data for effective analyses. However, DWHs in medicine must fulfil various requirements concerning data privacy and the ability to describe the complexity of (rare) disease phenomena. Here, i2b2 and tranSMART are free alternatives representing DWH solutions especially developed for medical informatics purposes. But different functionalities are not yet provided in a sufficient way. In fact, data import and export is still a major problem because of the diversity of schemas, parameter definitions and data quality which are described variously in each single clinic. Further, statistical analyses inside i2b2 and tranSMART are possible, but restricted to the implemented functions. Thus, data export is needed to provide a data basis which can be directly included within statistics software like SPSS and SAS or data mining tools like Weka and RapidMiner. The standard export tools of i2b2 and tranSMART are more or less creating a database dump of key-value pairs which cannot be used immediately by the mentioned tools. They need an instance-based or a case-based representation of each patient. To overcome this lack, we developed a concept called Generic Case Extractor (GCE) which pivots the key-value pairs of each clinical fact into a row-oriented format for each patient sufficient to enable analyses in a broader context. Therefore, complex pivotisation routines where necessary to ensure temporal consistency especially in terms of different data sets and the occurrence of identical but repeated parameters like follow-up data. GCE is embedded inside a comprehensive software platform for systems medicine.
Combining Medical Measurements from Diverse Sources: Experiences from Clinical Chemistry
Authors: Bietenbeck Andreas
Published: February 2025

Background: In health care, exchange of data is becoming increasingly important. However, it is still unclear how to interpret measurements of the same parameter from diverse data sources. In clinical chemistry point-of-care testing (POCT), e.g. for blood glucose, complements the analytical spectrum of central laboratories. Available data from “central laboratory”, “professional POCT” and “non-professional” blood glucose measurements can be used to realistically simulate errors in different environments. The ability to classify the disease status or to detect a significant change based on these simulated measurements was assessed in several scenarios.
First Year Students Evaluating an Award-Winning Project
Authors: Ahmer Carolyn  , Børsheim Ingebjørg
Published: February 2025

Universal Design is an innovative strategy, and should therefore be an integrated subject within a wider program of study. This is the idea behind an annual interdisciplinary seminar and exercise on universal design in the built environment, a cooperation between the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Engineering at Bergen University College. In 2014 we moved to a new campus. We now use the campus to illustrate universal design, and to evaluate the accessibility of the campus. This paper shows that first year students possess significant potential when it comes to evaluate accessibility in the built environment.
Simulating Colour Vision Deficiency from a Spectral Image
Authors: Shrestha Raju
Published: February 2025

People with colour vision deficiency (CVD) have difficulty seeing full colour contrast and can miss some of the features in a scene. As a part of universal design, researcher have been working on how to modify and enhance the colour of images in order to make them see the scene with good contrast. For this, it is important to know how the original colour image is seen by different individuals with CVD. This paper proposes a methodology to simulate accurate colour deficient images from a spectral image using cone sensitivity of different cases of deficiency. As the method enables generation of accurate colour deficient image, the methodology is believed to help better understand the limitations of colour vision deficiency and that in turn leads to the design and development of more effective imaging technologies for better and wider accessibility in the context of universal design.
Search, Read and Write: An Inquiry into Web Accessibility for People with Dyslexia
Authors: Berget Gerd  , Herstad Jo  , Sandnes Frode Eika
Published: February 2025

Universal design in context of digitalisation has become an integrated part of international conventions and national legislations. A goal is to make the Web accessible for people of different genders, ages, backgrounds, cultures and physical, sensory and cognitive abilities. Political demands for universally designed solutions have raised questions about how it is achieved in practice. Developers, designers and legislators have looked towards the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) for answers. WCAG 2.0 has become the de facto standard for universal design on the Web. Some of the guidelines are directed at the general population, while others are targeted at more specific user groups, such as the visually impaired or hearing impaired. Issues related to cognitive impairments such as dyslexia receive less attention, although dyslexia is prevalent in at least 5–10% of the population. Navigation and search are two common ways of using the Web. However, while navigation has received a fair amount of attention, search systems are not explicitly included, although search has become an important part of people's daily routines. This paper discusses WCAG in the context of dyslexia for the Web in general and search user interfaces specifically. Although certain guidelines address topics that affect dyslexia, WCAG does not seem to fully accommodate users with dyslexia.
The “Free from Housing Accessibility Problems” App
Authors: Jonsson Oskar  , Slaug Björn  , Haak Maria  , Mårtensson Knut  , Schmidt Steven M.  , Oswald Frank  , Rimland Joseph M.  , Tomsone Signe  , Svensson Torbjörn  , Iwarsson Susanne
Published: February 2025

The present study concerns the development of a computerized tool targeting housing accessibility issues. A user-centered approach involving professionals from the housing sector and senior citizens from four European countries resulted in a fully functional prototype of a mobile application (app) including an apartment database. The app raises awareness on housing accessibility and has the potential to support decision making and strengthen all citizens regardless of functional capacity to be more active in their endeavors for a satisfying housing solution. Further refinements and additional features are needed to enhance the potential benefits; they include addressing potential challenges facing senior citizens, developing interactive features that allow users to provide input and adapting to different national contexts to make the app applicable for the European market.
Beyond Accessible Mobility: Insights into Psychosocial Inclusivity Dimensions in Personal Transport
Authors: Lim Yonghun  , Nickpour Farnaz  , Giacomin Joseph
Published: February 2025

The importance of psychosocial aspects has been gradually recognised in the field of inclusive design. A critical review of existing literature, however, such as design, healthcare, psychology, and sociology, on psychosocial aspects of inclusivity identifies a two-fold research gap which is a limited understanding of both definition and dimensions of psychosocial inclusivity in the field of inclusive design. Such concept of psychosocial inclusivity is an inherently context-dependent and multi-faceted concept. Accordingly, a ‘personal mobility’ was focused on in this paper as one key context to explore psychosocial inclusivity to facilitate thorough and in-depth study of this concept. In this study, therefore, the interviews with 37 mobility-challenged participants were performed, and then the interview data was analysed by using a coding analyses to identify key psychosocial factors of inclusive design based on participants' lived-experiences.
Equalization and Participation for All: Swedish Disability Policy at a Crossroads
Authors: Axelson Hans von  , Lindén Arvid  , Andersson Jonas E.  , Skehan Terry
Published: February 2025

The political line in Swedish disability policy advocates the use of generalized solutions in order to fit potential needs of the largest possible group of people and, where needed, special solutions to bridge the remaining gap between the generalized level of accessibility and additional individual needs. This is referred to as the disability perspective (DP). The DP has embraced two tracks: one that pertains to generalized solutions that promote an overall high level of accessibility and usability, and another one that pertains to different types of individual support for people with disabilities. The present study is a self-reflective inquiry on key issues for the development of future disability policies. Five experts entered a discussion about the pros and cons concerning the DP. This confirmed or refuted assumptions, dilemmas, themes as well as reoccurring patterns in the political viva voce procedure that has formed the contemporary disability policy. Over the course of time, the experts believed that the DP had nurtured a belief that there is a dichotomy. This may have created an imbalance in the relation between the DP and policies such as those concerning healthcare and social care. With a clearer focus on interdependence, the experts saw synergies between needs for assistive technology, assistive products and the requirements for the built environment.
The ArgTeach Web-Platform
Authors: Schulz Claudia  , Dumitrache Dragos
Published: February 2025

ArgTeach is a web-platform for teaching and learning the labelling semantics of abstract argumentation frameworks. The user's task is to find the complete labellings of an abstract argumentation framework, supported by ArgTeach in the form of hints about sensible next labelling steps as well as error checking of partial and total labellings. The ArgTeach web-platform considerably improves and extends an earlier java application, both with respect to functionality and design.
RCND: Random Based Clustering for Numerical Data
Authors: Sotoude Davood  , Sotoude Farhad
Published: February 2025

Clustering is an important data mining problem. Many clustering algorithms have been proposed, most of them deal with clustering of numerical data. In this paper, we propose a new approach of clustering numerical data named RCND (Random Based Clustering for Numerical Data). We suggest to cluster data regardless of their distribution.
A Rule-Extraction Algorithm for Describing Perceptual Parametric Subspaces in Algorithmic Composition Systems
Authors: Paz Iván  , Nebot Àngela  , Romero Enrique  , Mugica Francisco
Published: February 2025

The present work describes an algorithm for human perceptual exploration of algorithmic composition systems' parameter spaces. It works by considering the values of the system parameters, together with the perceptual user evaluation of the system output corresponding to such parameter configuration, as input-output relations. Then, the algorithm iteratively searches in the data to find combinations of parameters with the same classification (evaluation) and differing only in the values of one parameter. If the absolute difference between them is less than a pre-established threshold, the combinations are compressed into one rule. The rules have the if-then standard form. As the parameters commonly express different physical dimensions (like amplitude and frequency), the threshold is set independently for each one. Finally, an example applied to the parameter space of a band limited impulse oscillator is presented.
Eurakos Next: A Cryptocurrency Based on Smart Contracts
Authors: Carrillo Paulo N.  , Peña Clara I.  , de La Rosa Josep Ll.
Published: February 2025

With the popularization of online games and social networks, the virtual currencies have acquired a boom growing as solution of alternative payment and best adapted to the particular needs of the exchange of goods or virtual services offering faster, more secure and low cost transactions of value. This work proposes a case study to create the Eurakos Next cryptocurrency based on a virtual currency named Eurakos which currently works using digital contracts. The idea is to allow agreements to be signed by two peers and validated by other peers in a mobile social community network using Smart Contracts through the Ethereum framework to take advantage of the Blockchain technology.
On the Representativeness of Convolutional Neural Networks Layers
Authors: Garcia-Gasulla Dario  , Moreno Jonatan  , Ramos-Pollán Raúl  , Casadiegos Barrios Romel  , Béjar Javier  , Cortés Ulises  , Ayguadé Eduard  , Labarta Jesús  , Suzumura Toyotaro
Published: February 2025

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) are the most popular of deep network models due to their applicability and success in image processing. Although plenty of effort has been made in designing and training better discriminative CNNs, little is yet known about the internal features these models learn. Questions like, what specific knowledge is coded within CNN layers, and how can it be used for other purposes besides discrimination, remain to be answered. To advance in the resolution of these questions, in this work we extract features from CNN layers, building vector representations from CNN activations. The resultant vector embedding is used to represent first images and then known image classes. On those representations we perform an unsupervised clustering process, with the goal of studying the hidden semantics captured in the embedding space. Several abstract entities untaught to the network emerge in this process, effectively defining a taxonomy of knowledge as perceived by the CNN. We evaluate and interpret these sets using WordNet, while studying the different behaviours exhibited by the layers of a CNN model according to their depth. Our results indicate that, while top (i.e., deeper) layers provide the most representative space, low layers also define descriptive dimensions.
Robots, Autonomy, and Responsibility
Authors: Hakli Raul  , Mäkelä Pekka
Published: February 2025

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions for agents fit to be held responsible in a normative sense, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. On the basis of Alfred R. Mele's history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility it can be argued that even if robots were to have all the capacities usually required of moral agency, their history as products of engineering would undermine their autonomy and thus responsibility.
Students' Normative Perspectives on Classroom Robots
Authors: Serholt Sofia  , Barendregt Wolmet  , Küster Dennis  , Jones Aidan  , Alves-Oliveira Patrícia  , Paiva Ana
Published: February 2025

As robots are becoming increasingly common in society and education, it is expected that autonomous and socially adaptive classroom robots may eventually be given responsible roles in primary education. In this paper, we present the results of a questionnaire study carried out with students enrolled in compulsory education in three European countries. The study aimed to explore students' normative perspectives on classroom robots pertaining to roles and responsibilities, student-robot relationships, and perceptive and emotional capabilities in robots. The results suggest that, although students are generally positive toward the existence of classroom robots, certain aspects are deemed more acceptable than others.
A Review and Critique of Teledermatology in the South African Public Health Sector
Authors: Walters Laticha E.M.  , Mars Maurice  , Scott Richard E.
Published: February 2025

Nearly 80% of the world's population live in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Many of these countries must face a triple or quadruple burden of disease with severely limited resources and health systems. South Africa (SA) is one such country, and recognises the potential for e-health to moderate these limitations. Dermatological issues remain a concern in SA and globally. Indeed, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recognised that a number of diseases are most likely to manifest themselves through a dermatological problem before becoming full-blown. However, there is an acute shortage of dermatologists in SA. Teledermatology has promise as a service delivery intervention. This study reports on the current status of teledermatology services in the public health sector of SA.
How Nurses Use Telehealth to Support Health Transitions of Older Adults
Authors: Day Karen  , Millner Sandi  , Johnson Hilda
Published: February 2025

When people with long term health issues transition from illness to health, or move from hospital to home after an exacerbation they feel vulnerable, unsafe, uncertain, lost, and unsupported. Transitions are life experiences that result in change. Telehealth gives easier access to care and increases patient involvement and self-awareness for self-care and improved outcomes. The purpose of our research was to explore how telehealth tools and processes lend themselves to nursing of patients through transitions.
Towards the Formal Method for Evaluation of Concept Map Complexity from the Systems Viewpoint
Authors: Grundspenkis Janis
Published: February 2025

One of the most significant advantages of intelligent tutoring systems is their ability to adapt to the current knowledge level of each individual learner by offering tasks that are most suitable for him/her at the current phase of learning process. The main problem is how to evaluate the degree of task difficulty, which, as a rule, is done subjectively. The paper presents results of ongoing research on evaluation of concept map complexity. The latter is necessary for more discriminative estimation of the degree of task difficulty and development of more accurate scoring system used in already developed intelligent concept map-based knowledge assessment system IKAS. The basic idea is to interpret for concept maps and to use for evaluation of their complexity the four aspects applied for estimation of systems complexity – the number of systems elements and relationships between them, attributes of systems, their elements, and relationships, and the organizational degree of systems. A method for determination of structural importance of concepts in a concept map is also proposed. The approach is described using examples of relatively simple abstract hierarchical concept maps represented by incoming trees.
Oligosaccharidoses and Allied Disorders
Authors: Spranger Jürgen
Published: February 2025

Oligosaccharidoses are rare genetic disorders caused by mutations of genes that code for lysosomal enzymes that catalyse the degradation of oligosaccharides. In addition, this chapter describes a variety of hereditary metabolic disorders such as defects in glycoprotein degradation that present with signs and symptoms similar to the oligosaccharidoses. Oligosaccharides are short-chain polymers of simple sugars that are attached to polypeptides to form glycoproteins, which are important connective tissue constituents binding cells. Thus, they are integral parts of cell membranes and functional glycoproteins including antibodies. Oligosaccharidoses were identified after mucopolysaccharidoses had been delineated, and they share similar physical and pathologic features. The best described disorders are GM1Gangliosidosis, α-and β-Mannosidosis, Fucosidosis, and Sialidosis. The physical appearance of these patients may closely resemble those of mucopolysaccharidoses, especially their coarse facial features. Radiographs may show mild dysostosis multiplex. Abnormal vacuoles are seen in peripheral lymphocytes. Diagnoses are confirmed with biochemical and molecular studies described in this chapter. Determination of partially degraded urinary oligosaccharides by mass spectrometry is a major diagnostic tool in patients with a suspected oligosaccharidosis The prognosis for most patients with oligosaccharidoses is currently dismal because very little is available for treatment other than supportive care.
Lysosomal Storage Diseases
Authors: Ferreira Carlos R.  , Gahl William A.
Published: February 2025

Lysosomes are cytoplasmic organelles that contain a variety of different hydrolases. A genetic deficiency in the enzymatic activity of one of these hydrolases will lead to the accumulation of the material meant for lysosomal degradation. Examples include glycogen in the case of Pompe disease, glycosaminoglycans in the case of the mucopolysaccharidoses, glycoproteins in the cases of the oligosaccharidoses, and sphingolipids in the cases of Niemann-Pick disease types A and B, Gaucher disease, Tay-Sachs disease, Krabbe disease, and metachromatic leukodystrophy. Sometimes, the lysosomal storage can be caused not by the enzymatic deficiency of one of the hydrolases, but by the deficiency of an activator protein, as occurs in the AB variant of GM2 gangliosidosis. Still other times, the accumulated lysosomal material results from failed egress of a small molecule as a consequence of a deficient transporter, as in cystinosis or Salla disease. In the last couple of decades, enzyme replacement therapy has become available for a number of lysosomal storage diseases. Examples include imiglucerase, taliglucerase and velaglucerase for Gaucher disease, laronidase for Hurler disease, idursulfase for Hunter disease, elosulfase for Morquio disease, galsulfase for Maroteaux-Lamy disease, alglucosidase alfa for Pompe disease, and agalsidase alfa and beta for Fabry disease. In addition, substrate reduction therapy has been approved for certain disorders, such as eliglustat for Gaucher disease. The advent of treatment options for some of these disorders has led to newborn screening pilot studies, and ultimately to the addition of Pompe disease and Hurler disease to the Recommended Uniform Screening Panel (RUSP) in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
Data Federation with a Governance of Data Framework Artifact as the FederationTool
Authors: Dahlberg Tomi  , Nokkala Tiina  , Heikkilä Jukka  , Heikkilä Marikka
Published: February 2025

Widely spread breast cancer takes patients to an early grave. Early detection and the ability to predict the effectiveness of treatments are among the means used to fight various malignant cancers. Data federation from multiple data sources is needed for data analytics. Granularity, internality, structure and other characteristics often differ in federated data. We discuss alternative approaches to data federation and their theoretical basis, especially the stance regarding the ontology of data. We also develop an artifact to federate cancer data at a university hospital. Our approach and the artifact improved data interoperability, i.e., data federation. We suggest the same to be repeated in other data federation contexts.
Adaptive Fuzzy Sliding-Mode Control of Robot and Simulation
Authors: Niu Huan  , Yang Jie  , Chi Jie-Ru
Published: February 2025

Aiming at control method of 2-DOF joint robot, the 3D robot model is established in ADAMS firstly, and then dynamic equation of the robot is deduced by using the obtained parameters. And dynamic model is combined with control system model in MATLAB/Simulink by the ADAMS/Control module and is established coordinated simulation system. In order to eliminate the effect of the modeling error and uncertainty signal, a sliding-mode control is proposed. In this method, a linear sliding surface is used to ensure the system to reach equilibrium with the sliding surface in finite time; and fuzzy control is used to compensate for the modeling error and uncertainty signal. Equivalent control law and switching control law are derived by using Lyapunov stability criterion and exponential reaching law. Fuzzy control law and membership function are set up by using fuzzy control rules. Through online adaptive learning of fuzzy, buffeting is weakened. Simulation result shows that the control method is effective.
Research on Weapon-Target Allocation Based on Genetic Algorithm
Authors: Zhang Yan-Sheng  , Qiao Zhong-Tao  , Jing Jian-Hui
Published: February 2025

Weapon-target allocation (WTA) is a typical constrained combinatorial optimization problem, which is an important content of command and decision in air defense operation. WTA is known to be NP-complete problem, and the intelligent optimization methods are widely employed to solving it. A popular coding length is n*m corresponding to assigning n weapons to m targets. However, the coding length will increase greatly with the problem scale growing, and the computation is too heavy to meet the real-time requirements. This paper focuses on designing a new gene coding to improve computational efficiency. In our study, a sequence of weapons serves as gene coding, which is attached the two other codes, target code and capacity code respectively. This coding length is n and adapts to the constraints of WTA effectively. Then the operators of gene selection, crossover and mutation are designed. On the other hand, the maximum operational effectiveness is defined as the object function with the minimum consumption of ammunition. This model is based on multi-objective optimization, and is more realistic. An example shows that the method is feasible and can save computing time greatly.
The Roles and Functions of Informatics Nurse Specialists in Taiwan
Authors: Lee Tso Ying
Published: February 2025

During the modernization process in hospitals, information technology is an important indicator. “Informatics nurses” play a critical role in hospitals and clinics. In Taiwan, the certification system of informatics nurses just recently began in 2016. The development of certificated personnel results from students who have graduated with a university degree in nursing and have taken classes in informatics, as well as nurses who have been trained in informatics at clinics and hospitals, and the establishment of a national nursing informatics association. Clinically, the main responsibilities of Informatics Nurse Specialists are system analysis, training, problem solving, data analysis, and communication. In Taiwan, as of September 2016, only 48 informatics nurses have been certified. They are working either in hospitals or at universities.
Enabling Adolescent Electronic Access to Personal Health Information
Authors: Frazer Cassandra  , Ratchford Fraser  , Roch Joan
Published: February 2025

In Canada, every individual has a right to their personal health information (PHI). As the use of consumer digital health solutions expands across Canada it is evident that a better understanding of the application of this right to individuals under the age of majority is needed. Research was undertaken between December 2015 and March 2016 which focused on various aspects of adolescent electronic access to PHI. The study included a privacy legal framework review; an environmental scan and literature review; a pan-Canadian survey and focus groups.
Your Health Care May Kill You: Medical Errors
Authors: Anderson James G.  , Abrahamson Kathleen
Published: February 2025

Recent studies of medical errors have estimated errors may account for as many as 251,000 deaths annually in the United States (U.S)., making medical errors the third leading cause of death. Error rates are significantly higher in the U.S. than in other developed countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the United Kingdom (U.K). At the same time less than 10 percent of medical errors are reported. This study describes the results of an investigation of the effectiveness of the implementation of the MEDMARX Medication Error Reporting system in 25 hospitals in Pennsylvania. Data were collected on 17,000 errors reported by participating hospitals over a 12-month period. Latent growth curve analysis revealed that reporting of errors by health care providers increased significantly over the four quarters. At the same time, the proportion of corrective actions taken by the hospitals remained relatively constant over the 12 months. A simulation model was constructed to examine the effect of potential organizational changes resulting from error reporting. Four interventions were simulated. The results suggest that improving patient safety requires more than voluntary reporting. Organizational changes need to be implemented and institutionalized as well
Use and Maturity of Electronic Patient Portals
Authors: Gheorghiu Bobby  , Hagens Simon
Published: February 2025

This paper focuses on the adoption of electronic patient portals aimed at providing consumers with access to their own health records along with added functions aimed to improving convenience and access to care. A variety of Canadian patient portal implementations were analysed with evidence supplemented from international examples. Measures of adoption focused on active users and frequency of access. New portal implementations can achieve adoption at a rate of 5–10% of the overall population per year with larger, jurisdiction-wide deployments growing at a slower rate than smaller, more targeted deployments.
The Role of Personal Health Record Systems in Chronic Disease Management
Authors: Prashad Reshma
Published: February 2025

Chronic illnesses account for the largest portion of healthcare spending in Canada; they are the leading cause of premature death. As a result, healthcare organizations are focused on improving both health and financial outcomes. Addressing chronic illnesses involves more frequent and impactful interactions with both current patients and those at risk of developing a chronic condition. This transformation requires that healthcare organizations shift from a system based solely on in-person interactions to one that leverages digital solutions that support interactions regardless of the patients' location. Personal health record systems (PHRS) can facilitate patients' access to their health data at any time of the day, anywhere in the world. PHRS also offers a myriad of features to help providers' engage, educate and empower patients to make proactive and preventive care a reality. Discussed in this paper are the ways in which PHRS can support the optimal management of chronic conditions and the current barriers to widespread adoption.
Adding Live-Streaming to Recorded Lectures in a Non-Distributed Pre-Clerkship Medical Education Model
Authors: Sandhu Amanjot  , Fliker Aviva  , Leitao Darren  , Jones Jodi  , Gooi Adrian
Published: February 2025

Background: Live-streaming video has had increasing uses in medical education, especially in distributed education models. The literature on the impact of live-streaming in non-distributed education models, however, is scarce.
End-Users' Voice in EHR Selection: Development of a Usability Questionnaire for Demonstrations in Procurement (DPUQ)
Authors: Tyllinen Mari  , Kaipio Johanna  , Lääveri Tinja  , Nieminen Marko
Published: February 2025

This paper describes the development of a questionnaire for evaluating usability during EHR system procurement (DPUQ). Established usability questionnaires can be used to gather user feedback after using the systems. However, during procurement, experimenting with real system use is practical only with a limited number of system candidates. There is a need for less resource-demanding usability evaluation in the early stages of procurement in cases with several vendors. DPUQ has been designed for usability evaluation by end-users during special scenario-based vendor demonstrations. The questionnaire includes three sets of questions to be used during and after the vendor demonstration. DPUQ delivers specific usability scores and can be used to compare system candidates in procurement complementing other evaluation methods.
The Evolving Role of Medical Scribe: Variation and Implications for Organizational Effectiveness and Safety
Authors: Woodcock Deborah V.  , Pranaat Robert  , McGrath Karess  , Ash Joan S.
Published: February 2025

Increasing use of medical scribes is an unintended consequence of electronic health record adoption in the U.S. The role of scribe is not universally defined, leading to variations in scribe training and operations, as well as questions about scribe efficiency, effectiveness, and safety. Studies published since 2009 have primarily focused on the financial aspects of scribe use, but no published studies have taken an organizational view of this phenomenon. This paper describes stakeholder perspectives on scribes working in outpatient settings within an urban tertiary academic medical center. It places factors associated with of scribe systems within an eight-dimension sociotechnical framework for evaluating health information technology, and discusses key aspects of those perspectives.
Pokémon Go: Ubiquitous Computing Delivering Better Health or Co-Incidental Health Benefits from Technology Use? A Participatory Observational Study
Authors: Yee Kwang Chien  , Wong Ming Chao  , Turner Paul
Published: February 2025

Stimulating sustained behavioural change through information and technology has been an aim of much health informatics research. Traditional approaches use technology to mediate communications between health professionals and patients. More recent lifestyle technologies engage the patient directly with information and advice – but what of the phenomena that is Pokémon Go – does it point to another way of achieving health benefits through fun? This paper aims to explore some of the conceptual questions for health informatics stimulated by the phenomenal popularity of Pokémon Go. The paper is grounded analysis of data generated through a preliminary participatory observational study in Australia.