bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Réforme territoriale à l'italienne : d'une géographie des intérêts à une géographie de la rigueur
Authors: Rivière Dominique
Published: April 2016

En Italie, le débat sur les mailles institutionnelles locales, régionales et provinciales a été dominé pendant les deux dernières décennies par la montée en puissance des régions et du pouvoir local dans un contexte de crise de solidarité Nord-Sud. Aujourd’hui, un changement de cap s’opère sous l’impulsion de l’État central dans le cadre d’une politique de rigueur budgétaire impulsée par la crise financière. On assiste à l’émergence de nouvelles mailles métropolitaines, à la perspective d’un démantèlement des provinces et, tendanciellement, à une certaine contraction du pouvoir régional.
À l’Est de l’Europe, quoi de neuf en matière de réformes territoriales ? Réflexions à partir de la régionalisation en Bulgarie
Authors: Boulineau Emmanuelle
Published: April 2016

Au travers des choix de régionalisation opérés en Bulgarie depuis 1989, l’article aborde les réformes territoriales effectuées en Europe centrale et orientale après la chute du Rideau de fer puis l’adhésion à l’Union européenne avec la vague d’élargissement 2004-2007. Il explique les réformes territoriales post-socialistes en Bulgarie et les articulent aux inégalités régionales. Il montre que deux types de régionalisation coexistent, centré l’un sur la gestion administrative et l’autre sur la compétition des territoires. Il en montre toutes les ambiguïtés en matière de réforme territoriale, en élargissant la perspective à l’Europe centrale et orientale. Il conclut sur les prochains défis qui attendent la gestion territoriale en Bulgarie.
Les découpages municipaux en Europe : la France est-elle vraiment une exception ?
Authors: Grison Jean-Baptiste
Published: April 2016

Cet article questionne la singularité du maillage communal français par rapport aux autres découpages locaux en Europe. À partir de la comparaison des données nationales, mais aussi de la morphologie des maillages, nous avons proposé une première approche de leur diversité. Dans un deuxième temps, l’approche par les très petites communes fournit un complément d’analyse intéressant, qui tend à renforcer la diversité des configurations. Les études de cas abordées font état, en outre, de variations infranationales fréquentes. Ces analyses débouchent sur un essai de typologie renouvelée des maillages européens, au sein de laquelle le caractère exceptionnel de la trame française peut être en partie relativisé, même si cette trame conserve, à l’instar d’autres, des singularités propres. La France est loin d’être le seul pays d’Europe à compter un maillage morcelé et des entités très peu peuplées. Et quel que soit le système administratif pratiqué, se pose la question de la prise en compte des plus petites communautés locales.
Les découpages territoriaux en Espagne à l’épreuve de l’aménagement du territoire : l’exemple des transports
Authors: Libourel Eloïse
Published: April 2016

Le découpage institutionnel du territoire espagnol en Communautés autonomes dotées de compétences plus ou moins élargies en fonction de leur statut fait aujourd’hui l’objet de contestations. Ces dernières portent moins sur les périmètres concernés que sur la répartition des compétences entre les différents échelons. Ces tensions se cristallisent autour de la question de l’aménagement du territoire, et en particulier autour de celle des grandes infrastructures de transport, pour lesquelles le processus de prise de décision implique des acteurs nombreux. L’apparition de nouveaux acteurs dans ces processus renforce ainsi la nécessité de repenser la place des différents échelons dans la gouvernance.
The Interoperability of US Federal Government Information
Authors: Washington Anne L.
Published: April 2016

Interoperability sets standards for consistency when integrating information from multiple sources. Trends in e-government have encouraged the production of digital information yet it is not clear if the data produced are interoperable. The objective of the project was to evaluate interoperability by building a retrieval tool that could track United States public policy from the legislative to the executive branch using only machine-readable government information. A case study of policy created during the 2008 financial crisis serves as an illustration to investigate the organizational, technical, syntactic, and operational interoperability of digital sources. The methods of citing law varied widely enough between legislation and regulation to impede consistent automated tracking. The flow of federal policy authorization exemplifies remaining socio-technical challenges in achieving the interoperability of machine-readable government data.
Modeling Big Data Analytics with a Real-Time Executable Specification Language
Authors: Khwaja Amir A.
Published: April 2016

Big data explosion has already happened and the situation is only going to exacerbate with such a high number of data sources and high-end technology prevalent everywhere, generating data at a frantic pace. One of the most important aspects of big data is being able to capture, process, and analyze data as it is happening in real-time to allow real-time business decisions. Alternate approaches must be investigated especially consisting of highly parallel and real-time computations for big data processing. The chapter presents RealSpec real-time specification language that may be used for the modeling of big data analytics due to the inherent language features needed for real-time big data processing such as concurrent processes, multi-threading, resource modeling, timing constraints, and exception handling. The chapter provides an overview of RealSpec and applies the language to a detailed big data event recognition case study to demonstrate language applicability to big data framework and analytics modeling.
The IT Readiness for the Digital Universe
Authors: Raj Pethuru
Published: April 2016

The implications of the digitization process among a bevy of trends are definitely many and memorable. One is the abnormal growth in data generation, gathering, and storage due to a steady increase in the number of data sources, structures, scopes, sizes, and speeds. In this chapter, the authors show some of the impactful developments brewing in the IT space, how the tremendous amount of data getting produced and processed all over the world impacts the IT and business domains, how next-generation IT infrastructures are accordingly being refactored, remedied, and readied for the impending big data-induced challenges, how likely the move of the big data analytics discipline towards fulfilling the digital universe requirements of extracting and extrapolating actionable insights for the knowledge-parched is, and finally, the establishment and sustenance of the smarter planet.
Big Data in Telecommunications
Authors: Tay Yen Pei , Ponnusamy Vasaki , Lee Lam Hong
Published: April 2016

The meteoric rise of smart devices in dominating worldwide consumer electronics market complemented with data-hungry mobile applications and widely accessible heterogeneous networks e.g. 3G, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi, have elevated Mobile Internet from a ‘nice-to-have' to a mandatory feature on every mobile computing device. This has spurred serious data traffic congestion on mobile networks as a consequence. The nature of mobile network traffic today is more like little Data Tsunami, unpredictable in terms of time and location while pounding the access networks with waves of data streams. This chapter explains how Big Data analytics can be applied to understand the Device-Network-Application (DNA) dimensions in annotating mobile connectivity routine and how Simplify, a seamless network discovery solution developed at Nextwave Technology, can be extended to leverage crowd intelligence in predicting and collaboratively shaping mobile data traffic towards achieving real-time network congestion control. The chapter also presents the Big Data architecture hosted on Google Cloud Platform powering the backbone behind Simplify in realizing its intelligent traffic steering solution.
Big Data Computing Strategies
Authors: Jayanand Malavika , Kumar M. Anil , Srinivasa K. G. , Siddesh G. M.
Published: April 2016

In order to store these huge bulks of data, organizations have to buy servers and scale it according to their need. One of the solution for storage would be Cloud Environment as there is no need to scale up storage by aggregating more physical servers, installing, updating, or to run backups, which also cuts down system hardware and makes application integration easier. This chapter discusses key concepts of cloud storage as storage as a solution for Big data, different big data domains, and its application with case studies of how organizations are leveraging Big data for better business opportunities.
A Cloud-Aware Distributed Object Storage System to Retrieve Large Data via HTML5-Enabled Web Browsers
Authors: Yıldırım Ahmet Artu , Watson Dan
Published: April 2016

Major Internet services are required to process a tremendous amount of data at real time. As we put these services under the magnifying glass, it's seen that distributed object storage systems play an important role at back-end in achieving this success. In this chapter, overall information of the current state-of –the-art storage systems are given which are used for reliable, high performance and scalable storage needs in data centers and cloud. Then, an experimental distributed object storage system (CADOS) is introduced for retrieving large data, such as hundreds of megabytes, efficiently through HTML5-enabled web browsers over big data – terabytes of data – in cloud infrastructure. The objective of the system is to minimize latency and propose a scalable storage system on the cloud using a thin RESTful web service and modern HTML5 capabilities.
Analysis of Genomic Data in a Cloud Computing Environment
Authors: Groth Philip , Reuter Gerhard , Thieme Sebastian
Published: April 2016

A new trend for data analysis in the life sciences is Cloud computing, enabling the analysis of large datasets in short time. This chapter introduces Big Data challenges in the genomic era and how Cloud computing can be one feasible approach for solving them. Technical and security issues are discussed and a case study where Clouds are successfully applied to resolve computational bottlenecks in the analysis of genomic data is presented. It is an intentional outcome of this chapter that Cloud computing is not essential for analyzing Big Data. Rather, it is argued that for the optimized utilization of IT, it is required to choose the best architecture for each use case, either by security requirements, financial goals, optimized runtime through parallelization, or the ability for easier collaboration and data sharing with business partners on shared resources.
Towards Harnessing Phone Messages and Telephone Conversations for Prediction of Food Crisis
Authors: Lukyamuzi Andrew , Ngubiri John , Okori Washington
Published: April 2016

Food insecurity is a global challenge affecting millions of people especially those from least developed regions. Famine predictions are being carried out to estimate when shortage of food is most likely to happen. The traditional data sets such as house hold information, price trends, crop production trends and biophysical data used for predicting food insecurity are both labor intensive and expensive to acquire. Current trends are towards harnessing big data to study various phenomena such sentiment analysis and stock markets. Big data is said to be easier to obtain than traditional datasets. This study shows that phone messages archives and telephone conversations as big datasets are potential for predicting food crisis. This is timely with the current situation of massive penetration of mobile technology and the necessary data can be gathered to foster studies such as this. Computation techniques such as Naïve Bayes, Artificial Networks and Support Vector Machines are prospective candidates in this strategy. If the strategy is to work in a nation like Uganda, areas of concern have been highlighted. Future work points at exploring this approach experimentally.
Inventory Control and Big Data
Authors: Sharma Meghna , Garg Niharika
Published: April 2016

This chapter provides the relation between automated inventory control and generation of big data using the process. Conversion from manual to automated inventory process leads to generation and management of too much data. Possible boons and banes of the conversion of inventory control system to automated one are discussed in detail. In the initial sections explanation about inventory control and benefits of automating is given. Then overall architecture of big data and its management is discussed .Finally, tradeoff between the usage of automated inventory control system with its benefits and generation of too much data and handling it, is discussed.
The Role of Knowledge Management (KM) in Aged Care Informatics
Authors: Hume Margee , Hume Craig , Johnston Paul , Soar Jeffrey , Whitty Jon
Published: April 2016

Aged care is projected to be the fastest-growing sector within the health and community care industries (Reynolds, 2009). Strengthening the care-giving workforce, compliance, delivery, and technology is not only vital to our social infrastructure and improving the quality of care, but also has the potential to drive long-term economic growth and contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This chapter examines the role of Knowledge Management (KM) in aged care organizations to assist in the delivery of aged care. With limited research related to KM in aged care, this chapter advances knowledge and offers a unique view of KM from the perspective of 22 aged care stakeholders. Using in-depth interviewing, this chapter explores the definition of knowledge in aged care facilities, the importance of knowledge planning, capture, and diffusion for accreditation purposes, and offers recommendations for the development of sustainable knowledge management practice and development.
Towards Improving the Lexicon-Based Approach for Arabic Sentiment Analysis
Authors: Abdulla Nawaf A. , Ahmed Nizar A. , Shehab Mohammed A. , Al-Ayyoub Mahmoud , Al-Kabi Mohammed N. , Al-rifai Saleh
Published: April 2016

The emergence of the Web 2.0 technology generated a massive amount of raw data by enabling Internet users to post their opinions on the web. Processing this raw data to extract useful information can be a very challenging task. An example of important information that can be automatically extracted from the users' posts is their opinions on different issues. This problem of Sentiment Analysis (SA) has been studied well on the English language and two main approaches have been devised: corpus-based and lexicon-based. This work focuses on the later approach due to its various challenges and high potential. The discussions in this paper take the reader through the detailed steps of building the main two components of the lexicon-based SA approach: the lexicon and the SA tool. The experiments show that significant efforts are still needed to reach a satisfactory level of accuracy for the lexicon-based Arabic SA. Nonetheless, they do provide an interesting guide for the researchers in their on-going efforts to improve lexicon-based SA.
The Disruptive Impact of Emerging Technology
Authors: Murray Gordon J.
Published: April 2016

In this chapter, context for understanding the phenomenon of “big data” and disruptive innovation is introduced relative to current changes affecting the future of the journalism industry. Perspective is provided on market forces and emerging technologies that now shape the demand for data journalism. Current best practices and strategies to analyze, scrape, personalize, visualize and map data are presented. Trends and resources to access data and effectively analyze information are outlined for journalists to use when researching and reporting online. Three contemporary case studies explore the day-to-day operations and decision-making processes of media organizations struggling to remain profitable; adapt to changing consumer demands and try to serve a new demographic that is increasingly global, wireless, mobile and socially networked.
Electronic Records Management - An Old Solution to a New Problem
Authors: Nguyen Chinh , Stockdale Rosemary , Scheepers Helana , Sargent Jason
Published: April 2016

The rapid development of technology and interactive nature of Government 2.0 (Gov 2.0) is generating large data sets for Government, resulting in a struggle to control, manage, and extract the right information. Therefore, research into these large data sets (termed Big Data) has become necessary. Governments are now spending significant finances on storing and processing vast amounts of information because of the huge proliferation and complexity of Big Data and a lack of effective records management. On the other hand, there is a method called Electronic Records Management (ERM), for controlling and governing the important data of an organisation. This paper investigates the challenges identified from reviewing the literature for Gov 2.0, Big Data, and ERM in order to develop a better understanding of the application of ERM to Big Data to extract useable information in the context of Gov 2.0. The paper suggests that a key building block in providing useable information to stakeholders could potentially be ERM with its well established governance policies. A framework is constructed to illustrate how ERM can play a role in the context of Gov 2.0. Future research is necessary to address the specific constraints and expectations placed on governments in terms of data retention and use.
Personalized Disease Phenotypes from Massive OMICs Data
Authors: Binder Hans , Hopp Lydia , Lembcke Kathrin , Wirth Henry
Published: April 2016

Application of new high-throughput technologies in molecular medicine collects massive data for hundreds to thousands of persons in large cohort studies by characterizing the phenotype of each individual on a personalized basis. The chapter aims at increasing our understanding of disease genesis and progression and to improve diagnosis and treatment. New methods are needed to handle such “big data.” Machine learning enables one to recognize and to visualize complex data patterns and to make decisions potentially relevant for diagnosis and treatment. The authors address these tasks by applying the method of self-organizing maps and present worked examples from different disease entities of the colon ranging from inflammation to cancer.
Future Research Directions in E-Tourism Studies
Authors: Eto Hajime
Published: April 2016

As this book has the limited numbers of chapters and pages, many important issues remain unanalyzed. This chapter picks up and roughly discusses some of them for the future analyses in more analytical ways. The focuses are placed on how to apply the data scientific methods to the analyses of public voice, claims and behaviors of tourists, customers and the general publics by using the big data already acquired and stored somewhere.
Social Media Mining
Authors: Gupta Vipul , Gupta Mayank
Published: April 2016

Social media has gained a lot of importance in this modern high-speed world where people sprint to save every bit of time and money. Social media, considered “big data”, is finding legitimate and practical uses in political campaigns, job applications, business promotion, professional networking, and customer service. The use of data mining social media is reshaping business models, accelerating “viral” marketing, and enabling the rapid growth of grassroots communities. In addition, organizations now rely on social media for interacting internally as well as externally. Industries from manufacturing to retail to financial services, rely ever-more heavily on the use of social media causing an exploding Social Media Mining (SMM) applications market with a growing list of software vendors and consulting firms all jockeying for position in this burgeoning market. This paper is intent on accomplishing a systematic presentation of the body of knowledge in the growing field of SMM.
Emerging Role of Big Data in Public Sector
Authors: Manzoor Amir
Published: April 2016

Technological advancements have made it easier to collect and store data. We are generating and storing data on a nearly pervasive basis and across multiple environments including work and home. Big data, a general term for the massive amount of digital data being collected from all sorts of sources, is too large, raw, or unstructured for analysis through conventional relational database techniques. For public managers, big data represents an opportunity to infuse information and technology into the design and management of organizations, personnel, and resources. Although the business sector is leading big-data-application development, the public sector has begun to derive insight to help support decision making in real time from fast-growing in-motion data from multiple sources. This chapter explores the big-data applications associated with the public sector and provide suggestions for follower governments.
Effective Communication Processes
Authors: Ololube Nwachukwu Prince , Agbor Comfort N. , Kpolovie Peter James
Published: April 2016

This chapter assessed the impact of effective communication on Organizational Justice (OJ) in the university system. Internet search revealed that there no empirical studies on the impact of effective communication on OJ in general and in university system in particular. This ground-breaking research is intended to expand our understanding and proves to be a useful addition to the theme of this study. Communication is a characteristic common to all organizations. It is permanent, in that it is always happening, and yet it can happen so slowly that it is rarely ever noticed. On the other hand, certain communication processes, type and style have been forceful enough to draw immediate changes in organizations. To this end, quantitative assessment design was employed and questionnaire was used to measure effective communication processes and the three parts of OJ as it applies to the university system. Lecturers from four public universities responded to a questionnaire that employed a seven-point Likert-type scales. The study found that effective communication processes has positive impact on OJ. Lecturers perceived that their production and service output are not proportionate because of the unfair treatment as a result of the ineffective communication processes.
Organizational Culture in Higher Education
Authors: Erdem Ali Rıza
Published: April 2016

Universities who are higher education organizations, have an academic and autonomous construction by performing education, basic and scientific researches, community's duty functions that they take on, they improve a particular organizational culture. The organizational culture that a university has makes it different from other universities by its values,basic assumptions and norms, leaders and heroes, symbols and language,stories and legends, ceremonies and customs. In this study, the terms organization and culture were clarified first and the culture of organization and organization culture in the higher education was studied afterwards.
The Mediating Effect of Organizational Culture, Size, and Structure on the Relationship Between Innovations and Resilience in Selected Nigerian Universities
Authors: Ahiauzu Levi Uche , Ololube Nwachukwu Prince
Published: April 2016

This chapter empirically investigated the mediating effect of organizational culture, size and structure on the relationship between innovations and resilience in selected Nigerian universities. The descriptive research design was adopted. The respondents comprised Heads of Departments, Deans of Faculties, Directors, Registrars and Deputy Registrars, and Vice Chancellors and Deputy Vice Chancellors. The analyses of the data involved the use of multiple statistical procedures: Percentages, Mean, Chi-square (hypotheses 1-6) and One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). ANOVA was used to test hypotheses 7-12, using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21. The research instrument was quantitatively analyzed and an overall Cronbach alpha coefficient of .845 was realized. In this study, we gathered that significant relationship exists between product innovation and situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. Process innovation impact on situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. In addition, relationships were found between administrative innovation and situation awareness, keystone vulnerabilities and adaptive capacity. Correspondingly, we found that organizational culture, size and structure has a significant moderating relationship between innovation and resilience. Nigeria universities like other developing counties universities need effective innovation programs.
What Does Culture of Higher Education Mean for Teacher Candidates?
Authors: Arslan-Cansever Belgin , Seyhan Gamze Bilir
Published: April 2016

When a university is considered as an organization, the meaning of culture to students should be investigated to have knowledge of its organizational culture. In this qualitative study, it is aimed to examine university students' perceptions of higher education culture via metaphors. Participants were 230 primary school teacher candidates enrolled in Faculty of Education, Ege University in Turkey. Researchers prepared a form to use as data gathering tool including the prompt “Higher education culture is like ... because ...”. In the study, the 5 common metaphors generated by four grades and these metaphors were freedom, youth, library, sea, and sun. Moreover, all participants generated 101 original metaphors. At the end of the analysis, metaphors were grouped into seven different categories; information environment, shaping the future, pathfinder, free, perpetual adapting itself, multi-cultural, exciting. To conclude, it could be said that most of teacher candidates have a positive perception about higher education.
Asians and the Myth of the Model Minority in Higher Education
Authors: Johnson Ronn , Kim Ji Youn Cindy , Lee Jojo Yanki
Published: April 2016

When compared with African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, Asian are often attributed more positive attributions from the dominant culture. The developed stereotype, Myth of the Model Minority (MMM), suggests Asian Americans achieve a higher degree of success than the general population. Under the internalized assumption of being psychologically trouble free, the MMM stereotype contributes to Asians being less inclined to proactively engage in help seeking behavior despite the presence of severe mental health concerns. Psychocultural examples relating to Asian Americans (e.g., Virginia Tech Shooter case) are reviewed to form a clinical and forensic psychological framework that offers a challenge as to why the MMM is problematic in higher education. The myths related to MMM and the experiences—positive or negative—of MMM are analyzed to encourage subsequent empirically-based applications for addressing MMM as well as serving as a caveat against using monocausal explanations or other thumbnail assessments of Asian American behavior in higher education.
Why do Patients Protest? Collective Action Processes in People with Chronic Illnesses
Authors: Mazzoni Davide , Alberici Augusta Isabella
Published: April 2016

Despite the relevance of the topic, an exhaustive psychosocial reflection on the processes that may facilitate patients' protest is still missing. The chapter provides a theoretical and empirical overview of psychosocial pathways for patients' collective action. Five core factors are reviewed: perceived injustice, group efficacy, group identification, moral convictions and social embeddedness. Each of them provides a different explanation of collective action processes and is examined for its potential impact among patients. The chapter closes suggesting some core elements for a theoretical explanation of patients' collective action and its relationship with patient engagement. Practical and theoretical implications of patients' collective action are discussed to identify new directions for future research and interventions.
No Entry
Authors: Bruscaglioni Livia
Published: April 2016

The chapter investigates the dynamic of encounters between staff and patients in two case studies on hospital organisation, taking special account of the emotional and psychological aspects associated with practices in the use of organisational space. By drawing on two empirical cases set in different hospital contexts (the waiting rooms of two outpatients wards and an emergency unit), analysis is made of two examples of practices which represent express violations of the rules on the use of space by patients and their relatives. Violations that could be analysed as demand of engagement - by patients and relatives - in the process of care. In these empirical cases the governance defensive reaction strategies used by hospital staff in their interaction with waiting patients is shown in light of the rules that define the behaviour acceptable for patients and relatives. The study is based on a qualitative methodological approach using the techniques of observation and in-depth interviews with hospital staff, patients and relatives.
Could Patient Engagement Promote a Health System Free From Malpractice Litigation Risk?
Authors: Miglioretti Massimo , Mariani Francesca , Vecchio Luca
Published: April 2016

In recent decades, medical malpractice litigation experienced a large-scale expansion in the United States as well as in Europe, involving both medical and surgical specialties. Previous studies have investigated the reasons why patients decide to sue doctors for malpractice and highlighted that adverse outcome, negative communication with doctors and seeking compensation are among the major reasons for malpractice litigation. In this chapter, patient engagement is discussed as a possible method for reducing the risks of doctors being sued for medical malpractice. The results of a first qualitative study underline how an active role for patients and their engagement in the treatment definition and execution could be a way to limit the occurrence of malpractice litigations. However, a second study noted that in Italy, many patients are still struggling to become involved in the process of their care. The authors discuss the role of professional education in promoting patient engagement in Italy.
Energy Cost Saving Tips in Distributed Power Networks
Authors: Siwe Alain Tcheukam , Tembine Hamidou
Published: April 2016

This chapter studies energy cost saving strategies in power networks. A prosumer is a user that not only consumes electricity, but can also produce and store electricity. Three tips are considered: distributed power network architecture, peak energy shaving with the integration of prosumers' contribution and prosumers market. The proposed distributed power network architecture reduces significantly the transmission costs and can reduce significantly the global energy cost up to 42 percent. Different types of prosumer who use self-charging renewable energy systems, are able to intelligently buy energy from, or sell it, to the power grid. Therein, prosumers interact during the purchase or sale of electric power using a double auction with negotiation mechanism. Using a two-step combined learning and optimization scheme, each prosumer can learn its optimal bidding strategy and forecast its energy production, consumption and storage. Our simulation results show that the integration of prosumers can reduce peak hour costs up to 17 percent and 6 percent for eligible prosumers.
Implementation of Flooding Free Routing in Smart Grid
Authors: Afzal Saad
Published: April 2016

Smart Grid is a communication and automatic control capabilities in electric power grid system for improving efficiency, reliability, management, capabilities and security of electric power grid. Routing is important in Smart Grid to send data from one point to another point. Routing in Smart Grid is necessary to search /identify destination point/node for communication and to computer the best available route in the network topology among which the data to be sent during communication. Smart Grid can be a combination of fixed nodes (home appliances, smart meter, control centre, etc.) but the nature of communication between fixed nodes is dynamic due to the switch on/off or the fluctuation in electricity flow. Therefore the fixed nodes can also be disappeared from the network topology in Smart Grid. Existing routing protocols for Smart Grid are based on flooding mechanism. We would like to examine the feasibility of flooding free routing in Smart Grid. Then we will propose a flooding-free routing for Smart.
Selection of Wavelet Features for Biomedical Signals Using SVM Learning
Authors: Garg Girisha , Singh Vijander
Published: April 2016

Signal processing problems require feature extraction and selection techniques. A novel Wavelet Feature Selection algorithm is proposed for ranking and selecting the features from the wavelet decompositions. The algorithm makes use of support vector machine to rank the features and backward feature elimination to remove the features. The finally selected features are used as patterns for the classification system. Two EEG datasets are used to test the algorithm. The results confirm that the algorithm is able to improve the efficiency of wavelet features in terms of accuracy and feature space.
Survey of Cochlear Implant User Satisfaction with the Neptune™ Waterproof Sound Processor
Authors: Briaire Jeroen J. , Research Group Indian , Büchner Andreas , Auletta Gennaro , Arroyo Helena , Zoilo Carmen , Mancini Patrizia , Buhagiar Roberta , Vaid Neelam , Mathias Nathalie
Published: April 2016

A multi-center self-assessment survey was conducted to evaluate patient satisfaction with the Advanced Bionics Neptune™ waterproof sound processor used with the AquaMic™ totally submersible microphone. Subjective satisfaction with the different Neptune™ wearing options, comfort, ease of use, sound quality and use of the processor in a range of active and water related situations were assessed for 23 adults and 73 children, using an online and paper based questionnaire. Upgraded subjects compared their previous processor to the Neptune™. The Neptune™ was most popular for use in general sports and in the pool. Subjects were satisfied with the sound quality of the sound processor outside and under water and following submersion. Seventyeight percent of subjects rated waterproofness as being very useful and 83% of the newly implanted subjects selected waterproofness as one of the reasons why they chose the Neptune™ processor. Providing a waterproof sound processor is considered by cochlear implant recipients to be useful and important and is a factor in their processor choice. Subjects reported that they were satisfied with the Neptune™ sound quality, ease of use and different wearing options.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors and prostate cancer: a new frontier?
Authors: Modena Alessandra , Ciccarese Chiara , Iacovelli Roberto , Brunelli Matteo , Montironi Rodolfo , Fiorentino Michelangelo , Tortora Giampaolo , Massari Francesco
Published: April 2016

Despite recent advances in the treatment of metastatic castrationresistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), agents that provide durable disease control and long-term survival are still needed. It is a fact that a tumor-induced immunosuppressive status (mediated by aberrant activation of inhibitory immune checkpoint pathways as a mechanism to evade host immune surveillance) plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of cancer, including prostate cancer (PC), making CRPC patients suitable candidates for immunotherapy. Therefore, growing interest of anticancer research aims at blocking immune checkpoints (mainly targeting CTLA-4 and PD1/PD-L1 pathways) to restore and enhance cellular-mediated antitumor immunity and achieve durable tumor regression. In this review, we describe the current knowledge regarding the role of immune checkpoints in mediating PC progression, focusing on CTLA-4 and PD1 pathways. We also provide current clinical data available, an update on ongoing trials of immune checkpoint inhibitors in PC. Finally, we discuss the necessity to identify prognostic and predictive biomarkers of immune activity, and we analyze new immune checkpoints with a role as promising targets for PC therapy.
A Randomized Pilot Study of Inositol in Association with Betaine and Boswellia in the Management of Mastalgia and Benign Breast Lump in Premenopausal Women
Authors: Pasta Vittorio , Dinicola Simona , Giuliani Alessandro , Harrath Abdel Halim , Alwasel Saleh H. , Tartaglia Francesco , Cucina Alessandra , Bizzarri Mariano
Published: April 2016

Benign mammary lumps and mastalgia are the most common breast disorders; yet, there is no clear-cut consensus about the best strategy for their treatment. We hypothesized that a combination, including boswellic acid, betaine, and myoinositol, would be beneficial in breast disorders by exerting a pleiotropic effect on multiple pathways. Indeed, myoinositol has already been proven to modulate some factors involved in the genesis of breast diseases, such as fibrosis and metabolic and endocrine cues. In our study, 76 women were randomly assigned to either the experimental or the placebo arm. After six months of treatment, statistically significant differences between the two groups were recorded for pain relief (56% vs 17%) and breast density reduction (60% vs 9%). Furthermore, benign breast mass dimension showed a reduction in the experimental group (40% vs 16%). The combination of boswellic acid, betaine, and myoinositol has been demonstrated to be effective in the treatment of breast pain and radiologically and histologically confirmed benign breast mass and in the reduction of breast density, one of the pivotal risk factors for the development of breast cancer, without any side effects.
Lung-On-A-Chip Technologies for Disease Modeling and Drug Development
Authors: Konar Dipasri , Devarasetty Mahesh , Yildiz Didem V. , Atala Anthony , Murphy Sean V.
Published: April 2016

Animal and two-dimensional cell culture models have had a profound impact on not only lung research but also medical research at large, despite inherent flaws and differences when compared with in vivo and clinical observations. Three-dimensional (3D) tissue models are a natural progression and extension of existing techniques that seek to plug the gaps and mitigate the drawbacks of two-dimensional and animal technologies. In this review, we describe the transition of historic models to contemporary 3D cell and organoid models, the varieties of current 3D cell and tissue culture modalities, the common methods for imaging these models, and finally, the applications of these models and imaging techniques to lung research.
Relating Anaerobic Digestion Microbial Community and Process Function : Supplementary Issue: Water Microbiology
Authors: Venkiteshwaran Kaushik , Bocher Benjamin , Maki James , Zitomer Daniel
Published: April 2016

Anaerobic digestion (AD) involves a consortium of microorganisms that convert substrates into biogas containing methane for renewable energy. The technology has suffered from the perception of being periodically unstable due to limited understanding of the relationship between microbial community structure and function. The emphasis of this review is to describe microbial communities in digesters and quantitative and qualitative relationships between community structure and digester function. Progress has been made in the past few decades to identify key microorganisms influencing AD. Yet, more work is required to realize robust, quantitative relationships between microbial community structure and functions such as methane production rate and resilience after perturbations. Other promising areas of research for improved AD may include methods to increase/control (1) hydrolysis rate, (2) direct interspecies electron transfer to methanogens, (3) community structure–function relationships of methanogens, (4) methanogenesis via acetate oxidation, and (5) bioaugmentation to study community–activity relationships or improve engineered bioprocesses.
Analysis of Nursing Clinical Decision Support Requests and Strategic Plan in a Large Academic Health System
Authors: Bavuso Karen , Bouyer-Ferullo Sharon , Goldsmith Denise , Fairbanks Amanda , Gesner Emily , Lagor Charles , Collins Sarah , Whalen Kimberly
Published: April 2016

To understand requests for nursing Clinical Decision Support (CDS) interventions at a large integrated health system undergoing vendor-based EHR implementation. In addition, to establish a process to guide both short-term implementation and long-term strategic goals to meet nursing CDS needs.

We conducted an environmental scan to understand current state of nursing CDS over three months. The environmental scan consisted of a literature review and an analysis of CDS requests received from across our health system. We identified existing high priority CDS and paper-based tools used in nursing practice at our health system that guide decision-making.

A total of 46 nursing CDS requests were received. Fifty-six percent (n=26) were specific to a clinical specialty; 22 percent (n=10) were focused on facilitating clinical consults in the inpatient setting. “Risk Assessments/Risk Reduction/Promotion of Healthy Habits” (n=23) was the most requested High Priority Category received for nursing CDS. A continuum of types of nursing CDS needs emerged using the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Conceptual Framework: 1) facilitating data capture, 2) meeting information needs, 3) guiding knowledge-based decision making, and 4) exposing analytics for wisdom-based clinical interpretation by the nurse.

Identifying and prioritizing paper-based tools that can be modified into electronic CDS is a challenge. CDS strategy is an evolving process that relies on close collaboration and engagement with clinical sites for short-term implementation and should be incorporated into a long-term strategic plan that can be optimized and achieved overtime. The Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Conceptual Framework in conjunction with the High Priority Categories established may be a useful tool to guide a strategic approach for meeting short-term nursing CDS needs and aligning with the organizational strategic plan.
A Randomized Clinical Trial to evaluate the Effect of Therapeutic Ultrasound and Low-level Laser Therapy on Perineal Pain following Vaginal Delivery with Episiotomy
Authors: Chougala Ashwini , Mahishale Arati
Published: April 2016

Background and objectives

Vaginal delivery has an enormous amount of pressure on the perineum, the area between vagina and anus, which must stretch to accommodate the baby's head during its passage through the birth canal. During childbirth, the perineum may tear or the obstetrician may decide to incise to make wider opening for baby's head to pass, a procedure called as episiotomy. The area of episiotomy may be uncomfortable and painful for several days. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of therapeutic ultrasound and low-level laser therapy (LLLT) on perineal pain following vaginal delivery with episiotomy.

Materials and methods

Sixty women, who underwent vaginal delivery with episiotomy, complaining of perineal pain were recruited and randomly allocated to two treatment groups. Physiotherapy intervention included cryo gel pad and therapeutic ultrasound in group A and cryo gel pad and lowlevel laser therapy in group B once daily for 3 consecutive days.

Outcomes

Measures were documented using visual analog scale (VAS) for pain and REEDA scale (redness, edema, ecchymosis, discharge, approximation) for healing on 1st day preintervention and 3rd day postintervention respectively.

Results

The study results showed that there was statistically significant improvement postintervention in both the groups with p < 0.05, although therapeutic ultrasound with cryo gel pad showed better reduction in pain score and healing process as compared to low-level laser therapy.

Conclusion

Therapeutic ultrasound with cryo gel pad can be used to reduce perineal pain following vaginal delivery with episiotomy.

How to cite this article

Chougala A, Mahishale A. A Randomized Clinical Trial to evaluate the Effect of Therapeutic Ultrasound and Low-level Laser Therapy on Perineal Pain following Vaginal Delivery with Episiotomy. J South Asian Feder Obst Gynae 2015;7(3):152-156.
A Clinical Study of Primary Amenorrhea
Authors: Anitha GS , Tejeswini KK , Shivamurthy Geetha
Published: April 2016

Introduction

Menstruation is the physical herald to physiologic capacity of conception. Attainment of menarche in a girl brings in a lot of confidence and feminism in a girl. Though the incidence of primary amenorrhea is less than 1%, it accounts for significant amount of psychological trauma. In the present day scenario, there are a lot of investigative and treatment modalities which can at least restore her menstrual functions, if not reproductive, and prevent complications.

Aims

The objective of this study is to note the various causes of primary amenorrhea and the complete clinical picture and the management done in a tertiary care center like Vanivilas Hospital and Bowring Hospital, Bengaluru.

Materials and methods

This is a prospective study done in 40 patients of primary amenorrhea presenting to Vanivilas Hospital and Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bengaluru during a 2 years period. They were investigated and managed. The patients were followed up for their response to treatment.

Results

Out of the 40 patients studied, Mayer-Rokitansky- Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome (32.5%) and hypergonadotropic hypogonadism (32.5%) were most common. Cryptomenorrhea (17.5%), automatic identification system (AIS) (7.5%) and miscellaneous (4%) were found.

Conclusion

Evidence of primary amenorrhea is less than 1%. A detailed investigation may lead to treatment in many cases.

How to cite this article

Anitha GS, Tejeswini KK, Shivamurthy G. A Clinical Study of Primary Amenorrhea. J South Asian Feder Obst Gynae 2015;7(3):158-166.
Trends in Endometriosis among Laparoscopic Patients in Multiple Hospitals in Northern India: A 3-Year Review
Authors: Manchanda Rahul , Umelo Chijioke Caminus
Published: April 2016

Objectives

• To determine the prevalence of the disease, its pattern of incidence, major clinical features in multiple hospitals in the North Indian region over the period of 3 years.

• To determine the most affected age group and the grades of the disease in the region.

• To evaluate the commonly affected pelvic organs and surgical management offered.

Data collection

Records were collected from five different hospitals spread mainly over North Indian region that underwent laparoscopic procedures from January 2012 to December 2014. Total cases analyzed were 440 laparoscopic cases and 110 endometriosis cases.

Design

Retrospective analytic study.

Patients

All those patients who underwent laparoscopy of all ages referred to the above-mentioned hospitals during the period.

Results

Out of the 440 laparoscopic procedure done, 110 were confirmed cases of endometriosis (25%). The mean age of the studied population was 30.6 ± 5.62 while 25 to 29 (40.0%) age bracket was the most affected. There was a yearly rise in the incidence of endometriosis with a range of 21 to 42% per 100 person-year population with a prevalence rate of 25%. The most commonly associated symptom was infertility (87.3%), followed by chronic pelvic pain (56.4%) and dysmenorrhea (34.5%). The ovary was the most affected organ (89.1%), grade II (mild) endometriosis the most common grade (35.5%), while cystectomy (30.0%) and excision of the endometriosis implants (19.1%) were the commonly performed surgical procedures.

Conclusion

Study shows that endometriosis is prevalent in this region and its major symptom is infertility and chronic pelvic pain, these facts should stimulate gynecologist to promptly examine women with symptoms suggestive of endometriosis laparoscopically with a view of offering early treatment and counseling.

How to cite this article

Umelo CC, Manchanda R. Trends in Endometriosis among Laparoscopic Patients in Multiple Hospitals in Northern India: A 3-Year Review. J South Asian Feder Obst Gynae 2015;7(3):167-170.