bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Human Factors on the Use of Web-Based Instruction
Authors: Chen Sherry Y.
Published: May 2011

Web-based instruction is prevalent in educational settings. However, many issues still remain to be investigated. In particular, it is still open about how human factors influence learners’ performance and perception in Web-based instruction. In this vein, the study presented in this chapter investigates this issue in a Web-based instructional program, which was applied to teach students how to use HyperText Markup Language (HTML) in a United Kingdom (UK) university. Sixty-one master’s degree students participated in this study. There were a number of interesting findings. Students’ task achievements were affected by the levels of their previous system experience. On the other hand, the Post-Test and Gain scores were positively influenced by their perceptions and attitudes toward the Web-based instructional program. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Advanced Middleware Architectural Aspects for Personalised Leading-Edge Services
Authors: Alonistioti Nancy
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces context-driven personalisation of service provision based on a middleware architectural approach. It describes the emerging environment on service provision, outlining the increasing requirements for personalisation as well as the state-of-the-art approaches in personalisation. A novel information space is presented to introduce the middleware architectures for personalisation in service provision. Technology enablers for context and knowledge management as well as service adaptation are also introduced, and an architectural model for the personalisation functionality is presented. The study also touches upon advanced concepts based on autonomic computing and communications to introduce future research directions.
Intelligent Information Personalization
Authors: Raza Abidi Syed Sibte
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces intelligent information personalization as an approach to personalize the webbased information retrieval experiences based on an individual’s interests, needs and goals. We present intelligent techniques to dynamically compose new personalized information by adapting existing web-based information in line with a dynamic user-model, whilst simultaneously addressing linguistic, factual and functional requirements. This chapter will highlight the different facets, tasks and issues concerning intelligent information personalization to guide researchers in designing intelligent information personalization applications. The chapter presents intelligent methods that address information personalization at the content level as opposed to the traditional approaches that focus on interface level information personalization. To assist researchers in designing intelligent information personalization applications we present our information personalization framework, named AdWISE (Adaptive Webmediated Information and Services Environment), to demonstrate how to systematically integrate various intelligent methods to achieve information personalization. We will conclude with a commentary on the future outlook for intelligent information personalization.
Impact of Cognitive Style on User Perception of Dynamic Video Content
Authors: Ghinea Gheorghita
Published: May 2011

This study investigated two dimensions of cognitive style, including Verbalizer/Imager and Field Dependent/ Field Independent and their influence on user perceived quality of multimedia video. Perceived user quality was characterised using the Quality of Perception (QoP) metric, which captures the infotainment duality of multimedia presentations. Results indicate that, generally, clip dynamism impacts on user QoP; in particular, it is worthwhile to remark that in the clips with strong and medium dynamism, Field Dependent users performed worse than the other two groups, while Field Dependent users had a (slightly) better performance than Field Independent users in clips with weak dynamism.
Towards Semantic-Based P2P Reputation Systems
Authors: Damiani Ernesto , Viviani Marco
Published: May 2011

Peer-to-peer (P2P) systems represent nowadays a large portion of Internet traffic, and are fundamental data sources. In a pure P2P system, since no peer has the power or responsibility to monitor and restrain others behaviours, there is no method to verify the trustworthiness of shared resources, and malicious peers can spread untrustworthy data objects to the system. Furthermore, data descriptions are often simple features directly connected to data or annotations based on heterogeneous schemas, a fact that makes difficult to obtain a single coherent trust value on a resource. This chapter describes techniques where the combination of Semantic Web and peer-to-peer technologies is used for expressing the knowledge shared by peers in a well-defined and formal way. Finally, dealing with Semantic-based P2P networks, the chapter suggests a research effort in this direction, where the association between cluster-based overlay networks and reputation systems based on numerical approaches seems to be promising.
Social Aspects of Information Security
Authors: Drake Paul
Published: May 2011

This chapter looks at information security as a primarily technological domain, and asks what could be added to our understanding if both technology and human activity were seen to be of equal importance. The aim is therefore, to ground the domain both theoretically and practically from a technological and social standpoint. The solution to this dilemma is seen to be located in social theory, various aspects of which deal with both human and technical issues, but do so from the perspective of those involved in the system of concern. The chapter concludes by offering a model for evaluating information security from a social theoretical perspective, and guidelines for implementing the findings.
Privacy Concerns when Modeling Users in Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems
Authors: Castagnos Sylvain
Published: May 2011

This chapter investigates ways to deal with privacy rules when modeling preferences of users in recommender systems based on collaborative filtering. It argues that it is possible to find a good compromise between quality of predictions and protection of personal data. Thus, it proposes a methodology that fulfills with strictest privacy laws for both centralized and distributed architectures. The authors hope that their attempts to provide a unified vision of privacy rules through the related works and a generic privacy-enhancing procedure will help researchers and practitioners to better take into account the ethical and juridical constraints as regards privacy protection when designing information systems.
Bridging the Gap between Employee Surveillance and Privacy Protection
Authors: Mitrou Lilian
Published: May 2011

This chapter addresses the issue of electronic workplace monitoring and its implications for employees’ privacy. Organisations increasingly use a variety of electronic surveillance methods to mitigate threats to their information systems. Monitoring technology spans different aspects of organisational life, including communications, desktop and physical monitoring, collecting employees’ personal data, and locating employees through active badges. The application of these technologies raises privacy protection concerns. Throughout this chapter, we describe different approaches to privacy protection followed by different jurisdictions. We also highlight privacy issues with regard to new trends and practices, such as teleworking and use of RFID technology for identifying the location of employees. Emphasis is also placed on the reorganisation of work facilitated by information technology, since frontiers between the private and the public sphere are becoming blurred. The aim of this chapter is twofold: we discuss privacy concerns and the implications of implementing employee surveillance technologies and we suggest a framework of fair practices which can be used for bridging the gap between the need to provide adequate protection for information systems, while preserving employees’ rights to privacy.
A Multi-Methodological Approach to Study Systems Development in a Software Organization
Authors: Ovaska Paivi
Published: May 2011

Large-scale systems development is a complex activity involving number of dependencies that people working together face. Only a few studies concentrate on the coordination of development activities in their organizational context. This research study tries to fill at least part of this gap by studying how systems development process is coordinated in practice. The study uses a multimethodological approach to interpret coordination of systems development process in a contemporary software organization in Finland. The methodology is based on the empirical case-study approach in which the actions, conceptions, and artefacts of practitioners are analyzed using within-case and cross-case principles. In all the three phases of the study, namely multi-\site coordination, requirement understanding, and working with systems development methods, both the qualitative and quantitative methods were used to an understanding of coordination in systems development. The main contribution of this study is to demonstrate that contemporary systems development is much more complex and more driven by opportunity than is currently acknowledged by researchers. The most challenging part of the research process was the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, because of the lack of multimethodological work done in IS discipline.
Usability Evaluation Meets Design
Authors: Symonds Judith
Published: May 2011

Usability Evaluation Methods (UEM) are plentiful in the literature. However, there appears to be a new interest in usability testing from the viewpoint of the industry practitioner and renewed effort to reflect usability design principles throughout the software development process. In this chapter we examine one such example of usability testing from the viewpoint of the industry practitioner and reflect upon how usability evaluation methods are perceived by the software developers of a content driven system and discuss some benefits that can be derived from bringing together usability theory and usability evaluation methods protocols used by practitioners. In particular, we use the simulated prototyping method and the “Talk Aloud” protocol to assist a small software development company to undertake usability testing. We propose some issues that arise from usability testing from the perspectives of the researchers and practitioners and discuss our understanding of the knowledge transfer that occurs between the two.
Video and Data Dissemination in Mobile Broadcasting Environments
Authors: Fouliras Panayotis
Published: May 2011

Data dissemination has already been identified as one of the most important aspects for mobile environments and particularly so for large volumes of data such as video, with the additional constraints of speedy, accurate, and isochronous delivery to thousands of users. With the adoption of mobile broadcasting standards this factor has increased in importance. In this chapter, we present the respective issues involved, technical as well as financial and regulatory. The reader is provided with a brief, yet concise, picture of the most important traditional broadcasting techniques and video broadcasting standards for the mobile environment. We then conclude with a detailed comparative evaluation in order to better understand the merits of each approach.
Processor for Mobile Applications
Authors: Abderazek Ben Abdallah , Canedo Arquimedes , Kuroda Kenichi
Published: May 2011

Mobile processors are used in numerous embedded systems, including laptops, personal digital organizers, wearable computers, cellular phones, mobile Internet terminals, digital cameras, digital cam-coders, smart cards, and sensor networks nodes. Although these systems differ in terms of their communication and computation requirements, they share the common need for low power, security and small memory footprint. This chapter presents the software and hardware architecture and the design results of a low power processor architecture based on queue computation model, which offers an attractive option in the design of mobile and embedded systems.
The Competitive Forces Facing E-Health
Authors: Wickramasinghe Nilmini , Misra Santosh , Jenkins Arnold , Vogel Douglas R.
Published: May 2011

Superior access, quality, and value of healthcare services has become a national priority for healthcare to combat the exponentially increasing costs of healthcare expenditure. E-Health in its many forms and possibilities appears to offer a panacea for facilitating the necessary transformation for healthcare. While a plethora of e-health initiatives keep mushrooming both nationally and globally, there exists to date no unified system to evaluate these respective initiatives and assess their relative strengths and deficiencies in realizing superior access, quality and value of healthcare services. Our research serves to address this void. This is done by focusing on the following three key components: 1) understanding the Web of players (regulators, payers, providers, healthcare organizations, suppliers, and last but not least patients) and how ehealth can modify the interactions between these players as well as create added value healthcare services, 2) understand the competitive forces facing e-health organizations and the role of the Internet in modifying these forces, and 3) from analyzing the Web of players combined with the competitive forces for e-health organizations we develop a framework that serves to identify the key forces facing an e-health and suggestions of how such an organization can structure itself to be e-health prepared.
Health Portals
Authors: Carbone Daniel
Published: May 2011

A lack of health services has long been the thorn in the side of many communities, especially rural and regional communities. The high costs of treating ever growing chronic and complex conditions in traditional settings, where rural allied health services providers are non-existent and doctors are already overcommitted, are prompting a shift in focus to more efficient technology driven delivery of health services. Moreover, these days it is also increasingly unlikely that health professionals will encounter patients who have not used information technology to influence their health knowledge, health behaviour, perception of symptoms, and illness behaviour. Advances in Internet technologies offer promise towards the development of an e-health care system. This article will postulate whether portal technologies can play a role facilitating the transition to such e-health care systems. This article aims at reviewing the literature to present to the reader the barriers and opportunities out here for effective health portals. However, the article does not intend to provide a one-fits-all technical/content solution, only to make implementers and developers aware of the potential implications.
Information Extraction in Biomedical Literature
Authors: Song Min
Published: May 2011

Information extraction (IE) technology has been defined and developed through the US DARPA Message Understanding Conferences (MUCs). IE refers to the identification of instances of particular events and relationships from unstructured natural language text documents into a structured representation or relational table in databases. It has proved successful at extracting information from various domains, such as the Latin American terrorism, to identify patterns related to terrorist activities (MUC-4). Another domain, in the light of exploiting the wealth of natural language documents, is to extract the knowledge or information from these unstructured plain-text files into a structured or relational form. This form is suitable for sophisticated query processing, for integration with relational databases, and for data mining. Thus, IE is a crucial step for fully making text files more easily accessible.
Realizing Knowledge Assets in the Medical Sciences with Data Mining
Authors: Fadlalla Adam
Published: May 2011

This chapter provides insight into various areas within the medical field that strive to take advantage of different data mining techniques in order to realize the full potential of their knowledge assets. Specifically, this is done by discussing many of the limitations associated with conventional methods of diagnosis and showing how data mining can be used to improve these methods. Comparative analyses of different techniques associated with various areas within the medical field are outlined in order to identify the right technique for particular medical specialties. Furthermore, suggestions are provided to appropriately utilize the various data mining techniques thereby leading to effective and efficient knowledge management and knowledge utilization. In this chapter we highlight the potential of data mining in improving the exploratory as well as the predictive capabilities of conventional diagnostic methods in medical science.
Building Better E-Health Through a Personal Health Informatics Pedagogy
Authors: Wilson E. Vance
Published: May 2011

E-health use is increasing worldwide, but no current e-health paradigm fulfills the complete range of user needs for online health services. This dilemma clouds a number of issues surrounding e-health, as promoters of e-commerce, personal health records, and consumer health informatics paradigms attempt to create encompassing e-health within the constraints of each unique perspective. In the long term, the most important of these issues may be the need to develop an e-health pedagogy that offers conceptual grounding and course curricula in order to effectively represent all facets of e-health. To address that issue, this article introduces a personal health informatics (PHI) paradigm that incorporates the best features of preceding paradigms by integrating informatics, personal, and healthcare perspectives. Drawing from PHI, a pedagogical framework is proposed to guide instruction in the design and development of encompassing e-health.
Conceptual Framework for Mobile-Based Application in Healthcare
Authors: Guah Matthew W.
Published: May 2011

The significance of aligning IT with corporate strategy is widely recognised, but the lack of an appropriate framework often prevents practitioners from integrating emerging Internet technologies (like Web services and mobile technologies) within organisations’ strategies effectively. This chapter introduces a framework that addresses the issue of deploying Web services strategically within a mobile-based healthcare setting. A framework is developed to match potential benefits of Web services with corporate strategy in four business dimensions: innovation, internal healthcare process, patients’ pathway, and management of the healthcare institution. The author argues that the strategic benefits of implementing Web services in a healthcare organisation can only be realized if the Web-services initiatives are planned and implemented within the framework of an IT strategy that is designed to support the business strategy of that healthcare organisation. The chapter will use case studies to answer several questions relating to wireless and mobile technologies and how they offer vast opportunity to enhance Web services. It also investigates what challenges are faced if this solution is to be delivered successfully in healthcare. The healthcare industry globally, with specific emphasis on the USA and United Kingdom, has been extremely slow in adopting emerging technologies that focus on better practice management and administrative needs. The chapter elaborates on certain emerging information technologies that are currently available to aid the smooth process of implementing mobile-based technologies into healthcare industry.
Designing Clinical Decision Support Systems in Health Care
Authors: Raghupathi Wullianallur
Published: May 2011

Clinical decision support systems have historically focused on formal clinical reasoning. Most of the systems are rule-based and very few have become fully functional prototypes or commercially viable systems that can be deployed in real situations. The attempts to build large-scale systems without examining the intrinsic systemic nature of the clinical process have resulted in limited operational success and acceptance. The clinical function, another area of medical activity, has emerged rapidly offering potential for clinical decision support systems. This article discusses the systemic differences between clinical reasoning and clinical function and suggests that different design methodologies be used in the two domains. Clinical reasoning requires a holistic approach, such as an intelligent multiagent, incorporating the properties of softness, openness, complexity, flexibility, and generality of clinical decision support systems, while traditional rule-based approaches are sufficient for clinical function applications.
Nonparametric Decision Support Systems in Medical Diagnosis
Authors: Walczak Steven , Brimhall Bradley B. , Lefkowitz Jerry B.
Published: May 2011

Patients face a multitude of diseases, trauma, and related medical problems that are difficult to diagnose and have large treatment and diagnostic direct costs, including pulmonary embolism (PE), which has mortality rates as high as 10%. Advanced decision-making tools, such as nonparametric neural networks (NN), may improve diagnostic capabilities for these problematic medical conditions. The research develops a backpropagation trained neural network diagnostic model to predict the occurrence of PE. Laboratory database values for 292 patients who were determined to be at risk for PE, with almost 15% suffering a confirmed PE, were collected and used to evaluate various NN models’ performances. Results indicate that using NN diagnostic models enables the leveraging of knowledge gained from standard clinical laboratory tests, specifically the d-dimer assay and reactive glucose, significantly improving overall positive predictive value, compared to using either test in isolation, and also increasing negative predictive performance.
Implementation of a Computerized System in an Oncology Unit
Authors: Botsis Taxiarchis
Published: May 2011

Information management is essential for health professionals in order to maintain a level of productivity for health care services management. This is significant when treating cancer patients. The main target of this study was to employ computers to enhance the daily practice of Oncology Unit (Sotiria Hospital, Athens, Greece). Accordingly, a computerized system was developed consisting of three modules: the EPR, the Image Archive, and the Lab Module. The EPR Module is a database application that stores clinical results, physician orders, and several administrative data. The Image Archive Module is used mainly for the reduction of images volume and the Lab Module stores information about the patient blood samples. These two modules interoperate through EPR Module under strict data security policies. Key physicians, biologists, and secretary personnel are involved in data entry and information management, while the system administrator is responsible for the system functioning. Improved health care, user satisfaction, and cost savings were the most important benefits gained with this system. The need of similar systems in oncology is crucial and could involve additional applications, such as quality of life (QoL) systems.
Imaging the Human Brain with Magnetoencephalography
Authors: Pantazis Dimitrios
Published: May 2011

Magnetoencephalography is a relatively new medical imaging modality for the monitoring and imaging of human brain function. Extracranial magnetic fields produced by the working human brain are measured by extremely sensitive superconducting sensors, called SQUIDs, enclosed in a liquid helium-filled dewar. Mathematical modeling allows the formation of images or maps of cortical neuronal currents that reveal neural electrical activity, identify cortical communication networks, and facilitate the treatment of neuronal disorders, such as epilepsy.
Inertial Sensing in Biomechanics
Authors: Sabatini Angelo M.
Published: May 2011

Sensing approaches for ambulatory monitoring of human motion are necessary in order to objectively determine a person’s level of functional ability in independent living. Because this capability is beyond the grasp of the specialized equipment available in most motion analysis laboratories, body-mounted inertial sensing has been receiving increasing interest in the biomedical domain. Crucial to the success of this certainly not new sensing approach will be the capability of wearable inertial sensor networks to accurately recognize the type of activity performed (context awareness) and to determine the person’s current location (personal navigation), eventually in combination with other biomechanical or physiological sensors — key requirements in applications of wearable and mobile computing as well. This chapter reviews sensor configurations and computational techniques that have been implemented or are considered to meet the converging requirements of a wealth of application products, including ambulatory monitors for automatic recognition of activity, quantitative analysis of motor performance, and personal navigation systems.
Technology in Primary and Secondary Medical Education
Authors: Edmonson Sarah R.
Published: May 2011

There is an increasing need for cost control and improved outcomes in both primary and secondary medical education. This chapter reviews the characteristics of medical learners and summarizes shortcomings of traditional medical training that may be amenable to technological intervention. Technologies useful for educating medical students and practicing physicians will be described along with examples pertaining to each technology. The chapter concludes with a summary of potential barriers to the adoption of medical education technology.
Evaluation of a Fuzzy Ontology-Based Medical Information System
Authors: Parry David
Published: May 2011

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) requires appropriate information to be available to clinicians at the point of care. Electronic sources of information may fulfill this need but require a high level of skill to use successfully. This paper describes the rationale and initial testing of a system to allow collaborative search and ontology construction for professional groups in the health sector. The approach is based around the use of a browser using a fuzzy ontology based on the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). This approach may provide high quality information for professionals in the future.
Telehealth Organizational Implementation Guideline Issues
Authors: Yeo Maryann
Published: May 2011

The current status of policies, guidelines and standards related to the organizational context of clinical telehealth practice were investigated. The directions these should take to meet the healthcare needs of Canadians also were outlined. An environmental scan approach was employed, consisting of a literature review, stakeholder survey questionnaire, and 12 key informant interviews. The literature review resulted in 260 sources related to organizational leadership issues, of which 176 were abstracted. The stakeholder survey questionnaire response rate was 64% (156/245), with 55% (84/154) completing the organizational context section. All (100%) key informants who were selected for interviews participated. Findings were categorized into four key organizational themes: organizational readiness, quality assurance, accountability, and continuity. Organizations need to review existing policies, standards, and guidelines in order to determine whether telehealth is covered and, if not, revise them or develop new telehealth-specific policies. Telehealth policies and procedures should be integrated with those in existence for face-to-face services.
IS Implementation in the UK Health Sector
Authors: Barnes Stuart J.
Published: May 2011

Since the mid-1980s, the UK public sector has been the subject of wide-ranging reforms involving the introduction of IS and IT. Change has been sought in the ways that services are managed and delivered, the evaluation of the quality of aforesaid services, and in accountability and costing. One of the most predominant of such changes has been the introduction of competition for services, the motivation of which has been to invite efficiency, effectiveness, and related benefits ensuing from the accrual of economies. Pivotal to such change has been an explosion in the introduction of a variety of information systems to meet such challenges. Focusing on health care, a large part of the work of the health service involves collecting and handling information, from lists of people in the population to medical records (including images such as X-ray pictures), to prescriptions, letters, staffing rosters and huge numbers of administrative forms. Yet until recently, the health service has been woefully backward in its use of the technology to handle information by the standards of private industry. This has been quickly changing in recent years and by 2003 the National Health Service (NHS) spent £2.8 billion annually on capital in hospitals (Department of Health, 2003a), around 10% of which was for IT. In the last 20 years, IT has added 2% to overall health expenditure (Wanless, 2001). This investment is still small by the standards of the private sector, but is all the more significant when we consider that health care is an industry which has been slow to adopt IT and one which presents some of the biggest IT opportunities (Department of Health, 2002).
Kaitiakitanga and Health Informatics
Authors: Kamira Robyn
Published: May 2011

Indigenous contributions to governance in health informatics can be drawn from cultural concepts such as Kaitiakitanga, which implies guardianship, stewardship, governance and responsibility roles. This chapter explores Kaitiakitanga, its potential implementation in the Aotearoa (New Zealand) health sector, and its contributions to our thinking. After decades of unsuccessful attempts to positively shift the status of health for Maori, we must ask whether more control by Maori over information about Maori will make a difference. Kaitiakitanga enables us to explore Maori perspectives and insights about health and information and calls for stronger inclusion of Maori in decisions. It acts as a guideline to address ongoing and complex issues such as collective ownership, the responsible publication of data and whether benefits in health for Maori can be explicitly declared and met.
Using Hospital Web Sites to Enhance Communication
Authors: Cannoy Sherrie D.
Published: May 2011

A large number of patients currently utilize the Internet to access healthcare-related information (Tobin, 2002). Many physician and health-related Web sites have been information portals lacking interactive services that could benefit healthcare partners through decreased costs, increased convenience, and communication. Patients typically visit Web portals to learn more about medical topics, often discussing this information with physicians. Emerging Internet technologies can be a strategic asset for hospitals to impact physician bonding, patient self-service, and overall enterprise performance efforts. We conducted an investigation of Web sites of 10 hospitals listed in U.S. News and World Report’s Best Hospitals of 2004 Honor Roll, as well as a random selection of seven other hospital sites. An examination of each hospital’s site was performed to determine what features were provided to enhance communication between the partners in healthcare. Partners are defined as patients and their families, referring physicians, insurance companies, vendors, pharmacies, job seekers, and the media. Communication-enhancing features are any features that have the potential to increase communication between the hospital and its partners. We focused on patient communication-enhancing features, since patients are the primary partners of healthcare entities.
Empowerment and Health Portals
Authors: Edenius Mats
Published: May 2011

We know that interest in employing Web portals for communication between the health care sector and the public is constantly increasing (Kapsalis, Charatsis, Georgoudakis, Nikoloutsos, & Papadopoulos, 2004). We can also find an increasing demand for various kinds of such communication (Sciamanna, Clark, Diaz, & Newton, 2003). It promises to become an important and valuable tool for e-health (i.e., computer-based health care and health care management). Patients can log into a Web portal in order to find an appropriate medical treatment, communicate personal matters, and/or find the right way and place to find adequate health care. In the last 10 years, we have also seen “empowerment” flourish, not least in an Internet context. In conventional research about Internet and Web portals, empowerment refers to a quite general process of gaining influence over events and outcomes. For example, it is argued that people are becoming more informed and managing their situations in better ways thanks to portal solutions and thereby becoming more empowered (Fergusson, 2004). Empowerment is central in the discourse of health and an important analytical concept to understand how portals work and can improve health care (Cathain et al., 2005). In this article, I will argue that empowerment is indeed a fruitful concept to capture the potential of Web portals (in the health care sector). However, what is largely missing in the contemporary analyses is a more dynamic approach to analysing empowerment than found in conventional research, and how from such an approach we may justify the way Web portals are used to reach better results. The argumentation will be supported and illustrated by empirical material based on how different health portals are used.
Social Construction of Gender and Sexuality in Online HIV/AIDS Information
Authors: Chong Jing
Published: May 2011

HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) represent a growing and significant health threat to women worldwide. According to the United Nations (UNAIDS/WHO, 2004), women now make up nearly half of all people living with HIV worldwide. In the United States, although males still accounted for 73% of all AIDS cases diagnosed in 2003, there is a marked increase in HIV and AIDS diagnoses among females. The estimated number of AIDS cases increased 15% among females and 1% among males from 1999 through 2003 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003). Looking closer at HIV and AIDS infections among women in the United States, Anderson and Smith (2004) report that HIV infection was the leading cause of death in 2001 for African-American women aged 25 to 34 years, and was among the four leading causes of death for African-American women aged 20 to 24 and 35 to 44 years, as well as Hispanic women aged 35 to 44 years. The rate of AIDS diagnoses for African-American women (50.2 out of 100,000 women) was approximately 25 times the rate for white women (2 out of 100,000) and 4 times the rate for Hispanic women (12.4 out of 100,000; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). African-American and Hispanic women together represented about 25% of all U.S. women (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000), yet they account for 83% of AIDS diagnoses reported in 2003 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Women’s vulnerability to HIV and AIDS may be attributed to gender inequalities in socioeconomic status, stereotypes of AIDS as a gay-male disease, and cultural ideology around sexual practices such as abstinence, monogamy, and condom use. Because of cultural mores and socioeconomic disadvantages, women may consequently have less access to prevention and care resources. Information is perhaps the most important HIV and AIDS resource for women, and the Internet provides a useful platform for disseminating information to a large cross-section of women. With the flourishing use of e-health resources and the growing number of public-access Internet sites, more and more people are using the Internet to obtain health-care information. Over two thirds of Americans (67%) are now online (Internet World Statistics, 2005). On a typical day, about 6 million Americans go online for medical advice. This exceeds the number of Americans who actually visit health professionals (Fox & Rainie, 2002). Studies also show that women are more likely to seek health information online than are men (Fox & Fallows, 2003; Fox & Rainie, 2000; Hern, Weitkamp, Hillard, Trigg, & Guard, 1998). HIV and AIDS patients are among the health-care consumers with chronic medical conditions who increasingly take the Internet as a major source of information (Kalichman, Weinhardt, Benotsch, & Cherry, 2002).
Community-Based Information Technology Interventions for Persons with Mental Illness
Authors: Tarsiero Rosanna
Published: May 2011

The chapter provides the reader with an overview of the problems persons with mental illness experience in their everyday life, and guides readers through how ICT access and usage can be approached in order to empower such a marginalized population in both developed and developing countries. It argues that, since isolation is their main problem, networking those people with reliable sources of medical information, providers of distance training and learning, and online self-help communities can have a profound impact on lifting their marginalization. The author hopes that the role ICT can play for these people will no longer be overlooked or neglected, and that policymakers will be inspired to use ICT worldwide to defeat mental illness by implementing solutions tailored on these people’s needs.
The Impact of Professional Certifications on Healthcare Information Technology Use
Authors: Hikmet Neset , Bhattacherjee Anol
Published: May 2011

This study examines the effects of professional certifications such as JCAHO on healthcare information technology (HIT) usage in healthcare organizations and user satisfaction with such usage. Using survey data collected from healthcare administrators in a nation-wide sample of 347 hospitals and long-term care facilities, we provide evidence that professional certifications do indeed enhance HIT usage and user satisfaction, at least within specialized user groups such as healthcare administrators. We further demonstrate that this increase in HIT usage due to professional certifications increases with facility size and is more prominent for larger hospitals than for smaller long-term care facilities, though the same cannot be said of user satisfaction. Our study suggests that professional certifications can be used as a valuable tool for motivating HIT usage, while also drawing attention to an under-examined area of HIT research.
E-Health Security and Privacy
Authors: Wang Yingge
Published: May 2011

The widespread and fast-developing information technologies, especially wireless communications and the Internet, have allowed for the realization of greater automation systems than ever in healthcare industries: E-health has become an apparent trend, and having a clinic at home or even anywhere at anytime is no longer a dream. E-health, including telemedicine featured by conducting health-care transactions over the Internet, has been revolutionizing the well-being of human society. Traditionally, common practices in the health-care industry place tremendous burdens on both patients and health-care providers, with heavy loads of paper-based documents and inefficient communications through mail or phone calls. The transmission of medical data is even messy for cases in which patients have to transfer between different health providers. In addition, the medical documents prepared manually are prone to errors and delays, which may lead to serious consequences. The time, energy, and resources wasted in such processes are intolerable and unimaginable in any fast-paced society. For these problems, e-health provides powerful solutions to share and exchange information over the Internet in a timely, easy, and safe manner (Balas et al., 1997).
Reliability and Evaluation of Health Information Online
Authors: Bernstam Elmer V. , Meric-Bernstam Funda
Published: May 2011

This chapter discusses the problem of how to evaluate online health information. The quality and accuracy of online health information is an area of increasing concern for healthcare professionals and the general public. We define relevant concepts including quality, accuracy, utility, and popularity. Most users access online health information via general-purpose search engines, therefore we briefly review Web searchengine fundamentals. We discuss desirable characteristics for quality-assessment tools and the available evidence regarding their effectiveness and usability. We conclude with advice for healthcare consumers as they search for health information online.
Standardization in Health and Medical Informatics
Authors: Kern Josipa
Published: May 2011

Standard is a thing or quality or specification by which something may be tested or measured. The development of standards is organized on a global, international level, existing also on a national level, well harmonized with an international one. International developers are organizations working on this matter, like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or the European Committee for Standardisation (Comité Européen de Normalisation—CEN). Standards in health and medical informatics enable access to patient health records to read or to add some new data relevant to other healthcare providers taking care of a patient. Bad medical informatics can lead to patient deaths, and standardization in the field can prevent this from happening.
Bayesian Network Approach to Estimate Gene Networks
Authors: Imoto Seiya
Published: May 2011

In cells, genes interact with each other and this system can be viewed as directed graphs. A gene network is a graphical representation of transcriptional relations between genes and the problem of estimation of gene networks from genome-wide data, such as DNA microarray gene expression data, is one of the important issues in bioinformatics and systems biology. Here, we present a statistical method based on Bayesian networks to estimate gene networks from microarray data and other biological data. Because microarray data are measured as continuous variables and the relationship between genes are usually nonlinear, we combine Bayesian networks and nonparametric regression to handle continuous variables and nonlinear relations. Most parts of gene networks are still unknown, and we need to estimate them from observational data. This problem is equivalent to the structural learning of Bayesian networks, and we solve it from a Bayes approach. The main difficulty of gene network estimation is due to the number of genes involved in the network. Therefore, it leads to model overfitting to the observational data like microarray data. Hence, a combination of various kinds of biological data is a key technique to estimate accurate gene networks. We show a general framework to combine microarray data and other biological information to estimate gene networks.
Web Portal for Genomic and Epidemiologic Medical Data
Authors: Miguélez Rico Mónica
Published: May 2011

Medical data and digital imaging for medical diagnosis currently represent a very important research area in computer science. The generation of medical information is continuously increasing. More specifically, genomic (molecular and histological) data and images have become key points for diagnosis. The specific processing these data require is more and more requested. This article describes a Web portal based on the most common current standards. This platform is not only able to integrate the medical information available at several sources, but also to provide tools for the analysis of the integrated data, to use them for the study of any pathology. It will provide a common access point to share data and analysis techniques (or applications) between different groups that are currently working in several fields of health area.
Charting Health Information Technology Futures for Healthcare Services Organizations
Authors: Rastogi Avnish , Daim Tugrul , Tan Joseph
Published: May 2011

As health organizations strive to improve operational efficiencies and increase worker productivity, new forms of health information technologies (HITs) are constantly being developed. This article surveys the extant HIT literature and adopts a case analysis approach to identifying emerging health information technologies. The understanding of HIT trend is further enriched through the applications of technology-forecasting techniques, specifically, scenario analysis and U.S. patent searches. The article focuses on five emerging HITs and their impact on the future of U.S. Healthcare Services Delivery.
Towards Cognitive Machines
Authors: Kinsner Witold
Published: May 2011

Numerous attempts are being made to develop machines that could act not only autonomously, but also in an increasingly intelligent and cognitive manner. Such cognitive machines ought to be aware of their environments, which include not only other machines, but also human beings. Such machines ought to understand the meaning of information in more human-like ways by grounding knowledge in the physical world and in the machines’ own goals. The motivation for developing such machines range from self-evidenced practical reasons such as the expense of computer maintenance, to wearable computing in health care, and gaining a better understanding of the cognitive capabilities of the human brain. To achieve such an ambitious goal requires solutions to many problems, ranging from human perception, attention, concept creation, cognition, consciousness, executive processes guided by emotions and value, and symbiotic conversational human-machine interactions. An important component of this cognitive machine research includes multiscale measures and analysis. This article presents definitions of cognitive machines, representations of processes, as well as their measurements, measures, and analysis. It provides examples from current research, including cognitive radio, cognitive radar, and cognitive monitors.