bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Compensation of Head Motion Artifacts Using an Infrared Tracking System and a New Algorithm for fMRI
Authors: Dold Christian  , Younis Waheed  , Winter Jeff  , Sakas Georgios  , Firle Evelyn  , Stergiopoulos Stergios
Published: February 2025

We aim to provide a next generation Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology with an integrated solution for reducing motion artifacts in brain imaging applications. New developments in the field of MRI are revolutionizing the diagnostic capabilities e.g. of functional (fMRI) of the technique. Unfortunately, motion artifacts are eminent problems in cerebral MRI images, especially in difficult patient populations (e.g. chronic pain, children, neonates). Patient motion artifacts are present in 2D sequences, but are extremely detrimental in multi-slice 3D sequences often employed in fMRI. The problem of motion compensation in MRI technology deals with:
Adaptive Guideline-based Treatment Workflows with AdaptFlow
Authors: Greiner Ulrike  , Ramsch Jan  , Heller Barbara  , Löffler Markus  , MüLler Robert  , Rahm Erhard
Published: February 2025

One goal in modern medicine is to increase the treatment quality. A major step towards this aim is to support the execution of standardized, guideline-based clinical protocols, which are used in many medical domains, e.g., for oncological chemotherapies. Standardized chemotherapy protocols contain detailed and structured therapy plans describing the single therapy steps (e.g., examinations or drug applications). Therefore, workflow management systems offer good support for these processes. However, the treatment of a particular patient often requires modifications due to unexpected infections, toxicities, or social factors. The modifications are described in the treatment protocol but not as part of the standard process. To be able to further execute the therapy workflows in case of exceptions running workflows have to be adapted dynamically. Furthermore, the physician should be supported by automated exception detection and decision support for derivation of necessary modifications. The AdaptFlow prototype offers the required support for the field of oncological chemotherapies by enhancing a workflow system with dynamic workflow adaptation and rule based decision support for exception detection and handling.
The Digital Electronic Guideline Library (DeGeL): A Hybrid Framework for Representation and Use of Clinical Guidelines
Authors: Shahar Yuval  , Young Ohad  , Shalom Erez  , Mayaffit Alon  , Moskovitch Robert  , Hessing Alon  , Galperin Maya
Published: February 2025

We propose to present a poster (and potentially also a demonstration of the implemented system) summarizing the current state of our work on a hybrid, multiple-format representation of clinical guidelines that facilitates conversion of guidelines from free text to a formal representation. We describe a distributed Web-based architecture (DeGeL) and a set of tools using the hybrid representation. The tools enable performing tasks such as guideline specification, semantic markup, search, retrieval, visualization, eligibility determination, run-time application and retrospective quality assessment. The representation includes four parallel formats: Free text (one or more original sources); semi-structured text (labeled by the target guideline-ontology semantic labels); semi-formal text (which includes some control specification); and a formal, machine-executable representation. The specification, indexing, search, retrieval, and browsing tools are essentially independent of the ontology chosen for guideline representation, but editing the semi-formal and formal formats requires ontology-specific tools, which we have developed in the case of the Asbru guideline-specification language. The four formats support increasingly sophisticated computational tasks. The hybrid guidelines are stored in a Web-based library. All tools, such as for runtime guideline application or retrospective quality assessment, are designed to operate on all representations. We demonstrate the hybrid framework by providing examples from the semantic markup and search tools.
Context-Based Task Ontologies for Clinical Guidelines
Authors: Kumar Anand  , Ciccarese Paolo  , Smith Barry  , Piazza Matteo
Published: February 2025

Evidence-based medicine relies on the execution of clinical practice guidelines and protocols. A great deal of effort has been invested in the development of tools which can automate the representation and execution of the recommendations contained within such guidelines, by creating Computer Interpretable Guideline Models (CIGMs). Context-based task ontologies (CTOs), based on standard terminology systems like UMLS, form one of the core components of such models. We have created DAML+OIL-based CTOs for the tasks referred to in the WHO guideline for hypertension management, drawing comparisons also with other, related guidelines. The advantages of CTOs include: contextualization of ontologies, tailoring of ontologies to specific aspects of the phenomena of interest, division of the complex tasks involved in creating ontologies into different levels, and provision of a methodology by means of which the task recommendations contained within guidelines can be integrated into the clinical practices of a health care set-up.
An Ontological Framework for the Implementation of Clinical Guidelines in Health Care Organizations
Authors: Kumar Anand  , Smith Barry  , Pisanelli Domenico M.  , Gangemi Aldo  , Stefanelli Mario
Published: February 2025

The paper presents the outlines of an ontology of plans and guidelines, which is then used as the basis for a framework for implementing guideline-based systems for the management of workflow in health care organizations. The framework has a number of special features, above all in that it enables us to represent in formal terms assignments of work-items both to individuals and to teams and to tailor guideline to specific contexts of application in health care organizations. It is designed also to enable implementations to do justice to the fact that the processes carried out in health care organizations may deviate in different ways from the norms set forth in corresponding guideline definitions. This means that implementations built in conformity with the framework will be marked by a type of flexibility that might make them more likely to be accepted by healthcare professionals than are standard guideline-based management systems.
Errors in Medical Practice: Identification, Classification and Steps Towards Reduction
Authors: Kopec D.  , Shagas G.  , Kabir M.  , Reinharth D.  , Castiglione J.  , Tamang S.
Published: February 2025

We present a new taxonomy of medical errors, with emphasis on human errors. We illustrate errors due to medication, errors due to diagnosis, errors due to hospital treatment procedures, and errors related to clerical procedures. We also discuss a database of 143 papers on medical errors which we have developed.
Security Requirements in EHR systems and Archives
Authors: Ruotsalainen Pekka
Published: February 2025

EHR system is a system for recording, retrieving, and manipulating information in electronic health care records. Archive is an organisation that intends to preserve health records for access and use for an identified group of consumers. There exist many combinations of EHR-systems and archives. EHR-system can be a single on-line system with integrated archiving functions or archive and EHR-system are co-operative or federated systems. This paper describes both common security requirements for EHR-systems and archives and security requirement specific for archives. Requirements are derived from ethical and legal principles. From principles a set of security requirements are derived. Safeguards for implementing security are discussed. In practise EHR-system and archive share many security services. This document is proposing that inside a security domain both the archive and EHR-system have a common security policy. In addition to this the archiving organisation needs a documented policy for information preserving and a policy for access and distribution of information between other archives.
Electronic Health Record on Cards
Authors: Trpišovský Tomáš
Published: February 2025

The paper is dedicated to the brief evaluation of smart card technology in terms of implementing EHR. Basic standards and recommendation are mentioned, so as currently running European activities. It has to be stressed, that despite the health care (and social insurance) is controlled throughout EU on national basis, strong international harmonisation and interoperability is being perceived. EFMI WG Cards contribution in this sense is drafted as closing remark to the paper.
Artificial Neural Networks as an Engine of Internet Based Hypertension Prediction Tool
Authors: Polak Sebastian  , Mendyk Aleksander
Published: February 2025

Hypertension is the most common cause of death. Therefore it is recognized as a major civilization disease next to diabetes, hyperuricemia, asthma etc.
Telepresence and Telementoring in Surgery
Authors: Latifi Rifat  , Peck Kim  , Satava Richard  , Anvari Mehran
Published: February 2025

Telesurgical mentoring has evolved as an important subset of telemedicine, yet has remained an underutilized technique when all its potential is considered. As applied to surgery, telementoring is used when an experienced surgeon assists or directs another less experienced surgeon who is operating at a distance. Two- and three-dimensional, video-based laparoscopic procedures are an ideal platform for real-time transmission and thus for applying telementoring to surgery. The images viewed by the operating surgeon can easily be transmitted to a central “telesurgical mentor” and permit an intraoperative interaction. Several studies have demonstrated the practicality, effectiveness and safety of surgical telementoring. The goal of this application of telemedicine is to improve surgical education and training, expand patient care and improve health care delivery by allowing access to surgical specialists. Eventually, surgical telementoring could assist in the provision of surgical care to underserved areas and potentially facilitate the teaching of advanced surgical skills worldwide.
Creating Telehealth Networks from Existing Infrastructures
Authors: Harnett Brett
Published: February 2025

Implementing a telehealth program can be a financial challenge due to associated costs such as hardware, software, networking, administration and clinical expertise. To maximize potential and minimize costs, it makes sense to leverage existing telecommunications infrastructures and tailor the program based on what is available.
Data Mining Challenges in the Design of Telemedicine Platforms
Authors: Kastania Anastasia N.
Published: February 2025

The evolution of telemedicine information systems involves the general processes of acquiring useful knowledge from medical data sets for diagnosis, intelligent efficient patient record transmission and autonomous adaptation of biomedical devices and their related software environments using quality of service attributes. Knowledge engineering concepts and methods allow application to the design of intelligent telemedicine platforms, satisfying the performance requirements and the quality assurance criteria of each specialized telemedicine application.
Service Level Web Monitoring in the Field Management of Emergencies
Authors: Catania Felice  , Colombo Cesare  , Marzegalli Maurizio  , Borghi Gabriella  , Pinciroli Francesco
Published: February 2025

Cardiologic Emergency Project is based on a hospital network in Milan, Italy, in order to provide patients with more efficient first aid immediately after the occurrence of an Acute Coronary Syndrome. The Project includes ECG transmission from running ambulances to the 118 telephone central help desk, and from there to the suitable hospital. Since the maximum total transfer time should stay within a few tens of minutes, and given that a number of different factors may cause very dangerous delays, the effective coordination of several healthcare systems, devices and organizations is critical. Monitoring of the activities on each component is a must. Cardiologic Emergency Project uses a Web application devoted to the monitoring and evaluation of the service levels. Web applications allow the quantitative monitoring of the durations of extra-hospital operations. Several types of tables and graphics are automatically filled for the best care of the patient. For example, given a lengthy total time request by a satisfactory full ECG transmission, the system allows analysis of the ECG machine, of the cellular phone partial-only coverage along the ambulance pathway, of the transfer time in rush hours, etc., to determine which elements in the process can be improved to avoid future delays.
Integrating Detailed Clinical Models Into Application Development Tools
Authors: Huff Stanley M.  , Rocha Roberto A.  , Coyle Joseph F.  , Narus Scott P.
Published: February 2025

Several groups are currently working on defining detailed clinical models (also called templates or archetypes) that are refinements of abstract medical models like the HL7 (Health Level Seven) Reference Information Model. At IHC, we have created over 3,000 detailed clinical models in the last five years. These models have become an essential part of the architecture of our electronic medical record (EMR) system. As a result, we have created an increasingly sophisticated set of tools that allow the models to be searched, viewed, and ultimately incorporated into medical applications. These browsers have some commonality with terminology browsers, but are distinct in that the explicit structure of the information models must be accommodated. In this paper we report our experience in making browsers for detailed clinical models that are integrated with application authoring tools.
Using electronic patient records to inform strategic decision making in primary care
Authors: Mitchell Elizabeth  , Sullivan Frank  , Watt Graham  , Grimshaw Jeremy M  , Donnan Peter T
Published: February 2025

Although absolute risk of death associated with raised blood pressure increases with age, the benefits of treatment are greater in elderly patients. Despite this, the ‘rule of halves’ particularly applies to this group. We conducted a randomised controlled trial to evaluate different levels of feedback designed to improve identification, treatment and control of elderly hypertensives. Fifty-two general practices were randomly allocated to either: Control (n=19), Audit only feedback (n=16) or Audit plus Strategic feedback, prioritising patients by absolute risk (n=17). Feedback was based on electronic data, annually extracted from practice computer systems. Data were collected for 265,572 patients, 30,345 aged 65-79. The proportion of known hypertensives in each group with BP recorded increased over the study period and the numbers of untreated and uncontrolled patients reduced. There was a significant difference in mean systolic pressure between the Audit plus Strategic and Audit only groups and significantly greater control in the Audit plus Strategic group. Providing patient-specific practice feedback can impact on identification and management of hypertension in the elderly and produce a significant increase in control.
The Hong Kong Hospital Authority's Information Architecture
Authors: Cheung Ngai-Tseung  , Fung Vicky  , Kong James HB
Published: February 2025

Since 1994, the Hospital Authority has been developing and deploying clinical applications at its constituent 39 hospitals and clinics. The Clinical Management System (CMS) is now used by over 4000 doctors and 20000 other clinicians to document and review care. Since 1999, the territory-wide integrated Electronic Patient Record (ePR) has given clinicians a longitudinal view of the data collected through the eMS and its adjunct systems. The ePR currently has nearly 3TB of data covering 44 million episodes for 6.4 million patients.
Visualizing the Infrastructure of US Healthcare Using Internet GIS: A Community Health Informatics Approach for Reducing Health Disparities
Authors: Fulcher Christopher L.  , Kaukinen Catherine E.
Published: February 2025

Policy makers and healthcare providers often lack the resources or information to make effective healthcare decisions that impact their communities. Information must therefore be delivered to in a way that maximizes healthcare decision making. This paper examines the infrastructure of U.S. Healthcare using an Internet-based geographic information system (GIS). Internet GIS assists communities in accessing health information via the Internet, thereby leveling the playing field between urban and less affluent rural communities in the United States. A Community Health Informatics approach of incorporating “place” in identifying and reducing health disparities and transforming patients to active consumers of health care may ameliorate the impact of devolution and provide a foundation for effective decision support. The Internet GIS includes data visualization tools that provide the public, health care providers, and policy makers with tools to examine socio-economic and demographic factors that impact the distribution of health services.
Jogging Support System with Portable Monitoring Device and Health Manage Software
Authors: Makikawa Masaaki  , Isaka Tadao  , Iida Takeo  , Asajima Shuzo  , Tsukise Kanji  , Shiozawa Narihiro  , Nishiyama Kento  , Wada Sumio  , Nakayama Kyoichiro  , Horiguchi Michiyuki  , Torimoto Hitoshi
Published: February 2025

As an application of an ambulatory biosignal memory device, we have developed a portable jogging monitoring device and studied its application for health management here. This device is a micro processor based system with some sensors necessary to monitor condition of the user during jogging, that is, a heart rate sensor, a GPS sensor and a physical activity sensor. We also have developed PC based health management software that receives jogging data after jogging and stores it as a long term jogging trend data. From these long term data it feeds back the distance completion of jogging on the virtual course. Moreover it can show the trend of jogging time, distance, average heart rate and the user can know his / her own health condition.
Differences in the Effects of Filters on Health Information Retrieval from the Internet in Three Languages from Three Countries: A Comparative Study
Authors: Su Kui Chun  , Waldren Steve E.  , Patrick Timothy B.
Published: February 2025

We selected twenty search terms on woman's health from various sources and tested them on Google, once with strict filter on and once with filter off Searches were specified to three countries (Mainland China, Germany, USA), in three languages (Simplified Chinese, German, US English). We found that the proportion of relevant women's health web sites that were blocked was quite high. For the Chinese language web sites originated in China, 72.6% of the blocked web sites were relevant. For the German language web sites originated in Germany, nearly half (49.4%) were relevant. For the US English web sites originated in the US, 95% were relevant. We concluded that peapole might unknowingly miss potentially important health information due to information filtering.
Design Requirements for Ubiquitous Computing Environments for Healthcare Professionals
Authors: Bång Magnus  , Larsson Anders  , Eriksson Henrik
Published: February 2025

Ubiquitous computing environments can support clinical administrative routines in new ways. The aim of such computing approaches is to enhance routine physical work, thus it is important to identify specific design requirements. We studied healthcare professionals in an emergency room and developed the computer-augmented environment NOSTOS to support teamwork in that setting. NOSTOS uses digital pens and paper-based media as the primary input interface for data capture and as a means of controlling the system. NOSTOS also includes a digital desk, walk-up displays, and sensor technology that allow the system to track documents and activities in the workplace. We propose a set of requirements and discuss the value of tangible user interfaces for healthcare personnel. Our results suggest that the key requirements are flexibility in terms of system usage and seamless integration between digital and physical components. We also discuss how ubiquitous computing approaches like NOSTOS can be beneficial in the medical workplace.
Application of a Medical Text Indexer to an Online Dermatology Atlas
Authors: Kim GR  , Aronson AR  , Mork JG  , Cohen BA  , Lehmann CU
Published: February 2025

Clinical dermatology cases are presented as images and semistructured text describing skin lesions and their relationships to disease. Metadata assignment to such cases is hampered by lack of a standardized dermatology vocabulary and facilitated methods for indexing legacy collections. In this pilot study descriptive clinical text from Dermatlas, a Web-based repository of dermatology cases, was indexed to Medical Subject Heading (MeSH®) terms using the National Library of Medicine’s Medical Text Indexer (MTI). The MTI is an automated text processing system that derives ranked lists of MeSH terms to describe the content of medical journal citations using knowledge from the Unified Medical Language System® (UMLS®) and from MEDLINE®. For a representative, random sample of 50 Dermatlas cases, the MTI frequently derived MeSH indexing terms that matched expert-assigned terms for Diagnoses (88%), Lesion Types (72%), and Patient Characteristics (Gender and Age Groups, 62% and 84% respectively). This pilot demonstrates the potential for extending the MTI to automate indexing of clinical case presentations and for using MeSH to describe aspects of clinical dermatology.
Developing Optimal Search Strategies for Detecting Clinically Relevant Qualitative Studies in MEDLINE
Authors: Wong Sharon S.-L.  , Wilczynski Nancy L.  , Haynes R. Brian
Published: February 2025

Background: The growing interest in qualitative research within the evidence based practice framework highlights the need for accurate search strategies to enhance the retrieval of qualitative studies. To date, little work has been done on developing optimal search filters for retrieving qualitative studies. The current study extends our earlier work, on developing optimal search strategies, to include qualitative studies.
Comparing Associative Relationships among Equivalent Concepts across Ontologies
Authors: Zhang Songmao  , Bodenreider Olivier
Published: February 2025

Methods for comparing associative relationships across ontologies often rely solely on lexical similarity between the names of the relationships, which may lead to missed matches and inaccurate matches. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on the analysis of paths between equivalent concepts across ontologies. Patterns of relationships are identified for each associative relationship. The most frequent patterns indicate a correspondence between an associative relationship in one ontology and one relationship (or combination thereof) in the other. We applied this method to two ontologies of anatomy. Our method was able to identify the correspondence between relationships even in the absence of lexical similarity between relationship names. The various types of matches identified are discussed as well as the application of this method to detecting inconsistencies across the ontologies.
Overcoming Barriers to Evaluation of Terminological Systems
Authors: Cornet Ronald  , Keizer Nicolette F.de  , Arts Daniëlle G.T.
Published: February 2025

Evaluation of terminological systems has been demonstrated to be a complicated task. This is due to the broad range of terminological systems, their application, and the clinical contexts in which they can be applied. We propose an evaluation framework that explicitly distinguishes an application-independent description of terminological systems, methods to determine application-dependent requirements, and methods to assess the applicability. In order to support a systematic application-independent description of terminological systems, we present a categorization of characteristics, including explicit questions. The answers to these questions can be mapped to the requirements for a certain application of a terminological system. This framework aims at reducing the efforts for determining which terminological system is applicable for a certain clinical setting.
Summarization of an Online Medical Encyclopedia
Authors: Fiszman Marcelo  , Rindflesch Thomas C.  , Kilicoglu Halil
Published: February 2025

We explore a knowledge-rich (abstraction) approach to summarization and apply it to multiple documents from an online medical encyclopedia. A semantic processor functions as the source interpreter and produces a list of predications. A transformation stage then generalizes and condenses this list, ultimately generating a conceptual condensate for a given disorder topic. We provide a preliminary evaluation of the quality of the condensates produced for a sample of four disorders. The overall precision of the disorder conceptual condensates was 87%, and the compression ratio from the base list of predications to the final condensate was 98%. The conceptual condensate could be used as input to a text generator to produce a natural language summary for a given disorder topic.
Acquiring meaning for French medical terminology: contribution of morphosemantics
Authors: Namer Fiammetta  , Zweigenbaum Pierre
Published: February 2025

Morphologically complex words, and particularly neoclassical compounds, form more than 60% of the neologisms in the biomedical field. Guessing their definitions and grouping them into semantic classes by means of lexical relations are thus two crucial improvements for handling these words, e.g., for information retrieval, indexing and text understanding applications. This paper describes a morphosemantic linguistic-based parser called DériF, currently developed in the framework of two projects, UMLF and VUMeF, and its application to French biomedical derived and compound words. It shows how the resulting morphologically tagged lexicon is enriched by semantic relations leading both to the synthesis of pseudo-definitions and to the constitution of classes of synonyms, hypo- and hypernyms.
Terminology Access Methods Leveraging LDAP Resources
Authors: Solbrig Harold R.  , Chute Christopher G.
Published: February 2025

Health terminologies have become more complex, more massive, and more ubiquitous in the modern healthcare enterprise. Present technology makes the use of these terminologies by humans, unaided by machines, virtually impossible. However, system and message interoperability can be severely compromised if the software services deploying terminology content and interfaces are themselves non-standard. We review some characteristics for good terminology services and introduce an open-source, robust, widely deployed and widely available software resource to underpin terminology service implementations. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, or LDAP, is compared with alternative technologies. We describe a reference implementation of terminology services built around the HL7 Common Terminology Services using LDAP methods. We propose that LDAP is well suited as a common platform for federated, synchronized, and algorithmically distributed terminology content from multiple sources.
Automated Terminology Networks for the Integration of Heterogeneous Databases
Authors: Wang Xiaoyan  , Quek Hui Nar  , Cantor Michael  , Kra Pauline  , Schultz Aylit  , Lussier Yves A.
Published: February 2025

As cross-disciplinary research escalates, researchers are facing the challenge of linking disparate biomedical databases that have been developed without common indexes. Manually indexing these large-scale databases is laborious and often impractical. Solutions involving mediating terminologies have been proposed, but coordination of terms from the databases of interest to these mediating terminologies is also laborious, and regular synchronization between indexes is an additional problem. In this study we describe a novel method of linking heterogeneous databases using terminology networks constructed with automated mapping methods. Linkage was established between two disparate biomedical databases (SNOMED-CT and HDG), using two relevant intermediating databases (UMLS and OMIM). One gold standard of 514 distinct matches is used as proof-of-principle. In our study, the fully manually curated network (baseline index) and one automated terminological pathway (HDG-OMIM-SNOMED) perform at high precision and low recall, while the direct automated terminological pathway (HDG-SNOMED) provides higher recall and lower precision. In conclusion, as hypothesized, 1) Manually curated pathways provide high precision, but offer low recall, 2) the automated terminology pathways can significantly increase recall at acceptable precision. Taken together, our conclusion may suggest the combined manual and automated terminology networks could offer recall and precision in an incremental manner.
Facilitating Knowledge Maintenance of Clinical Guidelines and Protocols
Authors: Votruba Peter  , Miksch Silvia  , Kosara Robert
Published: February 2025

Clinical protocols and guidelines are widely used in the medical domain to improve disease management techniques. Different software systems are in development to support the design and the execution of such guidelines. The bottleneck in the guideline software developing process is the transformation of the textbased clinical guidelines into a formal representation, which can be used by the execution software. This paper introduces a method and a tool that was designed to provide a solution for that bottleneck The so-called Guideline Markup Tool (GMT) facilitates the translation of guidelines into a formal representation written in XML. This tool enables the protocol designer to create links between the original guideline and its formal representation and ease the editing of guidelines applying design patterns in the form of macros. The usefulness of our approach is illustrated using GMT to edit Asbru protocols. We performed a usability study with eight participants to examine the usefulness of the GMT and of the Asbru macros, which showed that the proposed approach is very appropriate to author and maintain clinical guidelines.
Implementation and Evaluation of a Negation Tagger in a Pipeline-based System for Information Extraction from Pathology Reports
Authors: Mitchell Kevin J.  , Becich Michael J.  , Berman Jules J.  , Chapman Wendy W.  , Gilbertson John  , Gupta Dilip  , Harrison James  , Legowski Elizabeth  , Crowley Rebecca S.
Published: February 2025

We have developed a pipeline-based system for automated annotation of Surgical Pathology Reports with UMLS terms that builds on GATE – an open-source architecture for language engineering. The system includes a module for detecting and annotating negated concepts, which implements the NegEx algorithm – an algorithm originally described for use in discharge summaries and radiology reports. We describe the implementation of the system, and early evaluation of the Negation Tagger. Our results are encouraging. In the key Final Diagnosis section, with almost no modification of the algorithm or phrase lists, the system performs with precision of 0.84 and recall of 0.80 against a gold-standard corpus of negation annotations, created by modified Delphi technique by a panel of pathologists. Further work will focus on refining the Negation Tagger and UMLS Tagger and adding additional processing resources for annotating free-text pathology reports.
Transforming Clinical Dictation into Structured Notes in an Ambulatory Care Practice
Authors: Chueh Henry
Published: February 2025

Structured clinical encounter notes offer many advantages compared to free text notes. However, cost and other issues limit their widespread use. At our institution, the electronic medical record (EMR) used by an Internal Medicine practice was designed years ago to utilize structured data. This paper describes a technique to improve the process by which structured notes are dictated and transcribed. We outsourced transcription services and then passed the files through parsing software to structure the data to the granularity required for our database. Software was built to handle all aspects of the process including file validation, parsing, and review. During our pilot project, more than 10,000 notes were parsed, reviewed and uploaded into the EMR.
The International Partnership in Health Informatics Education
Authors: Jaspers M. W. M.  , Gardner R. M.  , Gatewood L. C.  , Haux R.  , Schmidt D.  , Wetter T.
Published: February 2025

The International Partnership for Health Informatics Education (IΦE) seeks to promote education through international collaboration of graduate and undergraduate training programs in Medical and Health Informatics. In 1998 an International Partnership of Health Informatics Education was established at six universities: The University of Amsterdam, the Universities of Heidelberg and Heilbronn, the University of Health Informatics and Technology Tyrol at Innsbruck, the University of Minnesota and the University of Utah. The overall goal of this co-operation was to form a network for training and educating medical informatics faculty and students in order to prepare them for leading international positions in medical information and communication technology. In this paper we describe the current state of affairs of IΦE: the activities undertaken, our experiences, the lessons we have learned over these past jive years. In addition we outline our plans for the future.
Architectural Requirements & Implications of Consciousness, Self, and “Free Will”
Authors: Waser Mark
Published: February 2025

While adaptive systems are currently generally judged by their degree of intelligence (in terms of their ability to discover how to achieve goals), the critical measurement for the future will be where they fall on the spectrum of self. Once machines and software are able to strongly modify and improve themselves, the concepts of the self and agency will be far more important, determining not only what a particular system will eventually be capable of but how it will actually act. Unfortunately, so little attention has been paid to this fact that most people still expect that the basic cognitive architecture of a passive “Oracle” in terms of consciousness, self, and “free will” will be little different from that of an active explorer/experimenter with assigned goals to accomplish. We will outline the various assumptions and trade-offs inherent in each of these concepts and the expected characteristics of each – which not only apply to machine intelligence but humans and collective entities like governments and corporations as well.
Clever Pac-man
Authors: Rossini Nicole Alicia  , Quadri Christian  , Borghese N. Alberto
Published: February 2025

In this paper we show how combining fuzzy sets and reinforcement learning a winning agent can be created for the popular Pac-man game. Key elements are the classification of the state into a few fuzzy classes that makes the problem manageable. Pac-man policy is defined in terms of fuzzy actions that are defuzzified to produce the actual Pac-man move. A few heuristics allow making the Pac-man strategy very similar to the Human one. Ghosts agents, on their side, are endowed also with fuzzy behavior inspired by original design strategy. Performance of this Pac-man is shown to be superior to those of other AI-based Pac-man described in the literature.
Face Gender Recognition Using Neural Networks and DCT Image's Coefficient Selection
Authors: Grassi Marco  , Faundez-Zanuy Marcos  , Smirg Ondrej  , Mikulka Honza
Published: February 2025

Gender recognition plays an important role for a wide range of application in the field of Human Computer Interaction. In this paper, we propose a gender recognition system based on 2D Discrete Cosine Transform and Neural Networks. In particular, a discriminability criterion is used to select the DCT coefficients that make up the biometric template. Experimental results show how the proposed approach leads to a significant enhancement of recognition performances.
Permissions in Contracts, a Logical Insight
Authors: Pace Gordon J.  , Schapachnik Fernando
Published: February 2025

Despite the fact that contracts are, by definition, an agreement between two or more parties, most formal studies limit themselves to contracts regulating only a single party or the parties independently of each other, without looking into how permissions, obligations or prohibitions of one party affect the other. This article deals with the analysis of what different types of permissions mean in the context of contracts. To give formal semantics we use an automata based formalism allowing to model for one party agreeing, delaying or plain refusing on performing certain actions that the other is attempting. This approach also yields a natural notion of contract strictness analysis for each party.
Principles of Report Writing and Oral Presentations
Authors: Barata Ana  , Escudeiro Nuno  , Escudeiro Paula  , Dimitrov Dimiter
Published: February 2025

This chapter revises some crucial aspects related to report writing and the preparation of oral presentations. These are some of the base competences that are required to succeed in MUTW-like courses.
The Application of Technology for the Creation of “Retention Profiles” for Use in Adaptive Learning and the Delivery of Remedial Material
Authors: Dworkin Ross  , Cline Andrew
Published: February 2025

This paper discusses technology that will improve the learning process, particularly both the retention of new and existing knowledge.
Creating a Representative Map for Arthroscopy Simulation
Authors: Hachey John Daniel  , LeBel Marie-Eve  , Cristancho Sayra
Published: February 2025

The goal of this research was to create accurate task decompositions for arthroscopic shoulder and knee procedures. The methodology used has previously shown to be effective in other minimally invasive surgeries. Future research will integrate these task decompositions into surgical simulators and, along with movement and force data, will help create evaluation tools for surgical students.
Classification of Wheeze Sounds Using Cepstral Analysis and Neural Networks
Authors: Hashemi Amjad  , Arabalibeik Hossein  , Agin Khosrow
Published: February 2025

Wheezes are abnormal, continuous sounds heard over large airways and chest. They are divided to two groups based on relative intensity of airway obstruction. They are usually heard in asthma, pneumonia, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD). We present a classification method to discriminate between polyphonic and monophonic wheeze sounds using multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network and mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC). Wheeze signals are divided to segments with 50% overlap. MFCC features are then extracted. Groups with different numbers of MFCC powerful features are compared by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The test results show an accuracy of 92.8%.
Investigating the Muscle Activities of Performing Surgical Training Tasks Using a Virtual Simulator
Authors: Huang Chun-Kai  , Suh Irene H.  , Chien Jung Hung  , Vallabhajosula Srikant  , Oleynikov Dmitry  , Siu Ka-Chun
Published: February 2025

The objective of this study was to determine the muscle activities of upper extremities while performing fundamental surgical training tasks using a virtual simulator. Six subjects performed virtual cutting tasks and their muscle activities of upper extremities were measured. The results demonstrated a significant increase in muscle activities in both proximal and distal upper extremities, which are the common areas of occurrence of injury after prolonged practice. This study suggests that the upper trapezius and the extensor digitorum are essential prime movers to perform surgical training tasks. These muscles should be monitored for performance assessment in future studies.
Generation of 3D Ultrasound Training Volumes from Freehand Acquired Data
Authors: Kutarnia Jason  , Pedersen Peder C.
Published: February 2025

We are developing a low cost ultrasound training system running on a laptop in which the user scans a generic 3D curved surface representing the patient using a 5 DoF sensor. A critical component of this system is the generation of ultrasound training image volumes, which need to cover a complete body region in order to provide a realistic scanning experience. This research attempts to develop stitching techniques to generate large global volumes from smaller overlapping volumes acquired using freehand techniques.
Utilization of a Civilian Academic Center as a Force Multiplier in Support of NATO Special Operations Medicine – A Pilot Demonstration
Authors: Lennarson Peter  , Boedeker Ben H.  , Kuper Gail M.  , Nygaard Øystein Petter  , Johansen Tonje Okkenhaug  , Halvorsen Annette  , Halvorsen Inge  , Irizarry Daniel
Published: February 2025

This work describes a NATO-university telemedicine collaboration established to perform a teleneurosurgery consult to assist a deployed soldier with a spinal cord injury.
Introducing Simulation Technology to New Faculty: Do Not Let Them Play
Authors: Salud Jonathan  , Ononye Chiagozie  , Salud Lawrence  , Pugh Carla
Published: February 2025

As part of our simulation-based curriculum design process, we require faculty instructors to formally examine and test the simulators prior to instructional use. This requirement is invaluable when using commercially available, mannequin-based simulations. Our study shows that, when teaching a clinical examination using simulation, the clinical presentation of a commercial simulator should be defined based on the consensus of experienced clinicians instead of the commercial label.
A Transurethral Catheter-Based Ultrasound System for Multi-Modal Fusion
Authors: Shkel Anton  , Natarajan Shyam  , Schimpf Stefan  , Culjat Martin O.  , Brose Andreas  , Boese Axel  , Schmidt Bertram  , Schulam Peter G.  , Lee Hua  , Grundfest Warren  , Singh Rahul
Published: February 2025

Current methods of prostate cancer diagnosis and therapy rely on accurate imaging of the prostate using real-time ultrasound. Transurethral ultrasound (TUUS) may improve upon the current gold standard through improved 3D visualization and co-registration (fusion) with CT and MRI. A prototype transurethral ultrasound (TUUS) catheter-based transducer array and system was developed, featuring 32 elements with a diameter of 18F (6mm). A robust, multi-channel ultrasound transceiver was also developed to enable TUUS imaging using pulse-echo and frequency-based signal processing methods. The feasibility of a TUUS imaging system suitable for multi-modal image fusion and novel ultrasound signaling techniques was demonstrated.
A Method to Compute Respiration Parameters for Patient-based Simulators
Authors: Villard Pierre-Frédéric  , Vidal Franck P.  , Bello Fernando  , John Nigel W.
Published: February 2025

We propose a method to automatically tune a patient-based virtual environment training simulator for abdominal needle insertion. The key attributes to be customized in our framework are the elasticity of soft-tissues and the respiratory model parameters. The estimation is based on two 3D Computed Tomography (CT) scans of the same patient at two different time steps. Results are presented on four patients and show that our new method leads to better results than our previous studies with manually tuned parameters.
A Compact High-Definition Low-Cost Digital Stereoscopic Video Camera for Rapid Robotic Surgery Development
Authors: Carlson Jay  , Kowalczuk Jędrzej  , Psota Eric  , Pérez Lance C.
Published: February 2025

Robotic surgical platforms require vision feedback systems, which often consist of low-resolution, expensive, single-imager analog cameras. These systems are retooled for 3D display by simply doubling the cameras and outboard control units. Here, a fully-integrated digital stereoscopic video camera employing high-definition sensors and a class-compliant USB video interface is presented. This system can be used with low-cost PC hardware and consumer-level 3D displays for tele-medical surgical applications including military medical support, disaster relief, and space exploration.
Nation-Wide Primary Healthcare Research Network: a Privacy Protection Assessment
Authors: De Clercq Etienne  , Van Casteren Viviane  , Bossuyt Nathalie  , Moreels Sarah  , Goderis Geert  , Bartholomeeusen Stefaan  , Bonte Pierre  , Bangels Marc
Published: February 2025

Efficiency and privacy protection are essential when setting up nationwide research networks. This paper investigates the extent to which basic services developed to support the provision of care can be re-used, whilst preserving an acceptable privacy protection level, within a large Belgian primary care research network. The generic sustainable confidentiality management model used to assess the privacy protection level of the selected network architecture is described. A short analysis of the current architecture is provided. Our generic model could also be used in other countries.
IMIA Accreditation of Health Informatics Programs
Authors: Hasman Arie
Published: February 2025

Health informatics programs usually are evaluated by national accreditation committees. Not always are the members of these committees well informed about the international level of (education in) health informatics. Therefore, when a program is accredited by a national accreditation committee, this does not always mean that the program is of an international level. Institutions may invite international experts to assess their educational programs. IMIA can serve as an intermediary for organizing the peer review. IMIA can play the role of accreditation committee and together with the institution assign an independent site visit committee to carry out the peer review. This contribution describes the IMIA accreditation procedure.
The Swedish Strategy and Method for Development of a National Healthcare Information Architecture
Authors: Rosenälv Jessica  , Lundell Karl-Henrik
Published: February 2025

“We need a precise framework of regulations in order to maintain appropriate and structured health care documentation that ensures that the information maintains a sufficient level of quality to be used in treatment, in research and by the actual patient. The users shall be aided by clearly and uniformly defined terms and concepts, and there should be an information structure that clarifies what to document and how to make the information more useful. Most of all, we need to standardize the information, not just the technical systems.” (eHälsa – nytta och näring, Riksdag report 2011/12:RFR5, p. 37).
Opening new gateways to workflows for life scientists
Authors: Karasavvas Konstantinos  , Wolstencroft Katy  , Mina Eleni  , Cruickshank Don  , Williams Alan  , De Roure David  , Goble Carole  , Roos Marco
Published: February 2025

The combination of highly complex biology problems and varying IT skills among life scientists poses a unique challenge in designing bioinformatics programs. The set of tools and initiatives described in this work shows new ways of making life science workflows more accessible to the community. Our aim is to help bioinformaticians help biologists. We present how to make Taverna workflows available from within Galaxy, both widely used bioinformatics platforms. Calling Galaxy tools from Taverna is also discussed. In addition, we describe a web application that allows a user to run arbitrary Taverna workflows by only using a web browser.