bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Data Compression for Medical Report Archiving
Authors: Spyns P. , Renkens S. , Willems J. L. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:In a hospital environment, where large numbers of reports are compiled, data compression offers a method for substantially reducing the required disk space whilst protecting the confidentiality of patient data. An analysis is given of the most important parameters that influence compression of free-text data, to realize an efficient implementation of an archiving system for medical reports. An overall reduction of the required disk space by more than 50% can be attained, as well as supplementary level of protection. A slight increase in access time is thereby inevitable, but almost insignificant. Such an archiving system constitutes a necessary component for an intelligent information retrieval system. The access to information contained in medical documents (by means of natural language processing and artificial intelligence techniques) is considered to be one of the key issues in the field of medical informatics for the coming decades.
Education in Methodology for Health Care – EuroMISE
Authors: Zvárová J. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:In January 1993 the Joint European Project “Education in the methodology field of health care”, EuroMISE (European Education in Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology) started under the European TEMPUS program. Training and education in EuroMISE consist of three overlapping methodology branches: medical informatics, medical statistics, and epidemiology. A teaching scheme has been developed in cooperation between Charles University, Prague, and EC universities and organizations involved in the EuroMISE project. One of the main tasks of the project is to design a modularly structured EuroMISE course set, to develop teaching materials and tools in the English language, and to link the EuroMISE project with other programs and projects in this field. Running EuroMISE courses, firstly for university teachers, will have a major impact in disseminating the acquired knowledge and skills.
Health Informatics – A Scientific Challenge?
Authors: Moehr J. R. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:The paper attempts to derive directions for research and teaching in health informatics. To this end, the achievements and continuing challenges of health informatics are exemplified, categorized, and related to common underlying phenomena. Suggestions by Blum and Blois are adopted which point to the complexity of health information as the critical ingredient. Examples are given of current efforts directed at dealing with this complexity. According to Popper and Brookes one may have to search for yet other ways of dealing specifically with information; we have barely started to explore these. It is suggested that this requirement for a fundamentally different orientation has profound consequences not only for our research but also for our teaching.
Medical Informatics Heidelberg/Heilbronn: Graduates’ Experiences and Job Situation
Authors: Frey W. , Haux R. , Leiner F. , Leven F. J. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the curriculum of medical informatics at the University of Heidelberg/School of Technology Heilbronn, a written and anonymous inquiry was carried out in March 1992 among the entirety of graduates from the curriculum. The aim of the inquiry was to obtain from the graduates of the curriculum information about their current places of employment, their fields of work, the state of continuing education as well as about their professional position. It was, in addition, intended to obtain from the graduates’ point of view an assessment of the education received during their studies as well as an assessment of the job situation. A questionnaire was sent to all persons having completed their studies by that time (n = 567, as of 1.1.1992). 62.2% of the forms were returned duly filled in; 92.2% of the graduates are employed. 44.5% out of them are working within the field of medical informatics, 53.0% are working outside medical informatics but within the sector of informatics and 2.2% in other fields; 0.3% were without indication. As far as places of employment are concerned, enterprises concentrating on hardware and software development rank first, followed by hospitals and medical institutions affiliated to universities. As far as fields of work are concerned, information systems within the health care sector (especially hospital information systems) as well as medical documentation predominate in the group of those employed within medical informatics, whereas among those not working within medical informatics software engineering as well as database systems and information systems prevail. The judgement passed on the job situation was, in the main, positive. The gross annual income on the average comes to about DM 85,000, every tenth of the graduates draws an income of more than DM 120,000. The assessment of the curriculum on the whole is positive. 68% of the graduates would take up medical informatics again. Twenty-eight of altogether 346 graduates included into the inquiry obtained a doctor’s degree, 2 among them qualified for lecturing in medical informatics.
An Experiment in English—Spanish Automated Translation of Medical Language Data
Authors: Garcia-Hidalgo Isabel , Dunham G. 
Published: March 2018

An English to Spanish translation procedure and its associated dictionaries were developed and implemented for the 1,426 terms of the morphology section of the International Classification of Diseases for Oncology. Morphological substitutions and respefling rules permit translation of most of the ICD—O vocabulary composed of Latin and Greek derived terms, which are cognate in the source and target languages, without the construction of a large word lexicon.A fairly simple classification of words which could be implemented by recognition of terminal morphemes, and which classifies them both syntactically and semantically served as an adequate basis for translation, and sheds some light on the linguistic structure of this type of complex noun phrase seen universally in medical writings and communications. A set of 17 reduction-transformation rules based on the word classification provide syntactic control of the translation process.
An Image Processing System for the Analysis of Gel Electrophoresis
Authors: Engelmann U. , Meinzer H. P. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryIn medical and biological research considerable information is gained with regard to the molecular weight and the purity of samples with the aid of Polyacrylamid (PAGE) or agarose gel electrophoresis (AGE). The resulting gel images are usually evaluated by the scientists manually.Here we want to present procedures permitting an analysis of the images with the computer. The given tasks were solved using the interpreter PIC. PIC is an image processing system developed at the German Cancer Research Center. The latter was extended by special routines in the form of new commands, thus creating a modular, easy-to-use system.
A Computerized Prescription Writing Program for Doctors
Authors: Brown C. S. , Allen S. I. , Songco D. C. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryA computer-assisted system designed to write drug prescriptions and patient instructions has been in operation in a dermatologist’s office for two years. Almost all prescriptions are generated by the machine. Drug dosages, directions, and labeling phrases are retrieved from a diagnosis-oriented formulary of 300 drug products. A prescription template with preselected default options is displayed on a terminal screen where selection is made with the use of the video pointer. Typing skill is not required, as a detailed prescription can be produced from the use of only five function keys. Prescriptions and sets of relevant instructions for the patient are computer-printed. Therapy summaries for the medical record also are automatically composed and printed.
An Overview of Medical Expert Systems
Authors: de Vries P. H. , de Vries Robbé P. F. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryExpert systems are an important extension of the research on medical decision making. Their relation to other research in this area is shortly discussed. Fourteen medical expert systems are examined from different perspectives. After a discussion of their goal, domain, and history, the classification of expert systems along the procedural-declarative continuum provides the basis for the analysis of their knowledge representations.As a result of this analysis, types of knowledge are identified that serve as a frame of reference for the comparison of the systems. Subsequently, the central role of these knowledge types in one of the most important tasks of expert systems, explaining, is emphasized. After the knowledge representation, two other components of expert systems are discussed that heavily depend on it: the knowledge acquisition and the man-machine interface. As a conclusion, the status quo of the research on expert systems is outlined and some developments are extrapolated. These developments show a tendency toward the integration of different knowledge types in one system.
Information Systems and Clinical Research by Residents in Internal Medicine
Authors: Kochen M. , Cohen L. , Wulff Yvonne 
Published: March 2018

SummaryResidents in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan completed a questionnaire designed to investigate their information needs and methods of knowledge procurement. Such needs developed when the residents encountered rare, serious or complex situations with which they had no previous experience. For routine problems, textbooks filled information gaps, while difficult cases usually required consultation with older, more experienced colleagues. A new typology of tasks and problems dealt with by clinicians and clinical researchers is presented and used in determining the appropriateness of various information tools.
Syntactic Pattern Recognition of Intermittent EEG Activity
Authors: Ferber G. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryUp to now, computerised processing of EEG signals has entered the domain of clinical application at most with respect to background activity and. the recognition of some intermittent basic patterns.Although the EEG is a multichannel signal, this recognition is performed separately for each channel, taking into account at most the immediate past and future. The result is a set of intermittent basic patterns. They are to be looked at as constituents of “complex patterns” which correspond to the entities used in the visual assessment.In this paper we present a method of uniting these basic patterns by means of syntactic pattern recognition algorithms. Together with this process the basic patterns are validated or devalidated, and the resulting complex EEG pattern is allocated to one of several pattern classes. To demonstrate how this procedure works, an example of artifact recognition is used. In order to get an acceptable performance, the process of syntactic pattern recognition is divided into a sequence of three steps. The resulting algorithms can be used for assessing clinical routine EEG. Some results are reported.
Frequency of Injury Events in New Zealand Compared with the Available E-Codes
Authors: Langley J. D. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryThe frequency of injury events in New Zealand is compared with the distribution of E-codes in the International Classification of Diseases which are used to.describe the circumstances of injury. It is shown that the allocation of codes bears little relationship to the nature and burden of fatal and non-fatal injury events. Common events such as falls are the least adequately addressed by the coding frame. The combining of some codes together with the removal of codes E930-E949 and treatment of intent by a separate code would facilitate an allocation which more closely reflects the distribution of injury events and the provision of information more relevant to injury prevention.
An Approach to Integrate Collections of Images and Relational Databases
Authors: Jasinski P. J. , Meinzer H.-P. , Köhler C. O. , Sandblad B. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryThe structure of computer-processed images is described. This is the basis for presenting a method to integrate traditional database concepts and images which represent a certain class of nonformatted, heterogeneous information. The method presented consists of a special, surrogate Image data type and a design of Image Directory, which associates formatted data, raw digital images stored conceptually in the form of a file of variable length, bit string records, and look-up tables. Beside individual and aggregate-oriented retrieval, some tools supporting more sophisticated analyses of images are also suggested. In order to make the description of solutions clear and truly methodological, a basic notion of the relational database technology and a de facto standard query language (SQL) have been applied. The method presented can be used to build various medical applications where images and/or graphics constitute an important fraction of information.
Indivisibility and Variety of Medical Informatics
Authors: Seelos H.-J. 
Published: March 2018

SummaryIn recent editorials it has been pointed out that medical informatics, seen as comprehensive health care informatics, should be understood as the science of information processing and engineering of automated information systems within the health care system.Since the health care system as a whole is the object system of medical informatics, its object of cognition will have to be seen in computerized medical information systems or information systems as components of socio-technical and biological object systems. Because of that and especially in view of the rapidly growing possibilities of data processing technology, the question arises how our discipline can cope with the variety in research and education. This is the subject of this opinion paper.
The Influence of Outliers on Discrimination of Chronic Obturative Lung Disease
Authors: Krusmska Ewa , Liebhart Jerzy 
Published: March 2018

SummaryThe paper discusses the influence of outliers on the results of linear and canonical discrimination used to assist medical diagnosis in chronic obturative lung disease. The outliers have been detected by χ2-plots based on unweighted sample means and covariances or their weighted analogues with Huber or Hampel weights. With Hampel weights outliers have been found different from those with both remaining methods. After trimming the 10 percent of the most distant individuals, the discrimination was done for the training sample collected earlier (N′ = 305) and for the test sample (N″ = 53) with the functions obtained from the training sample. The discrimination was performed for subsets of the most discriminative variables. When the sample size was sufficiently large (training sample), the goodness of reclassification was similar for classical functions and functions calculated after trimming. For small samples they differ. For classification of the test data the results obtained after trimming (especially with Hampel weights) are much better. The method may be recommended to be used in the computerized respiratory diseases consulting unit.
Risk Rate Neglect in Decisions Involving Invasive Diagnostic Procedures
Authors: Lane T. J. , White P. P. , Manu P. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:To investigate whether the risk of life-threatening complications influence the decisions involving invasive diagnostic procedures, a study was conducted that focused on the use of coronary angiography and endomyocardial biopsy with risk rates of either 1 % or 2%. The participants included 38 physicians from two university-affiliated hospitals. Of their 76 pairs of decisions, 53% were of the “risk-avoidance” type and 26% were of the “risk-taking” type. Only 13% of decisions were of the “risk-conscious” type. The practical implication of these biases can be substantial in real-life decisions regarding events with low-probability, but high-consequence risks.
A User-oriented Protocol for Integrating Heterogeneous Communication Systems of Medical Facilities Using Ports
Authors: GierI L. , Greiller R. , Landersdorfer Th. , Müller H. , Überla K. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:The crucial feature of future communication systems in hospitals will be the heterogeneity between the individual systems. People working in a hospital do not communicate via data objects, but via highly complex functions like preparation of a patient report or diagnosis of patients’ symptoms and signs. Essentially such tasks are accomplished by initiating remote functions in various modes of a communication system. The aim of the MEDAS protocol developed by our group is to propose a definition of such a high-level medical protocol and then to implement it. Our user-oriented protocol permits information exchange between heterogeneous systems. Modules and functions are defined. Message passing to and from a processor is realized using ports. The protocol sequence of every communication request is described. The relation of ports to the ISO model is specified. First experiences in a network for a medical school are reported.
Some Methodological Issues in Statistical Estimation of Air Pollution and Health
Authors: Gottinger Hans W. 
Published: March 2018

Abstract:This paper introduces a new method for estimating a dose-response relationship from spatially averaged time series of air pollution and health data. Because time is perceived as a nuisance parameter to be eliminated, least-squares regression and traditional time series methodology (e.g., spectral analysis Box-Jenkins methods) are rejected in favor of a nonparametric estimation procedure based on observing health effects in times of nearly equal pollution. The method requires estimating the ratio of two density functions and avoids problems of aggregation, linearity and normality. In spite of the formal tests described, the procedure seems most useful at present as a data analytic and data display device rather than as an inferential tool.
Computer in der Pathologie: Methodik und Erfahrungen nach Auswertung von 27000 Sektionsprotokollen
Authors: Becker H. , Breitenlohner H. , Lang Chr. , Schwarz F. 
Published: March 2018

Beschreibung eines Befunddokumentationssystems, das als Ergebnis einer seit 3 Jahren durchgeführten elektronischen Verarbeitung von Sektionsdaten zur Zeit 27669 Sektionsfälle mit rund 350000 Diagnosen aus 13 Jahren (1952—1964) umfaßt. Diese Diagnosen werden routinemäßig ausgewertet und folgende Ergebnisse den Pathologen laufend zur Verfügung gestellt:Eine Diagnosenkartei mit Diagnosen im Klartext und allen einschlägigen Fällen; eine Kinderdiagnosenund Todesursachenkartei j eine Auflistung aller Verkehrsund Arbeitsunfälle sowie schließlich der Sektionsfälle mit multiplen primären Malignomen und Spätrezidiven.Neben diesen Standardauswertungen, die in mehreren Exemplaren im Institut aufliegen und jederzeit eine statistische Verwertung ohne maschinelle Hilfsmittel ermöglichen, können auch Sonderanfragen durch spezielle Programme beantwortet werden. Diese Programme ermöglichen das Auswerten von Fällen, die eine beliebige vorgegebene Kombination von Diagnosen und anderen Daten aufweisen oder nicht aufweisen. Die zutreffenden Fälle werden in übersichtlicher Form (nach Alter und Geschlecht geordnet) ausgedruckt. Bei Bedarf wird auch ein Altersdiagramm automatisch erstellt. Nach einer kurzen Darstellung der notwendigen vorbereitenden und auswertenden Programme folgen eine Diskussion der Fehler, ihrer Entstehung und Korrektur, sowie Angaben über den apparativen und zeitlichen Aufwand.Das beschriebene Dokumentationssystem liefert dem anfragenden Arzt frei lesbare Diagnosentexte, so daß er keinerlei Entschlüsselung vorzunehmen hat. Auf Grund des entwickelten PATH-KWIC(KWIC = Key-Word in Context) Programms können sämtliche Diagnosen nach alphabetisch geordneten Stichworten’ (lexikographisch) ausgedruckt werden.
Identification and Transformation of Terminal Morphemes in Medical Englishi)
Authors: Pratt A. W. , Pacak M. 
Published: March 2018

The system for the identification and subsequent transformation of terminal morphemes in medical English is a part of the information system for processing pathology data which was developed at the National Institutes of Health.The recognition and transformation of terminal morphemes is restricted to classes of adjectivals including the -ING and -ED forms, nominals and homographic adjective/noun forms.The adjective-to-noun and noun-to-noun transforms consist basically of a set of substitutions of adjectival and certain nominal suffixes by a set of suffixes which indicate the corresponding nominal form(s).The adjectival/nominal suffix has a polymorphosyntactic transformational function if it has the property of being transformed into more than one nominalizing suffix (e.g., the adjectival suffix -IC can be substituted by a set of nominalizing suffixes -0, -A, -E, -Y, -IS, -IA, -ICS): the adjectival suffix has a monomorphosyntactic transformational property if there is only one admissible transform (e.g., -CIC-X).The morphological segmentation and the subsequent transformations are based on the following principles:a. The word form is segmented according to the principle of »double consonant cut,« i.e., terminal characters following the last set of double consonants are analyzed and treated as a potential suffix. For practical purposes only such terminal suffixes of a maximum length of four have been analyzed.b. The principle that the largest segment of a word form common to both, adjective and noun or to both noun stems is retained as a word base for transformational operations, and the non-iden, tical segment is considered to be a »suffix.«The backward right-to-left character search is initiated by the identification of the terminal grapheme of the given word form and is extended to certain admissible sequences of immediately preceding graphemes.The nodes which represent fixed sequences of graphemes are labeled according to their recognition and/or transformation properties.The tree nodes are divided into two groups:a. productive or activatedb. non-productive or non-activatedThe productive (activated) nodes are sequences of sets of graphemes which possess certain properties, such as the indication about part-of-speech class membership, the transformation properties, or both. The non-productive (non-activated) nodes have the function of connectors, i.e., they specify the admissible path to the productive nodes.The computer program for the identification and transformation of the terminal morphemes is openended and is already operational. It will be extended to other sub-fields of medicine in the near future.