Search

Introduction: In the big data era, where corporations commodify health data, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) present a transformative avenue for patient empowerment and control. NFTs are unique digital assets on the blockchain, representing ownership of digital objects, including health data. By minting their data as NFTs, patients can track access, monetize its use, and build secure, private health information systems. However, research on NFTs in healthcare is in its infancy, warranting a comprehensive review. Methods: This study conducted a systematic literature review and thematic analysis of NFTs in healthcare to identify use cases, design models, and key challenges. Five multidisciplinary research databases (Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, IEEE Explore, Elsevier Science Direct) were searched. The approach involved four stages: paper collection, inclusion/exclusion criteria application, screening, full-text reading, and quality assessment. A classification and coding framework was employed. Thematic analysis followed six steps: data familiarization, initial code generation, theme searching, theme review, theme definition/naming, and report production. Results: Analysis of 19 selected papers revealed three primary use cases: patientcentric data management, supply chain management for data provenance, and digital twin development. Notably, most solutions were prototypes or frameworks without real-world implementations. Four overarching themes emerged: data governance (ownership, tracking, privacy), data monetization (commercialization, incentivization, sharing), data protection, and data storage. The focus lies on user-controlled, private, and secure health data solutions. Additionally, data commodification is explored, with mechanisms proposed to incentivize data maintenance and sharing. NFTs are also suggested for tracking medical products in supply chains, ensuring data integrity and provenance. Ethereum and similar platforms dominate NFT minting, while compact NFT storage options are being explored for faster data access. Conclusion: NFTs offer significant potential for secure, traceable, decentralized healthcare data exchange systems. However, challenges exist, including dependence on blockchain, interoperability issues, and associated costs. The review identified research gaps, such as developing dual ownership models and data pricing strategies. Building an open standard for interoperability and adoption is crucial. The scalability, security, and privacy of NFT-backed healthcare applications require further investigation. Thus, this study proposes a research agenda for adopting NFTs in healthcare, focusing on governance, storage models, and perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality assurance (QA) is an important process in ensuring that systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses are supported by a high‐quality search. This paper describes how the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK established a development pathway to ensure its information specialists had the skills, knowledge and confidence to undertake search QA. The key component of the pathway is that it blends technical knowledge with interpersonal skills. The pathway develops technical skills in the early steps before using peer support activities to build confidence while undertaking a range of searches. QA is effective when the search lead communicates the contextual information that has influenced search development. QA is treated as a collaboration to get the right search for the review. The key requirements for search QA, alongside technical knowledge, are communication, collaboration and negotiation skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are extremely private data in the medical industry. Clinicians use the patient data that the EMR stores to quickly assess a patient's status and save diagnostic information. In the conventional medical model, it is easy for duplicate exams, medical resource waste, or the loss of medical records to happen when a patient is transferred between several medical facilities due to problems with data sharing and exchange, inadequate data privacy, security, confidentiality, and difficulties with data traceability. This paper recommends a Hyperledger Fabric-based strategy to promote the exchange of EMR models. With the use of Hyperledger Fabric, EMR stakeholders can be brought into the channel to facilitate data sharing. Attribute-based access control (ABAC) allows users to design the data access control policy, and the data access control may improve security. Any record stored in the blockchain can be viewed using the Hyperledger Fabric feature and it cannot be altered or destroyed, ensuring data traceability. Through proxy re-encryption, which makes sure that the data is not leaked during data exchange, data secrecy can be ensured. A module for medical tokens has now been added. Many foreign medical institutions currently use the medical token system, and the system described in this paper can use the tokens to pay for some medical expenses. The tokens are obtained by the patient's initiative to share their EMR with the medical institution for research, which is how many foreign medical institutions currently use the medical token mechanism. This paradigm can encourage the growth of medical data by enabling stakeholders to collaborate and share EMR trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reports a longitudinal analysis of the topical and methodological development of Library and Information Science (LIS). Its focus is on the effects of researchers' disciplines on these developments. The study extends an earlier cross‐sectional study (Vakkari et al., Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2022a, 73, 1706–1722) by a coordinated dataset representing a content analysis of articles published in 31 scholarly LIS journals in 1995, 2005, and 2015. It is novel in its coverage of authors' disciplines, topical and methodological aspects in a coordinated dataset spanning two decades thus allowing trend analysis. The findings include a shrinking trend in the share of LIS from 67 to 36% while Computer Science, and Business and Economics increase their share from 9 and 6% to 21 and 16%, respectively. The earlier cross‐sectional study (Vakkari et al., Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 2022a, 73, 1706–1722) for the year 2015 identified three topical clusters of LIS research, focusing on topical subfields, methodologies, and contributing disciplines. Correspondence analysis confirms their existence already in 1995 and traces their development through the decades. The contributing disciplines infuse their concepts, research questions, and approaches to LIS and may also subsume vital parts of LIS in their own structures of knowledge production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the fact that construction projects, due to their specificity, are complex, temporary and dynamic. Over their course, participants change, successive construction works are done and new information becomes available. This carries over to difficulties in communication. In the literature, numerous studies note the fact that a network-based approach to the analysis and monitoring of communication as a part of complex construction projects is commendable. Relations between agents, knowledge and tasks in the context of communication within a construction project can be visualized in the form of a meta-network, and suitably developed structural measures can be used to analyze them. In this paper, the authors used meta-network theory to analyze relations between project participants, knowledge and tasks in the context of communication within a construction project, on the basis of the construction of a housing estate located in Katowice, Poland. Meta-network structural analysis allowed for a deeper understanding of these relations and the detection of essential information about the level of communication in the project under investigation, which was a basis for further discussion. The authors also stress the benefits from the approach presented and argue that it should be a starting point for effective management in the sphere of communication in construction companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Messaging services are usually provided within social network platforms and allow these platforms to collect additional information about users, such as what time, for how long, with whom, and where a user communicates. This information allows the identification of users and is available to the messaging service provider even when communication is encrypted end-to-end. Thus, a gap still exists for alternative messaging services that enable anonymous and confidential communication and that are independent of a specific online service. Online services can still be used to support this messaging service, but in a way that enables users to communicate anonymously and without the knowledge and scrutiny of the online services. In this paper, we propose messaging using steganography and online services to support anonymous and confidential communication. In the proposed messaging service, only the sender and the receiver are aware of the existence of the exchanged data, even if the online services used or other third parties have access to the exchanged secret data containers. This work reviews the viability of using existing online services to support the proposed messaging service. Moreover, a proof-of-concept of the proposed message service is implemented and tested using two online services acting as proxies in the exchange of encrypted information disguised within images and links to those images. The obtained results confirm the viability of such a messaging service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article sought to answer the question 'what are the communication forms employed by Peter the Apostle to the Jews?.' The aim of the article is to highlight the communication forms employed by the Apostle Peter and to describe the various forms of communication used by him. The theoretical framework used in the paper was the Shannon and Weaver Communication Model. A desktop research methodology was employed and information was gathered from journal articles, books, and internet sources. Due to this being a historical type of research, much of the literature was gathered from theological sources. The paper argues that Christian communication should be recognised within the field of communications, as Christian organisations used various forms of communication to maintain and propagate teachings and beliefs that are still valid today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Treating patients with up-to-date medical knowledge is an ongoing goal for healthcare workers and implies efficient knowledge management at the point of care. Widely available mobile wireless technologies influence practices but a significant gap remains between technological possibilities and actual usage. The purpose of this study was to analyze residents' baseline practices in managing medical knowledge and to evaluate the use and impact of an innovative multiplatform application dedicated to anesthesiology and intensive care residents. This study took place in Rennes Teaching Hospital and comprised two distinct surveys. First, in April 2018, all residents received a ten-items online survey focusing on managing medical knowledge. Then, through a second online survey constituted of ten items, we sought to assess the use of a new multiplatform cloud-based application named "DansMaBlouse", dedicated to sharing and indexing medical knowledge, in anesthesiology and intensive care residents. Among 148 residents that answered the evaluation survey, the most sought out pieces of information in clinical setting were a phone or fax number (74%), drugs' characteristics (68%) and expert guidelines (57%). The main sources were senior staff (68%), medical databases (60%) and an Internet search engine (59%). Computers and smartphones were more frequently used than bound paper notebooks. After implementation of the multiplatform application DansMaBlouse, fifty-nine (82%) of the 72 residents that answered the evaluation survey reported using the application and 39% used it more than ten times. Among application users, 90% found it easy to use and 92% agreed that it improved point-of-care access to knowledge. Accessing appropriate medical knowledge at the point of care remains an issue for residents and can be improved by a multiplatform application combining personal and shared up-to-date resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time Communication has been widely acknowledged as a significant component in scholarly treatment of development discourse. There however seems to be a persistent disconnect between such academic theorisations and the real field level situation as communication continues to remain in the periphery in programme planning and interventions of donor agencies as well as implementing NGOs in India. Drawing from the experiences in two prominent but diverse national level development organisations, this paper argues that communication in practice is still poorly understood and practiced in the sector. Rather than erroneously equating communication with information and apparent image building exercises of NGOs, the paper argues that it needs to be seriously seen as the key to a community's empowerment by enabling their people's participation in development initiatives that concerns them and their destiny. The paper calls for communication to be brought to the centre stage of institutional intervention policies and programmes and suggests possible means to do so. In particular, it argues for the need to carve out a central role of communication for development professionals in the country's third sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed at examining the impact of information and communication Technology (ICT) on Nigerian university library service delivery, a study of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) library. The paper traces briefly the history of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Library. The study adopted the descriptive survey method. The questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. A total of six hundred (600) questionnaires were distributed and five hundred and eighty three (583) collected back. The data collected were analyzed with the use of tables and simple percentages. From the analysis of the data collected, it was found that the use of ICT on library service delivery aids immensely in the development of university libraries, quick delivery of information services, access and easy retrieval of information by users. The findings revealed some of these challenges commonly faced such as insufficient availability of resources, lack of adequate space for ICT facilities and cost of utilization of the resources. Others factors plaguing the implementation of ICT in libraries are lack of adequate awareness of ICT services and resources, Therefore, it was recommended that there should be massive injection of funds and financial assistance from both the Nigerian government and some international donor agencies for the provision of ICT infrastructural facilities and training and retraining of librarians to enable them meet the standard of technology age for effective library services. This will result in the delivery of the effective information services and make it easily accessible to users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the importance of tattoo in the criminal environment and prison subculture. Special attention is paid to the function of tattoos, especially in the area of identification and communication. Frequently used symbols have a considerable explanatory value. They reflect the criminal past of the wearer, expressing religious or ideological beliefs, indicate a process of radicalisation, membership in a criminal group or gang. With the help of analysis of the selected tattoo symbols, it is possible to collect valuable information about the personality profile of a particular individual. The findings presented in the paper are based on the original research project realised in the prison facilities in the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first study that compares types of orientation tactics that blind and sighted users applied in their initial interactions with a digital library (DL) and the associated factors. Multiple methods were employed for data collection: questionnaires, think-aloud protocols, and transaction logs. The paper identifies seven types of orientation tactics applied by the two groups of users. While sighted users focused on skimming DL content, blind users concentrated on exploring DL structure. Moreover, the authors discovered 13 types of system, user, and interaction factors that led to the use of orientation tactics. More system factors than user factors affect blind users' tactics in browsing DL structures. The findings of this study support the social model that the sightcentered design of DLs, rather than blind users' disability, prohibits them from effectively interacting with a DL. Simultaneously, the results reveal the limitation of existing interactive information retrieval models that do not take people with disabilities into consideration. DL design implications are discussed based on the identified factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the experience of the University at Albany (UAlbany) Libraries' migration to a centralized University data center. Following an introduction to the environment at UAlbany, the authors discuss the advantages of data center consolidation. Lessons learned from the project include the need to participate in the planning process, review migration schedules carefully, clarify costs of centralization, agree on a service level agreement, communicate plans to customers, and leverage economies of scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Laboratory services form an integral part of medical care in the decision-making of physicians, including those working at ambulatory care centers. Information exchange is essential between ambulatory care centers and laboratories. Inevitable errors have always existed in the exchange of such information on paper, which can be to some extent avoided by developing appropriate computer-based interfaces. Therefore, this review aimed to examine studies conducted to determine the effect of electronic communication between ambulatory care centers and laboratories. This systematic review was conducted on the basis of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Studies were searched in the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Web of Science, and those written in English and published between 2000 and February 2019 with full texts available were selected. From a total of 3898 papers retrieved from the studied databases, 24 papers were eligible for entering this study after removing similar and nonrelated studies. Electronic exchanges between ambulatory care centers and laboratories can have numerous benefits in terms of financial, organizational, and quality. This evidence for the value of electronic communications is an important factor contributing to its local investment and adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communicative interactions across different species have so far received relatively little attention from cognitive or behavioral scientists. Most research in this area views the process of communication as the adaptive interaction of manipulative signalers and information-assessing receivers. This paper discusses some shortcomings of the information/influence model of communication, particularly in the empirical study of interspecific communicative interactions. It then presents an alternative theoretical model, based on recent contributions in psycholinguistics and semiotics. The semiotic alignment model views communication as a dynamic process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants' own-worlds (Umwelten). It is argued that this model can improve our understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics and provide the basis for future work in the empirical study of interspecific communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementation of pharmaceutical care for the benefit of patients and health services has been highlighted worldwide. Interprofessional collaboration between nurses, pharmacists, and physicians may contribute to raising awareness of pharmacological challenges, increasing quality, and minimising errors in pharmaceutical care. This study aimed to investigate how nurses, pharmacists, and physicians experience interprofessional collaboration in pharmaceutical care within community healthcare in Norway. The study had an explorative and descriptive design with a qualitative approach. Individual interviews were conducted with 12 healthcare personnel with key roles in pharmaceutical care within community healthcare services. The data were analysed using systematic text condensation. The results revealed three categories and four subcategories: The category "Professional challenges" contained the subcategories "Blurred responsibilities" and "The importance of trust and continuity". The category "Organisational barriers" contained the subcategories "Lack of information exchange and suitable communications channels" and "Lack of time and meeting places". The third category was "Nurses—the important link". This study reveals challenges to and factors of success in increasing high-quality and safe pharmaceutical care, knowledge that can be used in quality work in the community health services and as input in curriculum development for the three professions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore two types of Net-generation practitioners – writers and makers born in the 1980s – and how they describe their professions and their information practices. Design/methodology/approach: The authors distinguished the information practices of Net-generation writers and makers from those of their older counterparts and then examined the contextual factors associated with the shared meanings in each community of practice, by interviewing a total of 14 participants, 7 writers and 7 makers, and qualitatively analyzed the resulting data. Findings: First, the professional boundaries perceived by Net-generation practitioners are more blurred than those of their older counterparts. Second, they rely on life experience, online platforms and print for their sources of information and inspiration. Third, Facebooking and the use of filter bubbles are among the most popular information practices. Fourth, diversity, uniqueness, multimodal, participatory and self-media are keywords in their content creation and information produced. Fifth, connectivity (connecting people and resources) and collective intelligence (emphasizing how expertise is collected and distributed) are key themes associated with these digital natives. Sixth, the authors also identified and compared differences between these two groups. Research limitations/implications: The study limitations include the small sample size of each practitioner group and the fact that the methods are dependent on the participants' abilities to describe their information practices. Originality/value: This study is among the first to focus on the characteristics of digital natives and their information practices. It provides a tentative framework for further exploration and contributes to our initial understanding of this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of existing ORAM constructions have communication efficiency as the major optimization priority; the server storage efficiency, however, has not received much attention. Motivated by the observation that, the server storage efficiency is as important as communication efficiency when the storage capacity is very large and/or the outsourced data are not frequently accessed, we propose in this paper a new ORAM construction called Octopus ORAM. Through extensive security analysis and performance comparison, we demonstrate that, Octopus ORAM is secure; also, it significantly improves the server storage efficiency, achieves a comparable level of communication efficiency as state-of-the-art ORAM constructions, at the cost of increased client-side storage, and the increased client-side storage should be affordable to the clients who adopt local facilities such as cloud storage gateways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technology is now being developed that is able to handle vast amounts of structured and unstructured data from diverse sources and origins. These technologies are often referred to as big data, and open new areas of research and applications that will have an increasing impact in all sectors of our society. In this paper we assessed to which extent big data is being applied in the food safety domain and identified several promising trends. In several parts of the world, governments stimulate the publication on internet of all data generated in public funded research projects. This policy opens new opportunities for stakeholders dealing with food safety to address issues which were not possible before. Application of mobile phones as detection devices for food safety and the use of social media as early warning of food safety problems are a few examples of the new developments that are possible due to big data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Electronic administrative data exist in several domains which, if linked, are potentially useful for research. However, benefits from data linkage should be considered alongside risks such as the threat to privacy. Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) is a birth cohort study. The Project to Enhance ALSPAC through Record Linkage (PEARL) was established to enrich the ALSPAC resource through linkage between ALSPAC participants and routine sources of health and social data. Qualitative research was incorporated in the PEARL study to examine participants' views about data linkage and inform approaches to information sharing. This paper focusses on issues of consent.Methods: Digitally recorded interviews were conducted with 55 participants aged 17-19 years. Terms and processes relating to consent, anonymization and data linkage were explained to interviewees. Scenarios were used to prompt consideration of linking different sources of data, and whether consent should be requested. Interview recordings were fully transcribed. Thematic analysis was undertaken using the Framework approach.Results: Participant views on data linkage appeared to be most influenced by: considerations around the social sensitivity of the research question, and; the possibility of tangible health benefits in the public interest. Some participants appeared unsure about the effectiveness of anonymization, or did not always view effective anonymization as making consent unnecessary. This was related to notions of ownership of personal information and etiquette around asking permission for secondary use. Despite different consent procedures being explained, participants tended to equate consent with 'opt-in' consent through which participants are 'asked' if their data can be used for a specific study. Participants raising similar concerns came to differing conclusions about whether consent was needed. Views changed when presented with different scenarios, and were sometimes inconsistent.Conclusions: Findings from this study question the validity of 'informed consent' as a cornerstone of good governance, and the extent to which potential research participants understand different types of consent and what they are consenting, or not consenting, to. Pragmatic, imaginative and flexible approaches are needed if research using data linkage is to successfully realise its potential for public good without undermining public trust in the research process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Huge amount of handwritten documents can be treated by intelligent systems in order to retrieve information using text queries instead of manually searching in the scanned images. These systems often consist of five stages: pre-processing, segmentation, feature extraction, decision-making (character recognition) and post-processing. This paper deals with the segmentation stage, in which we present an approach inspired by the perception mechanisms involved in the human reading process to automatically extract text lines from Arabic handwritten documents. The proposed approach is based on multi-agent systems to detect and group connected components that belong to the same line. Experimental results on a data-set of Arabic handwritten documents show that this approach is a promising solution for extracting handwritten curved text lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: In this paper we aim to characterise the critical mass of linked data, methods and expertise required for health systems to adapt to the needs of the populations they serve - more recently known as learning health systems. The objectives are to: 1) identify opportunities to combine separate uses of common data sources in order to reduce duplication of data processing and improve information quality; 2) identify challenges in scaling-up the reuse of health data sufficiently to support health system learning.Methods: The challenges and opportunities were identified through a series of e-health stakeholder consultations and workshops in Northern England from 2011 to 2014. From 2013 the concepts presented here have been refined through feedback to collaborators, including patient/citizen representatives, in a regional health informatics research network (www.herc.ac.uk).Results: Health systems typically have separate information pipelines for: 1) commissioning services; 2) auditing service performance; 3) managing finances; 4) monitoring public health; and 5) research. These pipelines share common data sources but usually duplicate data extraction, aggregation, cleaning/preparation and analytics. Suboptimal analyses may be performed due to a lack of expertise, which may exist elsewhere in the health system but is fully committed to a different pipeline. Contextual knowledge that is essential for proper data analysis and interpretation may be needed in one pipeline but accessible only in another. The lack of capable health and care intelligence systems for populations can be attributed to a legacy of three flawed assumptions: 1) universality: the generalizability of evidence across populations; 2) time-invariance: the stability of evidence over time; and 3) reducibility: the reduction of evidence into specialised sub-systems that may be recombined.Conclusions: We conceptualize a population health and care intelligence system capable of supporting health system learning and we put forward a set of maturity tests of progress toward such a system. A factor common to each test is data-action latency; a mature system spawns timely actions proportionate to the information that can be derived from the data, and in doing so creates meaningful measurement about system learning. We illustrate, using future scenarios, some major opportunities to improve health systems by exchanging conventional intelligence pipelines for networked critical masses of data, methods and expertise that minimise data-action latency and ignite system-learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

File sharing is an integral component of modern work. Files can be shared either using Group Information Management (GIM), where collaborators exploit a common repository (e.g., the cloud), or Personal Information Management (PIM), where files are sent via email attachments, and collaborators store files individually in personal collections. Given the recent prevalence of GIM, we compare the effects on retrieval for PIM versus GIM collections. We examine the effects of various theoretically motivated factors relating to collection size, properties of the target file, and user workload. In our study, 289 participants accessed 1,557 of their own shared files in a naturalistic setting. Results indicate that factors relating to collection size, file versions, and user workload negatively affect the retrieval of GIM more than PIM files, indicating that PIM is more scalable than GIM. Testing a very different population, we confirm previous findings that failure percentages of GIM are approximately double those of PIM. We discuss possible theoretical explanations, specifically how factors that hinder retrieval exacerbate the general GIM problem of retrieving files organized by other people. Overall, PIM's greater scalability has practical implications for fast‐growing organizations such as startups when choosing their sharing policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This editorial explores the profound impact of ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI's GPT-3.5 architecture, on the landscape of research across diverse fields (Smith & Johnson, 2021). ChatGPT has emerged as a transformative tool for researchers and scholars, offering unparalleled access to information, fostering collaboration, and enhancing communication skills (Brown & Davis, 2020). It accelerates literature reviews, aids in idea generation, and facilitates interdisciplinary research (Chen & Kim, 2019). However, the adoption of ChatGPT in research is not without its challenges (Johnson & White, 2018). Ethical considerations, biases in responses, and data privacy concerns require vigilant attention. Despite these limitations, ChatGPT represents a significant leap forward in human-machine collaboration, empowering researchers to explore new avenues and streamline various aspects of their work (OpenAI, 2023). The future of research lies in harnessing the capabilities of ChatGPT while remaining cognizant of its limitations and ensuring that its integration aligns with evolving research needs. Researchers and developers must collaborate to realize the full potential of this transformative technology in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While institutional repositories (IRs) often include a built-in search tool and/or are indexed by web search engines, some patrons go directly to the online library catalog with their information need. Rather than hope that users will stumble on the IR from the library website or assume that they will start their research with a Google search, librarians can enhance IR discoverability and usage by integrating its content into the library catalog. With strong teamwork, good communication, and a shared vision, this endeavor transforms the IR and library catalog from separate, siloed platforms into a more cohesive collections package. At the University of San Diego, librarians and administrators across three departments came together to share information and work in concert to explore the benefits of auto-harvesting IR content into the library catalog. Driven by a vision of enhancing discoverability and access, as well as promoting the IR and enriching the catalog, the team members worked cooperatively to identify specific IR collections appropriate for harvest, investigate technical logistics, consult outside vendors (including Innovative Interfaces, Inc./III and bepress), and experiment with implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of providing privacy, in the private information retrieval (PIR) sense, to users requesting data from a distributed storage system (DSS), is considered. The DSS is coded by an $(n,k,d)$ maximum distance separable code to store the data reliably on unreliable storage nodes. Some of these nodes can be spies which report to a third party, such as an oppressive regime, which data is being requested by the user. An information theoretic PIR scheme ensures that a user can satisfy its request while revealing no information on which data is being requested to the nodes. A user can trivially achieve PIR by downloading all the data in the DSS. However, this is not a feasible solution due to its high communication cost. We construct PIR schemes with low download communication cost. When there is $b=1$ spy node in the DSS, in other words, no collusion between the nodes, we construct PIR schemes with download cost $\frac {1}{1-R}$ per unit of requested data ($R=k/n$ is the code rate), achieving the information theoretic limit for linear schemes. The proposed schemes are universal since they depend on the code rate, but not on the generator matrix of the code. Also, if $b\leq n-\delta k$ nodes collude, with $\delta =\lfloor {\frac {n-b}{k}}\rfloor $ , we construct linear PIR schemes with download cost $\frac {b+\delta k}{\delta }$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a generic transformation that can convert any nonbinary $(n=k{+}r,k)$ maximum distance separable (MDS) code into another $(n,k)$ MDS code over the same field such that: 1) some arbitrarily chosen $r$ nodes have the optimal repair bandwidth and the optimal rebuilding access; 2) for the remaining $k$ nodes, the normalized repair bandwidth and the normalized rebuilding access (over the file size) are preserved; and 3) the sub-packetization level is increased only by a factor of $r$. Two immediate applications of this generic transformation are then presented. The first application is that we can transform any nonbinary MDS code with the optimal repair bandwidth or the optimal rebuilding access for the systematic nodes only, into a new MDS code which possesses the corresponding repair optimality for all nodes. The second application is that by applying the transformation multiple times, any nonbinary $(n,k)$ scalar MDS code can be converted into an $(n,k)$ MDS code with the optimal repair bandwidth and the optimal rebuilding access for all nodes, or only a subset of nodes, whose sub-packetization level is also optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patients with complex behavioral and mental health conditions require significant transitional care coordination. It is unclear how skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) that serve these patients engage in care transfer with hospitals, specifically whether they experience discrepancies in the type of information shared by hospital partners and/or use different approaches to secure needed information. Methods: Cross‐sectional analysis of a national 2019–2020 SNF survey that collected information on transitional care practices with referring hospitals; respondents were directors of nursing services. We used chi‐squared tests and descriptive statistics to characterize hospital information sharing practices experienced by facilities that accept complex patients (e.g., serious mental illness, substance use disorder, and/or medication assisted treatment), and to compare them to facilities that treat a less complex population. Results: A total of 215 SNFs had sufficiently complete responses for inclusion in the analysis. Of these respondents, 57% accepted two or more types of patients with complex conditions of interest; these SNFs were more likely to be urban, for‐profit, and serve more dual‐eligible patients. SNFs accepting complex patients experience information sharing on par with other facilities, and are more likely to receive information on behavioral, social, mental, and functional status (25.41% vs. 12.90%; p = 0.023). These facilities are also more likely to consistently use electronic methods (e.g., an online portal, shared electronic health record [EHR] access) to retrieve information from partner hospitals. Conclusions: SNFs accepting complex patients demonstrate some evidence of enhanced information retrieval via electronically mediated pathways. Overall, information sharing remains underdeveloped in this care context. Policymakers should continue to prioritize widespread digital infrastructure that supports post‐acute care delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing and maintaining an institutional repository requires thoughtful and active outreach efforts to many campus constituencies. Over the past two years, librarians at Augustana College have communicated with many members of their campus community to build collaborations and collect content to fill their repository. Connie Ghinazzi, Research and Outreach librarian at Augustana College, drew on her experiences doing outreach for the Augustana Digital Commons to detail strategies that librarians can use to establish and grow their institutional repositories, including crafting a mission statement, identifying collaboration partners, acting on plans, and celebrating and reflecting on successes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Health Level Seven (HL 7) message standards (v2, v3, Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)) have been commonly adopted, there are still issues associated with them, especially the semantic interoperability issues and lack of support for smart devices (e.g., smartphones, fitness trackers, and smartwatches), etc. In addition, healthcare organizations in many countries are still using proprietary electronic health record (EHR) message formats, making it challenging to convert to other data formats—particularly the latest HL7 Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) data standard. The FHIR is based on modern web technologies such as HTTP, XML, and JSON and would be capable of overcoming the shortcomings of the previous standards and supporting modern smart devices. Therefore, the FHIR standard could help the healthcare industry to avail the latest technologies benefits and improve data interoperability. The data representation and mapping from the legacy data standards (i.e., HL7 v2 and EHR) to the FHIR is necessary for the healthcare sector. However, direct data mapping or conversion from the traditional data standards to the FHIR data standard is challenging because of the nature and formats of the data. Therefore, in this article, we propose a framework that aims to convert proprietary EHR messages into the HL7 v2 format and apply an unsupervised clustering approach using the DBSCAN (density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise) algorithm to automatically group a variety of these HL7 v2 messages regardless of their semantic origins. The proposed framework's implementation lays the groundwork to provide a generic mapping model with multi-point and multi-format data conversion input into the FHIR. Our experimental results show the proposed framework's ability to automatically cluster various HL7 v2 message formats and provide analytic insight behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Knowledge is power"—holds the popular proverb, because knowledge and information is indeed one of the cornerstones of effective decision making, a requisite all living beings face continually. In fact, effective decision making is a matter of life and death, for individuals and groups alike. Furthermore, in case of group decisions, consensus is also often desirable. This latter one has been studied extensively by means of formal (mathematical) tools (in the field of opinion dynamics), while the first requirement, the process of yielding accurate information has been largely neglected, at least so far. In the present paper we study the optimal structure of groups which are embedded into an external, observable environment for (i) reaching consensus (ii) having well-informed members, and (iii) for those cases when both aspects are equally important. The groups are characterised by their communication networks and individual properties. We find that the group structures fundamentally differ from each other since having well-informed members requires highly specialised individuals embedded into a structured communication network, while consensus is promoted by non-hierarchical networks in which individuals participate equally. We also find that—contrary to intuition—high access to information calls forth hierarchy, and that suggestibility promotes accuracy, not consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study identifies the types of patient-related information problems (PIPs) that patient-care teams encounter during morning rounds, and how those PIPs are identified and managed. PIPs are any issues related to patient information (e.g., wrong, missing, incomplete information) that affect the patient-care team's ability to perform their work. Not addressing PIPs can lead to workflow challenges, delayed patient-care decisions, and negative impacts to the patient.Materials and Methods: We employed qualitative data collection methods by shadowing patient-care teams during 29 morning rounds resulting in 155h of observation. We observed the interactions between the rounding physicians and other patient-care team members, including: nurses, consulting physicians, care coordinators, pharmacists, social workers, and therapists.Results: This study resulted in identifying seven types of PIPs that occur during morning rounds. Additionally, the study presents the different ways that participants identified and managed the PIPs.Discussion: We discuss the potential negative effects of PIPs on the patient-care workflow. We also discuss socio-technical recommendations for organizational policies and training, as well as electronic health record (EHR) design improvements that could help patient-care teams more effectively identify and manage PIPs.Conclusion: Hospital teams rely on accurate, available, and up-to-date information in order to make informed decisions on patient care. However, PIPs exist in EHR systems, paper documents, and verbal conversations. This study identifies a set of PIPs and how they are currently being identified and managed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Benchmarking Initiative for Multimedia Evaluation (MediaEval) organizes an annual cycle of scientific evaluation tasks in the area of multimedia access and retrieval. The tasks offer scientific challenges to researchers working in diverse areas of multimedia technology. The tasks, which are focused on the social and human aspects of multimedia, help the research community tackle challenges linked to less widely studied user needs. They also support researchers in investigating the diversity of perspectives that naturally arise when users interact with multimedia content. Here, the authors present highlights from the 2016 workshop. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]