Adaptation of international guidelines on assessment and management of cancer pain for the Australian context

Aim: To develop clinical practice guidelines for screening, assessing and managing cancer pain in Australian adults. Methods: This three phase project utilised the ADAPTE approach to adapt international cancer pain guidelines for the Australian setting. A Working Party was established to define scope, screen guidelines for adaptation, and develop recommendations to support better cancer pain control through screening, assessment, pharmacological and non-pharmacological management, and patient education. Recommendations with limited evidence were referred to Expert Panels for advice before the draft guidelines were opened for public consultation via the Cancer Council Australia Cancer Guidelines Wiki platform in late 2012. All comments were reviewed by the Working Party and the guidelines revised accordingly. Results: Screening resulted in six international guidelines being included for adaptation - those developed by the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (2008), National Health Service Quality Improvement Scotland (2009), National Comprehensive Cancer Network (2012), European Society of Medical Oncology (2011), European Association for Palliative Care (2011, 2012) and National Institute of Clinical Excellence (2012). Guideline adaptation resulted in 55 final recommendations. The guidelines were officially launched in November 2013. Conclusion: International guidelines can be efficiently reconfigured for local contexts using the ADAPTE approach. Availability of the guidelines via the Cancer Council Australia Wiki is intended to promote uptake and enable recommendations to be kept up to date. Resources to support implementation will also be made available via the Wiki if found to be effective by a randomised controlled trial commencing in 2015

Goal-Oriented Monitoring Adaptation : methodology and patterns

International audienceThis paper argues that autonomic systems need to make their distributed monitoring adaptive in order to improve their “comprehensive” resulting quality; that means both the Quality of Service (QoS), and the Quality of Information (QoI). Thus, we propose a methodology to design monitoring adaptation based on high level objectives (goals) related to the management of quality requirements. One of the advantages of adopting a methodological approach, is that monitoring reconfiguration will be conducted through a consistent adaptation logic. Starting from a model-guided monitoring framework, we introduce our methodology to assist human administrators in eliciting the appropriate quality goals piloting the monitoring. Moreover, some monitoring adaptation patterns falling into reconfiguration dimensions are suggested and exploited in a cloud provider case-study illustrating the adaptation of Quality-Oriented monitoring

Reconfiguration patterns for Goal-Oriented Monitoring Adaptation

International audienceThis paper argues that autonomic systems need to make their distributed monitoring adaptive in order to improve their “comprehensive” resulting quality; that means both the Quality of Service (QoS), and the Quality of Information (QoI). In a previous work, we proposed a methodology to design monitoring adaptation based on high level objectives related to the management of quality requirements. One of the advantages of adopting a methodological approach is that monitoring reconfiguration will be conducted through a consistent adaptation logic. However, eliciting the appropriate quality goals remains an area to be investigated. In this paper, we tackle this issue by proposing some monitoring adaptation patterns falling into reconfiguration dimensions. Those patterns aim at facilitating the adaptation design of monitoring behavior of the whole set of distributed monitoring modules part of autonomic systems. The utility of those patterns is illustrated through a case-study dealing with monitoring adaptation based on high level quality objectives

Building an Infrastructure Level Context Model in Ambient Assisted Living

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services provide intelligent and context aware assistance for elderly people in their home environment. This domain puts special requirements on context modeling that are not in the scope of current context modeling approaches. Such an approach has to support all phases of an AAL service, from its specification and development until its operation within the user’s smart home environment. In these phases different types of context models can be identified. We have developed a comprehensive context modeling approach for the development of AAL services. Part of it is the separation of context modeling into infrastructure, service adaptation and end user modeling specific aspects. In this paper we focus on the infrastructure, which includes the context sensors available in the smart home environment. Therein we present our context modeling approach starting from a conceptual context model. We also introduce a context management system based on a metamodel that supports its seamless transition into an operative context model without further implementation

Building an Infrastructure Level Context Model in Ambient Assisted Living

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services provide intelligent and context aware assistance for elderly people in their home environment. This domain puts special requirements on context modeling that are not in the scope of current context modeling approaches. Such an approach has to support all phases of an AAL service, from its specification and development until its operation within the user’s smart home environment. In these phases different types of context models can be identified. We have developed a comprehensive context modeling approach for the development of AAL services. Part of it is the separation of context modeling into infrastructure, service adaptation and end user modeling specific aspects. In this paper we focus on the infrastructure, which includes the context sensors available in the smart home environment. Therein we present our context modeling approach starting from a conceptual context model. We also introduce a context management system based on a metamodel that supports its seamless transition into an operative context model without further implementation

On-Demand Composition of Smart Service Systems in Decentralized Environments

The increasing number of smart systems inevitably leads to a huge number of systems that potentially provide independently designed, autonomously operating services. In near-future smart computing systems, such as smart cities, smart grids or smart mobility, independently developed and heterogeneous services need to be dynamically interconnected in order to develop their full potential in a rather complex collaboration with others. Since the services are developed independently, it is challenging to integrate them on-the-fly at run time. Due to the increasing degree of distribution, such systems operate in a decentralized and volatile environment, where central management is infeasible. Conversely, the increasing computational power of such systems also supersedes the need for central management. The four identified key problems of adaptable, collaborative Smart Service Systems are on-demand composition of complex service structures in decentralized environments, the absence of a comprehensive, serendipity-aware specification, a discontinuity from design-time specification to run-time execution, and the lack of a development methodology that separates the development of a service from that of its role essential to a collaboration. This approach utilizes role-based models, which have a collaborative nature, for automated, on-demand service composition. A rigorous two-phase development methodology is proposed in order to demarcate the development of the services from that of their role essential to a collaboration. Therein, a collaboration designer specifies the collaboration including its abstract functionality using the proposed role-based collaboration specification for Smart Service Systems. Thereof, a partial implementation is derived, which is complemented by services developed in the second phase. The proposed middleware architecture provides run-time support and bridges the gap between design and run time. It implements a protocol for coordinated, role-based composition and adaptation of Smart Service Systems. The approach is quantitatively and qualitatively evaluated by means of a case study and a performance evaluation in order to identify limitations of complex service structures and the trade-off of employing the concept of roles for composition and adaptation of Smart Service Systems.:1 Introduction 1.1 Motivation 1.2 Terminology 1.3 Problem Statement 1.4 Requirements Analysis 1.5 Research Questions and Hypothesis 1.6 Focus and Limitations 1.7 Outline 2 The Role Concept in Computer Science 2.1 What is a Role in Computer Science? 2.2 Roles in RoleDiSCo 3 State of the Art & Related Work 3.1 Role-based Modeling Abstractions for Software Systems 3.1.1 Classification 3.1.2 Approaches 3.1.3 Summary 3.2 Role-based Run-Time Systems 3.2.1 Classification 3.2.2 Approaches 3.2.3 Summary 3.3 Spontaneously Collaborating Run-Time Systems 3.3.1 Classification 3.3.2 Approaches 3.3.3 Summary 3.4 Summary 4 On-Demand Composition and Adaptation of Smart Service Systems 4.1 RoleDiSCo Development Methodology 4.1.1 Role-based Collaboration Specification for Smart Service Systems 4.1.2 Derived Partial Implementation 4.1.3 Player & Context Provision 4.2 RoleDiSCo Middleware Architecture for Smart Service Systems 4.2.1 Infrastructure Abstraction Layer 4.2.2 Context Management 4.2.3 Local Repositories & Knowledge 4.2.4 Discovery 4.2.5 Dispatcher 4.3 Coordinated Composition and Subsequent Adaptation 4.3.1 Initialization and Planning 4.3.2 Composition: Coordinating Subsystem 4.3.3 Composition: Non-Coordinating Subsystem 4.3.4 Competing Collaborations & Negotiation 4.3.5 Subsequent Adaptation 4.3.6 Terminating a Pervasive Collaboration 4.4 Summary 5 Implementing RoleDiSCo 5.1 RoleDiSCo Development Support 5.2 RoleDiSCo Middleware 5.2.1 Infrastructure Abstraction Layer 5.2.2 Knowledge Repositories and Local Class Discovery 5.2.3 Planner 6 Evaluation 6.1 Case Study: Distributed Slideshow 6.1.1 Scenario 6.1.2 Phase 1: Collaboration Design 6.1.3 Phase 2: Player Complementation 6.1.4 Coordinated Composition and Adaptation at Run Time 6.2 Runtime Evaluation 6.2.1 General Testbed Setup and Scenarios 6.2.2 Discovery Time 6.2.3 Composition Time 6.2.4 Discussion 6.3 The ›Role‹ of Roles 6.4 Summary 7 Conclusion 7.1 Summary 7.2 Research Results 7.3 Future Wor

Flexible RDF data extraction from Wiktionary - Leveraging the power of community build linguistic wikis

We present a declarative approach implemented in a comprehensive opensource framework (based on DBpedia) to extract lexical-semantic resources (an ontology about language use) from Wiktionary. The data currently includes language, part of speech, senses, definitions, synonyms, taxonomies (hyponyms, hyperonyms, synonyms, antonyms) and translations for each lexical word. Main focus is on flexibility to the loose schema and configurability towards differing language-editions ofWiktionary. This is achieved by a declarative mediator/wrapper approach. The goal is, to allow the addition of languages just by configuration without the need of programming, thus enabling the swift and resource-conserving adaptation of wrappers by domain experts. The extracted data is as fine granular as the source data in Wiktionary and additionally follows the lemon model. It enables use cases like disambiguation or machine translation. By offering a linked data service, we hope to extend DBpedia’s central role in the LOD infrastructure to the world of Open Linguistics.

Adaptation of WASH Services Delivery to Climate Change and Other Sources of Risk and Uncertainty

This report urges WASH sector practitioners to take more seriously the threat of climate change and the consequences it could have on their work. By considering climate change within a risk and uncertainty framework, the field can use the multitude of approaches laid out here to adequately protect itself against a range of direct and indirect impacts. Eleven methods and tools for this specific type of risk management are described, including practical advice on how to implement them successfully

Environmental Migrations from Conflict-Affected Countries: Focus on EU Policy Response

Given the strong evidence that most environmental migration is likely to occur within the Global South, the analysis of this paper and many of its recommendations focus on EU external and humanitarian policies in the field of environmental migration, as well as foreign policy and humanitarian aid and development-cooperation programs implemented in conflict-affected countries. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the environmental migration debate with a multifaceted perspective that takes into account the relationship between climate change, migration and conflict. In doing so, it aims to highlight areas of particular political and geopolitical interest where further EU legal, policy, and humanitarian action is needed. On the basis of the analyzed legal, political, and institutional frameworks and the critical issues raised from the rograms implemented in the field, I will indicate areas of political and geopolitical interest for EU external action and humanitarian aid strategy and where further EU policy action is needed

Resource Optimization in Government Transformation Academies: A Study at the Ministry of Communication and Informatics in Indonesia

Various problems in the implementation of highly complex and multidimensional government programs pose challenges to developing countries, including Indonesia. Comprehensive efforts are needed to overcome these constraints, including appropriate resource allocation, institutional capacity enhancement, strengthening good governance, combating corruption, addressing social and economic inequalities, political stability, and adaptation to environmental and geographical factors. This article describes the resources utilized in the implementation of a GTA program based on the types of resources. The approach employed in this study is descriptive and qualitative, while the data collection method utilizes the examination of government documents. The objective of this research is to explore and analyze the current state of resource utilization within government networks with the aim of identifying areas for optimization and improvement. The combination of human resources, partnerships, and technological resources in the GTA program, along with the utilization of qualitative research methods, demonstrates a comprehensive and multifaceted approach to government transformation and resource optimization. The program aims to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, and digital transformation within the government, while the research contributes to a deeper understanding of the current practices and challenges. By integrating these findings into policy and programmatic decisions, governments can strive towards better resource allocation, improved service delivery, and ultimately, more effective and responsive governance in the context of government networks. Keywords: governance network, resource governance, government progra