Developing a distributed electronic health-record store for India

The DIGHT project is addressing the problem of building a scalable and highly available information store for the Electronic Health Records (EHRs) of the over one billion citizens of India

Is my configuration any good: checking usability in an interactive sensor-based activity monitor

We investigate formal analysis of two aspects of usability in a deployed interactive, configurable and context-aware system: an event-driven, sensor-based homecare activity monitor system. The system was not designed from formal requirements or specification: we model the system as it is in the context of an agile development process. Our aim was to determine if formal modelling and analysis can contribute to improving usability, and if so, which style of modelling is most suitable. The purpose of the analysis is to inform configurers about how to interact with the system, so the system is more usable for participants, and to guide future developments. We consider redundancies in configuration rules defined by carers and participants and the interaction modality of the output messages.Two approaches to modelling are considered: a deep embedding in which devices, sensors and rules are represented explicitly by data structures in the modelling language and non-determinism is employed to model all possible device and sensor states, and a shallow embedding in which the rules and device and sensor states are represented directly in propositional logic. The former requires a conventional machine and a model-checker for analysis, whereas the latter is implemented using a SAT solver directly on the activity monitor hardware. We draw conclusions about the role of formal models and reasoning in deployed systems and the need for clear semantics and ontologies for interaction modalities

Toward a New Paradigm for Risk-Based Radiation Policymaking

OBJECTIVE: An exploratory analysis demonstrating that U.S. radiation policymaking should be remade in a manner that considers the risk tradeoffs associated with dose-limiting regulations.METHODS: Three studies contribute separate chapters to this manuscript. The first study is a systematic review conforming to PRISMA guidelines. PubMed and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s web-based public recordkeeping database were searched for evidence demonstrating a concern for risk tradeoff. The second study conceptualizes a theory based model for predicting risk tradeoff in radiation policymaking. The model integrates sources of risk tradeoff and constructs of moral disengagement theory. The third study reviews radiological data obtained during 11 cyclotron decommissioning projects. The data are translated into meaningful metrics that are valuable for examining risk tradeoffs made by low-level radioactive waste policymaking.RESULTS: A total of 64 relevant documents were returned by the literature review, but only eight documents were concerned with radiation risks. Only one of the documents reflects an analysis of risk tradeoff, whereas six express a need for forward-thinking policymaking that considers countervailing risks. The result of the second study is an illustrative conceptual model. The model predicts that well-intentioned policymakers, faced with jurisdictional boundaries and other pervasive sources of risk tradeoff, may offer policy solutions that reduce target risks but ignore countervailing risks. Policymaking accomplished in this manner will fail to offer maximum risk protection. Calculated dose equivalents for the 11 sites examined by the third study ranged from 0.01 to 43.2 mSv y-1 and correspond to a risk of 0.1 to 432 extra cases of solid cancer or leukemia per 100,000 persons. Waste from nine of the sites exceeds the dose limit specified in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radiological criteria for unrestricted use. Notwithstanding such findings, cyclotron waste is not regulated as low-level radioactive waste.CONCLUSIONS: The paradigm for radiation protection policymaking should be remade in a manner that looks beyond the perceived immediate benefits of limiting dose. For a new paradigm to prevail, research that examines risk tradeoffs with a logical framework is needed, and the public must be educated on the unembellished actual risks associated with radiation

Minimalism and Experimentalism in the Administrative State

This Article identifies and appraises the two most promising alternatives to the command-and-control style of public administration that was dominant from the New Deal to the 1980s but is now in disfavor The first – minimalism – emphasizes public interventions that incorporate market concepts and practices while also centralizing and minimizing administrative discretion. The second – experimentalism – emphasizes interventions in which the central government affords broad discretion to local administrative units but measures and assesses their performance in ways designed to induce continuous learning and revision of standards. Minimalism has been prominent in legal scholarship and in the policy discourse of recent presidential administrations, but its practical impact has been surprisingly limited. By contrast, experimentalism, which has had a lower profile in academic and public discussion, has visibly influenced a broad range of critical policy initiatives in the United States and abroad. Indeed, key initiatives of the Obama Administration, including the Food Safety Modernization Act and the Race to the Top education program, are virtually unintelligible from any other perspective. We argue that, in practice, minimalism suffers from an excessive preoccupation with static efficiency norms and price signals, and from insufficient attention to learning and weak signals of risk and opportunity. Experimentalist intervention is a more promising approach in the growing realm of policy challenges characterized by uncertainty about both the definition of the relevant problems and the solutions