ARGOS policy brief on semantic interoperability

Semantic interoperability requires the use of standards, not only for Electronic Health Record (EHR) data to be transferred and structurally mapped into a receiving repository, but also for the clinical content of the EHR to be interpreted in conformity with the original meanings intended by its authors. Accurate and complete clinical documentation, faithful to the patient’s situation, and interoperability between systems, require widespread and dependable access to published and maintained collections of coherent and quality-assured semantic resources, including models such as archetypes and templates that would (1) provide clinical context, (2) be mapped to interoperability standards for EHR data, (3) be linked to well specified, multi-lingual terminology value sets, and (4) be derived from high quality ontologies. Wide-scale engagement with professional bodies, globally, is needed to develop these clinical information standards

Curbing journalistic gender bias: How activating awareness of gender bias in Indian journalists affects their reporting

This study examines the effect of gender bias awareness on journalistic decision-making. The study establishes a link between activating journalists’ awareness of their implicit gender bias and objective decision making. Using a randomised experimental setup, journalists were (or were not) administered an Implicit Association Test (IAT) to ascertain their implicit gender bias, followed by decision-making vignettes to measure their explicit gender bias in journalistic reporting. Results indicate that inducing awareness of implicit gender bias through the IAT strongly reduces the production of biased journalistic content. The experiment highlights that journalists who are made aware of their implicit cognitive biases before making the journalistic decisions are more sensitive to avoid cognitive bias errors as compared to the control group of journalists who are not made aware of them. While offering a novel experimental framework for exposing journalistic bias, these results help ascertain solutions for curbing bias in journalism

Traditional Wisdom for Sustainable Agri and Livestock Production: An Opportunity for Better Animal, Human and Environment Health

Animal production is poised to make a generous leap in the years to come because of the multiplicity of the related events that are taking place around the globe. Increased demand of the livestock products, ease of market accessibility, and opportunity of global trade, increased cash flow in urban and rural societies, application of science and application of new technologies in production, feeding & processing may be some of the key factors responsible for the anticipated increase in livestock production. However, at the same time it is high time that we address some areas of quality assurance of feed & food of animal origin, maintaining the production in spite of scarcity of land, water and imminent climate change In nutshell it is high time we integrate Animal health and Agriculture sector for better sustainability of farming community y and simultaneously addressing the national food security .Needless to mention, education of rural masses for adopting new techniques will play a significant role in entire process of livelihood generation of farming community. The traditional wisdom of ancient India existed in integration of “5F”, which meant Food, Feed, Fodder, Fuel & Fertilizer security. In the current era, Ayurvet with help of modern science has worked on the above model using technological tools for addressing the needs of Animal, Human & Environment Health

The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data

The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD, www.i-hd.eu) has been formed as one of the key sustainable entities arising from the Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (IMI-JU-115189) and SemanticHealthNet (FP7-288408) projects, in collaboration with several other European projects and initiatives supported by the European Commission. i~HD is a European not-for-profit body, registered in Belgium through Royal Assent. i~HD has been established to tackle areas of challenge in the successful scaling up of innovations that critically rely on high-quality and interoperable health data. It will specifically address obstacles and opportunities to using health data by collating, developing, and promoting best practices in information governance and in semantic interoperability. It will help to sustain and propagate the results of health information and communication technology (ICT) research that enables better use of health data, assessing and optimizing their novel value wherever possible. i~HD has been formed after wide consultation and engagement of many stakeholders to develop methods, solutions, and services that can help to maximize the value obtained by all stakeholders from health data. It will support innovations in health maintenance, health care delivery, and knowledge discovery while ensuring compliance with all legal prerequisites, especially regarding the insurance of patient's privacy protection. It is bringing multiple stakeholder groups together so as to ensure that future solutions serve their collective needs and can be readily adopted affordably and at scale

Characterising (and closing?) the accountability-capability gap in complex procurement

The role of procurement in the Grenfell fire can be explored in a variety of ways. First, the outsourcing of complex work is increasingly common in private and public-sector procurement. Although the primary strategic rationale for the ‘make-or-buy’ decision remains efficiency maximization, a range of factors, including core competencies and greater technological complexity have shifted the scale and scope of outsourcing. Given the knowledge asymmetries and asset specificities inherent in complex procurement, it seems certain that Grenfell’s procurement professionals found themselves facing the complexity of 'buying more than they knew’, which has demonstrated insufficient procurement capability. Furthermore, replacing internal production by outsourcing (for example, outsourcing auditing to fire services) without considering the loss of internal knowledge, further exacerbated the issue of Grenfell’s lack of capability to buy and monitor complex work. Goal incongruency is also clearly an issue - i.e. the buyer focused on achieving high quality, while the contractors’ goal was to minimise the costs incurred. Well-established behavioural insights indicate that the goal incongruity can, especially if not aligned to an explicit/formal governance system, leads to dysfunctional outcomes. The paper also proposes some ways in which the procurement accountability and capability gap could be addressed. First, adoption of long(er)-term, relational contracts might go some way to resolving the goal congruency issue and incentivise contractors to provide high quality service while reducing monitoring costs. Second, and more fundamentally, public sector contracting organisations need to think much more carefully about outsourcing decisions and consider hybrid mechanisms that both leverage external specialised competencies and limit the loss of control and monitoring capability. Finally, such sophistication likely requires greater professionalisation in the public/construction procurement space with greater emphasis on ethical conduct. Although not without its own challenges, greater professionalisation may be useful for upholding explicit (for example, ethical) and implicit norms

Exploring the Effect of Solution Speciation on Crystallization Outcome

In the field of pharmaceuticals, the crystallization process significantly impacts the purity, morphology and polymorphism of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), all of which are important in drug development. Polymorphism is the existence of more than one solid-state form of the same chemical entity. Tolfenamic acid (TFA), a Non-Steroid Anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), has been shown to exhibit a unique physical phenomenon called concomitant polymorphism, whereby two polymorphs crystallize from the solution simultaneously. From previous work, it has been established that solution speciation i.e. the presence of monomers or dimers of TFA in solution is concentration and temperature dependent. This study correlates this existing solution speciation with the crystallization outcome by analyzing the ratio of polymorphs obtained at different temperatures at a fixed concentration. Polymorphic purity was examined using powder X-ray diffraction. Crystallization experiments were performed at 10°C, 37°C, and 55°C at a constant supersaturation ratio of 1.95. Samples were taken at various time points in the recrystallization process. These samples were examined using Infrared spectroscopy for solid-state composition and quantified using a calibration curve. Pure polymorphs of TFA have been obtained and a calibration curve to quantify phase composition has been established. The initial recrystallization results suggest that the conformation of the crystals in solution is decided by the composition of the initial crystals formed, however more experimentation is necessary. Ongoing work involving recrystallization experiments under different temperature conditions would lead to a much better understanding of the role of solution speciation in the nucleation and crystallization processes

Using electronic health records to support clinical trials: a report on stakeholder engagement for EHR4CR

Background. The conduct of clinical trials is increasingly challenging due to greater complexity and governance requirements as well as difficulties with recruitment and retention. Electronic Health Records for Clinical Research (EHR4CR) aims at improving the conduct of trials by using existing routinely collected data, but little is known about stakeholder views on data availability, information governance, and acceptable working practices. Methods. Senior figures in healthcare organisations across Europe were provided with a description of the project and structured interviews were subsequently conducted to elicit their views. Results. 37 structured interviewees in Germany, UK, Switzerland, and France indicated strong support for the proposed EHR4CR platform. All interviewees reported that using the platform for assessing feasibility would enhance the conduct of clinical trials and the majority also felt it would reduce workloads. Interviewees felt the platform could enhance trial recruitment and adverse event reporting but also felt it could raise either ethical or information governance concerns in their country. Conclusions. There was clear support for EHR4CR and a belief that it could reduce workloads and improve the conduct and quality of trials. However data security, privacy, and information governance issues would need to be carefully managed in the development of the platform

Biliary sludge and recurrent ketoacidosis: a case report

A five year old boy, weighing 14 kg with no family history of diabetes, presented in frank diabetic ketoacidosis. He recovered, but continued to have episodes of ketoacidosis. He was diagnosed to have biliary sludge, which recovered with insulin treatment

Mechanoluminescnce and photoluminescence in gamma irradiated NaCl:Eu

Rare earth (RE) ions posses unique optical behavior when doped into phosphors. Eu2+ activated phosphors find use in many applications. Eu2+ emission arises from the lowest band of 4f6 5d configuration to 8S7/2  state of 4f7. NaCl having different concentrations of Eu were prepared by melt technique. The crystals of small sizes were cleaved from the grown crystal block and crushed to obtain powder or microcrystalline form of NaCl. Annealed samples were exposed to gamma rays at dose level 0.930kGy. Mechanoluminescnce (ML) was excited impulsively by dropping a load of mass 0.4 kg with the impact velocity of   0.6 ms-1 on to it. An intense ML peak was observed in its ML glow curve. ML intensity increases with increasing concentration of dopant. ML emission spectrum shows a single peak at 482 nm. Photoluminescence (PL) of the sample has also been recorded and a single peak at 427 nm was observed. Shift in ML and PL emission spectrum was observed

Nine Principles of Semantic Harmonization

Medical data is routinely collected, stored and recorded across different institutions and in a range of different formats. Semantic harmonization is the process of collating this data into a singular consistent logical view, with many approaches to harmonizing both possible and valid. The broad scope of possibilities for undertaking semantic harmonization do lead however to the development of bespoke and ad-hoc systems; this is particularly the case when it comes to cohort data, the format of which is often specific to a cohort's area of focus. Guided by work we have undertaken in developing the 'EMIF Knowledge Object Library', a semantic harmonization framework underpinning the collation of pan-European Alzheimer's cohort data, we have developed a set of nine generic guiding principles for developing semantic harmonization frameworks, the application of which will establish a solid base for constructing similar frameworks