Towards Integrated Public Service Delivery Based On An Ontological Framework

Present-day governments are experiencing a shift towards supplying demand-driven and personalized electronic services. This often requires that government organizations collaborate with each other and their services and processes need to be integrated to act in a coherent manner. In this paper, we take the diversity of government agencies as a starting point and focus on the development of a shared ontology to enable interoperability among heterogeneous business process and services of public agencies. This framework contributes to understanding the key concepts and relations that form the basis for coordinating the activities necessary for integrated public service delivery. The ontology is aimed at capturing the main elements to enable communication among and integration of the activities of decentralized and autonomous agencies. The ontology has been interactively developed by studying organizational processes, by conducting interviews and literature study. The proposed ontology can provide a foundation for an architecture blueprint that can enable demand-driven integrated service delivery in practice without having to pose detailed requirements on organizations. As autonomy is fostered, this research can potentially enable the integration of private organizations

A cluster randomized controlled trial on the effects and costs of advance care planning in elderly care: Study protocol

Background: Currently, health care and medical decision-making at the end of life for older people are often insufficiently patient-centred. In this trial we study the effects of Advance Care Planning (ACP), a formalised process of timely communication about care preferences at the end of life, for frail older people. Methods/Design: We will conduct a cluster randomised controlled trial among older people residing in care homes or receiving home care in the Netherlands. The intervention group will receive the ACP program Respecting Choices® in addition to usual care. The control group will receive usual care only. Participants in both groups will fill out questionnaires at baseline and after 12 months. We hypothesize that ACP will lead to better patient activation in medical decision making and quality of life, while reducing the number of medical interventions and thus health care costs. Multivariate analysis will be used to compare differences between the intervention group and the control group at baseline and to compare differences in changes after 12 months following the inclusion. Discussion: Our study can contribute to more understanding of the effects of ACP on patient activation and quality of life in frail older people. Further, we will gain insight in the costs and cost-effectiveness of ACP. This study will facilitate ACP policy for older people in the Netherlands. Trial registration: Nederlands Trial Register: NTR4454

Microbiome interconnectedness throughout environments with major consequences for healthy people and a healthy planet

Microbiomes have highly important roles for ecosystem functioning and carry out key functions that support planetary health, including nutrient cycling, climate regulation, and water filtration. Microbiomes are also intimately associated with complex multicellular organisms such as humans, other animals, plants, and insects and perform crucial roles for the health of their hosts. Although we are starting to understand that microbiomes in different systems are interconnected, there is still a poor understanding of microbiome transfer and connectivity. In this review we show how microbiomes are connected within and transferred between different habitats and discuss the functional consequences of these connections. Microbiome transfer occurs between and within abiotic (e.g., air, soil, and water) and biotic environments, and can either be mediated through different vectors (e.g., insects or food) or direct interactions. Such transfer processes may also include the transmission of pathogens or antibiotic resistance genes. However, here, we highlight the fact that microbiome transmission can have positive effects on planetary and human health, where transmitted microorganisms potentially providing novel functions may be important for the adaptation of ecosystems.The European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation Program and a grant of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.https://journals.asm.org/journal/mmbram2024Plant Production and Soil ScienceSDG-15:Life on lan

Functional mechanisms underlying pleiotropic risk alleles at the 19p13.1 breast-ovarian cancer susceptibility locus

A locus at 19p13 is associated with breast cancer (BC) and ovarian cancer (OC) risk. Here we analyse 438 SNPs in this region in 46,451 BC and 15,438 OC cases, 15,252 BRCA1 mutation carriers and 73,444 controls and identify 13 candidate causal SNPs associated with serous OC (P=9.2 × 10-20), ER-negative BC (P=1.1 × 10-13), BRCA1-associated BC (P=7.7 × 10-16) and triple negative BC (P-diff=2 × 10-5). Genotype-gene expression associations are identified for candidate target genes ANKLE1 (P=2 × 10-3) and ABHD8 (P<2 × 10-3). Chromosome conformation capture identifies interactions between four candidate SNPs and ABHD8, and luciferase assays indicate six risk alleles increased transactivation of the ADHD8 promoter. Targeted deletion of a region containing risk SNP rs56069439 in a putative enhancer induces ANKLE1 downregulation; and mRNA stability assays indicate functional effects for an ANKLE1 3′-UTR SNP. Altogether, these data suggest that multiple SNPs at 19p13 regulate ABHD8 and perhaps ANKLE1 expression, and indicate common mechanisms underlying breast and ovarian cancer risk

A case-only study to identify genetic modifiers of breast cancer risk for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers

Breast cancer (BC) risk for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers varies by genetic and familial factors. About 50 common variants have been shown to modify BC risk for mutation carriers. All but three, were identified in general population studies. Other mutation carrier-specific susceptibility variants may exist but studies of mutation carriers have so far been underpowered. We conduct a novel case-only genome-wide association study comparing genotype frequencies between 60,212 general population BC cases and 13,007 cases with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. We identify robust novel associations for 2 variants with BC for BRCA1 and 3 for BRCA2 mutation carriers, P < 10−8, at 5 loci, which are not associated with risk in the general population. They include rs60882887 at 11p11.2 where MADD, SP11 and EIF1, genes previously implicated in BC biology, are predicted as potential targets. These findings will contribute towards customising BC polygenic risk scores for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers

Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness of Knowledge Exchange between Knowledge Workers

Contains fulltext : 34657.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access)Information technology increasingly influences the way we work and live. Contemporary businesses demonstrate significant concerns on how increasing amounts of available information can be converted into knowledge. An increasing need for new knowledge concerning the development of new services which an organization offers to the customers in order to be competitive in the market is but an example of how important the dissemination of knowledge within organizations is. The growth in the relative size of people working in the knowledge economy stresses these developments. The research discussed in this paper focuses on improving the effciency and effectiveness of knowledge exchange between knowledge workers by means of automated support so that dissemination of knowledge within organizations improves

Bridging supply and demand for knowledge intensive tasks : based on knowledge, cognition and quality

Contains fulltext : 75254.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 24 april 2009Promotor : Proper, E.231 p