Pharmacogenomic associations of adverse drug reactions in asthma: systematic review and research prioritisation

A systematic review of pharmacogenomic studies capturing adverse drug reactions (ADRs) related to asthma medications was undertaken, and a survey of Pharmacogenomics in Childhood Asthma (PiCA) consortia members was conducted. Studies were eligible if genetic polymorphisms were compared with suspected ADR(s) in a patient with asthma, as either a primary or secondary outcome. Five studies met the inclusion criteria. The ADRs and polymorphisms identified were change in lung function tests (rs1042713), adrenal suppression (rs591118), and decreased bone mineral density (rs6461639) and accretion (rs9896933, rs2074439). Two of these polymorphisms were replicated within the paper, but none had external replication. Priorities from PiCA consortia members (representing 15 institution in eight countries) for future studies were tachycardia (SABA/LABA), adrenal suppression/crisis and growth suppression (corticosteroids), sleep/behaviour disturbances (leukotriene receptor antagonists), and nausea and vomiting (theophylline). Future pharmacogenomic studies in asthma should collect relevant ADR data as well as markers of efficacy

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

“Ontology enabled annotation and knowledge management for collaborative learning in virtual learning community,”

[[abstract]]The nature of collaborative learning involves intensive interactions among collaborators, such as articulating knowledge into written, verbal or symbolic forms, authoring articles or posting messages to this community’s discussion forum, responding or adding comments to messages or articles posted by others,etc. Knowledge collaborators’ capabilities to provide knowledge and the motivation to collaborate in the learning process influence the quantity and quality of the knowledge to flow into the virtual learning community. In this paper, we have developed an ontology enabled annotation and knowledge management to provide semantic web services from three perspectives, personalized annotation, real-time discussion, and semantic content retrieval. Personalized annotation is used to equip the collaborators with Web based authoring tools for commenting, knowledge articulation and exertion by extracting metadata from both the annotated content and the annotation itself, and establishing ontological relation between them. The realtime discussion is used as a bridge to link collaborators and knowledge and motivate collaborators for knowledge sharing by building profiles for collaborators and knowledge (in the forms of content and annotation) during every discussion session, and establishing ontological relation between the collaborators and knowledge for the use of semantic content retrieval. The semantic content retrieval then utilizes the ontological relations constructed from the personalized annotation and real-time discussion for finding more relevant collaborators and knowledge

“A social network-based system for supporting interactive collaboration in knowledge sharing over peer-to-peer network,”

[[abstract]]Knowledge sharing enables people in virtual communities to access relevant knowledge (explicit or tacit) from broader scope of resources. The performance in such environments is fundamentally based on how effectively the explicit and tacit knowledge can be shared across people, and how efficiently the created knowledge can be organized and disseminated to enrich digital content. This study will address how to apply social network-based system to support interactive collaboration in knowledge sharing over peer-to-peer networks. Results of this study demonstrate that applying such social network-based collaboration support to knowledge sharing helps people find relevant content and knowledgeable collaborators who are willing to share their knowledge

“Context aware service oriented architecture for Web based education”

[[abstract]]In the past years, most of e-learning researches devoted themselves to the exchange and interoperability of various educational materials such as LOM and SCORM. Recently, IMS Learning Design specification provides a generic and flexible language to support pedagogical diversities in online learning. In this paper, we proposed a context-aware SOA to enable the reusability of both learning designs and learning materials by treating them as Web Services. We utilize OWL-S as the service description language to support reasoning procedures and teachers can utilize the semantic matchmaker to retrieve desired learning designs and learning materials in a semantic manner so that they can compose their learning scenarios more efficiently and flexibly

“Social network supports in knowledge sharing”

[[abstract]]One of the essential goals of knowledge sharing is to enable collaboration among the participants (or collaborators) to share relevant knowledge. By collaborators, here we refir to other Web-based workers who either possess related knowledge or can help to discover and obtain the knowledge through communications and discussions. The performance of knowledge sharing is fundamentally based on how collaborators and relevant knowledge can be effectively found. In this paper, we establish a peer-to-peer-based social network to facilitate and enhance Web-based knowledge sharing by finding knowledgeable and trustworthy collaborators who are willing to share their knowledge. Results of this research demonstrate that applying such mechanism do improve the quality of collaboration in knowledge sharing

“Providing context aware learning services to learners with portable devices”

[[abstract]]Context aware learning service is an interactive model between learners and learning services based on learners' surrounding learning environments. We envision that providing context aware learning services is an important step to enhance current Web and mobile based e-learning by finding right collaborator, right information and right learning services in the right place at the right time. The major contributions of this paper are the provision of context-aware learning services, namely context-aware content access for learners with portable devices

“Enhancing quality of e-learning in virtual learning communities by finding quality learning content and trustworthy collaborators,”

[[abstract]]Virtual learning communities encourage members to learn and contribute knowledge. However, knowledge sharing requires mutual-trust collaboration between learners and the contribution of quality knowledge. This task cannot be accomplished by simply storing learning content in repositories. It requires a mechanism to help learners find relevant learning content as well as knowledgeable collaborators to work with. In this paper, we present a peer-to-peer based social network to enhance the quality of e-learning regarding knowledge sharing in virtual learning communities. From a technical viewpoint, we will present advanced semantic search mechanisms for finding quality content and trustworthy collaborators. From the social viewpoint, we will address how to support a trustworthy social network that encourages learners to share. Results of this research demonstrate that applying such mechanisms to knowledge sharing can improve the quality of e-learning in virtual learning communities. (Contains 5 figures and 2 tables.