The Impact of Security Practices on Regulatory Compliance and Security Performance

This study examines how a healthcare organization’s security practices (including IT controls, policies, education, and hiring practices) influence their perceived regulatory compliance and security performance. We utilized qualitative and quantitative survey data provided by senior IT managers from 250 healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations must focus on preventing breaches as well as complying with government regulation. Using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), we examine how specific security practices improve regulatory compliance, protect patient information, and minimize the impact of a breach incident. The results show that audit polices are positively associated with perceived regulatory compliance and security policies are associated with security performance. We also find that the interaction of both audit and security policies has a more significant effect than either type alone. Surprisingly, an organization’s level of compliance is not significantly associated with actual security performance. This study can provide healthcare organizations with strategic guidelines to improve their regulatory compliance and security performance

Security Practices and Regulatory Compliance in the Healthcare Industry

This study examined the adoption of security practices, with the goal of identifying dominant configurations and their relationship to perceived compliance. We utilized survey data from 204 hospitals including adoption status of 17 security practices and perceived compliance levels on HITECH, HIPAA, Red Flags Rules, CMS, and State laws governing patient information security. Using cluster analysis and t-tests, we found that three clusters of security practices are significantly associated with different levels of perceived compliance. We demonstrated significant differences among non-technical practices rather than technical practices, and the highest levels of compliance are associated with hospitals that employed a balanced approach between technical and non-technical practices (or between one-time and cultural practices). Our results provide security practice benchmarks for healthcare administrators and can help policy makers in developing strategic and practical guidelines for practice adoption

The Impact of Gamification Design on the Success of Health and Fitness Apps

Gamification has been increasingly employed in health-related apps in recent years. However, the effect of gamification design on the success of health and fitness apps remains unknown and has not been investigated before. This study attempts to identify what gamification elements are frequently used in the design of health and fitness apps and to empirically quantify their effects on app downloads and user ratings of these apps. We construct a rich dataset that includes information about the daily downloads, ratings and gamification design elements of 2,462 health and fitness apps on the Apple App Store. Our sample contains 924 paid apps and 1,538 free apps. This study contributes to both the gamification and mobile app literatures and provides important implications for app developers who intend to adopt gamification in mobile app design

Spillover in Sharing Economies: Network Effect of Bike-sharing Services on Home-sharing Performance

Bike-sharing provides a convenient transportation layer with its inter-connected bike station network. However, the economic value spilled by the network is unknown. This study fills this gap by empirically connecting two separate yet interrelated sharing services: bike-sharing and home-sharing. Using data from CitiBike and Airbnb, the study conducts a difference-in-difference analysis to examine the effect of new bike-sharing entries on local home-sharing performance. The results show that new bike-sharing entries increase nearby Airbnb properties’ monthly revenue by $127 (9.59$1.41 (per reachable station), $0.27 (per second saved), and$17.36 (per dollar saved). The study also uncovers the moderating effect of first/last mile connection and property luxuriousness. Our findings have important implications for both bike-sharing network design and home-sharing marketing

Meteorin regulates mesendoderm development by enhancing nodal expression

During gastrulation, distinct lineage specification into three germ layers, the mesoderm, endoderm and ectoderm, occurs through an elaborate harmony between signaling molecules along the embryonic proximo-distal and anterior-posterior axes, and Nodal signaling plays a key role in the early embryonic development governing embryonic axis formation, mesoderm and endoderm specification, and left-right asymmetry determination. However, the mechanism by which Nodal expression is regulated is largely unknown. Here, we show that Meteorin regulates Nodal expression and is required for mesendoderm development. It is highly expressed in the inner cell mass of blastocysts and further in the epiblast and extra-embryonic ectoderm during gastrulation. Genetic ablation of the Meteorin gene resulted in early embryonic lethality, presumably due to impaired lineage allocation and subsequent cell accumulation. Embryoid body culture using Meteorin-null embryonic stem (ES) cells showed reduced Nodal expression and concomitant impairment of mesendoderm specification. Meteorin-null embryos displayed reduced levels of Nodal transcripts before the gastrulation stage, and impaired expression of Goosecoid, a definitive endoderm marker, during gastrulation, while the proximo-distal and anterior-posterior axes and primitive streak formation were preserved. Our results show that Meteorin is a novel regulator of Nodal transcription and is required to maintain sufficient Nodal levels for endoderm formation, thereby providing new insights in the regulation of mesendoderm allocation.open1113sciescopu

The Quest for National Digital Agility: Digital Responses to Covid-19 in Five Countries

Countries worldwide have employed different digital solutions to contain and cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. In this explorative case research, we examine national-level digital responses to the pandemic in four specific areas—tracking and tracing, health data reporting, teleconsultation, and vaccination mobilization—across five countries: China, Denmark, Germany, South Korea, and the U.S. Drawing on the notion of agility and digital infrastructures, our cross-case analysis unveils how the countries’ digital responses to the pandemic have been shaped by their national health system characteristics. In addition, we highlight how existing digital health infrastructures, regulatory adaptations, and industry collaborations fostered the alacrity with which nations responded to the pandemic. We define national-level digital agility as the ability of a nation to leverage digital infrastructure capabilities to address urgent societal challenges in a contextually appropriate way. Our key contribution is a model of this complex, but urgently needed concept containing five building blocks, each of which is a critical prerequisite to building such agility. Despite focusing on addressing the existing challenges of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, we believe that researchers and policymakers can also take pointers away from our framework to tackle other socio-environmental challenges

Hanja alexia with agraphia after left posterior inferior temporal lobe infarction: a case study.

Korean written language is composed of ideogram (Hanja) and phonogram (Hangul), as Japanese consists of Kanji (ideogram) and Kana (phonogram). Dissociation between ideogram and phonogram impairment after brain injury has been reported in Japanese, but few in Korean. We report a 64-yr-old right-handed man who showed alexia with agraphia in Hanja but preserved Hangul reading and writing after a left posterior inferior temporal lobe infarction. Interestingly, the patient was an expert in Hanja; he had been a Hanja calligrapher over 40 yr. However, when presented with 65 basic Chinese letters that are taught in elementary school, his responses were slow both in reading (6.3 sec/letter) and writing (8.8 sec/letter). The rate of correct response was 81.5% (53 out of 65 letters) both in reading and writing. The patient's performances were beyond mean-2SD of those of six age-, sex-, and education-matched controls who correctly read 64.7 out of 65 and wrote 62.5 out of 65 letters with a much shorter reaction time (1.3 sec/letter for reading and 4.0 sec/letter for writing). These findings support the notion that ideogram and phonogram can be mediated in different brain regions and Hanja alexia with agraphia in Korean patients can be associated with a left posterior inferior temporal lesion

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong