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Informatics and professional responsibility.

Many problems in software development can be traced to a narrow understanding of professional responsibility. The author examines ways in which software developers have tried to avoid accepting responsibility for their work. After cataloguing various types of responsibility avoidance, the author introduces an expanded concept of positive responsibility. It is argued that the adoption of this sense of positive responsibility will reduce many problems in software development.

Ethics, Professional↗

Informatics for ubiquitous sequencing.

Methods and technologies currently being developed promise an increase of between one and two orders of magnitude in the practical throughputs of DNA sequencing for gene discovery, expression analysis and variant analysis. Integrated laboratories will use all of these methods as components of a molecular strategy for the functional characterization of genes and their products. This review summarizes the types of data produced by these strategies, and the analysis and management challenges that they raise.

Biotechnology↗

OPADE: optimization of drug prescription using advanced informatics.

The computerized drug prescription system (CDPS) is an old, almost obsolete, dream, and numerous researchers have developed prototypes or even full fledged packages. But few systems are currently used in clinical practice. The OPADE project, presented in this paper, aims at developing a computerized system which allows for optimization of drug prescription from a medical, patient compliance and economical point of view; the system will be adapted to different European countries, integrated and customized to local medical practice so as to insure user acceptance.

Computer Systems↗

OpenLabs: the application of advanced informatics and telematics for optimization of clinical laboratory services.

OpenLabs has four major objectives: to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical laboratory services by the integration of Knowledge Based Systems (KBSs) with Laboratory Information Systems (LISs) and equipment; to provide and implement standard solutions for Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) between laboratories and other medical systems; to specify a fully Open architecture for an integrated Clinical LIS and demonstrate the integration of various KBS modules on the open architecture platform; and to demonstrate the integration of OpenLabs modules with existing LISs.

Clinical Laboratory Information Systems↗

SHINE: Strategic Health Informatics Networks for Europe.

The mission of SHINE is to construct an open systems framework for the development of regional community healthcare telematic services that support and add to the strategic business objectives of European healthcare providers and purchasers. This framework will contain a Methodology, that identifies healthcare business processes and develops a supporting IT strategy, and the Open Health Environment. This consists of an architecture and information standards that are 'open' and will be available to any organisation wishing to construct SHINE conform regional healthcare telematic services. Results are: generic models, e.g., regional healthcare business networks, IT strategies; demonstrable, e.g., pilot demonstrators, application and service prototypes; reports, e.g., SHINE Methodology, pilot specifications & evaluations; proposals, e.g., service/interface specifications, standards conformance.

Community Health Planning↗

Neuro-informatics and the neurology of perception.

In the preceding pages a description was given of spatial behaviour and spatial perception. Orientation in space develops under the guidance of a directional frame of reference. The formative power of this spatial organisation is gravity and anti-gravity by which throughout evolution the architecture of the body and its axial layout are shaped. There are no local signs at the surface of the body enabling us to read from them directions and orientations. Locomotion requires equilibrium. It is carried out by articulated limbs. The nervous system modulates the motor patterns dictated by physical forces. Peripheral control loops keep the limbs manageable. Higher levels of control organize control loops among each other. Their activity has the status of operations. As soon as animals are capable of locomotion orientation is based on relationships with objects, with a stable background in particular. As motor organisation develops spatial relationships become more complex. In the case of active touch the shape of an object is determined by manipulation, which is a form of scanning. Tactile scanning combines the features of sampling, tracking and measuring: f.e. solidity, weight, curvature, size. Manipulation is guided by the spatial frame of reference. The innumerable tactile impulses, many of them not perceived separately, are not the primary material of information. Only by ordering the impressions, by discriminating between noise and relevant events is the tactile experience guided by expectations transformed into information. The organism stops manipulating as soon as the scanning procedure has enabled it to match the shape under investigation with the spatial patterns it has at its disposal.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Electronic Data Processing↗

Informatics in palliative care.

A computerized documentation system for palliative care would allow immediate availability of patient data and rapid evaluation of treatment. To develop such a system, many problems must be resolved, including choice of data and type of display. A preliminary screening of information and the introduction of codes to show some parameters are necessary to achieve a good result. We describe a program that allows data entry, storage of data, rapid display and printout of data, and recording of history, previous therapy, pathologic, physical, and laboratory findings, diagnosis, mechanisms and site of pain, drugs, and symptoms. Further improvements and problems are discussed.

Female↗

Methods in informatics: using data derived from a systematic review of health care texts to develop a concept map for use in the neonatal intensive care setting.

A qualitative systematic review of textbooks and clinical guidelines identified assessment criteria for initiation of nipple feeds in premature infants cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) setting. Using a structured method for text source selection and data extraction, 43 health care texts were systematically reviewed yielding 153 separate statements related to assessing premature infants' feeding readiness. Following this procedure, a pile sort method was conducted wherein an expert neonatal nurse practitioner (NNP) grouped the statements according to similarity in meaning. Ten piles of terms emerged from this process. Each pile was "named," depicting discrete components used when assessing premature infants' readiness for nipple feeding. Using these public data and the private knowledge of the NNP informant, a concept map was constructed to illustrate a framework for decision support development and to examine the map's usefulness for structuring knowledge that will provide input to an intelligent decision support system.

Computational Biology↗

A Structural-informatics approach for tracing beta-sheets: building pseudo-C(alpha) traces for beta-strands in intermediate-resolution density maps.

We report the development of two computational methods to assist density map interpretation at intermediate resolutions: sheettracer for building pseudo-C(alpha) models of beta-sheets, and a deconvolution method for enhancing features attributed to major secondary structural elements. Sheettracer is tightly coupled with sheetminer, which was developed to locate sheet densities in intermediate-resolution density maps. The results from sheetminer are used as inputs to sheettracer, which employs a multi-step ad hoc morphological analysis of sheet densities to trace individual strands of beta-sheets. The methods were tested on simulated density maps from 12 protein crystal structures that represent a reasonably complete sampling of sheet morphology. The sheet-tracing results were quantitatively assessed in terms of sensitivity, specificity and rms deviations. Furthermore, sheettracer and the deconvolution method were rigorously tested on experimental maps of the lambda2 protein of reovirus at resolutions of 7.6A and 11.8A. Our results clearly demonstrate the capability of sheettracer in building pseudo-C(alpha) models of beta-sheets in intermediate-resolution density maps and the power of the deconvolution method in enhancing the performance of sheettracer. These computational methods, along with other related ones, should facilitate recognition and analysis of folding motifs from experimental data at intermediate resolutions.

Algorithms↗

Increasing conclusiveness of metabonomic studies by chem-informatic preprocessing of capillary electrophoretic data on urinary nucleoside profiles.

Nowadays, bioinformatics offers advanced tools and procedures of data mining aimed at finding consistent patterns or systematic relationships between variables. Numerous metabolites concentrations can readily be determined in a given biological system by high-throughput analytical methods. However, such row analytical data comprise noninformative components due to many disturbances normally occurring in analysis of biological samples. To eliminate those unwanted original analytical data components advanced chemometric data preprocessing methods might be of help. Here, such methods are applied to electrophoretic nucleoside profiles in urine samples of cancer patients and healthy volunteers. The electrophoretic nucleoside profiles were obtained under following conditions: 100 mM borate, 72.5 mM phosphate, 160 mM SDS, pH 6.7; 25 kV voltage, 30 degrees C temperature; untreated fused silica capillary 70 cm effective length, 50 microm I.D. Different most advanced preprocessing tools were applied for baseline correction, denoising and alignment of electrophoretic data. That approach was compared to standard procedure of electrophoretic peak integration. The best results of preprocessing were obtained after application of the so-called correlation optimized warping (COW) to align the data. The principal component analysis (PCA) of preprocessed data provides a clearly better consistency of the nucleoside electrophoretic profiles with health status of subjects than PCA of peak areas of original data (without preprocessing).

Algorithms↗

A combined immuno-informatics and structure-based modeling approach for prediction of T cell epitopes of secretory proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

The role of secretory proteins of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in pathogenesis and stimulation of specific host responses is well documented. They are also shown to activate different cell types, which subsequently present mycobacterial antigens to T cells. Therefore identification of T cell epitopes from this set of proteins may serve to define candidate antigens with vaccine potential. Fifty-two secretory proteins of M. tuberculosis H37Rv were analyzed computationally for the presence of HLA class I binding nonameric peptides. All possible overlapping nonameric peptide sequences from 52 secretory proteins were generated in silico and analyzed for their ability to bind to 33 alleles belonging to A, B and C loci of HLA class I. Fifteen percent of generated peptides are predicted to bind to HLA with halftime of dissociation T(1/2) >or=100 min and 73% of the peptides predicted to bind are mono-allelic in their binding. The structural basis for recognition of no-namers by different HLA molecules was studied employing structural modeling of HLA class I-peptide complexes and there exists a good correlation between structural analysis and binding prediction. Pathogen peptides that could behave as self- or partially self-peptides in the host were eliminated using a comparative study with the human proteome, thus reducing the number of peptides for analysis. The implications of the finding for vaccine development are discussed vis-à-vis the limitations of the use of subunit vaccine and DNA vaccine.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

Virus-epitope vaccine design: informatic matching the HLA-I polymorphism to the virus genome.

Attempts to develop peptide vaccines, based on a limited number of peptides face two problems: HLA polymorphism and the high mutation rate of viral epitopes. We have developed a new genomic method that ensures maximal coverage and thus maximal applicability of the peptide vaccine. The same method also promises a large number of epitopes per HLA to prevent escape via mutations. Our design can be applied swiftly in order to face rapidly emerging viral diseases. We use a genomic scan of all candidate peptides and join them optimally. For a given virus, we use algorithms computing: peptide cleavage probability, transfer through TAP and MHC binding for a large number of HLA alleles. The resulting peptide libraries are pruned for peptides that are not conserved or are too similar to self peptides. We then use a genetic algorithm to produce an optimal protein composed of peptides from this list properly ordered for cleavage. The selected peptides represent an optimal combination to cover all HLA alleles and all viral proteins. We have applied this method to HCV and found that some HCV proteins (mainly envelope proteins) represent much less peptide than expected. A more detailed analysis of the peptide variability shows a balance between the attempts of the immune system to detect less mutating peptides, and the attempts of viruses to mutate peptides and avoid detection by the immune system. In order to show the applicability of our method, we have further used it on HIV-I, Influenza H3N2 and the Avian Flu Viruses.

Amino Acid Sequence↗

New developments in museum-based informatics and applications in biodiversity analysis.

Information from natural history collections (NHCs) about the diversity, taxonomy and historical distributions of species worldwide is becoming increasingly available over the Internet. In light of this relatively new and rapidly increasing resource, we critically review its utility and limitations for addressing a diverse array of applications. When integrated with spatial environmental data, NHC data can be used to study a broad range of topics, from aspects of ecological and evolutionary theory, to applications in conservation, agriculture and human health. There are challenges inherent to using NHC data, such as taxonomic inaccuracies and biases in the spatial coverage of data, which require consideration. Promising research frontiers include the integration of NHC data with information from comparative genomics and phylogenetics, and stronger connections between the environmental analysis of NHC data and experimental and field-based tests of hypotheses.

Journal Article↗