With the ever-increasing volume of information in clinical medicine, researchers and health professionals need computer-based storage, processing and dissemination. In this book, leading experts in the field provide a series of articles focusing on software applications used to translate information into outcomes of clinical relevance. This book is the perfect guide for researchers and clinical scientists working in this emerging "omics" era.

PACS: A Guide to the Digital Revolution, Second Edition, fills an incredible need by explaining the technological advances associated with the transition of radiology departments to filmless environments. The editors are leaders in the field of medical imaging and they provide insight into emerging technologies for physicians, administrators, and other interested groups. Chapters address key topics in current literature with regard to the generation, transfer, interpretation, and distribution of images.

This new edition has been updated to include: 1. An overview of the latest medical imaging standards; 2. A discussion of security issues as they relate to PACS, especially regarding HIPAA; 3. An introduction to current information on PACS workstations, including the impact of new software and hardware on radiologists; 4. An updated explanation of data storage and compression that highlights how advancements are applied; 5. A section on how PACS influences research and education.

Pervasive healthcare is the conceptual system of providing healthcare to anyone, at anytime, and anywhere by removing restraints of time and location while increasing both the coverage and the quality of healthcare. Pervasive Healthcare Computing is at the forefront of this research, and presents the ways in which mobile and wireless technologies can be used to implement the vision of pervasive healthcare.

This vision includes prevention, healthcare maintenance and checkups; short-term monitoring (home healthcare), long-term monitoring (nursing home), and personalized healthcare monitoring; and incidence detection and management, emergency intervention, transportation and treatment. The pervasive healthcare applications include intelligent emergency management system, pervasive healthcare data access, and ubiquitous mobile telemedicine.

Pervasive Healthcare Computing includes the treatment of several new wireless technologies and the ways in which they will implement the vision of pervasive healthcare.

An earlier book by Rodrick Wallace entitled Consciousness: A Mathematical Treatment of the Global Neuronal Workspace Model, introduced a formal information-theoretic approach to individual consciousness implementing approaches developed previously by the cognitive scientist Bernard Baars and the philosopher Fred Dretske.

This book takes a more formal 'groupoid' perspective and generalizes the results of that book to processes of 'distributed cognition' characteristic of large institutions that can entertain several, sometimes many, simultaneous 'global workspaces' which must compete for resources while communicating and cooperating.

Equivalence classes of 'states' produce a network of language-analogs characterizing interacting cognitive modules which entertain multiple workspaces. Equivalence classes of these language-analogs produce dynamical manifolds describing temporal processes carried out by multiple-workspace institutions.

Why some patients wait longer than others remains an important question. This book is a reference for health services researchers looking for statistical tools with which to study waiting times. The book offers detailed coverage of statistical concepts and methods for the analysis and interpretation of waiting-time data. It provides analysis from health services research perspective, rather than operations management, and contains a collection of examples.

The ?eld of bioinformatics has two main objectives: the creation and main- nance of biological databases and the analysis of life sciences data in order to unravel the mysteries of biological function. Computer science methods such as patternrecognition,machinelearning,anddatamining haveagreatdealtoo?er the ?eld of bioinformatics. The Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics (PRIB) meeting was established in 2006 under the auspices of the International Asso- ation of Pattern Recognition (IAPR) to create a focus for the application and development of computer science methods to life science data. The 5th PRIB conference was held in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, on 22-24 September 2010. A total of 46 papers were submitted to the conference for peer review. Of those, 38 (83%) were accepted for publication in these proceedings. The invited speakers were Rita Casadio (Bologna Biocomputing Group, Italy), Florence d'Alch' e-Buc (Universit' e d'Evry-Val d'Essonne, France), Daniel - son (Tu ..bingen University, Germany), and Natasa Przulj (Imperial College L- don, UK). Tutorials weredeliveredby Concettina Guerra (Universit' adi Padova, Italy), Clarisse Dhaenens (Laboratoire LIFL/INRIA, France), Laetitia Jourdan (Laboratoire LIFL/INRIA, France), Neil Lawrence (University of Manchester, UK), and Dick de Ridder (Delft University of Technology).

Arguably medicine is either an arts-based science or a science-based art. In medieval times, clinical decisions were based on simple measures, such as the temperature of the body, the rhythm of the pulse, the consistency of the stool and the colour of the urine. Nowadays, thanks partly to modern technology, medical science has improved in many ways, as has healthcare. In particular, approaches which have their origins in Artificial Intelligence and Operational Research have a significant contribution to make in terms of improving not only diagnosis and treatment of patients, but also providing ways of managing patients in a more effective, more efficient, and more patient-friendly manner. This book focuses on the use of such Intelligent Patient Management to the benefit of clinicians, other healthcare and community practitioners and managers, patients and carers.

Farming Human Pathogens: Ecological Resilience and Evolutionary Process introduces a cutting-edge mathematical formalism based on the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory to describe how punctuated shifts in mesoscale ecosystems can entrain patterns of gene expression and organismal evolution. The authors apply the new formalism toward characterizing a number of infectious diseases that have evolved in response to the world as humans have made it. Many of the human pathogens that are emerging out from underneath epidemiological control are 'farmed' in the metaphorical sense, as the evolution of drug-resistant HIV makes clear, but also quite literally, as demonstrated by avian influenza's emergence from poultry farms in southern China. The most successful pathogens appear able to integrate selection pressures humans have imposed upon them from a variety of socioecological scales. The book also presents a related treatment of Eigen's Paradox and the RNA 'error catastrophe' that bedevils models of the origins of viruses and of biological life itself.

Here is a book that aggregates five years of experience of three successive R and D projects (ELCH, GetTogether, GROPIS) covering technical and organizational issues of eProcurement. The projects, which were funded partly by the government and partly by industry and hospitals, looked at the characteristics of procurement processes and at standard technologies. Two of the projects included case studies (ELCH, GROPIS), the third project focused on the development of standard business objects for eProcurement in healthcare (GetTogether). Together they form a rich source of information worth communicating to a large audience of experts and newcomers alike.

This book provides a timely and first-of-its-kind collection of papers on anatomy ontologies. It is interdisciplinary in its approach, bringing together the relevant expertise from computing and biomedical studies. The book aims to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of the foundations of anatomical ontologies and the-state-of-the-art in terms of existing tools and applications. It also highlights challenges that remain today.

Probabilistic Modelling in Bioinformatics and Medical Informatics has been written for researchers and students in statistics, machine learning, and the biological sciences. The first part of this book provides a self-contained introduction to the methodology of Bayesian networks. The following parts demonstrate how these methods are applied in bioinformatics and medical informatics. All three fields - the methodology of probabilistic modeling, bioinformatics, and medical informatics - are evolving very quickly. The text should therefore be seen as an introduction, offering both elementary tutorials as well as more advanced applications and case studies.

Boron has made a significant impact in our lives through its quiet use in fertilizers, fungicides, soaps, detergents, and heat-resistant glassware. Boron Science: New Technologies and Applications addresses the applications of boron in chemistry, industry, medicine, and pharmacology by explaining its role in problems such as catalysis and hydroboration as well as its use in superconductors, materials, magnetic/nonmagnetic nanoparticles, and medical applications including cancer therapy. Illustrating the practical versatility of boron, the 29 chapters are divided into seven major sections: Boron for Living: Medicine Boron for Living: Health and Nutrition Boron for Living: Radioisotope Boron for Living: Boron Neutron Capture Therapy Boron for Electronics: Optoelectronics Boron for Energy: Energy Storage, Space, and Other Applications Boron for Chemistry and Catalysis: Catalysis and Organic Transformations More than just an updated compilation of progress in the applied science of boron, this book is a tribute to the legions of workers who have spent years conducting groundbreaking studies. The book celebrates these scientists and their proteges, who together transformed boron science into the exciting and growing area it is today.

The nanosciences are a rapidly expanding field of research with a wide applicability to all areas of health and disease prevention. This book, covers the regulation of nanomedicine, nanotubes, topical applications of nanoparticles, nanocrystals, antioxidant nanoparticles, lipid nanocapsules, nanotheragnostic colloids, nanotechnology in the control of infectious disease, virus-based nanoparticles and the safety of nanoparticles. It also covers nanomedicine in relation to pulmonary drug delivery, the control of infectious disease, radiation protection, arthritis, cancer nanomedicine, blood diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and tissue and implant engineering.

In den letzten Jahren hat sich der Workshop "Bildverarbeitung fur die Medizin" durch erfolgreiche Veranstaltungen etabliert. Ziel ist auch 2010 wieder die Darstellung aktueller Forschungsergebnisse und die Vertiefung der Gesprache zwischen Wissenschaftlern, Industrie und Anwendern. Die Beitrage dieses Bandes - einige in englischer Sprache - behandeln alle Bereiche der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung, insbesondere Bildgebung, CAD, Segmentierung, Bildanalyse, Visualisierung und Animation, Roboter und Manipulatoren, Chirurgische Simulatoren, Diagnose, Therapieplanung sowie deren klinische Anwendungen.

Support vector machines (SVMs) are used in a range of applications, including drug design, food quality control, metabolic fingerprint analysis, and microarray data-based cancer classification. While most mathematicians are well-versed in the distinctive features and empirical performance of SVMs, many chemists and biologists are not as familiar with what they are and how they work. Presenting a clear bridge between theory and application, Support Vector Machines and Their Application in Chemistry and Biotechnology provides a thorough description of the mechanism of SVMs from the point of view of chemists and biologists, enabling them to solve difficult problems with the help of these powerful tools. Topics discussed include: Background and key elements of support vector machines and applications in chemistry and biotechnology Elements and algorithms of support vector classification (SVC) and support vector regression (SVR) machines, along with discussion of simulated datasets The kernel function for solving nonlinear problems by using a simple linear transformation method Ensemble learning of support vector machines Applications of support vector machines to near-infrared data Support vector machines and quantitative structure-activity/property relationship (QSAR/QSPR) Quality control of traditional Chinese medicine by means of the chromatography fingerprint technique The use of support vector machines in exploring the biological data produced in OMICS study Beneficial for chemical data analysis and the modeling of complex physic-chemical and biological systems, support vector machines show promise in a myriad of areas. This book enables non-mathematicians to understand the potential of SVMs and utilize them in a host of applications.

This compendium brings together leading researchers in the fields of Intelligent Systems and healthcare aiming at medical engineers, healthcare managers and computer scientists worldwide. This book is an overview of intelligent paradigms and strategic investments that might payoff for the healthcare enterprise. Specifically, the reader will get ideas for efficiency enhancements for improving effectiveness and quality of care and for increasing patient safety. "Advanced Intelligent Paradigms in Healthcare" straddles technologic topics from DNA processing and automating medical second opinions in the lab, to telemedicine and chat spaces for rural patient outreach, among many others. In terms of management concerns, this book also explores systems approaches such as automated clinical guidelines, institutional workflow management, and best practices and lessons learned with actual applications.

This bookis the resultof merging two workshopsseries, namely, oneon comp- erized guidelines and protocols and the other one on knowledge management for healthcareprocedures. Themergeresultedinthe KR4HCworkshop: Knowledge Representationfor HealthCare: Data, Processes, andGuidelines. This workshop was held in conjunction with the 12th Conference on Arti?cial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME 2009), in Verona, Italy. The book included, in addition to the full-length workshop papers, invited peer-reviewed advanced papers on lessons learned in these ?elds. The KR4HC workshop continued a line of successful guideline workshops held in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Following the success of the ?rst - ropean Workshop on Computerized Guidelines and Protocols held in Leipzig, Germany, in 2000, the Symposium on Computerized Guidelines and Protocols (CGP 2004) was organized in Prague, Czech Republic in 2004 to identify use cases for guideline-based applications in health care, computerized methods for supportingtheguidelinedevelopmentprocess, andpressingissuesandpromising approachesfordevelopingusableandmaintainablevehiclesforguidelinedelivery. In 2006 an ECAI 2006 workshop at Riva del Garda, Italy, entitled "AI Te- niques in Health Care: Evidence-BasedGuidelinesand Protocols"wasorganized to bring together researchers from di?erent branches of arti?cial intelligence to examine cutting-edge approaches to guideline modeling and development and to consider how di?erent communities can cooperate to address the challenges of computer-based guideline development.

This book, written by leading experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of how to use 2D and 3D processing tools in clinical radiology. The opening section covers a wide range of technical aspects. In the main section, the principal clinical applications are described and discussed in depth. A third section focuses on a variety of special topics. This book will be invaluable to radiologists of any subspecialty.

Considering the fluid nature of nano breakthroughs and the delicate balance between benefits and consequences as they apply to medicine readers at all levels require a practical, understandable base of information about these developments to take greatest advantage of them. Medical Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine meets that need by introducing non-experts to nanomedicine and its evolving organizational infrastructure.

This practical reference investigates the impact of nanotechnology on applications in medicine and biomedical sciences, and the broader societal and economic effects. Eschewing technological details, it focuses on enhancing awareness of the business, regulatory, and administrative aspects of medical applications. It gives readers a critical, balanced, and realistic evaluation of existing nanomedicine developments and future prospects an ideal foundation upon which to plan and make decisions.

Covers the use of nanotechnology in medical applications including imaging, diagnosis and monitoring, drug delivery systems, surgery, tissue regeneration, and prosthetics

Part of the Perspectives in Nanotechnology series which contains broader coverage of the societal implications of nanotechnology this book can be used as a standalone reference. Organized by historical perspective, current status, and future prospects, this powerful book:

• Explores background, definitions and terms, and recent trends and forces in nanomedicine
• Surveys the landscape of nanomedicine in government, academia, and the private sector
• Reviews projected future directions, capabilities, sustainability, and equity of nanomedicine, and choices to be made regarding its use
• Includes graphical illustrations, references, and keywords to reinforce concepts and aid further research

In its assessment of alternative and sometimes conflicting concepts proposed for the application of nanotechnology to medicine, this book surveys major initiatives and the work of leading labs and innovators. It uses informative examples and case summaries to illustrate proven accomplishments and imagined possibilities in research and development.

This volume contains the papers selected for presentation at the 4th Brazilian Sym- sium on Bioinformatics, BSB 2009, which was held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, during August 29-31, 2009. The BSB symposium had its origins in the Brazilian Workshop on Bioinformatics (WOB). WOB had three editions, in 2002 (Gramado, RS), in 2003 (Macae, RJ), and in 2004 (Brasilia, DF). The change in the designation from wo- shop to symposium reflects the increase in the quality of the contributions and also in the interest of the scientific community for the meeting. The previous editions of BSB took place in Sao Leopoldo, RS, in 2005, in Angra dos Reis, RJ, in 2007, and in Santo Andre, SP, in 2008. As evidence of the internationalization of the event, BSB 2009 had 55 submissions from seven countries. Of the 55 papers submitted, 36 were full papers, with up to 12 pages each, and 19 were extended abstracts, with up to 4 pages each. The articles submitted were carefully reviewed and selected by an international Program Comm- tee, comprising three chairs and 45 members from around the world, with the help of 21 additional reviewers. The Program Committee Chairs are very thankful to the - thors of all submitted papers, and especially to the Program Committee members and the additional reviewers, who helped select the 12 full papers and the six extended abstracts that make up this book.

The European Society for Arti?cial Intelligence in Medicine (AIME) was - tablished in 1986 following a very successful workshop held in Pavia, Italy, the year before. The principal aims of AIME are to foster fundamental and applied research in the application of arti?cial intelligence (AI) techniques to medical care and medical research, and to provide a forum at biennial conferences for discussing any progress made. For this reason the main activity of the society wastheorganizationofaseriesofbiennialconferences, heldinMarseilles, France (1987), London, UK (1989), Maastricht, The Netherlands (1991), Munich, G- many (1993), Pavia, Italy (1995), Grenoble, France (1997), Aalborg, Denmark (1999), Cascais, Portugal(2001), Protaras, Cyprus(2003), Aberdeen, UK(2005), and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2007). This volume contains the proceedings of AIME 2009, the 12th Conference on Articial Intelligence in Medicine, held in Verona, Italy, July 18-22, 2009. The AIME 2009 goalswereto present and consolidate the internationalstate of the art of AI in biomedical research from the perspectives of theory, meth- ology, and application. The conference included two invited lectures, full and short papers, tutorials, workshops, and a doctoral consortium. In the conference announcement, authors were solicited to submit originalcontributions regarding the developmentoftheory, techniques, andapplications ofAI in biomedicine, - cluding the exploitation of AI approaches to molecular medicine and biomedical informaticsandto healthcareorganizationalaspects. Authorsofpapersaddre- ing theory were requested to describe the properties of novel AI methodologies potentially useful for solving biomedical

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the Fifth International Meeting on Computational Intelligence Methods for Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, CIBB 2008, held in Vietri sul Mare, Italy, in October 2008.

The 23 revised full papers presented together with 3 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 69 submissions. The main goal of the CIBB meetings is to provide a forum open to researchers from different disciplines to present and discuss problems concerning computational techniques in bioinformatics, systems biology and medical informatics with a particular focus on neural networks, machine learning, fuzzy logic, and evolutionary computation methods.

There are several well-known books on the market that cover biomaterials in a general way, but none provide adequate focus on the future of and potential for actual uses of emerging nanontechnology in this burgeoning field. Biomaterials: A Nano Approach is written from a multi-disciplinary point of view that integrates aspects of materials science and engineering, nanotechnology, bioengineering, and biosciences. The book fills a glaring void in the literature by providing a comprehensive discussion of biomaterials and a scientifically plausible extrapolation of likely scenarios in which nanotechnology could play a significant role. The authors introduce and examine basic concepts, processing methodologies, and techniques involved in the preparation and characterization of nanobiomaterials that are specific to biomedical applications. A Self-Contained Book Illustrating Past, Present, and Future Trends in BiomaterialsSpanning from the historical development of biomaterials to cutting-edge advances in the field, the text describes how basic concepts in nanotechnology are applied to the processing of novel nanobiomaterials, including nanostructured metals and alloys. With its illustrative examples and presentation of applications, this text offers a solid framework for understanding present and future trends of biomaterials in human healthcare systems. It is an ideal companion resource for students, researchers, and industrial scientists who specialize in biomaterials and nanobiomaterials.

In den letzten Jahren hat sich der Workshop Bildverarbeitung fur die Medizin durch erfolgreiche Veranstaltungen etabliert. Ziel ist auch 2009 wieder die Darstellung aktueller Forschungsergebnisse und die Vertiefung der Gesprache zwischen Wissenschaftlern, Industrie und Anwendern. Die Beitrage dieses Bandes - einige in englischer Sprache - behandeln alle Bereiche der medizinischen Bildverarbeitung, insbesondere Bildgebung, CAD, Segmentierung, Bildanalyse, Visualisierung und Animation, Roboter und Manipulatoren, Chirurgische Simulatoren, Diagnose, Therapieplanung sowie deren klinische Anwendungen."

eHealth 2008, the First International Conference on Electronic healthcare for the twenty-first century, was held in City University, London, during September 8-9, 2008. The conference was organized as a meeting point for telecare product vendors, policy makers, government ministers, academics, clinicians and all those involved in electronic and mobile health, to examine and to share ideas contributing to the - vancement of electronic healthcare into the twenty-first century. The conference had a huge success with a large number of paper submissions. Ninety-seven papers were submitted, of which 32 were selected for presentation. Each paper was carefully reviewed blindly by a minimum of three referees from the resp- tive field. A special thanks should go to the Technical Program Committee for their hard and efficient work in the review process. In addition to the submitted contributions, the conference included a business pres- tation track with 12 invited talks by key people in the world of eHealth. The business presentation track was chaired by Sir Jonathan Michael (Deputy Director, BT Health). The success of this conference is to be credited to the contribution of many people.