This handbook brings together a variety of approaches to the uses of big data in multiple fields, primarily science, medicine, and business. This single resource features contributions from researchers around the world from a variety of fields, where they share their findings and experience. This book is intended to help spur further innovation in big data. The research is presented in a way that allows readers, regardless of their field of study, to learn from how applications have proven successful and how similar applications could be used in their own field. Contributions stem from researchers in fields such as physics, biology, energy, healthcare, and business. The contributors also discuss important topics such as fraud detection, privacy implications, legal perspectives, and ethical handling of big data.

Quality improvement (QI) is embedded in the fabric of successful healthcare organisations across the world, with healthcare professionals increasingly expected to develop and lead improvement as a core part of their clinical responsibilities. As a result, QI is rapidly becoming a feature of the education and training programmes of all healthcare professionals. Written and edited by some of the leading clinicians and managers in the field, ABC of Quality Improvement is designed for clinicians new to the discipline, as well as experienced leaders of change and improvement. Providing comprehensive coverage and clear, succinct descriptions of the major tools, techniques and approaches, this new addition to the ABC series demystifies quality improvement and develops a broader understanding of what constitutes quality in healthcare. With practical examples of improvement interventions and the common pitfalls that can befall them, this book will support and enable readers to manage change projects within their own organisations. Relevant to doctors, dentists, nurses, health service managers and support staff, medical students and doctors in training, their tutors and trainers, and other healthcare professionals at various levels, ABC of Quality Improvement will give readers the confidence to embark on their own improvement projects, whoever, and wherever they may be.

In a systematic and clear manner, the authors discuss the problems associated with clinical decision making and explore the current methods to solve them. In this monograph, they examine the results of combining the classical control system approach with the symbolic approaches which have been central to developments in artificial intelligence. Well illustrated with case studies, this volume will prove to be an invaluable resource to system scientists, engineers, computer scientists, and members of the medical community.

Interrupted Time Series Analysis develops a comprehensive set of models and methods for drawing causal inferences from time series. It provides example analyses of social, behavioral, and biomedical time series to illustrate a general strategy for building AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) impact models. Additionally, the book supplements the classic Box-Jenkins-Tiao model-building strategy with recent auxiliary tests for transformation, differencing, and model selection. Not only does the text discuss new developments, including the prospects for widespread adoption of Bayesian hypothesis testing and synthetic control group designs, but it makes optimal use of graphical illustrations in its examples. With forty completed example analyses that demonstrate the implications of model properties, Interrupted Time Series Analysis will be a key inter-disciplinary text in classrooms, workshops, and short-courses for researchers familiar with time series data or cross-sectional regression analysis but limited background in the structure of time series processes and experiments.

After the success of the first 2 books with the proceedings of the newly established series of European conferences on Health Telematics Education, the 3rd one gives a new dimension to the field of Health and Medical Informatics Education in Europe. It deals with the needs and the current status in Health Telematics Education in Europe, with curriculum development in Health- Medical and Nursing Informatics, with development of courseware material, computer based training and computer assisted learning. Also distance learning and Internet applications, training in using Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and Departmental Information Systems, Inter-University programmes and accreditation of courses are discussed.

Modern medicine generates, almost daily, huge amounts of heterogeneous data. For example, medical data may contain SPECT images, signals lik e ECG, clinical information like temperature, cholesterol levels, etc., as well as the physician's interpretation. Those who deal with such data understand that there is a widening gap between data collection a nd data comprehension. Computerized techniques are needed to help huma ns address this problem. This volume is devoted to the relatively youn g and growing field of medical data mining and knowledge discovery. As more and more medical procedures employ imaging as a preferred diagno stic tool, there is a need to develop methods for efficient mining in databases of images. Other significant features are security and confi dentiality concerns. Moreover, the physician's interpretation of image s, signals, or other technical data, is written in unstructured Englis h which is very difficult to mine. This book addresses all these speci fic features.

Microfluidics and BioMEMS Applications central idea is on microfluidics, a relatively new research field which finds its niche in biomedical devices, especially on lab-on-a-chip and related products. Being the essential component in providing driving fluidic flows, an example of micropump is chosen to illustrate a complete cycle in development of microfluidic devices which include literature review, designing and modelling, fabrication and testing. A few articles are included to demonstrate the idea of tackling this research problem, and they cover the main development scope discussed earlier as well as other advanced modelling schemes for microfluidics and beyond.

Scientists and students working in the areas of MEMS and microfluidics will benefit from this book, which may serve both communities as both a reference monograph and a textbook for courses in numerical simulation, and design and development of microfluidic devices.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to computational epidemiology, highlighting its major methodological paradigms throughout the development of the field while emphasizing the needs for a new paradigm shift in order to most effectively address the increasingly complex real-world challenges in disease control and prevention. Specifically, the book presents the basic concepts, related computational models, and tools that are useful for characterizing disease transmission dynamics with respect to a heterogeneous host population. In addition, it shows how to develop and apply computational methods to tackle the challenges involved in population-level intervention, such as prioritized vaccine allocation. A unique feature of this book is that its examination on the issues of vaccination decision-making is not confined only to the question of how to develop strategic policies on prioritized interventions, as it further approaches the issues from the perspective of individuals, offering a well integrated cost-benefit and social-influence account for voluntary vaccination decisions. One of the most important contributions of this book lies in it offers a blueprint on a novel methodological paradigm in epidemiology, namely, systems epidemiology, with detailed systems modeling principles, as well as practical steps and real-world examples, which can readily be applied in addressing future systems epidemiological challenges. The book is intended to serve as a reference book for researchers and practitioners in the fields of computer science and epidemiology. Together with the provided references on the key concepts, methods, and examples being introduced, the book can also readily be adopted as an introductory text for undergraduate and graduate courses in computational epidemiology as well as systems epidemiology, and as training materials for practitioners and field workers.

The original role of RP was to confirm the shape and feel of concept design, but innovations in RP now allow for the development of sophisticated medical devices such as catheters, stents, drug delivery systems, syringes and cardio-vascular devices, and more. RP has moved beyond medical devices, as surgeons now regularly use RP models to brainstorm strategies for surgeries. This book presents new uses for rapid prototyping in state-of-the-art medical applications.

Explosive growth in the field of microsystem technology (MST) has introduced a variety of promising products in major disciplines from microelectronics to life sciences. Especially the life sciences and health care business was, and is expected to be a major market for MST products. Undoubtedly the merging of biological sciences with micro- and nanoscience will create a scientific and technological revolution in future. Microminiaturization of devices, down to the nanoscale, approaching the size of biological structures, will be a prerequisite for the future success of life sciences. Bioanalytical and therapeutic micro- and nanosystems will be mandatory for system biologists in the long run, to obtain insight into morphology, the function and the interactive processes of the living system. With such a deeper understanding new and personalized drugs could be developed leading to a revolution in life sciences. Today, microanalytical devices are used in clinical analytics or molecular biology as gene chips. In parallel, standard microbiomedical products are employed in the intensive care and surgical theatre, mainly for monitoring and implantation purposes. The gap between these two different scientific fields will be closed, however, as soon as functional micro devices can be produced, allowing a deeper view into the function of cells and whole organisms.

Here, a new discipline evolved which focuses on microsystems for living systems called "BIOMEMS." In this review at a glance the exciting field of bio-microsystems, from their beginnings to indicators of future successes are presented. It will also show that a broad penetration of micro and nano technologies into biology and medicine will be mandatory for future scientific and new product development progress in life science.

This textbook integrates important mathematical foundations, efficient computational algorithms, applied statistical inference techniques, and cutting-edge machine learning approaches to address a wide range of crucial biomedical informatics, health analytics applications, and decision science challenges. Each concept in the book includes a rigorous symbolic formulation coupled with computational algorithms and complete end-to-end pipeline protocols implemented as functional R electronic markdown notebooks. These workflows support active learning and demonstrate comprehensive data manipulations, interactive visualizations, and sophisticated analytics. The content includes open problems, state-of-the-art scientific knowledge, ethical integration of heterogeneous scientific tools, and procedures for systematic validation and dissemination of reproducible research findings.Complementary to the enormous challenges related to handling, interrogating, and understanding massive amounts of complex structured and unstructured data, there are unique opportunities that come with access to a wealth of feature-rich, high-dimensional, and time-varying information. The topics covered in Data Science and Predictive Analytics address specific knowledge gaps, resolve educational barriers, and mitigate workforce information-readiness and data science deficiencies. Specifically, it provides a transdisciplinary curriculum integrating core mathematical principles, modern computational methods, advanced data science techniques, model-based machine learning, model-free artificial intelligence, and innovative biomedical applications. The book's fourteen chapters start with an introduction and progressively build foundational skills from visualization to linear modeling, dimensionality reduction, supervised classification, black-box machine learning techniques, qualitative learning methods, unsupervised clustering, model performance assessment, feature selection strategies, longitudinal data analytics, optimization, neural networks, and deep learning. The second edition of the book includes additional learning-based strategies utilizing generative adversarial networks, transfer learning, and synthetic data generation, as well as eight complementary electronic appendices. This textbook is suitable for formal didactic instructor-guided course education, as well as for individual or team-supported self-learning. The material is presented at the upper-division and graduate-level college courses and covers applied and interdisciplinary mathematics, contemporary learning-based data science techniques, computational algorithm development, optimization theory, statistical computing, and biomedical sciences. The analytical techniques and predictive scientific methods described in the book may be useful to a wide range of readers, formal and informal learners, college instructors, researchers, and engineers throughout the academy, industry, government, regulatory, funding, and policy agencies. The supporting book website provides many examples, datasets, functional scripts, complete electronic notebooks, extensive appendices, and additional materials.

This book will present the results of the EpiAim study, exploring and describing the current situation and trends in the use of Health Informatics and Telematics in Africa an Latin America, two regions that despite their peculiarities and complexity, are witnessing a sustained interest in these new technologies. In fact, rapid changes currently taking place are "putting these countries on the map" of the global information society. The book should help to achieve a better understanding of the opportunities in health informatics for the advancement of technical co-operation between Europe and developing regions, and a view for future potential business opportunities in emerging markets.

The term "electrophoresis" was first used by Michaelis in 1909, to - scribe the migration of colloids in an electric field. The first practical elect- phoresis method was described by Tiselius in 1937. He used a U-tube filled with buffer layered on top of sample; migration could be monitored using Schlieren optics. In zone electrophoresis, the U-tube was replaced by paper, a support material employed simply to prevent or minimize diffusion of ions, so that ions applied in a narrow strip to the paper will separate and remain as relatively discrete zones. Paper was superceded by a variety of other media, - cluding cellulose acetate, hydrolyzed starch (starch gel), agarose, and polyacry- mide. The latter, in addition to being a support medium, has size-sieving properties. From the basic zone electrophoresis, other means of separation have been dev- oped. These include, isoelectric focusing, isotachophoresis, density gradient el- trophoresis, and various forms of immunoelectrophoresis. In some ways Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) has gone full circle back to the original method of Tiselius. In its simplest form, separations occur in a buffer solution within a glass (fused silica) tube and detection occurs as sample moves past an optical window. CE has rapidly developed into a technique that rivals HPLC in its versatility. All the classical electrophoretic separations-zone, IEF, and isotachophoresis-have their counterparts in CE. Excitingly so, and - thoritatively treated in Clinical Applications of Capillary Electrophoresis.

This volume presents the latest research in Virtual Reality (VR), as it is being applied in psychotherapy, rehabilitation, and the analysis of behaviour for neurological assessment. This book will be of value to anyone already in the field and to those who are interested in the development of VR systems for therapeutic purposes. The contents include: * The latest literature reviews on VR in psychotherapy, psychological wellbeing, and rehabilitation * VR and cognitive behavior therapy * Increasing presence in VR for effective exposure therapy and treatment of anxiety disorders * VR military training for managing combat stress and preventing post traumatic stress * VR, mixed reality systems, and games for stroke rehabilitation * VR systems for improving vision in children with amblyopia * Therapeutic play in virtual environments * Healing potential of online virtual worlds such as Second Life * Neuropsychological assessment using virtual environments * Detailed accounts on how VR systems are designed, implemented, and best evaluated * Discussions of limitations, problems, and ethical concerns using VR in mental and physical therapy

James Gray and Ulrich Desselberger have assembled a comprehensive collection of established and cutting-edge methods for studying and illuminating the structure, molecular biology, pathogenesis, epidemiology, and prevention in animal models of infection with rotaviruses, an important cause of infant morbidity and mortality. Presented by experts in the fields of animal and human rotavirus infections and rotavirus vaccine research, these readily reproducible methods detail molecular and other modern techniques, and include relevant background information and various notes to ensure reproducible and robust results. Authoritative and up-to-date, Rotaviruses: Methods and Protocols offers researchers today's benchmark compendium of experimental methods for the investigation of this medically significant virus.

This book offers a comprehensive report on the technological aspects of Mobile Health (mHealth) and discusses the main challenges and future directions in the field. It is divided into eight parts: (1) preventive and curative medicine; (2) remote health monitoring; (3) interoperability; (4) framework, architecture, and software/hardware systems; (5) cloud applications; (6) radio technologies and applications; (7) communication networks and systems; and (8) security and privacy mechanisms. The first two parts cover sensor-based and bedside systems for remotely monitoring patients' health condition, which aim at preventing the development of health problems and managing the prognosis of acute and chronic diseases. The related chapters discuss how new sensing and wireless technologies can offer accurate and cost-effective means for monitoring and evaluating behavior of individuals with dementia and psychiatric disorders, such as wandering behavior and sleep impairments. The following two parts focus on architectures and higher level systems, and on the challenges associated with their interoperability and scalability, two important aspects that stand in the way of the widespread deployment of mHealth systems. The remaining parts focus on telecommunication support systems for mHealth, including radio technologies, communication and cloud networks, and secure health-related applications and systems. All in all, the book offers a snapshot of the state-of-art in mHealth systems, and addresses the needs of a multidisciplinary audience, including engineers, computer scientists, healthcare providers, and medical professionals, working in both academia and the industry, as well as stakeholders at government agencies and non-profit organizations.

Technological Systems in the Bio Industries: An International Study represents a comprehensive, interdisciplinary, and systematic effort to understand the nature and role of technological change in a rapidly evolving arena of economic activity that can be loosely referred to as the bio industries. These include biomedical industries that deliver goods and services used in health care, including those based on genetic engineering, as well as applications of biotechnology in other industries such as agriculture, food production, and the forest industries.

This volume is the third in a continuing series of studies on technological systems; it seeks to identify and address new sets of conceptual and methodological issues in analyzing innovation systems, particularly as regards the delimitation of relevant systems. The book makes an in-depth comparison of the biomedical clusters in Sweden and Ohio. It also sheds light on the emergence of new science-based technological systems.

This book tells the extraordinary story of how the function of the first - and so far almost the only - human organ was replaced by a machine, and the "artificial kidney" entered medical and public folk-lore. A practical artificial kidney, or dialyser, came about by advances in science followed by the acquisition of new synthetic materials which made the application of these ideas possible. However it was the dedication and persistence of a number of talented pioneers who pressed ahead against professional opposition to achieve success, first in the treatment of temporary, recoverable kidney failure, and then permanent renal shut-down which made it a success. The apparent high cost and limited availability of this form of treatment immediately raised ethical questions which had never been questioned before, centering around equity of access to treatment, when and if treatment could be denied, and - worst of all - the agonising decision of when, once established, it should be stopped. Spiralling costs as the true number of people with kidney failure became evident raised major political and financial questions, which were addressed in different countries in different ways which reflected - but also helped change - patterns of how medical care is provided. In developed countries, the problem could be solved by allocating a disproportionate amount of money to the treatment of relatively few kidney patients, but in the developing world the cost of treatment still limits its availability, as it does all forms of modern health care. Nevertheless, today almost one million people world-wide are maintained alive following terminal kidney failure, two thirds of them by various forms of dialysis and the remainder bearing kidney transplants, almost always placed after a period on dialysis. The story is also the sum of the often heroic lives of these hundreds of thousands of patients, a few of whom have today been maintained alive and active for more than 35 years, and many of whom suffered known, but also unexpected complications as a result of their treatment.

This open access book explores how expertise about bipolar disorder is performed on American and French digital platforms by combining insights from STS, medical sociology and media studies. It addresses topical questions, including: How do different stakeholders engage with online technologies to perform expertise about bipolar disorder? How does the use of the internet for processes of knowledge evaluation and production allow for people diagnosed with bipolar disorder to reposition themselves in relation to medical professionals? How do cultural markers shape the online performance of expertise about bipolar disorder? And what individualizing or collectivity-generating effects does the internet have in relation to the performance of expertise? The book constitutes a critical and nuanced intervention into dominant discourses which approach the internet either as a quick technological fix or as a postmodern version of Pandora's box, sowing distrust among people and threatening unified conceptualizations and organized forms of knowledge.

This book introduces readers to the methods, types of data, and scale of analysis used in the context of health. The challenges of working with big data are explored throughout the book, while the benefits are also emphasized through the discoveries made possible by linking large datasets. Methods include thorough case studies from statistics, as well as the newest facets of data analytics: data visualization, modeling and simulation, and machine learning. The diversity of datasets is illustrated through chapters on networked data, image processing, and text, in addition to typical structured numerical datasets. While the methods, types of data, and scale have been individually covered elsewhere, by bringing them all together under one "umbrella" the book highlights synergies, while also helping scholars fluidly switch between tools as needed. New challenges and emerging frontiers are also discussed, helping scholars grasp how methods will need to change in response to the latest challenges in health.

This book highlights the latest advances in the application of artificial intelligence to healthcare and medicine. It gathers selected papers presented at the 2019 Health Intelligence workshop, which was jointly held with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) annual conference, and presents an overview of the central issues, challenges, and potential opportunities in the field, along with new research results. By addressing a wide range of practical applications, the book makes the emerging topics of digital health and precision medicine accessible to a broad readership. Further, it offers an essential source of information for scientists, researchers, students, industry professionals, national and international public health agencies, and NGOs interested in the theory and practice of digital and precision medicine and health, with an emphasis on risk factors in connection with disease prevention, diagnosis, and intervention.

Adopting a proactive approach and focusing on emerging radiation-generating technologies, "Health Physics in the 21st Century" meets the growing need for a presentation of the relevant radiological characteristics and hazards. As such, this monograph discusses those technologies that will affect the health physics and radiation protection profession over the decades to come.

After an introductory overview, the second part of this book looks at fission and fusion energy, followed by a section devoted to accelerators, while the final main section deals with radiation on manned space missions. Throughout, the author summarizes the relevant technology and scientific basis, while providing over 200 problems plus solutions to illustrate and amplify the text.

Twelve appendices add further background material to support and enrich the topics addressed in the text, making this invaluable reading for students and lecturers in physics, biophysicists, clinical, nuclear and radiation physicists, as well as physicists in industry.