This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th IAPR International Conference on Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics, PRIB 2013, held in Nice, France, in June 2013. The 25 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 43 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on bio-molecular networks and pathway analysis; learning, classification, and clustering; data mining and knowledge discovery; protein: structure, function, and interaction; motifs, sites, and sequence analysis.

Sensors for Health Monitoring discusses the characteristics of U-Healthcare systems in different domains, providing a foundation for working professionals and undergraduate and postgraduate students. The book provides information and advice on how to choose the best sensors for a U-Healthcare system, advises and guides readers on how to overcome challenges relating to data acquisition and signal processing, and presents comprehensive coverage of up-to-date requirements in hardware, communication and calculation for next-generation uHealth systems. It then compares new technological and technical trends and discusses how they address expected u-Health requirements. In addition, detailed information on system operations is presented and challenges in ubiquitous computing are highlighted. The book not only helps beginners with a holistic approach toward understanding u-Health systems, but also presents researchers with the technological trends and design challenges they may face when designing such systems.

The "information explosion" in recent decades has made it impossible for practicing physicians (even specialists) to keep up with all the information potentially at their disposal. As a result, it is not surprising that empirical studies have shown that physicians do not always make optimal decisions. Thus, medical expert systems are now available to support - not replace - physicians and healthcare providers in their goal of providing the best possible healthcare to every patient. Knowledge Engineering in Health Informatics is a guide to the creation of such systems. Presenting the core material for courses such as Medical Knowledge Engineering and Expert System Development, it allows non-experts to make diagnostic decisions with the precision and accuracy of medical experts thanks to the help of the computer.

The book uses STELLA software to develop simulation models, thus allowing readers to convert their understanding of a phenomenon to a computer model, and then run it to yield the inevitable dynamic consequences built into the structure. Part I provides an introduction to modeling dynamic systems, while Part II offers general modeling methods. Parts III through VIII then apply these methods to model real-world phenomena from chemistry, genetics, ecology, economics, and engineering. A clear, approachable introduction to the modeling process, of interest in any field where real problems can be illuminated by computer simulation.

This book provides a theoretical foundation for the analysis of discrete data such as count and binary data in the longitudinal setup. Unlike the existing books, this book uses a class of auto-correlation structures to model the longitudinal correlations for the repeated discrete data that accommodates all possible Gaussian type auto-correlation models as special cases including the equi-correlation models. This new dynamic modelling approach is utilized to develop theoretically sound inference techniques such as the generalized quasi-likelihood (GQL) technique for consistent and efficient estimation of the underlying regression effects involved in the model, whereas the existing 'working' correlations based GEE (generalized estimating equations) approach has serious theoretical limitations both for consistent and efficient estimation, and the existing random effects based correlations approach is not suitable to model the longitudinal correlations. The book has exploited the random effects carefully only to model the correlations of the familial data. Subsequently, this book has modelled the correlations of the longitudinal data collected from the members of a large number of independent families by using the class of auto-correlation structures conditional on the random effects. The book also provides models and inferences for discrete longitudinal data in the adaptive clinical trial set up. The book is mathematically rigorous and provides details for the development of estimation approaches under selected familial and longitudinal models. Further, while the book provides special cares for mathematics behind the correlation models, it also presents the illustrations of the statistical analysis of various real life data. This book will be of interest to the researchers including graduate students in biostatistics and econometrics, among other applied statistics research areas. Brajendra Sutradhar is a University Research Professor at Memorial University in St. John's, Canada. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He has published about 110 papers in statistics journals in the area of multivariate analysis, time series analysis including forecasting, sampling, survival analysis for correlated failure times, robust inferences in generalized linear mixed models with outliers, and generalized linear longitudinal mixed models with bio-statistical and econometric applications. He has served as an associate editor for six years for Canadian Journal of Statistics and for four years for the Journal of Environmental and Ecological Statistics. He has served for 3 years as a member of the advisory committee on statistical methods in Statistics Canada. Professor Sutradhar was awarded 2007 distinguished service award of Statistics Society of Canada for his many years of services to the society including his special services for society's annual meetings.

Methodological problems have hampered researchers' efforts to understand and control AIDS since the beginning of the epidemic. This practical book addresses these problems by using actual health research case studies to develop strategies regarding design and sampling, measurement, and analysis and modeling issues. Researchers working on both biological and behavioral aspects of the disease will find this work a singularly effective tool to improve their study designs.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Well-Being in the Information Society, WIS 2014, held in Turku, Finland, in September 2014. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 64 submissions. The core topic is livability and quality of (urban) living with safety and security. The papers address topics such as secure and equal use of information resources, safe and secure work environments and education institutions, cyberaggression and cybersecurity as well as impact of culture on urban safety and security.

"Clinical Laboratory Blood Banking and Transfusion Medicine: Principles and Practices" provides readers with the didactic foundation, background, and tools to successfully function in a typical transfusion medicine laboratory. The text's teaching and learning package includes an Instructor's Manual, lecture slides, and test bank. Teaching and Learning Experience:

• Presents detailed technical information and real-life case studies that help learners envision themselves as members of the health care team
• Mixes theoretical and practical information that allows learners to analyze and synthesize the concepts
• Complemented by a variety of ancillary materials designed to help instructors be more effective and students more successful

"Software Tools and Algorithms for Biological Systems" is composed of a collection of papers received in response to an announcement that was widely distributed to academicians and practitioners in the broad area of computational biology and software tools. Also, selected authors of accepted papers of BIOCOMP'09 proceedings (International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology: July 13-16, 2009; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA) were invited to submit the extended versions of their papers for evaluation.

New computerized approaches to various problems have become critically important in healthcare. Computer assisted diagnosis has been extended towards a support of the clinical treatment. Mathematical information analysis, computer applications together with medical equipment and instruments have become standard tools underpinning the current rapid progress with developing Computational Intelligence. We are witnessing a radical change as technologies have been integrated into systems that address the core of medicine, including patient care in ambulatory and in-patient setting, disease prevention, health promotion, rehabilitation and home care. Computer aided diagnosis and treatment systems increase the objectivity of the analysis and speed up the response to pathological changes.

This book presents a variety of state-of-the-art information technology and its applications to the networked environment to allow robust computerized approaches to be introduced throughout the healthcare enterprise. Patient's safety and shortening of the rehabilitation time requires a more rapid development of minimally invasive surgery supported by image navigation techniques. Home care, remote rehabilitation assistance, safety of the elderly requires new areas to be explored in telemedicine and telegeriatrics.

This book is a great reference tool for scientists who deal with problems of designing and implementing processing tools employed in systems that assist clinicians in patient diagnosis and treatment."

New computerized approaches to various problems have become critically important in healthcare. Computer assisted diagnosis has been extended towards a support of the clinical treatment. Mathematical information analysis, computer applications have become standard tools underpinning the current rapid progress with developing Computational Intelligence. A computerized support in the analysis of patient information and implementation of a computer aided diagnosis and treatment systems, increases the objectivity of the analysis and speeds up the response to pathological changes.

This book presents a variety of state-of-the-art information technology and its applications to the networked environment to allow robust computerized approaches to be introduced throughout the healthcare enterprise. Image analysis and its application is the traditional part that deals with the problem of data processing, recognition and classification. Bioinformatics has become a dynamically developed field of computer assisted biological data analysis.

This book is a great reference tool for scientists who deal with problems of designing and implementing processing tools employed in systems that assist the radiologists and biologists in patient data analysis.

Computer technology has developed remarkably in the field of neurosurgery during the past 10 to 20 years. Great achievements have been made recently in neuroimaging techniques and computer technology for neuronavigation, from frameless, armless systems to robotic microscopes. Contained in the present volume are all the papers presented at the International Symposium on Computer-Assisted Neurosurgery and selected papers presented at the 6th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Computers in Neurosurgery, which were held in Kobe, Japan, on January 24-26, 1997. This volume is a comprehensive description and review of current technical ad vancements in computer-assisted neurosurgery, with a special focus on advanced intraoperative neuroimaging, various neuronavigation system, robotic microscopes, and strategies for preoperative and intraoperative surgical planning using high-power workstations with three-dimensional software. We express our thanks to the contributors for their participation and cooperation, and to Springer-Verlag for personal and technical assistance in publishing this work. We sincerely hope that this volume will contribute to improving neurosurgical technology and outcomes.

Swamy Laxminarayan was an outstanding researcher active in many diverse fields of science and technology. This liber amicorum in memory of Swamy Laxminarayan collects Medical and Biological Engineering and Informatics contributions to the Safety and Security of Individuals and Society. The authors are renowned scientists and the aim of their writing is to recall the enormous personal and scientific achievement of Swamy Laxminarayan.

How do firms jointly develop open information infrastructures? To answer this question, this book draws on the results of a longitudinal research project covering the development of the pharmaceutical distribution industry in China from 2004 to 2012, focusing on the emergence and subsequent evolution of industry-wide information infrastructures. How do firms delimit areas of proprietary innovation in open innovation projects? How do firms coordinate, initiate, negotiate and implement the development of innovative infrastructures? How do processes and practices within firms enable and constrain such collective efforts? - This book provides answers to these questions and draws conclusions regarding the challenges and new capabilities that firms will need in a world in which participation in the building of open information infrastructures becomes a necessary task for commercial organizations.

This book on Infectious Disease Informatics (IDI) and biosurveillance is intended to provide an integrated view of the current state of the art, identify technical and policy challenges and opportunities, and promote cross-disciplinary research that takes advantage of novel methodology and what we have learned from innovative applications. This book also fills a systemic gap in the literature by emphasizing informatics driven perspectives (e.g., information system design, data standards, computational aspects of biosurveillance algorithms, and system evaluation). Finally, this book attempts to reach policy makers and practitioners through the clear and effective communication of recent research findings in the context of case studies in IDI and biosurveillance, providing "hands-on" in-depth opportunities to practitioners to increase their understanding of value, applicability, and limitations of technical solutions. This book collects the state of the art research and modern perspectives of distinguished individuals and research groups on cutting-edge IDI technical and policy research and its application in biosurveillance. The contributed chapters are grouped into three units. Unit I provides an overview of recent biosurveillance research while highlighting the relevant legal and policy structures in the context of IDI and biosurveillance ongoing activities. It also identifies IDI data sources while addressing information collection, sharing, and dissemination issues as well as ethical considerations. Unit II contains survey chapters on the types of surveillance methods used to analyze IDI data in the context of public health and bioterrorism. Specific computational techniques covered include: text mining, time series analysis, multiple data streams methods, ensembles of surveillance methods, spatial analysis and visualization, social network analysis, and agent-based simulation. Unit III examines IT and decision support for public health event response and bio-defense. Practical lessons learned in developing public health and biosurveillance systems, technology adoption, and syndromic surveillance for large events are discussed. The goal of this book is to provide an understandable interdisciplinary IDI and biosurveillance reference either used as a standalone textbook or reference for students, researchers, and practitioners in public health, veterinary medicine, biostatistics, information systems, computer science, and public administration and policy.

Previously published as Strategic Information Management in Hospitals; An Introduction to Hospital Information Systems, Health Information Systems Architectures and Strategies is a definitive volume written by four authoritative voices in medical informatics. Illustrating the importance of hospital information management in delivering high quality health care at the lowest possible cost, this book provides the essential resources needed by the medical informatics specialist to understand and successfully manage the complex nature of hospital information systems. Author of the first edition's Foreword, Reed M. Gardner, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Medical Informatics, University of Utah and LDS Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah, applauded the text's focus on the underlying administrative systems that are in place in hospitals throughout the world. He wrote, "These challenging systems that acquire, process and manage the patient's clinical information. Hospital information systems provide a major part of the information needed by those paying for health care." their components; health information systems; architectures of hospital information systems; and organizational structures for information management.

Over the past decade, significant advances in the fields of stem cell biology, bioengineering, and animal models have converged on the discipline of regenerative medicine. Significant progress has been made leading from pre-clinical studies through phase 3 clinical trials for some therapies. This volume provides a state-of-the-art report on tissue engineering toward the goals of tissue and organ restoration and regeneration. Examples from different organ systems illustrate progress with growth factors to assist in tissue remodeling; the capacity of stem cells for restoring damaged tissues; novel synthetic biomaterials to facilitate cell therapy; transplantable tissue patches that preserve three-dimensional structure; synthetic organs generated in culture; aspects of the immune response to transplanted cells and materials; and suitable animal models for non-human clinical trials.

The chapters of this book are organized into six sections: Stem Cells, Biomaterials and the Extracellular Environment, Engineered Tissue, Synthetic Organs, Immune Response, and Animal Models. Each section is intended to build upon information presented in the previous chapters, and set the stage for subsequent sections. Throughout the chapters, the reader will observe a common theme of basic discovery informing clinical translation, and clinical studies in animals and humans guiding subsequent experiments at the bench.

Biomarker discovery is an important area of biomedical research that may lead to significant breakthroughs in disease analysis and targeted therapy. Biomarkers are biological entities whose alterations are measurable and are characteristic of a particular biological condition. Discovering, managing, and interpreting knowledge of new biomarkers are challenging and attractive problems in the emerging field of biomedical informatics.

This volumeis a collection of state-of-the-artresearch into the application of data mining to the discovery and analysis of new biomarkers. Presenting new results, models and algorithms, the included contributions focus on biomarker data integration, information retrieval methods, and statistical machine learning techniques.

This volume is intended for students, and researchers in bioinformatics, proteomics, and genomics, as wellengineers and applied scientistsinterested in the interdisciplinary application of data mining techniques."

This volume contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on "Pictorial Information Systems in Medicine" held August 27-September 7, 1984 in Hotel Maritim, Braunlage/Harz, Federal Republic of Germany. The program committee of the institute consisted of KH Hohne (Director), G. T Herman, G. S. Lodwick, and D. Meyer-Ebrecht. The organization was in the hands of Klaus Assmann and Fritz Bocker In the last decade medical imaging has undergone a rapid development New imaging modalities such as Computer Tomography (CT), Digital Angiography (DSA) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) were developed using the capabilities of modern computers. In a modern hospital these technologies produce already more then 25% of image data in digital form. This format lends itself to the design of computer assisted Information systems Integrating data acquisition, presentation, communi cation and archiving for all modalities and users within a department or even a hospital. Advantages such as rapid access to any archived Image, synoptic presentation, computer assisted image analysis to name only a few, are expected. The design of such pictorial information systems, however, often called PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication Systems) In the medical community is a non-trivial task involving know-how from many disciplines such as - Medicine (especially Radiology), - Data Base Technology, - Computer Graphics, - Man Machine Interaction, - Hardware Technology and others. Most of these disCiplines are represented by disjunct scientific communities."

DNA-chip analysis has come a long way since the first conference in Moscow in 1991. Nowadays, DNA-microarrays seem to be a common commodity in biological sciences. The complexity hidden behind the apparent ease of such studies, however, is highlighted by the fact that it took about ten years before the methodology really set off. Also, on closer scrutiny, one realises that some problems still remain. Nevertheless, microarrays produce data on a scale beyond imagination a few years ago. The authors of the book took part in bringing this about. They are well-known experts in the field, many - like Edwin Southern, Hans Lehrach, Radoje Drmanac, Pavel Pevzner and Charles Cantor - have been actively pursuing array technology for more than a decade. They demonstrate the continuous development in both technology and application areas and elucidate on critical points that need to be considered when performing microarray analyses.

Computational Intelligence is comparatively a new field but it has made a tremendous progress in virtually every discipline right from engineering, science, business, m- agement, aviation to healthcare. Computational intelligence already has a solid track-record of applications to healthcare, of which this book is a continuation. We would like to refer the reader to the excellent previous volumes in this series on computational intelligence in heal- care [1-3]. This book is aimed at providing the most recent advances and state of the art in the practical applications of computational intelligence paradigms in healthcare. It - cludes nineteen chapters on using various computational intelligence methods in healthcare such as intelligent agents and case-based reasoning. A number of fielded applications and case studies are presented. Highlighted are in particular novel c- putational approaches to the semantic management of health information such as in the Web 2.0, mobile agents such as in portable devices, learning agents capable of adapting to diverse clinical settings through case-based reasoning, and statistical - proaches in computational intelligence. This book is targeted towards scientists, application engineers, professors, health professionals, professors, and students. Background information on computational intelligence has been provided whenever necessary to facilitate the comprehension of a broad audience including healthcare practitioners.

Various applications in the field of pulmonary image analysis require a registration of CT images of the lung. For example, a registration-based estimation of the breathing motion is employed to increase the accuracy of dose distribution in radiotherapy. Alexander Schmidt-Richberg develops methods to explicitly model morphological and physiological knowledge about respiration in algorithms for the registration of thoracic CT images. The author focusses on two lung-specific issues: on the one hand, the alignment of the interlobular fissures and on the other hand, the estimation of sliding motion at the lung boundaries. He shows that by explicitly considering these aspects based on a segmentation of the respective structure, registration accuracy can be significantly improved.

Health experts independently state that the most critical urban problems are preventable. This brings an added challenge to public health practitioners working in inner cities with predominately minority communities. In addition to deadly diseases - including transmittable diseases - violence, whether it is physical, sexual or child abuse, is the other predominant morbidity factor that urban areas confront. Because of these concerns, there is a need for health professionals working with the communities to critically examine health behavior theories and prevention methodologies. Additionally, new prevention practices and programs need to be developed for community-based interventions to better serve the populations in need including programs in: -HIV Prevention; -Evaluation and Policy Research; -Cancer Prevention and Screening; -Urban Public Health Policy; -Youth Violence Prevention.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics, PRIB 2012, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2012. The 24 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. Their topics are widely ranging from fundamental techniques, sequence analysis to biological network analysis. The papers are organized in topical sections on generic methods, visualization, image analysis, and platforms, applications of pattern recognition techniques, protein structure and docking, complex data analysis, and sequence analysis.

are then selected and must meet the general 'biocompatibility' require ments. Prototypes are built and tested to include biocompatibility evalua tions based on ASTM standard procedures. The device is validated for sterility and freedom from pyrogens before it can be tested on animals or humans. Medical devices are classified as class I, II or III depending on their invasiveness. Class I devices can be marketed by submitting notification to the FDA. Class II and III devices require either that they show equivalence to a device marketed prior to 1976 or that they receive pre-marketing approval. The time from device conception to FDA approval can range from months (class I device) to in excess of ten years (class III device). Therefore, much planning is necessary to pick the best regulatory approach. 2. Wound Dressings and Skin Replacement 2.1 Introduction Wounds to the skin are encountered every day. Minor skin wounds cause some pain, but these wounds will heal by themselves in time. Even though many minor wounds heal effectively without scarring in the absence of treatment, they heal more rapidly if they are kept clean and moist. Devices such as Band-Aids are used to assist in wound healing. For deeper wounds, a variety of wound dressings have been developed including cell cultured artificial skin. These materials are intended to promote healing of skin damaged or removed as a result of skin grafting, ulceration, burns, cancer excision or mechanical trauma."