Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is used in healthcare and health science research in application domains such as clinical trials and the development of drug and medical devices, as well as in translational medicine, with the aim of improving prevention, diagnosis, and interventions in health and care. This book presents accepted papers from the 2019 European Federation of Medical Informatics conference (EFMI STC 2019), held in Hanover, Germany, from 7 – 10 April 2019. More than 90 submissions were received, from which, after review, the Scientific Program Committee (SPC) accepted 50 full papers to be included in this volume of proceedings. In addition, 16 poster presentations were accepted. This year, ICT for Health Science Research was selected as the focus topic, and the conference also honors Prof. Peter Leo Reichertz (1930 – 1987), one of the founding fathers of ICT healthcare and an originator of the term Medical Informatics. The conference focuses on recent research & development supporting information systems in biomedical, translational and clinical research, as well as semantic interoperability across such systems for the purpose of data sharing and the analytics of cross-system integrated data. Papers are divided into 12 categories covering topics including digitization; data privacy; interoperability; data-driven decision support; mobile data capture; and ICT for clinical trials. The book will be of interest to all healthcare researchers and practitioners whose work involves the use of ICT.

Smart mobile systems like micro-systems, smart textiles and implants and sensor-controlled medical devices, together with related networks and cloud services, are important enablers for telemedicine and pervasive health to become the next generation of health services. Social media and gamification have added further to pHealth as an ecosystem. This book presents the proceedings of pHealth 2019, the 16th in a series of international conferences on personalized health, held in Genoa, Italy, from 10 – 12 June 2019. The book includes 1 keynote, 2 of 4 invited talks, 36 oral presentations and 7 poster presentations from a total of 141 international authors. All submissions were critically reviewed by at least two independent experts and a member of the Scientific Program Committee. This process resulted in a full paper rejection rate of more than 30%. Besides wearable or implantable micro and nano technologies for personalized medicine, this volume addresses topics such as legal, ethical, social, and organizational requirements and impacts as well as necessary basic research for enabling future proof care paradigms. Such participatory, predictive, personalized, preventive, and effective care settings combine medical services and public health, prevention, social and elderly care, but also wellness and personal fitness. The multilateral benefits of pHealth technologies for all stakeholder communities offer enormous potential for the improvement of both care quality and industrial competitiveness, and also for the management of health care costs. Hence, the book will be of interest to all those involved in the provision of healthcare.

This book focuses on the three inevitable facets of e-government, namely policies, processes and technologies. The policies discusses the genesis and revitalization of government policies; processes talks about ongoing e-government practices across developing countries; technology reveals the inclusion of novel technologies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the focus on health informatics and healthcare technology for policy makers and healthcare professionals worldwide. This book contains the 110 papers (from 160 submissions) accepted for the 18th annual International Conference on Informatics, Management, and Technology in Healthcare (ICIMTH 2020), held virtually in Athens, Greece, from 3 – 5 July 2020. The conference attracts scientists working in the field of Biomedical and Health Informatics from all continents, and this year it was held as a Virtual Conference, by means of teleconferencing, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdown in many countries around the world. The call for papers for the conference started in December 2019, when signs of the new virus infection were not yet evident, so early submissions were on the usual topics as announced. But papers submitted after mid-March were mostly focused on the first results of the pandemic analysis with respect to informatics in different countries and with different perspectives of the spread of the virus and its influence on public health across the world. This book therefore includes papers on the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to informatics reporting from hospitals and institutions from around the world, including South Korea, Europe, and the USA. The book encompasses the field of biomedical and health informatics in a very broad framework, and the timely inclusion of papers on the current pandemic will make it of particular interest to all those involved in the provision of healthcare everywhere.

This book takes a closer look at the relation between current issues and trends in higher education and scientific research in the Arab World and in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Qatar and United Arab Emirates (UAE). This thoroughly researched text traces the development of higher education in the GCC area as it continues to be positioned in an intersection of international and local factors. The text further articulates the pivotal political and cultural influences that act as real and perceived barriers towards the advancement of key fields. The chapters analyze the current policy trends, structures, and coping alternatives in addressing higher education challenges, whilst also providing comparative first-hand texts with the other Arab states in the region. By drawing focus on the GCC area, the text identifies the crucial factors that hamper learning and research performance. The book serves as an invaluable discussion on the implications for policy makers and HEIs in relation to the eponymous regions and other Arab states in the GCC area. Enhancing understanding of the scope, scale, and complexity of higher education and scientific research in the GCC area, the book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of educational policy, comparative and international education and higher education.

Information communication technologies have become the necessity in everyday life enabling increased level of communication, processing and information exchange to extent that one could not imagine only a decade ago. Innovations in these technologies open new fields in areas such as: language processing, biology, medicine, robotics, security, urban planning, networking, governance and many others. The applications of these innovations are used to define services that not only ease, but also increase the quality of life. Good education is essential for establishing solid basis of individual development and performance. ICT is integrated part of education at every level and type. Therefore, the special focus should be given to possible deployment of the novel technologies in order to achieve educational paradigms adapted to possible educational consumer specific and individual needs. This book offers a collection of papers presented at the Fifth International Conference on ICT Innovations held in September 2013, in Ohrid, Macedonia. The conference gathered academics, professionals and practitioners in developing solutions and systems in the industrial and business arena especially innovative commercial implementations, novel applications of technology, and experience in applying recent ICT research advances to practical solutions.

An historical and empirical study of science in Africa, bringing to light connections between science, policy and development.

This authoritative landmark text examines the highly topical and important issue of ICT in literacy learning. Its distinctive focus on providing a systematic review of research in the field gives the reader an essential, comprehensive overview. As governments worldwide continue to invest heavily in ICT provisions in educational institutions, this book addresses the need to gather and synthesise evidence about the impact of ICT on literacy learning. An expert team of writers draw upon two recent reports by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which highlighted the considerable differences between nations in the access and use of ICT, to take a discursive and expansive look at the subject. Within its wide range and scope, chapters cover areas on: * the history of literacy and ICT * evidence for the effectiveness of ICT on literacy learning * the impact of networked ICT on literacy learning * the relationship between verbal and visual literacies. This book will be an invaluable and informative read with international resonance for student teachers, teachers, academics and researchers worldwide.

This book is concerned with the complexities of achieving quality in care transitions. The organization and accomplishment of high quality care transitions relies upon the coordination of multiple professionals, working within and across multiple care processes, settings and organizations, each with their own distinct ways of working, profile of resources, and modes of organizing. In short, care transitions might easily be regarded as complex activities that take place within complex systems, which can make accomplishing high quality care challenging. As a subject of enquiry, care transitions are approached from many research, improvement and policy perspectives: from group psychology and human factors to social and political theory; from applied process re-engineering projects to exploratory ethnographic studies; from large-scale policy innovations to local improvements initiatives. This collection will provide a unique cross-disciplinary and multi-level analysis, where each chapter presents a particular depth of insight and analysis, and together offer a holistic and detail understand of care transitions.

Canadian Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy presents new critical analysis about related developments in the field such as significantly changed concepts of peer review, merit review, the emergence of big data in the digital age, and the rise of an economy and society dominated by the internet and information. The authors scrutinize the different ways in which federal and provincial policies have impacted both levels of government, including how such policies impact on Canada’s natural resources. They also study key government departments and agencies involved with science, technology, and innovation to show how these organizations function increasingly in networks and partnerships, as Canada seeks to keep up and lead in a highly competitive global system. The book also looks at numerous realms of technology across Canada in universities, business, and government and various efforts to analyze biotechnology, genomics, and the Internet, as well as earlier technologies such as nuclear reactors, and satellite technology. The authors assess whether a science-and-technology-centred innovation economy and society has been established in Canada – one that achieves a balance between commercial and social objectives, including the delivery of public goods and supporting values related to redistribution, fairness, and community and citizen empowerment. Probing the nature of science advice across prime ministerial eras, including recent concerns over the Harper government’s claimed muzzling of scientists in an age of attack politics, Canadian Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy provides essential information for academics and practitioners in business and government in this crucial and complex field.