Capacity Building through education, research and collaboration: AFRICA BUILD, an eHealth Case Study

AFRICA BUILD (AB) is a Coordination Action project under the 7th European Framework Programme having the aim of improving the capacities for health research and education in Africa through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This project, started in 2012, has promoted health research, education and evidence-based practice in Africa through the creation of centers of excellence, by using ICT,?know-how?, eLearning and knowledge sharing, through Web-enabled virtual communities.

Analysis of the suitability of existing medical ontologies for building a scalable semantic interoperability solution supporting multi-site collaboration in oncology

Semantic interoperability is essential to facilitate efficient collaboration in heterogeneous multi-site healthcare environments. The deployment of a semantic interoperability solution has the potential to enable a wide range of informatics supported applications in clinical care and research both within as ingle healthcare organization and in a network of organizations. At the same time, building and deploying a semantic interoperability solution may require significant effort to carryout data transformation and to harmonize the semantics of the information in the different systems. Our approach to semantic interoperability leverages existing healthcare standards and ontologies, focusing first on specific clinical domains and key applications, and gradually expanding the solution when needed. An important objective of this work is to create a semantic link between clinical research and care environments to enable applications such as streamlining the execution of multi-centric clinical trials, including the identification of eligible patients for the trials. This paper presents an analysis of the suitability of several widely-used medical ontologies in the clinical domain: SNOMED-CT, LOINC, MedDRA, to capture the semantics of the clinical trial eligibility criteria, of the clinical trial data (e.g., Clinical Report Forms), and of the corresponding patient record data that would enable the automatic identification of eligible patients. Next to the coverage provided by the ontologies we evaluate and compare the sizes of the sets of relevant concepts and their relative frequency to estimate the cost of data transformation, of building the necessary semantic mappings, and of extending the solution to new domains. This analysis shows that our approach is both feasible and scalable.

Collaboration of signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1) and BRCA1 in differential regulation of IFN-γ target genes

Most of the activities of IFN-γ are the result of STAT1-mediated transcriptional responses. In this study, we show that the BRCA1 tumor suppressor acts in concert with STAT1 to differentially activate transcription of a subset of IFN-γ target genes and mediates growth inhibition by this cytokine. After IFN-γ treatment, induction of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, p21WAF1, was synergistically activated by BRCA1, whereas the IRF-1 gene was unaffected. Importantly, the differential induction of p21WAF1 was impaired in breast cancer cells homozygous for the mutant BRCA1 5382C allele. Biochemical analysis illustrated that the mechanism of this transcriptional synergy involves interaction between BRCA1 aa 502–802 and the C-terminal transcriptional activation domain of STAT1 including Ser-727 whose phosphorylation is crucial for transcriptional activation. Significantly, STAT1 proteins mutated at Ser-727 bind poorly to BRCA1, reinforcing the importance of Ser-727 in the recruitment of transcriptional coactivators by STAT proteins. These findings reveal a novel mechanism for BRCA1 function in the IFN-γ-dependent tumor surveillance system.

A first trial of retrospective collaboration for positional cloning in complex inheritance: Assay of the cytokine region on chromosome 5 by the Consortium on Asthma Genetics (COAG)

The central problem of complex inheritance is to map oligogenes for disease susceptibility, integrating linkage and association over samples that differ in several ways. Combination of evidence over multiple samples with 1,037 families supports loci contributing to asthma susceptibility in the cytokine region on 5q [maximum logarithm of odds (lod) = 2.61 near IL-4], but no evidence for atopy. The principal problems with retrospective collaboration on linkage appear to have been solved, providing far more information than a single study. A multipoint lod table evaluated at commonly agreed reference loci is required for both collaboration and metaanalysis, but variations in ascertainment, pedigree structure, phenotype definition, and marker selection are tolerated. These methods are invariant with statistical methods that increase the power of lods and are applicable to all diseases, motivating collaboration rather than competition. In contrast to linkage, positional cloning by allelic association has yet to be extended to multiple samples, a prerequisite for efficient combination with linkage and the greatest current challenge to genetic epidemiology.

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Behavior of Practitioners in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders

Current research on the collaborative behaviors of conventional and alternative health care providers for the treatment of anxiety is lacking. While there are multiple studies looking at alternative health care integration into primary care, none of them look at anxiety specifically. The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary exploration of possible barriers to collaboration between conventional and alternative health care providers for the treatment of anxiety. Quantitative data on collaboration behavior patterns were obtained with an anonymous survey. Data from the surveys were analyzed using a chi-square analysis. Along with these numerical data narrative data from the survey and interviews were collected in order to assess beliefs about the barriers to collaboration from different health care providers. The results indicate that conventional providers collaborate the least with alternative providers and alternative providers collaborate the least with conventional providers. The descriptive results regarding the barriers to collaboration from the study illustrated a common theme, specifically, the lack of education of conventional providers on alternative health care practices on anxiety. This is an exploratory study: therefore it would be beneficial for future researchers to look deeper into the beliefs of health care providers on the barriers to collaboration, possibly identifying the specific barriers to collaboration for each type of healthcare provider.

Synchronous collaboration of virtual and remote laboratories

Virtual and remote laboratories(VRLs) are e-learning resources which enhance the accessibility of experimental setups providing a distance teaching framework which meets the student's hands-on learning needs. In addition, online collaborative communication represents a practical and a constructivist method to transmit the knowledge and experience from the teacher to students, overcoming physical distance and isolation. Thus, the integration of learning environments in the form of VRLs inside collaborative learning spaces is strongly desired. Considering these facts, the authors of this document present an original approach which enables user to share practical experiences while they work collaboratively through the Internet. This practical experimentation is based on VRLs, which have been integrated inside a synchronous collaborative e-learning framework. This article describes the main features of this system and its successful application for science and engineering subjects.

The Virtual Interactive Relationship Between BIM Project Teams: Effective Communication to aid Collaboration in the Design Process

Building Information Modelling (BIM) provides a shared source of information about a built asset, which creates a collaborative virtual environment for project teams. Literature suggests that to collaborate efficiently, the relationship between the project team is based on sympathy, obligation, trust and rapport. Communication increases in importance when working collaboratively but effective communication can only be achieved when the stakeholders are willing to act, react, listen and share information. Case study research and interviews with Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry experts suggest that synchronous face-to-face communication is project teams’ preferred method, allowing teams to socialise and build rapport, accelerating the creation of trust between the stakeholders. However, virtual unified communication platforms are a close second-preferred option for communication between the teams. Effective methods for virtual communication in professional practice, such as virtual collaboration environments (CVE), that build trust and achieve similar spontaneous responses as face-to-face communication, are necessary to face the global challenges and can be achieved with the right people, processes and technology. This research paper investigates current industry methods for virtual communication within BIM projects and explores the suitability of avatar interaction in a collaborative virtual environment as an alternative to face-to-face communication to enhance collaboration between design teams’ professional practice on a project. Hence, this paper presents comparisons between the effectiveness of these communication methods within construction design teams with results of further experiments conducted to test recommendations for more efficient methods for virtual communication to add value in the workplace between design teams.

A Roadmap for Strengthening International Collaboration in Research and Innovation under Horizon 2020. EU Center Singapore Background Brief No. 9, May 2013

This  background  brief  looks  into  the  new  research  and  innovation  strategy  introduced  by  the  European  Union  embodied in the Horizon 2020 funding programme. It focuses  on the  prospect  for  international  collaboration  in  Horizon  2020, and presents a roadmap for both European institutions  and  those  from  key  third  countries  to  get  ready  for  the  opportunities provided by this funding instrument to embark  on interesting research and innovation. The brief begins by  outlining the efforts by the EU to address issues of economic  competitiveness with a new growth strategy Europe 2020 in  response to the enormous challenges faced by Europe in the  midst of the debt  crisis. It looks at the introduction of the  Innovation Union  as  a  Europe 2020  initiative,  and  explains  how the  new  financial  instrument,  Horizon  2020,  may  be  used to support the primary goals   of more jobs, improved  lives,  better  society  and  the  global  competitiveness  of  Europe.  The  brief  also  outlines  the  major  differences  of  Horizon 2020 from the previous framework programmes, and  recommends close collaboration between the European and  the key third countries. The brief also proposes general and  priority‐specific  strategies  for  national  research  councils,  universities  and  research  institution  to  get  ready  to  participate in the Horizon 2020 programme.