Virtual Library Services for a Virtual University : User-Oriented Virtual Sites in an Open Library

La llegada de las tecnologías de la información, y su uso cada vez mayor y generalizado que se está haciendo de ellas, ha permitido para que una nueva situación aparezca que, a su vez, ha originado - de hecho, que ha precipitado - una serie de cambios de gran importancia en todos los niveles, pero especialmente en los niveles sociales, económicos y culturales. Este nueva escena ha tenido una gran influencia en el entorno pedagógico. De hecho, la aparición de nuevos modelos educativos como resultado de este cambio ha estado sucediendo de una manera continuada e ininterrumpida durante la década pasada. Estos cambios recientes en los sistemas actuales de enseñanza y de aprendizaje han significado un aumento y un cambio en el tipo de demandas hechas desde las bibliotecas y los centros de documentación.

Virtual Library Services for a Virtual University

Es presenta el concepte de biblioteca virtual tal com es desenvolupa a la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya una institució d'educació a distància que proporciona educació universitària. La UOC basa l'organització del seu model educatiu en l'explotació del paradigma del Campus Virtual i en l'ús de les darreres tecnologies disponibles en telemàtica, ordinadors personals i multimèdia. En aquest context, la Biblioteca Virtual de la UOC s'ofereix com un nou model del servei de biblioteca, flexible i dissenyat de manera que els usuaris puguin aprofitar-se de les noves tecnologies de la informació i accedir a les dades registrades i emmagatzemades a qualsevol lloc del món.

Govern electrònic i serveis públics : un estudi de cas sobre el portal interadministratiu CAT365. Informe de recerca

Aquest estudi analitza els usos de les TIC a l'administració autonòmica catalana. De forma més específica, l'estudi se centra en la interacció entre l'ús d'un vessant concret de les TIC, la xarxa Internet, per part de l'administració pública, i determinats aspectes centrals d'aquest tipus d'institucions: la seva organització i estructura internes, la provisió de serveis públics o la relació amb altres agents socials. Hem analitzat, doncs, el fenomen del govern electrònic en el marc particular de la Generalitat de Catalunya, estudiant-ne el grau de desenvolupament i penetració, les seves característiques més remarcables i els problemes més importants que s'hi plantegen. El projecte de recerca es concreta en un estudi de cas sobre un projecte d'innovació específic però de gran abast, que es trobava en el moment de realització de l'estudi en la seva primera fase d'implementació: el projecte Administració Oberta de Catalunya (AOC). Concretament ens hem centrat en el vessant d'aquesta iniciativa pública que es concretava en la creació d'un portal interadministratiu a Internet, el portal www.cat365.net, destinat a proveir electrònicament serveis públics de totes les administracions que operen a Catalunya. L'estudi analitza les transformacions internes de l'administració que s'hi poden trobar associades i els elements que les condicionen, tant positivament com negativa. Igualment, intentem analitzem el que aquestes transformacions poden suposar per a la relació entre els ciutadans i les institucions públiques.

Gobierno electrónico y servicios públicos : un estudio de caso sobre el portal interadministrativo CAT365. Informe de investigación (documento de síntesis)

Aquest estudi analitza els usos de les TIC a l'administració autonòmica catalana. De forma més específica, l'estudi se centra en la interacció entre l'ús d'un vessant concret de les TIC, la xarxa Internet, per part de l'administració pública, i determinats aspectes centrals d'aquest tipus d'institucions: la seva organització i estructura internes, la provisió de serveis públics o la relació amb altres agents socials. Hem analitzat, doncs, el fenomen del govern electrònic en el marc particular de la Generalitat de Catalunya, estudiant-ne el grau de desenvolupament i penetració, les seves característiques més remarcables i els problemes més importants que s'hi plantegen. El projecte de recerca es concreta en un estudi de cas sobre un projecte d'innovació específic però de gran abast, que es trobava en el moment de realització de l'estudi en la seva primera fase d'implementació: el projecte Administració Oberta de Catalunya (AOC). Concretament ens hem centrat en el vessant d'aquesta iniciativa pública que es concretava en la creació d'un portal interadministratiu a Internet, el portal www.cat365.net, destinat a proveir electrònicament serveis públics de totes les administracions que operen a Catalunya. L'estudi analitza les transformacions internes de l'administració que s'hi poden trobar associades i els elements que les condicionen, tant positivament com negativa. Igualment, intentem analitzem el que aquestes transformacions poden suposar per a la relació entre els ciutadans i les institucions públiques.

Variations régionales du recours aux soins: quelques problèmes méthodologiques. [Regional variations in health services: various methodological problems].

Many studies show strong variation of health consumption between regions, suggesting that theses variations are related to the uncertainty of medical practice or to other factors related to health services or patients attitude. However the statistical interpretation of these variations is far from easy: apart from usual and specific information bias, there are statistical problems when observing incidence of events like health care consumption: it is in fact a rare event, which is observed within small population, and among regions with unequal number of person. Therefore, most of the variation reported might be well explained by a purely statistical phenomenon. This paper presents some aspects of this variability for three common indicators of variation, and suggest the use of ad hoc simulation to get statistical criteria.

Beyond the Transatlantic Divide: The Multiple Authorities of Standards in the Global Political Economy of Services

This paper explores the plurality of institutional environments in which standards for the service sector are expected to support the rise of a global knowledge-based economy. Despite the careful wording of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a whole range of international bodies still have the capacity to define technical specifications affecting how services are expected to be traded on worldwide basis. The analysis relies on global political economy approaches to extend to the area of service standards the assumption that the process of globalization is not opposing states and markets, but a joint expression of both of them including new patterns and agents of structural change through formal and informal power and regulatory practices. It analyses on a cross-institutional basis patterns of authority in the institutional setting of service standards in the context of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), the European Union, and the United States. In contrast to conventional views opposing the American system to the ISO/European framework, the paper questions the robustness of this opposition by showing that institutional developments of service standards are likely to face trade-offs and compromises across those systems and between two opposing models of standardisation.

Multicast extension of unicast charging for QoS Services

In order to successfully deploy multicast services in QoS-aware networks, pricing architectures must take into account the particular characteristics of multicast sessions. With this objective, we propose a charging scheme for QoS multicast services, assuming that the unicast cost of each interconnecting link is determined and that such cost is expressed in terms of quality of service (QoS) parameters. Our scheme allows determining the cost distribution of a multicast session along a cost distribution tree (CDT), and basing such distribution in those pre-existing unicast cost functions. The paper discusses in detail the main characteristics of the problem in a realistic interdomain scenario and how the proposed scheme would contribute to its solution

Accessibility to and utilisation of schistosomiasis-related health services in a rural area of state of Minas Gerais, Brazil

The objective of the present paper was to compare accessibility and utilisation of schistosomiasis diagnostic and treatment services in a small village and the surrounding rural area in northern part of the state of Minas Gerais Brazil. The study included 1,228 individuals: 935 central village residents and 293 rural residents of São Pedro do Jequitinhonha. Schistosoma mansoni infection rates were significantly higher in the central village than in the rural area during a survey in 2007 (44.3% and 23.5%, respectively) and during the 2002 schistosomiasis case-finding campaign (33.1% and 26.5%, respectively) (p < 0.001). However, during the 2002-2006 period, only 23.7% of the villagers and 27% of the rural residents obtained tests on their own from health centres, hospitals and private clinics in various nearby towns. In 2007, 63% of the villagers and 70.5% of the rural residents reported never having received treatment for schistosomiasis. This paper reveals considerable variation in the accessibility and utilisation of schistosomiasis-related health services between the central village and the rural area. A combination of low utilisation rates between 2002-2006 and persistently high S. mansoni infection rates suggest that the schistosomiasis control program must be more rapidly incorporated into the primary health services.

MAPI: towards the integrated exploitation of bioinformatics Web Services.

BACKGROUND. Bioinformatics is commonly featured as a well assorted list of available web resources. Although diversity of services is positive in general, the proliferation of tools, their dispersion and heterogeneity complicate the integrated exploitation of such data processing capacity. RESULTS. To facilitate the construction of software clients and make integrated use of this variety of tools, we present a modular programmatic application interface (MAPI) that provides the necessary functionality for uniform representation of Web Services metadata descriptors including their management and invocation protocols of the services which they represent. This document describes the main functionality of the framework and how it can be used to facilitate the deployment of new software under a unified structure of bioinformatics Web Services. A notable feature of MAPI is the modular organization of the functionality into different modules associated with specific tasks. This means that only the modules needed for the client have to be installed, and that the module functionality can be extended without the need for re-writing the software client. CONCLUSIONS. The potential utility and versatility of the software library has been demonstrated by the implementation of several currently available clients that cover different aspects of integrated data processing, ranging from service discovery to service invocation with advanced features such as workflows composition and asynchronous services calls to multiple types of Web Services including those registered in repositories (e.g. GRID-based, SOAP, BioMOBY, R-bioconductor, and others).

Factors associated with use of community mental health services by schizophrenia patients using multilevel analysis

BACKGROUND Persons with schizophrenia and related disorders may be particularly sensitive to a number of determinants of service use, including those related with illness, socio-demographic characteristics and organizational factors. The objective of this study is to identify factors associated with outpatient contacts at community mental health services of patients with schizophrenia or related disorders. METHODS This cross-sectional study analyzed 1097 patients. The main outcome measure was the total number of outpatient consultations during one year. Independent variables were related to socio-demographic, clinical and use of service factors. Data were collected from clinical records. RESULTS The multilevel linear regression model explained 46.35% of the variance. Patients with significantly more contacts with ambulatory services were not working and were receiving welfare benefits (p = 0.02), had no formal education (p = 0.02), had a global level of severity of two or three (four being the most severe) (p < 0.001), with one or more inpatient admissions (p < 0.001), and in contact with both types of professional (nurses and psychiatrists) (p < 0.001). The patients with the fewest ambulatory contacts were those with diagnoses of persistent delusional disorders (p = 0.04) and those who were attended by four of the 13 psychiatrists (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS As expected, the variables that explained the use of community service could be viewed as proxies for severity of illness. The most surprising finding, however, was that a group of four psychiatrists was also independently associated with use of ambulatory services by patients with schizophrenia or related disorders. More research is needed to carefully examine how professional support networks interact to affect use of mental health.

Prescripción enfermera en el entorno de las urgencias y emergencias. Marco conceptual vs entorno legislado en España

The prescription, widely discussed and defined conceptually in recent years in an environment of widening the spectrum of responsibilities nurse, has capacity for integration and definition in the area of accident and emergency care and carried out over the patient urgently, about emergencies and life-long commitment. Be necessary to frame throughout the legal framework, following the amendment of the Twelfth Additional Provision of Law 29/2006 of guarantees and rational use of drugs and medical devices, can be waived and implementation required, provided under model and through the nursing process and method and as an exponent and endorsementn of science and advanced clinical practice, to join the idea of interdisciplinary professional consensus that the law posed by the preparation and implementation of standardized protocols, algorithms and / or clinical practice guidelines in the context of what has come to be called "collaborative standard prescription": Prescription to the nurse in certain clinical situations in terms of a performance protocol, agreed with multidisciplinary team care health of the population (Group Protocols), which can be considered an intermediate step in the evolution towards independent nurse prescribing, providing nurses experience of a prescription under these protocols and demonstrating their capabilities.