Saad Amin

Context-aware knowledge modelling for decision support in e-health

In the context of e-health, professionals and healthcare service providers in various organisational and geographical locations are to work together, using information and communication systems, for the purpose of providing better patient-centred and technology-supported healthcare services at anytime and from anywhere. However, various organisations and geographies have varying contexts of work, which are dependent on their local work culture, available expertise, available technologies, peoples perspectives and attitudes and organisational and regional agendas. As a result, there is the need to ensure that a suggestion - information and knowledge - provided by a professional to support decision making in a different, and often distant, organisation and geography takes into cognizance the context of the local work setting in which the suggestion is to be used. To meet this challenge, we propose a framework for context-aware knowledge modelling in e-health, which we refer to as ContextMorph. ContextMorph combines the commonKADS knowledge modelling methodology with the concept of activity landscape and context-aware modelling techniques in order to morph, i.e. enrich and optimise, a knowledge resource to support decision making across various contexts of work. The goal is to integrate explicit information and tacit expert experiences across various work domains into a knowledge resource adequate for supporting the operational context of the work setting in which it is to be used.

Towards the development of an integrated framework for enhancing enterprise search using latent semantic indexing

While we have seen significant success in web search, enterprise search has not yet been widely investigated and as a result the benefits that can otherwise be brought to the enterprise are not fully realized. In this paper, we present an integrated framework for enhancing enterprise search. This framework is based on open source technologies which include Apache Hadoop, Tika, Solr and Lucene. Importantly, the framework also benefits from a Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) algorithm to improve the quality of search results. LSI is a mathematical model used to discover the semantic relationship patterns in a documents collection. We envisage that the proposed framework will benefit various enterprises, improving their productivity by meeting information needs effectively.

Breast self examination training through the use of multimedia: a benchmark multimedia development methodology for biomedical applications

This paper discusses the development of a set of specifications for a development methodology for educational multimedia, specifically for the development of a prototype educational multimedia application for Breast Self Examination (BSE) training. In the paper, the need for BSE training is examined and BSE is briefly presented. Our focus, however, is to show how the development of a multimedia authoring methodology could provide an effective solution to BSE and other biomedical training needs. A method for setting the overall specifications for a multimedia development methodology for biomedical applications, in general, and a BSE training multimedia application, in particular, is presented.

Breast self examination training through the use of multimedia: a prototype multimedia application

This paper presents the final version of a prototype multimedia application for training women on performing breast self examination (BSE) in the right way. The application was developed for the purposes of an evaluation study on the effectiveness of three different BSE training media: leaflets, videos and multimedia applications. Since the British National Health Service (NHS) does not offer BSE training at the moment in the form of a multimedia application, a prototype had to be developed and compared against the existing material of leaflets and videos. The paper presents a novel video playback approach, the main differences between the BSE multimedia application and other traditional training approaches already in use by the NHS at the moment, the benefits of using multimedia in biomedical training and education and the final applications structure along with the evaluation criteria for the applications effectiveness and the comparison methodology that will be used to compare its effectiveness against leaflets and videos.

Context-aware decision support in knowledge-intensive collaborative e-Work

Abstract In organisation-based work groups, experts often approach problem solving by combining explicit domain knowledge and information with their practice-based knowledge in ways that are largely driven by their specific work context. In collaborative ework, such common grounds for decision making offered by a shared work context hardly exist. Designing context-aware systems to support decision making in collaborative e-work, thus, poses a huge challenge because of the inherent difficulty in establishing a shared context of work and users adequate for supporting cohesive collaboration and knowledge sharing among experts across organisational and geographical boundaries. To address this problem, this paper proposes a framework, which incorporates an explicit model of context between the domain model of an application and the activity landscapes of various individuals, workgroups and organisations collaborating across borders, and between these landscapes and the knowledge resource space model in an intelligent ubiquitous environment. We argue that an explicit context model will enable a clearer understanding of the way experts integrate knowledge during problem solving, and thus provide common grounds for decision making and knowledge sharing during collaborative e-work. We demonstrate how a system based on our proposed model can be applied to support the reactive, collaborative and proactive modes of decision support in collaborative e-work.

A prototype multimedia application for breast self examination training

This paper discusses the development of a prototype multimedia application for training women to perform Breast Self Examination (BSE) correctly. The paper presents the main differences between the BSE multimedia application and the other, traditional training approaches currently in use by the UK National Health Service (NHS) at the moment. The benefits of using multimedia in biomedical training and education are discussed. An overview of the applications structure and design is presented along with the evaluation criteria for the applications effectiveness.

Adaptive information retrieval system based on fuzzy profiling

The importance of finding relevant information for business and decision making is imperative for both individuals as well as enterprises. In this paper, we present an approach for the development of a fuzzy information retrieval (IR) system. The approach provides a new mechanism for constructing and integrating three relevancy profiles comprising of: a task profile, user profile and document profile, into a unified index, through the use of relevance feedback and fuzzy rule based summarisation. Experiments were performed from which relevance feedback and user queries were captured from 35 users on 20 predefined simulated enterprise search tasks. The captured data set was used to develop the three types of profiles and train the fuzzy system. The system shows 86% performance accuracy in correctly classifying document relevance. The overall performance of the system was evaluated based on standard precision and recall which shows significant improvements in retrieving relevant documents based on user queries.

The Significance of Using "Expert System" to Assess the Preparedness of Training Capabilities against Different Flash Flood Scenarios

Having an effective disaster management response capability is central to managing civil defense requirements in Saudi Arabia. This paper evaluates the significance of introducing an Expert System (ES) to help support, measure, and improve training and preparedness capabilities of the Saudi Arabian Civil Defense Authority. This paper evaluates the disaster training capabilities, and preparedness needs following many recurrent flash flooding events in Jeddah and Mecca. This paper proposes an ES that could help anticipate, evaluate and improve civil defense flash flood training capabilities against scalable flash flooding risks identified at a local level in Jeddah and Mecca.

A parallel implementation of a genetic algorithm for colonic tissue image classification

Analysis of tissue using image processing techniques is essential for dealing with a number of problems in cancer research. The identification of normal and cancerous colonic mucosa is such a problem. In this paper texture analysis techniques are used to measure certain characteristics of normal and cancerous tissue images. A genetic algorithm undertakes the analysis of those results in order to determine the operations useful for the given problem and in the most appropriate operation combination for the purpose of maximising the classification accuracy. The system developed for undertaking those tasks has been implemented on a cluster of Linux workstations using distributed computing techniques. A distributed programming message-passing library, PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine), provides the basis for building this system.

Design considerations for a relational database schema to hold dental epidemiological data

Dental surveys to collect data on the developing dentition of school children are routinely performed by many health authorities in the UK. A standard software package is used by health authorities to store the results of the surveys. At present only one data file can be loaded into the dental survey program for analysis at any given time. Analysis of more than one data set at a time is therefore not possible. The overall aims of the collection of vast amounts of clinical data are many. Analysis of data sets containing both clinical and socio-economical data elements are of great interest to senior management of health authorities. The results of data analysis can aid in the planning and provision of dental resources in areas of identified need. To date no evidence is available to suggest that previous efforts to amalgamate and analyse the available epidemiological data have been made. The paper looks at the problems and a possible solution of designing and populating a relational database with the collection of survey data sets.