1,720,960 research outputs found
A secure and interoperable blockchain-based information sharing system for healthcare providers in developing countries
Full text linkA Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in Information and Communication Sciences and Engineering of
the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologySystems in the health sector are very crucial for human life and they should be efficient, reliable
and secure. Unfortunately, electronic health record (EHR) systems do not work effectively
when managing multi-institutional medical records. The EHR, which is a digital system in
which patient health information is systematically stored. The information stored includes
medical history, laboratory test results, demographics, and billing information, poses problems
to patients related to interoperability, privacy, and data integrity. Most solutions to these threats
focus on a centralized architecture that faces a single point of failure and internal threats, such
as unreliable system administrators.
The promising solution that many researchers are interested in is the use of blockchains.
However, in developing countries, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, very little attention
has been given to the issues of interoperability, privacy and data integrity for EHRs using
blockchain technology. As such, this research has designed and developed self-sovereign
identity management and secure information sharing system for health systems in developing
countries, based on blockchain technology, which helps to solve the mentioned problems.
The study used a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to develop solutions to the
research problem through three sub studies. The first and the second sub studies conducted
under problem awareness and suggestion phases of DSR, and third sub study conducted under
development and evaluation phases of DSR. The first sub study deal with the assessment of
three most common blockchain based healthcare systems (MedicalChain, Patientory, and
MediLedger). The second sub study studies the problem of existing EHR systems in Tanzania
regarding privacy issues in identity management and secure sharing of medical data from one
healthcare facility to the other. The third sub study deal with the development of two systems,
one for identity management using blockchain (self-sovereign identity), and one for secure
sharing of medical data from one healthcare facility to another through blockchain technology.
The systems provide additional privacy protection tools to the existing infrastructures. They
reduce development cost, transparency, data integrity, protection against single-point-offailure
vulnerabilities, and prevention of internal threats such as untrusted system
administrators. The systems will make the existing and future health information systems
trustable to healthcare service providers and the end-users of the healthcare systems. Also, will
help the stakeholders in the healthcare sector to properly manage the healthcare systems
Design of Land Administration and Title Registration Model Based on Blockchain Technology
Full text linkLand administration and title registration system is the system for storing land title information and managing transactions involving land titles. Due to the sensitivity of land issues, land administration and title registration system should be strong to avoid any document forgery, available all the time, and take a short time to complete tasks. Thus, this study aims at designing a model for such system based on blockchain technology. The proposed model is designed using UML diagrams and then tested for verification using statistical usage models (Markov chains). The proposed model integrates the Integrated Land Management Information System (ILMIS) with factom and bitcoin blockchains which enables encryption of information from ILMIS to get the fingerprint information of each land title and store it to the blockchains. The model further encrypts the land information from ILMIS when needed and then compare it with fingerprints from blockchains for verification. Such implementation of the proposed model will help ILMIS to have the capability of providing tamper proof for stored data, providing the self-notarization mechanism, and availability of evidence for the land title from distributed databases. Furthermore, the society is expected to benefit from this study as the time and cost for registering land title will decrease and the possibilities of a piece of land having more than one owner will not be there. Keywords: Blockchain, Bitcoin Blockchain, Factom Blockchain, Land Management System, Model Design.
A review on healthcare information systems and consensus protocols in blockchain technology
Full text linkThis research article published by the International Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Exploration, Vol 5(49), 2018Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology whereby transactions are bundled into blocks that are chained together
cryptographically by hash pointers. Blockchain solutions add trust and privacy to the existing internet due to its
tampering resistance and advanced cryptography characteristics. In healthcare systems, the technology has been
implemented to ensure transparency, auditability, interoperability, and proper governance and management of patient
information. This study evaluates blockchain based healthcare systems. Three most common systems were chosen from
public, private/consortium blockchains. The evaluation was done using framework for performance monitoring for
blockchain systems. To describe resource usage, we used five performance evaluation metrics i.e. memory consumption,
disk write and read performance, network data utilization, transaction execution per unit time, and central processing
unit (CPU) usage. The study revealed that the system developed using consortium-based platform outperformed private
and public blockchain for more transactions per unit time, and proper utilization of resources of connected nodes such as
CPU, Memory, and Disk storage
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Data Warehousing for Optimizing Healthcare Resource Allocation in Botswana
Full text linkHealthcare resource allocation remains a persistent challenge in Botswana, primarily due to inefficiencies in data management that obstruct equitable distribution and evidence-based decision-making. Traditional allocation approaches in Botswana exhibit severe fragmentation, low interoperability, and an absence of real-time data analytics factors that contribute to service delivery disparities, especially in rural and underserved areas. In contrast, developed countries have leveraged data warehousing to optimize healthcare resource planning, offering Botswana a proven yet untapped strategic opportunity. This study designs and validates a context-sensitive data warehouse methodology, applying the Kimball Lifecycle model as the guiding framework. A mixed-methods design was adopted, incorporating qualitative interviews with 24 healthcare practitioners and administrators across public and private health facilities, along with quantitative surveys assessing the state of 12 existing health data systems. Results reveal systemic shortcomings in data accuracy (average error rates of 22%), timeliness (with a median data update lag of 14 days), and accessibility (only 38% of facilities had centralized access). Post-implementation of the prototype data warehouse, significant improvements were noted: data accuracy increased by 47%, data accessibility across departments rose to 85%, and decision turnaround time was reduced by 33%. The warehousing also demonstrated cost-effectiveness, reducing redundant data handling expenses by an estimated 18% over six months. In conclusion, this study presents a robust, scalable, and locally adaptable data warehousing framework that effectively addresses Botswana’s systemic challenges in healthcare resource allocation
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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