Digital Information Flow Research Articles

Geographical gaps in the Portuguese broadband access. Rethinking the role of public funding after years of trade liberalisation

Digital information flows are influencing and interacting with real places in a very complex and dynamic way. The main objective of this article is to present a detailed study concerning Portugal, with the purpose of questioning the effective role of broadband Internet access in decreasing regional disparities or, to the contrary, as an unanticipated contribution to the aggravation of territorial inequalities. To answer this question, the paper will present selected cartographic analyses, showing the spatial extent of the most recent broadband technological solutions available in Portugal (DSL technology, coaxial cable, fibre-optic cable, WiFi access or 3G/UMTS technology). Market failures originating in pro-competitive policies between private operators may lead to a rethink of the role of public funding after years of trade liberalisation.

Combining data-driven systems for improving Named Entity Recognition

The increasing flow of digital information requires the extraction, filtering and classification of pertinent information from large volumes of texts. All these tasks greatly benefit from involving a Named Entity Recognizer (NER) in the preprocessing stage. This paper proposes a completely automatic NER system. The NER task involves not only the identification of proper names (Named Entities) in natural language text, but also their classification into a set of predefined categories, such as names of persons, organizations (companies, government organizations, committees, etc.), locations (cities, countries, rivers, etc.) and miscellaneous (movie titles, sport events, etc.). Throughout the paper, we examine the differences between language models learned by different data-driven classifiers confronted with the same NLP task, as well as ways to exploit these differences to yield a higher accuracy than the best individual classifier. Three machine learning classifiers (Hidden Markov Model, Maximum Entropy and Memory Based Learning) are trained on the same corpus in order to resolve the NE task. After comparison, their output is combined using voting strategies. A comprehensive study and experimental work on the evaluation of our system, as well as a comparison with other systems has been carried out within the framework of two specialized scientific competitions for NER, CoNLL-2002 and HAREM-2005. Finally, this paper describes the integration of our NER system in different NLP applications, in concrete Geographic Information Retrieval and Conceptual Modelling.

Digital Microscopy Imaging and New Approaches in Toxicologic Pathology

Digital microscopy, a comprehensive integration of digital imaging and light microscopy, can assist the pathologist to observe, acquire, record, share, analyze, and manage pathology image data. To lead the activity for establishing new generation digital microscopy capacity, novel concepts and strategies of digital pathology information flow and digital pathology platform were designed to integrate personal digital pathology microscopy workstations and other pathology imaging modalities with centralized data storage/management. In addition, a strategy for Web-enabled interactive telepathology that would permit global capacity was designed. A novel concept of high content pathology was also created to develop an automated tissue microscopy imaging and screening approach. These new concepts, strategies, and approaches guided the development and implementation of a digital pathology platform, a telepathology platform, and automated tissue slide imaging capacity. Digital microscopy photography is now able to replace photographic film in toxicologic pathology. Digital pathology and telepathology platforms can provide a networked environment for multisite, global team participation. Our practice also ascertained the central value of digital microscopy which can provide innovative quantitative pathology information and data mining capability with various imaging biomarkers via advanced digital image processing and pathology informatics; these are now the focus of ongoing development.

Technology's implications for health care quality. A clinical engineering perspective.

Bill Gates states in Business @ The Speed of Thought that "the 2000s will be about velocity." This "decade of velocity" is driven by the flow of digital information. Health care organizations should develop a "digital nervous system" that is distinguished from a network of computers by the accuracy, immediacy, and richness of the information it brings to health care workers and by the insight and collaboration made possible by this information. This article provides a clinical engineering perspective on technology in health care in an era of rapid change. It discusses how clinical engineers work with health care professionals to manage and adapt to technological, economic, social, and regulatory forces that are redefining our approach to health care delivery.

Going for the burn dreaming of the short walk

A personal view of the ex‐editor of Guardian Unlimited and acknowledged new media expert on the problems of managing and juggling the digital information flow in the workplace. Considers the sheer speed at which we are expected to work in cyberspace. The benefits and problems associated with e‐mail in the workplace are discussed. The way we relate to e‐mail and how we allow it to dominate our lives are the key matters of concern.

Trends in using CD‐ROM is academic libraries of three South Asian countries ‐ Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

High hopes were attached to CD‐ROM technology at its inception in bridging the gap between ‘information rich’ and ‘information poor’ countries. However, this is technology is entering the libraries of developing countries at a much slower pace than expected. This paper explores the use of CD‐ROM in academic libraries of three South Asian countries, namely Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A questionnaire was used for data collection and 39 academic libraries participated in the study. It was found that only one‐half of the libraries were using CD‐ROM technology and 65% of these were facing financial difficulties in sustaining it. TWO‐thirds of the libraries have only up to two CD‐ROM workstations and, on average, libraries have just over four CD‐ROM titles. Most of the library staff was self trained and only libraries were undertaking promotional and user education activities. This paper suggests that donor agencies and leading publishers should pool their resources to develop full‐text CD‐ROM products to help sustain the flow of digital information to these countries.

Publisher—library relationships in the digital environment

ABSTRACTSTM represents 250 publishing companies and learned societies, and recognizes that the advent of digital networks affects authors, publishers, librarians, and readers. Dialogue between publishers and librarians is essential to creating the sense of partnership and open‐mindedness needed to meet the future needs of scholarship and research. Publishers and librarians have complementary roles and responsibilities, serving the same needs and facing similar challenges. The interests of publishers and librarians need to be rebalanced in order to seize the benefits of digital information flow. Legislation provides a framework of copyright, privacy, competition, and consumer law that protects against misuse while facilitating the flow of information from author to reader. If laws need to be amended, such changes should be made on the basis of the mutual agreement of all members of the community. There is much to be achieved without legislative change. Neither publishers nor librarians should shy away from the issues that divide them, especially the scope of fair use and the exchange of copyright information between libraries. A more detailed analysis of the impact of copyright exemptions is needed. The development of a predictable licensing environment and the testing of new business models requires co‐operation between publishers and librarians, and leads to better mutual understanding. STM seeks dialogue with libraries and with other members of the research and scholarly communities in order to meet the challenges, opportunities, and expectations created by the digital environment.

New developments in intellectual property rights: Implications for geographic information systems

International copyright agreements are needed to protect the transborder flow and use of digital information. Legal protection for electronic databases, commonly used in geographic information systems, can be accomplished through unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral means. This essay will examine two multilateral approaches that aim to raise the level of intellectual property protection for databases

Synchronization in digital communications networks

The general aspects of timing and synchronization in digital communications networks are reviewed. The properties of the links and nodes carrying and switching time-multiplexed digital signals determine the throughput and performance of a network. The continuity and integrity conditions for the digital information flow, where timing faults cause errors and loss of information, determine the requirements on accurate clock signal distribution. The dominant type of architecture for network synchronization is based on the master-slave hierarchy principle.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Transborder data flows: The transfer of medical and other scientific information by the united states

Abstract The expression “transborder data flows'’ (TBDF) is shorthand for a complex set of issues that have come to the forefront as a result of the electronic transfer or exchange of information across national boundaries. It involves the flow of digital information across borders for the storage or processing in foreign computers and reflects the interests of governments in regulating or otherwise intervening in the free flow of such exchanges for a variety of reasons including economic, social, political, and cultural. This paper provides an overview of these TBDF issues and discusses the policies and experiences of the U.S. National Library of Medicine pertaining to the transfer of biomedical information worldwide. Trends in the international interchange of all types of scientific and technical information are noted and the future of U.S. information policy is addressed.