Domain Information Model Research Articles

Design of product configuration systems supporting customised product cost estimation using object-oriented ontology framework

The manufacturing sector is undergoing a significant transformation driven by the demand for personalised products, challenging manufacturers to provide precise quotations while maintaining cost control and profitability. Product Configuration Systems (PCS) play a pivotal role in supporting product configurations, facing challenges such as data integration, cost calculation relevance, and the need for a knowledge expression framework. This study significantly contributes by delineating an object-oriented ontology framework tailored for configurable product families within PCS. It incorporates comprehensive domain information models for MBOM, inventory, purchase, manufacturing, and sales and distribution. Additionally, the study proposes a domain information model-based cost estimation, integrating actual values from existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems for various cost aspects. Design patterns for transforming domain information models into system implementations are introduced, covering both data and business operation layers. Practical application and feasibility are demonstrated through a detailed case study, emphasising the method's practicality. The proposed approach empowers manufacturers to derive accurate product cost estimates, supporting well-informed business decisions. Future research directions involve refining product model configurations, expanding support for diverse product types, and integrating additional digital technologies for an enhanced user experience. Further exploration of labour, equipment, and engineering design expenses aims to enhance cost estimation accuracy.

Domain-oriented information search on the Internet

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of information search on the Internet by using knowledge about the domains of the Web space. The domain information model (IM), the virtual Web environment model (VWE) and the user query model (UQ) are proposed, as well as the relationships and mapping principles between them are investigated. The possibility of providing a thematic focus, improving the quality and efficiency of the search process, improving results using an information model of domain representation is considered. Based on this model, a domain-oriented information search system for the Internet Web space has been developed. To improve the quality of the search engine and search results, a fuzzy logic approach is used, thanks to which a fuzzy domain-oriented information model of the Web space is proposed. Within the framework of the proposed models, methods have been developed for determining the content connectivity of Web documents, dividing the Web space into related Web areas, and virtual unification of Web areas.

Phenotyping cowpea accessions at the seedling stage for drought tolerance in controlled environments

Abstract One of the most important screening techniques used in cowpea selection for drought tolerance is screening at the seedling stage. The objective of this study was to phenotype 60 cowpea genotypes for seedling drought tolerance in screen houses (glasshouse and greenhouse). Principal component analysis revealed that of the 14 variables, the first 4 expressed more than 1 eigenvalue. Data showed that PC1, PC2, and PC3 contributed 39.3, 15.2, and 10%, respectively, with 64.68% total variation. A PCA plot and biplot showed that the number of pods (NP), seeds per pod (SP), survival count (SC), pod weight (PWT), and stem wilting in week 1 (WWK1) had the most significant contributions to genetic variability to drought tolerance and to yield after stress imposition based on the PCA, biplot, and cluster plot, the accessions IT 07-292-10, IT 07-274-2-9, IT90K-59, 835-911, RV 343, and IT 95K-2017-15 had the maximum variability in terms of NP, SP, SC, PWT, and WWK1 after drought imposition. Cowpea accessions 835-911, IT 07-292-10, RV 344, Kangorongondo, and IT 90K-59 were the major individuals that contributed mainly to domain information model (DIM) 1 and 2. The accessions that contributed the least were IT 89KD288, Chibundi mavara, and TVU12746. Thirty-six cowpea accessions from both screen houses were tolerant to drought, 15 were moderately tolerant, while 23 were susceptible. The findings of the study provided a useful tool for screening and determining drought-tolerant and susceptible accessions at the seedling stage.

The Value of Domain Information Models for Achieving Interoperability.

The value of data models in general and information models in specific has been evaluated by many scientific papers. UML as one modelling notation has documented its value as a foundation for precise specifications. Analyzing implementation guides for data exchange, they rarely include or are based on information models but simple data sets, if at all, as simple technical representation thereof. This paper wants to argue in favor of information models as a basis for creating interoperability specifications using a quite simple example and to include - or at least reference - them when providing implementation guides. The reader is invited to transfer this example to even more complex scenarios.

Semantic Integration of Information Models of Different Domains for the Railway Sector

Although BIM and GIS are from different domains, the interoperability of IFC and CityGML is seen today as a needed step for the plan, design, and construction of an infrastructure project. Such an approach utilizes data from both domains by converting two open data standards. However, the interoperability of GIS/BIM convergence with other domains, such as LandInfra, LADM, RailTopoModel, etc., is becoming increasingly more important, particularly in the projects of railway. Thus, the cooperation is not only for stakeholders within the AECO/MEP industry but also other stakeholders within other domains. A decentralized seamless data flow among different domains must be ensured by linking different domain information models. This study presents a comprehensive approach for incorporating information models with a particular focus on the railways. The approach in the study first asserts project information in BIM to be included in GIS using geospatial ontologies and then extends this approach by integrating other information models from different fields.

The Conceptual Modeling of Interoperability Framework of Heart Sound Monitor in the Context of an Interoperable End-to-End Architecture.

Background: Heart sound monitor (HSM), a device suitable for home-use, can be used to acquire heart sounds. It enables the telemonitoring of cardiac function, which has been largely evolved and widely used in recent years. Nevertheless, the designers paid little attention to the consistency of information model and data interaction of HSM, thus the data could not be shared and aggregated among healthcare systems. Consequently, the device's development and its application in person-centered telehealth are hindered. Objective: To solve this problem and to build interoperability for HSM, this article proposes a HSM interoperability framework that is constructed by using standardized modeling methods. Methods: The authors collected the common device-output information of HSM involved in telemonitoring, leveraged the standardized interoperability framework defined in ISO/IEEE 11073 Personal Health Device (11073-PHD) standards to model the static data structure and dynamic interaction behaviors of HSM. Results: Via a meta-analysis, the HSM device-output information includes collected data (heart sound measurement), and derived data (e.g., device status). Based on such information, an 11073-PHD-compliant domain information model has been successfully created. This enables the interoperability between HSM and aggregation device, allowing inter-device plug-and-play using the service model and communication model. A prototype of this design has been implemented and validated via Continua Enabling Software Library. Conclusions: The ISO/IEEE 11073-PHD standard framework has the potential to accommodate the HSM, which implicate HSM can be integrated into the interoperable ecosystem to achieve holistic health solution. Findings in this article may be taken as a reference for standard developing organizations to establish a standardized interoperability framework for HSM.

Proteome-wide prediction and annotation of mitochondrial and sub-mitochondrial proteins by incorporating domain information

Mitochondrion is one of the most important subcellular organelle of eukaryotic cells. It carries out several biochemical functions that are extremely vital for cells. Defects in mitochondria also play an important role in the development and progression of different types of cancer. Therefore knowledge of complete mitochondrial protein repertoire is essential to understand overall mitochondrial functionality, maintenance, dynamics and metabolism. It would be of a great practical significance to develop an automated and reliable approach that can identify the mitochondrial proteins and their sub-mitochondrial location. In the present study, we report a two level prediction method, named as SubMitoPred, which predicts mitochondrial proteins (at first level) and their sub-mitochondrial localization (at second level). Our approach is based on combined usage of Pfam domain information and support vector machine model. During training we achieved an overall prediction accuracy of 94.37% at first level while at the second level a prediction accuracy of 74.91% for inner membrane, 82.98% for outer membrane, 71.23% for inter-membrane space and 81.58% accuracy was achieved for matrix. Evaluation on independent data shows better performance of SubMitoPred. Benchmarking showed that SubMitoPred performed better than other existing methods. We also annotated human proteome using SubMitoPred. We also developed a freely accessible web-server as well as standalone software for the use of scientific community, which is available at http://proteininformatics.org/mkumar/submitopred/.

BRIDG: a domain information model for translational and clinical protocol-driven research.

It is critical to integrate and analyze data from biological, translational, and clinical studies with data from health systems; however, electronic artifacts are stored in thousands of disparate systems that are often unable to readily exchange data. To facilitate meaningful data exchange, a model that presents a common understanding of biomedical research concepts and their relationships with health care semantics is required. The Biomedical Research Integrated Domain Group (BRIDG) domain information model fulfills this need. Software systems created from BRIDG have shared meaning "baked in," enabling interoperability among disparate systems. For nearly 10 years, the Clinical Data Standards Interchange Consortium, the National Cancer Institute, the US Food and Drug Administration, and Health Level 7 International have been key stakeholders in developing BRIDG. BRIDG is an open-source Unified Modeling Language-class model developed through use cases and harmonization with other models. With its 4+ releases, BRIDG includes clinical and now translational research concepts in its Common, Protocol Representation, Study Conduct, Adverse Events, Regulatory, Statistical Analysis, Experiment, Biospecimen, and Molecular Biology subdomains. The model is a Clinical Data Standards Interchange Consortium, Health Level 7 International, and International Standards Organization standard that has been utilized in national and international standards-based software development projects. It will continue to mature and evolve in the areas of clinical imaging, pathology, ontology, and vocabulary support. BRIDG 4.1.1 and prior releases are freely available at https://bridgmodel.nci.nih.gov .

The MADE Reference Information Model for Interoperable Pervasive Telemedicine Systems

The main objective is to develop and validate a reference information model (RIM) to support semantic interoperability of pervasive telemedicine systems. The RIM is one component within a larger, computer-interpretable "MADE language" developed by the authors in the context of the MobiGuide project. To validate our RIM, we applied it to a clinical guideline for patients with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The RIM is derived from a generic data flow model of disease management which comprises a network of four types of concurrent processes: Monitoring (M), Analysis (A), Decision (D) and Effectuation (E). This resulting MADE RIM, which was specified using the formal Vienna Development Method (VDM), includes six main, high-level data types representing measurements, observations, abstractions, action plans, action instructions and control instructions. The authors applied the MADE RIMto the complete GDM guideline and derived from it a domain information model (DIM) comprising 61 archetypes, specifically 1 measurement, 8 observation, 10 abstraction, 18 action plan, 3 action instruction and 21 control instruction archetypes. It was observed that there are six generic patterns for transforming different guideline elements into MADE archetypes, although a direct mapping does not exist in some cases. Most notable examples are notifications to the patient and/or clinician as well as decision conditions which pertain to specific stages in the therapy. The results provide evidence that the MADE RIM is suitable for modelling clinical data in the design of pervasive telemedicine systems. Together with the other components of the MADE language, the MADE RIM supports development of pervasive telemedicine systems that are interoperable and independent of particular clinical applications.

Interoperable End-to-End Remote Patient Monitoring Platform Based on IEEE 11073 PHD and ZigBee Health Care Profile.

This paper describes the implementation of an end-to-end remote monitoring platform based on the IEEE 11073 standards for personal health devices (PHD). It provides an overview of the concepts and approaches and describes how the standard has been optimized for small devices with limited resources of processor, memory, and power that use short-range wireless technology. It explains aspects of IEEE 11073, including the domain information model, state model, and nomenclature, and how these support its plug-and-play architecture. It shows how these aspects underpin a much larger ecosystem of interoperable devices and systems that include IHE PCD-01, HL7, and BlueTooth LE medical devices, and the relationship to the Continua Guidelines, advocating the adoption of data standards and nomenclature to support semantic interoperability between health and ambient assisted living in future platforms. The paper further describes the adaptions that have been made in order to implement the standard on the ZigBee Health Care Profile and the experiences of implementing an end-to-end platform that has been deployed to frail elderly patients with chronic disease(s) and patients with diabetes.

Working with the HL7 metamodel in a Model Driven Engineering context

HL7 (Health Level 7) International is an organization that defines health information standards. Most HL7 domain information models have been designed according to a proprietary graphic language whose domain models are based on the HL7 metamodel. Many researchers have considered using HL7 in the MDE (Model-Driven Engineering) context. A limitation has been identified: all MDE tools support UML (Unified Modeling Language), which is a standard model language, but most do not support the HL7 proprietary model language. We want to support software engineers without HL7 experience, thus real-world problems would be modeled by them by defining system requirements in UML that are compliant with HL7 domain models transparently. The objective of the present research is to connect HL7 with software analysis using a generic model-based approach. This paper introduces a first approach to an HL7 MDE solution that considers the MIF (Model Interchange Format) metamodel proposed by HL7 by making use of a plug-in developed in the EA (Enterprise Architect) tool.

New IEEE 11073 Standards for interoperable, networked Point-of-Care Medical Devices.

Surgical procedures become more and more complex and the number of medical devices in an operating room (OR) increases continuously. Today's vendor-dependent solutions for integrated ORs are not able to handle this complexity. They can only form isolated solutions. Furthermore, high costs are a result of vendor-dependent approaches. Thus we present a service-oriented device communication for distributed medical systems that enables the integration and interconnection between medical devices among each other and to (medical) information systems, including plug-and-play functionality. This system will improve patient's safety by making technical complexity of a comprehensive integration manageable. It will be available as open standards that are part of the IEEE 11073 family of standards. The solution consists of a service-oriented communication technology, the so called Medical Devices Profile for Web Services (MDPWS), a Domain Information & Service Model, and a binding between the first two mechanisms. A proof of this concept has been done with demonstrators of real world OR devices.

The HL7 standards-based model of emergency care information.

Electronic medical record interoperability remains an elusive goal for the clinical informatics community. The HL7 Emergency Care Workgroup created an emergency care domain analysis model that organizes existing HL7 standards into a clinician friendly information model. The model supports the capture of domain knowledge and encoding in a sharable format. The result is a domain information model that supports interoperability of information and processes in diverse Emergency Department information systems.

Interoperability of Medical Device Information and the Clinical Applications: An HL7 RMIM based on the ISO/IEEE 11073 DIM

Medical devices are essential to the practice of modern healthcare services. Their benefits will increase if clinical software applications can seamlessly acquire the medical device data. The need to represent medical device observations in a format that can be consumable by clinical applications has already been recognized by the industry. Yet, the solutions proposed involve bilateral mappings from the ISO/IEEE 11073 Domain Information Model (DIM) to specific message or document standards. Considering that there are many different types of clinical applications such as the electronic health record and the personal health record systems, the clinical workflows, and the clinical decision support systems each conforming to different standard interfaces, detailing a mapping mechanism for every one of them introduces significant work and, thus, limits the potential health benefits of medical devices. In this paper, to facilitate the interoperability of clinical applications and the medical device data, we use the ISO/IEEE 11073 DIM to derive an HL7 v3 Refined Message Information Model (RMIM) of the medical device domain from the HL7 v3 Reference Information Mode (RIM). This makes it possible to trace the medical device data back to a standard common denominator, that is, HL7 v3 RIM from which all the other medical domains under HL7 v3 are derived. Hence, once the medical device data are obtained in the RMIM format, it can easily be transformed into HL7-based standard interfaces through XML transformations because these interfaces all have their building blocks from the same RIM. To demonstrate this, we provide the mappings from the developed RMIM to some of the widely used HL7 v3-based standard interfaces.

A concept for a medical device plug-and-play architecture based on web services

Medical device interoperability is still an issue. Standards exist only for specific areas like HL7 and DICOM, or have not been widely adopted like ISO/IEEE 11073 except for the domain information model at the semantic level. An approach that covers interoperability below the semantics is proposed. It is based on Web services which are widely accepted outside the medical device application domain. In particular the architecture is build on the upcoming Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS). It is a collection of existing Web services specifications for service discovery, interface description, event notification, and security. It is designed for resource-constrained devices and thus seems to be suitable as a basis for medical device plug-and-play.

Special Issue on “Engineering Informatics”

Special Issue on “Engineering Informatics”

The caCORE Software Development Kit: Streamlining construction of interoperable biomedical information services

BackgroundRobust, programmatically accessible biomedical information services that syntactically and semantically interoperate with other resources are challenging to construct. Such systems require the adoption of common information models, data representations and terminology standards as well as documented application programming interfaces (APIs). The National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed the cancer common ontologic representation environment (caCORE) to provide the infrastructure necessary to achieve interoperability across the systems it develops or sponsors. The caCORE Software Development Kit (SDK) was designed to provide developers both within and outside the NCI with the tools needed to construct such interoperable software systems.ResultsThe caCORE SDK requires a Unified Modeling Language (UML) tool to begin the development workflow with the construction of a domain information model in the form of a UML Class Diagram. Models are annotated with concepts and definitions from a description logic terminology source using the Semantic Connector component. The annotated model is registered in the Cancer Data Standards Repository (caDSR) using the UML Loader component. System software is automatically generated using the Codegen component, which produces middleware that runs on an application server. The caCORE SDK was initially tested and validated using a seven-class UML model, and has been used to generate the caCORE production system, which includes models with dozens of classes. The deployed system supports access through object-oriented APIs with consistent syntax for retrieval of any type of data object across all classes in the original UML model. The caCORE SDK is currently being used by several development teams, including by participants in the cancer biomedical informatics grid (caBIG) program, to create compatible data services. caBIG compatibility standards are based upon caCORE resources, and thus the caCORE SDK has emerged as a key enabling technology for caBIG.ConclusionThe caCORE SDK substantially lowers the barrier to implementing systems that are syntactically and semantically interoperable by providing workflow and automation tools that standardize and expedite modeling, development, and deployment. It has gained acceptance among developers in the caBIG program, and is expected to provide a common mechanism for creating data service nodes on the data grid that is under development.

Applying the ISO/IEEE 11073 Standards to Wearable Home Health Monitoring Systems

The goal of this effort was to investigate the feasibility of applying the ISO/IEEE 11073 (a.k.a. X73) standards, originally intended for bedside monitoring in hospital environments, to wearable, multi-sensor monitoring systems designed for home healthcare. The X73 upper-layer sub-standards (i.e., nomenclature specification, domain information model, application profiles, and vital sign device descriptions) were adopted and implemented on microcontroller-based sensor hardware to provide plug-and-play medical components. Three types of system elements (base stations, data loggers, and sensor units) perform the functionality required in this standards-based home health monitoring system and communicate using Bluetooth wireless modules. The base station incorporates a LabVIEW interface running on a personal computer. Each data logger and sensor unit is implemented on a microcontroller-driven embedded platform. Sensor units include wearable sensors (e.g., electrocardiograph, pulse oximeter) and nearby sensors (e.g., weight scale, ambient environment sensors). The standards-based prototype system with an open architecture achieves plug-and-play performance suitable for a home environment. Each wireless element in the body/home area network can automatically detect other nearby devices, associate with them, and exchange data with them as appropriate. With minor modifications, the X73 standards can be successfully applied to wearable, wireless, point-of-care systems in the home.

Advanced and secure architectural EHR approaches

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) provided as a lifelong patient record advance towards core applications of distributed and co-operating health information systems and health networks. For meeting the challenge of scalable, flexible, portable, secure EHR systems, the underlying EHR architecture must be based on the component paradigm and model driven, separating platform-independent and platform-specific models. Allowing manageable models, real systems must be decomposed and simplified. The resulting modelling approach has to follow the ISO Reference Model - Open Distributing Processing (RM-ODP). The ISO RM-ODP describes any system component from different perspectives. Platform-independent perspectives contain the enterprise view (business process, policies, scenarios, use cases), the information view (classes and associations) and the computational view (composition and decomposition), whereas platform-specific perspectives concern the engineering view (physical distribution and realisation) and the technology view (implementation details from protocols up to education and training) on system components. Those views have to be established for components reflecting aspects of all domains involved in healthcare environments including administrative, legal, medical, technical, etc. Thus, security-related component models reflecting all view mentioned have to be established for enabling both application and communication security services as integral part of the system's architecture. Beside decomposition and simplification of system regarding the different viewpoint on their components, different levels of systems' granularity can be defined hiding internals or focusing on properties of basic components to form a more complex structure. The resulting models describe both structure and behaviour of component-based systems. The described approach has been deployed in different projects defining EHR systems and their underlying architectural principles. In that context, the Australian GEHR project, the openEHR initiative, the revision of CEN ENV 13606 "Electronic Health Record communication", all based on Archetypes, but also the HL7 version 3 activities are discussed in some detail. The latter include the HL7 RIM, the HL7 Development Framework, the HL7's clinical document architecture (CDA) as well as the set of models from use cases, activity diagrams, sequence diagrams up to Domain Information Models (DMIMs) and their building blocks Common Message Element Types (CMET) Constraining Models to their underlying concepts. The future-proof EHR architecture as open, user-centric, user-friendly, flexible, scalable, portable core application in health information systems and health networks has to follow advanced architectural paradigms.

Electronic patient records: domain message information model perinatology

Purpose: The Netherlands is developing a set of national domain information models to support electronic information exchange and electronic patient records (EPR). These domain information models aim to support the development, adoption, implementation and maintenance of the EPR in Dutch healthcare practice. This article describes the modelling for a pilot for mother- and childcare (perinatology). Methodology: Cases’ from perinatology are modelled using the Health Level 7 version 3 Reference Information Model (HL7 RIM) as the methodology and tools. Results: Results include descriptions of care processes, communication and information that are broken down into interaction tables and tables with information. Next several domain information models for perinatology are drawn up. These models allow healthcare professionals to recognise their communication, content and work. Currently, the models facilitate discussion and critique by clinician and informaticians. Conclusion: The perinatology domain information models facilitate in building implementations because they contain sufficient details for EPR developers and for developers of messages for information exchange. The first results of the project are useful, despite the fact that HL7 RIM modelling methodology is still not finalised. The approach bridges professional content, technical implementation of messages, and future EPR development.