Full Review Process Research Articles

Human Factors and Organizational Issues: Contributions from 2022.

To review publications in the field of Human Factors and Organisational Issues (HF&OI) in the year 2022 and to assess major contributions to the subject. A bibliographic search was conducted following refinement of standardized queries used in previous years. Sources used were PubMed, Web of Science, and referral via references from other papers. The search was carried out in January 2023, and (using the PubMed article type inclusion functionality) included clinical trials, meta-analyses, randomized controlled trials, reviews, case reports, classical articles, clinical studies, observational studies (including veterinary), comparative studies, and pragmatic clinical trials. Among the 520 returned papers published in 2022 in the various areas of HF&OI, the full review process selected two best papers from among 10 finalists. As in previous years, topics showed development including increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital health tools, advancement of methodological frameworks for implementation and evaluation as well as design, and trials of specific digital tools. Recent literature in HF&OI continues to focus on both theoretical advances and practical deployment, with focus on areas of patient-facing digital health, methods for design and evaluation, and attention to implementation barriers.

A review of research in activity-based working over the last ten years: lessons for the post-COVID workplace

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to map and describe findings from research conducted in workspaces designed to support activity-based working (ABW) over the past 10 years (2010–2020) with a view of informing post-COVID workplaces of the positive and negative attributes of ABW.Design/methodology/approachScopus was used as the search engine for this review. Papers which reported findings related to ABW and performed field study in ABW workspaces with adult occupants were included. Out of the 442 initial papers, 40 papers were included following iterative title and abstract and full text review process and consideration of inclusion and exclusion criteria. These papers were divided into three groupings (organizational, human and physical environment) based on their major focus. Positive and negative effects of ABW environments on occupants are discussed within these three topics in consideration of the implications for the post-COVID workplace.FindingsAlthough the included studies were inclined to be either more positive (i.e. interior design) or negative (i.e. indoor environmental quality, productivity, distraction and privacy) in relation to various attributes of ABW, no single effect of ABW environments on occupants was in full agreement between the studies. The shortcomings of ABW environments are more related to how this way of working is implemented and how occupants use it, rather than the concept itself. A partial uptake of ABW leads to occupants’ dissatisfaction, lower productivity and lower well-being, while a holistic approach increases the chance of success. It is hypothesised that many currently reported negative aspects of the ABW concept might diminish overtime as ABW evolves and as new challenges arise. A continuous post-occupancy evaluation after relocation to an ABW-supportive environment can inform the organization about the changing needs and preference of the occupants; hence, the organization can tailor the ABW solution to the arising needs. The inter-connection between the three key ABW pillars (organizational, human and physical environment) is crucial to the success of this concept specifically in the context of the post-COVID-19 workplace.Originality/valueThis paper highlights the key shortcomings and limitations of studies produced over the past decade and identifies keys gaps in the current body of literature. It provides a new insight on how findings related to open-plan offices designed to support ABW can be categorized on the three big heading of organizational, physical and human-related aspects, and further investigates the positive and negatives outcomes reported on ABW under these headings. It also discusses how the findings arising from this literature review can inform the post-COVID workplace.

Nursing minimum data sets: Findings from an umbrella review.

This study explores the evidence available on Nursing Minimum Data Sets (NMDSs) by summarising: (a) the main methodological and reporting features of the reviews published in this field to date; (b) the recommendations developed and published in such reviews regarding the NMDSs, and (c) the categories and items that should be included in the NMDSs according to the available reviews. An Umbrella Review was performed. A search of secondary studies published up to November 2021 that were focused on NMDSs for adult hospitalised patients was conducted using MEDLINE (via PubMed), CINAHL and Scopus databases. The included studies were critically evaluated by using the Checklist for Systematic Review and Research Syntheses. The full review process was performed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and the Meta-Analyses statement. From the initial 1311 studies that were retrieved, a total of eight reviews published from 1995 to 2018 were included. Their methodological quality was variable; these reviews offered four types of recommendations, namely at the overall, clinical, research and management levels. Additionally, seven NMDSs emerged with different purposes, elements, target populations and taxonomies. A list of categories and items that should be included in NMDSs have been summarised. Nurses are daily involved in the nursing care documentation; however, which elements are recorded is mainly defined at the local levels and relies on paper and pencil. NMDS might provide a point of reference, specifically in the time of health digitalisation. Alongside other priorities as underlined in available recommendations, and the need to improve the quality of the reviews in this field, there is a need to develop a common NMDS by establishing its core elements, deciding on a standardised language and identifying linkages with other datasets.

Guest Editorial Special Section on BioRob 2020

The 8 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob) was held virtually in New York City, organized by Columbia University, from November 29 – December 1, 2020 due to the pandemic. A total of 200 scientific papers were presented at the conference by authors from over 24 countries. Based on the reviewer scores of each submitted paper, 12 papers were selected by the conference editorial board to compete for the Best Paper awards in three different categories. The authors of each of these 12 papers were invited to submit an extended version of their papers for possible publication in a BioRob2020 Special Section of the Journal IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics (T-MRB). A total of 8 papers were submitted by the authors to the journal which went through the full peer review process involving two guest editors. The BioRob 2020 Special Section of T-MRB includes 4 papers accepted for publication by the journal.

Peer review declaration

All papers published in this volume of Journal of Physics: Conference Series have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.• Type of peer review: Double-blind • Conference submission management system: Open Journal System (OJS 3.x) • Number of submissions received: 140 • Number of submissions sent for review: 95 • Number of submissions accepted: 50 • Acceptance Rate (Number of Submissions Accepted / Number of Submissions Received X 100):35.71% • Average number of reviews per paper: 2 times (1 abstract review and 1 fullpaper review) • Total number of reviewers involved:19 Any additional info on review process: There are two review processes in SNF 2020. The first process is abstracts review. Presenter/Authors must submit their abstract to be reviewed SNF 2020 Reviewer (1 Reviewer per abstract). Selected abstracts will be presented in SNF 2020 and send to the full paper review process. After abstract review, SNF 2020 committee held a full paper review. Presenters/Authors must submit the full paper to be reviewed SNF 2020 Reviewer. The paper reviewed by SNF 2020 Reviewer based on the expertise of Reviewer and topic of the paper. Fifty selected manuscript was sent to be published in JPCS IOP. Contact person for queries: Name: Utama Alan DetaAffiliation: Universitas Negeri Surabaya, IndonesiaInstitutional email address: utamadeta@unesa.ac.id

A systematic literature review of health consumer attitudes towards secondary use and sharing of health administrative and clinical trial data: a focus on privacy, trust, and transparency

We aimed to synthesise data on issues related to stakeholder perceptions of privacy, trust, and transparency in use of secondary data. A systematic literature review of healthcare consumer attitudes towards the secondary use and sharing of health administrative and clinical trial data was conducted. EMBASE/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINAHL, Informit Health Collection, PROSPERO Database of Systematic Reviews, PsycINFO, and ProQuest databases were searched. Eligible articles included those reporting qualitative or quantitative original research and published in English. No restrictions were placed on publication dates, study design or disease setting. One author screened articles for eligibility, and two authors were involved in the full text review process. Data was extracted using a pre-piloted data extraction template by one author and checked by another. Conflicts were resolved by consensus. Quality and bias were assessed using the QualSyst criteria for qualitative and quantitative studies. This paper focuses on a subset of 35 articles identified from the wider search which focus on issues of privacy, trust, and transparency. Studies included a total of 56,365 respondents. Results of this systematic literature review indicate that while respondents identified advantages in sharing health data, concerns relating to trust, transparency, and privacy remain. Organisations collecting health data and those who seek to share data or undertake secondary data analysis should continue to develop trust, transparency, and privacy with healthcare consumers through open dialogue and education. Consideration should be given to these issues at all stages of data collection including the conception, design, and implementation phases. While individuals understand the benefits of health data sharing for research purposes, ensuring a balance between public benefit and individual privacy is essential. Researchers and those undertaking secondary data analysis need to be cognisant of these key issues at all stages of their research. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO registration number CRD42018110559 (update June 2020).

Clinical Research Informatics.

Summary Objectives : To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select best papers published in 2019. Method : A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH descriptors and free-text terms on CRI was performed using PubMed, followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. After peer-review ranking, a consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was organized to finally conclude on the selected three best papers. Results : Among the 517 papers, published in 2019, returned by the search, that were in the scope of the various areas of CRI, the full review process selected three best papers. The first best paper describes the use of a homomorphic encryption technique to enable federated analysis of real-world data while complying more easily with data protection requirements. The authors of the second best paper demonstrate the evidence value of federated data networks reporting a large real world data study related to the first line treatment for hypertension. The third best paper reports the migration of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) adverse event reporting system database to the OMOP common data model. This work opens the combined analysis of both spontaneous reporting system and electronic health record (EHR) data for pharmacovigilance. Conclusions : The most significant research efforts in the CRI field are currently focusing on real world evidence generation and especially the reuse of EHR data. With the progress achieved this year in the areas of phenotyping, data integration, semantic interoperability, and data quality assessment, real world data is becoming more accessible and reusable. High quality data sets are key assets not only for large scale observational studies or for changing the way clinical trials are conducted but also for developing or evaluating artificial intelligence algorithms guiding clinical decision for more personalized care. And lastly, security and confidentiality, ethical and regulatory issues, and more generally speaking data governance are still active research areas this year.

Evaluation of the Performance of the South Africa Regulatory Agency: Recommendations for Improved Patients\u2019 Access to Medicines

BackgroundTimely access to new medicines may be addressed through strengthening of registration efficiencies and timelines by establishing and refining value-added registration processes, resources, and systems. The aims of this study were to evaluate the timelines of the milestones of the South African review process and the overall approval process for new active substances (NASs) in 2015–2018 and to provide recommendations for improved patients’ access to new medicines through timely registration.MethodsData identifying the milestones and overall approval times for NASs registered by the South African Agency during 2015–2018 were collected and analyzed.ResultsThe most NASs (42) were approved in 2017 and the least (15) in 2018. The shortest median approval time (1218 calendar days) was achieved in 2015 and the longest (2124 days), in 2018. All applications were reviewed using the full review process, and 16/99 (16%) were assigned priority status and were reviewed and approved through the fast track review.ConclusionsWhile the extensive delays in NASs approvals in South Africa may be attributed to inefficient operational processes, resource constraints, and as an increased number of applications for registration, the newly established South African Heath Products Regulatory Agency has re-engineered and streamlined its regulatory review process, which has been piloted and will be enhanced prior to final implementation. Among recommendations for improvement, SAHPRA should consider measurement and monitoring of milestones, facilitated regulatory pathways, implementing a reliance strategy, and a quality management system.

Clinical Research Informatics: Contributions from 2018.

Summary Objectives : To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select best papers published in 2018. Method : A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH descriptors and free-text terms on CRI was performed using PubMed, followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. After peer-review ranking, a consensus meeting of the editorial team was organized to conclude on the selection of best papers. Results : Among the 1,469 retrieved papers published in 2018 in the various areas of CRI, the full review process selected four best papers. The first best paper describes a simple algorithm detecting co-morbidities in Electronic Healthcare Records (EHRs) using a clinical data warehouse and a knowledge base. The authors of the second best paper present a federated algorithm for predicting heart failure hospital admissions based on patients' medical history described in their distributed EHRs. The third best paper reports the evaluation of an open source, interoperable, and scalable data quality assessment tool measuring completeness of data items, which can be run on different architectures (EHRs and Clinical Data Warehouses (CDWs) based on PCORnet or OMOP data models). The fourth best paper reports a data quality program conducted across 37 hospitals addressing data quality Issues through the whole data life cycle from patient to researcher. Conclusions : Research efforts in the CRI field currently focus on consolidating promises of early Distributed Research Networks aimed at maximizing the potential of large-scale, harmonized data from diverse, quickly developing digital sources. Data quality assessment methods and tools as well as privacy-enhancing techniques are major concerns. It is also notable that, following examples in the US and Asia, ambitious regional or national plans in Europe are launched that aim at developing big data and new artificial intelligence technologies to contribute to the understanding of health and diseases in whole populations and whole health systems, and returning actionable feedback loops to improve existing models of research and care. The use of “real-world" data is continuously increasing but the ultimate role of this data in clinical research remains to be determined.

Benefits of Online First Publishing

As Editor-in-Chief of International Surgery, I am dedicating this issue's editorial letter to point our readers to the benefits of Online First publishing.In science communication and publishing, prompt and efficient dissemination of new knowledge is of paramount importance. In order to make scientific findings available for distribution and citation as quickly as possible after the initial peer review process, International Surgery offers authors the option of publishing a pre-print version of their manuscript as an “Online First” article. These pre-print articles have undergone the full peer review process but have not yet been copyedited. They do, however, include the final digital object identification (DOI) and are fully citable as “in press.” Once the manuscript is copyedited and the full editorial process is complete, the Online First article is automatically removed, and the final version of the manuscript is published to the International Surgery website.This process, coupled with our open access policy, ultimately means that your research is made available to a broad audience of online readers in a prompt and timely fashion. In this modern era of ever accelerating medical research, International Surgery is dedicated to providing only the best and most efficient publishing tools and options to our scientific community.If you already have a manuscript that has been accepted by International Surgery, we encourage you to consider adding Online First services, which is available for 250USD. With Online First, your accepted manuscript will be published online within days of being accepted, rather than the several months that it can sometimes take to undergo the full editorial and production process.As always, our goal is to advance the field of surgery through high quality publishing. We hope that our open access and Online First publishing can facilitate the exchange of high-quality and relevant medical knowledge amongst our esteemed International community of readers and authors.Sincerely,Professor Christopher ChenEditor-in-ChiefInternational Surgery

Sustainable development goal 6: two gaps in the race for indicators

Monitoring national-level progress of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 through internationally agreed indicators has been the focus of intense scrutiny and considerable resourcing by international organisations and national governments, suggesting a ‘race for indicators’ has begun. However, in the eyes of many water experts, SDG 6 indicators are far from perfect. It is important to systematically identify and prioritise the gaps and weaknesses in the SDG 6 indicator framework to address them effectively. This paper identifies two potential gaps: first, between the aspirations captured in SDG 6 targets and what will be measured by the relevant indicators; and second, between what is being measured in ‘means of implementation’ indicators and what the key means of implementation achievements of many countries are expected to be under SDG 6. Three existing mechanisms—complementary indicators, international support and an integrated approach—are briefly described, and it is proposed that they may potentially be harnessed to assist national governments to address the two types of gaps identified for SDG 6. There is also an opportunity for stakeholders to help erase the gaps in a comprehensive review of SDG indicators, though how open and participatory the full review process will be is not yet clear.

An Update on Hispania's Upcoming Portuguese Special Issue

An Update on Hispania's Upcoming Portuguese Special Issue Benjamin Fraser, Editor of Hispania At the Modern Language Association meeting in January 2018, I was an Associate Editor of Hispania attending a session dedicated to the theme of "Brazilian Insecurity." The slate of speakers for this session, which included Professors Marguerite Harrison, Leila Lehnen, and Luiz Valente, delivered insightful comments concerning a range of topics crucial for the futures of Portuguese and Brazilian studies in the United States. As part of the discussion that followed, I remember asking whether there were ways that Hispania could help with the visibility of research into Portuguese language, literature and culture. Later, after I was fortunate enough to be selected as Editor of Hispania, that MLA event and its discussions continued to resonate with me. The fortuitous result has been the launch of a call for a Portuguese Special Issue that is now well underway. In due course, Leila Lehnen (Brown University) was selected as the lead guest editor for a special issue whose theme would be general. In our discussions, Leila and I both agreed it would be important to bring on board a larger team of guest co-editors, and soon the names of three others accompanied the official call for papers: Orlando R. Kelm (University of Texas, Austin), Kathryn M. Sanchez (University of Wisconsin), and Claire Williams (University of Oxford). That call for papers was circulated in fall 2018, and outlined a multistage process. Abstracts of 150–200 words would be submitted by March 15, 2019, and full articles, if requested, would be due October 20, 2019, with the published issue following as soon after that as the peer-review process and production limitations would permit. I am happy to report that we received 88 abstract submissions by the March 15 deadline. If we had been able to extend the deadline further, I have no doubt that more abstracts would have continued to stream in, yet, unfortunately, I felt it was necessary to enforce the original deadline that was circulated. Certainly the robust response from authors of abstracts should be regarded as a testament to the disciplinary commitment and reach of the special section's guest editors. In addition, it is a reminder that we are on the right track in reasserting the idea that Hispania is a venue deeply committed to publishing scholarship in Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian studies. Readers of the journal should keep in mind, of course, that this upcoming special issue is certainly not the only place in our catalogue to look for such scholarship. Based on mutual agreement reached during the abstract stage, special care was taken to ensure that the team of guest editors were accessing solely the abstracts and working bibliographies requested in the call. The preliminary vetting process was thus anonymized. While the full peer review process for the special issue will be underway in the fall 2019, I am confident at this time that the end result will include a range of innovative and forward-thinking pieces. Stay tuned for more information. We are also pleased to be announcing that Leila Lehnen has accepted the position of Associate Editor on the editorial board of Hispania! She holds a PhD from Vanderbilt University, an MA degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington Seattle, and a BA from Eberhardts-Karls-Universität Tübingen, Germany. Currently she is the chair of the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University, and she has been a past President of the American Portuguese Studies Association (2016–18). This appointment to Hispania's editorial [End Page 305] board that will help to ensure that our journal continues as a rigorous, high-quality venue for published research exploring the language, literature and culture of the broader Lusophone world. With this issue of Hispania we continue to move the short-form article initiative forward with two contributions. Our first short-form article is "Tisbea, la construcción de género, y la justicia social en el aula de literatura," authored by Paola Baglietto Jacquemin. This essay's focus on gender in literature of the Golden Age is sure to be relevant for high school instructors of...

Clinical Research Informatics: Contributions from 2017.

Summary Objectives: To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select best papers published in 2017. Method: A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH descriptors and free terms on CRI was performed using PubMed, followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. A consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was organized to finally conclude on the selection of best papers. Results: Among the 741 returned papers published in 2017 in the various areas of CRI, the full review process selected five best papers. The first best paper reports on the implementation of consent management considering patient preferences for the use of de-identified data of electronic health records for research. The second best paper describes an approach using natural language processing to extract symptoms of severe mental illness from clinical text. The authors of the third best paper describe the challenges and lessons learned when leveraging the EHR4CR platform to support patient inclusion in academic studies in the context of an important collaboration between private industry and public health institutions. The fourth best paper describes a method and an interactive tool for case-crossover analyses of electronic medical records for patient safety. The last best paper proposes a new method for bias reduction in association studies using electronic health records data. Conclusions: Research in the CRI field continues to accelerate and to mature, leading to tools and platforms deployed at national or international scales with encouraging results. Beyond securing these new platforms for exploiting large-scale health data, another major challenge is the limitation of biases related to the use of “real-world” data. Controlling these biases is a prerequisite for the development of learning health systems.

The Introduction of a Full Medication Review Process in a Local Hospital: Successes and Barriers of a Pilot Project in the Geriatric Ward.

For the majority of Belgian hospitals, a pharmacist-led full medication review process is not standard care and, therefore, challenging to introduce. With this study, we aimed to evaluate the successes and barriers of the implementation of a pharmacist-led full medication review process in the geriatric ward at a local Belgian hospital. To this end, we carried out an interventional study, performing a full medication review on older patients (≥70 years) with polypharmacy (≥5 drugs) who had an unplanned admission to the geriatric ward. The process consisted of 3 steps: (1) medication reconciliation upon admission; (2) medication review using an explicit reviewing tool (STOPP/START criteria or GheOP3S tool), followed by a discussion between the pharmacist and the geriatrician; and (3) medication reconciliation upon discharge. Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethical Commission of the Ghent University Hospital. Outcomes included objective data on the interventions (e.g., number of drug discrepancies; number of potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIP)); as well as subjective experiences (e.g., satisfaction with service; opinion on inter-professional communication). There was a special focus on communication aspects within the introduction of this process. In total, 52 patients were included in the study, taking a median of 10 drugs (IQR 8–12). Upon admission, 122 drug discrepancies were detected. During medication review, 254 PIPs were detected and discussed, leading to an improvement in the appropriateness of medication use. The satisfaction of community pharmacists concerning additional communication and the satisfaction of the patients after counselling at discharge were positive. However, several barriers were encountered, such as the time-consuming process to gather necessary information from different sources, the non-continuity of the service due to the lack of trained personnel or the lack of safe, electronic platforms to share information. The communicative and non-communicative successes and hurdles encountered during this project need to be addressed in order to improve the full medication review process and to strengthen the role of the clinical pharmacist.

Clinical Research Informatics: Contributions from 2016

Summary Objectives: To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select the best papers published in 2016. Methods: A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH and free terms on CRI was performed using PubMed, followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. A consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was organized to finally conclude on the selection of best papers. Results: Among the 452 papers published in 2016 in the various areas of CRI and returned by the query, the full review process selected four best papers. The authors of the first paper utilized a comprehensive representation of the patient medical record and semi-automatically labeled training sets to create phenotype models via a machine learning process. The second selected paper describes an open source tool chain securely connecting ResearchKit compatible applications (Apps) to the widely-used clinical research infrastructure Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2). The third selected paper describes the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. The fourth selected paper focuses on the evaluation of the risk of privacy breaches in releasing genomics datasets. Conclusions: A major trend in the 2016 publications is the variety of research on “real-world data” - healthcare-generated data, person health data, and patient-reported outcomes -highlighting the opportunities provided by new machine learning techniques as well as new potential risks of privacy breaches.

Clinical Research Informatics: Contributions from 2016.

Objectives: To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select the best papers published in 2016. Methods: A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH and free terms on CRI was performed using PubMed, followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. A consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was organized to finally conclude on the selection of best papers. Results: Among the 452 papers published in 2016 in the various areas of CRI and returned by the query, the full review process selected four best papers. The authors of the first paper utilized a comprehensive representation of the patient medical record and semi-automatically labeled training sets to create phenotype models via a machine learning process. The second selected paper describes an open source tool chain securely connecting ResearchKit compatible applications (Apps) to the widely-used clinical research infrastructure Informatics for Integrating Biology and the Bedside (i2b2). The third selected paper describes the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. The fourth selected paper focuses on the evaluation of the risk of privacy breaches in releasing genomics datasets. Conclusions: A major trend in the 2016 publications is the variety of research on "real-world data" - healthcare-generated data, person health data, and patient-reported outcomes -highlighting the opportunities provided by new machine learning techniques as well as new potential risks of privacy breaches.

Clinical Research Informatics Contributions from 2015.

To summarize key contributions to current research in the field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) and to select best papers published in 2015. A bibliographic search using a combination of MeSH and free terms search over PubMed on Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) was performed followed by a double-blind review in order to select a list of candidate best papers to be then peer-reviewed by external reviewers. A consensus meeting between the two section editors and the editorial team was finally organized to conclude on the selection of best papers. Among the 579 returned papers published in the past year in the various areas of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI) - i) methods supporting clinical research, ii) data sharing and interoperability, iii) re-use of healthcare data for research, iv) patient recruitment and engagement, v) data privacy, security and regulatory issues and vi) policy and perspectives - the full review process selected four best papers. The first selected paper evaluates the capability of the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC) Operational Data Model (ODM) to support the representation of case report forms (in both the design stage and with patient level data) during a complete clinical study lifecycle. The second selected paper describes a prototype for secondary use of electronic health records data captured in non-standardized text. The third selected paper presents a privacy preserving electronic health record linkage tool and the last selected paper describes how big data use in US relies on access to health information governed by varying and often misunderstood legal requirements and ethical considerations. A major trend in the 2015 publications is the analysis of observational, "nonexperimental" information and the potential biases and confounding factors hidden in the data that will have to be carefully taken into account to validate new predictive models. In addiction, researchers have to understand complicated and sometimes contradictory legal requirements and to consider ethical obligations in order to balance privacy and promoting discovery.

Clinical Natural Language Processing in 2015: Leveraging the Variety of Texts of Clinical Interest.

To summarize recent research and present a selection of the best papers published in 2015 in the field of clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP). A systematic review of the literature was performed by the two section editors of the IMIA Yearbook NLP section by searching bibliographic databases with a focus on NLP efforts applied to clinical texts or aimed at a clinical outcome. Section editors first selected a shortlist of candidate best papers that were then peer-reviewed by independent external reviewers. The clinical NLP best paper selection shows that clinical NLP is making use of a variety of texts of clinical interest to contribute to the analysis of clinical information and the building of a body of clinical knowledge. The full review process highlighted five papers analyzing patient-authored texts or seeking to connect and aggregate multiple sources of information. They provide a contribution to the development of methods, resources, applications, and sometimes a combination of these aspects. The field of clinical NLP continues to thrive through the contributions of both NLP researchers and healthcare professionals interested in applying NLP techniques to impact clinical practice. Foundational progress in the field makes it possible to leverage a larger variety of texts of clinical interest for healthcare purposes.

Special issue on measure, detect and mitigate–challenges and trends in network security

Cybercrime has developed rapidly during the last decade, and recent years in particular have seen an unprecedented number of cyber attacks. Despite increased national and international efforts against cybercrime, cybercrime still has double-digit annual growth rates. As the number of services and systems connected to the Internet and migrating to cloud infrastructures increases, the ability to carry out attacks from a seemingly safe distance attracts more criminals and has made e-Crime a multi-billion dollar market. Furthermore, recent trends highlight that attacks target not only end hosts but also the Internet infrastructure itself, with attacks aiming at impeding the functioning of the domain name system and Internet backbones, for example. Network security is also gaining enormous political attention in times of mass surveillance, advanced persistent threats, and data leakages. Security is not just about detecting external perpetrators and protecting Internet users against them anymore. Companies and government agencies are called to responsibility when it comes to publicly reporting data breaches against their infrastructures. For example, European governments have just approved new data protection regulations that force parties to report data breaches to both governments and those who may be potentially affected. In this context, it becomes evident the importance of the steps we highlighted in this Special Issue: measure, detect, and mitigate. The dramatic trends in attack evolution call upon constant innovative solutions in each of these areas as well as in their synergistic combination. The goal of this Special Issue is twofold: we present contributions characterizing and measuring emerging network threats, as well as cutting-edge detection and mitigation techniques that are effective against network attacks and insider activities in today’s and future small-to-enterprise-sized networks and network backbones. A total of 14 papers was received for this Special Issue, for which we wish to thank all the authors. Three papers were considered, at an early stage, as out of scope and therefore did not go through the full review process. Of the 11 remaining papers, one was accepted after the first review round, five were rejected, and five underwent a second revision. In both review rounds, the papers received three reviews on average. In total, 33 reviewers participated in the review process, and based on their reviews, a final number of six papers were selected for publication. The papers featured in this Special Issue show how network security research is gaining increasing attention in both academia and industry. Monitoring in large networks, for example, university networks and Internet service provider access and backbone networks, plays a major role for gathering a better understanding of malicious activities in today’s networks. Bartos et al. investigate the use

Clinical Natural Language Processing in 2014: Foundational Methods Supporting Efficient Healthcare.

To summarize recent research and present a selection of the best papers published in 2014 in the field of clinical Natural Language Processing (NLP). A systematic review of the literature was performed by the two section editors of the IMIA Yearbook NLP section by searching bibliographic databases with a focus on NLP efforts applied to clinical texts or aimed at a clinical outcome. A shortlist of candidate best papers was first selected by the section editors before being peer-reviewed by independent external reviewers. The clinical NLP best paper selection shows that the field is tackling text analysis methods of increasing depth. The full review process highlighted five papers addressing foundational methods in clinical NLP using clinically relevant texts from online forums or encyclopedias, clinical texts from Electronic Health Records, and included studies specifically aiming at a practical clinical outcome. The increased access to clinical data that was made possible with the recent progress of de-identification paved the way for the scientific community to address complex NLP problems such as word sense disambiguation, negation, temporal analysis and specific information nugget extraction. These advances in turn allowed for efficient application of NLP to clinical problems such as cancer patient triage. Another line of research investigates online clinically relevant texts and brings interesting insight on communication strategies to convey health-related information. The field of clinical NLP is thriving through the contributions of both NLP researchers and healthcare professionals interested in applying NLP techniques for concrete healthcare purposes. Clinical NLP is becoming mature for practical applications with a significant clinical impact.