Chapter Overview As biomedical research and healthcare continue to progress in the genomic/post genomic era a number of important challenges and opportunities exist in the broad area of biomedical informatics. In the context of this chapter we define bioinformatics as the field that focuses on information, data, and knowledge in the context of biological and biomedical research. The key challen...

Myocardial infarction (MI) secondary to coronary artery disease is a leading cause of morbidity and death throughout the world. Although reperfusion therapies have provided dramatic advances in the treatment of acute MI, a substantial fraction of patients is not able to undergo successful reperfusion promptly. In patients having large MIs, loss of more than a billion cardiomyocytes can occur, o...

This article traces past research on the application of the systems approach to information systems development within the disciplines of information systems and software engineering. Their origins historically are related to a number of areas, including general systems theory. While potential improvement of software development practices is linked by some leading experts to the application of ...

Received March 5, 2003 Abstract Immunisation provides protection from infective diseases that have previously caused major mortality and morbidity worldwide. Protection from vaccine preventable diseases should be available to all children globally. During the last two decades, global initiatives have led to significant improvement in vaccine availability for all children, but there is still muc...

The outcome of drug therapy is often unpredictable, ranging from beneficial effects to lack of efficacy to serious adverse effects. Variations in single genes are 1 well-recognized cause of such unpredictability, defining the field of pharmacogenetics (see Glossary). Such variations may involve genes controlling drug metabolism, drug transport, disease susceptibility, or drug targets. The seque...

Many cities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America face serious problems managing their wastes. Two of the major problems are the insufficient collection and inappropriate final disposal of wastes. Despite spending increasing resources, many cities – particularly in Africa and Asia – collect less than half of the waste generated. Most wastes are disposed of in open dumps, deposited on vacant land, ...