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The 2022 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Study Group (FASDSG) meeting was held in coordination with the 45th annual Research Society on Alcoholism conference on June 25th, 2022. The theme of the meeting was "Enhancing the Relevance of Research for the Community." The program began with a moderated panel discussion on the value of community-engaged research, which included two self-advocates and a clinical and pre-clinical researcher. Invited plenary speakers included Jill Locke, Ph.D., who provided an engaging introduction to implementation science, and Jared Young, Ph.D., who discussed cross-species domain task specificity. The meeting also included updates from three government agencies, short presentations by junior and senior investigators showcasing late-breaking FASD research, trainee award winners, and a presentation on the Toward Health Outcomes intervention roadmap by Jacqueline Pei, Ph.D. • The 2022 Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Study Group returned to an in-person format. • The meeting had 124 registrants from multiple countries. • The meeting theme was "Enhancing the Relevance of Research for the Community." • Plenaries covered implementation science and cross-species task domain specificity. • Timothy A. Cudd Awardees were Carson Kautz-Turnbull and Riley Figueroa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Consortium for Medical Marijuana Clinical Outcomes Research, a multi-university collaboration established by the state of Florida in the USA, hosted its third annual Cannabis Clinical Outcomes Research Conference (CCORC) in May 2023. CCORC was held as a hybrid conference, with a scientific program consisting of in-person sessions, with some sessions livestreamed to virtual attendees. CCORC facilitated and promoted up-to-date research on the clinical effects of medical cannabis, fostering collaboration and active involvement among scientists, policymakers, industry professionals, clinicians, and other stakeholders. Three themes emerged from conference sessions and speaker presentations: (1) disentangling conflicting evidence for the effects of medical cannabis on public health, (2) seeking solutions to address barriers faced when conducting clinical cannabis research – especially with medical cannabis use in special populations such as those who are pregnant, and (3) unpacking the data behind cannabis use and mental health outcomes. The fourth annual CCORC is planned for the summer of 2024 in Florida, USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Consortium for Medical Marijuana Clinical Outcomes Research, a multi-university collaboration established by the state of Florida in the USA, hosted its second annual Cannabis Clinical Outcomes Research Conference (CCORC) in May 2022. CCORC was held as a hybrid conference, with a scientific program consisting of in-person and virtual sessions. CCORC fostered and disseminated current research on clinical outcomes of medical marijuana while stimulating collaboration and engagement between the scientific community, policymakers, industry representatives, clinicians, and other interested stakeholders. Three themes emerged from conference sessions and speakers: (1) disentangling research findings comparing use and outcomes of medical and nonmedical cannabis, (2) addressing barriers and promoting facilitators for clinical cannabis research, and (3) resolving uncertainties around cannabis dosing. The third annual CCORC is planned for the summer of 2023 in Florida, USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigated a novel method of disseminating conference proceedings via preprint servers. The EDICIC 2019 conference encouraged presenters to upload their research onto preprint servers before the conference and did not produce a conference proceedings. The objective of this was to facilitate pre‐conference dissemination of the research and use the conference for debate. Authors could then submit their articles to a journal. A survey of participating authors shows that they had little familiarity with preprints prior to the conference. Nevertheless, nearly three‐quarters of authors deposited their preprints before the conference. Most respondents were in favour or pre‐conference deposit and believed it would allow conferences to run more smoothly. However there was concern that Library and Information Science journals will not accept submissions that have been issued as preprints. Authors also expressed concerns about the lack of recognition for their research if conference proceedings are not published. They highlighted the effort required to pass a double evaluation by conference organizers and then by journal editors, emphasized that the culture of preprints and open science is not consolidated in the discipline yet, and noted that the aim of increasing interaction and debate in the conference was not fully reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Continuous improvement of health and healthcare system is hampered by inefficient processes of generating new evidence, particularly in the case of rare diseases and paediatrics. Currently, most evidence is generated through specific research projects, which typically require extra encounters with patients, are costly and entail long delays between the recognition of specific needs in healthcare and the generation of necessary evidence to address those needs. The Swiss Personalised Health Network (SPHN) aims to improve the use of data obtained during routine healthcare encounters by harmonizing data across Switzerland and facilitating accessibility for research. The project "Harmonising the collection of health-related data and biospecimens in paediatric hospitals throughout Switzerland (SwissPedData)" was an infrastructure development project funded by the SPHN, which aimed to identify and describe available data on child health in Switzerland and to agree on a standardised core dataset for electronic health records across all paediatric teaching hospitals. Here, we describe the results of a two-day symposium that aimed to summarise what had been achieved in the SwissPedData project, to put it in an international context, and to discuss the next steps for a sustainable future. The target audience included clinicians and researchers who produce and use health-related data on children in Switzerland. Key highlights: The symposium consisted of state-of-the-art lectures from national and international keynote speakers, workshops and plenary discussions. This manuscript summarises the talks and discussions in four sections: (I) a description of the Swiss Personalized Health Network and the results of the SwissPedData project; (II) examples of similar initiatives from other countries; (III) an overview of existing health-related datasets and projects in Switzerland; and (IV) a summary of the lessons learned and future prospective from workshops and plenary discussions. Implications: Streamlined processes linking initial collection of information during routine healthcare encounters, standardised recording of this information in electronic health records and fast accessibility for research are essential to accelerate research in child health and make it affordable. Ongoing projects prove that this is feasible in Switzerland and elsewhere. International collaboration is vital to success. The next steps include the implementation of the SwissPedData core dataset in the clinical information systems of Swiss hospitals, the use of this data to address priority research questions, and the acquisition of sustainable funding to support a slim central infrastructure and local support in each hospital. This will lay the foundation for a national paediatric learning health system in Switzerland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective treatment options for patients with life-threatening neurological disorders are limited. To address this unmet need, high-impact translational research is essential for the advancement and development of novel therapeutic approaches in neurocritical care. "The Neurotherapeutics Symposium 2019—Neurological Emergencies" conference, held in Rochester, New York, in June 2019, was designed to accelerate translation of neurocritical care research via transdisciplinary team science and diversity enhancement. Diversity excellence in the neuroscience workforce brings innovative and creative perspectives, and team science broadens the scientific approach by incorporating views from multiple stakeholders. Both are essential components needed to address complex scientific questions. Under represented minorities and women were involved in the organization of the conference and accounted for 30–40% of speakers, moderators, and attendees. Participants represented a diverse group of stakeholders committed to translational research. Topics discussed at the conference included acute ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes, neurogenic respiratory dysregulation, seizures and status epilepticus, brain telemetry, neuroprognostication, disorders of consciousness, and multimodal monitoring. In these proceedings, we summarize the topics covered at the conference and suggest the groundwork for future high-yield research in neurologic emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyzed the results obtained for the total count between 2007 and 2018 of (1) doctoral theses defended in the 55 universities with undergraduate and/or graduate studies in communication that offer doctoral degrees, (2) competitive projects in state calls in the social sciences and humanities areas where the object of study includes a socially significant dimension of "communication" practices, and (3) papers resulting from R&D projects published in reference journals in the area of communication. These documents are the most representative of the research activity of faculty, because they constitute the published results originating from research that is recognized and legitimized by academic life, without which such documents could not have been published. Thus, the articles collected here constitute a census of publications based on previous research, since all those articles whose object of study was not previous research were not selected, e.g., essays, or epistemological reviews of authors, schools, and/or theoretical or methodological trends. Papers presented at Asociación Española de Investigación de la Comunicación (AE-IC) congresses, which are also being studied as part of the MapCom project, could also have been included; however, they are only considered tangentially herein because only a minority of them are expressly linked to research results. This overview of the productivity of communication research in Spain over a decade analyzes documents grouped by universities, Autonomous Communities, author gender, and years. A total of 4,158 documents have been analyzed. The results reflect the influence of the scientific policies of the research quality assessment agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is the product of a conference, The Future of the History of the Human Sciences, which was held at the University of York in April 2016. The meeting brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and at various stages of their careers to reflect on what were identified as major challenges and opportunities for the research that History of the Human Sciences publishes. The articles included here are a sample of the responses that were generated and contain reflections on not only the boundaries of history of the human sciences research but also the methods used within the discipline. As this introduction explains, the overall aim of the conference was to explore these questions in order to think about both future directions for research and ways in which we can ensure the field remains dynamic and vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Network and service management is an established research field within the general area of computer networks. A few years ago, an initial taxonomy, organizing a comprehensive list of terms and topics, was established through interviews with experts from both industry and academia. This taxonomy has since been used to better partition standardization efforts, identify classes of managed objects and improve the assignment of reviewers to papers submitted in the field. Because the field of network and service management is rapidly evolving, a biyearly update of the taxonomy was proposed. In this paper, a large-scale questionnaire is presented which was answered by experts in the field, evaluating the relevance of each individual topic for the next five years. Missing topics, which are likely to become relevant over the next few years, are identified as well. Furthermore, an analysis is performed of the records of papers submitted to major conferences in the area. Based on the obtained results, an updated version of the taxonomy is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the description of physical characteristics of island tails and the ecological dynamics of marshes in Europe.

Historically, academic literature on sex work has documented the changing debates, policies, and cultural discourse surrounding the sex industry, and their impact on the rights of sex workers worldwide. As sex work scholars look to the future of sex workers' rights, however, we are also in a critical moment of self-reflection on how sex work scholarship engages with sex worker communities, produces knowledge surrounding sex work, and represents the lived experiences of sex workers' rights, organizing, and activism. In this short Communication, proceedings from a recent sex work research symposium entitled, Sexual Economies, Politics, and Positionality in Sex Work Research are presented. Held at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, this symposium is a response to the need for sex work researchers, sex workers, and sex worker-led organizations to come together and critically examine the future of research on sex work and the politics of documenting sex workers' rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical Nutrition Education (MNE) has been identified as an area with potential public health impact. Despite countries having distinctive education systems, barriers and facilitators to effective MNE are consistent across borders, demanding a common platform to initiate global programmes. A shared approach to supporting greater MNE is ideal to support countries to work together. In an effort to initiate this process, the Need for Nutrition Education/Innovation Programme group, in association with their strategic partners, hosted the inaugural International Summit on Medical Nutrition Education and Research on August 8, 2015 in Cambridge, UK. Speakers from the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and India provided insights into their respective countries including their education systems, inherent challenges, and potential solutions across two main themes: (1) Medical Nutrition Education, focused on best practice examples in competencies and assessment; and (2) Medical Nutrition Research, discussing how to translate nutrition research into education opportunities. The Summit identified shared needs across regions, showcased examples of transferrable strategies and identified opportunities for collaboration in nutrition education for healthcare (including medical) professionals. These proceedings highlight the key messages presented at the Summit and showcase opportunities for working together towards a common goal of improvement in MNE to improve public health at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 10th Open Access Days took place on October 10-11 at LMU Munich. The event is the largest Open Access conference in the German-speaking countries and assembled over 350 participants. This year's main focus was the transformation of the established scholarly publishing system to Open Access. Our cooperative account provides information about the talks, sessions and plenary session held at the conference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the contributions to conference proceedings published by the Spanish Association of Americanists, one of the most representative of the Latin American Studies in Spain has developed a continuous activity since its inception in the 1980s until today. It aims to provide systematic bibliographic entries for the entire series of conferences and symposia organized by this organization and to analyze the content of these publications in terms of authorship and research topics. This analysis is based on the follow-up of the proceedings of these events by the portal americanismo.es of the European Network for Information and Documentation on Latin America (REDIAL) and ISOC database of Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper compares the characteristics of URLs cited in Indian LIS conference proceedings papers. A total of 15,745 references appended to 1,700 articles published in three Indian LIS conference proceedings published during 2001-2010 were selected. From these references we extracted a total of 5698 URLs and were further classified according to their top level domains, file formats and path depths for further analysis. The results showed that the percentage of articles with at least one URL increased from 39.10% in 2001 to 91.67% in 2010. There was a constant and continuous increase in the number of articles with URLs over the years during 2001-2010. Of the 1,700 articles published in conference proceedings, there were 1,011 (59.47%) articles with URLs. Study also reveals the fact that, of the 5,698 URLs, more than 50% were shared by .org and .com domains which accounted for 1,799 (31.57%) and 1,474 (25.87%) URLs respectively. The highest percentage of cited URLs belonged to HTML (68.50%) followed by .pdf files (8.86%). The path depth levels 0 (no path), 2 and 3 collectively accounted for 67.67% of the extracted URLs. URLs with path depth 1 and 4 put together accounted for 25.31% of all the 5,698 URLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current trend for building an ontology-based data management system (DMS) is to capitalize on efforts made to design a preexisting well-established DMS (a reference system). The method amounts to extracting from the reference DMS a piece of schema relevant to the new application needs—a module—, possibly personalizing it with extra constraints w.r.t. the application under construction, and then managing a data set using the resulting schema. In this paper, we extend the existing definitions of modules and we introduce novel properties of robustness that provide means for checking easily that a robust module-based DMS evolves safely w.r.t. both the schema and the data of the reference DMS. We carry out our investigations in the setting of description logics which underlie modern ontology languages, like RDFS, OWL, and OWL2 from W3C. Notably, we focus on the DL\-lite\cal A dialect of the DL-lite family, which encompasses the foundations of the QL profile of OWL2 (i.e., DL\-lite\cal R): the W3C recommendation for efficiently managing large data sets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 10th Blaubeuren Symposium on Manuscripts and Rare Prints took place from October 22nd to the 24th in 2012. It was held by the DBV Manuscripts and Rare Prints Consortium in collaboration with the University of Tübingen and the Association of German Librarians. 44 participants from Germany, Austria and Switzerland discussed the latest developments in Conservation, acquisition and cataloguing. The meeting also dealt with the administration of rare books collections in general. This article presents a synopsis of the contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the volume of Brazilian scientific production in Marketing published in the period 2000-2009 in BAR, RAC, RAE, RAM, RAUSP and Read periodicals and in the proceedings of EnANPAD and the (EMA). When the results were compared with those obtained by Vieira (2003) in the past decade, there was found to be an increase of 368% in the number of published papers. The number of articles published in the proceedings (81.1%) is still much higher than the number of articles published in periodicals (18.9%). Approximately 65% of the authors published only one paper in the conferences. Consumer Behavior is still the most common subject (29%). The average number of authors per paper increased from 1.7 to 2.3 and the concentration of articles produced by the top five most productive schools declined from 62.5% to 49.6%. The average number of citations per article increased from 21.6 to 37.4 but the average number of citations of Brazilian periodicals only increased from 2.0 to 2.5. The study concludes by forecasting the evolution of scientific production in the area of Marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Health librarians should keep up-to-date in a dynamic environment and accept the importance of continuing personal development (CPD) and growth in their critical reflection and creative thinking skills. They also need to acknowledge the potential value of research activity and the challenges of ongoing improvement and development. Conference programmes may prove a useful source of stimulation, especially if supplemented by creativity techniques, action research and the ideal of 'finding flow'. Objectives: The article analyses the themes and papers presented at the 10th International Conference on International Medical Librarianship (ICML) to identify opportunities for further research, literature reviews, assessment of practices and services, etc. Methods: Content analysis approach to conference papers and suggestions for further action including supplementing with techniques of creativity and group input. Results: A fairly extensive list of further actions (although not intended to be exhaustive) is suggested for the sixteen conference themes. Although subjective, the list might help to stimulate growth in research on health librarianship and demonstrate how one source of stimulation - conference programmes (regularly presented to medical library communities) - can be used. Conclusions: Content analysis has proven a constructive means of generating research questions from a conference programme. Content analysis and other methods aimed at stimulating creative and progressive thinking, including brainstorming, force field analysis, De Bono's 6 hats, creative swiping and creative visualisation, may prove equally useful and require further investigation. To ensure an ongoing cycle, these can be linked to action research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HMO Research Network (HMORN) is a consortium of 16 health care systems with integrated research centers. Approximately 475 people participated in its 17th annual conference, hosted by the Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School. The theme, "Collaborations in Population-Based Health Research," reflected the network's emphasis on collaborative studies both among its members and with external investigators. Plenary talks highlighted the initial phase of the HMORN's work to establish the NIH-HMO Collaboratory, opportunities for public health collaborations, the work of early career investigators, and the state of the network. Platform and poster presentations showcased a broad spectrum of innovative public domain research in areas including disease epidemiology and treatment, health economics, and information technology. Special interest group sessions and ancillary meetings provided venues for informal conversation and structured work among ongoing groups, including networks in cancer, cardiovascular diseases, lung diseases, medical product safety, and mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the use of engineering conference papers by examining where the papers presented at the Stapp Car Crash Conference from 1980-2005 were subsequently cited. Also, to examine whether the references were made to the conference paper or to the individual, the SAE Technical Paper, the second publication method. It also aims to study whether the citations were made to the lead author or secondary authors. Design/methodology/approach – The individual papers were searched in Science Citation Index on the Web of Science platform using the "Cited author" search and the appropriate work(s) were selected using the "Cited work" information. The number of citations to each paper was recorded and the bibliographic information from the citing articles for the "top cited" articles were retrieved and examined to determine the subject focus of the citing journals. Findings – Almost two-thirds of the papers from the Stapp Car Crash Conference were cited at least once, mirroring that of engineering journal articles. These citations appear in journals representing a wide variety of disciplines besides engineering including journals covering "clinical neurology", "orthopedics", "rehabilitation" and "surgery". The majority of citations (92 per cent) were found to be to the lead author and approximately 85 per cent were cited as papers within the conference proceedings with the remaining papers cited as individual technical papers. Originality/value – The results on the impact and use of engineering conference papers, especially the results in terms of author and material type, will provide valuable insight into this literature, providing librarians and researchers with a better understanding of their use in the advancement of research and scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Conference proceedings, although an importance source to learn about new interventions, are brief and not subject to external evaluation prior to publication. Studies in human medicine suggest that trial results from conference proceedings may be poorly reported. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate characteristics of veterinary vaccine studies published in conference proceedings. 154 cattle or swine vaccine trials presented at veterinary practitioner conferences held in the United States from 1988 to 2003 were the test base to evaluate the following: abstract-to-publication ratio, positive-outcome ratios, differences between proceeding and subsequent journal articles, and compliance with the CONSORT Statement extension for abstracts. The abstract-to-publication ratio was 5/89 for swine trials and 6/65 for cattle trials. The positive-outcome ratio for swine conference proceeding and journal articles was 57/89 and 4/5 respectively. The positive-outcome ratio for bovine conference proceeding and journal articles was 34/65 and 4/6 respectively. No major differences were found between conference proceedings and matching journal articles. Fewer than 10% of conference proceedings included: identification of the trials as randomized in the title, study design as field or challenge; the primary outcome; trial status; results for primary outcome; information about harms and funding source (2/89). When conference proceedings are subsequently published in journals; there is no significant difference in the data, however subsequent publication is uncommon. For many conference proceedings it would be difficult to assess the internal and external validity of the trial based on the information reported. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The rapid growth in the number of conferences and papers appearing in conference proceedings publications has increased the need to examine the issue of conference paper quality. Since conference content is included in permanent repositories, such as IEEE's Xplore, the existence of low-quality papers in a conference will degrade the value and reputation of the conference and the repository. The aim of this contribution is to consider these issues from the point of view of the Conference Publications Operations Committee of the IEEE Computer Society, and offer ideas that could lead to improved conference publishing quality for all IEEE societies and even non-IEEE entities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While several authors have argued that conference proceedings are an important source of scientific knowledge, the extent of their importance has not been measured in a systematic manner. This article examines the scientific impact and aging of conference proceedings compared to those of scientific literature in general. It shows that the relative importance of proceedings is diminishing over time and currently represents only 1.7% of references made in the natural sciences and engineering, and 2.5% in the social sciences and humanities. Although the scientific impact of proceedings is losing ground to other types of scientific literature in nearly all fields, it has grown from 8% of the references in engineering papers in the early 1980s to its current 10%. Proceedings play a particularly important role in computer sciences, where they account for close to 20% of the references. This article also shows that not unexpectedly, proceedings age faster than cited scientific literature in general. The evidence thus shows that proceedings have a relatively limited scientific impact, on average representing only about 2% of total citations, that their relative importance is shrinking, and that they become obsolete faster than the scientific literature in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well reported research published in conference and journal abstracts is important as individuals reading these reports often base their initial assessment of a study based on information reported in the abstract. However, there is growing concern about the reliability and quality of information published in these reports. This article provides an overview of research evidence underpinning the need for better reporting of abstracts reported in conference proceedings and abstracts of journal articles; with a particular focus in the area of health care. Where available we highlight evidence which refers specifically to abstracts reporting randomized trials. We seek to identify current initiatives aimed at improving the reporting of these reports and recommend that an extension of the CONSORT Statement (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials), CONSORT for Abstracts, be developed. This checklist would include a list of essential items to be reported in any conference or journal abstract reporting the results of a randomized trial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In software engineering (SE) and in the computing disciplines, papers presented at conferences are considered as formal papers and counted when evaluating research productivity of academic staff. In spite of this, conference papers may still be extended for publication in academic journals. In this research, we have studied the process of extension from conference to journal publication, and tried to explain the different purposes these two forms of publication serve in the field. Twenty-two editors in chief and associate editors in chief of major publications in SE and related fields were interviewed, and 122 authors of extended versions of conference papers answered a Web questionnaire regarding the extension of their papers. As a result, the process of extending conference papers for journal publication in SE is recorded. In the conclusion, we comment on the following: (a) the role of the conference in the development of the research work; (b) the review process at the conference and at the journal stage; and (c) the different purposes conference and journal publication fulfill in SE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential intrinsic to electronic publishing provides conference conveners with the opportunity to position the papers presented to greater advantage of both authors and readers. Unfortunately, conference papers are being increasingly published in the most expensive vehicle, the formal peer-reviewed journal. This circumstance is counter-productive to the legitimate role of conference papers in scholarly communication. The experience at Caltech in electronically publishing the proceedings of an international conference shows that conference papers can be more effectively published online at significantly less cost, thus increasing dissemination and access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The use of digital technologies to improve access to health is gaining momentum in Africa. This is more pertinent with the increasing penetration of mobile phone technology and internet use, and calls for innovative strategies to support implementation of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Health Coverage on the continent. However, the huge potential benefits of digital health to advance health services delivery in Africa is yet to be fully harnessed due to critical challenges such as proliferation of pilot projects, poor coordination, inadequate preparedness of the African health workforce for digital health, lack of interoperability and inadequate sustainable financing, among others. To discuss these challenges and propose the way forward for rapid, cost-effective and sustainable deployment of digital health in Africa, a Digital Health Hub was held in Kigali from 8th to 9th May 2018 under the umbrella of the Transform Africa Summit 2018. Methods: The hub was organized around five thematic areas which explored the status, leadership, innovations, sustainable financing of digital health and its deployment for prevention and control of Non-Communicable Diseases in Africa. It was attended by over 200 participants from Ministries of Health and Information and Communication Technology, Private Sector, Operators, International Organizations, Civil Society and Academia. Conclusions: The hub concluded that while digital health offers major opportunities for strengthening health systems towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals including Universal Health Coverage in Africa, there is need to move from Donor-driven pilot projects to more sustainable and longer term nationally owned programmes to reap its benefits. This would require the use of people-centred approaches which are demand, rather than supply-driven in order to avoid fragmentation and wastage of health resources. Government leadership is also critical in ensuring the availability of an enabling environment including national digital health strategies, regulatory, coordination, sustainable financing mechanisms and building of the necessary partnerships for digital health. Recommendations: We call on the Smart Africa Secretariat, African Ministries in charge of health, information and communication technology and relevant stakeholders to ensure that the key recommendations of the hub are implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As the topics of study of Lyα emitters evolve, new selection methods are being developed to find these high redshift galaxies. In this proceedings, three new methods are presented, based on large integral field unit spectrographs, ultradeep slit spectroscopy and serendipitous discoveries. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose:Recently, clinical radiological research and practice are becoming increasingly quantitative. Further, images continue to increase in size and volume. For quantitative radiology to become practical, it is crucial that image segmentation algorithms and their implementations are rapid and yield practical run time on very large data sets. The purpose of this paper is to present a parallel version of an algorithm that belongs to the family of fuzzy connectedness (FC) algorithms, to achieve an interactive speed for segmenting large medical image data sets. Methods: The most common FC segmentations, optimizing an ℓ∞-based energy, are known as relative fuzzy connectedness (RFC) and iterative relative fuzzy connectedness (IRFC). Both RFC and IRFC objects (of which IRFC contains RFC) can be found via linear time algorithms, linear with respect to the image size. The new algorithm, P-ORFC (for parallel optimal RFC), which is implemented by using NVIDIA's Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) platform, considerably improves the computational speed of the above mentioned CPU based IRFC algorithm. Results: Experiments based on four data sets of small, medium, large, and super data size, achieved speedup factors of 32.8×, 22.9×, 20.9×, and 17.5×, correspondingly, on the NVIDIA Tesla C1060 platform. Although the output of P-ORFC need not precisely match that of IRFC output, it is very close to it and, as the authors prove, always lies between the RFC and IRFC objects. Conclusions: A parallel version of a top-of-the-line algorithm in the family of FC has been developed on the NVIDIA GPUs. An interactive speed of segmentation has been achieved, even for the largest medical image data set. Such GPU implementations may play a crucial role in automatic anatomy recognition in clinical radiology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]