The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer Early Lung Imaging Confederation.

PURPOSE: To improve outcomes for lung cancer through low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) early lung cancer detection. The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer is developing the Early Lung Imaging Confederation (ELIC) to serve as an open-source, international, universally accessible environment to analyze large collections of quality-controlled LDCT images and associated biomedical data for research and routine screening care. METHODS: ELIC is an international confederation that allows access to efficiently analyze large numbers of high-quality computed tomography (CT) images with associated de-identified clinical information without moving primary imaging/clinical or imaging data from its local or regional site of origin. Rather, ELIC uses a cloud-based infrastructure to distribute analysis tools to the local site of the stored imaging and clinical data, thereby allowing for research and quality studies to proceed in a vendor-neutral, collaborative environment. ELIC's hub-and-spoke architecture will be deployed to permit analysis of CT images and associated data in a secure environment, without any requirement to reveal the data itself (ie, privacy protecting). Identifiable data remain under local control, so the resulting environment complies with national regulations and mitigates against privacy or data disclosure risk. RESULTS: The goal of pilot experiments is to connect image collections of LDCT scans that can be accurately analyzed in a fashion to support a global network using methodologies that can be readily scaled to accrued databases of sufficient size to develop and validate robust quantitative imaging tools. CONCLUSION: This initiative can rapidly accelerate improvements to the multidisciplinary management of early, curable lung cancer and other major thoracic diseases (eg, coronary artery disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) visualized on a screening LDCT scan. The addition of a facile, quantitative CT scanner image quality conformance process is a unique step toward improving the reliability of clinical decision support with CT screening worldwide.

The Case of NRENs in Central Asia.

National Research and Education Network organizations (NRENs) provide advanced information and communication technology (ICT) services for the academic community of their country. Their focus is often on providing affordable high speed bandwidth amongst their members and to other research networks, but NRENs also provide other advanced services such as electronic repositories, educational environments and supercomputing facilities. Higher Education and Research institutions have to play an active role in the transformation to the "Knowledge Society". A recent (2010) report of the International Telecommunication Union has identified NRENs as important vehicles in reaching the goals of the World Summit of the Information Society. It is also demonstrated that the Central Asian countries score very low in the Networked Readiness Indices of the World Economic Forum, including areas where strong NRENs could improve the status quo. NRENs therefore have a role that is also important for the nation itself and therefore claims for government support are legitimate. About 62% of the countries of the world already have an NREN and there are four characteristics that are common to these NRENs. In nearly all of the cases the NREN is a not-for-profit organization that not only serves the academic community, but is also owned by the same community. Four out of five Central Asian countries have an active NREN and these NRENs all participate in the EC funded CAREN project that aims to set up a sustainable regional network for the academic communities in the participating countries. Today, the Central Asian Research and Education Network (CAREN) is upgrading the ancient Silk Road to a 21st-century high-speed internet highway for research and educational institutions through the region. Operational since July 2010, CAREN currently interconnects scientists and students from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.