A GIS-based fuzzy classification for mapping the agricultural soils for N-fertilizers use.

Special attention should be paid to the choice of the proper N-fertilizer, in order to avoid a further acidification and degradation of acid soils and at the same time to improve nitrogen use efficiency and to limit the nitrate pollution of the ground waters. Therefore, the risk of leaching of the fertilizer and of the acidification of the soils must be considered prior to any N-fertilizer application. The application of N-fertilizers to the soil requires a good knowledge of the soil-fertilizer relationship, which those who are planning the fertilization policy and/or applying it might not have. In this study, a fuzzy classification methodology is presented for mapping the agricultural soils according to the kind and the rate of application of N-fertilizer that should be used. The values of pH, clay, sand and carbonates soil variables are estimated at each point of an area by applying geostatistical techniques. Using the pH values three fuzzy sets: "no-risk-acidification"; "low-risk-acidification"; and "high-risk-acidification" are produced and the memberships of each point to the three sets are estimated. Additionally, from the clay and sand values the membership grade to the fuzzy set "risk-of-leaching" is calculated. The parameters and their values, which are used for the construction of the fuzzy sets, are based on the literature, the existing knowledge and the experimentation, of the soil-fertilizer relationships and provide a consistent mechanism for mapping the soils according to the type of N-fertilizers that should be applied and the rate of applications. The maps produced can easily be interpreted and used by non-experts in the application of the fertilization policy at national, local and farm level. The methodology is presented through a case study using data from the Amfilochia area, west Greece.

An electronic post market surveillance system for medical devices.

An important issue in the health care sector is the collection of information about adverse incidents relative to medical devices and the exchange of this information among Health Care Institutions, Manufacturers and Competent Authorities. We present an Electronic Post Market Surveillance System, which solves in an efficient and secure way the above problem and it is compliant to the International Standards. The system consists of the PMS Server Application installed in the manufacturers/suppliers premises and the PMS Client Application installed in the Health Care Institutions. The PMS applications are used for the management of the PMS Reports and Responses with important features such as the user-friendly interfaces, interoperability and different implementations depending on the performance and cost requirements. The messages are in XML format and the security is based on public-private key cryptography. The system was evaluated in a systematic way by a variety of users, who were satisfied by the system functionality and efficiency.

Design and implementation of a portal for the medical equipment market: MEDICOM.

BACKGROUND: The MEDICOM (Medical Products Electronic Commerce) Portal provides the electronic means for medical-equipment manufacturers to communicate online with their customers while supporting the Purchasing Process and Post Market Surveillance. The Portal offers a powerful Internet-based search tool for finding medical products and manufacturers. Its main advantage is the fast, reliable and up-to-date retrieval of information while eliminating all unrelated content that a general-purpose search engine would retrieve. The Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS) registers all products. The Portal accepts end-user requests and generates a list of results containing text descriptions of devices, UMDNS attribute values, and links to manufacturer Web pages and online catalogues for access to more-detailed information. Device short descriptions are provided by the corresponding manufacturer. The Portal offers technical support for integration of the manufacturers Web sites with itself. The network of the Portal and the connected manufacturers sites is called the MEDICOM system. OBJECTIVES: To establish an environment hosting all the interactions of consumers (health care organizations and professionals) and providers (manufacturers, distributors, and resellers of medical devices). METHODS: The Portal provides the end-user interface, implements system management, and supports database compatibility. The Portal hosts information about the whole MEDICOM system (Common Database) and summarized descriptions of medical devices (Short Description Database); the manufacturers servers present extended descriptions. The Portal provides end-user profiling and registration, an efficient product-searching mechanism, bulletin boards, links to on-line libraries and standards, on-line information for the MEDICOM system, and special messages or advertisements from manufacturers. Platform independence and interoperability characterize the system design. Relational Database Management Systems are used for the system s databases. The end-user interface is implemented using HTML, Javascript, Java applets, and XML documents. Communication between the Portal and the manufacturers servers is implemented using a CORBA interface. Remote administration of the Portal is enabled by dynamically-generated HTML interfaces based on XML documents. A representative group of users evaluated the system. The aim of the evaluation was validation of the usability of all of MEDICOM s functionality. The evaluation procedure was based on ISO/IEC 9126 Information technology - Software product evaluation - Quality characteristics and guidelines for their use. RESULTS: The overall user evaluation of the MEDICOM system was very positive. The MEDICOM system was characterized as an innovative concept that brings significant added value to medical-equipment commerce. CONCLUSIONS: The eventual benefits of the MEDICOM system are (a) establishment of a worldwide-accessible marketplace between manufacturers and health care professionals that provides up-to-date and high-quality product information in an easy and friendly way and (b) enhancement of the efficiency of marketing procedures and after-sales support.

Education and training in the MEDICOM system.

MEDICOM system is a world wide telematics application for electronic commerce of medical devices. It has been designed so as to provide the health care professionals with a central Internet access to up-to-date information about medical equipment from multiple manufacturers, in a particular easy and friendly way. Moreover, the Medicom system will serve the health care professionals' requirements for high-quality information about specific products in a form of multimedia presentations and that of a secure communication channel with the community of manufacturers, especially for post marketing surveillance. The system will provide the medical staff (physicians and technicians) with demonstrations of the operation procedures and the functioning of high-tech equipment in a form of virtual models. Moreover, through the medicom system the end users of medical devices can have access to on line libraries and participate in special newsgroups. This paper discusses the architectural structure of the MEDICOM system with emphasis to its educational and training functionality.

Mobile Medical Data (MOMEDA)--a Personalized Medical Information System.

MOMEDA is a two-years project supported by the European Commission (Telematics Applications Programme of DGXIII--Health Care Sector). The main objectives of the project are the development of a compact personal information terminal for hospital and home care environments that could be used by patients and a demonstrator that allows the consulting physician to access electronic patient record data from outside the hospital, using a hand held companion device connected to GSM network. Special attention is paid to a Personalized Medical Information System (PMIS) which will allow patients to access customized disease-specific information material that will enable them to fully understand in a simple and constructive form what their medical problem is, what the planned procedures are, what lifestyle they should follow during and after their hospitalization, thus becoming more qualified partners in the recovery process. Considering the fact that in most cases informed and educated patients are usually satisfied patients when the treatment is finished, patient satisfaction can be also accomplished. The design considerations for the PMIS system are presented and the implementation is discussed.

Acousto-optic matrix-matrix multiplier.

A new architecture for an optical matrix-matrix multiplier is presented. It is based on the beam-modulation and Its parallel structure makes it very fast. Some physical limitations are discussed.