Feature Articles

WHO Declares Ebola An International Health Emergency

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has proclaimed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, triggering an urgent international step-up in the response to the crisis, which it now sees as a serious threat to other countries, too. Read More »

The Road to a Career in Open Source and Science

My journey from bench scientist to open science software developer and how I develop better tools for open, reproducible scientific research. Read More »

Everyone's Your Partner in Open Source

When I first started working at ByWater Solutions the company was in its infancy, and as such couldn't afford a full time employee, but that didn't stop them from hiring me. ByWater Solutions provides support, hosting, training, and development for the Koha open source integrated library system. Brendan Gallagher, the CEO at ByWater, was (and is) an active member of the Koha community, as I am. So when Brendan wanted to hire me, he turned to the community to ask how they could help keep me employed in the Koha world, and Paul Poulain at BibLibre (a similar, more mature, company in France) stepped up and offered to co-sponsor my employment for that first year with the understanding that ByWater would allow me to spend work-time keeping the Koha manual up to date...

Costa Ricans Design Mobile App to Report Dengue Breeding Sites

A free app that allows the public to report pools and other areas of water where dengue-carrying mosquitoes have laid their eggs could help control outbreaks of the disease in Costa Rica and beyond, say its developers and health officials. Costa Rican company GeoTecnologías joined forces with the country’s Ministry of Health to develop the Dengue Breeding Report application. The app allows the public to report mosquito ‘hatcheries’ to the ministry and will allow the ministry to map this data. Read More »

The Future of Scientific Discovery Relies on Open Science Models

Ross Mounce is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bath studying the use of fossils in phylogeny and phyloinformatics, completing his PhD at the University of Bath last year. Ross was one of the first Panton Fellows and is an active member of the Open Knowledge Foundation, particularly the Open Science Working Group. He is an advocate for open science, and he is actively working on content mining academic publications to reuse scientific research in meta-analyses to gain higher level insights in evolutionary patterns... Read More »

Why Isn't All Government Software Open Source?

The federal government is the single largest purchaser of code in the world. So why is this code — taxpayer-funded and integral to the day-to-day working of our democracy — so often hidden from public view? There are two sides to answering that question: Why does the government so often build on closed platforms, and once built, why isn’t the code released to the public? Read More »

Drones Spread Wings From War Zones To Disaster Areas

While lawmakers around the world struggle to keep up with the growth in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — commonly known as drones — innovation and community participation are changing how this weapon of modern warfare can be used for humanitarian purposes. Read More »

Health Games Platforms Mature In Preparation For Mainstream Adoption

For the past several years, researchers have strived to create compelling games that improve behavior, reduce stress, or teach healthy responses to difficult life situations...These efforts have born fruit, and clinical trials have shown the value of many such games. Ben Sawyer, who founded the Games for Health conference more than 10 years ago, is watching all the pieces fall into place for the widespread adoption of games. Business plans, platforms, and the general environment for the acceptance of games (and other health-related apps) are coming together. Read More »

Mexican Team Builds Navigation Device For Blind People

Mexican researchers have developed an artificial intelligence navigation system for partially or totally blind people that can sense its surroundings in three dimensions. The prototype device is designed to allow users to freely move from one point to another avoiding both static and moving obstacles, and can learn to recognise colours and utility bills. Read More »

Interview with Simon Phipps-Patent Trolls and Open Document Format

Gordon Haff interview with OSI's Simon Phipps conducted on July 31st. Phipps talks recent US software patent case decisions and why they're so significant as well as the recent UK government decision about open document formats. Who are the winners and the losers? Read More »

Real Time Big Data Analytics for Clinical Care

Recently, Dr. Chris Longhurst, chief medical information officer at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and colleagues wrote an article in the Big Data Issue of Health Affairs, that suggests a very practical approach for enabling real time analytics within an EHR. They call it the Green Button.

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Women Interns Rocking Open Source at Xen Project

With mid-term evaluations just around the corner for many technology-focused summer internship programs, here's a closer look at how the Google Summer of Code (GSoC) and Outreach Program for Women (OPW) are helping mentors as well as interns. Read More »

Why use EWD.js with VistA rather than a standard Node.js framework?

Why indeed should the VistA development community use EWD.js instead of one of the more well-known frameworks, and why use the InterSystems interface instead of a simple TCP-based connection and a Mumps-based socket-server? Read More »

There’s More to ePrescribing Standards Than You Think

Dr. Harper’s thoughtful post brings a critical issue to light: the need for increased industry awareness and adoption of the full functionality that already exists in ePrescribing standards – going beyond the core requirements of Meaningful Use. ePrescribing is important in improving both the quality of patient care and patient safety. It provides a key point of communication between care providers, and can help improve patient compliance with treatment regimens...

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Graph Tools Forge Path To New Solutions

Graph databases haven’t made the news much because, I think, they don’t fit in convenient categories. They certainly aren’t the relational databases we’re all familiar with, nor are they the arbitrary keys and values provided by many NoSQL stores. But in a highly connected world–where it’s not what you know but whom you know–it makes intuitive sense to arrange our knowledge as nodes and edges.

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