Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), today announced 15 appointments to the new Health Information Technology (HIT) Advisory Committee. It is extremely valuable to have a range of perspectives and expertise in helping the government address challenges related to health information technology, “It is extremely valuable to have a range of perspectives and expertise in helping the government address challenges related to health information technology,” Dodaro said...
One year after the Global Biological Standards Institute (GBSI) issued its Reproducibility2020 challenge and action plan for the biomedical research community, the organization reports encouraging progress toward the goal to significantly improve the quality of preclinical biological research by year 2020. "Reproducibility2020 Report: Progress and Priorities," posted today on bioRxiv, identifies action and impact that has been achieved by the life science research community and outlines priorities going forward. The report is the first comprehensive review of the steps being taken to improve reproducibility since the issue became more widely known in 2012...
The GENIVI Alliance, a non-profit alliance focused on developing an open in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and connectivity software platform for the transportation industry, today announced the GENIVI Vehicle Simulator (GVS) open source project has launched, with both developer and end-user code available immediately. The GVS project and initial source code, developed by Elements Design Group, San Francisco and the Jaguar Land Rover Open Software Technology Center in Portland, Ore., provide an open source, extensible driving simulator that assists adopters to safely develop and test the user interface of an IVI system under simulated driving conditions...
The Genomic Data Commons, a next-generation platform that enables unprecedented data access, analysis and sharing for cancer research, publicly launched at the University of Chicago on June 6, opening the door to discoveries for this complex set of diseases. The Genomic Data Commons went live with approximately 4.1 petabytes of data from National Cancer Institute-supported research programs, including some of the largest and most comprehensive cancer genomics datasets in the world...
The Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance) today announced that genomics and precision medicine pioneer, Jonathan Rothberg, MS, MPhil, and PhD, will deliver a keynote presentation at the Connected Health Conference on Monday morning, December 12, 2016. Rothberg's keynote will focus on the integration of novel medical devices with deep learning and cloud computing to transform and democratize healthcare...
The OpenHIE community will hold its second annual community meeting November 4-8, 2019 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Between 200 and 300 individuals are expected to attend with the ultimate goal of development and efficient and effective operation of national and regional health information exchanges. OpenHIE, short for Open Health Information Exchange, is a global, mission-driven collective dedicated to improving the health of the underserved through open, collaborative development of implementation tools and to supporting country-driven, large-scale health information exchange. 
The length of monographs and their level of treatment pose unique challenges in a search environment. Monographs generally describe mature work unlike journal articles, which usually describe early stage work. As a result, it can be hard to achieve a successful search experience for restricted access monographs, according to Anurag Acharya of Google Scholar. After asking Acharya (co-founder of Google Scholar) why Google Scholar did not index monographs, Frances Pinter of Knowledge Unlatched (KU) says, "I realized that such challenges fall by the wayside with Open Access books"...
The Government of Sint Maarten is pleased to announce the launch of the Youth Emergency Hero (YEH) program that teaches school students how to prepare themselves, their households and their communities for emergencies and stay safe during disasters. The curriculum is provided by University instructors at the Caribbean Center for Disaster Medicine at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine on St. Maarten.
Illumina, Inc., today announced that GRAIL has received indications of interest to invest approximately $1B for its Series B financing, primarily from undisclosed private and strategic investors. GRAIL intends to raise additional capital in the Series B financing from other investors and has engaged Goldman Sachs as a placement agent in connection with the contemplated additional financing. GRAIL intends to close the Series B prior to the end of the first quarter...
Grameen Foundation and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) are pleased to announce a new model for managing the Progress out of Poverty Index® (PPI®), a poverty measurement tool used by nearly 500 organizations around the world. The new model creates the PPI Alliance, a collective governance and funding structure, and designates IPA as the new organizational home for PPI...
Graphene-oxide membranes have attracted considerable attention as promising candidates for new filtration technologies. Now the much sought-after development of making membranes capable of sieving common salts has been achieved. New research demonstrates the real-world potential of providing clean drinking water for millions of people who struggle to access adequate clean water sources...