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Association for
Veterinary Informatics
NEWSLETTER
November - December, 1996
Noell Moseley (Memphis, TN) -
President; Harmon Rogers (Lake Stevens, WA) - President-Elect;
James T. Case (UC-Davis) - Secretary Treasurer; Ronald D. Smith
(Illinois) - Newsletter Editor.
IN THIS ISSUE
ASSOCIATION NEWS
From the AVI Newsletter Editor
The cover of this issue of the AVI Newsletter features a new
logo contributed by Dr. Cheryl Dhein <crd@vetmed.wsu.edu>.
Cheryl chairs the AVI's Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI)
Working Group and is also active in CONVINCE (Consortium of North
American Veterinary Interactive New Concept Education). Cheryl is
especially interested in creating an onine veterinary image
database for educational use.
How to Contact AVI
Applications for membership, accompanied by a check for $35
payable to the AVI, should be sent to:
Dr. James T. Case;
Secretary Treasurer, AVI; 1590 Augusta Ct., Dixon, CA 95620
Phone:
916/752-4408; FAX: 916/752-5680; e-mail: JimCase@aol.com
Dr.
Case is responsible for distribution of the hardcopy version of
the AVI Newsletter.
Newsletter items can be sent to:
Dr.
Ronald D. Smith, Newsletter Editor, AVI; UI College of Veterinary
Medicine; 2001 South Lincoln; Urbana, IL 61801.
Phone:
217/333-2449; FAX: 217/333-4628; e-mail: rd-smith@uiuc.edu
If
you are an AVI member and would like to be on the AVI Newsletter
electronic distribution list, send an e-mail message to the
Newsletter Editor. Although the electronic version is only an
ASCII (text) file, it's faster, searchable, easier to store and
retrieve, and environmentally friendly.
Current and past
issues of the Newsletter on the Web at the following URL:
http://netvet.wustl.edu/avi.htm.
CORRESPONDENCE
Search MEDLINE for Free on the Web
Posted to: epidemio-l@cc.umontreal.ca
From: "Andreas
Stang MD, MPH" <andreas.stang@uni-essen.de>
There were still some people who strongly believed that we
cannot access Medline for free! Try it!.
NOTES FROM THE AMERICAN
MEDICAL
INFORMATICS ASSOCIATION FALL SYMPOSIUM
Reported by
DR.GARY MALET
Medical Informatics Fellow, Family
Physician
Oregon Health Sciences University
3181 S.W. Sam
Jackson Park Road, Portland, Oregon
gmalet@healthtel.com,
(503)494-6734
The AMIA Fall Symposium is an annual event that brings together
more than 2500 of the world's medical information specialists to
explore new research and developments. This year's meeting took
place from October 26-30 at the Washington Sheraton in Washington,
D.C. and had the theme "Beyond the Superhighway: Exploiting
the Internet with Medical Informatics". The following
reflects my interpretation of important developments in "Internet
Medicine" at the conference's academic and commercial
venues....gm
FULL TEXT MEDICAL ARTICLE ACCESS EMERGES!
Displays in the AMIA exhibit hall suggest that medical
information providers will soon be offerring links to full text
articles from their historic archives. Most of the premiere
medical journals will be included. Ovid is introducing a
proprietary subscription intranet interface to Medline with
integrated hyperlinks to selected full text from a core collection
of journals. MD Consult(TM) will deliver a package of forums and
access to full text archives in Spring of 1997. MD Consult's
database will be built from major journal articles and graphics
from a consortium of major medical publishers including Raven
Lippencott, Appleton Lange, and Mosby. Healthgate will offer fee
based intranet medical information services that will include free
Medline. It will offer a faxback of full text articles.
Traditional Medline providers confronted with an onslaught of free
NLM services over Internet will emphasize quality and natural
language query features and focused searching based on medical
subject terms to maintain their customer database. Many resource
providers will establish hourly or transaction based services for
on-line resources. An example is Mosby which will offer access to
its drug prescription database, GenRx, as a distinct internet
based service.
VIDEO CONFERENCING ON THE BRINK
A large number of video conferencing and telemedicine
technologies were displayed. These are offerred in an expanding
number of niche applications. Software incompatibities and slow
bandwidth have inhibited use in the past. Internet add-ons like
MBone require that users' networks must be configured with
multicast routing. Nonetheless, these videoconferencing formats
promise to improve on the limited success of clinically oriented
messaging. A critical number of users for these forums is
anticipated as Internet is introduced nationwide at clinicians'
desktops.
GLOBAL DYNAMIC HYPERLINKED MEDICAL TEXTBOOKS
On line specialty based text books were a subject of discussion
in the meeting's poster sessions. Emerging projects include the
Virtual Anesthesia Textbook, a textbook of obstetrics and
gynecology initiative from ObGyn.net, and a European Oncology
Reference intended to serve as an evidence-based treatment
reference source for cancer therapy. The hope is that well
supported and constantly updated reference sources for clinical
practice with online peer review will emerge in each of the
medical specialties.
MEDICAL DIRECTORIES, IMPROVED SEARCHING AND PEER REVIEW
Polytechnic University of New York announced its Medical World
Search which is a UMLS enabled webcrawler search of 30,000
selected medical sites. The University of North Carolina
introduced a global medical resource directory in a database
format that allows for interactive filtering for full text and
subject categorization. Its interface integrates access to
proprietary full text databases over its campus intranet.
A GLOBAL CASE DATABASE?
Numerous academic institutions offerred their database of
clinical cases at the AMIA conference including the Dermatologic
Image Project from Dr Bittdorf at Erlangen in Germany. The quality
and breath of these resources suggests the potential of a disease
subject categorized listing of clinical cases that will encourage
clinicians use of "evidence base reasoning". A model for
this growing collaboration is the Human Genome Project that is
attempting to establish the gene sequences for human chromosomes.
The Internet based project has flowered into a comprehensive
effort to collaborate online in the form of full text articles
hyperlinked to graphics of the DNA sequence, decision tools and
software modules.
POINT OF CARE INTERNET APPLICATIONS
Dr. Richard Rathe of the Informatics Department of the
University of Florida offerred a novel way in which his
institution is implementing Internet based applications. By
downloading web pages to the portable Newton his residents are
bringing Internet resources into the exam room for decision
support and patient education. A number of papers were delivered
that addressed HTML specifications for practice guidelines and
other types of decision support.
THE FUTURE
It was evident from the presentations at the American Medical
Informatics Association's 1996 Fall Symposium that Internet is
taking hold in clinical medicine and is demonstrating an ability
to present multimedia medical resources at the point of care to
affect clinical decision making. Innovative programs designed for
hypertext multimedia access are linking information across
geographic boundaries and medical disciplines. An integration of
knowledge is being promoted that may revolutionize medical
practice as clinical internetworking is adopted around the world.
Dr.Gary Malet, Medical Informatics Fellow, Family
Physician
Oregon Health Sciences University
3181 S.W. Sam
Jackson Park Road, Portland, Oregon
gmalet@healthtel.com,
(503)494-6734
Co Chair AMIA's Internet Working Group,
http://www-informatics.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/Amia/homepage.htm
"MEDICAL MATRIX"- Hypertext Internet Clinical
Medicine Resources
http://www.slackinc.com/matrix
PRODUCT
AVAILABILITY/REVIEWS/COMPARISONS
Veterinary Histology CD-ROM
From:
doctorc@vt.edu
The CD "VM 8054: Veterinary Histology, Version 1.0"
is teaching software developed for use at the Virginia-Maryland
Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. It is a self-contained
histology course, including several hundred pages of text and more
than 600 full-color illustrations with accompanying extended
captions. Keyed to the slide set in use at the VMRCVM, it
nonetheless is a good general guide to the microscopic anatomy of
domestic animals. Its intended use in the course VM8054 is to
replace the printed text-only laboratory manual and syllabus with
an interactive image-rich version. Links embedded in the exercise
pages take users to the images.
The software is written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
for use with Netscape (version 1.0 and higher) and other WWW
browsers. A connection to the WWW is not needed to run it; the CD
is entirely self-contained and can be used on a stand-alone
computer. However, if the computer is connected to the WWW, the
capacity to send mail to the author is included. The disk will run
on any CD-ROM player, and can be used with both PC and Mac
versions of Netscape.
A text-only Adobe Acrobat version is also included, as is the
Acrobat Reader program. This version does not include images or
captions and is provided as a convenience for those wishing a
"hard copy" of the bulk of the text (about 165 pages).
The cost of the disk is $15.00 plus $2.00 for shipping. Please
make checks payable to Dr. Thomas Caceci and send orders to:
Department of Biomedical Sciences & Pathobiology
VMRCVM
Phase II Building
Duckpond Drive
Virginia
Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061-0442
Orders will be filled in the sequence received and are subject
to availability of blank recordable CD's. (Recordable CD's are
sometimes hard to get. Unless otherwise advised, we will
back-order if they're not immediately available.)
CatLab
From: dan@itgworld.com
(Daniel Harrington)
CatLab is a multimedia program developed with David Kerley,
Ph.D of Eastern Oregon State College, and is the complete cat
dissection.
Info is available at: http://www.itgworld.com
Dan Harrington Ph.D.; Interactive Technology Group; 541
Willamette Street, Suite 414
Eugene, Oregon 97401
541-465
8818
fax:465
1685
email:Dan@itgworld.com
http://www.itgworld.com
INTERNET RESOURCES
Veterinary Informatics and
Epidemiology Web Site - Correction
From: POPMED NEWS
4/22/96 - PopMed@ncsu.edu
(Population Medicine Program)
Here is a correction for the new worldwide web site for the
Veterinary Informatics and Epidemiology unit at Glasgow and
Strathclyde Universities. The new URL is:
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Acad/Vet/VIE/
USDA Nutrient Database for Standard
Reference Web Site
From: FSnet Oct. 18/96
What was once available by looking up tables in Agriculture
Handbook No. 8 is now accessible online! The USDA Nutrient
Database for Standard Reference, Release 11 (SR11) is available
through the Nutrient Data Laboratory home page on the Internet at
http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp
and through the Nutrient Data Laboratory Bulletin Board at
301/734-5078.
SR11 has more than 5,600 foods in 22 food group categories and
over 337,000 values for more than 70 food components. SR11 is
offered in two relational file formats: ASCII and DBF. An online
data search program is offered through the NDL home page on the
Internet which allows unique data queries; no personal software
search program needed!
This new release includes:
-new data on beef and lamb cuts trimmed to 1/8" external
fat,
-updated values for breakfast cereals,
-new food items
such as infant formulas, brand name candies and ethnic foods,
-and
new sodium values for canned vegetables and soups.
The Nutrient Data Laboratory is the recognized source of
authoritative U.S. food composition data. USDA nutrient data
serves as the core for most commercial and many foreign databases.
Questions regarding electronic access? Contact the Nutrient
Data Laboratory; U.S. Department of Agriculture; 4700 River Road,
Unit #89; Agricultural Research Service; Riverdale, Maryland 20737
Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center 301-734-8491 / Fax:
301-734-5643
Nutrient Data Laboratory e-mail:
ndlinfo@rbhnrc.usda.gov
USDA's Animal Care Goes Online
From:
FSnet Oct. 22/96 (from a USDA press release)
RIVERDALE, Md., --The U.S. Department of Agriculture's animal
care program now has a home on the internet.
"The new website is a step in the right direction,"
said Michael V. Dunn, USDA assistant secretary for marketing and
regulatory programs. "Now, we can make large amounts of
important information available to the public with the push of a
button."
"Animal care is jumping feet first into the 21st century,"
said Dale F.Schwindaman, deputy administrator for animal care with
the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, a part of USDA's
marketing and regulatory programs mission area. "Our new
website will open lines of communications between concerned
organizations and individuals worldwide."
The AC homepage, found at www.aphis.usda.gov:80/reac, contains
announcements, missing and found animal lists, annual enforcement
reports, lists, factsheets, press releases, congressional bills,
and links to similar sights.
The AC homepage also contains a link to the Horse Protection
Act homepage. The HPA site contains a list of suspended designated
qualified persons, the HPA fiscal year 1995 enforcement report,
horse owner and protection organization, and general information
concerning the HPA.
Online Journal of Veterinary Research
From: newjour-digest@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
http://www.powerup.com.au/~jvet/jvet196a.htm
This electronic journal will be published three times a year
and will include full-text orginal research articles. The journal
will focus primarily on comparative pathobiology,
pharmacology-pharmacokinetics, toxicology and parasitology. These
subjects are inter-related and basic mechanisms of pathological
processes, disposition of toxins and drugs in normal and
pathological processes, would be considered well within the
parameters of the Online Journal of Veterinary Research (OJVR).
The journal will focus on original research work either as full
text reports or as short communications and will also publish
review articles. OJVR will post the relevant key words of articles
throughout the World Wide Web.
Editor: V.H. Guerrini
MDINFO - New Medical Informatics
Discussion List
From: asaguiar@opus.com.br
(Alexandre Aguiar)
MDINFO on MAISER@usa.net Medical Informatics
MDInfo is an open, 'almost' unmoderated discussion list on
Medical Informatics topics. The moderator will only appear in case
of illegal actions in the list.
To subscribe, send the following command in the BODY of mail to
maiser@usa.net
subscribe mdinfo
Owner: Alexandre Aguiar
asaguiar@opus.com.br
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/aguiar/
NEWS AND COMMENTARY
Call for Papers - Special Issue of AI
in Medicine Journal
From: M.Ramoni@open.ac.uk
(Marco Ramoni)
Special Issue of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine -
Distributed Artificial Intelligence in Medicine over the World
Wide Web
Call for Papers
It is hard to believe that, less than five years ago, the World
Wide Web (WWW) did not even exist. In such a short time, the WWW
has dramatically changed the way in which knowledge is produced,
delivered, used and - most of all - regarded. Artificial
Intelligence (AI) could not be left aside by this revolution:
several efforts have been undertaken to explore the opportunities
and accept the challenges offered by the WWW revolution. Medical
applications have always played a leading role in the development
of AI research and it is therefore not surprising that some of the
pioneering efforts to exploit the potential of the WWW for AI
research are coming from the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
community. Time is now up for a check point.
The Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Journal invites
submissions to a special issue devoted to Distributed Artificial
Intelligence in Medicine over the World Wide Web. The aim of this
special issue is to summarize the current state of the art in the
field in order to provide future reference and a firmer ground for
further developments: we want the issue to be an up-to-date and
authoritative source of information about the main results
achieved so far in the field.
The issue will include papers investigating aspects of the
enabling potential of the WWW to support the development of
distributed AI applications in Medicine, such as:
o Distributed AI architectures in medicine over the WWW.
o Interaction, integration, and negotiation of AI applications
over the WWW.
o Distributed access to medical knowledge and data bases.
o Intelligent medical terminology servers over the WWW.
o Agent-based medical applications using the WWW.
o Distributed medical reasoning systems over the WWW.
o Distributed medical ontologies over the WWW.
Papers addressing broad interest methodological issues -
supported by at least proof-of-concept applications - and papers
describing cutting-edge applications with highly innovative
content are especially welcome. Manuscripts will be evaluated by
originality, technical quality and clarity of presentation by at
least two independent referees who are authorities in the field.
Papers should be submitted by March 30th, 1997 in one of the
following ways:
Surface Mail: Send 5 (five) copies of the
manuscript to the guest editor at address below.
Electronic
Mail: Send an electronic version to M.Ramoni@open.ac.uk.
Ftp:
Upload an electronic version to:
ftp://kmi.open.ac.uk/pub/marco/projects/wai/aimj/submissions
Login as ftp using your email address as password. Then, notify
your submission via email to the guest editor at the address
below.
Electronic versions of papers can be submitted in any format,
including LATEX, Postscript, MSWord, RTF, and should be preferably
compressed in .Z, .zip, or .gz format. If you submit a compressed
file via Electronic Mail, be sure to uuencode it for proper
transmission.
Prospective authors are strongly encouraged to contact the
guest editor at:
Marco Ramoni; Knowledge Media Institute; The Open University;
Walton Hall, Milton Keynes; United Kingdom MK7 6AA
Phone: +44
(1908) 655721; Fax: +44 (1908) 653169; Email: M.Ramoni@open.ac.uk
Important dates are:
March 30th, 1997: Submission of full paper.
July 15th, 1997:
Notification of acceptance or rejection.
September 15th, 1997:
Submission of final manuscript.
The Special Issue is expected to appear by mid 1998. Until the
publication of the Special Issue, a WWW site will report
information about the submission, review, and publication process
at:
http://kmi.open.ac.uk/"marco/projects/wai/aimj
Guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts are available
from the WWW site or from the guest editor.
Prodigy Reinvents Itself as Web
Service
From: Edupage, 17 October 1996
Prodigy Inc. has decided what it wants to be when it grows up
-- another Internet service provider. The company is scrapping its
proprietary online service and relaunching itself as a route to
the World Wide Web. "As of today, we are a new animal. We are
a value-added Internet service and no longer an online service,"
says Prodigy's chairman. The company plans a $100 million ad
campaign over the next year to build its new image. (Wall Street
Journal 17 Oct 96 B11)
Look Down at Your Computer
Edupage,
8 August 1996
Health writer Jane Brody says you should position your computer
so that the center of the screen is four to nine inches below eye
level and a little farther away than the normal reading distance,
and should keep reference material close to the screen, perhaps on
a screen mount. Wipe the screen often with an antistatic cloth;
minimize glare on the screen; and reduce the brightness of the
room lighting or use a three-sided computer or filter. (New York
Times 7 Aug 96 B6)
First Int'l Virtual Conference on
Infectious Diseases of Animals
A World Wide Web based scientific conference will be held April
20 to May 2, 1997 through the home page of the National Animal
Disease Center, USDA-ARS, Ames, Iowa, USA. The goal of this
conference is to improve international collaboration and
communication among researchers of infectious diseases of animals.
For more information visit our Web site at...
http:..www.nadc.ars.usda.gov/virtconf
Online Training Poised for a Boost
From: "EDUCOM Edupage Mailing List"
<edupage@elanor.oit.unc.edu>
As the costs of bricks-and-mortar-based learning experiences
skyrocket, companies increasingly are turning to technology to
deliver training and education. Quality Dynamics Inc. predicts
that by the year 2000, half of all corporate training will be
delivered via technology. A separate study by the Gartner Group
projects the demand for technology-based training rising 10% a
year for the next two years, to $12 billion. "Corporate
America spends $50 billion a year on continuing education to
improve their employees' skill sets and retrain them to deal with
the rapid pace of change in the workplace," says the CEO of
The Home Education Network, affiliated with UCLA. "More and
more of that funding is going to go into distance learning."
(Information Week 4 Nov 96 p32)
MEETINGS AND EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITIES
See the informatics section of NetVet for a more complete and
current list of informatics-related activities at
<http://netvet.wustl.edu/info.htm>
January 18-22, 1997
Classification
and Concepts Conference; Jacksonville, FL
The International Medical Informatics Association is sponsoring
its Fourth International Conference on Medical Concept
Representation in Jacksonville Florida, during January, 1997.
Following the traditions of Ottowa 1984, Geneva 1988, and Vevey
1994, the conference will represent the state of the art thinking
and developments in healthcare classification, terminology models,
cognitive evaluations of interfaces and term navigation, and
medical language processing. The conference will be held at the
Ponte Vedra Inn & Club, along the Atlantic coast of Florida
just below Jacksonville. It will run Sunday, January 18, 1997
through Wednesday, January 22. Meeting details and registration
are available at:
http://www.cmt.org/WG6/conf
Speakers are by invitation only. Participating observers are
strictly limited to 75, on a first come, first serve basis.
We expect the final proceedings to be published as either a
monograph (as in '84 and '88) or a special journal issue ('94).
The program committee is: Christopher G. Chute, USA, Chair; Robert
Baud, Switzerland, for Natural Language Processing; James Cimino,
USA, for Clinical Classifications; Vimla Patel, Canada, for
Cognitive Evaluation; and Alan Rector, UK, for Terminology Models.
Professor J. R. Scherrer, Geneva, will keynote the conference. Dr.
Edward Sondik, new director of the National Center for Health
Statistics in Washington, has been invited to deliver the dinner
address.
The conference secretariat is:
Karen Elias; Department of Health Sciences Res.; 200 First
Street, HA 675; Mayo Foundation; Rochester, MN 55905, USA
Tel:
507 284 5541; Fax: +1 507 284 1516; Email: elias@mayo.edu
http://www.cmt.org/WG6/conf
April 20 - May 2, 1997
First
International Virtual Conference on Infectious Diseases of Animals
A World Wide Web based scientific conference to be held through
the home page of the National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS,
Ames, Iowa, USA. The goal of this conference is to improve
international collaboration and communication among researchers of
infectious diseases of animals. Format will include both Abstract
Displays and Poster Presentations. For additional information
visit our Web site --
http://www.nadc.ars.usda.gov/virtconf
April 23-25, 1997
1997
Computers in Healthcare Education Symposium; Philadelphia, PA
(See
the July-August, 1996 AVI Newsletter for details)
September 10-14, 1997
Veterinary
Informatics at the 5th World Equine Veterinary Association;
Padova, Italy
(See the July-August, 1996 AVI Newsletter for
details)
Veterinary Technology Distance
Education Program
From: "Hancock.Guy"
<hancockg@EMAIL.SPJC.CC.FL.US>
I am pleased announce the Web site for the Veterinary
Technology Program and Veterinary Technology Distance Education
Program of St. Petersburg Junior College.
The Health Education Center web site is at:
http://hecweb.spjc.cc.fl.us/default.html
The Veterinary Technology Program pages are at:
http://hecweb.spjc.cc.fl.us/CHIP/VT1.html
And the Distance Education Program page is at:
http://hecweb.spjc.cc.fl.us/chip/VTDE/VTDE1.html
We offer the Associate in Science Degree in Veterinary
Technology by distance education to students who work for
veterinarians. The major method of communication is America Online
and the Veterinary Information Network. The Distance Program
received provisional accreditation from the AVMA Committee on
Veterinary Technician Education and Activities in November of
1995. Graduates of the distance program will be eligible for
licensure or certification by their state. There are 52 students
enrolled at present, from Florida and four other states. Thank you
for your interest and support of the Program.
Guy Hancock, DVM; Veterinary Technology Program Director; St.
Petersburg Junior College
P. O. Box 13489; St. Petersburg, FL
33733
813-341-3653
hancockg@email.spjc.cc.fl.us
University of Pittsburgh Medical
Informatics Training Program
The University of Pittsburgh expects to have openings for up to
five funded predoctoral and postdoctoral informatics traineeships
beginning in the summer of 1997. The Pittsburgh Training Program
has a core and affiliated faculty numbering over 50, with
expertise in:
* Decision support and medical artificial intelligence
* Computer-based medical records
* Computational biology
* Clinical multimedia, telemedicine, and medical applications
of the Internet
* Education, information, and cognition
* Health services research and information system evaluation
* Dental informatics (in collaboration with Temple University)
Trainees may enroll for masters or doctoral degrees in the
Intelligent Systems Program, the School of Information Sciences,
the School of Public Health, or other degree-granting programs as
directed by their individual interests. The program admits
individuals with and without health professions training. Research
fellowship training experiences that do not lead to academic
degrees may also be arranged.
The training program has become part of the new Center for
Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical
Center and is situated in new space dedicated to the program.
The target date for receiving applications is February 1, 1997.
Interested individuals are invited to visit the program's web site
at http://www.cbmi.upmc.edu
Send e-mail to training@cbmi.upmc.edu,
or call (412) 647-7113 for further information.
Columbia University Medical
Informatics Training Program
Postdoctoral Training Program in Medical Informatics
Columbia
University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Department of
Medical Informatics
The Columbia University Department of Medical Informatics
invites applications for fellowships in medical informatics
starting in July, 1997. The goal of the program is to train
medical informatics scientists for careers as productive
researchers and teachers. The fellowship is funded by the National
Library of Medicine, an agency of the National Institutes of
Health, and is open to U.S. citizens or permanent residents with
an M.D. Ph.D., or other appropriate doctoral-level degree. The
Department is located at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center
in New York City. Columbia University is an equal opportunity
employer and takes affirmative action. Women and minorities are
especially encouraged to apply.
The Department of Medical Informatics has seventeen faculty
members with diverse backgrounds and an active research program.
Areas of special interest include clinical information system
development, clinical decision support, computer and network-based
curriculum design and delivery, database design, natural language
processing, medical vocabularies, medical knowledge
representation, information retrieval strategies, physician data
entry, genome mapping, molecular modeling, and high performance
computing and communication. The Department has close ties and
joint appointments with the Departments of Computer Science,
Biochemistry, Medicine, Radiology, and Pathology and the Schools
of Dentistry, Nursing and Public Health. Opportunities also exist
in the areas of computer applications in medical librarianship and
computer aided learning. A particular strength of the Department
is the ability to provide research opportunities in the context of
working production systems. We are seeking applicants who want a
"hands on" experience while carrying out innovative
research and mastering a strong curriculum.
Notable features of our environment include the Integrated
Academic Information Management System (IAIMS) Phase III
implementation funded by the National Library of Medicine, the
full partnership of the Columbia University Office of Scholarly
Resources in IAIMS and in the Department of Medical Informatics,
responsibility for the clinical information systems at
Presbyterian Hospital, and close collaborative relationships with
basic and clinical science departments.
The training program includes a stipend and tuition support for
course work in medical informatics, computer science, evaluation
study design, and biostatistics. Educational programs will be
individualized to address the needs and interests of each fellow.
In addition, each fellow will be expected to develop, conduct, and
report on an original research project. Opportunities exist for a
masters degree in Medical Informatics. Support for each fellow
will be for three years in most cases. Stipend levels are in
keeping with NIH post-doctoral guidelines. Fellows who wish to
maintain their clinical skills will be given opportunities to do
so.
Applicants should send a letter of not more than two pages
describing their background, relevant experience, and motivation;
transcripts from medical or graduate school and from college; and
a curriculum vita. Letters of reference from three referees should
be sent directly by the referees. All materials must be received
no later than January 1; acceptance decisions will be made by
March 1.
Application materials should be sent to:
James J. Cimino, M.D.; Atchley Pavilion 1310; 161 Fort
Washington Avenue; New York, NY 10032.
Additional information may be obtained by calling Dr. Cimino at
212-305-8127
or by e-mail to James.Cimino@columbia.edu.
More information about the Department and it's programs can be
found at:
http://www.cpmc.columbia.edu/
Fellowships in Pubic Health
Informatics at CDC
Two year fellowships in public health informatics are
competitively available to candidates with either a) a public
health background and a strong interest and/or experience in
computer systems or b) prior training and/or experience in
informatics and an interest in applying that knowledge in the
public health arena. A master's degree (or doctorate) in a
relevant discipline is required.
Further information is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/informat.htm
For application materials, please write:
Cheryl Guthrie; Postgraduate Research Program - CDC; Education
and Training Division; Oak Ridge Institute for Science and
Education; P.O. Box 117; Oak Ridge, TN 37831-0117
(423)
576-8503
CDC Contact:
Division of Public Health Surveillance and Informatics;
Epidemiology Program Office; MS C-08; 1600 Clifton Road NE;
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404) 639-3761; soib@epo.em.cdc.gov
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SUGGESTED READING
S.W.J. Reid, D.J. Mellor, T. Irwin, S. Love and G. Gettinby.
1996. A hypertext knowledge base medium for the delivery of
epidemiological models and expert systems. Preventive Veterinary
Medicine. Vol. 26, No. 2:97.
CLOSING BITS
The Top 20 Reasons Dogs Don't Use
Computers
From: LKFrank@aol.com
20. Can't stick their heads out of Windows '95.
19. Fetch
command not available on all platforms.
18. Hard to read the
monitor with your head cocked to one side.
17. Too difficult to
"mark" every website they visit.
16. Can't help
attacking the screen when they hear "You've Got Mail."
15.
Fire hydrant icon simply frustrating.
14. Involuntary tail
wagging is dead giveaway they're browsing <www.pethouse.com>
instead of working.
13. Keep bruising noses trying to catch
that MPEG frisbee.
12. Not at all fooled by Chuckwagon Screen
Saver.
11. Still trying to come up with an "emoticon"
that signifies tail-wagging.
10. Oh, but they WILL... with the
introduction of the Microsoft Opposable Thumb.
9. Three words:
Carpal Paw Syndrome
8. 'Cause dogs ain't GEEKS! Now, cats, on
the other hand...
7. Barking in next cube keeps activating YOUR
voice recognition software.
6. SmellU-SmellMe still in beta
test.
5. SIT and STAY were hard enough, GREP and AWK are out of
the question.
4. Saliva-coated mouse gets mighty difficult to
manuever.
3. Annoyed by lack of newsgroup,
alt.pictures.master's.leg.
2. Butt-sniffing more direct and
less deceiving than online chat rooms.
and the Number 1 Reason
Dogs Don't Use Computers...
1. TrO{gO DsA mM,bN HyAqR4tDc TgrOo
TgYPmE WeIjTyH P;AzWqS,. *
Light Bulbs
Q: How many Windows programmers does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: 472. One to write WinGetLightBulbHandle, one to write
WinQueryStatusLightBulb, one to write WinGetLightSwitchHandle,...
Q: How many managers does it take to change a light bulb?
A:
We've formed a task force to study the problem of why light bulbs
burn out, and figure out what, exactly, we as supervisors can do
to make the bulbs work smarter, not harder.
Q: How many MIS guys does it take to change a light bulb?
A:
MIS has received your request concerning your hardware problem,
and has assigned your request Service Number 39712. Please use
this number for any future reference to this light bulb issue. As
soon as a technician becomes available, you will be contacted.
Q: How many WordPerfect support technicians does it take to
change a light bulb?
A: We have an exact copy of the light bulb here, and it seems
to be working fine. Can you tell me what kind of system you have?
OK. Now, exactly how dark is it? OK, there could be four or five
things wrong...have you tried the light switch?
Q: How many Microsoft technicians does it take to change a
light bulb?
A: Three. Two holding the ladder and one to screw
the light bulb into a faucet.
Q: How many Microsoft Vice Presidents does it take to change a
light bulb?
A: Eight. One to change the bulb, and seven to make
sure Microsoft gets $2.00 for every light bulb ever changed
anywhere in the world.
Q: How many software testers does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: We just noticed the room was dark; we don't actually
fix the problems.
Q: How many software developers does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: The light bulb works fine on the system in my
office....
Q: How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: You're still thinking procedurally. A properly
designed light bulb object would inherit a change method from a
generic bulb class, so all you'd have to do is send a light bulb
change message.
Q: How long does it take for a DEC repairman to change a light
bulb?
A: It depends on how many burned out bulbs he brought
with him.
Q: How many Windows users does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: One, but he'll swear up and down that it was JUST as
easy for him as it would have been for a MacIntosh user.
Q: How many Apple Newtons does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup.
Q: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light
bulb?
A: None, Bill Gates will just redefine Darkness (TM) as
the new industry standard.
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