scholarly journals A Web-Based platform to support a child cohort: The Italian NASCITA (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Zanetti ◽  
Antonio Clavenna ◽  
Chiara Pandolfini ◽  
Claudia Pansieri ◽  
Maria Grazia Calati ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Many diseases occurring in adults can be pinned down to early childhood and birth cohorts are the optimal means to study this connection. Birth cohorts have contributed to the understanding of many diseases and their risk factors. OBJECTIVE To improve the knowledge of the health status of Italian children early on and how it is affected by social and health determinants, we set up a longitudinal, prospective, national level, population-based birth cohort, the NASCITA study (NAscere e creSCere in ITAlia). The main aim of this cohort is to evaluate physical, cognitive, and psychological development, health status, and health resource use in the first six years of life in newborns, and potential associated factors. A web-based system was set up with the aim to host the cohort, provide ongoing information to pediatricians and to families, and facilitate accurate data input, monitoring, and analysis. This article describes the informatics methodology used to set up and maintain the NASCITA cohort with its web-based platform, and provides a general description of the cohort data at six months. METHODS Family pediatricians were contacted for participation in the cohort and began enrolling newborns in April 2019 at their first well-child visit. Information collected involves basic data that are part of those routinely collected by the family pediatricians, but also parental data, such as medical history, characteristics and lifestyle, and indoor and outdoor environment. A specific web portal for the NASCITA cohort study was developed and an electronic case report form for data input was created and tested. Interactive data charts, including growth curves, are being made available to pediatricians with their patients’ data. Newsletters covering the current biomedical literature on child cohorts are periodically being put up for pediatricians, and, for parents, evidence-based information on common illnesses and problems in children. RESULTS After 6 months, there were 160 participating pediatricians, distributed throughout Italy, and 2264 enrolled children, representing 24% of children born in 2018 covered by those same pediatricians. At the second routine visit (programmed in the first 60-90 days of life), 59% of the children were still being exclusively breastfed. Of the mothers who were no longer exclusively breastfeeding, a majority (59%) were giving formula milk and 41% breast and formula milk. CONCLUSIONS The NASCITA Cohort is well underway and the current population size will already permit significant conclusions to be drawn. The key role of pediatricians in obtaining clinical data directly, along with the national level representativity, will make the findings even more solid. In addition to promoting accurate data input, the multiple functions of the web portal, with its interactive platform, help maintain a solid relationship with the pediatricians and keep parents informed and interested in participating. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03894566

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 799-805 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corrado Fagnani ◽  
Sonia Brescianini ◽  
Sonia Cotichini ◽  
Cristina D'Ippolito ◽  
Tatjana Dukic ◽  
...  

AbstractSince its start as a database of ‘possible twins’, the Italian Twin Register has developed remarkably in terms of twin approach and recruitment, data-management tools, the cohorts enrolled, and the breadth of information gathered, making the Italian Twin Register a valuable resource for genetic epidemiological research. The Italian Twin Register is a random population of twins at both the national level and within targeted geographical areas or birth cohorts. Further, the Register is linked with disease records and has recently implemented a web-based method for volunteer twin recruitment specifically designed to promote the Register and to disseminate information on genetic epidemiology. To date, approximately 9000 twins have joined the Italian Twin Register, the majority of whom (approximately 70%) represent young adults aged 20 at time of enrolment. Although the total number of twins recruited to date is far below the expected figure initially predicted, the newly established standardized procedures guarantee an increase of around 2000 twins each year. Following the collaboration between the Italian Twin Register and the main Italian nonprofit association for blood donors, twin DNA sampling and storage has recently accelerated contributing to the large amount of phenotypic data collected. The Italian Twin Register is currently involved in both population and clinical based studies on various complex pheno-types and diseases, some conducted within large European consortia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 618-630 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjetil A. Van Der Wel ◽  
Olof Östergren ◽  
Olle Lundberg ◽  
Kaarina Korhonen ◽  
Pekka Martikainen ◽  
...  

Aims: Future research on health inequality relies on data that cover life-course exposure, different birth cohorts and variation in policy contexts. Nordic register data have long been celebrated as a ‘gold mine’ for research, and fulfil many of these criteria. However, access to and use of such data are hampered by a number of hurdles and bottlenecks. We present and discuss the experiences of an ongoing Nordic consortium from the process of acquiring register data on socio-economic conditions and health in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Methods: We compare experiences of data-acquisition processes from a researcher’s perspective in the four countries and discuss the comparability of register data and the modes of collaboration available to researchers, given the prevailing ethical and legal restrictions. Results: The application processes we experienced were time-consuming, and decision structures were often fragmented. We found substantial variation between the countries in terms of processing times, costs and the administrative burden of the researcher. Concerned agencies differed in policy and practice which influenced both how and when data were delivered. These discrepancies present a challenge to comparative research. Conclusions: We conclude that there are few signs of harmonisation, as called for by previous policy documents and research papers. Ethical vetting needs to be centralised both within and between countries in order to improve data access. Institutional factors that seem to facilitate access to register data at the national level include single storage environments for health and social data, simplified ethical vetting and user guidance.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0169796X2110012
Author(s):  
Sudha Vasan

India has set up one of the first national-level legal bodies, the National Green Tribunal (NGT), dedicated exclusively to address cases under environmental laws. My research follows a case filed in the NGT by an indigenous community against a hydel power project in the western Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, examining how diverse and opposing parties in this case represent themselves as environmentalists. It reveals a narrative sphere where entirely opposite actions and actors are legitimated in and through the NGT in environmental terms. This article suggests that green courts provoke green narratives and examines how diverse actors respond and engage with this demand. Individuals are interpellated in this juridical field to understand and present themselves as environmentalists. Environment is a meta-narrative in this juridical field, constituting environmentalist subjectivity of all actors within this field by the very process of hailing them.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. e100004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Kotoulas ◽  
Ioannis Stratis ◽  
Theodoros Goumenidis ◽  
George Lambrou ◽  
Dimitrios - Dionysios Koutsouris

ObjectiveAn intranet portal that combines cost-free, open-source software technology with easy set-up features can be beneficial for daily hospital processes. We describe the short-term adoption rates of a costless content management system (CMS) in the intranet of a tertiary Greek hospital.DesignDashboard statistics of our CMS platform were the implementation assessment of our system.ResultsIn a period of 10 months of running the software, the results indicate the employees overcame ‘Resistance to Change’ status. The average growth rate of end users who exploit the portal services is calculated as 2.73 every 3.3 months.ConclusionWe found our intranet web-based portal to be acceptable and helpful so far. Exploitation of an open-source CMS within the hospital intranet can influence healthcare management and the employees’ way of working as well.


ReCALL ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Wong ◽  
Agnès Fauverge

This paper reports on the experimental use of a broadband computer network hypermedia environment for language learning (French, English and Spanish). Using Web-based resources, students engage in a collaborative task over a network which offers high quality video-conferencing, application sharing and access to authentic multimedia resources. One of the main aims was to establish the practicalities of providing learners of languages with opportunities to engage in reciprocal peer tutoring. After outlining the pedagogical assumptions, and describing the set-up of the network-based learning environment, the trials are analysed, and the effectiveness of network-based language learning in supporting collaborative learning is discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aria Asadi Eskandar ◽  
Murali Raman

Most of the international e-Government benchmarking studies have focused on national government websites such as portal of ministries at the national level. This paper examines the level of sophistication of e-Government websites for different states in Malaysia, as opposed to a national level assessment, both in terms of the breadth and depth of e-Government service offering. This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge in relation to e-Government web portal assessment in two ways. First, studies pertaining to e-Government in Malaysia focus mainly on implementation issues at the Federal/National level– The authors examined State level implementation of e-Government services. Secondly, they used a predetermined instrument to assess the sophistication level of State government web portals, by consolidating different measurement items from our review of literature over the past ten years. The authors analyzed the website for a total of thirteen states in Malaysia, in relation to six different dimension measures of e-Government service offerings, as prescribed by literature. These six dimension measures are the extent of transparency, interactivity, usability and accessibility of the portal, citizen participation, security and privacy, and maturity level of services. A content analysis of the web portal was done, using a predetermined instrument developed based on our review of literature on this topic, in the past ten years. Their findings suggest that different State Governments in Malaysia demonstrate different levels of maturity in relation to the six dimensions measured.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-53
Author(s):  
Imtiyaz Yusuf

The century-old conflict in southern Thailand, which began with Siam’s annexation of the former Malay sultanate of Negara Patani in 1909, reemerged viciously in 2004 – with no end in sight. The Thai state expected that its official head of the Muslim community at the national level, the chularajmontri (shaykh al-Islam), whose office was set up in 1945 to integrate all Thai Muslims into the new nation-state of Thailand (formerly called Siam), would lay a significant role in resolving the southern conflict. Thus, this office was entrusted with tackling the issue of ethno-religious nationalism among the southern Muslims, an important factor lying at the root of this conflict. The office was expected to address the Thai nation-state’s political and socio-religious needs via promoting a pro-integration religious interpretation of Islam. This paper contends that its failure to contribute toward the conflict’s resolution lies in the differences in the two parties’ historical, ethnic, and religious interpretations of Islam.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Reside

In the first section of the submission guidelines for this esteemed journal, would-be authors are informed, “RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage uses a web-based, automated, submission system to track and review manuscripts. Manuscripts should be sent to the editor, […], through the web portal[…]” The multivalent uses of the word “manuscript” in this sentence reveal a good deal about the state of our field. This journal is dedicated to the study of manuscripts, and it is understood by most readers that the manuscripts being studied are of the “one-of-a-kind” variety (even rarer than the “rare . . .


Vaccines ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Yi Kong ◽  
Hao Jiang ◽  
Zhisheng Liu ◽  
Yi Guo ◽  
Dehua Hu

Objective: To investigate the uptake and vaccination willingness of the COVID-19 vaccine among Chinese residents and analyze the difference and factors that impact vaccination. Methods: The snowball sampling method was used to distribute online questionnaires. Relevant sociodemographic data along with the circumstances of COVID-19 vaccination were collected from the respondents. The χ2 test, independent samples t test and binary logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: Among 786 respondents, 84.22% had been vaccinated. Over 80% of the vaccinated population have completed all the injections because of supporting the national vaccination policies of China, while the unvaccinated population (23.91%) is mainly due to personal health status. Meanwhile, statistical analysis revealed that the main predictors of not being vaccinated were younger age (3 to 18 years old), personal health status, and lower vaccinated proportion of family members and close friends (p < 0.05). Conclusions: There was a high level of uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in China, and people who have not been vaccinated generally had a low willingness to vaccinate in the future. Based on our results, it suggested the next work to expand the coverage of the COVID-19 vaccination should be concentrated on targeted publicity and education for people who have not been vaccinated.


A web portal can be defined as a personalized, single point of access to information, resources and services covering a wide range of topic. Based on some researches, a system based on the internet can improve the work efficiency to some extent and provide all kinds of academic administration information timely. As to establish the intended function, usability is a crucial factor to be embarked on. This will ensure that the users are attracted to use the portal by increasing the relationship between the users and the portal’s interface. The Applied Informatics Research Group (AIRG) is the group assigned by the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FSKTM) to manage the Research Group Portal System (RGPS) that is the sample used in this research. The RGPS is a web-based system that allows collaboration among the users; to locate, store, use and share their knowledge. The main objective of this research is to obtain the feedbackfrom the users regarding the usability of the RGPS that is deterring them from optimizing the usage of this system. Surveys and questionnaires are used to evaluate and the output acts an input to modify the interface of the RGPS. Again, validation will be done to weight the users’ experience with the modified user interface.


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