TENTATIVE
Biomedical Informatics is the scientific field that deals with the storage, retrieval, sharing, and optimal use of biomedical information, data, and knowledge for problem solving and decision making. It touches on all basic and applied fields in biomedical science and is closely tied to modern information technologies, notably in the areas of computing and communication. Biomedical informatics applications may be used for decision support, quality assurance, assistance in research studies, and resource allocation.
Biomedical Imaging Informatics defines the role of medical imaging and related technologies within the context of medical informatics decision support and improvement of patient care and outcome. The scope of biomedical imaging covers data acquisition, image reconstruction, and image analysis, involving theories, methods, systems, and applications. While tomographic and post-processing techniques become increasingly sophisticated, traditional and emerging modalities play more and more critical roles in anatomical, functional, cellular, and molecular imaging. The overall goal of the "Handbook of Research on Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics: Case Studies and Applications" is to promote research and development of biomedical imaging by publishing high-quality research articles and reviews in this rapidly growing interdisciplinary field.
Private and public research efforts worldwide are developing nanoproducts aimed at improving health care and advancing medical research. Some of these products have entered the marketplace, more are on the verge of doing so, and others remain more a vision that a reality. The potential for these innovations is enormous, but questions remain about their long-term safety and the risk–benefit characteristics of their usage.
Comparative analysis of genomes allows the rich source of biological genome sequence data to be most efficiently exploited. However, the rate at which microbial genomes are being sequenced is increasing rapidly. Soon the volume of data will put comparative analyses beyond the capability of the computing resources of most individual laboratories. The advent of Grid technology promises to provide resources for computation, data integration and collaboration in a way that is not addressed in current distributed computing technologies. Grid computing has therefore been identified as having major potential benefits for bioinformatics, particularly in the area of genome analysis and comparative genomics.
Improvements in healthcare delivery in recent years are rooted in the continued industry-wide investment in information technology and the expanding role of medical informatics. The main goal of this new publication is to provide innovative and creative ideas for improving communication environments in health and to explore all new technologies in medical informatics and health care delivery systems.
"Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics: Case Studies and Applications" provides a compendium of terms, definitions and explanations of concepts, processes and acronyms. Additionally, this volume features short papers authored by leading experts offering an in-depth description of key terms and concepts related to different areas, issues and trends in various areas of Biocomputation, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Technologies.
The topics of this book cover useful areas of general knowledge including Information and Communication Technologies related to Health, New Developments in Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems, Applications and Services, Biocomputation, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Technologies, Software environments for Biocomputation, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Applications, Bioimaging and Biosensing Applications, Biocomputation and Knowledge Management in Drug Discovery and Developmens, Key Aspects, Components and Applications of Systems Biology, Biocomputation and Nanotechnology for Personalized Medicine, Data and Knowledge Mining in Biomedical Research, Modelling and Simulation in Biomedical Research, Computer Applications in Biomedicine, Health Care and Medicine.
This book is an excellent source of comprehensive knowledge and literature on the topic of Distributed Health, Biocomputation and Biomedical Informatics.
All of us who worked on the book hope that readers will find it useful.
Athina A. Lazakidou, Ph.D
Editor