Federated healthcare record server--the Synapses paradigm.

The delivery of healthcare relies on the sharing of patient information between those who are providing for the care of the patient and this information is increasingly being expressed in terms of a 'record'. Further, it is desirable that these records are available in electronic form as Electronic HealthCare Records. As it is likely that patient records or parts of records will be stored in many different information systems and in the form of disparate record architectures, uniform access to patient records would be problematic.

Patient result validation services.

Patient result validation is a vital final stage of laboratory quality assurance and is usually the responsibility of senior laboratory staff. Computerised validation systems have recently been introduced to autovalidate data meeting certain pre-defined criteria, thereby allowing senior staff to focus on problematic cases. This article describes the patient results validation service module developed for an advanced instrument workstation in the OpenLabs project.

Supporting interoperability between medical knowledge-based systems: experience from pilot implementations.

Interoperability may be defined as the ability of knowledge-based systems to function together in a symbiotic manner. Cooperativity implies interoperability but with the added benefit that the output quality of the cooperative network exceeds the overall performance of the participating sub-systems. A number of candidate architectures to support interoperability and cooperativity between medical knowledge-based systems in laboratory medicine domains are now becoming available.

Molecular behavior of water in a flour-water baked model system.

The molecular behavior of water in complex food systems, via bonding and solvation reactions with low molecular weight solutes or high molecular weight macromolecules, is intimately linked with both the palatability and storage stability of those systems. Due to the difficulty in interpreting data derived from multicomponent finished food products, water behavior in a baked flour-water "matzo" model system was studied. Water behavior was assessed from high resolution [1H] nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin-spin relaxation studies and differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) measurements of unfreezable water content.

Technological necessity of antioxidants in the food industry.

Antioxidants are one of the principal lines of defence in protecting quality as food or ingredients move from the farm through processing and distribution to the consumer. The urbanization of society and the resultant need to process complex, higher-quality foods have required that products survive a longer transportation time and an extended shelf-life. Consumers are also becoming more quality oriented and health conscious in their food selections.

High pressure liquid chromatographic determination of mono- and disaccharides in presweetened cereals: Collaborative study.

A collaborative study was conducted using a modified AOAC method (sugars in chocolate) for the determination of fructose, glucose, sucrose, and maltose in presweetened cereals by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Eight samples consisting of 6 products were analyzed in duplicate by the HPLC method and the AOAC Lane-Eynon method. The AOAC method was modified to use water-alcohol (1 + 1) and Sep-Pak C18 cartridges for sample cleanup.