The future of zoonotic risk prediction

In the light of the urgency raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, global investment in wildlife virology is likely to increase, and new surveillance programmes will identify hundreds of novel viruses that might someday pose a threat to humans. To support the extensive task of laboratory characterization, scientists may increasingly rely on data-driven rubrics or machine learning models that learn from known zoonoses to identify which animal pathogens could someday pose a threat to global health. We synthesize the findings of an interdisciplinary workshop on zoonotic risk technologies to answer the following questions. What are the prerequisites, in terms of open data, equity and interdisciplinary collaboration, to the development and application of those tools? What effect could the technology have on global health? Who would control that technology, who would have access to it and who would benefit from it? Would it improve pandemic prevention? Could it create new challenges? This article is part of the theme issue ‘Infectious disease macroecology: parasite diversity and dynamics across the globe’.

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Zoonotic Risk Technology Enters the Viral Emergence Toolkit

10.20944/preprints202104.0200.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Colin Carlson ◽

Maxwell Farrell ◽

Zoe Grange ◽

Barbara Han ◽

Nardus Mollentze ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Global Health ◽

Interdisciplinary Collaboration ◽

Open Data ◽

Machine Learning Model ◽

Animal Pathogens ◽

Zoonotic Risk ◽

Surveillance Programs ◽

Viral Emergence ◽

New Challenges ◽

Informatic System

In light of the urgency raised by the COVID-19 pandemic, global investment in wildlife virology is likely to increase, and new surveillance programs will identify hundreds of novel viruses that might someday pose a threat to humans. Our capacity to identify which viruses are capable of zoonotic emergence depends on the existence of a technology—a machine learning model or other informatic system—that leverages available data on known zoonoses to identify which animal pathogens could someday pose a threat to global health. We synthesize the findings of an interdisciplinary workshop on zoonotic risk technologies to answer the following questions: What are the prerequisites, in terms of open data, equity, and interdisciplinary collaboration, to the development and application of those tools? What effect could the technology have on global health? Who would control that technology, who would have access to it, and who would benefit from it? Would it improve pandemic prevention? Could it create new challenges?

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Privacy after the Agile Turn

10.31235/osf.io/9gy73 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Seda Gurses ◽

Joris Vredy Jan van Hoboken

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Software Industry ◽

Data Driven ◽

Dynamic Nature ◽

Privacy Regulation ◽

Research And Practice ◽

Production Processes ◽

Regulatory Frameworks ◽

Software And Hardware ◽

New Challenges

Moving beyond algorithms and big data as starting points for discussions about privacy, the authors of Privacy After the Agile Turn focus our attention on the new modes of production of information systems. Specifically, they look at three shifts that have transformed most of the software industry: software is now delivered as services, software and hardware have moved into the cloud and software’s development is ever more agile. These shifts have altered the conditions for privacy governance, and rendered the typical mental models underlying regulatory frameworks for information systems out-of-date. After 'the agile turn', modularity in production processes creates new challenges for allocating regulatory responsibility. Privacy implications of software are harder to address due to the dynamic nature of services and feature development, which undercuts extant privacy regulation that assumes a clear beginning and end of production processes. And the data-driven nature of services, beyond the prospect of monetization, has become part of software development itself. With their focus on production, the authors manage to place known challenges to privacy in a new light and create new avenues for privacy research and practice.

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Using Open Source, Open Data, and Civic Technology to Address the COVID-19 Pandemic and Infodemic

Yearbook of Medical Informatics ◽

10.1055/s-0041-1726488 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shinji Kobayashi ◽

Luis Falcón ◽

Hamish Fraser ◽

Jørn Braa ◽

Pamod Amarakoon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Medical Informatics ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Collective Intelligence ◽

Collaborative Work ◽

Open Data ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Health Organizations ◽

The World ◽

Civic Technology

Objectives: The emerging COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the world’s worst health disasters compounded by social confusion with misinformation, the so-called “Infodemic”. In this paper, we discuss how open technology approaches - including data sharing, visualization, and tooling - can address the COVID-19 pandemic and infodemic. Methods: In response to the call for participation in the 2020 International Medical Informatics Association (IMIA) Yearbook theme issue on Medical Informatics and the Pandemic, the IMIA Open Source Working Group surveyed recent works related to the use of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) for this pandemic. Results: FLOSS health care projects including GNU Health, OpenMRS, DHIS2, and others, have responded from the early phase of this pandemic. Data related to COVID-19 have been published from health organizations all over the world. Civic Technology, and the collaborative work of FLOSS and open data groups were considered to support collective intelligence on approaches to managing the pandemic. Conclusion: FLOSS and open data have been effectively used to contribute to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, and open approaches to collaboration can improve trust in data.

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A Data-driven Approach to Assess the Potential of Smart Cities: The Case of Open Data for Brussels Capital Region

Energy Procedia ◽

10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.237 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 111 ◽

pp. 750-758 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Miguel Angel Gomez Zotano ◽

Hugues Bersini

Keyword(s):

Smart Cities ◽

Open Data ◽

Data Driven ◽

Capital Region ◽

Data Driven Approach

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A Framework for Protecting Pregnant Women in the Era of COVID-19 Pandemic

International Journal of MCH and AIDS (IJMA) ◽

10.21106/ijma.419 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 109-112

Author(s):

Deepa Dongarwar ◽

Veronica Ajewole ◽

Kiydra Harris ◽

Emmanuella Oduguwa ◽

Theresa Ofili ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Open Access ◽

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽

Best Practices ◽

Global Health ◽

Pregnant Women ◽

Original Work ◽

Creative Commons ◽

New Challenges ◽

Work First ◽

Open Access Article

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, highlighted and compounded problems while posing new challenges for the pregnant population. Although individual organizations have provided disparate information, guidance, and updates on managing the pregnant population during the current COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to develop a collective model that highlights all the best practices needed to protect the pregnant population during the pandemic. To establish a standard for ensuring safety during the pandemic, we present a framework that describes best practices for the management of the pregnant population during the ongoing COVID-19pandemic. Copyright © 2021 Dongarwar, et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in this journal, is properly cited.

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Challenges for theories of consciousness: seeing or knowing, the missing ingredient and how to deal with panpsychism

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2017.0344 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 373 (1755) ◽

pp. 20170344 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Victor A. F. Lamme

Keyword(s):

Conscious Experience ◽

Complex Phenomenon ◽

Significant Progress ◽

Theme Issue ◽

Perceptual Consciousness ◽

Knowing That ◽

Cognitive Access ◽

Visual Consciousness ◽

New Challenges ◽

Made In

Significant progress has been made in the study of consciousness. Promising theories have been developed and a wealth of experimental data has been generated, both guiding us towards a better understanding of this complex phenomenon. However, new challenges have surfaced. Is visual consciousness about the seeing or the knowing that you see? Controversy about whether the conscious experience is better explained by theories that focus on phenomenal (P-consciousness) or cognitive aspects (A-consciousness) remains, and the debate seems to reach a stalemate. Can we ever resolve this? A further challenge is that many theories of consciousness seem to endorse high degrees of panpsychism—the notion that all beings or even lifeless objects have conscious experience. Should we accept this, or does it imply that these theories require further ingredients that would put a lower bound on beings or devices that have conscious experience? If so, what could these ‘missing ingredients’ be? These challenges are discussed, and potential solutions are offered. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

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La orientación al dato, nuevos desafíos

Tábula ◽

10.51598/tab.844 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Miguel Ángel Amutio Gómez

Keyword(s):

European Union ◽

Digital Transformation ◽

Data Driven ◽

The European Union ◽

Data Preservation ◽

The Future ◽

Data Driven Approach ◽

New Challenges ◽

The Impact

La orientación al dato en el contexto de la transformación digital lleva aparejada la aparición de nuevas regulaciones, dinámicas de gobernanza y roles, y servicios, junto con las correspondientes prácticas, instrumentos y estándares. A la vez se suscitan retos en relación con la ciberseguridad y la preservación de los datos. En este artículo se exponen la transformación digital y la orientación al dato, la proyección de lo anterior en la administración digital, el contexto de la Unión Europea, trayectoria y su orientación, aspectos de la interoperabilidad, ciberseguridad y preservación de los datos, cuestiones de gobernanza y roles en la orientación al dato y, finalmente, unas conclusiones. The data-driven approach in the context of digital transformation entails the appearance of new regulations, governance dynamics and roles, and services, together with the corresponding practices, instruments and standards. At the same time new challenges appear in relation to cybersecurity and data preservation. This article presents the digital transformation and data-driven approach, the impact in digital administration, the context of the European Union, trajectory and orientation towards the future, along with aspects of interoperability, cybersecurity and data preservation, as well as issues of governance and roles in data orientation and finally some conclusions.

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The Politics of Building Civic Tech

10.1332/policypress/9781529215144.003.0009 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 69-78

Author(s):

Rob Kitchin

Keyword(s):

Open Data ◽

Urban Infrastructure ◽

Data Driven ◽

Trial And Error ◽

Institutional Landscape ◽

Control Rooms ◽

Political Trials

This chapter evaluates the technical and political trials involved in building a suite of open data tools by charting the development of the Dublin Dashboard. Building a city dashboard is a good way to gain an in-depth knowledge of how civic tech can be created using open data, and the politics and praxes involved. Like the process for creating the original city dashboard, the redevelopment of the Dublin Dashboard and production of the Cork Dashboard involved a significant amount of planning, negotiation, and trial and error. Just as these processes and institutional landscape have an effect on how a dashboard is created, the collective manufacture of dashboards reshapes institutions and their practices. How we design dashboards, and what data are included and how they are displayed, influences what knowledge is learned and how it is applied. Importantly, given that dashboards are a key means by which operators monitor urban infrastructure within control rooms, this mutability directly shapes the nature of data driven urbanism and how our cities are managed and run.

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