SUMMARYLife sciences research is based on individuals, often with diverse skills, assembled into research groups. These groups use their specialist expertise to address scientific problems. The in silico experiments undertaken by these research groups can be represented as workflows involving the co-ordinated use of analysis programs and information repositories that may be globally distributed. With regards to Grid computing, the requirements relate to the sharing of analysis and information resources rather than sharing computational power. The my Grid project has developed the Taverna workbench for the composition and execution of workflows for the life sciences community. This experience paper describes lessons learnt during the development of Taverna. A common theme is the importance of understanding how workflows fit into the scientists' experimental context. The lessons reflect an evolving understanding of life scientists' requirements on a workflow environment, which is relevant to other areas of data intensive and exploratory science.

Objectives: To evaluate the effect of introducing an extended scope physiotherapy (ESP) service on patient satisfaction, and to measure the functional outcome of patients with soft tissue injuries attending an adult emergency department (ED), comparing management by ESPs, emergency nurse practitioners (ENPs), and all grades of ED doctor. Methods: The ESP service operated on four days out of every seven in a week in an urban adult ED. A satisfaction questionnaire was sent to all patients with a peripheral soft tissue injury and fractures (not related to the ankle) within one week of attending the ED. Patients with a unilateral soft tissue ankle injury were sent the acute Short Form 36 (SF-36) functional outcome questionnaire, with additional visual analogue scales for pain, at 4 and 16 weeks after their ED attendance. Waiting times and time spent with individual practitioners was also measured. Results: The ESP service achieved patient satisfaction that was superior to either ENPs or doctors. Overall 55% of patients seen by the ESP service strongly agreed that they were satisfied with the treatment they received, compared with 39% for ENPs and 36% for doctors (p = 0.048). Assessment of long-term outcome from ankle injury was undermined by poor questionnaire return rates. There was a trend towards improved outcomes at four weeks in those patients treated by an ESP, but this did not achieve statistical significance. Conclusion: Adding an ESP service to the interdisciplinary team achieves higher levels of patient satisfaction than for either doctors or ENPs. Further outcomes research, conducted in a wider range of emergency departments and integrated with an economic analysis, is recommended.

Replies to a questionnaire showed that, amongst 180 women delivered in The London Hospital, 48% experienced backache during pregnancy; in one third of these it was severe. The prevalence of back pain increased with both increasing age and increasing parity, and it was difficult to separate the relative contributions of these two factors. No evidence was found of an association between backache during pregnancy and height, weight, 'obesity index', weight gain, or baby's weight. Analysis of aggravating and relieving factors indicates some differences between backache in the pregnant and 'mechanical' back pain in the non-pregnant. Slightly less backache was reported amongst patients attending antenatal physiotherapy classes but the figures do not provide clear evidence of any protective effect of this attendance.

The growing quantity and distribution of bioinformatics resources means that finding and utilizing them requires a great deal of expert knowledge, especially as many resources need to be tied together into a workflow to accomplish a useful goal. We want to formally capture at least some of this knowledge within a virtual workbench and middleware framework to assist a wider range of biologists in utilizing these resources. Different activities require different representations of knowledge. Finding or substituting a service within a workflow is often best supported by a classification. Marshalling and configuring services is best accomplished using a formal description. Both representations are highly interdependent and maintaining consistency between the two by hand is difficult. We report on a description logic approach using the web ontology language DAML+OIL that uses property based service descriptions. The ontology is founded on DAML-S to dynamically create service classifications. These classifications are then used to support semantic service matching and discovery in a large grid based middleware project my GRID. We describe the extensions necessary to DAML-S in order to support bioinformatics service description; the utility of DAML+OIL in creating dynamic classifications based on formal descriptions; and the implementation of a DAML+OIL ontology service to support partial user-driven service matching and composition.

Abstract

Amiodarone is chiefly bound to albumin (62.1%) and much of the remainder (33.5%) is carried on a high molecular weight protein, probably beta-lipoprotein. Analysis of data for amiodarone binding to albumin revealed a high affinity primary binding site (Ka 5.6 X 10(6) litre mol-1) with about four secondary sites (average Ka 1.9 X 10(5) litre mol-1). Studies of the binding of amiodarone in serum revealed one type of binding site only with an affinity constant (Ka 4.2 X 10(6) litre mol-1) similar to that of the primary site on albumin. The secondary albumin binding sites do not seem therefore to be utilized in whole serum and the affinity of the lipoprotein must be similar to that of the primary amiodarone binding site on albumin. The effects of a wide range of compounds on albumin binding of amiodarone were examined by equilibrium dialysis. Quinidine, amitriptyline, cephazolin and palmitate decreased albumin-bound [125I]amiodarone. Neither warfarin nor digoxin affected the binding of amiodarone by albumin, thus of the three drugs known to be potentiated by concomitant amiodarone administration, only potentiation of quinidine could be explained by displacement from serum albumin. Rifampicin, frusemide, phenytoin, (-)-adrenaline, bromocresol green, (-)-noradrenaline and bromocresol purple were found to increase binding of [125I]amiodarone by albumin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The ability of businesses to develop is frequently hampered by difficulties in changing underlying software systems. An example is the need to change when business partnerships are formed, or dissolved. This article is concerned with the architecture of business process support systems in the context of change, and particularly with the need for such systems to facilitate software change. The viable system model (VSM) is a cybernetic model of organisations that change. It provides an inclusive architecture in which both operational and development components are described within an organisation. This article illustrates, through a business supply chain example, the use of the VSM as an architecture for flexible process support systems. This architecture is systemic and inclusive: it incorporates the ongoing development of both the business and its underlying software.

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