Committed to the Open Source Movement in Healthcare
Established
16 October 1998
Copyright
© 1998–2008
Health informatics Europe
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Diffuse Project - European Commission Information Society Technologies
programme
The objective of the Diffuse project is to provide a single, value-added, entry point to up-to-date reference and guidance information on available and emerging standards and specifications that facilitate the electronic exchange of information. The Diffuse project has been set up to provide neutral reporting on developments relating to standards and specifications in support of Key Action II (New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce) and Key Action III (Multimedia Content and Tools) of the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies (IST) programme. The project outputs are primarily targeted at potential and actual IST participants. Whilst the emphasis of the project is focused on the needs of the Research and Technologies Development (RTD) commuinities, it also has a broader perspective of serving the information requirements of industry and public sector in general. The Diffuse project builds on the accomplishments of the European Commission’s Open Information Interchange (OII) initiative, which concluded in December 1999. The Diffuse Services, and how to use themThe Diffuse services are organized into the following categories of publications and activities:
If you are interested in finding out how standards and
specifications are applied in key technology areas, the Diffuse Business
Guides If you wish to find out which standards and specifications are
used in specific application areas, or which standards and specifications are
required for the electronic interchange of data at a general level, the
categories provided in the table of contents of the Standards
and Specifications List If you need to find information about a particular standard or
specification, the fully crossed-referenced Alphabetic
Index, which lists the acronyms of standards and specifications as well as
their full title, will provide a useful starting point. Alternatively, you can
make use of the Diffuse Search
Engine If you wish to find out more about the activities of a
particular standards body, then the Standards
Fora List If you require information on the implementation of standards and specifications by RTD projects, in particular those supported under the present IST Programme and the previous EU Fourth Framework Programme, then the RTD Project List* will provide you with a concise reference point. If you are interested in how major existing and emerging standards and specifications are having an impact on leading edge projects, the Diffuse Case Studies* will provide you with detailed examples. The Case Studies address how standards have improved specific major RTD projects, and how a grouping of RTD projects impact on standardization. The latest information on standards and specifications
developments within the scope of Diffuse is provided in the monthly Report
on Electronic Commerce Interoperability In addition, the Diffuse project organizes an annual Dissemination Event on specific themes within its scope. Further information will be announced at the appropriate time. The Diffuse information services are updated every month. If you would like to receive electronic copies of the reports we issue each month, together with details of which sections of the Diffuse site have been updated during the month, just send us an e-mail asking to be added to the Diffuse mailing list. Help us to help you The Diffuse Consortium aims to provide a timely, neutral and quality information service to its targeted users. Your feedback and suggestions on any aspect of the service are of the utmost importance to us. You are requested to e-mail us any comments that you may have on the service. The
Diffuse Help Desk The Diffuse ConsortiumCoordinator: TIEKE (Finnish Information Technology Development Centre) Partners: IC Focus and The SGML Centre TIEKE Finnish Information Technology Development Centre's primary mission is to serve its members and associates by performing as a neutral and non-profit forum in the development of the Finnish Information Society. TIEKE provides a central point for information relating to information technology to Finnish companies. As such it is closely involved with user communities and their RTD activities in one of the most technologically advanced countries in Europe. Staff at TIEKE have considerable inputs to the standardization process at national, European and international levels and are responsible for Finnish IT standardization through delegation from the Finnish Standards Association, SFS. The main functions of TIEKE include:
TIEKE Finnish Information Technology Development Centre, Salomonkatu 17 A, 10th floor, FIN-00100 Helsinki, Finland. Contact person: IC Focus Limited is an independent consultancy specializing in the strategic planning and implementation of electronic commerce. It undertakes assignments for a range of private and public sector organizations. Areas of recent activity include open systems migration strategy for European railways, electronic procurement, electronic banking, electronic commerce awareness and training, information markets, and ICT competitive analysis. IC Focus provides active voluntary input to the electronic commerce standardization process. The company resources its own research into electronic commerce next generation issues and has built up a European network of contacts with researchers, standardizers and practitioners in electronic commerce. Its director, Man-Sze Li, has been involved in electronic commerce and EDI standardization for the past 12 years. She has been a member of the relevant national committees, various groups of the former Western European EDIFACT Board, Chair of the EWOS Expert Group on EDI, and Chair of the EBES Electronic Commerce Technical Steering Group. She is currently the elected Chair of the CEN/ISSS Electronic Commerce Workshop. Ms Li is also involved in the establishment of an Internet company offering global electronic commerce services. Ms Li was a contributor to the European Commission’s Open Information Interchange (OII) initiative. IC Focus Limited, 42 Clifton Road, London N8 8JA, UK Contact person: The SGML Centre specialises in the use of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) and associated standards, including the SGML-subset that is used in W3C's Extensible Markup Language (XML). The proprietor of The SGML Centre, Martin Bryan, has represented the UK on ISO committees related to Document Description and Processing Languages for over a decade. This work has included acting as co-editor for the ISO/IEC Topic Map standard and review of the MPEG7 multimedia data navigation standard.. He is also chair of the CEN/ISSS Electronic Commerce Workshop Project Group on Defining and Managing Semantics and Datatypes for European Electronic Commerce. Martin Bryan was a contributor to the European Commission's Open Information Interchange (OII) initiative. The SGML Centre, 29 Oldbury Orchard, Churchdown, Glos GL3 2PU,
UK
Diffuse
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will be a
good starting point. The guides are written from a business perspective and
provide an overview of the underlying concepts and current development status
for individual key technology areas (including current "hot topics")
with respect to the application of standards and specifications.