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Algorithm:

A formula for solving a problem. An algorithm is a set of steps in a very specific order, such as a mathematical formula or the instructions in a computer program.

Animal Models:

Projects relating to the use of an animal sufficiently like humans in its anatomy, physiology or response to a pathogen to be used in medical research in order to obtain results that can be extrapolated to human medicine and/or a pathological or physiological condition that occurs in such an animal and is similar (as in its pathology or physiology) to a human condition.

Anonymisation/De-personalisation:

removing patients' identifying (directly or indirectly referring) information that may exist in the narrative part of a clinical report.

Authentication:

A human or machine process that verifies that an individual, computer, or information object is who or what it purports to be.

Back-end database:

A database that contains and manages data for an information system, distinct from the presentation or interface components of that system.

CLEF:

Clinical e-science Framework.  CLEF is an MRC and DTi sponsored research project that aims to develop rigorous generic methods for capturing and managing clinical information in patient care and for integrating that information into clinical and basic bioscience research

Clinical Trials:

A clinical trial is a scientific study to determine the safety and effectiveness of a treatment or intervention.

Controlled Vocabularies & Ontologies:

Projects which develop terminologies in the form of controlled vocabularies which can be used to annotate data elements or experiments.

CRS:

The NHS Care Records Service will provide live electronic patient records for everyone in England ie more than 50 million patient records.  These will be accessed by health professionals where and when they are needed, and will give patients secure Internet access to their own health information.   CRS depends on N3.

Cytogenetics:

The study of chromosomes and chromosome abnormalities.

Data Elements:

Projects which are standardising descriptors of either data elements or experiments made up of data elements and metadata. Where multiple data elements/metadata terms make up an experiment, the project description indicates which elements should be included, as well as how they should be described.

Data Exchange Formats:

Projects which are developing standards for the purpose of data exchange between applications and organisations. Standards for data exchange include what should be exchanged and what format it should be in.

Data Mining:

Projects which develop tools or resources such as databases for data mining.

Data Ontology:

Similar to a dictionary or glossary, but with greater detail and structure that enables computers to process its content. An ontology consists of a set of concepts, axioms, and relationships that describe a domain of interest.

Data Repository:

A data repository is a collection of resources that can be accessed to retrieve information. Repositories often consist of several databases tied together by a common search engine.

DICOM:

Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine

Digital signatures:

A form of electronic authentication of a digital document. Digital signatures are created and verified using public key cryptography and serve to tie the document being signed to the signer.

DNA:

The sequencing, identification of genes, analysis of genetic variation and mutation analysis. Technologies include DNA sequencing, phylogenetics, haplotyping and SNP identification.

Epidemiology & Population Studies:

Epidemiological and population research studies investigate the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population.

EPR:

The Electronic Patient Record will be available 24/7, accessible by patients and healthcare professionals nationwide

ETP: 

Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions  to the chemist or pharmacist nominated by the patient and also, automatically, to the Prescription Pricing Authority.

Functional Genomics:

The exploration and analysis of gene function. Technologies include microarray, ChIP, and network analysis.

Genetic Medicine:

A new branch of medicine that is concerned with the investigation of genetic background of diseases.  It aims to reveal the genetic abnormality or inherited genetic defect  that may be responsible for a medical condition.

Genomic medicine:

Genomic Medicine -- also known as Personalized Medicine, Molecular Medicine and pharmacogenomics -- uses genome-derived data, including human genetic variation, RNA and protein expression differences, to predict the safety and/or efficacy of drugs in individual patients or groups of patients.

HTML:

Hyper Text Mark up Language

ICT:

Information and Communication Technology

Implementation:

Projects which develop or maintain databases.

Information extraction:

Information extraction systems analyse unrestricted text in order to extract information about pre-specified types of events, entities or relationships.  Information extraction is not information retrieval. 

Interoperability:

The ability for two different systems, particularly computer-based systems, to work together correctly, particularly in the correct interpretation of data semantics.

ISDN:

Integrated Services Digital Network

JEZZ Remedies

A strategic marketing firm that specialises in commercial development of healthcare R&D projects.  JEZZ Remedies has a well-established customer base in the UK and  Central Europe.

Knowledge Management:

Knowledge management is about the use of computer and communication tools to help people gather and apply their collective data, information, knowledge and wisdom in order to make better, quicker, wiser and more effective decisions. This includes mathematical modelling.

Longitudinal Studies:

A longitudinal study is a study in which the same group of individuals is monitored at intervals over a period of time.

Markup language:

A formal way of annotating a document or collection of digital data using embedded encoding tags to indicate the structure of the document or datafile and the contents of its data elements. This markup also provides a computer with information about how to process and display marked-up documents.

Metadata: 

"data about data" describe the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of data.  It includes data associated with either an information system or an information object for purposes of description, administration, legal requirements, technical functionality, use and usage, and preservation.

Meta tag:

An HTML tag that enables metadata to be embedded invisibly on Web pages.

myGrid:

It is an extensible open platform for data and tools interoperability, built using technologies from the Grid and Web Services (unified as the Open Grid Services Architecture) and the Semantic Web (such as DAML+OIL and RDF). The focus is upper-middleware.

N3:

N3 is the new, integrated network for the NHS, a combination of broadband connections and network services that will link all NHS sites in England. N3 is the new national network integrated and managed by BT.  It will provide substantially increased bandwidth over the current NHSnet. 

Natural language generation (NLG):

It focuses on the generation of written texts in English or other human languages, from some non-linguistic (like computerised) data or knowledge for the purpose of creating reports, translations, etc.

Network bandwidth:

These expression is derived from the term used to describe the size or "width" of the frequencies used to carry analog communications such as television and radio. For Internet purposes, bandwidth is generally (and incorrectly) used to refer to the rate of data transfer.

NHII: 

National Health Information Infrastructure is the set of technologies, standards, applications, systems, values, and laws that support all facets of individual health, health care, and public health

Open Source Initiative (OSI):

It is a non-profit corporation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community, specifically through the OSI Certified Open Source Software certification mark and program.”

OpenEHR Foundation:

Established in 2002, OpenEHR is an international non-profit group working to bring about comprehensive, interoperable electronic health records.

OSI license:

The Open Source Initiative license requires much more than just access to source code. Very importantly, it requires free redistribution. This doesn’t mean that you can’t charge for providing the software to others. What you cannot do is charge them for the right to redistribute it to others. They are free to sell it or give it away, and they may do this in aggregate with other software if they like.

Oversight authority:

An authority that decides and/or grants the (level of) access to (CLEF stored) patients' data to an individual or organisation.

PACS:

Picture Archiving and Communication System enables images such as x-rays and scans to be stored and sent electronically so that doctors and other health professionals can access the information. 

Pathophysiology & Visualisation Techniques:

Projects relating to the physiology of abnormal states, specifically the functional changes that accompany a particular syndrome or disease and/or projects relating to the visualisation of internal structures to aid the diagnosis or treatment of cancer.

Privacy Enhancing Technologies/Security:

Projects which are developing secure resources and applications for confidential data such as patient records.

Proteomics:

The study (identification, characterization and quantification) of proteins involved in a particular pathway, organelle, cell, tissue, organ or organism that can be studied in concert to provide accurate and comprehensive data about that system. Technologies include protein interaction models, high-throughput protein analysis and modelling.

Protocol Standardisation:

Projects which are developing standard protocols for common processes.

Pseudonymisation/De-identification:

Removing patients' identifying data fields that usually exist in the header and/or footer parts of a clinical report.

RDF:

Resource Description Framework is an application of XML that enables the creation of rich structured Internet resource descriptions.

Semantic Web:

It is a mesh of information linked up in such a way as to be easily processable by machines, on a global scale. You can think of it as being an efficient way of representing data on the World Wide Web, or as a globally linked database.

The Semantic Web was thought up by Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the WWW, URIs, HTTP, and HTML.

SGML:

Standard Generalized Markup Language, ISO (International Standards Organization) standard ISO/IEC 8879:1986, first used by the publishing industry, for defining, specifying, and creating digital documents that can be delivered, displayed, linked, and manipulated in a system-independent manner.

Spine:

The NHS data spine is a national database of key information about a patient's health and care that forms the core of the CRS. It includes the patient’s NHS number , date of birth, name and address, allergies, adverse drug reactions, major treatment that has been provided, is continuing, or has been completed.

SQL:

Structured Query Language is used in manipulating data stored in Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS). SQL provides commands through which data can be extracted, sorted, updated, deleted and inserted.

Store & Forward:

Buffering technique for transfer of data

TCP/IP:

Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol, the ISO standardized suite of network protocols that enables information systems to link to other information systems on the Internet, regardless of their computer platform. TCP and IP are two software communication standards used to allow multiple computers to talk to each other in an error-free fashion.

Text mining:

It is about looking for patterns in natural language text to extract information from it for a particular purpose. Text mining recognizes that complete understanding of natural language text, a long-standing goal of computer science, is not immediately attainable and focuses on extracting a small amount of information from text with high reliability.

URL:

Uniform Resource Locator is an Internet address that tells a user how and where to locate a specific file on the World Wide Web. A URL includes not only the name of a file, but also the name of the host computer, the directory path to get to that file, and the protocol needed in order to use it (e.g., http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/intrometadata/toc.html

VDSL:

Very high speed Digital Subscriber Loop – x50 ISDN speed

WAN:

Wide Area Network

WYSIWYM:

`What You See Is What You Meant' is a knowledge editor that  allow domain experts to encode their knowledge directly, by interacting with a feedback text, generated by the system, which presents the knowledge defined so far and the options for extending or revising it.