July 29, 2016 - Understanding Risk Management
Regulated companies are making great efforts to raise their level of compliance with both the regulatory requirements and the expectations of governing agencies. However, companies often end up creating quality systems and mechanical processes that are too rigid for efficient Computer Systems Validation (CSV).July 28, 2016 - Environmental Microbiology Monitoring – Keeping the Public Safe
This article discusses a new extension to LIMS the Environmental Monitoring module. It provides a graphical view of sample location, linking this to the samples taken over time and the test results of those samples. Useful in Feed, Beverage, Water, Environmental, Medical Devices, Healthcare industriesJuly 27, 2016 - Toxicology Labs- Why Simply Getting Paid is No Longer Enough
As a company which actively maximizes revenue for toxicology reference laboratories, we have witnessed a wide variety of billing and reimbursement scenarios over the past few years. Many of these scenarios are proper, but a large portion are either the result of not knowing any better, or worse yet, the result of knowingly false billing practices. The later scenarios can place your toxicology laboratory and all of your hard work at tremendous risk.July 25, 2016 - Principles and application of LIMS in mouse clinics
Clinical researchers conducting mouse studies at seven different facilities around the world shared their experiences using a laboratory information management system (LIMS) in order “to facilitate or even enable mouse and data management” better in their facilities. This 2015 paper by Maier et al. examines those discussions and final findings in a “review” format, concluding “the unique LIMS environment in a particular facility strongly influences strategic LIMS decisions and LIMS development” though “there is no universal LIMS for the mouse research domain that fits all requirements.”July 14, 2016 - LIMS Benefits for Every Holiday
Around every holiday there's an increase in buying activity. Your LIMS can lead to better inventory planning, quicker release of materials, and the ability to search for data more quickly. Be prepared for the next holiday so that you can reap the most benefits of increased consumer buying activities.July 13, 2016 - Icebergs Ahead – How's your Disaster Recovery Plan?
With record-retention mandates differing worldwide, organizations cannot be too risk averse in their backup retention policies. The risk of not doing so can have both legal and financial consequences including fines, shutdowns, and loss of revenue. This article discusses recommended action items for virtual machines and questions to consider when writing a Disaster Recovery Plan.July 12, 2016 - From the desktop to the grid: Scalable bioinformatics via workflow conversion
This featured article from the journal BMC Bioinformaticsfalls on the heels of several years of discussion on the topic of reproducibility of a scientific experiment's end results. De la Garza et al. point to workflows and their repeatability as vital cogs in such efforts. "Breaking down the complexity of such experiments into the joint collaboration of small, repeatable, well defined tasks, each with well defined inputs, parameters, and outputs, offers the immediate benefit of identifying bottlenecks, pinpoint sections which could benefit from parallelization," they state. The researchers developed their own set of free platform-independent tools for designing, executing, and sharing workflows. They conclude: "We are confident that our work presented in this document ... not only provides scientists a way to design and test workflows on their desktop computers, but also enables them to use powerful resources to execute their workflows, thus producing scientific results in a timely manner."
July 12, 2016 - Evaluating health information systems using ontologies
Evaluating health information systems/technology is no easy task. Eivazzadeh et al. recognize that, as well as the fact that developing evaluation frameworks presents its own set of challenges. Having looked at several different models, the researchers wished to develop their own evaluation method, one that taps into “evaluation aspects for a set of one or more health information systems — whether similar or heterogeneous — by organizing, unifying, and aggregating the quality attributes extracted from those systems and from an external evaluation framework.” As such, the group developed the UVON method, which they conclude can be used ” to create ontologies for evaluation” of health information systems as well as “to mix them with elements from other evaluation frameworks.”
July 9, 2016 - SUSHI: An exquisite recipe for fully documented, reproducible and reusable NGS data analysis
Many next-generation sequencing (NGS) data analysis frameworks exist, from Galaxy to bpipe. However, Hatakeyama et al. at the University of Zürich noted a distinct lack of a framework that 1. offers both web-based and scripting options and 2. "puts an emphasis on having a human-readable and portable file-based representation of the meta-information and associated data." In response, the researchers created SUSHI (Support Users for SHell-script Integration). They conclude that "[i]n one solution, SUSHI provides at the same time fully documented, high level NGS analysis tools to biologists and an easy to administer, reproducible approach for large and complicated NGS data to bioinformaticians."
July 7, 2016 - Open source data logger for low-cost environmental monitoring
Open source data logger for low-cost environmental monitoring
This 2014 paper by Ed Baker of London’s Natural History Museum outlines a methodology for combining open-source software such as Drupal with open hardware like Arduino to create a real-time environmental monitoring station that is low-power and low-cost. Baker outlines step by step his approach (he calls it a “how to guide”) to creating an open-source environmental data logger that incorporates a digital temperature and humidity sensor. Though he offers no formal conclusions, Baker states: “It is hoped that the publication of this device will encourage biodiversity scientists to collaborate outside of their discipline, whether it be with citizen engineers or professional academics.”
June 29, 2016 - Information Competencies for Research Staff
Information Competencies for Research Staff
The LIMSwiki has posted a new
book from the wikibooks collection that we think many research labs will find
useful. The book identifies the skills and knowledge that research
staff should develop to successfully navigate the scientific and chemical
literature as a research chemist.
http://www.limsbook.com/information-competencies-for-research-staff/1920/
The book is published as a free, open access book that can be downloaded as an ebook, read on-line or purchased in printed book form from PediaPress. Please share this book with all research staff that make use of peer reviewed literature and are responsible for publishing peer reviewed papers.
June 27, 2016 - The Benefits of Expert LIMS Solution Design
Think back to a time when you first learned to do anything new. Chances are it took longer than expected and the resulting product was less than prize worthy. However, once experience and expertise had been attained, the time it took to accomplish those same tasks had diminished while the quality had markedly improved.June 10, 2016 - LIMS Training – A Critical Ingredient for Success
We all know that training is needed on a new LIMS, but are you getting the proper and sufficient amount of training that you truly need or even know the specific type of training available to you?June 1, 2016 - LIMS Directory Spring 2016 Released. Directory of LIMS vendor products, features, pricing and demos.
LIMS Directory Spring 2016 Released. Directory of LIMS vendor products, features, pricing and demos.
The LIMSwiki has released a free download directory of the key LIMS vendors with product features, pricing and demonstration video links.
http://www.limsbook.com/lims-directory-spring-2016-product-features-pricing-demos/1916/
This directory is unique in that the LIMSwiki team has gone through hundreds of LIMS vendors and researched their features and found pricing information and demonstration videos and compiled it into one single guide. If you are researching LIMS options, this directory will save you many hours of work.
Please download it and post back your thoughts. The LIMSwiki team works hard to keep the information up to date and accurate with cited sources of the information. If you are a vendor and you are not in the directory, please post back here to this discussion to get added to the directory. We plan to keep it up to date each quarter. In order to be on the list you must provide public available pricing information. Provide as much information on your product features and demonstration videos as possible. There is no charge for listings or to download. Everything is provided as Open Access.
This directory is available to all LIMSforum members for easy access with your existing Linkedin Login account. Download or read it on-line.
May 26, 2016 - LIMS Upgrade: Love It or Leave It
Many organizations decide to upgrade their LIMS to the latest version without fully exploring their options. While sometimes this upgrade can be easier, less time consuming, and less expensive than implementing a completely new LIMS, it is not always a clear-cut decision.May 25, 2016 - One instance, a second server or a second lab ID?
Many laboratories have at least two or more individual laboratories in their company’s organization. These laboratories may be close together or across the country; They may fall under similar or much different regulatory environments; They may act as parts of a whole or as an individual laboratory, quite literally subbing out samples to sister laboratories much like they would to any sub-contract laboratory. Upon occasion, even simple communication via the internet may be sporadic. Each laboratory is unique in its organization and thus there are different answers as to what will fit a particular laboratory best when implementing a LIMS.May 18, 2016 - Introduction to Nuclear Medicine & Radiation Oncology
Introduction to Nuclear Medicine & Radiation Oncology
The LiMSbook.com has published the Introduction to Nuclear Medicine & Radiation Oncology. This book was provided courtesy of the wikibook project where the authors are a collection of community members who willingly and openly share their knowledge for the benefit of us all.
All publications within LIMSbook.com are of course free and open access with great educational articles, books and journals covering informatics topics for the Laboratory, Science & Healthcare. Please download all the publications you wish or you can login with your Linkedin account and read this book on-line:
http://www.limsbook.com/introduction-to-nuclear-medicine-radiation-oncology/1913/
