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System-Subsystem Dependency Network for Integrating Multicomponent Data and Its Application to Health Sciences

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Abstract

With the ever-increasing demand of collecting and analyzing a large volume of data collected from different sources, computational models and methods—ones that allow for the integration of data sets to help understand a phenomenon from a broad, comprehensive systems perspective—are called for. Two features are commonly observed in large and complex systems. First, a system is made up of multiple subsystems. Second, there exists fragmented data. The methodological challenge is to reconcile the potential parametric inconsistency across individually calibrated subsystems. This study aims to explore a novel approach, called system-subsystem dependency network, which is capable of integrating subsystems that might have been individually calibrated using separate data sets. From a health informatics perspective, the method can be seen as a way to integrate heterogeneous data sources, especially from relatively well-structured clinical study data. In this paper, we compare several techniques for solving the methodological challenge. Additionally, we use data from a large-scale epidemiologic study, as well as from two large clinical trials to illustrate the solution to the inconsistency of overlapping subsystems and the integration of data sets.

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Acknowledgements

The study is supported by NIH grants 1R21AG042761-01 and 1U01HL101066-01 (PI: Ip). We also acknowledge support from the Wake Forest Pepper Center grant P30AG021332 for Drs. Ip and Rejeski. We also thank Drs. Stephen Kritchevsky, Mike Miller, and Bob Byington for their consultation on study data-related issues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Biostatistical Sciences, Wake Forest School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC, 27157, USA

    Edward H. Ip & Shyh-Huei Chen

  2. Department of Health and Exercise Sciences, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, 27016, USA

    W. Jack Rejeski

Authors
  1. Edward H. Ip
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  2. Shyh-Huei Chen
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  3. W. Jack Rejeski
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Correspondence to Edward H. Ip.

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Ip, E.H., Chen, SH. & Rejeski, W.J. System-Subsystem Dependency Network for Integrating Multicomponent Data and Its Application to Health Sciences. J Healthc Inform Res 1, 139–156 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41666-017-0006-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41666-017-0006-5

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