Enabling personalisation of remote elderly assistance

One of the goals of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions is to extend the time that elderly people can live independently in their preferred environments by using ICT technologies for personal healthcare. However, in order to be optimal, remote monitoring services and health-related interventions should be strongly personalised to specific individuals’ requirements, preferences, abilities and motivations, which can vary among the elderly, and even dynamically evolve over time for the same person depending on changing user needs and context-dependent conditions. In this paper we present an End User Development (EUD) tool for the personalisation of context-dependent assistance by non-technical users in the AAL domain. In particular, we have considered applications for remotely monitoring and assisting elderly people at home through sending multimedia messages and reminders, as well as changing the state of various domestic appliances (e.g. lamps, heating system, TV) and devices available in the context surrounding the user. The design and development of the tailoring environment has been carried out in an iterative manner, informed by the feedback that was gathered through empirical evaluations done with older adults and caregivers.

     

3D Scaffolds to Study Basic Cell Biology

Mimicking the properties of the extracellular matrix is crucial for developing in vitro models of the physiological microenvironment of living cells. Among other techniques, 3D direct laser writing (DLW) has emerged as a promising technology for realizing tailored 3D scaffolds for cell biology studies. Here, results based on DLW addressing basic biological issues, e.g., cell‐force measurements and selective 3D cell spreading on functionalized structures are reviewed. Continuous future progress in DLW materials engineering and innovative approaches for scaffold fabrication will enable further applications of DLW in applied biomedical research and tissue engineering.     

The risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after Hodgkin's disease, with special reference to splenic treatment

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: One of the consequences of the enormous improvement in survival rates of patients treated for Hodgkin's disease (HD) is the emergence in the long term of treatment-related complications, particularly secondary cancers. This study was undertaken to observe the occurrence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in patients treated for HD and to identify the etiological role of various risk factors, especially spleen irradiation, in the pathogenesis of this illness. DESIGN AND METHODS: From 1972 to 1996, the Department of Radiation Oncology and the Hematology Section of "La Sapienza" University of Rome observed and analyzed the occurrence of NHL in 1,391 patients treated for HD. The average follow-up period was 84 months. For a more accurate calculation of the risk of the occurrence of NHL, the patients were first divided into 3 groups according to their initial treatment and also according to the total treatment they had received. Then, in order to establish the possible connection between NHL and splenic treatment the patients were also divided into 3 subgroups according to whether they had undergone splenectomy, splenic irradiation or neither of these. Two different methods of statistical analysis were used: (a) the cumulative risk (confidence interval) was evaluated in relation to treatment (initial and at the time of salvage) and (b) the Cox model was applied to identify the variables which play a role in the appearance of NHL. The cumulative risk of developing NHL was assessed using the Kaplan and Meier method. A multivariate analysis was performed using the Cox Proportional Hazard Model. RESULTS: A total of 20 cases of NHL were observed, appearing between 17 and 206 months after initial treatment. The cumulative risk was 0.8%, 1.8%, 2.6% and 3.5% at 5, 10, 15 and 20 years respectively. According to the multivariate analysis, significant risk factors were splenic irradiation and age (> 40 years). Splenic irradiation (vs no splenectomy/no splenic irradiation) showed a relative risk of 5.69, p = 0.0280, while age over 40 showed a relative risk of 3.05, p = 0.0152. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: From the results of this study, if appears that there is a possibility that splenic irradiation and age over 40 increase the risk of NHL in HD patients. Further studies are needed to investigate in greater depth the role of spleen irradiation in the occurrence of this illness.     

Phase noise analysis in CMOS differential Armstrong oscillator topology

This paper reports a phase noise analysis in a differential Armstrong oscillator circuit topology in CMOS technology. The analytical expressions of phase noise due to flicker and thermal noise sources are derived and validated by the results obtained through SpectreRF simulations for oscillation frequencies of 1, 10, and 100 GHz. The analysis captures well the phase noise of the oscillator topology and shows the impact of flicker noise contribution as the major effect leading to phase noise degradation in nano‐scale CMOS LC oscillators. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empirical Likelihood for Outlier Detection and Estimation in Autoregressive Time Series

Identification and estimation of outliers in time series is proposed by using empirical likelihood methods. Theory and applications are developed for stationary autoregressive models with outliers distinguished in the usual additive and innovation types. Some other useful outlier types are considered as well. A simulation experiment is used for studying the behaviour of the empirical likelihood‐based method in finite samples and indicates that the proposed methods are preferable when dealing with the non‐Gaussian data. Our simulations suggest that the usual sequential procedure for multiple outlier detection is suitable also for the methods based on empirical likelihood.     

Sparse decomposition and modeling of anatomical shape variation

Recent advances in statistics have spawned powerful methods for regression and data decomposition that promote sparsity, a property that facilitates interpretation of the results. Sparse models use a small subset of the available variables and may perform as well or better than their full counterparts if constructed carefully. In most medical applications, models are required to have both good statistical performance and a relevant clinical interpretation to be of value. Morphometry of the corpus callosum is one illustrative example. This paper presents a method for relating spatial features to clinical outcome data. A set of parsimonious variables is extracted using sparse principal component analysis, producing simple yet characteristic features. The relation of these variables with clinical data is then established using a regression model. The result may be visualized as patterns of anatomical variation related to clinical outcome. In the present application, landmark-based shape data of the corpus callosum is analyzed in relation to age, gender, and clinical tests of walking speed and verbal fluency. To put the data-driven sparse principal component method into perspective, we consider two alternative techniques, one where features are derived using a model-based wavelet approach, and one where the original variables are regressed directly on the outcome.     

The Autophagy-Related Organelle Autophagoproteasome Is Suppressed within Ischemic Penumbra

The peri-infarct region, which surrounds the irreversible ischemic stroke area is named ischemic penumbra. This term emphasizes the borderline conditions for neurons placed within such a critical region. Area penumbra separates the ischemic core, where frank cell loss occurs, from the surrounding healthy brain tissue. Within such a brain region, nervous matter, and mostly neurons are impaired concerning metabolic conditions. The classic biochemical marker, which reliably marks area penumbra is the over-expression of the heat shock protein 70 (HSP70). However, other proteins related to cell clearing pathways are modified within area penumbra. Among these, autophagy proteins like LC3 increase in a way, which recapitulates Hsp70. In contrast, components, such as P20S, markedly decrease. Despite apparent discrepancies, the present study indicates remarkable overlapping between LC3 and P20S redistribution within area penumbra. In fact, the amount of both proteins is markedly reduced within vacuoles. Specifically, a massive loss of LC3 + P20S immuno-positive vacuoles (autophagoproteasomes) is reported here. This represents the most relevant sub-cellular alteration here described in cell clearing pathways within area penumbra. The functional significance of these findings remains to be determined and it will take a novel experimental stream to decipher the fine-tuning of such a phenomenon.     

A new technique for calibration in frequency of piezoelectric transducers

The calibration in frequency of piezoelectric transducers can be obtained by sending an ultrashort laser pulse (30 ps), generated by a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser, directly on the detector surface. Thanks to its short duration, the mode-locked pulse behaves as an excitation source of wide spectral content, so that the spectral analysis of the recorded electric signal gives direct information about the frequency response of the probe. In particular, we report a series of measurements on various transducers of several nominal frequencies and we show the different response of the probe to a focused laser beam to that of an unfocused one.