A H-QoS-demand personalized home physiological monitoring system over a wireless multi-hop relay network for mobile home healthcare applications

For the elderly and chronic patients with cardiovascular disease who live alone, it is necessary to constantly monitor their physiological parameters, especially the electrocardiogram (ECG), to effectively prevent and control their health condition and even to provide urgent treatment or care while an emergency such as the abnormal variation of heart rate (HR) occurs. In this paper, a wireless in-home physiological monitoring system, based on multi-hop relay communications, which can ubiquitously and continuously monitor the patient's ECG at any time or any place at home without space limit and the “dead spot” due to the extended communication coverage by multi-hop wireless connectivity, is proposed. The system consists of a mobile-care device, which is responsible for capturing and wirelessly sending the patient's ECG data, a wireless multi-hop relay network (WMHRN) that is in charge of relaying the data sent by the former, and a residential gateway (RG), which is responsible for gathering and uploading the received ECG data to the remote care server through the Internet to carry out the patient's health condition monitoring and the management of pathological data. However, in order to assure that the ECG data can be effectively and timely forwarded, from the mobile-care device to the RG through the WMHRN, to meet the healthcare quality of service (H-QoS) demand for reliable and real-time end-to-end ECG transmission, the analysis of WMHRN latency in data-forwarding stage and the deployment consideration of wireless relay nodes are investigated in detail in this work. Moreover, an emergency alert service using short message service (SMS), based on the detection of abnormal variation of HR, is also used in the RG to further enhance the healthcare service quality. A prototype of this system has been developed and implemented. Finally, the experimental results are presented to verify the feasibility of the proposed system.     

A Fuzzy Ontological Knowledge Document Clustering Methodology

This correspondence presents a novel hierarchical clustering approach for knowledge document self-organization, particularly for patent analysis. Current keyword-based methodologies for document content management tend to be inconsistent and ineffective when partial meanings of the technical content are used for cluster analysis. Thus, a new methodology to automatically interpret and cluster knowledge documents using an ontology schema is presented. Moreover, a fuzzy logic control approach is used to match suitable document cluster(s) for given patents based on their derived ontological semantic webs. Finally, three case studies are used to test the approach. The first test case analyzed and clustered 100 patents for chemical and mechanical polishing retrieved from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The second test case analyzed and clustered 100 patent news articles retrieved from online Web sites. The third case analyzed and clustered 100 patents for radio-frequency identification retrieved from WIPO. The results show that the fuzzy ontology-based document clustering approach outperforms the K-means approach in precision, recall, F-measure, and Shannon's entropy.     

Img2Logo: Generating Golden Ratio Logos from Images

Logos are one of the most important graphic design forms that use an abstracted shape to clearly represent the spirit of a community. Among various styles of abstraction, a particular golden-ratio design is frequently employed by designers to create a concise and regular logo. In this context, designers utilize a set of circular arcs with golden ratios (i.e., all arcs are taken from circles whose radii form a geometric series based on the golden ratio) as the design elements to manually approximate a target shape. This error-prone process requires a large amount of time and effort, posing a significant challenge for design space exploration. In this work, we present a novel computational framework that can automatically generate golden ratio logo abstractions from an input image. Our framework is based on a set of carefully identified design principles and a constrained optimization formulation respecting these principles. We also propose a progressive approach that can efficiently solve the optimization problem, resulting in a sequence of abstractions that approximate the input at decreasing levels of detail. We evaluate our work by testing on images with different formats including real photos, clip arts, and line drawings. We also extensively validate the key components and compare our results with manual results by designers to demonstrate the effectiveness of our framework. Moreover, our framework can largely benefit design space exploration via easy specification of design parameters such as abstraction levels, golden circle sizes, etc.     

RFID Positioning and Physiological Signals for Remote Medical Care

The safety of patients and the quality of medical care provided to them are vital for their wellbeing. This study establishes a set of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification)-based systems of patient care based on physiological signals in the pursuit of a remote medical care system. The RFID-based positioning system allows medical staff to continuously observe the patient's health and location. The staff can thus respond to medical emergencies in time and appropriately care for the patient. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the proposed system was used to provide timely information on the location and body temperature of patients who had been screened for the disease. The results of experiments and comparative analyses show that the proposed system is superior to competing systems in use. The use of remote monitoring technology makes user interface easier to provide high-quality medical services to remote areas with sparse populations, and enables better care of the elderly and patients with mobility issues. It can be found from the experiments of this research that the accuracy of the position sensor and the ability of package delivery are the best among the other related studies. The presentation of the graphical interface is also the most cordial among human-computer interaction and the operation is simple and clear.     

Accuracy verification of a simple local three-dimensional displacement measurement method of DIC with two images coordinates

There are two methods applied for three-dimensional digital image correlation method to measure three-dimensional displacement. One is to measure the spatial coordinates of measuring points by analyzing the images. Then, the displacement vectors of these points can be calculated using the spatial coordinates of these points obtained at different stages. The other is to calibrate the parameters for individual measuring points locally. Then, the local displacements of these points can be measured directly. This study proposes a simple local three-dimensional displacement measurement method. Without any complicated distortion correction processes, this method can be used to measure small displacement in the three-dimensional space through a simple calibration process. A laboratory experiment and field experiment are carried out to prove the accuracy of this proposed method. Laboratory test errors of one-dimensional experiment are similar to the accuracy of the XYZ table; the error in Z-direction is only 0.0025% of the object distance. The measurement error of laboratory test is about 0.0033% of the object distance for local three-dimensional displacement measurement test. Test and analysis results of field test display that in-plane displacement error is only 0.12 mm, and the out-of-plane error is 1.1 mm for 20 m × 30 m measuring range. The out-of-plane error is only about 10 PPM of the object distance. These test and analysis results show that this proposed method can achieve very high accuracy under small displacement for both of laboratory and field tests.     

Reduced brain serotonin transporter availability in major depression as measured by [123I]-2 beta-carbomethoxy-3 beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane and single photon emission computed tomography

BACKGROUND: Prior research has suggested reductions in the density of serotonin transporter (SERT) binding sites in blood platelets and post-mortem brain tissue of depressed patients. We sought to determine whether patients with unipolar major depression have diminished SERT availability as assessed by both brainstem [123I] beta-CIT SPECT and platelet [3H]paroxetine binding. METHODS: Drug-free depressed and healthy subjects were injected with 211 +/- 22 MBq [123I] beta-CIT and imaged 24 +/- 2 h later under equilibrium conditions. A ratio of specific to nonspecific brain uptake (V3" = (brainstem-occipital)/occipital), a measure proportional to the binding potential (Bmax/Kd), was used for all comparisons. RESULTS: Results showed a statistically significant reduction in brainstem V3" values in depressed as compared to healthy subjects (3.1 +/- .9 vs. 3.8 +/- .8, p = .02). Platelet [3H]paroxetine binding was not altered (Bmax = 2389 +/- 484 vs. 2415 +/- 538 fmol/mg protein, p = .91) and was not significantly correlated with brainstem [123I] beta-CIT binding (r = -0.14, p = .48). CONCLUSIONS: These data are the first to suggest reductions in the density of brain SERT binding sites in living depressed patients. These findings provide further support for a preeminent role for alterations in serotonergic neurons in the pathophysiology of depression.     

Translation, adaptation, and validation of the SF-36 Health Survey for use in Japan

Development of the Japanese SF-36 was completed in two phases: Phase 1: Japanese version 1.1 was produced according to International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) project guidelines, but some results of psychometric tests were unexpected. First, scores varied little across physical-functioning items. Second, using factor analysis, we could not clearly distinguish the scales designed to measure the "physical" component of quality of life from those designed to measure the "mental" component. Phase 2: Focus-group discussions revealed that limited had often been interpreted as limited by a doctor. Therefore, is difficult to do was used instead (version 1.2). Results of two surveys indicated that version 1.2 yields scores that are reliable by internal consistency and test-retest standards and yields two principal components. In Japan, however, the pattern of correlations between some scales and the principal components differs from that in the United States. Iterative use of qualitative and quantitative methods was very important in developing the Japanese SF-36.     

Pain threshold values during periodontal probing: assessment of maxillary incisor and molar sites

Probing pain threshold (PPT) assessments were conducted in the facial and oral sulci of maxillary central incisors and first molars of 10 periodontally healthy adults. All subjects were systemically healthy, free of pain, and reported no current medication usage. A computer-linked electronic probe, modified to deliver steadily increasing forces up to 200 grams, was used to collect the data. The system contained a subject operated "off-switch" which, upon activation, signaled the computer to record the subject's PPT. Assessments of each subject's PPTs were conducted on 3 separate occasions at 7-day intervals. Results indicated that the facial sulci of the incisors were the most pain sensitive. They displayed a mean PPT of 50.9 +/- 26.6 grams. The oral sulci of the incisors exhibited a mean PPT of 76.5 +/- 45.2 grams. Facial and oral sulci of the molars evidenced mean PPT values of 102.6 +/- 52.1 grams and 113.5 +/- 51.3 grams, respectively. These data suggest that sulci associated with incisor teeth are nearly twice as pain sensitive as sulci associated with molar teeth. In addition, facial sulci are significantly more pain sensitive than oral sulci. Data did not indicate a visit effect nor a side-of-mouth effect on PPT values.     

Matrix molecular orientation in fiber-reinforced polypropylene composites

A distinctive crystalline morphology which develops in certain fiber-reinforced thermoplastics, termed "transcrystallinity", occurs as the result of dense nucleation of polymer crystals at the surface of reinforcing fibers. As these fiber-sponsored nuclei grow, they impinge upon one another, such that crystal growth occurs essentially perpendicular to the fiber axis. Previous studies concerning transcrystallized composites have generally focused on single-fiber composites or model systems. Our interest is in elucidating the crystal orientation in conventional fiber-reinforced composites, and in quantifying the fraction of transcrystallized matrix, where present. In the present work, we develop a wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) technique to investigate composites formed from an isotactic polypropylene (PP) matrix with practical loading levels of unidirectional pitch-based carbon, polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-based carbon, or aramid fibers. The transcrystalline fraction of the crystalline matrix approaches 0.95 in pitch-based carbon composites and 0.50 in the aramid composites near fiber loadings of 30 vol %. In addition, a previously-unreported mode of matrix orientation is observed in composites containing the non-transcrystallizing PAN-based carbon fibers, arising from restrictions on the isotropic growth of PP crystallites by the unidirectional fibers. This "constrained growth" orientation can coexist with the transcrystallized matrix at lower fiber loadings.     

Anatomical structures determining blood flow in the heart left ventricle

The presence of twisted helical flow patterns in the cardiac cavities during ventricular filling and ejection was supposed. This work was intended in order to show that the intra-ventricular trabeculation plays the determining role in such a flow formation and to find some analytical approaches for its analysis. The morphometric study of human left-ventricular and aortic corrosion casts and dynamic measurement of the aorta by MRI-technique were performed. The data were analysed by means of the Mathematica program. Two groups of trabecules were identified that refer to the inlet and outlet of the ventricular blood flow. The first group consists of trabecules of the free left-ventricular wall. The second group consists of long trabecules going along the anterior left-ventricular wall and intracavital lines of the papillary muscles. Both are twisted clockwise and converge in the flow direction. Each group of trabecules is oriented towards the mitral or aortic valve orifices, correspondingly. It was concluded that the helical trabecular organization acts as flow directing paddles that change their mutual orientation during the cardiac cycle evolution. The reorientation of the flow takes place due to sequential contraction of the ventricular structures. The formalization of trabecular orientation will allow one to calculate improved models of implantable substitutes and auxiliary devices for cardio-vascular surgery.Sadly deceased.