A multidisciplinary reference framework to support implementation and assessment of diabetes care in community settings: study design

Diabetes is a disease presenting multifaceted challenges. A holistic approach is needed to properly address it. The Chronic Care Model, worldwide reference for managing chronic disease in community settings, support implementation at micro-meso--macro level. We present a multi-disciplinary framework that support the uptake of the Chronic Care Model. This framework was tested to support the implementation of a research project focused on Diabetes Management through personal health systems

Heart Failure Monitoring System Based on Wearable and Information Technologies

In Europe, Cardiovascular Diseases (CVD) are the leading source of death, causing 45% of all deceases. Besides, Heart Failure, the paradigm of CVD, mainly affects people older than 65. In the current aging society, the European MyHeart Project was created, whose mission is to empower citizens to fight CVD by leading a preventive lifestyle and being able to be diagnosed at an early stage. This paper presents the development of a Heart Failure Management System, based on daily monitoring of Vital Body Signals, with wearable and mobile technologies, for the continuous assessment of this chronic disease. The System makes use of the latest technologies for monitoring heart condition, both with wearable garments (e.g. for measuring ECG and Respiration); and portable devices (such as Weight Scale and Blood Pressure Cuff) both with Bluetooth capabilitie

Mathematical political districting taking care of minority groups

AbstractPolitical districting (PD) is a wide studied topic in the literature since the 60s. It typically requires a multi-criteria approach, and mathematical programs are frequently suggested to model the many aspects of this difficult problem. This implies that exact models cannot be solved to optimality when the size of the territory is too large. In spite of this, an exact formulation can also be exploited in a heuristic framework to find at least a sub-optimal solution for large size problem instances. We study the design of electoral districts in Mexico, where the population is characterized by the presence of minority groups ("indigenous community") who have a special right to be represented in the Parliament. For this, the Mexican electoral law prescribes that a fixed number of districts must be designed to support the representation of the indigenous community. We formulate mixed integer linear programs (MILP) following these two principles, but also including the basic PD criteria of contiguity and population balance. The district map is obtained in two stages: first we produce the fixed number of indigenous districts established by the Law; then we complete the district map by forming the non-indigenous districts. This two-phase approach has two advantages: a dedicated objective function can be formulated in Phase 1 to form indigenous districts at best; in the second phase the instance size is reduced (both in the number of territorial units and in the number of districts) so that the computational effort to solve the problem is reduced as well. We test our procedure on the territory of Chiapas in Mexico and on some fictitious problem instances in which the territory is represented by a grid graph. We also compare our district map with the Institutional one currently adopted in Chiapas

Síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular y su relación con el equilibrio dinámico en niños de 7 a 11 años de la Institución Educativa 8157 República de Francia. Comas-2018

Determina la relación entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con el equilibrio dinámico en niños de 7 a 11 años de la institución educativa 8157 “Republica de Francia”, Comas-2018. El estudio es de tipo cuantitativo, correlacional, con un diseño no experimental de corte transversal y prospectivo. La muestra está conformada por 56 escolares entre 7 y 11 años de la institución educativa 8157 “República de Francia”. Se utilizó dos instrumentos de evaluación. El puntaje de Beighton, para evaluar el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular y la batería psicomotora de Da Fonseca para evaluar al equilibrio dinámico. Se ha determinado que no existe relación significativa entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con el equilibrio dinámico en niños de 7 a 11 años, al obtener una p= 0.083. No se encontró relación significativa entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con la actividad de marcha controlada con un valor de p= 0.083. No se encontró relación entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con las actividades de evolución en el banco, al obtener un valor de p>0.05 en todas las actividades. No se encontró relación entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con las actividades de apoyo unipodal, ni con las actividades de saltos con pies juntos al obtener valores de p>0.05. Se concluye que no existe relación significativa entre el síndrome benigno de hiperlaxitud articular con el equilibrio dinámico en niños de 7 a 11 años de la institución educativa 8157 “Republica de Francia”, Comas- 2018.Tesi

An iPhone-based application for promoting type 2 diabetic patients self- management towards healthy lifestyle habits

— In 2000, according to the World Health Organization, at least 171 million people, 2.8% of the population worldwide, suffered from diabetes. The Centres for Disease Control has defined it as an epidemic disease. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by 2030 this number will almost double. Diabetes mellitus occurs throughout the world, but is more common (especially type 2) in the more developed countries. Diabetes is a chronic condition that occurs when pancreas does not assure enough insulin secretion or when the body does not consume the insulin produced. Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar. The effect of uncontrolled diabetes is the hyperglycaemia (blood sugar), which eventually seriously damage many organs and systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels. Diabetes type 2 (most common type of diabetes) is highly correlated with elderly people, obesity or overweight. Promoting a healthy lifestyle helps patients to improve their quality of life and in many cases to avoid complications related to the disease. This paper is intended to describe an iPhone-based application for self-management of type 2 diabetic patients, which allow them improving their lifestyle through healthy diet, physical activity and educatio

A telehealth system for Parkinson's disease remote monitoring. The PERFORM approach

This paper summarizes the experience and the lessons learned from the European project PERFORM (A sophisticated multi-parametric system FOR the continuous effective assessment and monitoring of motor status in Parkinson s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases). PERFORM is aimed to provide a telehealth system for the remote monitoring of Parkinson s disease patients (PD) at their homes. This paper explains the global experience with PERFORM. It summarizes the technical performance of the system and the feedback received from the patients in terms of usability and wearability

Clinical validation of a wearable system for emotional recognition based on biosignals.

The AUBADE system can be trained to classify a subject’s feelings into six different emotional classes, derived from three of the basic emotions (happiness, disgust and fear). The performance of different classifiers was examined. Biosignals were recorded from 24 healthy subjects who viewed pictures designed to invoke different emotional responses. A psychologist evaluated the emotional status of the subjects by looking at their faces. During the training stage, information from 15 subjects was used to teach the system how to discriminate the emotional status of the subject based on the biosignals provided as input. A subset of the data was used for comparing the performance of four different classifiers. They were evaluated using three different metrics: sensitivity, positive predictive accuracy and accuracy. Using the SVM classifier, the AUBADE system provided sensitivities in the range 63–81%. The positive predictive accuracy was in the range 71–95%. The accuracy was in the range 63–83%, depending on the emotional class considered. The work paves the way for remote telemonitoring of patients suffering from neurological diseases

User centered design to incorporate predictive models for type 2 Diabetes screening and management into professional decision support tools: preliminary results

Type 2 Diabetes screening and risk stratification tools could benefit from the incorporation of predictive systems based on computer modelling. The adoption of User Centered Design techniques is fundamental in order to integrate these systems in an effective and successful way. The work presented in this paper describe the methodologies used in the context of a multidisciplinary research project and provides an overview of the preliminary results. Keywords? User Centered Design, Predictive Modelling and Data Mining, Diabetes Screening and Risk Stratification, Decision Support Tools

A New Quota Approach to Electoral Disproportionality

The authors acknowledge and appreciate the comments of two anonymous referees.In this paper electoral disproportionality is split into two types: (1) Forced or unavoidable, due to the very nature of the apportionment problem; and (2) non-forced. While disproportionality indexes proposed in the literature do not distinguish between such components, we design an index, called “quota index”, just measuring avoidable disproportionality. Unlike the previous indexes, the new one can be zero in real situations. Furthermore, this index presents an interesting interpretation concerning transfers of seats. Properties of the quota index and relationships with some usual disproportionality indexes are analyzed. Finally, an empirical approach is undertaken for different countries and elections.We are grateful for the financial support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (project ECO2016-77900-P)