Understanding Human Mobility Flows from Aggregated Mobile Phone Data

In this paper we deal with the study of travel flows and patterns of people in large populated areas. Information about the movements of people is extracted from coarse-grained aggregated cellular network data without tracking mobile devices individually. Mobile phone data are provided by the Italian telecommunication company TIM and consist of density profiles (i.e. the spatial distribution) of people in a given area at various instants of time. By computing a suitable approximation of the Wasserstein distance between two consecutive density profiles, we are able to extract the main directions followed by people, i.e. to understand how the mass of people distribute in space and time. The main applications of the proposed technique are the monitoring of daily flows of commuters, the organization of large events, and, more in general, the traffic management and control.Comment: 6 pages, 14 figure

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Road Side Unit coverage extension for data dissemination in VANETs

Data dissemination is a key component of Infotainment and safety services in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks. For infotainment services data dissemination starts from a Road Side Unit (RSU) and propagates to a multiplicity of On Board Units (OBU). A RSU typically can reach with a single hop only a fraction of the interested vehicles. Multi-hop, inter-vehicle communications is necessary to reach vehicles in the whole area that could be interested in the service. For an efficient data dissemination both the number of forwarding vehicles and the number of not covered ones shall be kept down. In this work we study the extension of the RSU coverage area via a simple data dissemination defined for urban scenarios. The proposed forwarding algorithm relies only on information local to the forwarding OBU. We show that in our case studies representing urban structures the protocol guarantees a good RSU coverage extension (in the order of 20 times the transmission area of the RSU) with a very low percentage of vehicles not reached by the disseminated data. © 2012 IEEE

Analysing the diffusion of a mobile service supporting the e-grocery supply chain

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to propose a systemic methodology to assess the potential of and facilitate policies for the diffusion of a smartphone based service enabling supply chain (SC) operations in the e-grocery sector. Design/methodology/approach - A System Dynamics (SD) model combining the Bass paradigm for innovation diffusion and an inventory management framework is developed. Semi-structured interviews are conducted to understand the industry business processes; a simple SD model is designed to capture the most important variables together with the relationships among them; a detailed SD model is calibrated and simulation outcomes are analysed. Findings - The efficiency and reliability of the service drive its diffusion among producers and consumers, who in turn persuade retailers to adopt. The assessment methodology can be part of feasibility studies and marketing investigations in order to understand the impact of e-commerce tools on SC processes. Research limitations/implications - This contribution stresses the need to analyse how mobile information technologies may benefit all the business processes of the e-grocery SC, and not just one single process or stakeholder. Practical implications - The approach offers a roadmap to identify the factors influencing the diffusion of mobile e-grocery services as well as the associated impacts on SC processes. Originality/value - The work contributes to overcoming the lack of approaches studying the diffusion of e-grocery by taking into account all the relevant aspects and stakeholders involved and not only the consumer perspectiv

5G-Enabled Security Scenarios for Unmanned Aircraft: Experimentation in Urban Environment

The telecommunication industry has seen rapid growth in the last few decades. This trend has been fostered by the diffusion of wireless communication technologies. In the city of Matera, Italy (European capital of culture 2019), two applications of 5G for public security have been tested by using an aerial drone: the recognition of objects and people in a crowded city and the detection of radio-frequency jammers. This article describes the experiments and the results obtained.</jats:p

5G-Enabled Security Scenarios for Unmanned Aircraft: Experimentation in Urban Environment

The telecommunication industry has seen rapid growth in the last few decades. This trend has been fostered by the diffusion of wireless communication technologies. In the city of Matera, Italy (European capital of culture 2019), two applications of 5G for public security have been tested by using an aerial drone: the recognition of objects and people in a crowded city and the detection of radio-frequency jammers. This article describes the experiments and the results obtained

Paediatric appendicitis: International study of management in the COVID-19 pandemic

[No abstract available]Medicinska Forskningsrådet, MFRT.W. received a grant from the Swedish Medical Research Council. The Swedish Medical Research Council had no role in any part of the study