VIDEO KINEMATIC EVALUATION OF THE HEART (VI.KI.E.): AN IDEA, A PROJECT, A REALITY

Introduction: The technological development of the last 20 years pledges the intensity of efforts for implementing novel imaging contactless modalities that accelerate the translation from the research bench to the patient bedside, especially in the cardiac field. In this work, a novel intraoperative cardiac imaging approach, named Video Kinematic Evaluation (Vi.Ki.E.), is presented and explained in detail. This technology is able to monitor, contactless, the cardiac mechanics and deformation in-situ during heart surgery. Cardiac kinematics have been deeply evaluated ranging from the experimental animal approach to the human myocardial pathologies in both left and right ventricles. Methods: Vi.Ki.E. can be defined \u201cas simple as innovative\u201d. It only consists of a high-speed camera placed upon an exposed beating heart in-situ to record cardiac cycles. Afterwards a tracker software is used on the recorded video to follow the epicardial tissue movements. This tracker provides information about trajectories of the epicardium and, thanks to a custom-made algorithm, the technology supplies heart mechanical information such as: Force of contraction or cardiac fatigue, Energy expenditure, Contraction velocity, displacement of the marker and epicardial torsion. This approach has been tested on 21 rats (9 ischemia/reperfusion and/or for validation, 12 for the gender difference study) and on 37 patients who underwent different surgery between 2015 and 2019. In detail 10 patients underwent Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting, 12 underwent Valve Replacement after Tetralogy of Fallot correction surgery, 6 implanted a Left Ventricular Assist Device (1 is moved in the case study section), 6 patients with Hypoplastic Heart Syndrome underwent GLENN or FONTAN surgery, 2 patients underwent Heart Transplantation and finally 1 patient underwent double valve replacement (this patient is moved into case study section). Results: The patients\u2019 results demonstrated that the Vi.Ki.E. technology was able to discriminate, with statistic potency, the kinematic differences before and after the surgery in real-time, suggesting possible clinical implications in the treatment of the patients before the chest closure and/or in the intensive care unit. As it concerns the experimental animals, the results are the basics of the validation technology. Some of them were used as accepted model in comparison with the Vi.Ki.E. results on patients. Conclusions: In conclusion, this study has shown that Vi.Ki.E. is a safe and contactless technology with promising possible clinical application. The ease in the evaluation and the algorithm-based approach makes Video Kinematic Evaluation a widespread technique from cellular level to human cases covering the entire experimental field with in-vivo evaluation and possibly Langendorff/Working Heart approaches

VIDEO KINEMATIC EVALUATION OF THE HEART (VI.KI.E.): AN IDEA, A PROJECT, A REALITY

Introduction: The technological development of the last 20 years pledges the intensity of efforts for implementing novel imaging contactless modalities that accelerate the translation from the research bench to the patient bedside, especially in the cardiac field. In this work, a novel intraoperative cardiac imaging approach, named Video Kinematic Evaluation (Vi.Ki.E.), is presented and explained in detail. This technology is able to monitor, contactless, the cardiac mechanics and deformation in-situ during heart surgery. Cardiac kinematics have been deeply evaluated ranging from the experimental animal approach to the human myocardial pathologies in both left and right ventricles. Methods: Vi.Ki.E. can be defined \u201cas simple as innovative\u201d. It only consists of a high-speed camera placed upon an exposed beating heart in-situ to record cardiac cycles. Afterwards a tracker software is used on the recorded video to follow the epicardial tissue movements. This tracker provides information about trajectories of the epicardium and, thanks to a custom-made algorithm, the technology supplies heart mechanical information such as: Force of contraction or cardiac fatigue, Energy expenditure, Contraction velocity, displacement of the marker and epicardial torsion. This approach has been tested on 21 rats (9 ischemia/reperfusion and/or for validation, 12 for the gender difference study) and on 37 patients who underwent different surgery between 2015 and 2019. In detail 10 patients underwent Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting, 12 underwent Valve Replacement after Tetralogy of Fallot correction surgery, 6 implanted a Left Ventricular Assist Device (1 is moved in the case study section), 6 patients with Hypoplastic Heart Syndrome underwent GLENN or FONTAN surgery, 2 patients underwent Heart Transplantation and finally 1 patient underwent double valve replacement (this patient is moved into case study section). Results: The patients\u2019 results demonstrated that the Vi.Ki.E. technology was able to discriminate, with statistic potency, the kinematic differences before and after the surgery in real-time, suggesting possible clinical implications in the treatment of the patients before the chest closure and/or in the intensive care unit. As it concerns the experimental animals, the results are the basics of the validation technology. Some of them were used as accepted model in comparison with the Vi.Ki.E. results on patients. Conclusions: In conclusion, this study has shown that Vi.Ki.E. is a safe and contactless technology with promising possible clinical application. The ease in the evaluation and the algorithm-based approach makes Video Kinematic Evaluation a widespread technique from cellular level to human cases covering the entire experimental field with in-vivo evaluation and possibly Langendorff/Working Heart approaches

The effect of feeder space on pig behaviour and performance in organic production with a pig sort feeding system

Behaviour at feeding and performance of pigs can be influenced by the design of the feeding area. Resources allocated in restricted space cause a disruption in communicative behaviour and even pigs in established hierarchies compete for feed. Therefore, a substantial amount of agonistic behaviour happens at feeders. This study investigates the effect of different numbers of feeding places on pigs’ behaviour at feeding and performance at an organic farm. Four behavioural sessions were carried out on growing-finishing pigs in groups of 130, 153, 148 and 128 from April to July 2020. Two numbers of feeding places were tested: 8 for control and 10 for treatment groups. Less agonistic behaviour and better performance were expected in the treatment groups. Seventeen types of behaviour were observed and recorded in a protocol using continuous registration at a group level and scan sampling method in 1-minute intervals. The observational area consisted of a DOMINO Pig Sort feeding system that sorts pigs according to weight to different pens as programmed. Pigs were fed ad libitum and had unlimited access to pasture. Performance and carcass data were obtained from an online database. The results showed 6.78±2.68 (SD) pigs (range 2-13) and up to 15.70±8.51 (SD) pigs (range 1-34) located in the feeding pens for the control and treatment groups, respectively. More agonistic behaviour with a significant difference in pressing (p=0.000) and pressing + bite (p=0.000) occurred in the treatment groups. Denser feeding pen occupancy and a higher frequency of lying in the treatment groups (p=0.000) resulted in crowding. Vocalization was higher (p=0.028) in the control group. Fewer pigs in the feeding pens with a combination of vocalization used as a communication tool to avoid the conflict can explain the lower occurrence of agonistic behaviour in the control group. The control group was, furthermore, more engaged in positive social interactions, such as nosing (p=0.018), tail/anal sniffing (p=0.000) and pen sniffing (p=0.000). Finally, the total space provided to each pig in the feeding area might have had a greater effect on the expressed behaviour than the number of feeding places. No significant differences were seen in the growth rate and feed efficiency despite the varying frequency of agonistic behaviour. The treatment group consumed more feed (p=0.021) and its carcass quality (lean meat percentage) improved (p=0.025). The treatment group spent more time grazing which might have diminished the effect of higher feed consumption on the growth rate. Moreover, an elevated level of exercise could have enhanced the deposition of lean muscles. Yet, studied literatures offer little support for this assumption, thus, more feeding places afforded the treatment group could have affected the carcass quality. Additionally, a theoretical calculation based on the time needed for a pig to consume the amount of daily feed showed that even 10 feeding places might not be enough to provide sufficient access to all pigs. The limited data (only two batches studied), confounding variables and small sample sizes in performance and carcass data make it difficult to draw any strong conclusions from this study. Considering the complexity of the DOMINO Pig Sort feeding system, the change of one attribute neither mitigated the expression of agonistic behaviour at the feeders nor improved overall performance. Additional research over a longer time with larger sample size is needed to confirm the proposed assumptions

Novel Processing and Transmission Techniques Leveraging Edge Computing for Smart Health Systems

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Contactless WiFi Sensing and Monitoring for Future Healthcare:Emerging Trends, Challenges and Opportunities

WiFi sensing has recently received significant interest from academics, industry, healthcare professionals and other caregivers (including family members) as a potential mechanism to monitor our aging population at distance, without deploying devices on users bodies. In particular, these methods have gained significant interest to efficiently detect critical events such as falls, sleep disturbances, wandering behavior, respiratory disorders, and abnormal cardiac activity experienced by vulnerable people. The interest in such WiFi-based sensing systems stems from its practical deployments in indoor settings and compliance from monitored persons, unlike other sensors such as wearables, camera-based, and acoustic-based solutions. This paper reviews state-of-the-art research on collecting and analysing channel state information, extracted using ubiquitous WiFi signals, describing a range of healthcare applications and identifying a series of open research challenges, untapped areas, and related trends.This work aims to provide an overarching view in understanding the technology and discusses its uses-cases from a perspective that considers hardware, advanced signal processing, and data acquisition