Towards a Smarter organization for a Self-servicing Society

Traditional social organizations such as those for the management of healthcare are the result of designs that matched well with an operational context considerably different from the one we are experiencing today. The new context reveals all the fragility of our societies. In this paper, a platform is introduced by combining social-oriented communities and complex-event processing concepts: SELFSERV. Its aim is to complement the "old recipes" with smarter forms of social organization based on the self-service paradigm and by exploring culture-specific aspects and technological challenges.Comment: Final version of a paper published in the Proceedings of International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion (DSAI'16), special track on Emergent Technologies for Ambient Assisted Living (ETAAL

Nutrition in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)

The purpose of this Special Issue “Nutrition in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)” is to increase knowledge regarding the role of dietary composition and effects in IBD, describing the prevalence of malnutrition in IBD and the effect on clinical outcomes, discussing methods of nutrition risk screening and assessment in IBD, and reviewing mechanisms through which diet and dietary components may affect disease severity. The articles focus on the following areas: Dietary Composition/Therapy Interventions in Ulcerative Colitis and effects on outcomes; Dietary Composition/Therapy Interventions in Crohn’s Disease and effects on outcomes; Nutrition Risk Screening and Assessment in IBD; Mechanisms of Diet in the pathogenesis of IBD

The urinary phenolic acid profile varies between younger and older adults after a polyphenol-rich meal despite limited differences in in vitro colonic catabolism

Purpose: To investigate whether age influences colonic polyphenol metabolism. Methods: Healthy participants, younger (n = 8; 23–43 years) and older (n = 13; 51–76 years), followed a 3-day low-polyphenol diet (LPD) and a 3-day high-polyphenol diet (HPD). Urinary phenolic acids (PA), short chain fatty acids (SCFA), pH and gas were monitored, alongside selected colonic bacteria. Human faecal in vitro fermentations of rutin with or without raftiline were used to evaluate the gut microbiota capacity in a subset of both groups. Results: Total urinary PA were higher in the older group after HPD compared to the younger group (1.5-fold; p = 0.04), with no difference between groups in terms of a change between diets (Δ high-low diet). While 17 PA were detected in all younger participants after HPD, a narrower range (n = 8 to 16 PA) was detected in most (n = 9/13) older participants, with lower level of benzoic acid (19-fold; p = 0.03), vanillic acid (4.5-fold; p = 0.04) but higher hippuric acid (2.7-fold; p = 0.03). Faecal SCFA concentration did not change after HPD within group, with similar differential excretion (Δ high-low diet) between groups. There were no differences between groups for faecal pH, total, faecal bacteria including Flavonifractor plautii, bifidobacteria, and bacteroides. In human in vitro faecal fermentations, seven PAs were detected in both groups after 24 h of rutin fermentation, with no quantitative and modest qualitative differences between groups. Total SCFA in faecal fermentation did not differ between groups, except for butyric acid (twofold higher in the older group; p = 0.009) when rutin was fermented with raftiline over 24 h. Conclusions: Urinary phenolic acids were less diverse in older participants despite limited difference in functional capacity of in vitro faecal fermentations

Towards fog-driven IoT eHealth:Promises and challenges of IoT in medicine and healthcare

Internet of Things (IoT) offers a seamless platform to connect people and objects to one another for enriching and making our lives easier. This vision carries us from compute-based centralized schemes to a more distributed environment offering a vast amount of applications such as smart wearables, smart home, smart mobility, and smart cities. In this paper we discuss applicability of IoT in healthcare and medicine by presenting a holistic architecture of IoT eHealth ecosystem. Healthcare is becoming increasingly difficult to manage due to insufficient and less effective healthcare services to meet the increasing demands of rising aging population with chronic diseases. We propose that this requires a transition from the clinic-centric treatment to patient-centric healthcare where each agent such as hospital, patient, and services are seamlessly connected to each other. This patient-centric IoT eHealth ecosystem needs a multi-layer architecture: (1) device, (2) fog computing and (3) cloud to empower handling of complex data in terms of its variety, speed, and latency. This fog-driven IoT architecture is followed by various case examples of services and applications that are implemented on those layers. Those examples range from mobile health, assisted living, e-medicine, implants, early warning systems, to population monitoring in smart cities. We then finally address the challenges of IoT eHealth such as data management, scalability, regulations, interoperability, device–network–human interfaces, security, and privacy

PROMOTION OF COLON HEALTH BY STRAWBERRY AND CRANBERRY

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has posed serious threats to the human health, which lead to chronic malabsorption of nutrients, abnormal pain and rectal bleeding. Both genetic predisposition and environmental factors contribute to the onset of IBD. Multiple studies suggested that dysbiosis in colon plays an important role in the development of colitis, and gut microbiota composition are different between patients with IBD and healthy individuals. Intake of whole foods, such as fruits and vegetables, may confer health benefits to the host. The beneficial effects of fruits and vegetables mainly attribute to their richness of polyphenols and microbiota-accessible carbohydrates (MACs). Components in fruits and vegetables modulate composition and associated functions of the gut microbiota, while gut microbiota can transform components in fruits and vegetables to produce metabolites that are bioactive and important for health. Accumulating evidence suggests that colonic inflammation may be prevented by increased consumption of certain fruits and vegetables such as berries. Cranberry and strawberry are abundant of polyphenols with various health benefits. Most studies focused on extractable polyphenols (EP), non-extractable polyphenols (NEP) were often neglected, although NEP may possess important biological functions. NEP is not significantly released from the food matrix during digestion in the stomach or small intestine, therefor they reach colon nearly intact. In the colon, the potential interaction between gut microbiota and NEP could also play an important role in colon health. NEP could be biotransformed by gut microbiota to produce bioactive metabolites that may contribute to the promotion of colon health as well. Therefore, it is important to investigate the interaction of gut microbiota and NEP in the colon in terms of production of bioactive metabolites. Meanwhile, composition and functions of gut microbiota can be altered by the presence of polyphenols in the colon, which in turn could affect colon health. The objective of this work was to characterize EP and NEP fractions from whole cranberry and strawberry and determine their potential in anti-inflammation and anti-colon cancer. EP and NEP from cranberry and strawberry showed anti-inflammatory effects in inhibiting LPS-induced production of nitric oxide in macrophages, which was accompanied by decreased expression of iNOS and increased expression of HO-1. EP and NEP from cranberry and strawberry showed anti-cancer capacities in HCT116 cells. Flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that NEP caused a cell cycle arrest and induced a significant cellular apoptosis in colon cancer cells. Furthermore, this study determined the protective effects of whole strawberry (WS) against dextran sulfate sodium (DSS)-induced colitis in mice. In colitic mice, dietary WS reduced the disease activity index (DAI), prevented the colon shortening and spleen enlargement, and alleviated the colonic tissue damages. The abundance of pro-inflammatory immune cells was reduced by dietary WS in the colonic mucosa, which was accompanied by the suppression of overproduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Western blotting and immunohistochemical analysis revealed that dietary WS decreased the expression of pro-inflammatory proteins in the colonic mucosa. Moreover, dietary WS partially reversed the alteration of gut microbiota in the colitic mice by increasing the abundance of potential beneficial bacteria, e.g. Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, and decreasing the abundance of potential harmful bacteria, e.g. Dorea and Bilophila. Dietary WS also restored the decreased production of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in the cecum of the colitic mice. The results revealed the anti-inflammatory effects and mechanisms of dietary WS in the colon, which is critical for the rational utilization of strawberry for the prevention of inflammation-driven diseases

Population ageing and ICT: An exploratory review of technology innovation trough digital applications

The multidimensional process of physical, psychological, and social change produced by population ageing affects not only the quality of life of elderly people but also of our societies. Some dimensions of population ageing grow and expand over time (e.g. knowledge of the world events, or experience in particular situations), while others decline (e.g. reaction time, physical and psychological strength, or other functional abilities like reduced speed and tiredness). Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can help elderly to overcome possible limitations due to ageing. As a particular case, biometrics can allow the development of new algorithms for early detection of cognitive impairments, by processing continuous speech, handwriting or other challenged abilities. Among all possibilities, digital applications (Apps) for mobile phones or tablets can allow the dissemination of such tools. In this article, after presenting and discussing the process of population ageing and its social implications, we explore how ICTs through different Apps can lead to new solutions for facing this major demographic challenge

INTEGRATION OF INTERNET OF THINGS AND HEALTH RECOMMENDER SYSTEMS

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a part of our lives and has provided many enhancements to day-to-day living. In this project, IoT in healthcare is reviewed. IoT-based healthcare is utilized in remote health monitoring, observing chronic diseases, individual fitness programs, helping the elderly, and many other healthcare fields. There are three main architectures of smart IoT healthcare: Three-Layer Architecture, Service-Oriented Based Architecture (SoA), and The Middleware-Based IoT Architecture. Depending on the required services, different IoT architecture are being used. In addition, IoT healthcare services, IoT healthcare service enablers, IoT healthcare applications, and IoT healthcare services focusing on Smartwatch are presented in this research. Along with IoT in smart healthcare, Health Recommender Systems integration with IoT is important. Main Recommender Systems including Content-based filtering, Collaborative-based filtering, Knowledge-based filtering, and Hybrid filtering with machine learning algorithms are described for the Health Recommender Systems. In this study, a framework is presented for the IoT-based Health Recommender Systems. Also, a case is investigated on how different algorithms can be used for Recommender Systems and their accuracy levels are presented. Such a framework can help with the health issues, for example, risk of going to see the doctor during pandemic, taking quick actions in any health emergencies, affordability of healthcare services, and enhancing the personal lifestyle using recommendations in non-critical conditions. The proposed framework can necessitate further development of IoT-based Health Recommender Systems so that people can mitigate their medical emergencies and live a healthy life

Improving Access and Mental Health for Youth Through Virtual Models of Care

The overall objective of this research is to evaluate the use of a mobile health smartphone application (app) to improve the mental health of youth between the ages of 14–25 years, with symptoms of anxiety/depression. This project includes 115 youth who are accessing outpatient mental health services at one of three hospitals and two community agencies. The youth and care providers are using eHealth technology to enhance care. The technology uses mobile questionnaires to help promote self-assessment and track changes to support the plan of care. The technology also allows secure virtual treatment visits that youth can participate in through mobile devices. This longitudinal study uses participatory action research with mixed methods. The majority of participants identified themselves as Caucasian (66.9%). Expectedly, the demographics revealed that Anxiety Disorders and Mood Disorders were highly prevalent within the sample (71.9% and 67.5% respectively). Findings from the qualitative summary established that both staff and youth found the software and platform beneficial

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Public Health in Developed and Developing Countries

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2020, held in Hammamet, Tunisia, in June 2020.* The 17 full papers and 23 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 49 submissions. They cover topics such as: IoT and AI solutions for e-health; biomedical and health informatics; behavior and activity monitoring; behavior and activity monitoring; and wellbeing technology. *This conference was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Participative Urban Health and Healthy Aging in the Age of AI

This open access book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 18th International Conference on String Processing and Information Retrieval, ICOST 2022, held in Paris, France, in June 2022. The 15 full papers and 10 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 submissions. They cover topics such as design, development, deployment, and evaluation of AI for health, smart urban environments, assistive technologies, chronic disease management, and coaching and health telematics systems