Economic Environment and Applications of Telemedicine

Telemedicine is broadly defined as the transmission of electronic medical data across a distance among hospitals, clinicians, and/or patients. This definition is deliberately unlimited to what kind of information is transmitted, how the information is transmitted, or how the information is used once received (HCAB, 2003). Telemedicine has the potential of making a greater positive effect on the future of healthcare and medicine than any other modality. Fueled by advances in multiple technologies such as digital communications, full-motion/compressed video, and telecommunications, providers see an unprecedented opportunity to provide access to high-quality care, independent of distance or location

Supporting Cyber-Physical Systems with Wireless Sensor Networks: An Outlook of Software and Services

Sensing, communication, computation and control technologies are the essential building blocks of a cyber-physical system (CPS). Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are a way to support CPS as they provide fine-grained spatial-temporal sensing, communication and computation at a low premium of cost and power. In this article, we explore the fundamental concepts guiding the design and implementation of WSNs. We report the latest developments in WSN software and services for meeting existing requirements and newer demands; particularly in the areas of: operating system, simulator and emulator, programming abstraction, virtualization, IP-based communication and security, time and location, and network monitoring and management. We also reflect on the ongoing efforts in providing dependable assurances for WSN-driven CPS. Finally, we report on its applicability with a case-study on smart buildings

Social Roles and Baseline Proxemic Preferences for a Domestic Service Robot

© The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. The work described in this paper was conducted within the EU Integrated Projects LIREC (LIving with Robots and intEractive Companions, funded by the European Commission under contract numbers FP7 215554, and partly funded by the ACCOMPANY project, a part of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement n287624The goal of our research is to develop socially acceptable behavior for domestic robots in a setting where a user and the robot are sharing the same physical space and interact with each other in close proximity. Specifically, our research focuses on approach distances and directions in the context of a robot handing over an object to a userPeer reviewe

Supporting Context-Aware Application Development in Ad Hoc Mobile Networks

Some of the most dynamic systems being built today consist of physically mobile hosts and logically mobile agents. Such systems exhibit frequent configuration changes and a great deal of resource variability. Applications executing under these circumstances need to react continuously and rapidly to changes in operating conditions and must adapt their behavior accordingly. Applications with these capabilities are referred to as context-aware. Much of the current work on context-aware computing relies on information directly available to an application via context sensors on its local host, e.g., user profile, host location, time of day, resource availability, and quality of service measurements. The work reported in this dissertation starts by building a new perspective on context-awareness, in which the context includes, in principle, any information available in the ad hoc network but is restricted, in practice, to specific projections of the overall context. This work reports on the design and implementation of a middleware model that brings this notion of context to the application programmer. Another important aspect of the software engineering process is the ability to reason formally about the programs we create. This dissertation details initial steps to create formal reasoning mechanisms dedicated to the needs of context-aware applications. The results of this work simplify application development in ad hoc mobile networks from a design and implementation perspective and through formal reasoning

Understanding the association between neighbourhood green space quality and prosocial behaviour across childhood and adolescence

Background: While a legion of evidence indicates green spaces (e.g., parks) support health, there is a paucity of studies investigating their potential role in the development of prosocial behaviour (i.e., a range of behaviours that benefit others or promote positive relationships with others) across childhood and adolescence. The review of current evidence suggests that exposure to nearby green space may increase prosocial behaviour, but most of the evidence is cross-sectional, hindering causal inferences and understandings of temporality. Furthermore, most of this research has focused on the quantity of green space (i.e., the amount of green space available in the residential environment), neglecting the potentially critical importance of green space quality (i.e., aspects or attributes of green space that influence its utilisation) as a key determinant in its use and in the development of prosocial behaviour. Besides, candidate mediators and effect modifiers have not been comprehensively examined by previous studies, limiting understandings of plausible pathways and potential contingencies in who benefits. Therefore, research on green space quality and prosocial behaviour is important to improve the quality of current evidence and inform avenues on how to maximise the role of green space in shaping the development of prosocial behaviour. Enhancing the development of prosocial behaviour from a young age is important due to health, psychological, and social benefits. Aims: This PhD thesis primarily aimed to examine the longitudinal association between green space quality and prosocial behaviour among children and adolescents. This thesis also investigated whether the accumulation of, or changes in, green space quality during childhood and adolescence were associated with the development of prosocial behaviour. Potential effect modifiers of the association and plausible pathways in which green space quality may influence prosocial behaviour were also assessed. In addition, the potential role of prosocial behaviour as a missing link – a candidate mediating variable – on the causal chain from green space quality to child health-related outcomes was tested. Methods: This thesis used 10-year longitudinal data retrieved from the K-cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Data pertaining to green space quality, child prosocial behaviour, health-related outcomes (mental health, physical activity, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL)), and socioeconomic measures were biennially recorded from 4,983 children for a 10-year period, from 2004 (children aged 4-5 years: Wave 1) to 2014 (14-15 years: Wave 6). Green space quality was measured using caregiver reports on the availability of good parks, playgrounds, and play spaces in the neighbourhood. Caregivers also evaluated their child’s prosocial behaviour using the prosocial subscale from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Multilevel linear regression was applied to assess the association between green space quality and prosocial behaviour. Trajectories in green space quality experienced across childhood and adolescence were examined using latent class analysis. Causal mediation analysis was used to identify mechanistic pathways between green space quality and prosocial behaviour, as well as to test prosocial behaviour as a candidate mediator of the associations between green space quality and child health-related outcomes. Results: The presence of quality neighbourhood green space was positively associated with child prosocial behaviour, irrespective of residential relocation. In addition, children whose caregiver perception of green space quality was ‘very good’ over time, trended from ‘good’ to ‘very good’ or from ‘very good’ to ‘good’ had higher prosocial behaviour than children of caregivers who consistently perceived nearby green space as low in quality. Evidence also indicated that the accumulation of very good quality green space over time may attenuate socioeconomic inequalities in prosocial behaviour. The association between green space quality and prosocial behaviour was found to be stronger among boys, children speaking only English at home, and children living in more affluent and/or remote areas. Moreover, physical activity enjoyment, social interaction, child and caregiver mental health, and HRQOL served as mechanistic pathways in which green space quality influenced prosocial behaviour. Prosocial behaviour was found as a mediator of the associations between green space quality and child health (mental health, HRQOL), and physical activity enjoyment. Conclusions: The findings indicate that policies on provisioning and maintaining the quality of green space across childhood and adolescence in a targeted manner (e.g., prioritised in more disadvantaged and remote areas) can potentially buffer the negative impact of growing up in unfavourable socioeconomic circumstances and foster the development of prosocial behaviour. Improving the quality of neighbourhood green space that also encourages social interactions, physical activity enjoyment, and mental health might provide better support for the development of prosocial behaviour and vice versa. In addition, ensuring the neighbourhood to be safe and friendly for ethnic minorities is vital as it removes impediments to such populations gaining benefits from quality green space. Furthermore, identifying attributes of quality green space suitable for both boys and girls, and children from different age groups forms an important next step to maximise the benefits of quality green space for all

A Comparative Study of MCDM Methods Integrated with Rapid Visual Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Existing RC Structures

Recently, the demand for residence and usage of urban infrastructure has been increased, thereby resulting in the elevation of risk levels of human lives over natural calamities. The occupancy demand has rapidly increased the construction rate, whereas the inadequate design of structures prone to more vulnerability. Buildings constructed before the development of seismic codes have an additional susceptibility to earthquake vibrations. The structural collapse causes an economic loss as well as setbacks for human lives. An application of different theoretical methods to analyze the structural behavior is expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, introducing a rapid vulnerability assessment method to check structural performances is necessary for future developments. The process, as mentioned earlier, is known as Rapid Visual Screening (RVS). This technique has been generated to identify, inventory, and screen structures that are potentially hazardous. Sometimes, poor construction quality does not provide some of the required parameters; in this case, the RVS process turns into a tedious scenario. Hence, to tackle such a situation, multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment opens a new gateway. The different parameters required by RVS can be taken in MCDM. MCDM evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making in several fields. This paper has aimed to bridge the gap between RVS and MCDM. Furthermore, to define the correlation between these techniques, implementation of the methodologies from Indian, Turkish, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) codes has been done. The effects of seismic vulnerability of structures have been observed and compared

A Comparison of Causal Inference Methods and Their Application in Big Data Analytics

With the rise of Big Data analytics, the new field of causal inference (Pearl, 2009) has received more attention in business research fields such as Accounting (Lawrence, Minutti-Meza, & Zhang, 2011) and Marketing (Manganaris, Bhasin, Reid, & Hermiz Keith, 2010). Traditional statistics focuses on correlation which may lead to misleading conclusions because the estimates can be severely biased even when data sets are large. The objective of causal inference is to obtain estimates from observational data that are unbiased and can thus be interpreted as causal. This study provides a systematic comparison of the performance of four causal inference methods which are Propensity Score Matching, Standardization, Inverse Probability Weighting and Orthogonal Arrays. The risk difference, risk ratio and odds ratio are compared for these estimators. This research uses bootstrapping with different sample sizes to ensure that reliable estimates for bias and mean squared error are obtained. Topics relevant to method selection and recommendations for use of the methods are offered. Additionally, with applying the suggestions and recommendations derived from the simulation, two examples are used to demonstrate how causal inference improves estimates. The first example explores the use of causative analytics for improving retention and graduation rates using a series of causal inference methods with semester-based information about student performance. The findings reveal that the effect of living on campus and math preparation for improving student retention rates and graduation rates is considerably lower than traditional estimates showed. The second example investigates the relationship and effect size between the implementation of the UberX service and fatalities due to drunk driving among different age groups. The findings disclose that while traditional methods show that there is a statistically significant effect of UberX deployment on the number of DWI fatalities among youth ages 17-34 and older ages 35-65, the causal estimates are no longer statistically significant

The association between community environment and cognitive function: a systematic review.

PURPOSES: The aim of this study is to review the published evidence on the association between community environment and cognitive function in older people, focusing on the findings and a critique of the existing studies. METHODS: A literature search was conducted to identify studies linking the community environment and cognitive function in older people. The results and methodological factors, including the definition of community, individual level characteristics and the measurements of cognitive function and community environment were extracted from each study. The measurements of community environment were mainly categorized into two types: compositional, generated by aggregating individual and household data (community-level socioeconomic status, deprivation index) and contextual, targeting at the features of built or social environment in local areas (green space, street conditions, crime rate). RESULTS: Fourteen of the fifteen studies used compositional measurements such as community-level socioeconomic status and deprivation index and significant associations were found in eleven studies. Some individual level factors (ethnicity, genotype and socioeconomic status) were found to modify the association between community environment and cognitive function. Few contextual measurements were included in the existing studies. A conceptual framework for the pathway from community environment to cognitive function of older people is provided in this review. CONCLUSIONS: To disentangle the additional effect of place from individual risk factors and investigate the casual direction of community environment and cognition in later life, longitudinal studies with measurements targeting built and social environments of community and change of cognitive functions over time need to be included in future studies.Yu-Tzu Wu received a PhD scholarship from the Cambridge Trust, University of Cambridge. A. Matthew Prina is supported by the Medical Research Council [Grant number K021907/1].This is the final published manuscript. It is published by Springer here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-014-0945-