280 research outputs found

    Fun weight

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    Treball desenvolupat dins el marc del programa 'European Project Semester' i l'"International Design Project Semester".The main objective of the Fun Weight project was to decrease the level of anxiety from children during preoperative treatment, while the gathering of measurements essential for further hospitalization takes place. This assignment has been conducted by an international and multidisciplinary team whose members were from fields of: Product Design, Electronics and Information Communication Technologies, Mechanical Engineering and Information Technology. The project was interesting and constructive due to tight cooperation with the Hospital de Sant Joan de Deu in Barcelona which was the main stakeholder of this project. Methodology of the project consisted of in advance strictly defined steps, which were: researching, designing of the interactive game, designing/development of the application, prototyping of the application, prototyping of the interactive game and testing. However the development of the interactive game and the application have been performed simultaneously. The outcome of this project has reached its end at the 17th of June and concluded following three elements: electronical prototype of the interactive game, three dimensional model of the game and the mobile application for retrieving measurements and communicating with the interactive game. The stage of testing was divided into three independent sections: testing of the application usability, testing of the application functionality and evaluation of actual anxiety decreasing. As a result of application usability test, an average rate of ease of the interface has been obtained at the level of 2 what states for easy to use. Functionality tests have been performed with application of the Angel Sensor in function of the measuring device. In spite of problems encountered during the use of that sensor, basic functionalities of the application have been confirmed. Due to the shortage of the time, evaluation of decrease of anxiety level has not yet been conducted

    Advancing the objective measurement of physical activity and sedentary behaviour context

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    Objective data from national surveillance programmes show that, on average, individuals accumulate high amounts of sedentary time per day and only a small minority of adults achieve physical activity guidelines. One potential explanation for the failure of interventions to increase population levels of physical activity or decrease sedentary time is that research to date has been unable to identify the specific behavioural levers in specific contexts needed to change behaviour. Novel technology is emerging with the potential to elucidate these specific behavioural contexts and thus identify these specific behavioural levers. Therefore the aims of this four study thesis were to identify novel technologies capable of measuring the behavioural context, to evaluate and validate the most promising technology and to then pilot this technology to assess the behavioural context of older adults, shown by surveillance programmes to be the least physically active and most sedentary age group. Study one Purpose: To identify, via a systematic review, technologies which have been used or could be used to measure the location of physical activity or sedentary behaviour. Methods: Four electronic databases were searched using key terms built around behaviour, technology and location. To be eligible for inclusion papers were required to be published in English and describe a wearable or portable technology or device capable of measuring location. Searches were performed from the inception of the database up to 04/02/2015. Searches were also performed using three internet search engines. Specialised software was used to download search results and thus mitigate the potential pitfalls of changing search algorithms. Results: 188 research papers met the inclusion criteria. Global positioning systems were the most widely used location technology in the published research, followed by wearable cameras and Radio-frequency identification. Internet search engines identified 81 global positioning systems, 35 real-time locating systems and 21 wearable cameras. Conclusion: The addition of location information to existing measures of physical activity and sedentary behaviour will provide important behavioural information. Study Two Purpose: This study investigated the Actigraph proximity feature across three experiments. The aim of Experiment One was to assess the basic characteristics of the Actigraph RSSI signal across a range of straight line distances. Experiment Two aimed to assess the level of receiver device signal detection in a single room under unobstructed conditions, when various obstructions are introduced and the impacts these obstructions have on the intra and inter unit variability of the RSSI signal. Finally, Experiment Three aimed to assess signal contamination across multiple rooms (i.e. one beacon being detected in multiple rooms). Methods: Across all experiments, the receiver(s) collected data at 10 second epochs, the highest resolution possible. In Experiment One two devices, one receiver and one beacon, were placed opposite each other at 10cm increments for one minute at each distance. The RSSI-distance relationship was then visually assessed for linearity. In Experiment Two, a test room was demarcated into 0.5 x 0.5 m grids with receivers simultaneously placed in each demarcated grid. This process was then repeated under wood, metal and human obstruction conditions. Descriptive tallies were used to assess the signal detection achieved for each receiver from each beacon in each grid. Mean RSSI signal was calculated for each condition alongside intra and inter-unit standard deviation, coefficient of variation and standard error of the measurement. In Experiment Three, a test apartment was used with three beacons placed across two rooms. The researcher then completed simulated conditions for 10 minutes each across the two rooms. The percentage of epochs where a signal was detected from each of the three beacons across each test condition was then calculated. Results: In Experiment One, the relationship between RSSI and distance was found to be non-linear. In Experiment Two, high signal detection was achieved in all conditions; however, there was a large degree of intra and inter-unit variability in RSSI. In Experiment Three, there was a large degree of multi-room signal contamination. Conclusion: The Actigraph proximity feature can provide a binary indicator of room level location. Study Three Purpose: To use novel technology in three small feasibility trials to ascertain where the greatest utility can be demonstrated. Methods: Feasibility Trial One assessed the concurrent validity of electrical energy monitoring and wearable cameras as measures of television viewing. Feasibility Trial Two utilised indoor location monitoring to assess where older adult care home residents accumulate their sedentary time. Lastly, Feasibility Trial Three investigated the use of proximity sensors to quantify exposure to a height adjustable desk Results: Feasibility Trial One found that on average the television is switched on for 202 minutes per day but is visible in just 90 minutes of wearable camera images with a further 52 minutes where the participant is in their living room but the television is not visible in the image. Feasibility Trial Two found that residents were highly sedentary (sitting for an average of 720 minutes per day) and spent the majority of their time in their own rooms with more time spent in communal areas in the morning than in the afternoon. Feasibility Trial Three found a discrepancy between self-reported work hours and objectively measured office dwell time. Conclusion: The feasibility trials outlined in this study show the utility of objectively measuring context to provide more detailed and refined data. Study Four Purpose: To objectively measure the context of sedentary behaviour in the most sedentary age group, older adults. Methods: 26 residents and 13 staff were recruited from two care homes. Each participant wore an Actigraph GT9X on their non-dominant wrist and a LumoBack posture sensor on their lower back for one week. The Actigraph recorded proximity every 10 seconds and acceleration at 100 Hz. LumoBack data were provided as summaries per 5 minutes. Beacon Actigraphs were placed around each care home in the resident s rooms, communal areas and corridors. Proximity and posture data were combined in 5 minute epochs with descriptive analysis of average time spent sitting in each area produced. Acceleration data were summarised into 10 second epochs and combined with proximity data to show the average count per epoch in each area of the care home. Mann-Whitney tests were performed to test for differences between care homes. Results: No significant differences were found between Care Home One and Care Home Two in the amount of time spent sitting in communal areas of the care home (301 minutes per day and 39 minutes per day respectively, U=23, p=0.057) or in the amount of time residents spent sitting in their own room (215 minutes per day and 337 minutes per day in Care Home One and Two respectively, U=32, p=0.238). In both care homes, accelerometer measured average movement increases with the number of residents in the communal area. Conclusion: The Actigraph proximity system was able to quantify the context of sedentary behaviour in older adults. This enabled the identification of levers for behaviour change which can be used to reduce sedentary time in this group. Overall conclusion: There are a large number of technologies available with the potential to measure the context of physical activity or sedentary time. The Actigraph proximity feature is one such technology. This technology is able to provide a binary measure of proximity via the detection or non-detection of Bluetooth signal: however, the variability of the signal prohibits distance estimation. The Actigraph proximity feature, in combination with a posture sensor, is able to elucidate the context of physical activity and sedentary time

    A Preventive Medicine Framework for Wearable Abiotic Glucose Detection System

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    In this work, we present a novel abiotic glucose fuel cell with battery-less remote access. In the presence of a glucose analyte, we characterized the power generation and biosensing capabilities. This system is developed on a flexible substrate in bacterial nanocellulose with gold nanoparticles used as a conductive ink for piezoelectric deposition based printing. The abiotic glucose fuel cell is constructed using colloidal platinum on gold (Au-co-Pt) and a composite of silver oxide nanoparticles and carbon nanotubes as the anodic and cathodic materials. At a concentration of 20 mM glucose, the glucose fuel cell produced a maximum open circuit voltage of 0.57 V and supplied a maximum short circuit current density of 0.581 mA/cm2 with a peak power density of 0.087 mW/cm2 . The system was characterized by testing its performance using electrochemical techniques like linear sweep voltammetry, cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry in the presence of various glucose level at the physiological temperatures. An open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.43 V, short circuit current density (Isc) of 0.405 mA/cm2 , and maximum power density (Pmax) of 0.055 mW/cm2 at 0.23 V were achieved in the presence of 5 mM physiologic glucose. The results indicate that glucose fuel cells can be employed for the development of a self-powered glucose sensor. The glucose monitoring device demonstrated sensitivity of 1.87 uA/mMcm2 and a linear dynamic range of 1 mM to 45 mM with a correlation coefficient of 0.989 when utilized as a self-powered glucose sensor. For wireless communication, the incoming voltage from the abiotic fuel cell was fed to a low power microcontroller that enables battery less communication using NFC technology. The voltage translates to the NFC module as the digital signals, which are displayed on a custom-built android application. The digital signals are converted to respective glucose concentration using a correlation algorithm that allows data to be processed and recorded for further analysis. The android application is designed to record the time, date stamp, and other independent features (e.g. age, height, weight) with the glucose measurement to allow the end-user to keep track of their glucose levels regularly. Analytics based on in-vitro testing were conducted to build a machine learning model that enables future glucose prediction for 15, 30 or 60 minutes

    Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

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    Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

    Telemedicine

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    Telemedicine is a rapidly evolving field as new technologies are implemented for example for the development of wireless sensors, quality data transmission. Using the Internet applications such as counseling, clinical consultation support and home care monitoring and management are more and more realized, which improves access to high level medical care in underserved areas. The 23 chapters of this book present manifold examples of telemedicine treating both theoretical and practical foundations and application scenarios

    Biomedical Engineering

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    Biomedical engineering is currently relatively wide scientific area which has been constantly bringing innovations with an objective to support and improve all areas of medicine such as therapy, diagnostics and rehabilitation. It holds a strong position also in natural and biological sciences. In the terms of application, biomedical engineering is present at almost all technical universities where some of them are targeted for the research and development in this area. The presented book brings chosen outputs and results of research and development tasks, often supported by important world or European framework programs or grant agencies. The knowledge and findings from the area of biomaterials, bioelectronics, bioinformatics, biomedical devices and tools or computer support in the processes of diagnostics and therapy are defined in a way that they bring both basic information to a reader and also specific outputs with a possible further use in research and development

    The role of radio frequency identification (RFID) in improving the supply chain performance of small and medium construction companies in Australia and enhancing their competitiveness in the marketplace

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    Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is being utilised more in Information Technology due to its features and capability that assist in enhancing productivity, efficiency in improving supply chain systems, and minimising cost. It is predicted to provide several advantages for both public and government organisations. RFID can increase the consistency and scalability of IT systems that permit organisations such as regional governments to focus their attention on their key business functions, including strategy formulation and adaptation. Limited studies have been conducted on the implementation of RFID in the construction industry to develop supply chain systems to improve performance. Moreover, there is an absence of exploratory research and studies that offer a comprehensive and holistic examination of the factors that impact the implementation of RFID. To date, there is also an absence of empirical studies regarding the factors that impact the employment of RFID in Australian SMEs in the construction industry. This research examines the adoption and use of information communication technologies, in particular RFID technology, for improving the performance of supply chain management systems in SME construction companies in Australia. The research objectives are to analyse the state of supply chain management systems in SME construction companies in Australia; and the potential of RFID technologies in helping to overcome the problems and challenges facing these companies. This study aims to explain the capability for creating value resulting from the adoption of RFID in SME construction companies in Australia. This research identifies the factors that are expected to impact its implementation and ascertains the factors that are essential for management to focus on when planning to implement RFID. These factors include emerging policies for adoption of RFID, expected advantages of implementation of RFID, along with highlighting the challenges and issues created by the adoption of RFID. The research model adopts a combination of three theories derived from the literature, namely, Diffusion of Innovation Theory, the Technology Organisation-Environment (Stoekel and Quirke) framework, and the Actor Network theory. This study aims to enhance knowledge about how information communication technology can play a role in improving supply chain performance, and how to optimise the use of supply chains to improve the performance of these businesses. A quantitative approach is used in this study to identify the key themes and constructs in a comprehensive survey of IT decision-makers within SME construction companies in Australia. The intention of this research is also to increase knowledge regarding factors that impact decision-making regarding the adoption of RFID within SME construction companies based in Australia. The research method used for the research is quantitative. As an in-depth study, this empirical study has involved IT managers in Australian-based SME construction companies and their employees‟ interaction with RFID suppliers. Through this, the study achieves the aim of providing in-depth insights into those factors that are perceived most likely to influence their employment of RFID; and identifying all vital factors on which to focus when planning to implement RFID, including the emerging legal setting that influences RFID implementation, expected merits of RFID implementation; and problems and issues that face SMEs when deciding to employ RFID. The study was conducted among 297 IT employees from 47 SMEs in the construction sector and RFID suppliers to conclude the outcomes of the exploratory stage. Factors such as compatibility, complexity, cost, security concerns, size of the firm, and expected advantages from the adoption of RFID are examined. The results and conclusion of the research can be used for firms‟ decision-making on whether to invest or not in the adoption of RFID

    Design of a wearable sensor system for neonatal seizure monitoring

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    Design of a wearable sensor system for neonatal seizure monitoring

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