Guest Editorial Cardiovascular Health Informatics: Risk Screening and Intervention

Despite enormous efforts to prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the past, it remains the leading cause of death in most countries worldwide. Around two-thirds of these deaths are due to acute events, which frequently occur suddenly and are often fatal beforemedical care can be given. New strategies for screening and early intervening CVD, in addition to the conventional methods, are therefore needed in order to provide personalized and pervasive healthcare. In this special issue, selected emerging technologies in health informatics for screening and intervening CVDs are reported. These papers include reviews or original contributions on 1) new potential genetic biomarkers for screening CVD outcomes and high-throughput techniques for mining genomic data; 2) new imaging techniques for obtaining faster and higher resolution images of cardiovascular imaging biomarkers such as the cardiac chambers and atherosclerotic plaques in coronary arteries, as well as possible automatic segmentation, identification, or fusion algorithms; 3) new physiological biomarkers and novel wearable and home healthcare technologies for monitoring them in daily lives; 4) new personalized prediction models of plaque formation and progression or CVD outcomes; and 5) quantifiable indices and wearable systems to measure them for early intervention of CVD through lifestyle changes. It is hoped that the proposed technologies and systems covered in this special issue can result in improved CVD management and treatment at the point of need, offering a better quality of life to the patient

ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION VALUE CHAINS FOR GOUT SELF-CARE MANAGEMENT

This value chain analysis study sought to identify information needed by gout patients to successfully manage their disease, leading to a model for information extraction from patient health records. A scoping review was conducted to identify the types of information needed by gout patients. The findings of each included study were divided and analyzed according to the stages of the care delivery value chain. The results of the review were then used to create a gout information value chain as criteria for annotating the information deemed important for gout patients contained in publicly available patient education materials according to the stages of care delivery. The resulting annotations were used to develop a named entity recognition model capable of automatically labelling medical concepts from clinical notes by value chain stage. To identify concepts specifically relevant to gout patients, the concepts extracted from patient notes were used as candidate features in a phenotyping algorithm to identify concepts associated with gout flares. While this study was able to develop a model for identifying information relevant to gout flares, the findings suggest that there is information missing from patient education materials and their clinical notes that could be valuable to gout patients for self-management

Nonlinear Systems

The editors of this book have incorporated contributions from a diverse group of leading researchers in the field of nonlinear systems. To enrich the scope of the content, this book contains a valuable selection of works on fractional differential equations.The book aims to provide an overview of the current knowledge on nonlinear systems and some aspects of fractional calculus. The main subject areas are divided into two theoretical and applied sections. Nonlinear systems are useful for researchers in mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics, as well as graduate students who are studying these systems with reference to their theory and application. This book is also an ideal complement to the specific literature on engineering, biology, health science, and other applied science areas. The opportunity given by IntechOpen to offer this book under the open access system contributes to disseminating the field of nonlinear systems to a wide range of researchers

Personalidad Tipo D, inhibición social y afectividad negativa y su asociación con alteraciones arteriales en sujetos sin enfermedad cardiovascular conocida: Estudio preliminar en base a la escala DS-14

La morbi-mortalidad por causas cardiovasculares ocupa el primer lugar a nivel mundial. Uruguay no escapa a estas tendencias globales y las enfermedades cardiovasculares ocupan los primeros lugares en los indicadores de morbilidad y mortalidad a nivel nacional (Comisón Honoraria Salud Cardiovascular, 2015). La prevención y el diagnóstico precoz de personas que, sin conocerlo, presentan riesgo cardiovascular (RCV) mayor que el esperado por los factores de riesgo cardiovascular (FRCV) tradicionales a los que se exponen, son estrategias relevantes. La investigación que desarrollamos se propuso examinar si la existencia de Personalidad Tipo D (PTD), de Afectividad Negativa (AN) y/o de Inhibición Social (IS), podrían contribuir a detectar la existencia de RCV y/o enfermedad arterial subclínica en personas adultas asintomáticas. Tuvo como objetivos específicos caracterizar en personas adultas asintomáticas la posible asociación entre la existencia de PTD, AN y/o IS, y a) el nivel de exposición a FRCV tradicionales; b) el nivel de RCV global a 10 años, evaluado mediante diferentes ecuaciones de riesgo de amplio uso mundial, c) la afectación cardiovascular subclínica, en términos de presencia de ateromatosis, carga ateromatosa y/o cambios arteriales estructurales y/o funcionales compatibles con aterosclerosis subclínica. Asimismo de encontrarse asociación entre la existencia de PTD, AN y/o IS, y afectación cardiovascular subclínica, determinar si es dependiente de los niveles de exposición a FRCV tradicionales o del RCV a 10 años. Para ello se diseñó un estudio transversal de tipo descriptivo y en base a un abordaje cuantitativo que incluyó a 145 adultos asintomáticos, aparentemente saludables, libres de enfermedades crónicas, que asistieron al Centro Universitario de Investigación Innovación y Diagnóstico Arterial (CUiiDARTE), de la Universidad de la República (Uruguay) y que voluntariamente aceptaron participar del mismo. De ellos se obtuvo información del historial médico personal y familiar, de los niveles de exposición a FRCV y de sus características antropométricas. Se obtuvieron mediante exámenes de sangre, los niveles de colesterol, triglicéridos y glicemia de cada individuo. Se realizó estudio cardiovascular no invasivo que permitió obtener información de sus niveles de frecuencia cardíaca, presión arterial de brazos y tobillos, índice tobillo-brazo, niveles de rigidez aórticos y de miembro superior (evaluados a través de la determinación de la velocidad de la onda del pulso, VOP), gradiente centro-periferia de rigidez arterial (VOP ratio), espesor intima-media de la arteria carótida, y presencia o ausencia de placas de ateroma en el territorio arterial carotídeo y femoral. Se aplicó la Escala DS14 a los efectos de conocer los puntajes obtenidos por cada individuo, y definir la existencia o no de PTD, AN y/o IS. Con la información obtenida, se realizaron comparaciones (Test de T, ANOVA, Chi2) entre sujetos con y sin PTD, IS, AN, o tras dividir a los sujetos en cuatro grupos en función de tener o no, IS y/o AN. Las comparaciones se realizaron antes y después de ajustar (Test ANCOVA) por la presencia de FRCV y RCV global, tras haber estudiado los niveles de asociación entre estas variables y la presencia o no de PTD, IS o AN (correlación). Una p˂0,05 se consideró estadísticamente significativa. Los resultados muestran que con independencia de los niveles de exposición a FRCV tradicionales (edad, sexo, nivel de presión arterial, presencia de hipertensión arterial, tabaquismo, dislipemia) y/o del RCV global obtenido al ponderar por el peso relativo que diferentes FRCV tienen sobre la morbi-mortalidad cardiovascular, los sujetos con PTD, IS y/o AN presentaron cambios estructurales y funcionales compatibles con la existencia de aterosclerosis subclínica y mayor RCV real

Optical Diagnostics in Human Diseases

Optical technologies provide unique opportunities for the diagnosis of various pathological disorders. The range of biophotonics applications in clinical practice is considerably wide given that the optical properties of biological tissues are subject to significant changes during disease progression. Due to the small size of studied objects (from μm to mm) and despite some minimum restrictions (low-intensity light is used), these technologies have great diagnostic potential both as an additional tool and in cases of separate use, for example, to assess conditions affecting microcirculatory bed and tissue viability. This Special Issue presents topical articles by researchers engaged in the development of new methods and devices for optical non-invasive diagnostics in various fields of medicine. Several studies in this Special Issue demonstrate new information relevant to surgical procedures, especially in oncology and gynecology. Two articles are dedicated to the topical problem of breast cancer early detection, including during surgery. One of the articles is devoted to urology, namely to the problem of chronic or recurrent episodic urethral pain. Several works describe the studies in otolaryngology and dentistry. One of the studies is devoted to diagnosing liver diseases. A number of articles contribute to the studying of the alterations caused by diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases. The results of all the presented articles reflect novel innovative research and emerging ideas in optical non-invasive diagnostics aimed at their wider translation into clinical practice