EIRA Project: advancing in the management of personal healthcare

This project arises with the purpose of shedding some light on a subject that is the order of the day in the world of medicine: the unification of the medical history. The motivation of the project comes from getting to know the lack of coordination in the organization of the health system that currently exists. First, the health centers in different regions follow different systems, end even public and private health centers in the same region operate independently, so they can not share data between them. Second, in different centers they use different and incompatible applications to perform tasks that are similar or complementary. This means that, ultimately, patients are those who are harmed, since the problem of medical data accessibility implies a risk for them. Moreover, unifying or making compatible the various existing applications could improve clinical decision making helping tools, optimizing the efficiency, effectiveness and the use of resources. (Chapter 1) The development of this project draws from a comprehensive analysis that allows finding out which is the current situation of our country on this issue, as well as the measures that have been developed to improve it, their advantages and disadvantages and the main problems that our society faces. It also includes the points of view of both patients and health professionals. For this purpose, it has been necessary to do interviews with professionals, to visit hospitals, to attend to forums and to try personally most of the systems currently in use. Also, both regulatory and socioeconomic framework have been studied, including business opportunities in the field. In parallel to this analysis, advances in new technologies and their possible applications in the implementation of our system have been studied, specially tools for the development of online mobile applications and its back-end structure. Learning how to use them has also been necessary. (Chapter 2, 4 and 7) Based on the findings from the first phase of analysis and learning, objectives and functional and nonfunctional requirements to be met by the application are defined, as well as the platform on which it would be implemented, a mobile device with an Android Operating System. Then, the architecture of the system is structured, and it is modularized according to functional requirements. Finally, the graphic design and the implementation of a semi functional demo are performed, and a project development planning is developed step by step. (Chapters 3, 5 and 7) The original idea of the design was intended to assume greater innovation in technology advances, even incorporating artificial intelligence and massive data processing applied to the healthcare field. However, from the analysis it was concluded that, before incorporating such technologies, a solid groundwork should be laid, a system able to collect all the relevant data to work on them later. Thus, the design was finally oriented to a simplified, unified, bilateral, multifunctional accessible and secure system. The application of advanced technologies becomes part of the future lines of the project. (Chapter 8) To conclude, this project was initiated with the aim of getting to know better the healthcare system and its tools, learning about new technologies already used or that could be applied in the field and designing an innovative system with business potential. Despite the difficulties encountered and the changes made in the project with respect to the original idea, the main objectives have been successfully met. (Chapter 9)Este proyecto surge con el propósito de arrojar algo de luz sobre un tema que está al orden del día en el mundo de la medicina: la unificación de la historia clínica. La motivación del proyecto surge de conocer la gran descoordinación en la organización del sistema sanitario que existe actualmente. Primero, los centros sanitarios en comunidades autónomas distintas siguen sistemas diferentes, e incluso los centros públicos y privados de una misma región funcionan de forma independiente, por lo que no comparten datos entre ellos. Segundo, en los diferentes centros se emplean aplicaciones diversas e incompatibles entre sí para la realización de tareas o bien similares o que podrían ser complementarias. Esto hace que, en última instancia, sea el paciente el que sale perjudicado, ya que el problema de accesibilidad a los datos médicos supone un riesgo. Además, unificando o compatibilizando las diversas aplicaciones existentes podrían mejorarse las herramientas de ayuda en la toma de decisiones clínicas optimizando la eficiencia, la efectividad y los recursos del sistema (Capítulo 1). El desarrollo de este proyecto parte de un amplio análisis que permite conocer la situación actual de nuestro país en este tema, así como las diferentes medidas que se han desarrollado para mejorarla, sus ventajas y desventajas y los principales problemas a los que se enfrenta nuestra sociedad. También incluye las opiniones tanto de pacientes como de profesionales sanitarios. Para ello se han realizado entrevistas a profesionales, se han visitado hospitales, se ha asistido a foros y se han probado personalmente muchos de los sistemas que están actualmente en uso. También se han estudiado tanto el marco regulador como el socioeconómico, incluyendo las oportunidades de negocio del sector. En paralelo a dicho análisis se estudian los avances en las nuevas tecnologías que podrían aplicarse en la implementación del sistema, entre las que se incluyen principalmente herramientas para el desarrollo de aplicaciones móviles online y su back-end, además de aprender a utilizarlas (Capítulos 2, 4 y 7). En base a las conclusiones obtenidas de la primera fase de análisis y aprendizaje, se definen los objetivos y requisitos funcionales y no funcionales que deberá cumplir la aplicación, y se elige la plataforma sobre la que será implementada, un dispositivo móvil con sistema operativo Android. Posteriormente, se estructura el la arquitectura del sistema y se modulariza en función de su funcionalidad. Finalmente se trabaja en el diseño gráfico de la misma, se crea una demo semifuncional y se elabora una planificación de su desarrollo paso por paso. (Capítulos 3, 5 y 6). La idea original del diseño pretendía suponer una mayor innovación en el ámbito tecnológico incorporando incluso avances de inteligencia artificial y tratamiento masivo de datos aplicados al campo sanitario. Sin embargo, a partir del análisis realizado se concluyó que, antes de incorporar dichas tecnologías, debía construirse una base sólida, un sistema capaz de recopilar todos los datos para, posteriormente, trabajar sobre ellos. Por eso, el diseño finalmente se orientó a un sistema simplificado, bilateral, unificado, multifuncional, accesible y seguro. La aplicación de tecnologías más avanzadas pasa a contarse entre las líneas futuras del proyecto. (Capítulo 8) En conclusión, este proyecto se inició con el objetivo de conocer mejor el sistema sanitario actual y sus herramientas, aprender acerca de las nuevas tecnologías que se están utilizando o podrían aplicarse en el sector y diseñar un sistema innovador con posibilidades de comercialización. A pesar de las dificultades encontradas y los cambios hechos en el proyecto con respecto a la idea original, los objetivos principales han sido cumplidos. (Capítulo 9)Ingeniería Biomédic

El uso de la realidad virtual y los videojuegos para el aprendizaje de las civilizaciones griega, egipcia y vikinga en el aula

This article presents a didactic proposal for third cycle of primary education that is built from a Final Degree Project and that has been put into practice. The proposal is related to the learning of different aspects of Greek, Viking and Egyptian cultures. The main objective of this article is to present a didactic planning for the learning of these civilizations from a playful and innovative perspective in which virtual reality and video games are used, including the most relevant results of its implementation. The methodology of the proposal is based on gamification and game-based learning (ABJ). The choice of this methodology is based on the facilities offered by both the expansion of technological development and the use of applications (apps) and video games in the daily life of students; supported by previous studies that show the benefits of the use of these technologies in teaching social sciences and history. The implementation is developed through a sequence of activities spanning several sessions in which, among other tasks, the video games Assassin's Creed: Discovery Tour, for exploration tasks, and Minecraft Education Edition, for representation tasks, are used. As for the results of the implementation, the proposal has been successful in its development, obtaining a high degree of achievement of the proposed didactic objectives and not encountering serious difficulties during the teaching-learning process.En el presente artículo se presenta una propuesta didáctica para tercer ciclo de educación primaria que se construye a partir de un Trabajo de Fin de Grado y que ha sido llevada a la práctica. La propuesta está relacionada con el aprendizaje de diferentes aspectos de las culturas griega, vikinga y egipcia. El objetivo central de este artículo es presentar una planificación didáctica para el aprendizaje de estas civilizaciones desde una perspectiva lúdica e innovadora en la cual se hace uso de la realidad virtual y los videojuegos; incluyendo además los resultados más relevantes de su puesta en práctica. La metodología de la propuesta está basada en la gamificación y el aprendizaje basado en juegos (ABJ). La elección de esta metodología se sustenta en las facilidades que ofrecen tanto la expansión del desarrollo tecnológico como el uso de las aplicaciones (app) y videojuegos en la vida cotidiana de los estudiantes; apoyándose en estudios previos que muestran los beneficios del uso de estas tecnologías en enseñanza de las ciencias sociales y de la historia. La puesta en práctica se desarrolla a través de una secuencia de actividades que abarca varias sesiones y en las que, entre otras tareas, se hace uso de los videojuegos Assassin’s Creed: Discovery Tour, para tareas de exploración, y Minecraft Education Edition, para tareas de representación. En cuanto a los resultados de la puesta en práctica, la propuesta ha sido exitosa en su desarrollo, obteniéndose un alto grado de consecución de los objetivos didácticos propuestos y no encontrando dificultades graves durante el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaj

Birds and people: studies based on citizen science and census data of Greater Gauteng, South Africa

Global human population growth has been predicted to grow exponentially, to a point where it exceeds the capacity of available resources to sustain it. The consequences that such exponential increase will have on the environment has also been the focus of several research. The spatial pattern of human population has reveal uneven pattern of human population with the urban areas being subject of increased influx of human population from the rural areas in search of better economic factors. The United Nations in 2007 revealed that at least half of the world’s 6.6 billion human population was living in urban areas. This number is expected to increase to over 60% of the world's population by the end of 2050. Most of this population growth is occurring in developing countries. While the health, security and town planning amongst other consequences of this global explosion in urbanization have been well-studied and documented, the impact which urbanization is having and will have on the ecosystem and on biodiversity, especially at regional and local scales has remained an a field of knowledge that has continued to evolve especially given the variable patterns and drivers of urbanization in different regions of the world as well as the different environmental factors and biodiversity in these regions. Biodiversity monitoring has been shown to be crucial to conservation goals aimed at accessing the state and condition of biodiversity. The Second South African Bird Atlas Project (SABAP2) is a citizen science atlas project which commenced in 2007. Over a decade, SABAP2 has produced a rich source of data, capturing bird distributions in South Africa. This makes SABAP2 a powerful tool for monitoring observed changes in bird communities and by extension biodiversity through time. I examined the effect that urbanization is having on the avian biodiversity in South Africa, one of the most urbanized countries in Africa. My research was focused on the 576 pentads in the four one-degree grid cells (25S 27E, 25S 28E, 26S 27E and 26E 28E) centered on the Gauteng province, referred to as Greater Gauteng region. In addition to being very urbanized, Greater Gauteng is also the most populated area in the country, and is home to 30% of the country’s 51 million people. The region is the most atlased SABAP2 region in the country, with each pentad having a minimum of 11 full-protocol SABAP2 checklists. It thus provide opportunities for the development of tools to monitor the temporal dynamics of bird communities. The first chapter is the general introduction where I did an extensive literature review of the research subject and gave an overview of the data chapters that make up the thesis. In the second chapter, I examined spatial patterns of urbanization and avian biodiversity. I assess avian species composition in the urban and rural areas of Greater Gauteng. I categorized bird data from SABAP2 for Greater Gauteng Urban and Rural subgroups. The dataset for this chapter had 700 bird species. 644 showed no range preference for either urban or rural areas. Five species showed a preference for rural areas while 51 species showed a preference for urban areas. The higher species richness recorded in urban pentads highlights the often overlooked benefits of biodiversity conservation efforts in urban areas such as green spaces and parks, gardens and water bodies. This chapter highlights the need for conservation efforts to be targeted at birds and other biodiversity in urban spaces. It is also raises the need to further promote policies aimed at having conservation efforts incorporated into town planning. In the third and fourth chapters, I used data from SABAP2 to investigate how different protected areas such as Important Bird Areas (IBAs) are to their surrounding areas by demonstrating how different the Devon Grasslands (Chapter 3) and Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve (Chapter 4) IBAs are to their immediate surrounding areas in terms of avian species richness and assemblage. Atlas data from the pentads covering these two IBAs were compared with data from the surrounding pentads. Both IBAs stand out as having more bird species than their immediate surroundings. The simple yet effective method used in this chapters can be applied in identifying potential sites for biodiversity conservation. In the fifth chapter, using a variation of the Shannon-Weiner species diversity index which is known to reach an asymptote rapidly even while species richness keeps increasing, to investigate patterns of spatial distribution of species richness and proportional diversity in Greater Gauteng. The chapter provides insights into pentads with the richest bird communities and also provides a method which can be applied to citizen science data such as SABAP2 to discover areas where particular groups of species, such as waterbirds and threatened species, are concentrated in the region. The sixth chapter examines the relationship between reporting rates of birds and human population in Greater Gauteng. With Greater Gauteng being the most populated region in South Africa, it presented an ideal situation to investigate patterns of correlation between human population and the reporting rates of bird species in the region. Based on the results obtained, the species were grouped into 18 groups categorized by the relationship pattern revealed by species reporting rates and human population. The Seventh chapter follows a similar pattern with chapter six. However, chapter seven, examines patterns between a socio-economic index, mean income per person, and the reporting rates of birds in Greater Gauteng. The eighth chapter is the conclusion. It gives a synthesis of the thesis and presents the implications for conservation of avian biodiversity in Greater Gauteng. Overall, this thesis highlights the contribution of citizen science can make to research. It also makes for a strong case showing fundamental importance of large volumes of data such as SABAP2 data, and the useful information that can be harnessed from this data. The conservation-relevant studies in the chapters of this thesis are a result of the spatial distribution patterns of the avifauna revealed by SABAP2 data from Greater Gauteng. It showed how we can detect changes in species abundance, richness and composition in a pentad or in any area, a method we can extend further to detect when bird species are starting to decline or drop out of the species list for a pentad. The results reported in this thesis provides a rich field of study for future research, especially in the field of urban ecology