Smart vest for respiratory rate monitoring of COPD patients based on non-contact capacitive sensing

In this paper, a first approach to the design of a portable device for non-contact monitoring of respiratory rate by capacitive sensing is presented. The sensing system is integrated into a smart vest for an untethered, low-cost and comfortable breathing monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients during the rest period between respiratory rehabilitation exercises at home. To provide an extensible solution to the remote monitoring using this sensor and other devices, the design and preliminary development of an e-Health platform based on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) paradigm is also presented. In order to validate the proposed solution, two quasi-experimental studies have been developed, comparing the estimations with respect to the golden standard. In a first study with healthy subjects, the mean value of the respiratory rate error, the standard deviation of the error and the correlation coefficient were 0.01 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.97 bpm and 0.995 (p < 0.00001), respectively. In a second study with COPD patients, the values were -0.14 bpm, 0.28 bpm and 0.9988 (p < 0.0000001), respectively. The results for the rest period show the technical and functional feasibility of the prototype and serve as a preliminary validation of the device for respiratory rate monitoring of patients with COPD.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PI15/00306Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación DTS15/00195Junta de Andalucía PI-0010-2013Junta de Andalucía PI-0041-2014Junta de Andalucía PIN-0394-201

A Methodology for Engineering Collaborative and ad-hoc Mobile Applications using SyD Middleware

Today’s web applications are more collaborative and utilize standard and ubiquitous Internet protocols. We have earlier developed System on Mobile Devices (SyD) middleware to rapidly develop and deploy collaborative applications over heterogeneous and possibly mobile devices hosting web objects. In this paper, we present the software engineering methodology for developing SyD-enabled web applications and illustrate it through a case study on two representative applications: (i) a calendar of meeting application, which is a collaborative application and (ii) a travel application which is an ad-hoc collaborative application. SyD-enabled web objects allow us to create a collaborative application rapidly with limited coding effort. In this case study, the modular software architecture allowed us to hide the inherent heterogeneity among devices, data stores, and networks by presenting a uniform and persistent object view of mobile objects interacting through XML/SOAP requests and responses. The performance results we obtained show that the application scales well as we increase the group size and adapts well within the constraints of mobile devices

PACS de patologia: uma plataforma centralizada para a gestão de imagem médica de patologia

The clinical area of digital Pathology is still giving its first steps in the development of interoperable solutions that enable the distributed acquisition, storage, and visualization of medical images, including diagnostic support tools. Nowadays, digital management solutions use proprietary image formats and communication protocols that are not compatible with the DICOM standard. Moreover, the available technologies are not mature enough to support the practice of medicine in an area where scanned images can reach several gigapixels, requiring new engineering approaches to support huge volumes of data, in the order of gigabytes per study, that need to be consumed in real time. This dissertation aims to research and develop new technologies and associated information systems, capable of supporting the digital acquisition of pathology images, their centralized archive, sharing, and collaborative review with decision support tools. The result is an innovative web solution, focused on increasing productivity, with safe diagnostics and based on normalized protocols. A common web browser was transformed into a professional workstation that is able to access the image repository at any place and time, regardless of the operating system and without any prior installation.A área de Patologia clínica digital ainda se encontra a dar os primeiros passos no desenvolvimento de soluções interoperáveis que permitam a aquisição, arquivo e visualização distribuída da imagem, incluindo ferramentas de suporte ao diagnóstico. Os atuais cenários de revisão à distância usam aplicações proprietárias que não são interoperáveis com a norma DICOM. Isto deve-se ao facto de a tecnologia não estar suficientemente madura para apoiar a prática clínica numa área em que uma imagem digitalizada pode atingir vários giga-pixels, requerendo novas soluções de engenharia para suportar grandes volumes de dados, da ordem de gigabyte por estudo, que necessitam de ser consumidos remotamente em tempo real. Esta dissertação teve como objetivo estudar e desenvolver tecnologias e sistemas de informação que permitam a aquisição digital da imagem de patologia, o seu arquivo centralizado, a partilha e revisão colaborativa com ferramentas de suporte à decisão. O resultado é uma solução Web inovadora, de elevada produtividade, diagnóstico seguro e baseada em processos e protocolos normalizados. Um Web-browser comum foi transformado numa estação de trabalho capaz de aceder ao arquivo em qualquer altura e qualquer lugar, independentemente do sistema operativo, computador ou dispositivo móvel.Mestrado em Engenharia Informátic

A novel monitoring system for fall detection in older people

Indexación: Scopus.This work was supported in part by CORFO - CENS 16CTTS-66390 through the National Center on Health Information Systems, in part by the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT) through the Program STIC-AMSUD 17STIC-03: ‘‘MONITORing for ehealth," FONDEF ID16I10449 ‘‘Sistema inteligente para la gestión y análisis de la dotación de camas en la red asistencial del sector público’’, and in part by MEC80170097 ‘‘Red de colaboración científica entre universidades nacionales e internacionales para la estructuración del doctorado y magister en informática médica en la Universidad de Valparaíso’’. The work of V. H. C. De Albuquerque was supported by the Brazilian National Council for Research and Development (CNPq), under Grant 304315/2017-6.Each year, more than 30% of people over 65 years-old suffer some fall. Unfortunately, this can generate physical and psychological damage, especially if they live alone and they are unable to get help. In this field, several studies have been performed aiming to alert potential falls of the older people by using different types of sensors and algorithms. In this paper, we present a novel non-invasive monitoring system for fall detection in older people who live alone. Our proposal is using very-low-resolution thermal sensors for classifying a fall and then alerting to the care staff. Also, we analyze the performance of three recurrent neural networks for fall detections: Long short-term memory (LSTM), gated recurrent unit, and Bi-LSTM. As many learning algorithms, we have performed a training phase using different test subjects. After several tests, we can observe that the Bi-LSTM approach overcome the others techniques reaching a 93% of accuracy in fall detection. We believe that the bidirectional way of the Bi-LSTM algorithm gives excellent results because the use of their data is influenced by prior and new information, which compares to LSTM and GRU. Information obtained using this system did not compromise the user's privacy, which constitutes an additional advantage of this alternative. © 2013 IEEE.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=842305

A framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry

This paper presents a framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry. The aim of this approach is to strengthen the modularity and reuse of engineering design ontologies to support knowledge management initiatives within the aerospace industry. Successful development and effective utilisation of engineering ontologies strongly depends on the method/framework used to develop them. Ensuring modularity in ontology design is essential for engineering design activities due to the complexity of knowledge that is required to be brought together to support the product design decision-making process. The proposed approach adopts best practices from previous ontology development methods, but focuses on encouraging modular architectural ontology design. The framework is comprised of three phases namely: (1) Ontology design and development; (2) Ontology validation and (3) Implementation of ontology structure. A qualitative research methodology is employed which is composed of four phases. The first phase defines the capture of knowledge required for the framework development, followed by the ontology framework development, iterative refinement of engineering ontologies and ontology validation through case studies and experts’ opinion. The ontology-based framework is applied in the combustor and casing aerospace engineering domain. The modular ontologies developed as a result of applying the framework and are used in a case study to restructure and improve the accessibility of information on a product design information-sharing platform. Additionally, domain experts within the aerospace industry validated the strengths, benefits and limitations of the framework. Due to the modular nature of the developed ontologies, they were also employed to support other project initiatives within the case study company such as role-based computing (RBC), IT modernisation activity and knowledge management implementation across the sponsoring organisation. The major benefit of this approach is in the reduction of man-hours required for maintaining engineering design ontologies. Furthermore, this approach strengthens reuse of ontology knowledge and encourages modularity in the design and development of engineering ontologies

iCloudECG: A Mobile Cardiac Telemedicine System

With rising healthcare costs and a substantially growing number of patients 65 or over, the benefits of telemedicine and patient self-monitoring systems are becoming increasingly evident. Patients, physicians, hospitals, and even insurance providers benefit from vigilant, cost-effective patient monitoring systems. This thesis describes the development of a portable, smart-phone connected system for continuous cardiac monitoring. The system is capable of continuously monitoring the conditions of the heart, automated detection of cardiac arrhythmias, and real-time notifying patients and physicians of the detected abnormalities. The system consists of four main subsystems: 1) a Bluetooth capable chest-strap ECG, 2) an Android-enabled mobile device, 3) a cloud-based analysis, storage, and notification system, and 4) a web-application portal. Data is collected by the single-lead ECG device, and transmitted to the mobile device via Bluetooth. An application allows the patient to view their ECG output in real-time, view the last 24 hours of recordings, and receive notifications and details regarding any detected abnormalities. The mobile device transmits the ECG data to a remote server for pre-processing and analysis, and then stores the data in a database which the patient or physician can access via a web-interface. The developed system can be used as a telemedicine system for management of cardiovascular diseases

Conceptual Framework and Methodology for Analysing Previous Molecular Docking Results

Modern drug discovery relies on in-silico computational simulations such as molecular docking. Molecular docking models biochemical interactions to predict where and how two molecules would bind. The results of large-scale molecular docking simulations can provide valuable insight into the relationship between two molecules. This is useful to a biomedical scientist before conducting in-vitro or in-vivo wet-lab experiments. Although this ˝eld has seen great advancements, feedback from biomedical scientists shows that there is a need for storage and further analysis of molecular docking results. To meet this need, biomedical scientists need to have access to computing, data, and network resources, and require speci˝c knowledge or skills they might lack. Therefore, a conceptual framework speci˝cally tailored to enable biomedical scientists to reuse molecular docking results, and a methodology which uses regular input from scientists, has been proposed. The framework is composed of 5 types of elements and 13 interfaces. The methodology is light and relies on frequent communication between biomedical sciences and computer science experts, speci˝ed by particular roles. It shows how developers can bene˝t from using the framework which allows them to determine whether a scenario ˝ts the framework, whether an already implemented element can be reused, or whether a newly proposed tool can be used as an element. Three scenarios that show the versatility of this new framework and the methodology based on it, have been identi˝ed and implemented. A methodical planning and design approach was used and it was shown that the implementations are at least as usable as existing solutions. To eliminate the need for access to expensive computing infrastructure, state-of-the-art cloud computing techniques are used. The implementations enable faster identi˝cation of new molecules for use in docking, direct querying of existing databases, and simpler learning of good molecular docking practice without the need to manually run multiple tools. Thus, the framework and methodol-ogy enable more user-friendly implementations, and less error-prone use of computational methods in drug discovery. Their use could lead to more e˙ective discovery of new drugs