A Systematic Design Approach in Building Digitalization Services Supporting Infrastructure

The creation of an efficient digital infrastructure is a prerequisite for the successful operation of any digital service with a high degree of complexity. In the best case, the organization of information processes should be based on the best practices in the construction of digital infrastructure, which allows the future development. With increasing the level of integration of digitalization with daily company activities, it is necessary to pay more attention to the problems of ensuring the continuity of digitalization processes. There are a lot of methods that have been developed to select the best of multiple options, each of which evaluated on the base of multiple criteria. In this research the usage of one of them is proposed as most suitable for taking decisions on building digital infrastructure for digitalization services. © 2020, Pavel Petrov et al. All rights reserved.This research was partially supported by NPI-45/2020 from the University of Economics - Varna Science Fund

Design of a decision support system for improving air quality assessment

Establishing a system that allows the transition from environmental and traffic monitoring to environmental management at the personal level has become a necessity. Such a system will improve the life quality, reduce health costs and increase the support of vulnerable groups (i.e., the elderly, children). ESTABLISH project aims to advance an innovative platform which allows converting environmental (sensor) data into actionable information for users to provide a healthier and safer environment thereby improving the quality of life. Smart adaptive services providing real-time feedback tailored to specific user and application needs will be developed by combining networked sensors and other data sources with adaptive models. This paper will present the on-going research within the ESTABLISH project related to the development of a decision support component which assesses the air quality. Based on real-time monitoring and quantification methods, and certain types of notifications for risk groups and general populations, the proposed system links pollutant concentrations to individual health risks. The proposed decision support for air quality assessment is structured on two components. The first component is represented by the comparison with the limit values provided by the legislation, and the second is the forecast of near-real-time air pollution episodes (based on trigger values). Thus, for each pollutant considered (PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3, and CO) the frequency of pollutants concentrations measurement, the averaging periods according to the legislation, the averaging period and the limit values used for the notification component were established

The Italian registry of pulmonary non-tuberculous mycobacteria - IRENE:The study protocol

Background: A substantial increase in pulmonary and extra-pulmonary diseases due to non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) has been documented worldwide, especially among subjects suffering from chronic respiratory diseases and immunocompromised patients. Many questions remain regarding the epidemiology of pulmonary disease due to NTM (NTM-PD) mainly because reporting of NTM-PD to health authorities is not mandated in several countries, including Italy. This manuscript describes the protocol of the first Italian registry of adult patients with respiratory infections caused by NTM (IRENE). Methods: IRENE is an observational, multicenter, prospective, cohort study enrolling consecutive adult patients with either a NTM respiratory isolate or those with NTM-PD. A total of 41 centers, including mainly pulmonary and infectious disease departments, joined the registry so far. Adult patients with all of the following are included in the registry: 1) at least one positive culture for any NTM species from any respiratory sample; 2) at least one positive culture for NTM isolated in the year prior the enrolment and/or prescribed NTM treatment in the year prior the enrolment; 3) given consent to inclusion in the study. No exclusion criteria are applied to the study. Patients are managed according to standard operating procedures implemented in each IRENE clinical center. An online case report form has been developed to collect patients' demographics, comorbidities, microbiological, laboratory, functional, radiological, clinical, treatment and outcome data at baseline and on an annual basis. An IRENE biobank has also been developed within the network and linked to the clinical data of the registry. Conclusions: IRENE has been developed to inform the clinical and scientific community on the current management of adult patients with NTM respiratory infections in Italy and acts as a national network to increase the disease's awareness

Real-life evaluation of clinical outcomes in patients undergoing treatment for non-tuberculous mycobacteria lung disease: A ten-year cohort study

Outcome recognition is a crucial step in the management of non-tuberculous mycobacteria lung disease (NTM-LD). In order to explore NTM-LD outcomes in a real-life setting, an observational, retrospective study enrolling consecutive adults who received treatment for NTM-LD in Milan, Italy, from 2007 to 2017 was conducted. Among 170 patients (68.2% females; median age: 68 years), NTM-LD was mainly due to M. avium complex (MAC) (71.2%), M. kansasii (9.4%) and M. xenopi (7.1%). Along a median follow-up of 31 months, adverse events occurred in 37.6% of the patients. Treatment outcomes of the entire study population included an unsuccessful outcome in 35.3% of the patients, including treatment halted in 13.5%, recurrence in 11.2%, re-infection in 5.3%, treatment failure in 4.1% and relapse in 1.2%. The main reason for treatment halted was drug intolerance. No differences were detected between patients with MAC-LD vs. those with other NTM-LD in terms of unsuccessful outcome in general (35.5% vs. 34.7%). A significantly higher prevalence of patients who underwent treatment halted was found in patients with NTM-LD other than MAC in comparison to patients with MAC-LD (22.4% vs. 9.9%, p = 0.030). One third of adults undergoing treatment for a NTM-LD experiences an unsuccessful outcome with adverse events and treatment discontinuation being major challenges in patients' management