E-Health information seeking behavior of older Finnish adults from the value-based care point of view

Health information seeking behavior is a widely discussed topic in the field of information studies. However, the current study is about observing and evaluating the efficiency of health information seeking behavior through E-Health service and devices. The main reason that motivated the researcher to carry out the current research was high cost of healthcare services in Finland. It is expected that health information obtained through electronic or online sources would help people to improve their health conditions. Therefore, this thesis is an empirical study on observing E-Health information seeking behavior and evaluating the efficiency of E-Health service and devices. In order to estimate the efficiency of E-Health service and products, this study considered some criteria generated by previous studies. These criteria were employed in the current study as indicators of the health information seeking efficiency. The current study developed a customized model of health information seeking behavior based on the general model of information seeking behavior. The model contains some further criteria to measure the efficiency of the information seeking process. The primary tool to collect data were a multiple-choice questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed through two main methods, namely hard copy and online. The participants in this study were either Finnish older adults who were over 50 years old, or other persons who were responsible for providing health information for them. The results of this study show that using E-Health service and products has neither a positive effect on improving the health condition of patients, nor does it motivate people to a healthier lifestyle, or make them feel more satisfied. However, it is expected that the results provide a framework for further studies to develop more efficient E-Health-related tools and services

Intelligent intrusion detection in low power IoTs

Security and privacy of data are one of the prime concerns in today’s Internet of Things (IoT). Conventional security techniques like signature-based detection of malware and regular updates of a signature database are not feasible solutions as they cannot secure such systems effectively, having limited resources. Programming languages permitting immediate memory accesses through pointers often result in applications having memory-related errors, which may lead to unpredictable failures and security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, energy efficient IoT devices running on batteries cannot afford the implementation of cryptography algorithms as such techniques have significant impact on the system power consumption. Therefore, in order to operate IoT in a secure manner, the system must be able to detect and prevent any kind of intrusions before the network (i.e., sensor nodes and base station) is destabilised by the attackers. In this article, we have presented an intrusion detection and prevention mechanism by implementing an intelligent security architecture using random neural networks (RNNs). The application’s source code is also instrumented at compile time in order to detect out-of-bound memory accesses. It is based on creating tags, to be coupled with each memory allocation and then placing additional tag checking instructions for each access made to the memory. To validate the feasibility of the proposed security solution, it is implemented for an existing IoT system and its functionality is practically demonstrated by successfully detecting the presence of any suspicious sensor node within the system operating range and anomalous activity in the base station with an accuracy of 97.23%. Overall, the proposed security solution has presented a minimal performance overhead.</jats:p

A clinician\u27s guide to working with female veterans and their children

The influx of females into the military in recent years has drawn increasing attention to the impact of extended and often repeated deployments on parent-child attachment. The challenges associated with deployment may be particularly taxing on young children due to their emotional and cognitive immaturity, lack of coping skills and dependence on their caregivers for daily functioning. While children’s reaction to parental deployment varies by age, the longer and more frequently a parent is deployed, the greater the psychological, health and behavioral risk for the child. These adjustments can be complicated when mothers suffer psychological distress related to combat exposure, military sexual trauma, increasing their risk of suffering from symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and depression. These adjustment and mental health issues, in combination with prolonged separation, will all complicate the reestablishment of a secure attachment bond with their children. This manual seeks to provide clinicians with a comprehensive overview of the unique deployment-related stressors of female veterans, and their impact on mental health and reintegration. With a focus on the parent-child relationship, this manual will utilize attachment theory as the foundation to understand how the change, disruption, stress and loss experienced during deployment affects young children and their mothers. Moreover, this manual discusses mindfulness-based treatment interventions and practical tools to guide clinicians in aiding female veterans to prepare their children for deployment, cope with deployment, and reestablish the attachment bond upon returning home

A reconfigurable real-time morphological system for augmented vision

There is a significant number of visually impaired individuals who suffer sensitivity loss to high spatial frequencies, for whom current optical devices are limited in degree of visual aid and practical application. Digital image and video processing offers a variety of effective visual enhancement methods that can be utilised to obtain a practical augmented vision head-mounted display device. The high spatial frequencies of an image can be extracted by edge detection techniques and overlaid on top of the original image to improve visual perception among the visually impaired. Augmented visual aid devices require highly user-customisable algorithm designs for subjective configuration per task, where current digital image processing visual aids offer very little user-configurable options. This paper presents a highly user-reconfigurable morphological edge enhancement system on field-programmable gate array, where the morphological, internal and external edge gradients can be selected from the presented architecture with specified edge thickness and magnitude. In addition, the morphology architecture supports reconfigurable shape structuring elements and configurable morphological operations. The proposed morphology-based visual enhancement system introduces a high degree of user flexibility in addition to meeting real-time constraints capable of obtaining 93 fps for high-definition image resolution

E-health services and devices: Availability, merits, and barriers - with some examples from Finland

Empowering individuals through e-health can be considered as the current trend in developing healthcare services and devices. The aim of this article is to shed light on availability, benefits, and limitations of using these services and devices in people’s everyday life. This study is a descriptive review based on a non-exhaustive selection of previous studies that define information exchange, information formats, opportunities, and restrictions of e-health technologies. The main focus of this study is on presenting available e-health services and devices while describing their benefits and limitations. This approach has the potential to provide new insights into the future development and integration of e-health into the healthcare system of a country. The idea behind this review is to provide a better understanding of e-health services for authorities, healthcare professionals, individuals, and related beneficiaries.Empowering individuals through e-health can be considered as the current trend in developing healthcare services and devices. The aim of this article is to shed light on availability, benefits, and limitations of using these services and devices in people’s everyday life. This study is a descriptive review based on a non-exhaustive selection of previous studies that define information exchange, information formats, opportunities, and restrictions of e-health technologies. The main focus of this study is on presenting available e-health services and devices while describing their benefits and limitations. This approach has the potential to provide new insights into the future development and integration of e-health into the healthcare system of a country. The idea behind this review is to provide a better understanding of e-health services for authorities, healthcare professionals, individuals, and related beneficiaries