Fatal pediatric lead poisoning New Hampshire, 2000.

Fatal pediatric lead poisoning is rare in the United States because of multiple public health measures that have reduced blood lead levels (BLLs) in the population. However, the risk for elevated BLLs among children remains high in some neighborhoods and populations, including children living in older housing with deteriorated leaded paint. This report describes the investigation of the first reported death of a child from lead poisoning since 1990 (1). The investigation implicated leaded paint and dust in a home environment as the most likely source of the poisoning. Lead poisoning can be prevented by correcting lead hazards, especially in older housing, and by screening children at risk according to established guidelines (2)

Ontology-Based Flexible Multi Agent Systems Design and Deployment for Vertical Enterprise Integration

Part IV: ICT and Emerging Technologies in Production ManagementInternational audienceEmpowering autonomic control in the enterprise environment highly contributes in the quest for a higher level of flexibility. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) may be utilized to this end along with the enterprise environment model leading to a decentralization of the manufacturing production processes. The current work proposes a framework along with the necessary software tools for the modeling of MAS through ontologies, its design and deployment in the enterprise / manufacturing environment

Dynamic Cloud Resources Allocation on Multidomain/Multiphysics Problems

The solution of multidomain/multiphysics problems is a computationally and memory demanding process, especially for large-scale differential equations. In this paper, we propose a cloud application that provides users a solution environment for multiphysics/multidomain problems utilizing cloud technologies that manage pre-existing hardware, network, operating system and applications. Particularly, according to the problem and its computational demands, the user can have the results from any place and any device without any other concern. The user sets the problem's parameters, chooses the solution method that fits better to the specific problem and finally gets the problem solution. The application dynamically allocates the minimum possible resources automatically in the background without the user's interference. © 2015 IEEE

Unattended surveillance network for after-disaster support in public transportations sector

Unattended surveillance of public transportation infrastructures that may generate alarms in the case of a destructive event, and provide information on the current status of the infrastructure as well as on the short interval before the event, can empower the Search and Rescue teams with useful information that may save lives increasing their overall effectiveness. This paper presents a novel system that aims at providing a scalable, unattended surveillance system with networked embedded systems, cameras and sensors for public transportations sector. © 2011 IEEE

IRaaS: A cloud implementation of an interface relaxation method for the solution of PDEs

The solution of composite Partial Differential Equations is an indispensable step in numerous scientific applications. However, this is a computationally and memory demanding process for large-scale differential equations. This is especially true for multidomain/multiphysics problems, which require application of an interface relaxation (IR) methodology on the common boundaries between domains. In this paper, we present IRaaS, a cloud-based environment for the solution of multidomain/multiphysics problems. IRaaS efficiently exploits the inherent parallelism found in the solution step for the individual subdomains, thus significantly reducing computational and memory requirements. At the same time, its efficient allocation and management mechanism allocates the optimal number of resources (virtual machines), based on the total number of resources available, as well as the size of the problems for solution

Patriot: Delivering instant heart observation with a miniature wearable ECG and Cloud platform

Healthcare is expected to undergo a transformation in the near future thanks to wearable health monitoring that makes it possible to offer such services as ubiquitous monitoring of patients' physiological parameters and health condition. The continuous monitoring of vital patient signals has been primarily motivated by the need to put a barrier in ever increasing healthcare costs. Recent technological advances in miniaturized healthcare sensing devices, wireless communications, microelectronics and embedded systems have contributed towards this end. The PATRIOT system comprises a miniature, wearable, non-invasive, real time electrocardiography system alongside a relevant Cloud platform for the support of proactive personal health management of cardiology patients

No association of psoriasis with autoimmune thyroiditis

Background Common autoimmune diseases tend to coexist in the same patients. Few studies have examined the possible association between autoimmune thyroiditis and psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis (PsA), with inconsistent results. Objective To investigate the prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis in psoriatic patients with or without PsA, living in an iodine-sufficient area. Methods We studied prospectively, 114 psoriatic patients with disease duration of 5-38 years, 30 of them with PsA, and 286 age-and body mass index (BMI)-matched subjects without psoriasis or known thyroid disease or autoimmune disease. A detailed medical history was obtained from all participants and clinical examination and laboratory evaluation was performed. Psoriasis severity was assessed with Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI). Autoimmune thyroiditis was defined by the presence of positive autoantibodies to thyroid peroxidase and/or thyroglobulin. Results There was no difference in the prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis between psoriatic patients and controls (20.2% vs. 19.6%). The prevalence of autoimmune thyroiditis in male and female psoriatic patients was similar (9.6% and 10.5% respectively), in contrast to the increased, as expected, prevalence in female vs. male controls (14.7% vs. 4.9%, P < 0.01). Detected cases with hypothyroidism due to autoimmune thyroiditis were similar in psoriatic patients and controls (7.9% and 7.0% respectively). Autoimmune thyroiditis in psoriatic patients was not related with age of psoriasis onset, psoriasis duration, PASI score, PsA and obesity. Conclusion These data support that psoriatic patients with or without PsA do not have an increased risk for autoimmune thyroiditis

The challenge of real-Time multi-Agent systems for enabling IoT and CPS

Techniques originating from the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber- Physical Systems (CPS) areas have extensively been applied to develop intelligent and pervasive systems such as assistive monitoring, feedback in telerehabilitation, energy management, and negotiation. Those application domains particularly include three major characteristics: intelligence, autonomy and real-Time behavior. Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) are one of the major technological paradigms that are used to implement such systems. However, they mainly address the first two characteristics, but miss to comply with strict timing constraints. The timing compliance is crucial for safety-critical applications operating in domains such as healthcare and automotive. The main reasons for this lack of real-Time satisfiability in MAS originate from current theories, standards, and technological implementations. In particular, internal agent schedulers, communication middlewares, and negotiation protocols have been identified as co-factors inhibiting the real-Time compliance. This paper provides an analysis of such MAS components and pave the road for achieving the MAS compliance with strict timing constraints, thus fostering reliability and predictability