Radar and RGB-depth sensors for fall detection: a review

This paper reviews recent works in the literature on the use of systems based on radar and RGB-Depth (RGB-D) sensors for fall detection, and discusses outstanding research challenges and trends related to this research field. Systems to detect reliably fall events and promptly alert carers and first responders have gained significant interest in the past few years in order to address the societal issue of an increasing number of elderly people living alone, with the associated risk of them falling and the consequences in terms of health treatments, reduced well-being, and costs. The interest in radar and RGB-D sensors is related to their capability to enable contactless and non-intrusive monitoring, which is an advantage for practical deployment and users’ acceptance and compliance, compared with other sensor technologies, such as video-cameras, or wearables. Furthermore, the possibility of combining and fusing information from The heterogeneous types of sensors is expected to improve the overall performance of practical fall detection systems. Researchers from different fields can benefit from multidisciplinary knowledge and awareness of the latest developments in radar and RGB-D sensors that this paper is discussing

Human action recognition and mobility assessment in smart environments with RGB-D sensors

Questa attività di ricerca è focalizzata sullo sviluppo di algoritmi e soluzioni per ambienti intelligenti sfruttando sensori RGB e di profondità. In particolare, gli argomenti affrontati fanno riferimento alla valutazione della mobilità di un soggetto e al riconoscimento di azioni umane. Riguardo il primo tema, l'obiettivo è quello di implementare algoritmi per l'estrazione di parametri oggettivi che possano supportare la valutazione di test di mobilità svolta da personale sanitario. Il primo algoritmo proposto riguarda l'estrazione di sei joints sul piano sagittale utilizzando i dati di profondità forniti dal sensore Kinect. La precisione in termini di stima degli angoli di busto e ginocchio nella fase di sit-to-stand viene valutata considerando come riferimento un sistema stereofotogrammetrico basato su marker. Un secondo algoritmo viene proposto per facilitare la realizzazione del test in ambiente domestico e per consentire l'estrazione di un maggior numero di parametri dall'esecuzione del test Timed Up and Go. I dati di Kinect vengono combinati con quelli di un accelerometro attraverso un algoritmo di sincronizzazione, costituendo un setup che può essere utilizzato anche per altre applicazioni che possono beneficiare dell'utilizzo congiunto di dati RGB, profondità ed inerziali. Vengono quindi proposti algoritmi di rilevazione della caduta che sfruttano la stessa configurazione del Timed Up and Go test. Per quanto riguarda il secondo argomento affrontato, l'obiettivo è quello di effettuare la classificazione di azioni che possono essere compiute dalla persona all'interno di un ambiente domestico. Vengono quindi proposti due algoritmi di riconoscimento attività i quali utilizzano i joints dello scheletro di Kinect e sfruttano un SVM multiclasse per il riconoscimento di azioni appartenenti a dataset pubblicamente disponibili, raggiungendo risultati confrontabili con lo stato dell'arte rispetto ai dataset CAD-60, KARD, MSR Action3D.This research activity is focused on the development of algorithms and solutions for smart environments exploiting RGB and depth sensors. In particular, the addressed topics refer to mobility assessment of a subject and to human action recognition. Regarding the first topic, the goal is to implement algorithms for the extraction of objective parameters that can support the assessment of mobility tests performed by healthcare staff. The first proposed algorithm regards the extraction of six joints on the sagittal plane using depth data provided by Kinect sensor. The accuracy in terms of estimation of torso and knee angles in the sit-to-stand phase is evaluated considering a marker-based stereometric system as a reference. A second algorithm is proposed to simplify the test implementation in home environment and to allow the extraction of a greater number of parameters from the execution of the Timed Up and Go test. Kinect data are combined with those of an accelerometer through a synchronization algorithm constituting a setup that can be used also for other applications that benefit from the joint usage of RGB, depth and inertial data. Fall detection algorithms exploiting the same configuration of the Timed Up and Go test are therefore proposed. Regarding the second topic addressed, the goal is to perform the classification of human actions that can be carried out in home environment. Two algorithms for human action recognition are therefore proposed, which exploit skeleton joints of Kinect and a multi-class SVM for the recognition of actions belonging to publicly available datasets, achieving results comparable with the state of the art in the datasets CAD-60, KARD, MSR Action3D

Natural killer cell response to chemotherapy-stressed cancer cells: Role in tumor immunosurveillance.

Natural killer (NK) cells are innate cytotoxic lymphoid cells that actively prevent neoplastic development, growth, and metastatic dissemination in a process called cancer immunosurveillance. An equilibrium between immune control and tumor growth is maintained as long as cancer cells evade immunosurveillance. Therapies designed to kill cancer cells and to simultaneously sustain host antitumor immunity are an appealing strategy to control tumor growth. Several chemotherapeutic agents, depending on which drugs and doses are used, give rise to DNA damage and cancer cell death by means of apoptosis, immunogenic cell death, or other forms of non-apoptotic death (i.e., mitotic catastrophe, senescence, and autophagy). However, it is becoming increasingly clear that they can trigger additional stress responses. Indeed, relevant immunostimulating effects of different therapeutic programs include also the activation of pathways able to promote their recognition by immune effector cells. Among stress-inducible immunostimulating proteins, changes in the expression levels of NK cell-activating and inhibitory ligands, as well as of death receptors on tumor cells, play a critical role in their detection and elimination by innate immune effectors, including NK cells. Here, we will review recent advances in chemotherapy-mediated cellular stress pathways able to stimulate NK cell effector functions. In particular, we will address how these cytotoxic lymphocytes sense and respond to different types of drug-induced stresses contributing to anticancer activity

Unexpected Variation of the Codeine/Morphine Ratio Following Fatal Heroin Overdose

Postmortem samples from 14 cases of suspected heroin overdose were subjected to a preliminary systematic toxicological analysis in order to highlight the presence of unknown exogenous compounds (e.g., drugs of abuse, alcohol) that may have played a role in the mechanism of death. This analysis unveiled histories of poly-drug use in seven of the cases under investigation. Moreover, the concentrations of morphine and codeine in the brain were also investigated, and the results were compared with the data obtained from the blood specimens. The concentration of morphine in blood ranged from 33 to 688 ng/mL, while the concentration of codeine ranged from 0 to 193 ng/mL. However, in the brain, the concentration of morphine was found to be between 85 and 396 ng/g, while the levels of codeine ranged from 11 to 160 ng/g. The codeine/morphine ratio in the blood ranged from 0.043 to 0.619; however, in the brain, the same ratio was found to be between 0.129 and 0.552. In most cases, a significantly higher codeine/morphine ratio was found in the brain, suggesting the accumulation of codeine in brain tissue due its high lipophilicity as compared with morphine

Extensión universitaria y formación docente : La alfabetización como práctica social y escolar

En el año 2012 el Consejo Federal de Educación (CFE) comunicó, a través de la Resolución 174/12, las “Pautas federales para el mejoramiento de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje y las trayectorias escolares en el nivel inicial, primario y modalidades, y su regulación”. En ellas se expresa la necesidad de diseñar diversas formas de escolarización, que permitan que todos aquellos que se inscriben en el nivel puedan concluirlo en las mejores condiciones posibles: disminuyendo la permanencia, aumentando los indicadores de calidad en el aprendizaje, tendiendo a la eliminación de la repitencia en el primer ciclo y logrando la alfabetización en el segundo grado. Al mismo tiempo, en diversas ocasiones las autoridades educativas de diversos distritos de la provincia de Buenos Aires han planteado como demanda a la Universidad Pedagógica (UNIPE) instancias de formación y reflexión para directores de escuelas e inspectores.Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educació

Tratamiento de úlceras venosas de piernas : revisión bibliográfica

Fil: Vidal, Jorgelina Natalí. Hospital Luis Lagomaggiore (Mendoza, Argentina). Servicio de DermatologíaFil: Cippitelli, María José. Hospital Luis Lagomaggiore (Mendoza, Argentina). Servicio de Dermatologí

NKG2D and its ligands: one for all, all for one

The activating receptor NKG2D is peculiar in its capability to bind to numerous and highly diversified MHC class I-like self-molecules. These ligands are poorly expressed on normal cells but can be induced on damaged, transformed or infected cells, with the final NKG2D ligand expression resulting from multiple levels of regulation. Although redundant molecular mechanisms can converge in the regulation of all NKG2D ligands, different stimuli can induce specific cellular responses, leading to the expression of one or few ligands. A large body of evidence demonstrates that NK cell activation can be triggered by different NKG2D ligands, often expressed on the same cell, suggesting a functional redundancy of these molecules. However, since a number of evasion mechanisms can reduce membrane expression of these molecules both on virus-infected and tumor cells, the co-expression of different ligands and/or the presence of allelic forms of the same ligand guarantee NKG2D activation in various stressful conditions and cell contexts. Noteworthy, NKG2D ligands can differ in their ability to down-modulate NKG2D membrane expression in human NK cells supporting the idea that NKG2D transduces different signals upon binding various ligands. Moreover, whether proteolytically shed and exosome-associated soluble NKG2D ligands share with their membrane-bound counterparts the same ability to induce NKG2D-mediated signaling is still a matter of debate. Here, we will review recent studies on the NKG2D/NKG2D ligand biology to summarize and discuss the redundancy and/or diversity in ligand expression, regulation, and receptor specificity

Human Action Recognition with RGB-D Sensors

Human action recognition, also known as HAR, is at the foundation of many different applications related to behavioral analysis, surveillance, and safety, thus it has been a very active research area in the last years. The release of inexpensive RGB-D sensors fostered researchers working in this field because depth data simplify the processing of visual data that could be otherwise difficult using classic RGB devices. Furthermore, the availability of depth data allows to implement solutions that are unobtrusive and privacy preserving with respect to classic video-based analysis. In this scenario, the aim of this chapter is to review the most salient techniques for HAR based on depth signal processing, providing some details on a specific method based on temporal pyramid of key poses, evaluated on the well-known MSR Action3D dataset

Multisensor Data Fusion for Human Activities Classification and Fall Detection

Significant research exists on the use of wearable sensors in the context of assisted living for activities recognition and fall detection, whereas radar sensors have been studied only recently in this domain. This paper approaches the performance limitation of using individual sensors, especially for classification of similar activities, by implementing information fusion of features extracted from experimental data collected by different sensors, namely a tri-axial accelerometer, a micro-Doppler radar, and a depth camera. Preliminary results confirm that combining information from heterogeneous sensors improves the overall performance of the system. The classification accuracy attained by means of this fusion approach improves by 11.2% compared to radar-only use, and by 16.9% compared to the accelerometer. Furthermore, adding features extracted from a RGB-D Kinect sensor, the overall classification accuracy increases up to 91.3%

Ubiquitin-dependent endocytosis of NKG2D-DAP10 receptor complexes activates signaling and functions in human NK cells

Cytotoxic lymphocytes share the presence of the activating receptor NK receptor group 2, member D (NKG2D) and the signaling-competent adaptor DNAX-activating protein 10 (DAP10), which together play an important role in antitumor immune surveillance. Ligand stimulation induces the internalization of NKG2D-DAP10 complexes and their delivery to lysosomes for degradation. In experiments with human NK cells and cell lines, we found that the ligand-induced endocytosis of NKG2D-DAP10 depended on the ubiquitylation of DAP10, which was also required for degradation of the internalized complexes. Moreover, through combined biochemical and microscopic analyses, we showed that ubiquitin-dependent receptor endocytosis was required for the activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and NK cell functions, such as the secretion of cytotoxic granules and the inflammatory cytokine interferon-γ. These results suggest that NKG2D-DAP10 endocytosis represents a means to decrease cell surface receptor abundance, as well as to control signaling outcome in cytotoxic lymphocytes