Feasibility trial of a novel mobile cardiac rehabilitation application

A trial with a cardiac rehabilitation centre is in progress where we test a novel cardiac rehab application using a standard mobile phone and wireless sensors. The goal is to obtain insight how remote monitoring compares to conventional rehabilitation methods in terms of adherence to cardiac rehabilitation programmes. In this trial we seek feedback from patients and health professionals regarding usability and practicability of the software and hardware used and we investigate whether the use of the novel mobile rehabilitation application provides clinically meaningful reassurance to patients during their cardiac rehabilitation. The trial also investigates whether physical and psychological measures improve using the system. This paper describes the mobile cardiac rehabilitation application as well as the setup of the trial. © 2010 IEEE

A Mobile rehabilitation application for the remote monitoring of cardiac patients after a heart attack or a coronary bypass surgery

This paper describes a personalised rehabilitation application using a smart phone (PDA) and wireless (bio) sensors. It instructs and motivates patients to follow their exercise programme and keeps track of their progress. It also monitors the relevant biosignals and provides immediate feedback to the patient. Sensors transmit data to the mobile phone where it is analysed locally and the data can also be instantaneously transmitted to a healthcare centre for remote monitoring by a health professional. The rehabilitation application is personalised for each cardiac patient and provides tailored advice (e.g. exercise more, slow down). A trial with a rehabilitation centre is in progress in which we investigate whether the personalised rehabilitation application improves the success of the rehabilitation programme in terms of patient compliance with recommended life style changes (such as increase physical activity or lose weight) and whether use of the system brings peace of mind to cardiac patients. Copyright 2009 ACM

Boradiazaindacene (Bodipy)-based building blocks for the construction of energy transfer cassettes

Cataloged from PDF version of article.Energy transfer cassettes composed entirely of boradiazaindacene (Bodipy) units were designed and synthesized to capture photonic energy and convert it to longer wavelength fluorescence emission. The new energy transfer systems obtained by simple condensation reactions are capable of elaborating efficient energy transfer from donor Bodipy units to the distyryl-Bodipy acceptor. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Understanding risk factors in cardiac rehabilitation patients with random forests and decision trees

Cardiac rehabilitation is a well-recognised non-pharmacological intervention recommended for the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Numerous studies have produced large amounts of data to examine the above aspects in patient groups. In this paper, datasets collected for over a 10 year period by one Australian hospital are analysed using decision trees to derive prediction rules for the outcome of phase II cardiac rehabilitation. Analysis includes prediction of the outcome of the cardiac rehabilitation program in terms of three groups of cardiovascular risk factors: physiological, psychosocial and performance risk factors. Random forests are used for feature selection to make the models compact and interpretable. Balanced sampling is used to deal with heavily imbalanced class distribution. Experimental results show that the outcome of phase II cardiac rehabilitation in terms of physiological, psychosocial and performance risk factor can be predicted based on initial readings of cholesterol level and hypertension, level achieved in six minute walk test, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Score (HADS) anxiety score and HADS depression score respectively. This will allow for identifying high risk patient groups and developing personalised cardiac rehabilitation programs for those patients to increase their chances of success and minimize their risk of failure. © 2011, Australian Computer Society, Inc

Structural Properties and Relative Stability of (Meta)Stable Ordered, Partially-ordered and Disordered Al-Li Alloy Phases

We resolve issues that have plagued reliable prediction of relative phase stability for solid-solutions and compounds. Due to its commercially important phase diagram, we showcase Al-Li system because historically density-functional theory (DFT) results show large scatter and limited success in predicting the structural properties and stability of solid-solutions relative to ordered compounds. Using recent advances in an optimal basis-set representation of the topology of electronic charge density (and, hence, atomic size), we present DFT results that agree reasonably well with all known experimental data for the structural properties and formation energies of ordered, off-stoichiometric partially-ordered and disordered alloys, opening the way for reliable study in complex alloys.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 2 Table

Extracts of tamarillo, horned melon, and raspberries, but not extract of pear, inhibit human blood platelet aggregation: Investigating the underlying factors for their differential mechanisms

Fruit extracts may be cardioprotective via favorable modulation of platelet-blood vessel interaction. We here show that sugar-free extracts of tamarillo, horned melon (kiwano), and raspberry in a dose-dependent manner inhibited ADP-induced platelet aggregation in platelet-rich plasma. In contrast, pear extract had no such effect. Furthermore, analysisof untargeted metabolites revealed the presence of platelet inhibitory components such as benzoic acid, caffeic acid, and gallic acid in the sugar-free extracts of tamarillo, raspberry, and kiwano, but not in pear extract. All these three fruit extracts inhibited the platelet production of TxB2 and the release of platelet factor 4. In conclusion, our work suggests that tamarillo, raspberry, and kiwano inhibit platelet aggregation partly due to the high levels of anti-platelet compounds such as benzoic, caffeic, and gallic acids

High-fidelity simulations of CdTe vapor deposition from a new bond-order potential-based molecular dynamics method

CdTe has been a special semiconductor for constructing the lowest-cost solar cells and the CdTe-based Cd1-xZnxTe alloy has been the leading semiconductor for radiation detection applications. The performance currently achieved for the materials, however, is still far below the theoretical expectations. This is because the property-limiting nanoscale defects that are easily formed during the growth of CdTe crystals are difficult to explore in experiments. Here we demonstrate the capability of a bond order potential-based molecular dynamics method for predicting the crystalline growth of CdTe films during vapor deposition simulations. Such a method may begin to enable defects generated during vapor deposition of CdTe crystals to be accurately explored