Analysis techniques and models for resource optimization in Wireless Sensor/Actuator Network environment

Abstract. In the last few years, WSN has been object of an intense research activity that has determined an important improvement by technologic and computation point of view both. The notable level got and the increasing request of applications designed over Sensor Networks make WSN commercial diffusion next to be a fact. Limited resource orientation and high level application requirements result in a number of key open issues, such as Resource Optimization and Quality of Service. These last two issues require an important preliminary phase of analysis and evaluation that can provide the designer with knowledge of important relationships between parameters design and application desired characteristics. Mathematical models of local resource (node), of network influence on single resource, of QoS requests, and related analysis techniques to determine not only "how much" but also "in which way" resources are expensed are proposed in this paper

System for monitoring and supporting the treatment of sleep apnea using IoT and big data

[EN] Sleep apnea has become in the sleep disorder that causes greater concern in recent years due to its morbidity and mortality, higher medical care costs and poor people quality of life. Some proposals have addressed sleep apnea disease in elderly people, but they have still some technical limitations. For these reasons, this paper presents an innovative system based on fog and cloud computing technologies which in combination with IoT and big data platforms offers new opportunities to build novel and innovative services for supporting the sleep apnea and to overcome the current limitations. Particularly, the system is built on several low-power wireless networks with heterogeneous smart devices (i.e, sensors and actuators). In the fog, an edge node (Smart IoT Gateway) provides IoT connection and interoperability and pre-processing IoT data to detect events in real-time that might endanger the elderly's health and to act accordingly. In the cloud, a Generic Enabler Context Broker manages, stores and injects data into the big data analyzer for further processing and analyzing. The system's performance and subjective applicability are evaluated using over 30 GB size datasets and a questionnaire fulfilled by medicals specialist, respectively. Results show that the system data analytics improve the health professionals' decision making to monitor and guide sleep apnea treatment, as well as improving elderly people's quality of life. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This research was supported by the Ecuadorian Government through the Secretary of Higher Education, Science, Technology, and Innovation (SENESCYT) and has received funding from the European Union's "Horizon 2020'' research and innovation program as part of the ACTIVAGE project under Grant 732679 and the Interoperability of Heterogeneous IoT Platforms project (INTER-IoT) under Grant 687283.Yacchirema-Vargas, DC.; Sarabia-Jácome, DF.; Palau Salvador, CE.; Esteve Domingo, M. (2018). System for monitoring and supporting the treatment of sleep apnea using IoT and big data. Pervasive and Mobile Computing. 50:25-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2018.07.007S25405

I3WSN: Industrial Intelligent Wireless Sensor Networks for indoor environments

Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) technologies have been successfully applied to a great variety of outdoor scenarios but, in practical terms, little effort has been applied for indoor environments, and even less in the field of industrial applications. This article presents an intelligent SWE application for an indoor and industrial scenario, with the aim of improving and increasing the levels of human safety. The base lowlevel architecture is built on top of wireless sensor networks (WSN) connected to a Sensor Observation Service (SOS). Higher layers in the architecture include services that make real time decisions based on the collected data. Both simulation and experimental results are presented. The paper shows the viability of our approach in terms of performance, scalability, modularity and safety.This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Industry under the project FASyS (Absolutely Safe and Healthy Factory) grant number CENIT 2009-1034.Giménez Salazar, P.; Molina Moreno, B.; Calvo-Gallego, J.; Esteve Domingo, M.; Palau Salvador, CE. (2014). I3WSN: Industrial Intelligent Wireless Sensor Networks for indoor environments. Computers in Industry. 65(1):187-199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compind.2013.09.002S18719965

Anti-tumour necrosis factor discontinuation in inflammatory bowel disease patients in remission: study protocol of a prospective, multicentre, randomized clinical trial

Background: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease who achieve remission with anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) drugs may have treatment withdrawn due to safety concerns and cost considerations, but there is a lack of prospective, controlled data investigating this strategy. The primary study aim is to compare the rates of clinical remission at 1?year in patients who discontinue anti-TNF treatment versus those who continue treatment. Methods: This is an ongoing, prospective, double-blind, multicentre, randomized, placebo-controlled study in patients with Crohn?s disease or ulcerative colitis who have achieved clinical remission for ?6?months with an anti-TNF treatment and an immunosuppressant. Patients are being randomized 1:1 to discontinue anti-TNF therapy or continue therapy. Randomization stratifies patients by the type of inflammatory bowel disease and drug (infliximab versus adalimumab) at study inclusion. The primary endpoint of the study is sustained clinical remission at 1?year. Other endpoints include endoscopic and radiological activity, patient-reported outcomes (quality of life, work productivity), safety and predictive factors for relapse. The required sample size is 194 patients. In addition to the main analysis (discontinuation versus continuation), subanalyses will include stratification by type of inflammatory bowel disease, phenotype and previous treatment. Biological samples will be obtained to identify factors predictive of relapse after treatment withdrawal. Results: Enrolment began in 2016, and the study is expected to end in 2020. Conclusions: This study will contribute prospective, controlled data on outcomes and predictors of relapse in patients with inflammatory bowel disease after withdrawal of anti-TNF agents following achievement of clinical remission. Clinical trial reference number: EudraCT 2015-001410-1

Adopting a high-polyphenolic diet is associated with an improved glucose profile: prospective analysis within the PREDIMED-plus trial

Previous studies suggested that dietary polyphenols could reduce the incidence and complications of type-2 diabetes (T2D); although the evidence is still limited and inconsistent. This work analyzes whether changing to a diet with a higher polyphenolic content is associated with an improved glucose profile. At baseline, and at 1 year of follow-up visits, 5921 participants (mean age 65.0 ± 4.9, 48.2% women) who had overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome filled out a validated 143-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), from which polyphenol intakes were calculated. Energy-adjusted total polyphenols and subclasses were categorized in tertiles of changes. Linear mixed-effect models with random intercepts (the recruitment centers) were used to assess associations between changes in polyphenol subclasses intake and 1-year plasma glucose or glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels. Increments in total polyphenol intake and some classes were inversely associated with better glucose levels and HbA1c after one year of follow-up. These associations were modified when the analyses were run considering diabetes status separately. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the relationship between changes in the intake of all polyphenolic groups and T2D-related parameters in a senior population with T2D or at high-risk of developing T2D

Estimating the burden of antimicrobial resistance: a systematic literature review.

Background: Accurate estimates of the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are needed to establish the magnitude of this global threat in terms of both health and cost, and to paramaterise cost-effectiveness evaluations of interventions aiming to tackle the problem. This review aimed to establish the alternative methodologies used in estimating AMR burden in order to appraise the current evidence base. Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, EconLit, PubMed and grey literature were searched. English language studies evaluating the impact of AMR (from any microbe) on patient, payer/provider and economic burden published between January 2013 and December 2015 were included. Independent screening of title/abstracts followed by full texts was performed using pre-specified criteria. A study quality score (from zero to one) was derived using Newcastle-Ottawa and Philips checklists. Extracted study data were used to compare study method and resulting burden estimate, according to perspective. Monetary costs were converted into 2013 USD. Results: Out of 5187 unique retrievals, 214 studies were included. One hundred eighty-seven studies estimated patient health, 75 studies estimated payer/provider and 11 studies estimated economic burden. 64% of included studies were single centre. The majority of studies estimating patient or provider/payer burden used regression techniques. 48% of studies estimating mortality burden found a significant impact from resistance, excess healthcare system costs ranged from non-significance to $1 billion per year, whilst economic burden ranged from$21,832 per case to over $3 trillion in GDP loss. Median quality scores (interquartile range) for patient, payer/provider and economic burden studies were 0.67 (0.56-0.67), 0.56 (0.46-0.67) and 0.53 (0.44-0.60) respectively. Conclusions: This study highlights what methodological assumptions and biases can occur dependent on chosen outcome and perspective. Currently, there is considerable variability in burden estimates, which can lead in-turn to inaccurate intervention evaluations and poor policy/investment decisions. Future research should utilise the recommendations presented in this review. Trial registration: This systematic review is registered with PROSPERO (PROSPERO CRD42016037510)

The COMODIN System: A CDN-based Platform for Cooperative Media On-Demand on the InterNet

In this paper we present the COMODIN (COoperative Media On-Demand on the InterNet) system, a media on-demand platform for synchronous cooperative work, which is aimed at securely supporting an explicitly-formed cooperative group of distributed users for (i) requesting an archived multimedia session, (ii) sharing the playback, and (iii) collaborating with each other through questioning and, optionally, synchronous audio/video tools