Continuous glucose monitoring sensors: Past, present and future algorithmic challenges

Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) sensors are portable devices that allow measuring and visualizing the glucose concentration in real time almost continuously for several days and are provided with hypo/hyperglycemic alerts and glucose trend information. CGM sensors have revolutionized Type 1 diabetes (T1D) management, improving glucose control when used adjunctively to self-monitoring blood glucose systems. Furthermore, CGM devices have stimulated the development of applications that were impossible to create without a continuous-time glucose signal, e.g., real-time predictive alerts of hypo/hyperglycemic episodes based on the prediction of future glucose concentration, automatic basal insulin attenuation methods for hypoglycemia prevention, and the artificial pancreas. However, CGM sensors’ lack of accuracy and reliability limited their usability in the clinical practice, calling upon the academic community for the development of suitable signal processing methods to improve CGM performance. The aim of this paper is to review the past and present algorithmic challenges of CGM sensors, to show how they have been tackled by our research group, and to identify the possible future ones

Can bank supervisors rely on market data? A critical assessment from a Swiss perspective

Market data, such as bond spreads or equity price volatility, are a complementary source to bank supervisory information. In Switzerland, meaningful market data are available for a number of banks which constitute a major part of the banking system. Notwithstanding some limitations (biases due to state guarantee for cantonal banks and potential "too-big-to-fail" expectations for big banks) these market data are likely to play a supervisory role in the future. However, once the market expects supervisors to react to market data, these data become endogenous. This may jeopardize the very potential of market data to serve as policy guides.bank-supervision

City Design and sustainability. Could Italy lead the way?

As city design plays an increasingly fundamental role in making our living, working and urban environments more sustainable, this paper aims to discuss the role of cities in achieving more sustainable development. The first step is to clarify what we define with the word sustainability and how this concept evolved from the 1970s to our days, widening its meaning and extending its range to everything that is related with better quality of life. Furthermore, this paper argues that quality of life is tightly intertwined with quality of spaces. Building on top of this assumption, this paper analyze the role of cities in achieving sustainability. UN statistic forecasts reveals that future world’s population will be ever more urban, therefore sustainable development will becoming increasingly related to cities growth. Cities are actually key assets in order to achieve sustainability in terms of environmental preservation. But what about quality of life? The paper compares how sustainability is applied with different approach in the US and the Italian context and why. Finally this article argues that Italy has an incredible know-how and an extraordinary cultural heritage related to city-making. Know- how derived from the 1950s experience of building public funded neighborhoods around historic cities. Still today some of these neighborhoods stand out for quality of architectural and planning design. Ultimately, Italy, strong of its extraordinary heritage has the chance to lead the way, moving the concept of sustainability to a higher meaning that embraces quality spaces and quality of life

From highways to boulevards, from roads to streets

Urban traffic and transportation plans have the potentials to become more comprehensive planning tool for the urban environment. Starting from analyzing the UK context that created a framework of well-established tradition in urban street design, and the US recent tradition of tearing down highways and form based codes, this paper aims to underline the potentials of urban transportation plans when approached as innovative planning tools, able to create and build a more complex, integrated, thriving urban environment. These plans can actually support other planning tools, create a different urban landscape designing new grids and new systems, reducing space for vehicular traffic and connecting new green and pedestrian infrastructures to the existing public realm. They can also link land uses and transportation policies, selects a variety of transportation means to access the city that can actually help specific urban contexts to develop a mix of uses. Innovative transportation plans have the potential to create new urban geographies, different from traditional hierarchy of spaces and roads. Cities all over the world are facing traffic congestion problems and are investing in their transportation systems. This is due fundamentally to increasing rate of urbanization across the globe. Millions of people cluster in mega metro region, challenging the existing infrastructures and policies related to transportation. This document will focus on the impacts that transportation and traffic plans can have on the public realm. Different approaches to transportations issues If the vehicular traffic volume increases and the existing infrastructure network cannot keep up with it, the easiest solution is to build a new highway or to expand the existing one. Obviously, this kind of approach does not take into account environmental sustainability and apply a short-term strategy that can provide an immediate but temporary release to the problem. Nevertheless, many cities are still pursuing this strategy to solve their traffic and transportation issues. In other cases, the new infrastructures are built not to accommodate vehicular traffic but instead, to expand public transportation systems. Cities are increasingly investing in special buses routes, light rail and subways, but also car sharing and vanpooling. In both cases, the city’s officials have to roll out general master plans to coordinate their investments. If building infrastructures is a common strategy to solve mobility issues, in some cases it is true the opposite. Seoul, Portland and recently San Francisco, just to cite some of the most famous examples, have decided to tear down their highways; at least the ones that affected in negative ways the proximate surroundings. The torn down highway was outplaced by a park in Seoul and Portland and by a smaller urban boulevard in San Francisco. Still, we argue that despite the objective benefits of these kind of interventions, the rationale behind them is not so far from what brought the highways. The approach is always the same one: build an infrastructure, perhaps greener and more attractive, but still an infrastructure that is often disconnected and isolated from the existing, exactly like the one that was there before. These kind of interventions are the result of a way of planning that proceeds with extraordinary, isolated, episodes more than reconsidering the whole system of networks and open spaces that constitute the public realm. Traffic and transportation issues are just the tip of the iceberg of the urban environment that every citizen experience in their daily navigation of the city. Here we argue that traffic and transportation plans should not take into account the traffic fluidity and public transportation capacity only, but have the breath to redesign and improve the public realm as a whole. The UK and US context The country who invested the most, in terms of planning quality public spaces, is no doubt the United Kingdom. Its urban planning re-known past makes this country one of the most advanced in terms of street design. In England, every new development and project has to follow some basic principles in order to achieve quality public spaces and well-designed streets. There are manuals1 that will indicate the best practices and the right methodologies to curate every single detail of the streetscape, from the lamppost to the pavement size and materials, the storefronts design and the colors nuances options. Crossings, as well as the traffic signs have to respond to a certain standard of quality. Transportation and traffic plans have to compel to these rules and integrate them within their design. In America, cities are built around cars and the streetscape is too. Most of American cities presents highways juxtapose to smaller neighborhood-scale boulevards and streets to connect the different suburbs to the main thoroughfares. There is little attention to the street’s design because there is actually few people using those streets. Streets are considered just necessary strip of asphalt, useful to travel from one place to another

Location of high speed rail stations in French medium-size city and their mobility and territorial implications

International audienceIn France, the extension of High Speed Rail network has come with the creation of new stations and a diversification of territorial configurations in which the stations fit. If the reduction in travel time allowed by high speed train increases mobility and contributes to the economic development of metropolitan areas, the implications of these stations on local mobility and territorial development depend on the station's location. The example of midsized cities allows us to analyze the part played by the location of stations in spatial organization. The impact of HST on local mobility and territorial development differed depending on whether the metropolitan area is served by a central station, a peripheral one or if it is connected to the high speed rail network by both station

Les nouvelles gares TGV périphériques: des instruments au service du développement économique des territoires?

http://www.cnfg.fr/Transport/images/stories/Revue/pp.51_66_V.Facchinetti_Mannone_Gares_TGV_peripheriques.pdfNational audienceConsidérées comme des leviers de développement économique, les nouvelles gares TGV aménagées en périphérie des villes ont suscité d'ambitieux projets de zones d'activités. Les trajectoires de développement très différentes des espaces économiques réalisés à proximité des gares TGV du Creusot, de Mâcon, de Vendôme et de Valence permettent de réinterroger le lien établi entre accessibilité et attractivité des territoires. La confrontation de l'évolution et des caractéristiques de l'occupation de ces zones d'activités aux stratégies de valorisation mises en oeuvre par les collectivités, complétée par une enquête auprès des entreprises installées sur ces sites, permet de préciser l'influence des gares TGV périphériques sur l'émergence de nouveaux pôles économiques

Quels effets territoriaux pour les nouvelles gares de la LGV Rhin-Rhône?

Deux gares TGV ont été construites en Franche-Comté pour desservir Besançon et Belfort-Montbéliard. Or, le degré de centralité des gares influence la réussite des stratégies adoptées dans la mesure où il conditionne la capacité des acteurs locaux à coordonner leurs actions autour de projets d'aménagement conformes aux dynamiques spatiales préexistantes. La localisation de ces gares périphériques, largement dictées par des contraintes techniques et financières, ont peu pris en compte ces dynamiques, et il s'avère difficile de mobiliser l'ensemble des acteurs autour de projets situés aux marges de leurs compétences territoriales

The interaction between parents and children as a relevant dimension of child well being. The case of Italy

This paper aims at measuring the functionings of social interaction, a relevant dimension in the description and conceptualisation of child well being by using the capability approach. In this paper we deal with a special dimension of this capability that involves the capability of interaction between parents and child. We propose a fuzzy expert system to measure this capability. To apply the model we use a data set based on a matched data source of ISTAT (Italian National Statistical Office 1998) multipurpose survey on family and on children condition in Italy to recover information on children’s education, the socio-demographic structure of their families, child care provided by relatives and parents according to the type of activities in which the children are involved and Bank of Italy Survey on household income and wealth year 2000 (SHIW00). This is a first step of a more complex system allowing for a richer set of indicators on capabilities in order to measure child well being.

The Interaction between Parents and Children as a Relevant Dimension of Child Well Being. The Case of Italy

This paper aims at measuring the functionings of social interaction, a relevant dimension in the description and conceptualisation of child well being by using the capability approach. In this paper we deal with a special dimension of this capability that involves the capability of interaction between parents and child. We propose a fuzzy expert system to measure this capability. To apply the model we use a data set based on a matched data source of ISTAT (Italian National Statistical Office 1998) multipurpose survey on family and on children condition in Italy to recover information on children’s education, the socio-demographic structure of their families, child care provided by relatives and parents according to the type of activities in which the children are involved and Bank of Italy Survey on household income and wealth year 2000 (SHIW00). This is a first step of a more complex system allowing for a richer set of indicators on capabilities in order to measure child well being.Child Well Being, Fuzzy Expert System, Capabilities

Artificial neural network algorithm for online glucose prediction from continuous glucose monitoring.

Background and Aims: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices could be useful for real-time management of diabetes therapy. In particular, CGM information could be used in real time to predict future glucose levels in order to prevent hypo-/hyperglycemic events. This article proposes a new online method for predicting future glucose concentration levels from CGM data. Methods: The predictor is implemented with an artificial neural network model (NNM). The inputs of the NNM are the values provided by the CGM sensor during the preceding 20 min, while the output is the prediction of glucose concentration at the chosen prediction horizon (PH) time. The method performance is assessed using datasets from two different CGM systems (nine subjects using the Medtronic [Northridge, CA] Guardian® and six subjects using the Abbott [Abbott Park, IL] Navigator®). Three different PHs are used: 15, 30, and 45 min. The NNM accuracy has been estimated by using the root mean square error (RMSE) and prediction delay. Results: The RMSE is around 10, 18, and 27 mg/dL for 15, 30, and 45 min of PH, respectively. The prediction delay is around 4, 9, and 14 min for upward trends and 5, 15, and 26 min for downward trends, respectively. A comparison with a previously published technique, based on an autoregressive model (ARM), has been performed. The comparison shows that the proposed NNM is more accurate than the ARM, with no significant deterioration in the prediction delay