Variability in the management of infants under 3 months with minor head injury in paediatric emergency departments

Introduction: In the assessment of infants younger than 3 months with minor traumatic head injury (MHI), it is essential to adapt the indication of imaging tests. The Pediatric Head Injury/Trauma Algorithm (PECARN) clinical prediction rule is the most widely used to guide clinical decision making.Objectives: To analyse the variability in the performance of imaging tests in infants under 3 months with MHI in paediatric emergency departments and the adherence of each hospital to the recommendations of the PECARN rule. Population and methods: We conducted a prospective multicentre observational study in 13 paediatric emergency departments in Spain between May 2017 and November 2020.Results: Of 21,981 children with MHI, 366 (1.7%) were aged less than 3 months; 195 (53.3%) underwent neuroimaging, with performance of CT scans in 37 (10.1%; interhospital range, 0%-40.0%), skull X-rays in 162 (44.3%; range, 0%-100%) and transfontanellar ultrasound scans in 22 (6.0%; range, 0%-24.0%). The established recommendations were followed in 25.6% (10/39) of infants classified as high-risk based on PECARN criteria (range, 0%-100%); 37.1% (36/97) clas-sified as intermediate-risk (range, 0%-100%) and 57.4% (132/230) classified as low-risk (range, 0%-100%).Conclusion: We found substantial variability and low adherence to the PECARN recommenda-tions in the performance of imaging tests in infants aged less than 3 months with MHI in Spanish paediatric emergency departments s, mainly due to an excessive use of skull X-rays.(c) 2022 Asociacion Espanola de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/)

Channel Models for Performance Evaluation of Wireless Systems in Railway Environments

In the automotive and rail domains, vehicles are entering the era of full automation thanks to wireless sensors and communication systems, shifting control functions from a human driver to computers. High data rate, robustness, high reliability and ultra-low latency wireless communications are required in the context of autonomous train and safety critical applications. Today, the Future Railway Mobile Communication System (FRMCS) is under development at European level within the International Union of Railways (UIC). This system will answer all the current and future needs of rail. It will be IP based, multi-bearer and resilient to technology evolution. In the context of the development of different FRMCS prototypes by industry, it is crucial to be able to test them in representative Railway radio environments thanks to laboratory tools. Characterization of radio channels in railway environments, by measurements or simulations, is a very active field. In this article, based on broad literature survey, we show that not all the published models are suitable for performance evaluation. Then, we propose a selection of typical Tapped-Delay-Line channel models to be implemented in an original hardware and software testing platform capable to reproduce the effect of representative Railway environments in laboratory, with real time emulation at RF (Radio Frequency) level. Preliminary results in Hilly 3 taps and Cutting 5 taps channel models are presented as a proof of concept of a « zero on site testing » approach, allowing for time and cost savings in the validation of railway communication system

Emulation of end-to-end communications systems in railway scenarios: physical layer results

International audienceThe complexity of modern communication systems is remarkable, and the efforts needed to put into service a new one arc substantial as well. In some industrial sectors, circumstances are even harder. For example, in railways, the tests to be done are costly due to the integration in the rolling stock plus the need to have physical access to the railway tracks. Therefore, it is worth having a suitable emulator that considers many different radio-access technologies (RAT) in several railway scenarios (viaducts, tunnels, rural, hilly, etc.). Moreover, it should be able to do an end-to-end emulation, absolutely transparent for the application layer (this is, considering not only the physical layer but the network one as well). In this paper, we highlight the physical layer aspects considered in the construction of this emulator. Integration with the network layer is briefly mentioned, as well as the whole architecture