Assessment of haemophilic arthropathy through balance analysis: a promising tool

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Xavier García-Massó, Yiyao Ye-Lin, Javier Garcia-Casado, Felipe Querol & Luis-Millan Gonzalez (2019) Assessment of haemophilic arthropathy through balance analysis: a promising tool, Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 22:4, 418-425, DOI: 10.1080/10255842.2018.1561877, available online at: http://doi.org/10.1080/10255842.2018.1561877.[EN] The purpose of this study was to develop a tool able to distinguish between subjects who have haemophilic arthropathy in lower limbs and those who do not by analyzing the centre of pressure displacement. The second objective was to assess the possible different responses of haemophiliacs and healthy subjects by creating a classifier that could distinguish between both groups. Fiftyfour haemophilic patients (28 with and 26 without arthropathy) and 23 healthy subjects took part voluntarily in the study. A force plate was used to measure postural stability. A total of 276 centre of pressure displacement parameters were calculated under different conditions: unipedal/bipedal balance with eyes open/closed. These parameters were used to design a Quadratic Discriminant Analysis classifier. The arthropathy versus non-arthropathy classifier had an overall accuracy of 97.5% when only 10 features were used in its design. Similarly, the haemophiliac versus nonhaemophiliac classifier had an overall accuracy of 97.2% when only 7 features were used. In conclusion, an objective haemophilic arthropathy in lower limbs evaluation system was developed by analyzing centre of pressure displacement signals. The haemophiliac vs. non-haemophiliac classifier designed was also able to corroborate the existing differences in postural control between haemophilic patients (with and without arthropathy) and healthy subjects.García-Massó, X.; Ye Lin, Y.; Garcia-Casado, J.; Querol -Fuentes, F.; Gonzalez, L. (2019). Assessment of haemophilic arthropathy through balance analysis: a promising tool. Computer Methods in Biomechanics & Biomedical Engineering. 22(4):418-425. https://doi.org/10.1080/10255842.2018.1561877S418425224Amoud, H., Abadi, M., Hewson, D. J., Michel-Pellegrino, V., Doussot, M., & Duchêne, J. (2007). Fractal time series analysis of postural stability in elderly and control subjects. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation, 4(1), 12. doi:10.1186/1743-0003-4-12AZNAR, J. A., ABAD-FRANCH, L., CORTINA, V. R., & MARCO, P. (2009). The national registry of haemophilia A and B in Spain: results from a census of patients. Haemophilia, 15(6), 1327-1330. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2516.2009.02101.xCabeza-Ruiz, R., García-Massó, X., Centeno-Prada, R. A., Beas-Jiménez, J. D., Colado, J. C., & González, L.-M. (2011). Time and frequency analysis of the static balance in young adults with Down syndrome. 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Survival analysis of author keywords: An application to the library and information sciences area

"This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Peset, F, F Garzón-Farinós, LM González, X García-Massó, A Ferrer-Sapena, JL Toca-Herrera, and EA Sánchez-Pérez. 2019. "Survival Analysis of Author Keywords: An Application to the Library and Information Sciences Area." Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 71 (4). Wiley: 462-73. doi:10.1002/asi.24248, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24248. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."[EN] Our purpose is to adapt a statistical method for the analysis of discrete numerical series to the keywords appearing in scientific articles of a given area. As an example, we apply our methodological approach to the study of the keywords in the Library and Information Sciences (LIS) area. Our objective is to detect the new author keywords that appear in a fixed knowledge area in the period of 1 year in order to quantify the probabilities of survival for 10 years as a function of the impact of the journals where they appeared. Many of the new keywords appearing in the LIS field are ephemeral. Actually, more than half are never used again. In general, the terms most commonly used in the LIS area come from other areas. The average survival time of these keywords is approximately 3 years, being slightly higher in the case of words that were published in journals classified in the second quartile of the area. We believe that measuring the appearance and disappearance of terms will allow understanding some relevant aspects of the evolution of a discipline, providing in this way a new bibliometric approach.Peset Mancebo, MF.; Garzón Farinós, MF.; Gonzalez, L.; García-Massó, X.; Ferrer Sapena, A.; Toca-Herrera, JL.; Sánchez Pérez, EA. (2020). 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Empirical Wavelet Transform-based Detection of Anomalies in ULF Geomagnetic Signals Associated to Seismic Events with a Fuzzy Logic-based System for Automatic Diagnosis

Owing to the relevance and severity of damages caused by earthquakes (EQs), the development and application of new methods for seismic activity detection that offer an efficient and reliable diagnosis in terms of processing and performance are still demanding tasks. In this work, the application of the Empirical Wavelet Transform (EWT) for seismic detection in ultra-low-frequency (ULF) geomagnetic signals is presented. For this, several ULF signals associated to seismic activities and random calm periods are analysed. These signals have been obtained through a tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer at the Juriquilla station localized in Queretaro, Mexico, longitude -100.45° N and latitude 20.70°E. In order to show the advantages of the proposal, a comparison with the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is presented. The results shown a better detection capability of seismic signals before, during, and after the main shock than the ones obtained by the DWT, which makes the proposal a more suitable and reliable tool for this task. Finally, a fuzzy logic (FL)-based system for automatic diagnosis using the variance of the EWT outputs for the tri-axial fluxgate magnetometer signals is also proposed

FPGA-based Fused Smart Sensor for Real-Time Plant-Transpiration Dynamic Estimation

Plant transpiration is considered one of the most important physiological functions because it constitutes the plants evolving adaptation to exchange moisture with a dry atmosphere which can dehydrate or eventually kill the plant. Due to the importance of transpiration, accurate measurement methods are required; therefore, a smart sensor that fuses five primary sensors is proposed which can measure air temperature, leaf temperature, air relative humidity, plant out relative humidity and ambient light. A field programmable gate array based unit is used to perform signal processing algorithms as average decimation and infinite impulse response filters to the primary sensor readings in order to reduce the signal noise and improve its quality. Once the primary sensor readings are filtered, transpiration dynamics such as: transpiration, stomatal conductance, leaf-air-temperature-difference and vapor pressure deficit are calculated in real time by the smart sensor. This permits the user to observe different primary and calculated measurements at the same time and the relationship between these which is very useful in precision agriculture in the detection of abnormal conditions. Finally, transpiration related stress conditions can be detected in real time because of the use of online processing and embedded communications capabilities

Steering a Tractor by Means of an EMG-Based Human-Machine Interface

An electromiographic (EMG)-based human-machine interface (HMI) is a communication pathway between a human and a machine that operates by means of the acquisition and processing of EMG signals. This article explores the use of EMG-based HMIs in the steering of farm tractors. An EPOC, a low-cost human-computer interface (HCI) from the Emotiv Company, was employed. This device, by means of 14 saline sensors, measures and processes EMG and electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from the scalp of the driver. In our tests, the HMI took into account only the detection of four trained muscular events on the driver’s scalp: eyes looking to the right and jaw opened, eyes looking to the right and jaw closed, eyes looking to the left and jaw opened, and eyes looking to the left and jaw closed. The EMG-based HMI guidance was compared with manual guidance and with autonomous GPS guidance. A driver tested these three guidance systems along three different trajectories: a straight line, a step, and a circumference. The accuracy of the EMG-based HMI guidance was lower than the accuracy obtained by manual guidance, which was lower in turn than the accuracy obtained by the autonomous GPS guidance; the computed standard deviations of error to the desired trajectory in the straight line were 16 cm, 9 cm, and 4 cm, respectively. Since the standard deviation between the manual guidance and the EMG-based HMI guidance differed only 7 cm, and this difference is not relevant in agricultural steering, it can be concluded that it is possible to steer a tractor by an EMG-based HMI with almost the same accuracy as with manual steering

Prospective individual patient data meta-analysis of two randomized trials on convalescent plasma for COVID-19 outpatients

Data on convalescent plasma (CP) treatment in COVID-19 outpatients are scarce. We aimed to assess whether CP administered during the first week of symptoms reduced the disease progression or risk of hospitalization of outpatients. Two multicenter, double-blind randomized trials (NCT04621123, NCT04589949) were merged with data pooling starting when = 50 years and symptomatic for <= 7days were included. The intervention consisted of 200-300mL of CP with a predefined minimum level of antibodies. Primary endpoints were a 5-point disease severity scale and a composite of hospitalization or death by 28 days. Amongst the 797 patients included, 390 received CP and 392 placebo; they had a median age of 58 years, 1 comorbidity, 5 days symptoms and 93% had negative IgG antibody-test. Seventy-four patients were hospitalized, 6 required mechanical ventilation and 3 died. The odds ratio (OR) of CP for improved disease severity scale was 0.936 (credible interval (CI) 0.667-1.311); OR for hospitalization or death was 0.919 (CI 0.592-1.416). CP effect on hospital admission or death was largest in patients with <= 5 days of symptoms (OR 0.658, 95%CI 0.394-1.085). CP did not decrease the time to full symptom resolution

Estudios de Caso sobre Ciencias Agropecuarias y Rurales en el siglo XXI.

Libro científico sobre estudios de casos en el medio agropecuario y ruralCon el advenimiento del siglo XXI y el avance de los procesos de globalización, el medio rural presenta diversos cambios económicos, sociales, políticos y culturales. Lo anterior significa que el campo es un objeto de estudio altamente dinámico, complejo e inasible. las ciencias agropecuarias y rurales, en la actualidad, requieren de un abordaje sistémico e interdisciplinario que den cuenta de la heterogeneidad de situaciones y contextos que enfrenta el campo mexicano. La presente obra agrupa 18 estudios de caso, que capturan algunas fotografías de las diversas problemáticas de la ruralidad mexicana, con lo cual se pretende dar cuenta tanto de los objetivos de estudio como de la perspectiva teórico metodológico desde que estos son abordados. lo anterior tiene que ver con el hecho de que las ciencias agropecuarias y rurales manifiestan un alto grado de observación empírica, motivo por el que los estudios de caso se convierten en la perspectiva metodológica idónea que permite ir y venir de la realidad a la teoría y viceversa para la construcción de objetos de estudio. En este volumen se aborda una gran diversidad de casos, que sintetizan la heterogeneidad de enfoques y perspectivas mediante las cuales los fenómenos agropecuarios y rurales han sido abordados en el Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Rurales de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, en los últimos 30 años