E-health and e-welfare of Finland - Check point 2015

The new e-health and e-welfare strategy in Finland aims to support the renewal of the social welfare and health care services and the active role of citizens in maintaining their own well-being. The means include the development of knowledge management and increasing the provision of online services. The overall structural changes taking place in Finnish health and social care will also influence information and communication technologies (ICT). The report provides information about the change in the services and the service system brought on by ICT over time. The report illustrates the status in 2014 as compared with the strategic outcomes and objectives set on ICT to support performance and renewal of social welfare and health care. The results are condensed from four surveys for a comprehensive view: availability and use of ICT in health care as well as in social care, usability of the systems for physicians, and citizens´ use and anticipations. These are accompanied by a review of Finnish health care system and ICT development. For the international reader, the report provides an overview of progressive nationwide activities towards better e-services in Finland

On Application Layer DDoS Attack Detection in High-Speed Encrypted Networks

Application-layer denial-of-service attacks have become a serious threat to modern high-speed computer networks and systems. Unlike network-layer attacks, application-layer attacks can be performed by using legitimate requests from legitimately connected network machines which makes these attacks undetectable for signature-based intrusion detection systems. Moreover, the attacks may utilize protocols that encrypt the data of network connections in the application layer making it even harder to detect attacker’s activity without decrypting users network traffic and violating their privacy. In this paper, we present a method which allows us to timely detect various applicationlayer attacks against a computer network. We focus on detection of the attacks that utilize encrypted protocols by applying an anomaly-detection-based approach to statistics extracted from network packets. Since network traffic decryption can violate ethical norms and regulations on privacy, the detection method proposed analyzes network traffic without decryption. The method involves construction of a model of normal user behavior by analyzing conversations between a server and clients. The algorithm is self-adaptive and allows one to update the model every time when a new portion of network traffic data is available. Once the model has been built, it can be applied to detect various types of application-layer denial-of- service attacks. The proposed technique is evaluated with realistic end user network traffic generated in our virtual network environment. Evaluation results show that these attacks can be properly detected, while the number of false alarms remains very low

Status of eHealth Deployment and National Laws in Finland

This paper shows the results of surveys produced by FinnTelemedicum (Centre of Excellence for Telehealth at the University of Oulu) and STAKES (National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health development in Finland) under assignment of the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health. The surveys show the status and trends of the usage of eHealth applications in the Finnish health care in 2003 and 2005 and preliminary information of the situation in 2007. The results show that the usage of eHealth applications has greatly progressed throughout the entire health care delivery system. The current wide utilization of the eHealth applications in Finnish health care forms a solid basis for developing future eHealth services. Finland has taken the initiative to build a national archive for electronic health data with citizen access by 2011

Brain Source Correlates of Speech Perception and Reading Processes in Children With and Without Reading Difficulties

Neural correlates in reading and speech processing have been addressed extensively in the literature. While reading skills and speech perception have been shown to be associated with each other, their relationship remains debatable. In this study, we investigated reading skills, speech perception, reading, and their correlates with brain source activity in auditory and visual modalities. We used high-density event-related potentials (ERPs), fixation-related potentials (FRPs), and the source reconstruction method. The analysis was conducted on 12–13-year-old schoolchildren who had different reading levels. Brain ERP source indices were computed from frequently repeated Finnish speech stimuli presented in an auditory oddball paradigm. Brain FRP source indices were also computed for words within sentences presented in a reading task. The results showed significant correlations between speech ERP sources and reading scores at the P100 (P1) time range in the left hemisphere and the N250 time range in both hemispheres, and a weaker correlation for visual word processing N170 FRP source(s) in the posterior occipital areas, in the vicinity of the visual word form areas (VWFA). Furthermore, significant brain-to-brain correlations were found between the two modalities, where the speech brain sources of the P1 and N250 responses correlated with the reading N170 response. The results suggest that speech processes are linked to reading fluency and that brain activations to speech are linked to visual brain processes of reading. These results indicate that a relationship between language and reading systems is present even after several years of exposure to print

PUHEEN HAVAINTO, KUULOJÄRJESTELMÄ JA AIVOJEN RYTMIT DYSLEKSIASSA

Dysleksia on kehityksellinen pulma lukemaan ja kirjoittamaan oppimisessa ja lukutaidon sujuvoitumisessa. Dysleksiaan liittyy myös muita pulmia esimerkiksi äänne- eli fonologisessa tietoisuudessa, kielellisessä muistissa, kyvyssä nimetä nopeasti tuttuja asioita ja kuulohavainnossa. Tämä katsausartikkeli keskittyy kuulohavainnon ja dysleksian välisiin yhteyksiin. Kuulotiedon käsittelyyn liittyvät pulmat ja lukihäiriö ovat olleet vilkkaan keskustelun aiheena jo pitkään johtuen melko ristiriitaisista löydöksistä. Meta-analyysi kuitenkin osoittaa, että jopa puolella heikoista lukijoista saattaa olla pulmaa äänen keston ja nousuaikojen havaitsemisessa sekä vähäisemmässä määrin taajuuksienhavainnossa. Vastaavasti äänen voimakkuuden havainnossa pulmiaei juurikaan esiinny. Kuulojärjestelmässä esiintyvien pulmien taustalla oleva mekanismi on edelleen selvittämättä. Uusi näkökulma mahdolliseen mekanismiin on auennut aivojen rytmien kautta. Aivojen aktiivisuus seuraa puheen tavutason rytmiä ja siten muokkaa aikaikkunoita, joissa havaitseminen on erityisen tarkkaa. Henkilöillä, joilla on dysleksia, aivojen aktivaatio saattaa seurata puhetta ja puheen rytmiä eri tavalla kuin tyypillisillä lukijoilla ja siten olla yhtenä tekijänä puheen havaitsemisen ja fonologisten pulmien taustalla.Avainsanat: aivot, dysleksia, kuulohavainto, puheKeywords: auditory perception, brain, dyslexia, speec

Passive exposure to speech sounds induces long-term memory representations in the auditory cortex of adult rats

Experience-induced changes in the functioning of the auditory cortex are prominent in early life, especially during a critical period. Although auditory perceptual learning takes place automatically during this critical period, it is thought to require active training in later life. Previous studies demonstrated rapid changes in single-cell responses of anesthetized adult animals while exposed to sounds presented in a statistical learning paradigm. However, whether passive exposure to sounds can form long-term memory representations remains to be demonstrated. To investigate this issue, we first exposed adult rats to human speech sounds for 3 consecutive days, 12 h/d. Two groups of rats exposed to either spectrotemporal or tonal changes in speech sounds served as controls for each other. Then, electrophysiological brain responses from the auditory cortex were recorded to the same stimuli. In both the exposure and test phase statistical learning paradigm, was applied. The exposure effect was found for the spectrotemporal sounds, but not for the tonal sounds. Only the animals exposed to spectrotemporal sounds differentiated subtle changes in these stimuli as indexed by the mismatch negativity response. The results point to the occurrence of long-term memory traces for the speech sounds due to passive exposure in adult animals.Peer reviewe

Tieto- ja viestintäteknologian käyttö terveydenhuollossa vuonna 2014 - Tilanne ja kehityksen suunta

Terveydenhuollon tietojärjestelmät ovat maassamme kattavasti käytössä. Potilastiedon alueellinen käyttö on entisestään lisääntynyt ja monimuotoistunut, ja suoraan kansalaisille tarkoitetut sähköisen terveydenhuollon palvelut ovat yleistyneet. Tämä raportti kuvaa tieto- ja viestintäteknologian käyttöä Suomen terveydenhuollossa vaiheessa, jossa Kanta-palveluiden sähköinen resepti oli otettu käyttöön julkisessa terveydenhuollossa ja Potilastiedon arkiston käyttöönotto oli aloitettu. Sairaanhoitopiireissä, terveyskeskuksissa, ja yksityisten terveyspalvelujen tuottajien toiminnassa tapahtuneita muutoksia verrataan neljään aiempaan selvitykseen vuosilta 2003, 2005, 2007 ja 2011. Tuloksia tarkastellaan myös Sote-tieto hyötykäyttöön 2020 -strategian valossa. Tieto- ja viestintäteknologian käytön lisäksi selvitettiin toimijoiden osallistumista kansalliseen kehitystyöhön. Nämä tulokset ovat vertailtavissa vuoden 2011 tietoihin. Selvitys on tehty sosiaali- ja terveysministeriön pyynnöstä Oulun yliopiston FinnTelemedicumin ja THL:n yhteishankkeena. Raportista on hyötyä sosiaali- ja terveydenhuollon palvelujärjestelmän kehittäjille ja muille terveydenhuollon toiminnan digitalisaation kanssa työskenteleville sekä terveydenhuollon tietojärjestelmien kehittäjille

Neural generators of the frequency-following response elicited to stimuli of low and high frequency: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study

The frequency-following response (FFR) to periodic complex sounds has gained recent interest in auditory cognitive neuroscience as it captures with great fidelity the tracking accuracy of the periodic sound features in the ascending auditory system. Seminal studies suggested the FFR as a correlate of subcortical sound encoding, yet recent studies aiming to locate its sources challenged this assumption, demonstrating that FFR receives some contribution from the auditory cortex. Based on frequency-specific phase-locking capabilities along the auditory hierarchy, we hypothesized that FFRs to higher frequencies would receive less cortical contribution than those to lower frequencies, hence supporting a major subcortical involvement for these high frequency sounds. Here, we used a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) approach to trace the neural sources of the FFR elicited in healthy adults (N = 19) to low (89 Hz) and high (333 Hz) frequency sounds. FFRs elicited to the high and low frequency sounds were clearly observable on MEG and comparable to those obtained in simultaneous electroencephalographic recordings. Distributed source modeling analyses revealed midbrain, thalamic, and cortical contributions to FFR, arranged in frequency-specific configurations. Our results showed that the main contribution to the highfrequency sound FFR originated in the inferior colliculus and the medial geniculate body of the thalamus, with no significant cortical contribution. In contrast, the low-frequency sound FFR had a major contribution located in the auditory cortices, and also received contributions originating in the midbrain and thalamic structures. These findings support the multiple generator hypothesis of the FFR and are relevant for our understanding of the neural encoding of sounds along the auditory hierarchy, suggesting a hierarchical organization of periodicity encoding