Towards Continuous Subject Identification Using Wearable Devices and Deep CNNs

© 2020 IEEE. Subject identification has several applications. In transportation companies, knowing who is driving their vehicles might prevent theft or other ill-intended actions. On the other hand, privacy concerns, and the respective legislation, hinder the applicability of several traditional recognition techniques based on invasive technologies, such as video cameras. Moreover, in order to keep the driver's distractions to a minimum, this technologies must be non-disruptive, that is, they must be able to identify the subject seamlessly without them taking any action. In this context, we propose using deep learning applied to smart watch data for recognizing the person driving a vehicle based on a training set. Our proposal relies on the possibility of using transfer learning to avoid long training sessions for new drivers and to deliver a solution which can be deployed in practice. In this paper, we describe the convolutional neural network used in the solution and present results according to a real data-set collected by us, achieving accuracies ranging from 75 to 94%

UNCTAD/ICC Rules for Multimodal Transport Documents = Pravila UNCTAD/ICC za isprave multimodalnog prijevoza : [translation, parallel texts]

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Health outcomes of 1000 children born to mothers with inflammatory bowel disease in their first 5 years of life

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe the long-term health outcomes of children born to mothers with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and to assess the impact of maternal IBD medication use on these outcomes. DESIGN: We performed a multicentre retrospective study in The Netherlands. Women with IBD who gave birth between 1999 and 2018 were enrolled from 20 participating hospitals. Information regarding disease characteristics, medication use, lifestyle, pregnancy outcomes and long-term health outcomes of children was retrieved from mothers and medical charts. After consent of both parents, outcomes until 5 years were also collected from general practitioners. Our primary aim was to assess infection rate and our secondary aims were to assess adverse reactions to vaccinations, growth, autoimmune diseases and malignancies. RESULTS: We included 1000 children born to 626 mothers (381 (61%) Crohn's disease, 225 (36%) ulcerative colitis and 20 (3%) IBD unclassified). In total, 196 (20%) had intrauterine exposure to anti-tumour necrosis factor-α (anti-TNF-α) (60 with concomitant thiopurine) and 240 (24%) were exposed to thiopurine monotherapy. The 564 children (56%) not exposed to anti-TNF-α and/or thiopurine served as control group. There was no association between adverse long-term health outcomes and in utero exposure to IBD treatment. We did find an increased rate of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP) in case thiopurine was used during the pregnancy without affecting birth outcomes and long-term health outcomes of children. All outcomes correspond with the general age-adjusted population. CONCLUSION: In our study, we found no association between in utero exposure to anti-TNF-α and/or thiopurine and the long-term outcomes antibiotic-treated infections, severe infections needing hospital admission, adverse reactions to vaccinations, growth failure, autoimmune diseases and malignancies

Awareness of Hypertension among Public Secondary School Teachers in a Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Nigeria

Hypertension affects about one billion people and kills about nine million globally. One in every 10 Nigerian adults has high blood p ressure, less than a third of those with high blood pressure are aware of the fact that they have hypertension. A descriptive cross sectional study design was employed. The target population were teachers employed in public secondary schools in a Local Gov ernment Area in Nigeria. A semi - structured questionnaire was used for data collection. Majority of the respondents were aged 40 – 49 years (49.3%), females (68.5%), Christians (86.2%), married (84.7%), Yoruba (98%) and Bachelor’s degree holders (46.3%). Al l the respondents (100%) have heard about hypertension and majority (55.7%) got the information through health campaign. The risk factors of hypertension reported were cigarette smoking (31.5%), alcohol consumption (43.4%), salt intake (59.6%) and lack of exercise (60.6%). About 15.8% were aware they were hypertensive. Eighty three respondents (40.9%) consume alcohol. Adding extra salt to food was common among 7.9%, about one - tenth (9.4%) smoke cigarette and 27.1% have family history of hypertension. The fi ndings of this study show that hearing about is quite different from having a knowledge of a disease condition. There is need to enlighten the population about the risk factors of hypertension

Vedolizumab for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Two-Year Results of the Initiative on Crohn and Colitis (ICC) Registry, A Nationwide Prospective Observational Cohort Study: ICC Registry – Vedolizumab

Prospective data of vedolizumab treatment for patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) beyond 1 year of treatment is scarce but needed for clinical decision making. We prospectively enrolled 310 patients with IBD (191 with Crohn's disease (CD) and 119 patients with ulcerative colitis (UC)) with a follow-up period of 104 weeks (interquartile range: 103–104) in a nationwide registry. The corticosteroid-free clinical remission rate (Harvey Bradshaw Index ≤ 4, Short Clinical Colitis Activity index ≤ 2) at weeks 52 and 104 were 28% and 19% for CD and 27% and 28% for UC, respectively. Fifty-nine percent maintained corticosteroid-free clinical remission between weeks 52 and 104. Vedolizumab with concomitant immunosuppression showed comparable effectiveness outcomes compared with vedolizumab monotherapy (week 104: 21% vs. 23%; P = 0.77), whereas 8 of 13 severe infections occurred in patients treated with concomitant immunosuppression. To conclude, the clinical effect was 19% for CD and 28% for UC after 2 years of follow-up regardless of concomitant immunosuppression

Smoking and colorectal neoplasia in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: Dose-effect relationship

Background and Aims: Prior studies on the effect of smoking on the risk of colitis-associated colorectal neoplasia (CRN) have reported conflicting results. We aimed to further elucidate the association between smoking, including possible dose-effects, and the development of colorectal neoplasia in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods: We performed a prospective multicenter cohort study including patients with colonic IBD enrolled in a surveillance program in four academic hospitals between 2011 and 2021. The effects of smoking status and pack-years at study entry on subsequent recurrent events of CRN (including indefinite, low- and high-grade dysplasia, and colorectal cancer [CRC]) were evaluated using uni- and multivariable Prentice, Williams, and Peterson total-time Cox proportional hazard models. Adjustment was performed for extensive disease, prior/index dysplasia, sex, age, first-degree relative with CRC, primary sclerosing cholangitis, and endoscopic inflammation. Results: In 501 of the enrolled 576 patients, at least one follow-up surveillance was performed after the study index (median follow-up 5 years). CRN occurred at least once in 105 patients. Ever smoking was not associated with recurrent CRN risk (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.04, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.75–1.44), but an increasing number of pack-years was associated with an increased risk of recurrent CRN (aHR per 10 pack-years 1.17, 95% CI 1.03–1.32; p < 0.05). Separate analyses per IBD type did not reveal differences. Conclusions: This study found that an increase in pack-years is associated with a higher risk of recurrent CRN in patients with IBD, independent of established CRN risk factors (NCT01464151)

No Superiority of Tacrolimus Suppositories vs Beclomethasone Suppositories in a Randomized Trial of Patients With Refractory Ulcerative Proctitis

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Ulcerative proctitis (UP) refractory to 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) suppositories is a challenge to treat, often requiring step up to immunomodulator or biological therapy. Topical tacrolimus is effective and safe in patients with refractory UP. However, it is not clear how tacrolimus suppositories fit into in the treatment algorithm of UP. METHODS: We performed a randomized controlled, double-blind study at 8 hospitals in The Netherlands and Belgium from 2014 through 2017. Eighty-five patients with refractory UP (65% women) were randomly assigned to groups given once daily tacrolimus suppositories (2mg, n=43) or beclomethasone (3mg, n=42) for 4 weeks. The primary outcome was clinical response (decrease in Mayo score of 3 or more). Secondary outcomes included clinical remission, endoscopic response and remission, adverse events and quality of life. Outcomes were compared using Fisher's exact test and Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: Proportions of patients with clinical responses were 63% in the tacrolimus group and 59% in the beclomethasone group (P=.812); proportions of patients in clinical remission were 46% and 38%, respectively (P=.638). Proportions of patients with an endoscopic response were 68% and 60% in the tacrolimus group and in the beclomethasone group (P=.636); proportions in endoscopic remission rates were 30% and 13%, respectively (P=.092) Median increases in the inflammatory bowel disease questionnaire score were 18.0 in the tacrolimus group and 20.5 in the beclomethasone group (P=.395). Adverse event rates did not differ significantly between groups. CONCLUSIONS: In a 4-week randomized controlled trial, tacrolimus and beclomethasone suppositories induce comparable clinical and endoscopic responses in patients with UP refractory to 5-ASA. There were no significant differences in adverse events rates. Tacrolimus and beclomethasone suppositories are therefore each safe and effective treatment options for 5-ASA refractory disease. EUDRACT 2013-001259-11; Netherlands Trial Register NL4205 / NTR4416