Incidence of hip fracture in Saudi Arabia and the development of a FRAX model

Summary A prospective hospital-based survey in representative regions of Saudi Arabia determined the incidence of fractures at the hip. The hip fracture rates were used to create a FRAX® model to facilitate fracture risk assessment in Saudi Arabia. Objective This paper describes the incidence of hip fracture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that was used to characterize the current and future burden of hip fracture, to develop a country-specific FRAX® tool for fracture prediction and to compare fracture probabilities with neighbouring countries. Methods During a 2-year (2017/2018) prospective survey in 15 hospitals with a defined catchment population, hip fractures in Saudi citizens were prospectively identified from hospital registers. The number of hip fractures and future burden was determined from national demography. Age- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture and national mortality rates were incorporated into a FRAX model for Saudi Arabia. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Results The incidence of hip fracture applied nationally suggested that the estimated number of hip fractures nationwide in persons over the age of 50 years for 2015 was 2,949 and is predicted to increase nearly sevenfold to 20,328 in 2050. Hip fracture rates were comparable with estimates from Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. By contrast, probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture or hip fracture from the age of 70 years were much lower than those seen in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait due to higher mortality estimates for Saudi Arabia. Conclusion A country-specific FRAX tool for fracture prediction has been developed for Saudi Arabia which is expected to help guide decisions about treatment

Prevalent peripheral arterial disease and inflammatory burden

10.1186/s12877-016-0389-9BMC Geriatrics16121

EPI framework: Approach for traffic redirection through containerised network functions

Utilising programmable infrastructures is a promising approach to support secure data-sharing across healthcare domains of different capabilities in terms of network and security. The EPI1 (Enabling Personalised Interventions) framework automates the setup of the underlying infrastructure while considering different requirements communicated by the EPI components, such as logic area generator and policy management system.In our approach to dynamically provide collaborative environments, we containerise network functions (VFs), that are shipped out and instantiated at the edge of the network. We use container-based Virtual Network Function (VNFs) to accomplish fast deployment, high reusability, and low-performance overhead.Traffic interception and redirection through the chain of containerised network functions is a core feature of our framework. In this paper, we focus on the implementation and design of this tool for packet interception and redirection. We evaluate the performance of two approaches: an NGINX-based reverse proxy method and a SOCKS protocol-based method. We benchmark them to determine the overhead compared to a direct data-sharing session with no proxy. We conclude that the reverse proxy performs better in terms of overhead. Nonetheless, the SOCKS-based method works on a lower network level support all traffic types and offer a higher processing rate. We compare the methods according to other performance parameters. Subsequently, the choice of method will depend on the application performance requirements

EPI framework: Approach for traffic redirection through containerised network functions

Utilising programmable infrastructures is a promising approach to support secure data-sharing across healthcare domains of different capabilities in terms of network and security. The EPI1 (Enabling Personalised Interventions) framework automates the setup of the underlying infrastructure while considering different requirements communicated by the EPI components, such as logic area generator and policy management system.In our approach to dynamically provide collaborative environments, we containerise network functions (VFs), that are shipped out and instantiated at the edge of the network. We use container-based Virtual Network Function (VNFs) to accomplish fast deployment, high reusability, and low-performance overhead.Traffic interception and redirection through the chain of containerised network functions is a core feature of our framework. In this paper, we focus on the implementation and design of this tool for packet interception and redirection. We evaluate the performance of two approaches: an NGINX-based reverse proxy method and a SOCKS protocol-based method. We benchmark them to determine the overhead compared to a direct data-sharing session with no proxy. We conclude that the reverse proxy performs better in terms of overhead. Nonetheless, the SOCKS-based method works on a lower network level support all traffic types and offer a higher processing rate. We compare the methods according to other performance parameters. Subsequently, the choice of method will depend on the application performance requirements