Playmancer project: a serious videogame as an additional therapy tool for eating and impulse control disorders

Reviews and few non-controlled studies showed the effectiveness of several specific designed computer video-games as an additional form of treatment in several areas. However, there is a lack in the literature of specially designed serious-games for treating mental disorders. Playmancer (ICT European initiative) aims to develop and assess a serious videogame that may help to treat underlying processes (e.g. lack of self-control strategies) in Eating and Impulse control disorders. Preliminary data will be shown

Isolated hypercholesterolemia leads to steatosis in the liver without affecting the pancreas

Abstract Background Lipid accumulation in the liver and pancreas is primarily caused by combined hyperlipidemia. However, the effect of isolated hypercholesterolemia without hypertriglyceridemia is not fully described. Therefore, our aim was to investigate whether hypercholesterolemia alone leads to alterations both in hepatic and pancreatic lipid panel and histology in rats. Methods Male Wistar rats were fed with 2% cholesterol +0.25% cholate-supplemented diet or standard chow for 12 weeks. Blood was collected at weeks 0, 4, 8 and 12 to measure serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels. At week 12, both the pancreas and the liver were isolated for further histological and biochemical analysis. Hepatic and plasma fatty acid composition was assessed by gas chromatography. Expression of mRNA of major enzymes involved in saturated/unsaturated fatty acid synthesis was analyzed by qPCR. In separate experiments serum enzyme activities and insulin levels were measured at week 9. Results At week 12, rats fed with 2% cholesterol +0.25% cholate-supplemented diet were characterized by elevated serum cholesterol (4.09 ± 0.20 vs. 2.89 ± 0.22 mmol/L, *p < 0.05) while triglyceride (2.27 ± 0.05 vs. 2.03 ± 0.03 mmol/L) and glucose levels (5.32 ± 0.14 vs. 5.23 ± 0.10 mmol/L) remained unchanged. Isolated hypercholesterolemia increased hepatic lipid accumulation, hepatic cholesterol (5.86 ± 0.22 vs. 1.60 ± 0.15 ng/g tissue, *p < 0.05) and triglyceride contents (19.28 ± 1.42 vs. 6.78 ± 0.71 ng/g tissue, *p < 0.05), and hepatic nitrotyrosine level (4.07 ± 0.52 vs. 2.59 ± 0.31 ng/mg protein, *p < 0.05). The histology and tissue lipid content of the pancreas was not affected. Serum total protein level, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) activities remained unchanged in response to isolated hypercholesterolemia while serum alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) significantly increased. Plasma insulin levels did not change in response to isolated hypercholesterolemia suggesting an intact endocrine function of the pancreas. Isolated hypercholesterolemia caused a significantly increased hepatic and serum fatty acid level associated with a marked alteration of fatty acid composition. Hepatic expression of Δ9-desaturase (SCD1) was increased 4.92×, while expression of Δ5-desaturase and Δ6-desaturase were decreased (0.447× and 0.577×, respectively) due to isolated hypercholesterolemia. Conclusions Isolated hypercholesterolemia leads to hepatic steatosis and marked alterations in the hepatic lipid profile without affecting the pancreas. Altered fatty acid profile might mediate harmful effects of cholesterol in the liver

Telemonitoring system for home rehabilitation of patients with COPD

This papers presents a flexible, user friendly, multi-tenant health care platform, which enables remote monitoring of vital signs of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) by integrating a series of heterogeneous data collection sources (medical devices), while offering to authorized professionals secure access to patients' Health Electronic Records (EHRs) in real time and from any location, further empowered by an automated alarm system. A pilot study, with duration of one year has been conducted in Greece to examine the degree to which patients adhere to the home rehabilitation protocol and its potential benefits for patients with COPD

An intelligent user service architecture or networked home environments

This paper discusses a novel architecture of intelligent user services that address the domain of networked home environments. The work described in this paper represents the central achievements of the first 1.5 years in the work package on intelligent user services within the EU-IST funded research project Amigo. The discussed service architecture consists of five distinct services that address both user- and system oriented issues in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) home environments

F.: An Intelligent User Service Architecture for Networked Home Environments

This paper discusses a novel architecture of intelligent user services that address the domain of networked home environments. The work described in this paper represents the central achievements of the first 1.5 years in the work package on intelligent user services within the EU-IST funded research project Amigo. The discussed service architecture consists of five distinct services that address both user- and system oriented issues in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) home environments

Conceptual architecture of a multi-dimensional modeling framework for older office workers

There is an alarming rise/increase of older people in EUs population, with an expected percentage of people over 65 at 30% by 2060, and the majority of older workers willing to work past their traditional retirement age. The concept of Work Ability, which has been developed as an important multi-factor concept that can be used to identify workers at risk for an imbalance between health, personal resources and work demands, has the potential to mitigate the decrease in work ability of office workers while aging. The framework for modeling the work ability of the office worker, described at a conceptual level in this work, is grounded in a holistic multidimensional model which accounts for both the cognitive and physical resources of the individual, and factors related to work and the environment outside of work. AI tools for prediction and risk assessment allow for dimension specific decision support and intervention, including on-the-fly flexible work management, coping with stress at work, and on-demand training