Metabolic Modifications in HIV-Infected Women

To assess metabolic alterations and/or abnormal fat distribution in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-infected women undergoing Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), a case-control study was carried out in a population of twenty-two HIV-infected, normal weight, non-diabetic, normotensive women. Twenty-five healthy non infected subjects matched for sex, age and Body Mass Index (BMI) were also included as a control group. Blood samples were collected for leptin and insulin measurements. Fasting glucose, triglycerides, total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol were also measured. Insulin resistance was determined using the homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA-IR). Body fat distribution was evaluated using waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA) and abdominal CT-scan. Immunologic and virologic parameters included CD4- and CD8-T cell counts and HIV-RNA levels. HIV-infected patients showed higher levels of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and triglycerides (P<0.05), higher fasting insulin and HOMA-IR (P<0.001), lower levels of HDL-cholesterol (P<0.001) and serum leptin (P<0.001) than the control group. With regard to body fat distribution, no statistically significant difference between cases and controls was found. Among the control women leptin levels were positively correlated with body fat distribution parameters (P<0.001)

The requirements to enhance the design of context-aware mobile patient monitoring systems using wireless sensors

Designing and developing Context-aware Mobile Patient Monitoring Systems (CMPMS) using wireless sensors are emerging in the biomedical informatics domain.However, previous studies related to this topic are fragmented.In fact, the literature has no standard types and sources of context information.These types and sources are required to design such systems.In addition, there is no standard context reasoning approach to facilitate the development of these systems.To address these absences, this paper is a survey of the CMPMS in the biomedical informatics to identify potential types and sources of context information as well as the context reasoning approaches that are required to be addressed in designing and developing such systems. The results are expected to help researchers to enhance the design and facilitate the development of CMPMS