An iconic language for the graphical representation of medical concepts

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many medication errors are encountered in drug prescriptions, which would not occur if practitioners could remember the drug properties. They can refer to drug monographs to find these properties, however drug monographs are long and tedious to read during consultation. We propose a two-step approach for facilitating access to drug monographs. The first step, presented here, is the design of a graphical language, called VCM.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The VCM graphical language was designed using a small number of graphical primitives and combinatory rules. VCM was evaluated over 11 volunteer general practitioners to assess if the language is easy to learn, to understand and to use. Evaluators were asked to register their VCM training time, to indicate the meaning of VCM icons and sentences, and to answer clinical questions related to randomly generated drug monograph-like documents, supplied in text or VCM format.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>VCM can represent the various signs, diseases, physiological states, life habits, drugs and tests described in drug monographs. Grammatical rules make it possible to generate many icons by combining a small number of primitives and reusing simple icons to build more complex ones. Icons can be organized into simple sentences to express drug recommendations. Evaluation showed that VCM was learnt in 2 to 7 hours, that physicians understood 89% of the tested VCM icons, and that they answered correctly to 94% of questions using VCM (versus 88% using text, <it>p </it>= 0.003) and 1.8 times faster (<it>p </it>< 0.001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>VCM can be learnt in a few hours and appears to be easy to read. It can now be used in a second step: the design of graphical interfaces facilitating access to drug monographs. It could also be used for broader applications, including the design of interfaces for consulting other types of medical document or medical data, or, very simply, to enrich medical texts.</p

Degradation of HIF-1alpha under Hypoxia Combined with Induction of Hsp90 Polyubiquitination in Cancer Cells by Hypericin: a Unique Cancer Therapy

The perihydroxylated perylene quinone hypericin has been reported to possess potent anti-metastatic and antiangiogenic activities, generated by targeting diverse crossroads of cancer-promoting processes via unique mechanisms. Hypericin is the only known exogenous reagent that can induce forced poly-ubiquitination and accelerated degradation of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) in cancer cells. Hsp90 client proteins are thereby destabilized and rapidly degraded. Hsp70 client proteins may potentially be also affected via preventing formation of hsp90-hsp70 intermediate complexes. We show here that hypericin also induces enhanced degradation of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) in two human tumor cell lines, U87-MG glioblastoma and RCC-C2VHL−/− renal cell carcinoma and in the non-malignant ARPE19 retinal pigment epithelial cell line. The hypericin-accelerated turnover of HIF-1α, the regulatory precursor of the HIF-1 transcription factor which promotes hypoxic stress and angiogenic responses, overcomes the physiologic HIF-1α protein stabilization which occurs in hypoxic cells. The hypericin effect also eliminates the high HIF-1α levels expressed constitutively in the von-Hippel Lindau protein (pVHL)-deficient RCC-C2VHL−/− renal cell carcinoma cell line. Unlike the normal ubiquitin-proteasome pathway-dependent turnover of HIF-α proteins which occurs in normoxia, the hypericin-induced HIF-1α catabolism can occur independently of cellular oxygen levels or pVHL-promoted ubiquitin ligation of HIF-1α. It is mediated by lysosomal cathepsin-B enzymes with cathepsin-B activity being optimized in the cells through hypericin-mediated reduction in intracellular pH. Our findings suggest that hypericin may potentially be useful in preventing growth of tumors in which HIF-1α plays pivotal roles, and in pVHL ablated tumor cells such as renal cell carcinoma through elimination of elevated HIF-1α contents in these cells, scaling down the excessive angiogenesis which characterizes these tumors

Cognitive Ability Evaluation using Virtual Reality and Eye Tracking

This work aims to create a virtual reality (VR) representation of Ravens progressive matrices (RPM) and apply available eye tracking (ET) technology to determine where the test person\u27s eye gaze is located during the test. RPM are developed to evaluate abstract reasoning and there is a possibility to further understand the mental processes of the test person by adding ET. The result of this project is a test scenario where the user completes ten tasks from RPM in a VR environment. Reports containing heat maps and trajectories describing the eye gaze together with times and results of the tasks are automatically generated after the test has been completed. This extended information which is automatically gathered is meant to further expand the toolbox that psychologists use when performing psychological testing and might aid them in improving the accuracy of the results obtained from these tests

Lyotropic lipid phases confined in cylindrical pores: Structure and permeability

A model membrane system based on lipid lyotropic phases confined inside the pores of a well-defined scaffold membrane, thereby forming a double-porous membrane structure, is described. The model membrane system is characterized with regard to lipid structure, lipid location, and phase transitions, using small-angle X-ray scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, and confocal microscopy. The system enables studies of transport across oriented lipid bilayers as well as of lipids in confinement. The lipids are shown to be located inside the membrane pores, and the effect of confinement on lipid structure is shown to be small, although dependent on the surface properties of the scaffold membrane. For transport studies, Franz diffusion cells and different types of drugs/dyes are used, and the transport studies are complemented with theoretical modeling. Lipids investigated include monoolein, dioleoyl phosphatidylcholine, dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine, and E. coli total lipid extract. In the case of monoolein, the lipid structure can be changed from a bicontinuous cubic Ia3d phase to a liquid crystalline lamellar phase, by controlling the osmotic pressure of the surrounding solution through addition of water-soluble polymer. The osmotic pressure can thereby be used as a switch, changing the permeability of the lipid phase up to 100-fold, depending on the properties of the diffusing substance. The large effect of changing the structure implies an alignment of the lamellar phase inside the pores

Hybrid Cost Automata Applied to Energy Optimization

For optimization of hybrid systems, the ordinary hybrid automatonis extended to include a local cost criterion in each location of thehybrid model. The extended model is called a hybrid cost automaton,where generally each local cost depends on the continuoustimestate trajectory in corresponding location, and each cost isupdated as long as its location is active. The total cost criterionis achieved by adding the individual costs from each active location,where the best route among alternative locations is selected inthe optimization. This model is used to achieve an energy optimalschedule for robot cells. Each robot operation including its energycost is then represented as a location, and a number of interactingrobots are modeled as a set of hybrid cost automata, one for eachindividual robot. The energy consumption for each robot operationis modelled and parameterized as a function of the operation’s executiontime, and the energy-optimal schedule is derived by solvinga mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem

Modeling and Optimization of Energy Consumption in Cooperative Multi-Robot Systems

Reduction of energy consumption is important for reaching a sustainable future. This paper presents a novel method for optimizing the energy consumption of robotic manufacturing systems. The method embeds detailed evaluations of robots' energy consumptions into a scheduling model of the overall system. The energy consumption for each operation is modeled and parameterized as function of the operation execution time, and the energy-optimal schedule is derived by solving a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. The objective function for the optimization problem is then the total energy consumption for the overall system. A case study of a sample robotic manufacturing system and an experiment on an industrial robot are presented. They show that there exists a real possibility for a significant reduction of the energy consumption in comparison to state-of-the-art scheduling approaches

Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling in Clinical Information Systems: A Case Study

The goal of the MedView project is to develop models, methods, and tools to support clinicians in their daily work and research. MedView is based on a formal declarative model, which constitutes the main governing principle in MedView, not only in the formalization of knowledge, but in visualization models and in the design and implementation of individual tools and the system as a whole as well. Tools are provided for modeling, acquiring, and sharing knowledge, and for visualization and analysis of data

Embedding detailed robot energy optimization into high-level scheduling

Reduction of energy consumption is important for reaching a sustainable future. This paper presents a novel method for optimizing the energy consumption of robotic manufacturing systems. The method embeds detailed evaluations of robots’ energy consumptions into a scheduling model of the overall system. The energy consumption for each operation is modelled and parameterized as function of the operation execution time, and the energy-optimal schedule is derived by solving a mixed-integer nonlinear programming problem. The objective function for the optimization problem is then the total energy consumption for the overall system. A case study of a sample robotic manufacturing system is presented. It shows that there exists a possibility for a significant reduction of the energy consumption, in comparison to state-of-the-art scheduling approaches