Non-Invasive Device for Blood Pressure Wave Acquisition by Means of Mechanical Transducer

Blood pressure wave monitoring provides interesting information about the patient’s cardiovascular function. For this reason, this article proposes a non-invasive device capable of capturing the vibrations (pressure waves) produced by the carotid artery by means of a pressure sensor encapsulated in a closed dome filled with air. When the device is placed onto the outer skin of the carotid area, the vibrations of the artery will exert a deformation in the dome, which, in turn, will lead to a pressure increase in its inner air. Then, the sensor inside the dome captures this pressure increase. By combining the blood pressure wave obtained with this device together with the ECG signal, it is possible to help the screening of the cardiovascular system, obtaining parameters such as heart rate variability (HRV) and pulse transit time (PTT). The results show how the pressure wave has been successfully obtained in the carotid artery area, discerning the characteristic points of this signal. The features of this device compare well with previous works by other authors. The main advantages of the proposed device are the reduced size, the cuffless condition, and the potential to be a continuous ambulatory device. These features could be exploited in ambulatory tests.D.Z.V. thanks the economic support of the ACIF (subsidies for the recruitment of predoctoral research staff) program with the scholarship ACIF/2019/058. The work of J.M.V.-S. was supported by Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport (GVA) through FDGENT/2018/015 project. The work of C.G.J. was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport through the Research and Doctorate Supporting Program FPU, grant number FPU14/00401. This work was partially funded by Spanish Research State Agency and European Regional Development Fund through “Craneeal” Project (DPI2106-80391-C3-2-R)

Adopting a High-Polyphenolic Diet Is Associated with an Improved Glucose Profile: Prospective Analysis within the PREDIMED-Plus Trial

Previous studies suggested that dietary polyphenols could reduce the incidence and complications of type-2 diabetes (T2D); although the evidence is still limited and inconsistent. This work analyzes whether changing to a diet with a higher polyphenolic content is associated with an improved glucose profile. At baseline, and at 1 year of follow-up visits, 5921 participants (mean age 65.0 ± 4.9, 48.2% women) who had overweight/obesity and metabolic syndrome filled out a validated 143-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), from which polyphenol intakes were calculated. Energy-adjusted total polyphenols and subclasses were categorized in tertiles of changes. Linear mixed-effect models with random intercepts (the recruitment centers) were used to assess associations between changes in polyphenol subclasses intake and 1-year plasma glucose or glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels. Increments in total polyphenol intake and some classes were inversely associated with better glucose levels and HbA1c after one year of follow-up. These associations were modified when the analyses were run considering diabetes status separately. To our knowledge, this is the first study to assess the relationship between changes in the intake of all polyphenolic groups and T2D-related parameters in a senior population with T2D or at high-risk of developing T2

Intelligent Monitoring Platform to Evaluate the Overall State of People with Neurological Disorders

The percentage of people around the world who are living with some kind of disability or disorder has increased in recent years and continues to rise due to the aging of the population and the increase in chronic health disorders. People with disabilities find problems in performing some of the activities of daily life, such as working, attending school, or participating in social and recreational events. Neurological disorders such as epilepsy, learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, or Alzheimer’s, are among the main diseases that affect a large number of this population. However, thanks to the assistive technologies (AT), these people can improve their performance in some of the obstacles presented by their disorders. This paper presents a new system that aims to help people with neurological disorders providing useful information about their pathologies. This novelty system consists of a platform where the physiological and environmental data acquisition, the feature engineering, and the machine learning algorithms are combined to generate customs predictive models that help the user. Finally, to demonstrate the use of the system and the working methodology employed in the platform, a simple example case is presented. This example case carries out an experimentation that presents a user without neurological problems that shows the versatility of the platform and validates that it is possible to get useful information that can feed an intelligent algorithm.This work was partially funded by Spanish Research State Agency and European Regional Development Fund through “Race” Project (PID2019-111023RB-C32). The work of J.M.V.-S. is supported by the Conselleria d’Educació, Investigació, Cultura i Esport (GVA) through FDGENT/2018/015 project

Analysis and Evolution of Efficiency in the Spanish Soccer League (2000/01 - 2007/08)

This paper aims to analyse the efficiency of the teams that have participated in the last eight seasons in the Spanish football (soccer) league (LFP). Efficiency is based on technical aspects of the sport rather than variables of an economic nature due to how difficult it is to obtain such information from the clubs that make up the Spanish league. These measures are obtained for attack and defense, as both are essentials parts of football as a sport. To measure the efficiency we used a DEA model. Once the two facets mentioned above are defined, it is important to find out whether they are more directly related to the achievement of the points at stake in each match, as the final goal is to gain as many points as possible in order to win the competition or even to avoid are being relegated to the second division. Finally, we measure how the eight teams that have played in the first division for the last few seasons have performed. These teams are primarily the ones that have finished those seasons up the table. In order to achieve this, a DEA-Window analysis is carried out with two windows, as this makes it possible to compare two consecutive seasons. Most teams change either players or their manager from one season to another, which means there is little sense football-wise to analyse windows of more than three seasons.