Development of smart inner city recreational facilities to encourage active living

Lowfield Park in Sheffield, UK is a green recreational space main-tained by the City Council. Lowfield Park was selected as the primary Sheffield FieldLab for the ProFit project which ended in 2015. The ProFit project was European Interreg IVbNWE funded with the aim of encouraging physical activ-ity through innovations in products, services and ICT systems. In 2014 the Sheffield Hallam University City Athletics Stadium (SHUCAS) was introduced as a secondary FieldLab. A number of innovative systems have been installed into the FieldLabs, these include: Pan Tilt Zoom cameras, automatically timed sprint and running tracks, outdoor displays/touchscreen and a gait analyser. This paper describes the hardware, software and cloud infrastructure created to enable these systems. Pilot testing has been carried out over the last year and has found a positive effect on both sites. The systems created will be taken for-ward to Sheffield’s Olympic Legacy Park, which is currently under develop-ment

Internet of things

Manual of Digital Earth / Editors: Huadong Guo, Michael F. Goodchild, Alessandro Annoni .- Springer, 2020 .- ISBN: 978-981-32-9915-3Digital Earth was born with the aim of replicating the real world within the digital world. Many efforts have been made to observe and sense the Earth, both from space (remote sensing) and by using in situ sensors. Focusing on the latter, advances in Digital Earth have established vital bridges to exploit these sensors and their networks by taking location as a key element. The current era of connectivity envisions that everything is connected to everything. The concept of the Internet of Things(IoT)emergedasaholisticproposaltoenableanecosystemofvaried,heterogeneous networked objects and devices to speak to and interact with each other. To make the IoT ecosystem a reality, it is necessary to understand the electronic components, communication protocols, real-time analysis techniques, and the location of the objects and devices. The IoT ecosystem and the Digital Earth (DE) jointly form interrelated infrastructures for addressing today’s pressing issues and complex challenges. In this chapter, we explore the synergies and frictions in establishing an efficient and permanent collaboration between the two infrastructures, in order to adequately address multidisciplinary and increasingly complex real-world problems. Although there are still some pending issues, the identified synergies generate optimism for a true collaboration between the Internet of Things and the Digital Earth

DIGITAL EARTH OBSERVATION INFRASTRUCTURES AND INITIATIVES: A REVIEW FRAMEWORK BASED ON OPEN PRINCIPLES

Recent years have seen a tremendous increase of digital Earth Observation (EO) infrastructures, which provide web-based environments for accessing and processing data in a highly automated and scalable way. However, the current landscape of EO infrastructures and initiatives is fragmented, with various levels of user on-boarding and uptake success. The current work aims to make sense of this complex landscape by providing two main contributions. First, it offers a classification scheme used to review and analyse more than 150 EO infrastructures and initiatives. Then, adopting a user-centric perspective, the main limitations and obstacles currently faced by users when working with the existing EO platforms are identified. For each of these limitations, we propose a number of good practices that could benefit, from a user point of view, the design and functioning of EO platforms. Some technological enablers, i.e. specific resources (such as software components, standards and data encodings) that emerged from the analysis as holding a great potential for improving the usability of existing EO platforms, are finally listed. The work aims to provide a first scientific insight on how to best design and operate EO platforms to maximise the benefits of their user communities

Screening for preventable infections in IBD patients

With increasing use of immunomodulators and biologics in IBD patients, there is focus on prevention of infections. ECCO consensus guidelines recommend screening to reduce the risk of infections. Consecutive patients who had screening tests prior to immunomodulatory and/or biologic therapy were included. Data collected on serologic status of hepatitis B, varicella zoster, EBV IgM and IgG. Evidence of previously unknown hepatitis B, hepatitis C or HIV infection, non-immune status to varicella zoster, and serology indicative of no prior EBV infection were considered significant results. Some 42 patients were included (22 Crohn`s disease and 20 ulcerative colitis). Mean age was 40 years (range 21-59 years). One of the patients had evidence of active hepatitis B (HBsAg (+), HBeAg(-), anti-HBe att (+), antiHDV(+)- HBV+HDV, HBVDNA- 1989 IU/mL, HDV-RNA- twice no detectable). This patient began therapy with Lamivudine. After 6 month of therapy, HBV-DNA was 2 IU/mL. Three patients had anti-HBc-total att (+), anti HBs att (+). None of the patients had evidence of active hepatitis C or HIV infection. EBV serology was available in 12 patients and none had EBV IgM. All were positive for EBV IgG indicating past infection. In conclusion, screening in IBD patients prior to initiation of immunomodulatory and/or anti-TNF therapy may pick-up potentially significant number of patients who are at risk of preventable illnesses

Screening for tuberculosis in patients candidates for anti -TNF therapy in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)

ECCO consensus guidelines recommend screening to rule out latent tuberculosis infection (LTI) in patients who are treated with anti-TNF. Quantiferon-TB-Gold in Tube® test (QFT-G-IT) in combination with the tuberculin skin test-TST may be useful in detecting LTI. We intend to evaluate the use of QFT-G-IT in combination with (TST, clinical data and chest x-ray) for LTI diagnosis in IBD patients. The aim was to evaluate the incidence of LTB and active TB (ATB) in IBD patients before and during aTNFT. Observational study of all patients with IBD candidates for biologic therapy in our hospital from April 2010 to December 2012 was carried out. The following data was collected: age, sex, immunosuppressive therapy, history of tuberculosis, history of vaccination, TST, QFT-G-IT and chest x-ray. A total of 34 IBD patients were recruited, all candidates for biologic therapy, at a mean age of 38,.52 years (range 21-58), 23 Crohn`s disease and 10 ulcerative colitis). All the patients were BCG vaccinated. The TST was negative in all patients. Two Crohn`s disease patients were positive for QFT-G-IT before treatment with adalimumab (HumiraⓇ). Two patients with Crohn`s disease after four and eight months of biological therapy, respectively, also became positive for QFT-G-IT. LTI rate in our patients was 5,8% before treatment and 6,25% during the treatment. Chest x-ray was normal in all cases of LTB. Despite screening for LTB, one female ulcerative colitis patient on AZA therapy developed active tuberculosis (ATB). In conclusions, the incidence of LTB in our group before aTNFT was 5,8%, similar to data of other investigator groups. The concordance between the two tests QFTG- IT and TST in IBD patients in our series is poor. QFT-G-IT can be a useful tool that can optimize the diagnosis of LTI

Distribution of risk factors in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have gone through the clinic of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutriotion in UMHAT St. Marina-Varna

INTRODUCTION Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common histological type of primary liver cancer. Its occurrence is associated with many risk factors - chronic viral hepatitis C and/or B, hepatic cirrhosis with viral and/or non-viral etiology. AIM: The presented retrospective study aims to identify and analyze the risk factors leading to the development of HCC. To assess the role of NASH, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and dietary habits in the pathogenesis of HCC by tracking susceptible populations. MATERIAL AND METHODS: For this purpose, 222 patients with HCC were traced. The diagnosis is based on the performed laboratory, imaging and histological examinations. RESULTS: In our cohort, patients with underlying liver cirrhosis were 77% (63% decompensated), followed by chronic viral hepatitis B and / or C65%. In case of chronical hepatitis, viral replication was investigated - 75% have HBV DNA> 2,000 IU/ ml, 85%> HCV RNA> 300,000 IU / ml. The share of other established liver diseases - Wilson‘s disease - 1%; hemochromatosis - 0.4%; autoimmune hepatitis - 0.4%. The distribution to additional factors is diabetes mellitus 40%; metabolic syndrome 17%, NASH - 9%. With alcohol abuse - 63% of those surveyed, and smokers are 13%. CONCLUSION: Knowing the risk factors will allow for the development of aqurate screening programs, which will increase an early diagnosis of HCCs and thus improve the prognosis for patients