An efficient component-based framework for intelligent home-care system design with video and physiological monitoring machineries

Abstract-This study proposes a customized and reusable component-based design framework based on the UML modeling process for intelligent home healthcare systems. All the proposed functional components are reusable, replaceable, and extensible for the system developers to implement customized home healthcare systems for different demands of patients and caregivers on healthcare monitoring aspects. The prototype design of the intelligent healthcare system based on these proposed components can provide the following features: 1). the system can monitor and record the videos of rehabilitation situations and actions of the patient by multiple CCD cameras, and the monitoring videos at different times can be accordingly stored in the archive. 2). the system can record the patient's physiological data records and the corresponding treatment plan, and these records can be stored in a XML archiving database for caregivers' review. 3). during the times for the patient to take medicine or other healing activities listed on the given treatment plan, the system can automatically alarm the patient and record the patient's treatment situations. 4). The patient's caregivers and family members can ubiquitously monitor the videos and physiological records of the patient's rehabilitation situations via the handheld mobile devices via the internet or wireless communication networks. 5). The caregivers and patients can setup the alarm machinery for the patients' physiological warning states, and once the patients' physiological states suddenly deteriorate, the module will immediately alarm the caregivers by sending notification messages to their remote mobile devices or web browsers

A Vision-Based Driver Nighttime Assistance and Surveillance System Based on Intelligent Image Sensing Techniques and a Heterogamous Dual-Core Embedded System Architecture

This study proposes a vision-based intelligent nighttime driver assistance and surveillance system (VIDASS system) implemented by a set of embedded software components and modules, and integrates these modules to accomplish a component-based system framework on an embedded heterogamous dual-core platform. Therefore, this study develops and implements computer vision and sensing techniques of nighttime vehicle detection, collision warning determination, and traffic event recording. The proposed system processes the road-scene frames in front of the host car captured from CCD sensors mounted on the host vehicle. These vision-based sensing and processing technologies are integrated and implemented on an ARM-DSP heterogamous dual-core embedded platform. Peripheral devices, including image grabbing devices, communication modules, and other in-vehicle control devices, are also integrated to form an in-vehicle-embedded vision-based nighttime driver assistance and surveillance system

Suppressor of K+ transport growth defect 1 (SKD1) interactswith RING-type ubiquitin ligase and sucrose non-fermenting1-related protein kinase (SnRK1) in the halophyte ice plant

SKD1 (suppressor of K+ transport growth defect 1) is an AAA-type ATPase that functions as a molecular motor. It was previously shown that SKD1 accumulates in epidermal bladder cells of the halophyte Mesembryanthemum crystallinum. SKD1 knock-down Arabidopsis mutants showed an imbalanced Na+/K+ ratio under salt stress. Two enzymes involved in protein post-translational modifications that physically interacted with McSKD1 were identified. McCPN1 (copine 1), a RING-type ubiquitin ligase, has an N-terminal myristoylation site that links to the plasma membrane, a central copine domain that interacts with McSKD1, and a C-terminal RING domain that catalyses protein ubiquitination. In vitro ubiquitination assay demonstrated that McCPN1 was capable of mediating ubiquitination of McSKD1. McSnRK1 (sucrose non-fermenting 1-related protein kinase) is a Ser/Thr protein kinase that contains an N-terminal STKc catalytic domain to phosphorylate McSKD1, and C-terminal UBA and KA1 domains to interact with McSKD1. The transcript and protein levels of McSnRK1 increased as NaCl concentrations increased. The formation of an SKD1–SnRK1–CPN1 ternary complex was demonstrated by yeast three-hybrid and bimolecular fluorescence complementation. It was found that McSKD1 preferentially interacts with McSnRK1 in the cytosol, and salt induced the re-distribution of McSKD1 and McSnRK1 towards the plasma membrane via the microtubule cytoskeleton and subsequently interacted with RING-type E3 McCPN1. The potential effects of ubiquitination and phosphorylation on McSKD1, such as changes in the ATPase activity and cellular localization, and how they relate to the functions of SKD1 in the maintenance of Na+/K+ homeostasis under salt stress, are discussed

A Single-Cell Level and Connectome-Derived Computational Model of the Drosophila Brain

Computer simulations play an important role in testing hypotheses, integrating knowledge, and providing predictions of neural circuit functions. While considerable effort has been dedicated into simulating primate or rodent brains, the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is becoming a promising model animal in computational neuroscience for its small brain size, complex cognitive behavior, and abundancy of data available from genes to circuits. Moreover, several Drosophila connectome projects have generated a large number of neuronal images that account for a significant portion of the brain, making a systematic investigation of the whole brain circuit possible. Supported by FlyCircuit (http://www.flycircuit.tw), one of the largest Drosophila neuron image databases, we began a long-term project with the goal to construct a whole-brain spiking network model of the Drosophila brain. In this paper, we report the outcome of the first phase of the project. We developed the Flysim platform, which (1) identifies the polarity of each neuron arbor, (2) predicts connections between neurons, (3) translates morphology data from the database into physiology parameters for computational modeling, (4) reconstructs a brain-wide network model, which consists of 20,089 neurons and 1,044,020 synapses, and (5) performs computer simulations of the resting state. We compared the reconstructed brain network with a randomized brain network by shuffling the connections of each neuron. We found that the reconstructed brain can be easily stabilized by implementing synaptic short-term depression, while the randomized one exhibited seizure-like firing activity under the same treatment. Furthermore, the reconstructed Drosophila brain was structurally and dynamically more diverse than the randomized one and exhibited both Poisson-like and patterned firing activities. Despite being at its early stage of development, this single-cell level brain model allows us to study some of the fundamental properties of neural networks including network balance, critical behavior, long-term stability, and plasticity

Clonal dissemination of invasive and colonizing clonal complex 1 of serotype VI group B Streptococcus in central Taiwan

Background/PurposeThe aim of this study was to investigate clinical presentation, serotype distribution and genetic correlation of group B streptococcus (GBS) diseases. Since serotype VI prevalence far exceeded that reported in prior studies, genetic relationship of isolates was further analyzed.MethodsGBS isolates obtaining from patients with invasive diseases and pregnant women with colonization between June 2007 and December 2010 were analyzed. All isolates were tested for serotypes by multiplex PCR assay and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Serotype VI isolates were further analyzed by multilocus sequence typing (MLST).ResultsA total of 134 GBS isolates were recovered from blood of 126 patients with invasive disease (94.0%) and anogenital swabs of 8 pregnant women (6.0%). Most common serotype was Ib (21.6%), followed by V (20.1%), VI (18.7%), III (15.7%), II (11.9 %), Ia (11.2%), and IX (0.7%). Serotype VI was also the leading type in infants with early onset disease (EOD; 3/8, 37.5%) and colonizing pregnant women (3/8, 37.5%). PFGE distinguished 33 pulsotypes, reflecting genetic diversity among GBS isolates. Among 25 serotype VI isolates tested, 14 were ST-1, seven were ST-679, three were ST-678, one was ST-681, and distributed into four PFGE pulsotypes. ST-678, ST-679, and ST-681 were novel sequence types; ST-678 and ST-679 are single-locus variants of ST-1 that belongs to clonal complex (CC) 1.ConclusionCC1 dissemination of serotype VI GBS thus emerges as an important invasive pathogen in infants and nonpregnant adults in central Taiwan. Serotype prevalence of GBS must be continuously monitored geographically to guide prevention strategy of GBS vaccines

Induction of Apoptosis by Luteolin Involving Akt Inactivation in Human 786-O Renal Cell Carcinoma Cells

There is a growing interest in the health-promoting effects of natural substances obtained from plants. Although luteolin has been identified as a potential therapeutic and preventive agent for cancer because of its potent cancer cell-killing activity, the molecular mechanisms have not been well elucidated. This study provides evidence of an alternative target for luteolin and sheds light on the mechanism of its physiological benefits. Treatment of 786-O renal cell carcinoma (RCC) cells (as well as A498 and ACHN) with luteolin caused cell apoptosis and death. This cytotoxicity was caused by the downregulation of Akt and resultant upregulation of apoptosis signal-regulating kinase-1 (Ask1), p38, and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) activities, probably via protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) activation. In addition to being a concurrent substrate of caspases and event of cell death, heat shock protein-90 (HSP90) cleavage might also play a role in driving further cellular alterations and cell death, at least in part, involving an Akt-related mechanism. Due to the high expression of HSP90 and Akt-related molecules in RCC and other cancer cells, our findings suggest that PP2A activation might work in concert with HSP90 cleavage to inactivate Akt and lead to a vicious caspase-dependent apoptotic cycle in luteolin-treated 786-O cells

Vision-Based Finger Detection, Tracking, and Event Identification Techniques for Multi-Touch Sensing and Display Systems

This study presents efficient vision-based finger detection, tracking, and event identification techniques and a low-cost hardware framework for multi-touch sensing and display applications. The proposed approach uses a fast bright-blob segmentation process based on automatic multilevel histogram thresholding to extract the pixels of touch blobs obtained from scattered infrared lights captured by a video camera. The advantage of this automatic multilevel thresholding approach is its robustness and adaptability when dealing with various ambient lighting conditions and spurious infrared noises. To extract the connected components of these touch blobs, a connected-component analysis procedure is applied to the bright pixels acquired by the previous stage. After extracting the touch blobs from each of the captured image frames, a blob tracking and event recognition process analyzes the spatial and temporal information of these touch blobs from consecutive frames to determine the possible touch events and actions performed by users. This process also refines the detection results and corrects for errors and occlusions caused by noise and errors during the blob extraction process. The proposed blob tracking and touch event recognition process includes two phases. First, the phase of blob tracking associates the motion correspondence of blobs in succeeding frames by analyzing their spatial and temporal features. The touch event recognition process can identify meaningful touch events based on the motion information of touch blobs, such as finger moving, rotating, pressing, hovering, and clicking actions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed vision-based finger detection, tracking, and event identification system is feasible and effective for multi-touch sensing applications in various operational environments and conditions

Brazilein from Caesalpinia sappan

Brazilein, a natural, biologically active compound from Caesalpinia sappan L., has been shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties and to inhibit the growth of several cancer cells. This study verifies the antioxidant and antitumor characteristics of brazilein in skin cancer cells and is the first time to elucidate the inhibition mechanism of adipocyte differentiation, cestocidal activities against Hymenolepis nana, and reduction of spontaneous movement in Anisakis simplex. Brazilein exhibits an antioxidant capacity as well as the ability to scavenge DPPH• and ABTS•+ free radicals and to inhibit lipid peroxidation. Brazilein inhibited intracellular lipid accumulation during adipocyte differentiation in 3T3-L1 cells and suppressed the induction of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ), the master regulator of adipogenesis, suggesting that brazilein presents the antiobesity effects. The toxic effects of brazilein were evaluated in terms of cell viability, induction of apoptosis, and the activity of caspase-3 in BCC cells. The inhibition of the growth of skin cancer cells (A431, BCC, and SCC25) by brazilein is greater than that of human skin malignant melanoma (A375) cells, mouse leukemic monocyte macrophage (RAW 264.7 cells), and noncancerous cells (HaCaT and BNLCL2 cells). The anthelmintic activities of brazilein against Hymenolepis nana are better than those of Anisakis simplex