Case report: Typhoid fever complicated by hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis and rhabdomyolysis

Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) and rhabdomyolysis are rare complications of typhoid fever from Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi. Herein, we describe the clinical features in a 21-year-old female from India who presented to the intensive care unit with fever, severe pancytopenia, and rhabdomyolysis

Sentiment Analysis of Microblogs Using Multilayer Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Networks

Sentiment analysis aims to extract public opinion on a particular topic and microblogs, especially Twitter as the most influential platform, represent a significant source of information. The application to microblogs has to cope with difficulties, such as informal language with abbreviations, internet jargons, emoticons, hashtags that do not appear in conventional text documents. Sentiment analysis technique for microblogs based on a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) with sigmoid activation function is proposed in this paper and compared to machine learning approaches, i.e. Multinomial Naive Bayes, Support Vector Machines and Maximum Entropy. Experiments were performed on Stanford Twitter Sentiment corpus, a balanced dataset which contains noisy training labels weakly annotated using emoticons as sentiment indicators; and SemEval-2014 Task 9 corpus, an unbalanced dataset which contains manually annotated training examples. The obtained results show that ANN produces superior or at least comparable results to state-of-the-art machine learning techniques

Audio signal processing using fractional linear prediction

Fractional linear prediction (FLP), as a generalization of conventional linear prediction (LP), was recently successfully applied in different fields of research and engineering, such as biomedical signal processing, speech modeling and image processing. The FLP model has a similar design as the conventional LP model, i.e., it uses a linear combination of “fractional terms” with different orders of fractional derivative. Assuming only one “fractional term” and using limited number of previous samples for prediction, FLP model with “restricted memory” is presented in this paper and the closed-form expressions for calculation of FLP coefficients are derived. This FLP model is fully comparable with the widely used low-order LP, as it uses the same number of previous samples, but less predictor coefficients, making it more efficient. Two different datasets, MIDI Aligned Piano Sounds (MAPS) and Orchset, were used for the experiments. Triads representing the chords composed of three randomly chosen notes and usual Western musical chords (both of them from MAPS dataset) served as the test signals, while the piano recordings from MAPS dataset and orchestra recordings from the Orchset dataset served as the musical signal. The results show enhancement of FLP over LP in terms of model complexity, whereas the performance is comparable

PERSPECTIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY, INNOVATIVENESS, AND COMPETITIVENESS OF CEFTA COUNTRIES

Knowledge and innovativeness are the key determinants of the competitiveness of countries in the contemporary economic conditions. Based on these facts, the paper presents a comparative analysis of readiness for the development of the knowledge economy, the achieved level of innovativeness and competitiveness of countries involved in the Central European Free Trade Agreement – CEFTA  and a group of selected EU countries), which used to be CEFTA members. The aim of the study is to assess differences in the levels of readiness for the development of knowledge economy, innovativeness, and competitiveness of these two groups of countries. The research results confirm the significant lagging of CEFTA countries in relation to the selected EU countries, once CEFTA members.Key words: competitive advantage, innovation, knowledge economy, CEFTA, selected EU countries

Determination analysis of temperature regimes, functional characteristics and sliding curves of a hydrodynamic clutch

Analysis of output quality of power transmitters is possible in position when characteristics are determined earlier. This is the reason why we focused on determination of these characteristics for a concrete power hydro-transmitter. This means that the investigation task primarily consisted of determination of functional characteristics, defining of the sliding curves and temperature regimes of a concrete hydrodynamic clutch. Results of velocity and pressure field investigations in the working space of this clutch, obtained by use of the same test setup, are the basis for determination and analysis of the functional characteristics, sliding curves and temperature regimes. In this work we also analyzed function of the hydrodynamic transmitter in assembly with an internal combustion engine, as well as a process of acceleration and deceleration of a vehicle with this assembly in it

ANALYSIS OF SERBIAN INNOVATION POTENTIAL IN THE PERIOD 2009-2012

In this paper a review of significance of country’s innovation potential for its economic growth and development is displayed first. Afterwards, positions and values of the global innovation index for the top 25 most innovative economies, for Serbia and for selected countries from its surroundings, for the period from 2009 to 2012 have been displayed. In order to classify selected countries into two or more groups, based on their similarity according to innovation performances, cluster analysis is conducted. The relations between innovation inputs and innovation outputs have been studied on the example of selected groups of countries (the group of European innovative leaders and Serbia with neighboring countries) through the correlation analysis. Key words:  innovation, innovation inputs, innovation outputs, innovation efficiency

State of the art of audio- and video based solutions for AAL

Working Group 3. Audio- and Video-based AAL ApplicationsIt is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals (e.g., speech recordings). Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary 4 debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely (i) lifelogging and self-monitoring, (ii) remote monitoring of vital signs, (iii) emotional state recognition, (iv) food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, (v) activity and personal assistance, (vi) gesture recognition, (vii) fall detection and prevention, (viii) mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and (ix) cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed.publishedVersio

State of the Art of Audio- and Video-Based Solutions for AAL

It is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters. Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals. Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely lifelogging and self-monitoring, remote monitoring of vital signs, emotional state recognition, food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, activity and personal assistance, gesture recognition, fall detection and prevention, mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed

Design of nonlinear predictors for adaptive predictive coding of speech signals

Linear predictive coding is probably the most frequently used technique in speech signal processing. Its main advantage comes from the analogy of the simplified vocal tract model with speech production system. However, this neglects nonlinearities in the speech production process. The paper deals with nonlinear prediction of speech based on truncated Volterra series. Long-term one-tap Volterra predictor is designed in order to decrease computational complexity. Further improvements are obtained using frame/subframe structure and fractional delay