Adversarial Unsupervised Representation Learning for Activity Time-Series

Sufficient physical activity and restful sleep play a major role in the prevention and cure of many chronic conditions. Being able to proactively screen and monitor such chronic conditions would be a big step forward for overall health. The rapid increase in the popularity of wearable devices provides a significant new source, making it possible to track the user's lifestyle real-time. In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised representation learning technique called activity2vec that learns and "summarizes" the discrete-valued activity time-series. It learns the representations with three components: (i) the co-occurrence and magnitude of the activity levels in a time-segment, (ii) neighboring context of the time-segment, and (iii) promoting subject-invariance with adversarial training. We evaluate our method on four disorder prediction tasks using linear classifiers. Empirical evaluation demonstrates that our proposed method scales and performs better than many strong baselines. The adversarial regime helps improve the generalizability of our representations by promoting subject invariant features. We also show that using the representations at the level of a day works the best since human activity is structured in terms of daily routinesComment: Accepted at AAAI'19. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1712.0952

Why does ethics matter in participatory health?

Social media and participatory health has emerged as a promising tool for health, including developing diagnostic tools and therapeutic interventions. In the realm of online health care delivery, artificial intelligence based counseling apps now enable patients to consult with a chatbot instead of an actual therapist. However, several ethical issues and implications became relevant with this shift to digital interventions and healthcare delivery. This panel will describe ethical issues related to recent developments in participatory health and social media including the digital exposome, importance of involving patients in the design of AI-based applications and ethics of social media research in healthcare

Randomized trial of a novel game-based appointment system for a university hospital venereology unit: Study protocol

Background: Chlamydia is the most common reportable sexually transmitted disease (STD) in Norway, and its incidence in the two northernmost counties has been disclosed to be nearly the double of the Norwegian average. The latest publicly available rates showed that 85.6% of the new cases were diagnosed in people under 29 years old. The information and communication technologies are among the most powerful influences in the lives of young people. The Internet can potentially represent a way to educate on sexual health and encourage young people, and especially youth, to be tested for STDs. If hospital websites include an easy and anonymous system for scheduling appointments with the clinic, it is possible that this could lead to an increase in the number of people tested for STDs. Methods: The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of a game-based appointment system on the frequency of consultations at a venereology unit and on the use of an educational web app. An A/B testing methodology is used. Users from the city of Tromsø, in North Norway, will be randomized to one of the two versions of the game-style web app on sexual health at www.sjekkdeg.no. Group A will have access to educational content only, while group B will have, in addition, access to a game-based appointment system with automatic prioritization. After one year of the trial, it will be analyzed if the game-based appointment system increases the number of consultations at the venereology unit and if health professionals deem the system useful. Discussion: This study will explore if facilitating the access to health services for youth through the use of a game-based appointment system integrated in a game-style web app on sexual health education can have an impact on appointment rates

Consecuencias de los vacíos legales del Decreto Legislativo Nro. 1401 en relación a las obligaciones de la entidad en practicantes pre y profesionales gestantes

La presente investigación, tuvo como objetivo desarrollar las consecuencias de los vacíos legales del Decreto Legislativo Nro. 1401 en relación con las obligaciones de la entidad en practicantes pre y profesionales gestantes, siendo una investigación con enfoque cualitativo, de tipo básica, cuyo diseño de investigación fue de teoría fundamentada, como participantes se ha considerado a 8 personas; 02 asistentes en función fiscal, 05 abogados litigantes y 01 funcionaria pública, como técnica de recolección de datos se aplicó la entrevista, habiéndose utilizado como instrumento la guía de la entrevista a profundidad; obteniéndose como resultado que se debería incorporar la licencia por maternidad en practicantes pre y profesionales gestantes, modificándose el artículo 15 del Decreto Legislativo Nro. 1401, y se llegó a la conclusión que existen consecuencias producto de los vacíos legales del Decreto Legislativo en cuestión, que ponen a la practicante en una situación de agravio respecto a su ámbito laboral, económico y académico

Stability of Ampicillin plus Ceftriaxone Combined in Elastomeric Infusion Devices for Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy

Ampicillin; Infective endocarditis; Outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapyAmpicil·lina; Endocarditis infecciosa; Teràpia antimicrobiana parenteral ambulatòriaAmpicilina; Endocarditis infecciosa; Terapia antimicrobiana parenteral ambulatoriaCurrently, ampicillin plus ceftriaxone (AC) is one of the preferred treatments for Enterococcus faecalis infective endocarditis. However, there is a lack of stability data for the combination of both drugs in elastomeric devices, so the inclusion of AC in Outpatient Parenteral Antimicrobial Therapy (OPAT) programs is challenging. The objective of the study was to determine the stability of AC in elastomeric pumps when stored at 8 ± 2 °C, 25 ± 2 °C, 30 ± 2 °C and 37 ± 2 °C using LC-MS/MS. The combination was diluted in 0.9% sodium chloride and the final concentrations were ampicillin 24 g/L plus ceftriaxone 8 g/L. Physical and chemical stability were evaluated at 12, 20, 24, 36 and 48 h after preparation. Stability was met at each time point if the percentage of intact drug was ≥90% of its respective baseline concentration and color and clearness remained unchanged. The drug combination was stable for 48 h when it was kept at 8 ± 2 °C. At 25 ± 2 °C and 30 ± 2 °C, they were stable for 24 h of storage. At 37 ± 2 °C, the stability criterion was not met at any time point. These results prove that AC could be included in OPAT programs using elastomeric infusion devices for the treatment of E. faecalis infections.This work was supported by the Sociedad Española de Farmacia Hospitalaria and the AFinf Working Group for the project “Stability study of antimicrobials under conditions analogous to the outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy program (OPAT)”. A.G.-V. was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by the European Development Regional Fund (“A way to achieve Europe”), Subprograma Miguel Servet (grant CP19/00159). L.H.-H. was supported by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, co-financed by the European Development Regional Fund (“A way to achieve Europe”), Subprograma Juan Rodés (grant JR22/00049)

Numerical simulation of a semitrailer’s lateral protection system against car frontal crash

The present study is focused on the dynamic simulation of a car frontal crash against a lateral protection system for semitrailers. This system is a barrier fixed laterally to each side in semitrailers, designed to reduce damages on car passengers in case of lateral collision. From the basis of an already existing design, different designs and finite element models where created, adapting the system to the European regulation UNECE nº 73, concerning lateral protection devices’ homologation. Finite element models were developed and different materials were considered on the metallic barrier beams. Then, crash simulations using the software LS-DYNA were performed, where a passenger car Toyota Yaris Sedan (2010 model) was impacted against the barrier at 50 km/h, 90 km/h and 120 km/h. Results such as maximum car displacements and deceleration on passengers could be analysed in these simulations. It was assessed the possibility of achieving a weight reduction of the barrier by means of design and material modifications

A New Tool for Public Health Opinion to Give Insight Into Telemedicine: Twitter Poll Analysis

Background: Telemedicine draws on information technologies in order to enable the delivery of clinical health care from a distance. Twitter is a social networking platform that has 316 million monthly active users with 500 million tweets per day; its potential for real-time monitoring of public health has been well documented. There is a lack of empirical research that has critically examined the potential of Twitter polls for providing insight into public health. One of the benefits of utilizing Twitter polls is that it is possible to gain access to a large audience that can provide instant and real-time feedback. Moreover, Twitter polls are completely anonymized. Objective: The overall aim of this study was to develop and disseminate Twitter polls based on existing surveys to gain real-time feedback on public views and opinions toward telemedicine. Methods: Two Twitter polls were developed utilizing questions from previously used questionnaires to explore acceptance of telemedicine among Twitter users. The polls were placed on the Twitter timeline of one of the authors, which had more than 9300 followers, and the account followers were asked to answer the poll and retweet it to reach a larger audience. Results: In a population where telemedicine was expected to enjoy big support, a significant number of Twitter users responding to the poll felt that telemedicine was not as good as traditional care. Conclusions: Our results show the potential of Twitter polls for gaining insight into public health topics on a range of health issues not just limited to telemedicine. Our study also sheds light on how Twitter polls can be used to validate and test survey questions

Knowledge and Perceptions about Zika Virus in a Middle East Country

BACKGROUND: Zika virus, an emerging serious infectious disease, is a threat to persons living or travelling to regions where it is currently endemic, and also to contacts of infected individuals. The aim of this study was to assess knowledge about this new public health threat to persons residing in a Middle Eastern country. METHODS: We conducted a survey at several international universities in Qatar to assess knowledge and awareness about this disease. An adapted version of the survey was also conducted using online channels from Qatar. RESULTS: The median age of the 446 participants, was 25 years, 280 (63%) were females, and 32% were from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) or other Middle East countries. Based upon their knowledge about availability of a vaccine, role of mosquitoes and other modes of transmission, and disease complications, we classified respondent\u27s knowledge as poor (66%), basic (27%) or broad (7%). Forty-five (16%) persons with poor knowledge considered themselves to be well-informed. CONCLUSIONS: This report from a sample of persons associated with Middle East educational complex, reveals inadequate knowledge about Zika virus, a serious emerging infectious disease. Although few cases have been reported from the region, future cases are possible, since this area is a transit hub connecting currently infected regions to North America, Europe and Asia. As a preventive measure, an educational program about Zika virus would be valuable, especially for individuals or family members travelling to afflicted regions