Wireless Augmented Reality Prototype (WARP)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Devereaux, A. S.

1999-01-01

Initiated in January, 1997, under NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, the Wireless Augmented Reality Prototype (WARP) is a means to leverage recent advances in communications, displays, imaging sensors, biosensors, voice recognition and microelectronics to develop a hands-free, tetherless system capable of real-time personal display and control of computer system resources. Using WARP, an astronaut may efficiently operate and monitor any computer-controllable activity inside or outside the vehicle or station. The WARP concept is a lightweight, unobtrusive heads-up display with a wireless wearable control unit. Connectivity to the external system is achieved through a high-rate radio link from the WARP personal unit to a base station unit installed into any system PC. The radio link has been specially engineered to operate within the high- interference, high-multipath environment of a space shuttle or space station module. Through this virtual terminal, the astronaut will be able to view and manipulate imagery, text or video, using voice commands to control the terminal operations. WARP's hands-free access to computer-based instruction texts, diagrams and checklists replaces juggling manuals and clipboards, and tetherless computer system access allows free motion throughout a cabin while monitoring and operating equipment.

Processing Diabetes Mellitus Composite Events in MAGPIE.

PubMed

Brugués, Albert; Bromuri, Stefano; Barry, Michael; Del Toro, Óscar Jiménez; Mazurkiewicz, Maciej R; Kardas, Przemyslaw; Pegueroles, Josep; Schumacher, Michael

2016-02-01

The focus of this research is in the definition of programmable expert Personal Health Systems (PHS) to monitor patients affected by chronic diseases using agent oriented programming and mobile computing to represent the interactions happening amongst the components of the system. The paper also discusses issues of knowledge representation within the medical domain when dealing with temporal patterns concerning the physiological values of the patient. In the presented agent based PHS the doctors can personalize for each patient monitoring rules that can be defined in a graphical way. Furthermore, to achieve better scalability, the computations for monitoring the patients are distributed among their devices rather than being performed in a centralized server. The system is evaluated using data of 21 diabetic patients to detect temporal patterns according to a set of monitoring rules defined. The system's scalability is evaluated by comparing it with a centralized approach. The evaluation concerning the detection of temporal patterns highlights the system's ability to monitor chronic patients affected by diabetes. Regarding the scalability, the results show the fact that an approach exploiting the use of mobile computing is more scalable than a centralized approach. Therefore, more likely to satisfy the needs of next generation PHSs. PHSs are becoming an adopted technology to deal with the surge of patients affected by chronic illnesses. This paper discusses architectural choices to make an agent based PHS more scalable by using a distributed mobile computing approach. It also discusses how to model the medical knowledge in the PHS in such a way that it is modifiable at run time. The evaluation highlights the necessity of distributing the reasoning to the mobile part of the system and that modifiable rules are able to deal with the change in lifestyle of the patients affected by chronic illnesses.

Infrared imaging based hyperventilation monitoring through respiration rate estimation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Basu, Anushree; Routray, Aurobinda; Mukherjee, Rashmi; Shit, Suprosanna

2016-07-01

A change in the skin temperature is used as an indicator of physical illness which can be detected through infrared thermography. Thermograms or thermal images can be used as an effective diagnostic tool for monitoring and diagnosis of various diseases. This paper describes an infrared thermography based approach for detecting hyperventilation caused due to stress and anxiety in human beings by computing their respiration rates. The work employs computer vision techniques for tracking the region of interest from thermal video to compute the breath rate. Experiments have been performed on 30 subjects. Corner feature extraction using Minimum Eigenvalue (Shi-Tomasi) algorithm and registration using Kanade Lucas-Tomasi algorithm has been used here. Thermal signature around the extracted region is detected and subsequently filtered through a band pass filter to compute the respiration profile of an individual. If the respiration profile shows unusual pattern and exceeds the threshold we conclude that the person is stressed and tending to hyperventilate. Results obtained are compared with standard contact based methods which have shown significant correlations. It is envisaged that the thermal image based approach not only will help in detecting hyperventilation but can assist in regular stress monitoring as it is non-invasive method.

Energy Use and Power Levels in New Monitors and Personal Computers

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Roberson, Judy A.; Homan, Gregory K.; Mahajan, Akshay

2002-07-23

Our research was conducted in support of the EPA ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program, whose goal is to reduce the amount of electricity consumed by office equipment in the U.S. The most energy-efficient models in each office equipment category are eligible for the ENERGY STAR label, which consumers can use to identify and select efficient products. As the efficiency of each category improves over time, the ENERGY STAR criteria need to be revised accordingly. The purpose of this study was to provide reliable data on the energy consumption of the newest personal computers and monitors that the EPA can usemore » to evaluate revisions to current ENERGY STAR criteria as well as to improve the accuracy of ENERGY STAR program savings estimates. We report the results of measuring the power consumption and power management capabilities of a sample of new monitors and computers. These results will be used to improve estimates of program energy savings and carbon emission reductions, and to inform rev isions of the ENERGY STAR criteria for these products. Our sample consists of 35 monitors and 26 computers manufactured between July 2000 and October 2001; it includes cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, Macintosh and Intel-architecture computers, desktop and laptop computers, and integrated computer systems, in which power consumption of the computer and monitor cannot be measured separately. For each machine we measured power consumption when off, on, and in each low-power level. We identify trends in and opportunities to reduce power consumption in new personal computers and monitors. Our results include a trend among monitor manufacturers to provide a single very low low-power level, well below the current ENERGY STAR criteria for sleep power consumption. These very low sleep power results mean that energy consumed when monitors are off or in active use has become more important in terms of contribution to the overall unit energy consumption (UEC). Cur rent ENERGY STAR monitor and computer criteria do not specify off or on power, but our results suggest opportunities for saving energy in these modes. Also, significant differences between CRT and LCD technology, and between field-measured and manufacturer-reported power levels reveal the need for standard methods and metrics for measuring and comparing monitor power consumption.« less

Commercial Smartphone-Based Devices and Smart Applications for Personalized Healthcare Monitoring and Management

PubMed Central

Vashist, Sandeep Kumar; Schneider, E. Marion; Luong, John H.T.

2014-01-01

Smartphone-based devices and applications (SBDAs) with cost effectiveness and remote sensing are the most promising and effective means of delivering mobile healthcare (mHealthcare). Several SBDAs have been commercialized for the personalized monitoring and/or management of basic physiological parameters, such as blood pressure, weight, body analysis, pulse rate, electrocardiograph, blood glucose, blood glucose saturation, sleeping and physical activity. With advances in Bluetooth technology, software, cloud computing and remote sensing, SBDAs provide real-time on-site analysis and telemedicine opportunities in remote areas. This scenario is of utmost importance for developing countries, where the number of smartphone users is about 70% of 6.8 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide with limited access to basic healthcare service. The technology platform facilitates patient-doctor communication and the patients to effectively manage and keep track of their medical conditions. Besides tremendous healthcare cost savings, SBDAs are very critical for the monitoring and effective management of emerging epidemics and food contamination outbreaks. The next decade will witness pioneering advances and increasing applications of SBDAs in this exponentially growing field of mHealthcare. This article provides a critical review of commercial SBDAs that are being widely used for personalized healthcare monitoring and management. PMID:26852680

Commercial Smartphone-Based Devices and Smart Applications for Personalized Healthcare Monitoring and Management.

PubMed

Vashist, Sandeep Kumar; Schneider, E Marion; Luong, John H T

2014-08-18

Smartphone-based devices and applications (SBDAs) with cost effectiveness and remote sensing are the most promising and effective means of delivering mobile healthcare (mHealthcare). Several SBDAs have been commercialized for the personalized monitoring and/or management of basic physiological parameters, such as blood pressure, weight, body analysis, pulse rate, electrocardiograph, blood glucose, blood glucose saturation, sleeping and physical activity. With advances in Bluetooth technology, software, cloud computing and remote sensing, SBDAs provide real-time on-site analysis and telemedicine opportunities in remote areas. This scenario is of utmost importance for developing countries, where the number of smartphone users is about 70% of 6.8 billion cell phone subscribers worldwide with limited access to basic healthcare service. The technology platform facilitates patient-doctor communication and the patients to effectively manage and keep track of their medical conditions. Besides tremendous healthcare cost savings, SBDAs are very critical for the monitoring and effective management of emerging epidemics and food contamination outbreaks. The next decade will witness pioneering advances and increasing applications of SBDAs in this exponentially growing field of mHealthcare. This article provides a critical review of commercial SBDAs that are being widely used for personalized healthcare monitoring and management.

Posture recognition based on fuzzy logic for home monitoring of the elderly.

PubMed

Brulin, Damien; Benezeth, Yannick; Courtial, Estelle

2012-09-01

We propose in this paper a computer vision-based posture recognition method for home monitoring of the elderly. The proposed system performs human detection prior to the posture analysis; posture recognition is performed only on a human silhouette. The human detection approach has been designed to be robust to different environmental stimuli. Thus, posture is analyzed with simple and efficient features that are not designed to manage constraints related to the environment but only designed to describe human silhouettes. The posture recognition method, based on fuzzy logic, identifies four static postures and is robust to variation in the distance between the camera and the person, and to the person's morphology. With an accuracy of 74.29% of satisfactory posture recognition, this approach can detect emergency situations such as a fall within a health smart home.

An on-line reactivity and power monitor for a TRIGA reactor

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Binney, Stephen E.; Bakir, Alia J.

1988-07-01

As the personal computer (PC) becomes more and more of a significant influence on modern technology, it is reasonable that at some point in time they would be used to interface with TRIGA reactors. A personal computer with a special interface board has been used to monitor key parameters during operation of the Oregon State University TRIGA Reactor (OSTR). A description of the apparatus used and sample results are included.

Implementation monitoring temperature, humidity and mositure soil based on wireless sensor network for e-agriculture technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sumarudin, A.; Ghozali, A. L.; Hasyim, A.; Effendi, A.

2016-04-01

Indonesian agriculture has great potensial for development. Agriculture a lot yet based on data collection for soil or plant, data soil can use for analys soil fertility. We propose e-agriculture system for monitoring soil. This system can monitoring soil status. Monitoring system based on wireless sensor mote that sensing soil status. Sensor monitoring utilize soil moisture, humidity and temperature. System monitoring design with mote based on microcontroler and xbee connection. Data sensing send to gateway with star topology with one gateway. Gateway utilize with mini personal computer and connect to xbee cordinator mode. On gateway, gateway include apache server for store data based on My-SQL. System web base with YII framework. System done implementation and can show soil status real time. Result the system can connection other mote 40 meters and mote lifetime 7 hours and minimum voltage 7 volt. The system can help famer for monitoring soil and farmer can making decision for treatment soil based on data. It can improve the quality in agricultural production and would decrease the management and farming costs.

Development of the Internet-Enabled System for Exercise Telerehabilitation and Cardiovascular Training.

PubMed

Dedov, Vadim N; Dedova, Irina V

2015-07-01

Sustained exercise training could significantly improve patient rehabilitation and management of noncommunicable diseases in the community. This study aimed to develop a universal telecare system for delivery of exercise rehabilitation and cardiovascular training services at home. An innovative bilateral leg training device was equipped with an electronic system for the ongoing measurement of training activities with the device. A single-item parameter reflecting the intensity of training was monitored using several modern telecommunication technologies. According to the application protocol, eight volunteers first tried the device for 30-60 min to determine their personal training capacity. Then, they were provided with equipment to use at home for 4 weeks. Adherence to daily training was assessed by the number of training days per week, training intensity, and duration of training sessions. The system provided reliable recording of training activities with the device using (1) long-term data logging without an ongoing connection to the computer, (2) wireless monitoring and recording of training activities on a stand-alone computer, and (3) a secure cloud-based monitoring over the Internet connection using electronic devices, including smartphones. Overall analysis of recordings and phone feedbacks to participants took only approximately 5 h for the duration of study. This study, although of a pilot nature, described the comprehensive exercise telerehabilitation system integrating mobile training equipment with personalized training protocols and remote monitoring. A single-item electronic parameter of the system usage facilitated time-effective data management. Wireless connection allowed various locations of device application and several monitoring arrangements ranging from real-time monitoring to long-term recording of exercise activities. A cloud-based software platform enabled management of multiple users at distance. Implementation of this model may facilitate both accessibility and availability of personalized exercise telerehabilitation services. Further studies would validate it in the clinical and healthcare environment.

A posture recognition based fall detection system for monitoring an elderly person in a smart home environment.

PubMed

Yu, Miao; Rhuma, Adel; Naqvi, Syed Mohsen; Wang, Liang; Chambers, Jonathon

2012-11-01

We propose a novel computer vision based fall detection system for monitoring an elderly person in a home care application. Background subtraction is applied to extract the foreground human body and the result is improved by using certain post-processing. Information from ellipse fitting and a projection histogram along the axes of the ellipse are used as the features for distinguishing different postures of the human. These features are then fed into a directed acyclic graph support vector machine (DAGSVM) for posture classification, the result of which is then combined with derived floor information to detect a fall. From a dataset of 15 people, we show that our fall detection system can achieve a high fall detection rate (97.08%) and a very low false detection rate (0.8%) in a simulated home environment.

PERSONAL COMPUTER MONITORS: A SCREENING EVALUATION OF VOLATILE ORGANIC EMISSIONS FROM EXISTING PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD LAMINATES AND POTENTIAL POLLUTION PREVENTION ALTERNATIVES

EPA Science Inventory

The report gives results of a screening evaluation of volatile organic emissions from printed circuit board laminates and potential pollution prevention alternatives. In the evaluation, printed circuit board laminates, without circuitry, commonly found in personal computer (PC) m...

A demonstrative model of a lunar base simulation on a personal computer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1985-01-01

The initial demonstration model of a lunar base simulation is described. This initial model was developed on the personal computer level to demonstrate feasibility and technique before proceeding to a larger computer-based model. Lotus Symphony Version 1.1 software was used to base the demonstration model on an personal computer with an MS-DOS operating system. The personal computer-based model determined the applicability of lunar base modeling techniques developed at an LSPI/NASA workshop. In addition, the personnal computer-based demonstration model defined a modeling structure that could be employed on a larger, more comprehensive VAX-based lunar base simulation. Refinement of this personal computer model and the development of a VAX-based model is planned in the near future.

Rotordynamics on the PC: Transient Analysis With ARDS

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fleming, David P.

1997-01-01

Personal computers can now do many jobs that formerly required a large mainframe computer. An example is NASA Lewis Research Center's program Analysis of RotorDynamic Systems (ARDS), which uses the component mode synthesis method to analyze the dynamic motion of up to five rotating shafts. As originally written in the early 1980's, this program was considered large for the mainframe computers of the time. ARDS, which was written in Fortran 77, has been successfully ported to a 486 personal computer. Plots appear on the computer monitor via calls programmed for the original CALCOMP plotter; plots can also be output on a standard laser printer. The executable code, which uses the full array sizes of the mainframe version, easily fits on a high-density floppy disk. The program runs under DOS with an extended memory manager. In addition to transient analysis of blade loss, step turns, and base acceleration, with simulation of squeeze-film dampers and rubs, ARDS calculates natural frequencies and unbalance response.

Worker-specific exposure monitor and method for surveillance of workers

DOEpatents

Lovejoy, Michael L.; Peeters, John P.; Johnson, A. Wayne

2000-01-01

A person-specific monitor that provides sensor information regarding hazards to which the person is exposed and means to geolocate the person at the time of the exposure. The monitor also includes means to communicate with a remote base station. Information from the monitor can be downloaded at the base station for long term storage and analysis. The base station can also include means to recharge the monitor.

An optical motion measuring system for laterally oscillated fatigue tests

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tripp, John S.; Tcheng, Ping; Murri, Gretchen B.; Sharpe, Scott

1993-01-01

This paper describes an optical system developed for materials testing laboratories at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) for high resolution monitoring of the transverse displacement and angular rotation of a test specimen installed in an axial-tension bending machine (ATB) during fatigue tests. It consists of a small laser, optics, a motorized mirror, three photodiodes, electronic detection and counting circuits, a data acquisition system, and a personal computer. A 3-inch by 5-inch rectangular plate attached to the upper grip of the test machine serves as a target base for the optical system. The personal computer automates the fatigue test procedure, controls data acquisition, performs data reduction, and provides user displays. The data acquisition system also monitors signals from up to 16 strain gages mounted on the test specimen. The motion measuring system is designed to continuously monitor and correlate the amplitude of the oscillatory motion with the strain gage signals in order to detect the onset of failure of the composite test specimen. A prototype system has been developed and tested which exceeds the design specifications of +/- 0.01 inch displacement accuracy, and +/- 0.25 deg angular accuracy at a sampling rate of 100 samples per second.

Design of smart neonatal health monitoring system using SMCC

PubMed Central

Mukherjee, Anwesha; Bhakta, Ishita

2016-01-01

Automated health monitoring and alert system development is a demanding research area today. Most of the currently available monitoring and controlling medical devices are wired which limits freeness of working environment. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a better alternative in such an environment. Neonatal intensive care unit is used to take care of sick and premature neonates. Hypothermia is an independent risk factor for neonatal mortality and morbidity. To prevent it an automated monitoring system is required. In this Letter, an automated neonatal health monitoring system is designed using sensor mobile cloud computing (SMCC). SMCC is based on WSN and MCC. In the authors’ system temperature sensor, acceleration sensor and heart rate measurement sensor are used to monitor body temperature, acceleration due to body movement and heart rate of neonates. The sensor data are stored inside the cloud. The health person continuously monitors and accesses these data through the mobile device using an Android Application for neonatal monitoring. When an abnormal situation arises, an alert is generated in the mobile device of the health person. By alerting health professional using such an automated system, early care is provided to the affected babies and the probability of recovery is increased. PMID:28261491

Design of smart neonatal health monitoring system using SMCC.

PubMed

De, Debashis; Mukherjee, Anwesha; Sau, Arkaprabha; Bhakta, Ishita

2017-02-01

Automated health monitoring and alert system development is a demanding research area today. Most of the currently available monitoring and controlling medical devices are wired which limits freeness of working environment. Wireless sensor network (WSN) is a better alternative in such an environment. Neonatal intensive care unit is used to take care of sick and premature neonates. Hypothermia is an independent risk factor for neonatal mortality and morbidity. To prevent it an automated monitoring system is required. In this Letter, an automated neonatal health monitoring system is designed using sensor mobile cloud computing (SMCC). SMCC is based on WSN and MCC. In the authors' system temperature sensor, acceleration sensor and heart rate measurement sensor are used to monitor body temperature, acceleration due to body movement and heart rate of neonates. The sensor data are stored inside the cloud. The health person continuously monitors and accesses these data through the mobile device using an Android Application for neonatal monitoring. When an abnormal situation arises, an alert is generated in the mobile device of the health person. By alerting health professional using such an automated system, early care is provided to the affected babies and the probability of recovery is increased.

PC-CUBE: A Personal Computer Based Hypercube

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ho, Alex; Fox, Geoffrey; Walker, David; Snyder, Scott; Chang, Douglas; Chen, Stanley; Breaden, Matt; Cole, Terry

1988-01-01

PC-CUBE is an ensemble of IBM PCs or close compatibles connected in the hypercube topology with ordinary computer cables. Communication occurs at the rate of 115.2 K-band via the RS-232 serial links. Available for PC-CUBE is the Crystalline Operating System III (CrOS III), Mercury Operating System, CUBIX and PLOTIX which are parallel I/O and graphics libraries. A CrOS performance monitor was developed to facilitate the measurement of communication and computation time of a program and their effects on performance. Also available are CXLISP, a parallel version of the XLISP interpreter; GRAFIX, some graphics routines for the EGA and CGA; and a general execution profiler for determining execution time spent by program subroutines. PC-CUBE provides a programming environment similar to all hypercube systems running CrOS III, Mercury and CUBIX. In addition, every node (personal computer) has its own graphics display monitor and storage devices. These allow data to be displayed or stored at every processor, which has much instructional value and enables easier debugging of applications. Some application programs which are taken from the book Solving Problems on Concurrent Processors (Fox 88) were implemented with graphics enhancement on PC-CUBE. The applications range from solving the Mandelbrot set, Laplace equation, wave equation, long range force interaction, to WaTor, an ecological simulation.

Scrap computer recycling in Taiwan

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, C.H.; Chang, S.L.; Wang, K.M.

1999-07-01

It is estimated that approximately 700,000 scrap personal computers will be generated each year in Taiwan. The disposal of such a huge amount of scrap computers presents a difficult task for the island due to the scarcity of landfills and incineration facilities available locally. Also, the hazardous materials contained in the scrap computers may cause serious pollution to the environment, if they are not properly disposed. Thus, EPA of Taiwan has declared scrap personal computers as a producer responsibility recycling product on July 1997 to mandate that the manufacturers, importers and sellers of personal computers have to recover and recyclemore » their scrap computers properly. Beginning on June 1, 1998, a scrap computer recycling plan is officially implemented on the island. Under this plan, consumers can deliver their unwanted personal computers to the designated collection points to receive reward money. Currently, only six items are mandated to be recycled in this recycling plan. They are notebooks, monitor and the hard disk, power supply, printed circuit board and shell of the main frame of the personal computer. This paper presents the current scrap computer recycling system in Taiwan.« less

The design of the m-health service application using a Nintendo DS game console.

PubMed

Lee, Sangjoon; Kim, Jungkuk; Lee, Myoungho

2011-03-01

In this article, we developed an m-health monitoring system using a Nintendo DS game console to demonstrate its utility. The proposed system consists of a biosignal acquisition device, wireless sensor network, base-station for signal reception from the sensor network and signal conversion according to Internet protocol, personal computer display program, and the Nintendo DS game console. The system collects three-channel electrocardiogram (ECG) signals for cardiac abnormality detection and three-axis accelerometer signals for fall detection of a person. The collected signals are then transmitted to the base-station through the wireless sensor network, where they are transformed according to the transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) and sent to the destination IP through Internet network. To test the developed system, the collected signals were displayed on a computer located in different building through wired Internet network and also simultaneously displayed on the Nintendo DS game console connected to Internet network wirelessly. The system was able to collect and transmit signals for more than 24 h without any interruptions or malfunctions, showing the possibility of integrating healthcare monitoring functions into a small handheld-type electronic device developed for different purposes without significant complications. It is expected that the system can be used in an ambulance, nursing home, or general hospital where efficient patient monitoring from long distance is necessary.

The monitoring of transient regimes on machine tools based on speed, acceleration and active electric power absorbed by motors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horodinca, M.

2016-08-01

This paper intend to propose some new results related with computer aided monitoring of transient regimes on machine-tools based on the evolution of active electrical power absorbed by the electric motor used to drive the main kinematic chains and the evolution of rotational speed and acceleration of the main shaft. The active power is calculated in numerical format using the evolution of instantaneous voltage and current delivered by electrical power system to the electric motor. The rotational speed and acceleration of the main shaft are calculated based on the signal delivered by a sensor. Three real-time analogic signals are acquired with a very simple computer assisted setup which contains a voltage transformer, a current transformer, an AC generator as rotational speed sensor, a data acquisition system and a personal computer. The data processing and analysis was done using Matlab software. Some different transient regimes were investigated; several important conclusions related with the advantages of this monitoring technique were formulated. Many others features of the experimental setup are also available: to supervise the mechanical loading of machine-tools during cutting processes or for diagnosis of machine-tools condition by active electrical power signal analysis in frequency domain.

Assessment of toxic metals in waste personal computers

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kolias, Konstantinos; Hahladakis, John N., E-mail: john_chach@yahoo.gr; Gidarakos, Evangelos, E-mail: gidarako@mred.tuc.gr

Highlights: • Waste personal computers were collected and dismantled in their main parts. • Motherboards, monitors and plastic housing were examined in their metal content. • Concentrations measured were compared to the RoHS Directive, 2002/95/EC. • Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices released <2006 was above the limit. • Waste personal computers need to be recycled and environmentally sound managed. - Abstract: Considering the enormous production of waste personal computers nowadays, it is obvious that the study of their composition is necessary in order to regulate their management and prevent any environmental contamination caused by their inappropriate disposal.more » This study aimed at determining the toxic metals content of motherboards (printed circuit boards), monitor glass and monitor plastic housing of two Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, three Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors, one LCD touch screen monitor and six motherboards, all of which were discarded. In addition, concentrations of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) were compared with the respective limits set by the RoHS 2002/95/EC Directive, that was recently renewed by the 2012/19/EU recast, in order to verify manufacturers’ compliance with the regulation. The research included disassembly, pulverization, digestion and chemical analyses of all the aforementioned devices. The toxic metals content of all samples was determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results demonstrated that concentrations of Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices with release dates before 2006, that is when the RoHS Directive came into force, exceeded the permissible limit. In general, except from Pb, higher metal concentrations were detected in motherboards in comparison with plastic housing and glass samples. Finally, the results of this work were encouraging, since concentrations of metals referred in the RoHS Directive were found in lower levels than the legislative limits.« less

[Portable Epileptic Seizure Monitoring Intelligent System Based on Android System].

PubMed

Liang, Zhenhu; Wu, Shufeng; Yang, Chunlin; Jiang, Zhenzhou; Yu, Tao; Lu, Chengbiao; Li, Xiaoli

2016-02-01

The clinical electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring systems based on personal computer system can not meet the requirements of portability and home usage. The epilepsy patients have to be monitored in hospital for an extended period of time, which imposes a heavy burden on hospitals. In the present study, we designed a portable 16-lead networked monitoring system based on the Android smart phone. The system uses some technologies including the active electrode, the WiFi wireless transmission, the multi-scale permutation entropy (MPE) algorithm, the back-propagation (BP) neural network algorithm, etc. Moreover, the software of Android mobile application can realize the processing and analysis of EEG data, the display of EEG waveform and the alarm of epileptic seizure. The system has been tested on the mobile phones with Android 2. 3 operating system or higher version and the results showed that this software ran accurately and steadily in the detection of epileptic seizure. In conclusion, this paper provides a portable and reliable solution for epileptic seizure monitoring in clinical and home applications.

[A skin cell segregating control system based on PC].

PubMed

Liu, Wen-zhong; Zhou, Ming; Zhang, Hong-bing

2005-11-01

A skin cell segregating control system based on PC (personal computer) is presented in this paper. Its front controller is a single-chip microcomputer which enables the manipulation for 6 patients simultaneously, and thus provides a great convenience for clinical treatments for vitiligo. With the use of serial port communication technology, it's possible to monitor and control the front controller in a PC terminal. And the application of computer image acquisition technology realizes the synchronous acquisition of pathologic shin cell images pre/after the operation and a case history. Clinical tests prove its conformity with national standards and the pre-set technological requirements.

Role of Statistical Random-Effects Linear Models in Personalized Medicine.

PubMed

Diaz, Francisco J; Yeh, Hung-Wen; de Leon, Jose

2012-03-01

Some empirical studies and recent developments in pharmacokinetic theory suggest that statistical random-effects linear models are valuable tools that allow describing simultaneously patient populations as a whole and patients as individuals. This remarkable characteristic indicates that these models may be useful in the development of personalized medicine, which aims at finding treatment regimes that are appropriate for particular patients, not just appropriate for the average patient. In fact, published developments show that random-effects linear models may provide a solid theoretical framework for drug dosage individualization in chronic diseases. In particular, individualized dosages computed with these models by means of an empirical Bayesian approach may produce better results than dosages computed with some methods routinely used in therapeutic drug monitoring. This is further supported by published empirical and theoretical findings that show that random effects linear models may provide accurate representations of phase III and IV steady-state pharmacokinetic data, and may be useful for dosage computations. These models have applications in the design of clinical algorithms for drug dosage individualization in chronic diseases; in the computation of dose correction factors; computation of the minimum number of blood samples from a patient that are necessary for calculating an optimal individualized drug dosage in therapeutic drug monitoring; measure of the clinical importance of clinical, demographic, environmental or genetic covariates; study of drug-drug interactions in clinical settings; the implementation of computational tools for web-site-based evidence farming; design of pharmacogenomic studies; and in the development of a pharmacological theory of dosage individualization.

Simple and powerful visual stimulus generator.

PubMed

Kremlácek, J; Kuba, M; Kubová, Z; Vít, F

1999-02-01

We describe a cheap, simple, portable and efficient approach to visual stimulation for neurophysiology which does not need any special hardware equipment. The method based on an animation technique uses the FLI autodesk animator format. This form of the animation is replayed by a special program ('player') providing synchronisation pulses toward recording system via parallel port. The 'player is running on an IBM compatible personal computer under MS-DOS operation system and stimulus is displayed on a VGA computer monitor. Various stimuli created with this technique for visual evoked potentials (VEPs) are presented.

The Timer-Logger-Communicator for Continuous, Mobile Measurement of Wheelchair Pressure Reliefs

PubMed Central

Grip, Jeffrey C.; Merbitz, Charles T.

1985-01-01

A recently developed device which provides continuous, direct monitoring of the pressure-relief performance of persons confined to wheelchairs is reported. A custom portable computer records the data, which is transferred for analysis to an Apple IIe. The mobile computer can also signal the patient to relieve pressure based on preset criteria and the patient's performance. Teaching lift-offs to prevent ischial pressure sores is the object. Data collected with the device are used clinically and for research. Examples of such data are presented. The benefits of the device are reviewed.

Culvert analysis program for indirect measurement of discharge

USGS Publications Warehouse

Fulford, Janice M.; ,

1993-01-01

A program based on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) methods for indirectly computing peak discharges through culverts allows users to employ input data formats used by the water surface profile program (WSPRO). The program can be used to compute discharge rating surfaces or curves that describe the behavior of flow through a particular culvert or to compute discharges from measurements of upstream of the gradually varied flow equations and has been adapted slightly to provide solutions that minimize the need for the user to determine between different flow regimes. The program source is written in Fortran 77 and has been run on mini-computers and personal computers. The program does not use or require graphics capability, a color monitor, or a mouse.

Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans

PubMed Central

Youyou, Wu; Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, David

2015-01-01

Judging others’ personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people’s interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire. We show that (i) computer predictions based on a generic digital footprint (Facebook Likes) are more accurate (r = 0.56) than those made by the participants’ Facebook friends using a personality questionnaire (r = 0.49); (ii) computer models show higher interjudge agreement; and (iii) computer personality judgments have higher external validity when predicting life outcomes such as substance use, political attitudes, and physical health; for some outcomes, they even outperform the self-rated personality scores. Computers outpacing humans in personality judgment presents significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing, and privacy. PMID:25583507

Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans.

PubMed

Youyou, Wu; Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, David

2015-01-27

Judging others' personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people's interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire. We show that (i) computer predictions based on a generic digital footprint (Facebook Likes) are more accurate (r = 0.56) than those made by the participants' Facebook friends using a personality questionnaire (r = 0.49); (ii) computer models show higher interjudge agreement; and (iii) computer personality judgments have higher external validity when predicting life outcomes such as substance use, political attitudes, and physical health; for some outcomes, they even outperform the self-rated personality scores. Computers outpacing humans in personality judgment presents significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing, and privacy.

An enhanced mobile-healthcare emergency system based on extended chaotic maps.

PubMed

Lee, Cheng-Chi; Hsu, Che-Wei; Lai, Yan-Ming; Vasilakos, Athanasios

2013-10-01

Mobile Healthcare (m-Healthcare) systems, namely smartphone applications of pervasive computing that utilize wireless body sensor networks (BSNs), have recently been proposed to provide smartphone users with health monitoring services and received great attentions. An m-Healthcare system with flaws, however, may leak out the smartphone user's personal information and cause security, privacy preservation, or user anonymity problems. In 2012, Lu et al. proposed a secure and privacy-preserving opportunistic computing (SPOC) framework for mobile-Healthcare emergency. The brilliant SPOC framework can opportunistically gather resources on the smartphone such as computing power and energy to process the computing-intensive personal health information (PHI) in case of an m-Healthcare emergency with minimal privacy disclosure. To balance between the hazard of PHI privacy disclosure and the necessity of PHI processing and transmission in m-Healthcare emergency, in their SPOC framework, Lu et al. introduced an efficient user-centric privacy access control system which they built on the basis of an attribute-based access control mechanism and a new privacy-preserving scalar product computation (PPSPC) technique. However, we found out that Lu et al.'s protocol still has some secure flaws such as user anonymity and mutual authentication. To fix those problems and further enhance the computation efficiency of Lu et al.'s protocol, in this article, the authors will present an improved mobile-Healthcare emergency system based on extended chaotic maps. The new system is capable of not only providing flawless user anonymity and mutual authentication but also reducing the computation cost.

Explicating Development of Personal Professional Theories from Higher Vocational Education to Beginning a Professional Career through Computer-Supported Drawing of Concept Maps

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

van den Bogaart, Antoine C. M.; Hummel, Hans G. K.; Kirschner, Paul A.

2018-01-01

This article explores how personal professional theories (PPTs) develop. PPT development of nine junior accountants and nine novice teachers was monitored by repeated measurements over a period of 1.5 years, from the last year of vocational education until the second year of their professional careers. Computer-supported construction of PPT…

Automatic diet monitoring: a review of computer vision and wearable sensor-based methods.

PubMed

Hassannejad, Hamid; Matrella, Guido; Ciampolini, Paolo; De Munari, Ilaria; Mordonini, Monica; Cagnoni, Stefano

2017-09-01

Food intake and eating habits have a significant impact on people's health. Widespread diseases, such as diabetes and obesity, are directly related to eating habits. Therefore, monitoring diet can be a substantial base for developing methods and services to promote healthy lifestyle and improve personal and national health economy. Studies have demonstrated that manual reporting of food intake is inaccurate and often impractical. Thus, several methods have been proposed to automate the process. This article reviews the most relevant and recent researches on automatic diet monitoring, discussing their strengths and weaknesses. In particular, the article reviews two approaches to this problem, accounting for most of the work in the area. The first approach is based on image analysis and aims at extracting information about food content automatically from food images. The second one relies on wearable sensors and has the detection of eating behaviours as its main goal.

Application of NIR laser diodes to pulse oximetry

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lopez Silva, Sonnia M.; Giannetti, Romano; Dotor, Maria L.; Sendra, Jose R.; Silveira, Juan P.; Briones, Fernando

1999-01-01

A transmittance pulse oximeter based on near-infrared laser diodes for monitoring arterial blood hemoglobin oxygen saturation has been developed and tested. The measurement system consists of the optical sensor, sensor electronics, acquisition board and personal computer. The system has been tested in a two-part experimental study involving human volunteers. A calibration curve was derived and healthy volunteers were monitored under normal and apnea conditions, both with the proposed system and with a commercial pulse oximeter. The obtained results demonstrate the feasibility of using a sensor with laser diodes emitting at specific near-infrared wavelengths for pulse oximetry.

Integrating a Hand Held computer and Stethoscope into a Fetal Monitor

PubMed Central

Ahmad Soltani, Mitra

2009-01-01

This article presents procedures for modifying a hand held computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) into a versatile device functioning as an electronic stethoscope for fetal monitoring. Along with functioning as an electronic stethoscope, a PDA can provide a useful information source for a medical trainee. Feedback from medical students, residents and interns suggests the device is well accepted by medical trainees. PMID:20165517

Coupling of EIT with computational lung modeling for predicting patient-specific ventilatory responses.

PubMed

Roth, Christian J; Becher, Tobias; Frerichs, Inéz; Weiler, Norbert; Wall, Wolfgang A

2017-04-01

Providing optimal personalized mechanical ventilation for patients with acute or chronic respiratory failure is still a challenge within a clinical setting for each case anew. In this article, we integrate electrical impedance tomography (EIT) monitoring into a powerful patient-specific computational lung model to create an approach for personalizing protective ventilatory treatment. The underlying computational lung model is based on a single computed tomography scan and able to predict global airflow quantities, as well as local tissue aeration and strains for any ventilation maneuver. For validation, a novel "virtual EIT" module is added to our computational lung model, allowing to simulate EIT images based on the patient's thorax geometry and the results of our numerically predicted tissue aeration. Clinically measured EIT images are not used to calibrate the computational model. Thus they provide an independent method to validate the computational predictions at high temporal resolution. The performance of this coupling approach has been tested in an example patient with acute respiratory distress syndrome. The method shows good agreement between computationally predicted and clinically measured airflow data and EIT images. These results imply that the proposed framework can be used for numerical prediction of patient-specific responses to certain therapeutic measures before applying them to an actual patient. In the long run, definition of patient-specific optimal ventilation protocols might be assisted by computational modeling. NEW & NOTEWORTHY In this work, we present a patient-specific computational lung model that is able to predict global and local ventilatory quantities for a given patient and any selected ventilation protocol. For the first time, such a predictive lung model is equipped with a virtual electrical impedance tomography module allowing real-time validation of the computed results with the patient measurements. First promising results obtained in an acute respiratory distress syndrome patient show the potential of this approach for personalized computationally guided optimization of mechanical ventilation in future. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

An Open Architecture to Support Social and Health Services in a Smart TV Environment.

PubMed

Costa, Carlos Rivas; Anido-Rifon, Luis E; Fernandez-Iglesias, Manuel J

2017-03-01

To design, implement, and test a solution to provide social and health services for the elderly at home based on smart TV technologies and access to all services. The architecture proposed is based on an open software platform and standard personal computing hardware. This provides great flexibility to develop new applications over the underlying infrastructure or to integrate new devices, for instance to monitor a broad range of vital signs in those cases where home monitoring is required. An actual system as a proof-of-concept was designed, implemented, and deployed. Applications range from social network clients to vital signs monitoring; from interactive TV contests to conventional online care applications such as medication reminders or telemedicine. In both cases, the results have been very positive, confirming the initial perception of the TV as a convenient, easy-to-use technology to provide social and health care. The TV set is a much more familiar computing interface for most senior users, and as a consequence, smart TVs become a most convenient solution for the design and implementation of applications and services targeted to this user group. This proposal has been tested in real setting with 62 senior people at their homes. Users included both individuals with experience using computers and others reluctant to them.

Spacecraft crew procedures from paper to computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Oneal, Michael; Manahan, Meera

1991-01-01

Described here is a research project that uses human factors and computer systems knowledge to explore and help guide the design and creation of an effective Human-Computer Interface (HCI) for spacecraft crew procedures. By having a computer system behind the user interface, it is possible to have increased procedure automation, related system monitoring, and personalized annotation and help facilities. The research project includes the development of computer-based procedure system HCI prototypes and a testbed for experiments that measure the effectiveness of HCI alternatives in order to make design recommendations. The testbed will include a system for procedure authoring, editing, training, and execution. Progress on developing HCI prototypes for a middeck experiment performed on Space Shuttle Mission STS-34 and for upcoming medical experiments are discussed. The status of the experimental testbed is also discussed.

Role of Statistical Random-Effects Linear Models in Personalized Medicine

PubMed Central

Diaz, Francisco J; Yeh, Hung-Wen; de Leon, Jose

2012-01-01

Some empirical studies and recent developments in pharmacokinetic theory suggest that statistical random-effects linear models are valuable tools that allow describing simultaneously patient populations as a whole and patients as individuals. This remarkable characteristic indicates that these models may be useful in the development of personalized medicine, which aims at finding treatment regimes that are appropriate for particular patients, not just appropriate for the average patient. In fact, published developments show that random-effects linear models may provide a solid theoretical framework for drug dosage individualization in chronic diseases. In particular, individualized dosages computed with these models by means of an empirical Bayesian approach may produce better results than dosages computed with some methods routinely used in therapeutic drug monitoring. This is further supported by published empirical and theoretical findings that show that random effects linear models may provide accurate representations of phase III and IV steady-state pharmacokinetic data, and may be useful for dosage computations. These models have applications in the design of clinical algorithms for drug dosage individualization in chronic diseases; in the computation of dose correction factors; computation of the minimum number of blood samples from a patient that are necessary for calculating an optimal individualized drug dosage in therapeutic drug monitoring; measure of the clinical importance of clinical, demographic, environmental or genetic covariates; study of drug-drug interactions in clinical settings; the implementation of computational tools for web-site-based evidence farming; design of pharmacogenomic studies; and in the development of a pharmacological theory of dosage individualization. PMID:23467392

Factors leading to the computer vision syndrome: an issue at the contemporary workplace.

PubMed

Izquierdo, Juan C; García, Maribel; Buxó, Carmen; Izquierdo, Natalio J

2007-01-01

Vision and eye related problems are common among computer users, and have been collectively called the Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). An observational study in order to identify the risk factors leading to the CVS was done. Twenty-eight participants answered a validated questionnaire, and had their workstations examined. The questionnaire evaluated personal, environmental, ergonomic factors, and physiologic response of computer users. The distance from the eye to the computers' monitor (A), the computers' monitor height (B), and visual axis height (C) were measured. The difference between B and C was calculated and labeled as D. Angles of gaze to the computer monitor were calculated using the formula: angle=tan-1(D/A). Angles were divided into two groups: participants with angles of gaze ranging from 0 degree to 13.9 degrees were included in Group 1; and participants gazing at angles larger than 14 degrees were included in Group 2. Statistical analysis of the evaluated variables was made. Computer users in both groups used more tear supplements (as part of the syndrome) than expected. This association was statistically significant (p < 0.10). Participants in Group 1 reported more pain than participants in Group 2. Associations between the CVS and other personal or ergonomic variables were not statistically significant. Our findings show that the most important factor leading to the syndrome is the angle of gaze at the computer monitor. Pain in computer users is diminished when gazing downwards at angles of 14 degrees or more. The CVS remains an under estimated and poorly understood issue at the workplace. The general public, health professionals, the government, and private industries need to be educated about the CVS.

Factors leading to the Computer Vision Syndrome: an issue at the contemporary workplace.

PubMed

Izquierdo, Juan C; García, Maribel; Buxó, Carmen; Izquierdo, Natalio J

2004-01-01

Vision and eye related problems are common among computer users, and have been collectively called the Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). An observational study in order to identify the risk factors leading to the CVS was done. Twenty-eight participants answered a validated questionnaire, and had their workstations examined. The questionnaire evaluated personal, environmental, ergonomic factors, and physiologic response of computer users. The distance from the eye to the computers' monitor (A), the computers' monitor height (B), and visual axis height (C) were measured. The difference between B and C was calculated and labeled as D. Angles of gaze to the computer monitor were calculated using the formula: angle=tan(-1)(D/ A). Angles were divided into two groups: participants with angles of gaze ranging from 0 degrees to 13.9 degrees were included in Group 1; and participants gazing at angles larger than 14 degrees were included in Group 2. Statistical analysis of the evaluated variables was made. Computer users in both groups used more tear supplements (as part of the syndrome) than expected. This association was statistically significant (p<0.10). Participants in Group 1 reported more pain than participants in Group 2. Associations between the CVS and other personal or ergonomic variables were not statistically significant. Our findings show that most important factor leading to the syndrome is the angle of gaze at the computer monitor. Pain in computer users is diminished when gazing downwards at angles of 14 degrees or more. The CVS remains an under estimated and poorly understood issue at the workplace. The general public, health professionals, the government, and private industries need to be educated about the CVS.

The future: biomarkers, biosensors, neuroinformatics, and e-neuropsychiatry.

PubMed

Lowe, Christopher R

2011-01-01

The emergence of molecular biomarkers for psychological, psychiatric, and neurodegenerative disorders is beginning to change current diagnostic paradigms for this debilitating family of mental illnesses. The development of new genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic tools has created the prospect of sensitive and specific biochemical tests to replace traditional pen-and-paper questionnaires. In the future, the realization of biosensor technologies, point-of-care testing, and the fusion of clinical biomarker data, electroencephalogram, and MRI data with the patient's past medical history, biopatterns, and prognosis may create personalized bioprofiles or fingerprints for brain disorders. Further, the application of mobile communications technology and grid computing to support data-, computation- and knowledge-based tasks will assist disease prediction, diagnosis, prognosis, and compliance monitoring. It is anticipated that, ultimately, mobile devices could become the next generation of personalized pharmacies. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A remote monitoring system for patients with implantable ventricular assist devices with a personal handy phone system.

PubMed

Okamoto, E; Shimanaka, M; Suzuki, S; Baba, K; Mitamura, Y

1999-01-01

The usefulness of a remote monitoring system that uses a personal handy phone for artificial heart implanted patients was investigated. The type of handy phone used in this study was a personal handy phone system (PHS), which is a system developed in Japan that uses the NTT (Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, Inc.) telephone network service. The PHS has several advantages: high-speed data transmission, low power output, little electromagnetic interference with medical devices, and easy locating of patients. In our system, patients have a mobile computer (Toshiba, Libretto 50, Kawasaki, Japan) for data transmission control between an implanted controller and a host computer (NEC, PC-9821V16) in the hospital. Information on the motor rotational angle (8 bits) and motor current (8 bits) of the implanted motor driven heart is fed into the mobile computer from the implanted controller (Hitachi, H8/532, Yokohama, Japan) according to 32-bit command codes from the host computer. Motor current and motor rotational angle data from inside the body are framed together by a control code (frame number and parity) for data error checking and correcting at the receiving site, and the data are sent through the PHS connection to the mobile computer. The host computer calculates pump outflow and arterial pressure from the motor rotational angle and motor current values and displays the data in real-time waveforms. The results of this study showed that accurate data on motor rotational angle and current could be transmitted from the subjects while they were walking or driving a car to the host computer at a data transmission rate of 9600 bps. This system is useful for remote monitoring of patients with an implanted artificial heart.

A novel paradigm for telemedicine using the personal bio-monitor.

PubMed

Bhatikar, Sanjay R; Mahajan, Roop L; DeGroff, Curt

2002-01-01

The foray of solid-state technology in the medical field has yielded an arsenal of sophisticated healthcare tools. Personal, portable computing power coupled with the information superhighway open up the possibility of sophisticated healthcare management that will impact the medical field just as much. The full synergistic potential of three interwoven technologies: (1) compact electronics, (2) World Wide Web, and (3) Artificial Intelligence is yet to be realized. The system presented in this paper integrates these technologies synergistically, providing a new paradigm for healthcare. Our idea is to deploy internet-enabled, intelligent, handheld personal computers for medical diagnosis. The salient features of the 'Personal Bio-Monitor' we envisage are: (1) Utilization of the peripheral signals of the body which may be acquired non-invasively and with ease, for diagnosis of medical conditions; (2) An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based approach for diagnosis; (3) Configuration of the diagnostic device as a handheld for personal use; (4) Internet connectivity, following the emerging bluetooth protocol, for prompt conveyance of information to a patient's health care provider via the World Wide Web. The proposal is substantiated with an intelligent handheld device developed by the investigators for pediatric cardiac auscultation. This device performed accurate diagnoses of cardiac abnormalities in pediatrics using an artificial neural network to process heart sounds acquired by a low-frequency microphone and transmitted its diagnosis to a desktop PC via infrared. The idea of the personal biomonitor presented here has the potential to streamline healthcare by optimizing two valuable resources: physicians' time and sophisticated equipment time. We show that the elements of such a system are in place, with our prototype. Our novel contribution is the synergistic integration of compact electronics' technology, artificial neural network methodology and the wireless web resulting in a revolutionary new paradigm for healthcare management.

Behavior Change Techniques Implemented in Electronic Lifestyle Activity Monitors: A Systematic Content Analysis

PubMed Central

Lewis, Zakkoyya H; Mayrsohn, Brian G; Rowland, Jennifer L

2014-01-01

Background Electronic activity monitors (such as those manufactured by Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike) improve on standard pedometers by providing automated feedback and interactive behavior change tools via mobile device or personal computer. These monitors are commercially popular and show promise for use in public health interventions. However, little is known about the content of their feedback applications and how individual monitors may differ from one another. Objective The purpose of this study was to describe the behavior change techniques implemented in commercially available electronic activity monitors. Methods Electronic activity monitors (N=13) were systematically identified and tested by 3 trained coders for at least 1 week each. All monitors measured lifestyle physical activity and provided feedback via an app (computer or mobile). Coding was based on a hierarchical list of 93 behavior change techniques. Further coding of potentially effective techniques and adherence to theory-based recommendations were based on findings from meta-analyses and meta-regressions in the research literature. Results All monitors provided tools for self-monitoring, feedback, and environmental change by definition. The next most prevalent techniques (13 out of 13 monitors) were goal-setting and emphasizing discrepancy between current and goal behavior. Review of behavioral goals, social support, social comparison, prompts/cues, rewards, and a focus on past success were found in more than half of the systems. The monitors included a range of 5-10 of 14 total techniques identified from the research literature as potentially effective. Most of the monitors included goal-setting, self-monitoring, and feedback content that closely matched recommendations from social cognitive theory. Conclusions Electronic activity monitors contain a wide range of behavior change techniques typically used in clinical behavioral interventions. Thus, the monitors may represent a medium by which these interventions could be translated for widespread use. This technology has broad applications for use in clinical, public health, and rehabilitation settings. PMID:25131661

Behavior change techniques implemented in electronic lifestyle activity monitors: a systematic content analysis.

PubMed

Lyons, Elizabeth J; Lewis, Zakkoyya H; Mayrsohn, Brian G; Rowland, Jennifer L

2014-08-15

Electronic activity monitors (such as those manufactured by Fitbit, Jawbone, and Nike) improve on standard pedometers by providing automated feedback and interactive behavior change tools via mobile device or personal computer. These monitors are commercially popular and show promise for use in public health interventions. However, little is known about the content of their feedback applications and how individual monitors may differ from one another. The purpose of this study was to describe the behavior change techniques implemented in commercially available electronic activity monitors. Electronic activity monitors (N=13) were systematically identified and tested by 3 trained coders for at least 1 week each. All monitors measured lifestyle physical activity and provided feedback via an app (computer or mobile). Coding was based on a hierarchical list of 93 behavior change techniques. Further coding of potentially effective techniques and adherence to theory-based recommendations were based on findings from meta-analyses and meta-regressions in the research literature. All monitors provided tools for self-monitoring, feedback, and environmental change by definition. The next most prevalent techniques (13 out of 13 monitors) were goal-setting and emphasizing discrepancy between current and goal behavior. Review of behavioral goals, social support, social comparison, prompts/cues, rewards, and a focus on past success were found in more than half of the systems. The monitors included a range of 5-10 of 14 total techniques identified from the research literature as potentially effective. Most of the monitors included goal-setting, self-monitoring, and feedback content that closely matched recommendations from social cognitive theory. Electronic activity monitors contain a wide range of behavior change techniques typically used in clinical behavioral interventions. Thus, the monitors may represent a medium by which these interventions could be translated for widespread use. This technology has broad applications for use in clinical, public health, and rehabilitation settings.

Feasibility of a Dynamic Web Guidance Approach for Personalized Physical Activity Prescription Based on Daily Information From Wearable Technology

PubMed Central

Coolbaugh, Crystal L; Raymond Jr, Stephen C

2015-01-01

Background Computer tailored, Web-based interventions have emerged as an effective approach to promote physical activity. Existing programs, however, do not adjust activities according to the participant’s compliance or physiologic adaptations, which may increase risk of injury and program attrition in sedentary adults. To address this limitation, objective activity monitor (AM) and heart rate data could be used to guide personalization of physical activity, but improved Web-based frameworks are needed to test such interventions. Objective The objective of this study is to (1) develop a personalized physical activity prescription (PPAP) app that combines dynamic Web-based guidance with multi-sensor AM data to promote physical activity and (2) to assess the feasibility of using this system in the field. Methods The PPAP app was constructed using an open-source software platform and a custom, multi-sensor AM capable of accurately measuring heart rate and physical activity. A novel algorithm was written to use a participant’s compliance and physiologic response to aerobic training (ie, changes in daily resting heart rate) recorded by the AM to create daily, personalized physical activity prescriptions. In addition, the PPAP app was designed to (1) manage the transfer of files from the AM to data processing software and a relational database, (2) provide interactive visualization features such as calendars and training tables to encourage physical activity, and (3) enable remote administrative monitoring of data quality and participant compliance. A 12-week feasibility study was performed to assess the utility and limitations of the PPAP app used by sedentary adults in the field. Changes in physical activity level and resting heart rate were monitored throughout the intervention. Results The PPAP app successfully created daily, personalized physical activity prescriptions and an interactive Web environment to guide and promote physical activity by the participants. The varied compliance of the participants enabled evaluation of administrative features of the app including the generation of automated email reminders, participation surveys, and daily AM file upload logs. Conclusions This study describes the development of the PPAP app, a closed-loop technology framework that enables personalized physical activity prescription and remote monitoring of an individual’s compliance and health response to the intervention. Data obtained during a 12-week feasibility study demonstrated the ability of the PPAP app to use objective AM data to create daily, personalized physical activity guidance, provide interactive feedback to users, and enable remote administrative monitoring of data quality and subject compliance. Using this approach, public health professionals, clinicians, and researchers can adapt the PPAP app to facilitate a range of personalized physical activity interventions to improve health outcomes, assess injury risk, and achieve fitness performance goals in diverse populations. PMID:26043793

Development of qualification guidelines for personal computer-based aviation training devices.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1995-02-01

Recent advances in the capabilities of personal computers have resulted in an increase in the number of flight simulation programs made available as Personal Computer-Based Aviation Training Devices (PCATDs).The potential benefits of PCATDs have been...

Automated Management of Exercise Intervention at the Point of Care: Application of a Web-Based Leg Training System

PubMed Central

2015-01-01

Background Recent advances in information and communication technology have prompted development of Web-based health tools to promote physical activity, the key component of cardiac rehabilitation and chronic disease management. Mobile apps can facilitate behavioral changes and help in exercise monitoring, although actual training usually takes place away from the point of care in specialized gyms or outdoors. Daily participation in conventional physical activities is expensive, time consuming, and mostly relies on self-management abilities of patients who are typically aged, overweight, and unfit. Facilitation of sustained exercise training at the point of care might improve patient engagement in cardiac rehabilitation. Objective In this study we aimed to test the feasibility of execution and automatic monitoring of several exercise regimens on-site using a Web-enabled leg training system. Methods The MedExercise leg rehabilitation machine was equipped with wireless temperature sensors in order to monitor its usage by the rise of temperature in the resistance unit (Δt°). Personal electronic devices such as laptop computers were fitted with wireless gateways and relevant software was installed to monitor the usage of training machines. Cloud-based software allowed monitoring of participant training over the Internet. Seven healthy participants applied the system at various locations with training protocols typically used in cardiac rehabilitation. The heart rates were measured by fingertip pulse oximeters. Results Exercising in home chairs, in bed, and under an office desk was made feasible and resulted in an intensity-dependent increase of participants’ heart rates and Δt° in training machine temperatures. Participants self-controlled their activities on smart devices, while a supervisor monitored them over the Internet. Individual Δt° reached during 30 minutes of moderate-intensity continuous training averaged 7.8°C (SD 1.6). These Δt° were used as personalized daily doses of exercise with automatic email alerts sent upon achieving them. During 1-week training at home, automatic notifications were received on 4.4 days (SD 1.8). Although the high intensity interval training regimen was feasible on-site, it was difficult for self- and remote management. Opportunistic leg exercise under the desk, while working with a computer, and training in bed while viewing television were less intensive than dosed exercise bouts, but allowed prolonged leg mobilization of 73.7 minutes/day (SD 29.7). Conclusions This study demonstrated the feasibility of self-control exercise training on-site, which was accompanied by online monitoring, electronic recording, personalization of exercise doses, and automatic reporting of adherence. The results suggest that this technology and its applications are useful for the delivery of Web-based exercise rehabilitation and cardiac training programs at the point of care. PMID:28582243

48 CFR 1523.7003 - Contract clause.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient...-103, Acquisition of Energy Star Compliant Microcomputers, Including Personal Computers, Monitors, and...

48 CFR 1523.7003 - Contract clause.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient...-103, Acquisition of Energy Star Compliant Microcomputers, Including Personal Computers, Monitors, and...

48 CFR 1523.7003 - Contract clause.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient...-103, Acquisition of Energy Star Compliant Microcomputers, Including Personal Computers, Monitors, and...

Ubiquitous human computing.

PubMed

Zittrain, Jonathan

2008-10-28

Ubiquitous computing means network connectivity everywhere, linking devices and systems as small as a drawing pin and as large as a worldwide product distribution chain. What could happen when people are so readily networked? This paper explores issues arising from two possible emerging models of ubiquitous human computing: fungible networked brainpower and collective personal vital sign monitoring.

Mobile cloud-computing-based healthcare service by noncontact ECG monitoring.

PubMed

Fong, Ee-May; Chung, Wan-Young

2013-12-02

Noncontact electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement technique has gained popularity these days owing to its noninvasive features and convenience in daily life use. This paper presents mobile cloud computing for a healthcare system where a noncontact ECG measurement method is employed to capture biomedical signals from users. Healthcare service is provided to continuously collect biomedical signals from multiple locations. To observe and analyze the ECG signals in real time, a mobile device is used as a mobile monitoring terminal. In addition, a personalized healthcare assistant is installed on the mobile device; several healthcare features such as health status summaries, medication QR code scanning, and reminders are integrated into the mobile application. Health data are being synchronized into the healthcare cloud computing service (Web server system and Web server dataset) to ensure a seamless healthcare monitoring system and anytime and anywhere coverage of network connection is available. Together with a Web page application, medical data are easily accessed by medical professionals or family members. Web page performance evaluation was conducted to ensure minimal Web server latency. The system demonstrates better availability of off-site and up-to-the-minute patient data, which can help detect health problems early and keep elderly patients out of the emergency room, thus providing a better and more comprehensive healthcare cloud computing service.

Mobile Cloud-Computing-Based Healthcare Service by Noncontact ECG Monitoring

PubMed Central

Fong, Ee-May; Chung, Wan-Young

2013-01-01

Noncontact electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement technique has gained popularity these days owing to its noninvasive features and convenience in daily life use. This paper presents mobile cloud computing for a healthcare system where a noncontact ECG measurement method is employed to capture biomedical signals from users. Healthcare service is provided to continuously collect biomedical signals from multiple locations. To observe and analyze the ECG signals in real time, a mobile device is used as a mobile monitoring terminal. In addition, a personalized healthcare assistant is installed on the mobile device; several healthcare features such as health status summaries, medication QR code scanning, and reminders are integrated into the mobile application. Health data are being synchronized into the healthcare cloud computing service (Web server system and Web server dataset) to ensure a seamless healthcare monitoring system and anytime and anywhere coverage of network connection is available. Together with a Web page application, medical data are easily accessed by medical professionals or family members. Web page performance evaluation was conducted to ensure minimal Web server latency. The system demonstrates better availability of off-site and up-to-the-minute patient data, which can help detect health problems early and keep elderly patients out of the emergency room, thus providing a better and more comprehensive healthcare cloud computing service. PMID:24316562

A typewriting system operated by head movements, based on home-computer equipment.

PubMed

Heuvelmans, A M; Mélotte, H E; Neve, J J

1990-06-01

For persons who cannot move their hands and legs we have designed a relatively inexpensive typewriting system which can be operated by movements of the head. The typewriter is made up of commercially available home computer equipment - i e, a computer including monitor and printer and a headset replacing the mouse. A user-friendly software program has been designed to replace the mouse button and to make this equipment act as a typewriter with simple text-editing features. Some ergonomics aspects of the typewriter set-up and the results of an evaluation of the typewriter by two patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are given. Several factors relevant to the design, construction, evaluation and application of the typewriter are discussed.

The Ames Power Monitoring System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Osetinsky, Leonid; Wang, David

2003-01-01

The Ames Power Monitoring System (APMS) is a centralized system of power meters, computer hardware, and specialpurpose software that collects and stores electrical power data by various facilities at Ames Research Center (ARC). This system is needed because of the large and varying nature of the overall ARC power demand, which has been observed to range from 20 to 200 MW. Large portions of peak demand can be attributed to only three wind tunnels (60, 180, and 100 MW, respectively). The APMS helps ARC avoid or minimize costly demand charges by enabling wind-tunnel operators, test engineers, and the power manager to monitor total demand for center in real time. These persons receive the information they need to manage and schedule energy-intensive research in advance and to adjust loads in real time to ensure that the overall maximum allowable demand is not exceeded. The APMS (see figure) includes a server computer running the Windows NT operating system and can, in principle, include an unlimited number of power meters and client computers. As configured at the time of reporting the information for this article, the APMS includes more than 40 power meters monitoring all the major research facilities, plus 15 Windows-based client personal computers that display real-time and historical data to users via graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The power meters and client computers communicate with the server using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) on Ethernet networks, variously, through dedicated fiber-optic cables or through the pre-existing ARC local-area network (ARCLAN). The APMS has enabled ARC to achieve significant savings ($1.2 million in 2001) in the cost of power and electric energy by helping personnel to maintain total demand below monthly allowable levels, to manage the overall power factor to avoid low power factor penalties, and to use historical system data to identify opportunities for additional energy savings. The APMS also provides power engineers and electricians with the information they need to plan modifications in advance and perform day-to-day maintenance of the ARC electric-power distribution system.

Personal digital assistant-based self-monitoring adherence rates in 2 dialysis dietary intervention pilot studies: BalanceWise-HD and BalanceWise-PD.

PubMed

Stark, Susan; Snetselaar, Linda; Piraino, Beth; Stone, Roslyn A; Kim, Sunghee; Hall, Beth; Burke, Lora E; Sevick, Mary Ann

2011-11-01

The dialysis dietary regimen is complicated, and computer-based dietary self-monitoring may be useful for helping dialysis patients manage their dietary regimen. In this report, we describe dietary self-monitoring rates among study participants randomized to the intervention arms of 2 pilot studies. Both studies tested similar interventions involving dietary counseling paired with personal digital assistant-based self-monitoring. One study was performed in hemodialysis (HD) and one in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. HD intervention participants entered an average of 244.9 meals (median = 288; interquartile range [IQR]: 186 to 342) over the 16-week intervention, 2.2 meals per day (median = 2.6; IQR: 1.7 to 3.1), and 73% of expected meals (median = 86; IQR: 55 to 102), assuming intake of 3 meals per day. At least some meals were entered in 87% of the observed weeks (median = 100%; IQR: 81 to 100). PD intervention participants entered an average of 212.1 meals (median = 203; IQR: 110 to 312) over the 16-week intervention, 1.9 meals per day (median = 1.8; IQR: 1 to 2.8), and 63% of expected meals (median = 60; IQR: 33 to 93), assuming 3 meals per day. At least some meals were entered in 80% of the observed weeks (median = 94; IQR: 50 to 100). These HD and PD patients demonstrated excellent rates of self-monitoring. Additional research with a larger sample is required to confirm these findings. Copyright © 2011 National Kidney Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.

An interactive program to display user-generated or file-based maps on a personal computer monitor

USGS Publications Warehouse

Langer, W.H.; Stephens, R.W.

1987-01-01

PC MAP-MAKER is an ADVANCED BASIC program written to provide users of IBM XT, IBM AT, and compatible computers with a straight-forward, flexible method to display geographical data on a color or monochrome PC (personal computer) monitor. Data can be political boundaries such as State and county boundaries; natural curvilinear features such as rivers, drainage areas, and geological contacts; and points such as well locations and mineral localities. Essentially any point defined by a latitude and longitude and any line defined by a series of latitude and longitude values can be displayed using the program. PC MAP MAKER allows users to view tabular data from U.S. Geological Survey files such as WATSTORE (National Water Data Storage and Retrieval System) in a map format in a time much shorter than required by sending the data to a line plotter. The screen image can be saved to disk for recall at a later date, and hard copies can be printed with a dot matrix printer. The program is user-friendly, using menus or prompts to guide user input. It is fully documented and structured to allow the user to tailor the program to the user 's specific needs. The documentation includes a tutorial designed to introduce users to the capabilities of the program using the State of Colorado as a demonstration map area. (Author 's abstract)

Applicability of IHE/Continua components for PHR systems: learning from experiences.

PubMed

Urbauer, Philipp; Sauermann, Stefan; Frohner, Matthias; Forjan, Mathias; Pohn, Birgit; Mense, Alexander

2015-04-01

Capturing personal health data using smartphones, PCs or other devices, and the reuse of the data in personal health records (PHR) is becoming more and more attractive for modern health-conscious populations. This paper analyses interoperability specifications targeting standards-based communication of computer systems and personal health devices (e.g. blood pressure monitor) in healthcare from initiatives like Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) and Continua Health Alliance driven by industry and healthcare professionals. Furthermore it identifies certain contradictions and gaps in the specifications and suggests possible solutions. Despite these shortcomings, the specifications allow fully functional implementations of PHR systems. Henceforth, both big business and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can actively contribute to the widespread use of large-scale interoperable PHR systems. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Patient-oriented Computerized Clinical Guidelines for Mobile Decision Support in Gestational Diabetes.

PubMed

García-Sáez, Gema; Rigla, Mercedes; Martínez-Sarriegui, Iñaki; Shalom, Erez; Peleg, Mor; Broens, Tom; Pons, Belén; Caballero-Ruíz, Estefanía; Gómez, Enrique J; Hernando, M Elena

2014-03-01

The risks associated with gestational diabetes (GD) can be reduced with an active treatment able to improve glycemic control. Advances in mobile health can provide new patient-centric models for GD to create personalized health care services, increase patient independence and improve patients' self-management capabilities, and potentially improve their treatment compliance. In these models, decision-support functions play an essential role. The telemedicine system MobiGuide provides personalized medical decision support for GD patients that is based on computerized clinical guidelines and adapted to a mobile environment. The patient's access to the system is supported by a smartphone-based application that enhances the efficiency and ease of use of the system. We formalized the GD guideline into a computer-interpretable guideline (CIG). We identified several workflows that provide decision-support functionalities to patients and 4 types of personalized advice to be delivered through a mobile application at home, which is a preliminary step to providing decision-support tools in a telemedicine system: (1) therapy, to help patients to comply with medical prescriptions; (2) monitoring, to help patients to comply with monitoring instructions; (3) clinical assessment, to inform patients about their health conditions; and (4) upcoming events, to deal with patients' personal context or special events. The whole process to specify patient-oriented decision support functionalities ensures that it is based on the knowledge contained in the GD clinical guideline and thus follows evidence-based recommendations but at the same time is patient-oriented, which could enhance clinical outcomes and patients' acceptance of the whole system. © 2014 Diabetes Technology Society.

A DDC Bibliography on On-Line Computer Systems, Volume I.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Defense Documentation Center, Alexandria, VA.

This bibliography lists 162 unclassified - unlimited reports acquired by DDC, with their abstracts, grouped into five general subject areas: programing (computers), information retrieval, time sharing, graphics, and general applications. The topical arrangement is complemented by four indexes: corporate author/monitoring agency, personal author,…

A CLIPS based personal computer hardware diagnostic system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Whitson, George M.

1991-01-01

Often the person designated to repair personal computers has little or no knowledge of how to repair a computer. Described here is a simple expert system to aid these inexperienced repair people. The first component of the system leads the repair person through a number of simple system checks such as making sure that all cables are tight and that the dip switches are set correctly. The second component of the system assists the repair person in evaluating error codes generated by the computer. The final component of the system applies a large knowledge base to attempt to identify the component of the personal computer that is malfunctioning. We have implemented and tested our design with a full system to diagnose problems for an IBM compatible system based on the 8088 chip. In our tests, the inexperienced repair people found the system very useful in diagnosing hardware problems.

A Cyber-Physical System for Girder Hoisting Monitoring Based on Smartphones.

PubMed

Han, Ruicong; Zhao, Xuefeng; Yu, Yan; Guan, Quanhua; Hu, Weitong; Li, Mingchu

2016-07-07

Offshore design and construction is much more difficult than land-based design and construction, particularly due to hoisting operations. Real-time monitoring of the orientation and movement of a hoisted structure is thus required for operators' safety. In recent years, rapid development of the smart-phone commercial market has offered the possibility that everyone can carry a mini personal computer that is integrated with sensors, an operating system and communication system that can act as an effective aid for cyber-physical systems (CPS) research. In this paper, a CPS for hoisting monitoring using smartphones was proposed, including a phone collector, a controller and a server. This system uses smartphones equipped with internal sensors to obtain girder movement information, which will be uploaded to a server, then returned to controller users. An alarming system will be provided on the controller phone once the returned data exceeds a threshold. The proposed monitoring system is used to monitor the movement and orientation of a girder during hoisting on a cross-sea bridge in real time. The results show the convenience and feasibility of the proposed system.

A multiparameter wearable physiologic monitoring system for space and terrestrial applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mundt, Carsten W.; Montgomery, Kevin N.; Udoh, Usen E.; Barker, Valerie N.; Thonier, Guillaume C.; Tellier, Arnaud M.; Ricks, Robert D.; Darling, Robert B.; Cagle, Yvonne D.; Cabrol, Nathalie A.;

Persons with multiple disabilities select environmental stimuli through a smile response monitored via camera-based technology.

PubMed

Lancioni, Giulio E; Bellini, Domenico; Oliva, Doretta; Singh, Nirbhay N; O'reilly, Mark F; Lang, Russell; Didden, Robert; Bosco, Andrea

2011-01-01

To assess whether two persons with multiple disabilities could use smile expressions and new camera-based microswitch technology to select environmental stimuli. Within each session, a computer system provided samples/reminders of preferred and non-preferred stimuli. The camera-based microswitch determined whether the participants had smile expressions in relation to those samples. If they did, stimuli matching the specific samples to which they responded were presented for 20 seconds. The smile expression could be profitably used by the participants who managed to select means of ∼70% or 75% of the preferred stimulus opportunities made available by the environment while avoiding almost all the non-preferred stimulus opportunities. Smile expressions (a) might be an effective and rapid means for selecting preferred stimulation and (b) might develop into cognitively more elaborate forms of responding through the learning experience (i.e. their consistent association with positive/reinforcing consequences).

Automated Management of Exercise Intervention at the Point of Care: Application of a Web-Based Leg Training System.

PubMed

Dedov, Vadim N; Dedova, Irina V

2015-11-23

Recent advances in information and communication technology have prompted development of Web-based health tools to promote physical activity, the key component of cardiac rehabilitation and chronic disease management. Mobile apps can facilitate behavioral changes and help in exercise monitoring, although actual training usually takes place away from the point of care in specialized gyms or outdoors. Daily participation in conventional physical activities is expensive, time consuming, and mostly relies on self-management abilities of patients who are typically aged, overweight, and unfit. Facilitation of sustained exercise training at the point of care might improve patient engagement in cardiac rehabilitation. In this study we aimed to test the feasibility of execution and automatic monitoring of several exercise regimens on-site using a Web-enabled leg training system. The MedExercise leg rehabilitation machine was equipped with wireless temperature sensors in order to monitor its usage by the rise of temperature in the resistance unit (Δt°). Personal electronic devices such as laptop computers were fitted with wireless gateways and relevant software was installed to monitor the usage of training machines. Cloud-based software allowed monitoring of participant training over the Internet. Seven healthy participants applied the system at various locations with training protocols typically used in cardiac rehabilitation. The heart rates were measured by fingertip pulse oximeters. Exercising in home chairs, in bed, and under an office desk was made feasible and resulted in an intensity-dependent increase of participants' heart rates and Δt° in training machine temperatures. Participants self-controlled their activities on smart devices, while a supervisor monitored them over the Internet. Individual Δt° reached during 30 minutes of moderate-intensity continuous training averaged 7.8°C (SD 1.6). These Δt° were used as personalized daily doses of exercise with automatic email alerts sent upon achieving them. During 1-week training at home, automatic notifications were received on 4.4 days (SD 1.8). Although the high intensity interval training regimen was feasible on-site, it was difficult for self- and remote management. Opportunistic leg exercise under the desk, while working with a computer, and training in bed while viewing television were less intensive than dosed exercise bouts, but allowed prolonged leg mobilization of 73.7 minutes/day (SD 29.7). This study demonstrated the feasibility of self-control exercise training on-site, which was accompanied by online monitoring, electronic recording, personalization of exercise doses, and automatic reporting of adherence. The results suggest that this technology and its applications are useful for the delivery of Web-based exercise rehabilitation and cardiac training programs at the point of care. ©Vadim N Dedov, Irina V Dedova. Originally published in JMIR Rehabilitation and Assistive Technology (http://rehab.jmir.org), 23.11.2015.

Wearable health monitoring using capacitive voltage-mode Human Body Communication.

PubMed

Maity, Shovan; Das, Debayan; Sen, Shreyas

2017-07-01

Rapid miniaturization and cost reduction of computing, along with the availability of wearable and implantable physiological sensors have led to the growth of human Body Area Network (BAN) formed by a network of such sensors and computing devices. One promising application of such a network is wearable health monitoring where the collected data from the sensors would be transmitted and analyzed to assess the health of a person. Typically, the devices in a BAN are connected through wireless (WBAN), which suffers from energy inefficiency due to the high-energy consumption of wireless transmission. Human Body Communication (HBC) uses the relatively low loss human body as the communication medium to connect these devices, promising order(s) of magnitude better energy-efficiency and built-in security compared to WBAN. In this paper, we demonstrate a health monitoring device and system built using Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) sensors and components, that can collect data from physiological sensors and transmit it through a) intra-body HBC to another device (hub) worn on the body or b) upload health data through HBC-based human-machine interaction to an HBC capable machine. The system design constraints and signal transfer characteristics for the implemented HBC-based wearable health monitoring system are measured and analyzed, showing reliable connectivity with >8× power savings compared to Bluetooth low-energy (BTLE).

Person-Locator System Based On Wristband Radio Transponders

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mintz, Frederick W.; Blaes, Brent R.; Chandler, Charles W.

1995-01-01

Computerized system based on wristband radio frequency (RF), passive transponders is being developed for use in real-time tracking of individuals in custodial institutions like prisons and mental hospitals. Includes monitoring system that contains central computer connected to low-power, high-frequency central transceiver. Transceiver connected to miniature transceiver nodes mounted unobtrusively at known locations throughout the institution. Wristband transponders embedded in common hospital wristbands. Wristbands tamperproof: each contains embedded wire loop which, when broken or torn off and discarded, causes wristband to disappear from system, thus causing alarm. Individuals could be located in a timely fashion at relatively low cost.

Discipline Monitoring System: A School Self-Study Project for Montgomery County Public Schools.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Richardson, William M.; Splaine, Pam

The Discipline Monitoring System (DMS) is a computer-assisted model allowing individual secondary schools to analyze their disciplinary actions. The Montgomery County Public Schools (Maryland) adopted this model to manipulate the following data: who is suspended, who is referred, who makes referrals, characteristics of these persons, and events…

A personalized health-monitoring system for elderly by combining rules and case-based reasoning.

PubMed

Ahmed, Mobyen Uddin

2015-01-01

Health-monitoring system for elderly in home environment is a promising solution to provide efficient medical services that increasingly interest by the researchers within this area. It is often more challenging when the system is self-served and functioning as personalized provision. This paper proposed a personalized self-served health-monitoring system for elderly in home environment by combining general rules with a case-based reasoning approach. Here, the system generates feedback, recommendation and alarm in a personalized manner based on elderly's medical information and health parameters such as blood pressure, blood glucose, weight, activity, pulse, etc. A set of general rules has used to classify individual health parameters. The case-based reasoning approach is used to combine all different health parameters, which generates an overall classification of health condition. According to the evaluation result considering 323 cases and k=2 i.e., top 2 most similar retrieved cases, the sensitivity, specificity and overall accuracy are achieved as 90%, 97% and 96% respectively. The preliminary result of the system is acceptable since the feedback; recommendation and alarm messages are personalized and differ from the general messages. Thus, this approach could be possibly adapted for other situations in personalized elderly monitoring.

To What Degree Are Undergraduate Students Using Their Personal Computers to Support Their Daily Study Practices?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sim, KwongNui; Butson, Russell

2014-01-01

This scoping study examines the degree to which twenty two undergraduate students used their personal computers to support their academic study. The students were selected based on their responses to a questionnaire aimed at gauging their degree of computer skill. Computer activity data was harvested from the personal computers of eighteen…

Definitions of database files and fields of the Personal Computer-Based Water Data Sources Directory

USGS Publications Warehouse

Green, J. Wayne

1991-01-01

This report describes the data-base files and fields of the personal computer-based Water Data Sources Directory (WDSD). The personal computer-based WDSD was derived from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) mainframe computer version. The mainframe version of the WDSD is a hierarchical data-base design. The personal computer-based WDSD is a relational data- base design. This report describes the data-base files and fields of the relational data-base design in dBASE IV (the use of brand names in this abstract is for identification purposes only and does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. Geological Survey) for the personal computer. The WDSD contains information on (1) the type of organization, (2) the major orientation of water-data activities conducted by each organization, (3) the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of offices within each organization from which water data may be obtained, (4) the types of data held by each organization and the geographic locations within which these data have been collected, (5) alternative sources of an organization's data, (6) the designation of liaison personnel in matters related to water-data acquisition and indexing, (7) the volume of water data indexed for the organization, and (8) information about other types of data and services available from the organization that are pertinent to water-resources activities.

75 FR 16123 - Dave & Buster’s, Inc.; Analysis of Proposed Consent Order to Aid Public Comment

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-03-31

... computer networks or to conduct security investigations, such as by employing an intrusion detection system and monitoring system logs; (b) failed to adequately restrict third-party access to its networks, such... reasonable and appropriate security for personal information on its computer networks. Among other things...

David Price--Pioneer of digital ICP monitoring, neurosurgeon and teacher.

PubMed

Czosnyka, Marek; Kirollos, Ramez; van Hille, Philip

2015-06-01

In early 1970s first personal desk-top computers started to be available in hospitals. Mr Price was one of the pioneers introducing his own software to identify Marmarou's model of CSF space during infusion studies to diagnose patients suffering from hydrocephalus. His closed-loop control system for infusion of mannitol to manage patients at risk of intracranial hypertension was designed in 1977. The system worked successfully for 10 years in Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, UK. In the middle 1980's he initiated international cooperation with Children's Health Centre in Poland in long-term computer-assisted monitoring and analysis of ICP. Software designed in a course of this cooperation paved the way for contemporary package of ICM+ (Intensive Care Monitor, University of Cambridge, UK). Our scientific portfolio from these years (1985-1995) contains hundreds of head injured patients with waveform ICP analysis, introduction of compensatory reserve index RAP, few highly cited papers. Now, we understand ICP much better thanks to David's personal passion and extremely friendly support.

A remote access ecg monitoring system - biomed 2009.

PubMed

Ogawa, Hidekuni; Yonezawa, Yoshiharu; Maki, Hiromichi; Iwamoto, Junichi; Hahn, Allen W; Caldwell, W Morton

2009-01-01

We have developed a remotely accessible telemedicine system for monitoring a patient's electrocardiogram (ECG). The system consists of an ECG recorder mounted on chest electrodes and a physician's laptop personal computer. This ECG recorder is designed with a variable gain instrumentation amplifier; a low power 8-bit single-chip microcomputer; two 128KB EEPROMs and 2.4 GHz low transmit power mobile telephone. When the physician wants to monitor the patient's ECG, he/she calls directly from the laptop PC to the ECG recorder's phone and the recorder sends the ECG to the computer. The electrode-mounted recorder continuously samples the ECG. Additionally, when the patient feels a heart discomfort, he/she pushes a data transmission switch on the recorder and the recorder sends the recorded ECG waveforms of the two prior minutes, and for two minutes after the switch is pressed. The physician can display and monitor the data on the computer's liquid crystal display.

Intelligent Systems for Assessing Aging Changes: Home-Based, Unobtrusive, and Continuous Assessment of Aging

PubMed Central

Maxwell, Shoshana A.; Mattek, Nora; Hayes, Tamara L.; Dodge, Hiroko; Pavel, Misha; Jimison, Holly B.; Wild, Katherine; Boise, Linda; Zitzelberger, Tracy A.

2011-01-01

Objectives. To describe a longitudinal community cohort study, Intelligent Systems for Assessing Aging Changes, that has deployed an unobtrusive home-based assessment platform in many seniors homes in the existing community. Methods. Several types of sensors have been installed in the homes of 265 elderly persons for an average of 33 months. Metrics assessed by the sensors include total daily activity, time out of home, and walking speed. Participants were given a computer as well as training, and computer usage was monitored. Participants are assessed annually with health and function questionnaires, physical examinations, and neuropsychological testing. Results. Mean age was 83.3 years, mean years of education was 15.5, and 73% of cohort were women. During a 4-week snapshot, participants left their home twice a day on average for a total of 208 min per day. Mean in-home walking speed was 61.0 cm/s. Participants spent 43% of days on the computer averaging 76 min per day. Discussion. These results demonstrate for the first time the feasibility of engaging seniors in a large-scale deployment of in-home activity assessment technology and the successful collection of these activity metrics. We plan to use this platform to determine if continuous unobtrusive monitoring may detect incident cognitive decline. PMID:21743050

Development of TGS2611 methane sensor and SHT11 humidity and temperature sensor for measuring greenhouse gas on peatlands in south kalimantan, indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sugriwan, I.; Soesanto, O.

2017-05-01

The research was focused on development of data acquisition system to monitor the content of methane, relative humidity and temperature on peatlands in South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Methane is one of greenhouse gases that emitted from peatlands; while humidity and temperature are important parameters of microclimate on peatlands. The content of methane, humidity and temperature are three parameters were monitored digitally, real time, continuously and automatically record by data acquisition systems that interfaced to the personal computer. The hardware of data acquisition system consists of power supply unit, TGS2611 methane gas sensor, SHT11 humidity and temperature sensors, voltage follower, ATMega8535 microcontroller, 16 × 2 LCD character and personal computer. ATMega8535 module is a device to manage all part in measuring instrument. The software which is responsible to take sensor data, calculate characteristic equation and send data to 16 × 2 LCD character are Basic Compiler. To interface between measuring instrument and personal computer is maintained by Delphi 7. The result of data acquisition showed on 16 × 2 LCD characters, PC monitor and database with developed by XAMPP. Methane, humidity, and temperature which release from peatlands are trapped by Closed-Chamber Measurement with dimension 60 × 50 × 40 cm3. TGS2611 methane gas sensor and SHT11 humidity and temperature sensor are calibrated to determine transfer function used to data communication between sensors and microcontroller and integrated into ATMega8535 Microcontroller. Calculation of RS and RL of TGS2611 methane gas sensor refer to data sheet and obtained respectively 1360 ohm and 905 ohm. The characteristic equation of TGS2611 satisfies equation VRL = 0.561 ln n - 2.2641 volt, with n is a various concentrations and VRL in volt. The microcontroller maintained the voltage signal than interfaced it to liquid crystal displays and personal computer (laptop) to display result of the measurement. The result of data acquisition saved on excels and database format.

Development of a real-time radon monitoring system for simultaneous measurements in multiple sites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yamamoto, S.; Yamasoto, K.; Iida, T.

1999-12-01

A real-time radon monitoring system that can simultaneously measure radon concentrations in multiple sites was developed and tested. The system consists of maximum of four radon detectors, optical fiber cables and a data acquisition personal computer. The radon detector uses a plastic scintillation counter that collects radon daughters in the chamber electrostatically. The applied voltage on the photocathode for the photomultiplier tube (PMT) acts as an electrode for radon daughters. The thickness of the plastic scintillator was thin, 50 /spl mu/m, so as to minimize the background counts due to the environmental gamma rays or beta particles. The energy discriminated signals from the radon detectors are fed to the data acquisition personal computer via optical fiber cables. The system made it possible to measure the radon concentrations in multiple sites simultaneously.

National Surveys of Population Health: Big Data Analytics for Mobile Health Monitors.

PubMed

Schatz, Bruce R

2015-12-01

At the core of the healthcare crisis is fundamental lack of actionable data. Such data could stratify individuals within populations to predict which persons have which outcomes. If baselines existed for all variations of all conditions, then managing health could be improved by matching the measuring of individuals to their cohort in the population. The scale required for complete baselines involves effective National Surveys of Population Health (NSPH). Traditionally, these have been focused upon acute medicine, measuring people to contain the spread of epidemics. In recent decades, the focus has moved to chronic conditions as well, which require smaller measures over longer times. NSPH have long utilized quality of life questionnaires. Mobile Health Monitors, where computing technologies eliminate manual administration, provide richer data sets for health measurement. Older technologies of telephone interviews will be replaced by newer technologies of smartphone sensors to provide deeper individual measures at more frequent timings across larger-sized populations. Such continuous data can provide personal health records, supporting treatment guidelines specialized for population cohorts. Evidence-based medicine will become feasible by leveraging hundreds of millions of persons carrying mobile devices interacting with Internet-scale services for Big Data Analytics.

Measurement system for nitrous oxide based on amperometric gas sensor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Siswoyo, S.; Persaud, K. C.; Phillips, V. R.; Sneath, R.

2017-03-01

It has been well known that nitrous oxide is an important greenhouse gas, so monitoring and control of its concentration and emission is very important. In this work a nitrous oxide measurement system has been developed consisting of an amperometric sensor and an appropriate lab-made potentiostat that capable measuring picoampere current ranges. The sensor was constructed using a gold microelectrode as working electrode surrounded by a silver wire as quasi reference electrode, with tetraethyl ammonium perchlorate and dimethylsulphoxide as supporting electrolyte and solvent respectively. The lab-made potentiostat was built incorporating a transimpedance amplifier capable of picoampere measurements. This also incorporated a microcontroller based data acquisition system, controlled by a host personal computer using a dedicated computer program. The system was capable of detecting N2O concentrations down to 0.07 % v/v.

Low-cost, email-based system for self blood pressure monitoring at home.

PubMed

Nakajima, Kazuki; Nambu, Masayuki; Kiryu, Tohru; Tamura, Toshiyo; Sasaki, Kazuo

2006-01-01

We have developed a low-cost monitoring system, which allows subjects to send blood pressure (BP) data obtained at home to health-care professionals by email. The system consists of a wrist BP monitor and a personal computer (PC) with an Internet connection. The wrist BP monitor includes an advanced positioning sensor to verify that the wrist is placed properly at heart level. Subjects at home can self-measure their BP every day, automatically transfer the BP data to their PC each week, and then send a comma-separated values (CSV) file to their health-care professional by email. In a feasibility study, 10 subjects used the system for a mean period of 207 days (SD 149). The mean percent achievement of measurement in the 10 subjects was 84% (SD 12). There was a seasonal variation in systolic and diastolic BP, which was inversely correlated with temperature. Eight of the 10 subjects evaluated the system favourably. The results of the present study demonstrate the feasibility of our email-based system for self-monitoring of blood pressure. Its low cost means that it may have widespread application in future home telecare studies.

Arduino Based Weather Monitoring Telemetry System Using NRF24L01+

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sidqi, Rafi; Rio Rynaldo, Bagus; Hadi Suroso, Satya; Firmansyah, Rifqi

2018-04-01

Abstract-Weather is an important part of the natural environment, thus knowing weather information is needed before doing activity. The main purpose of this research was to develop a weather monitoring system which capable to transmit weather data via radio frequency by using nRF24L01+ 2,4GHz radio module. This research implement Arduino UNO as the main controller of the system which send data wirelessly using the radio module and received by a receiver system. Received data then logged and displayed using a Graphical User Interface on a personal computer. Test and experiment result show that the system was able to transmit weather data via radio wave with maximum transmitting range of 32 meters.

A Wireless Monitoring Sub-nA Resolution Test Platform for Nanostructure Sensors

PubMed Central

Jang, Chi Woong; Byun, Young Tae; Lee, Taikjin; Woo, Deok Ha; Lee, Seok; Jhon, Young Min

2013-01-01

We have constructed a wireless monitoring test platform with a sub-nA resolution signal amplification/processing circuit (SAPC) and a wireless communication network to test the real-time remote monitoring of the signals from carbon nanotube (CNT) sensors. The operation characteristics of the CNT sensors can also be measured by the ISD-VSD curve with the SAPC. The SAPC signals are transmitted to a personal computer by Bluetooth communication and the signals from the computer are transmitted to smart phones by Wi-Fi communication, in such a way that the signals from the sensors can be remotely monitored through a web browser. Successful remote monitoring of signals from a CNT sensor was achieved with the wireless monitoring test platform for detection of 0.15% methanol vapor with 0.5 nA resolution and 7 Hz sampling rate. PMID:23783735

Can people with Alzheimer's disease improve their day-to-day functioning with a tablet computer?

PubMed

Imbeault, Hélène; Langlois, Francis; Bocti, Christian; Gagnon, Lise; Bier, Nathalie

2018-07-01

New technologies, such as tablet computers, present great potential to support the day-to-day living of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, whether people with AD can learn how to use a tablet properly in daily life remains to be demonstrated. A single case study was conducted with a 65-year-old woman with AD. A specific and structured intervention tailored to her needs was conceptualised for the use of a calendar application on a tablet computer according to the following learning stages: Acquisition, Application and Adaptation. In spite of her severe episodic memory deficit, she showed progressive learning of the tablet application during the intervention phase. Furthermore, data compiled over 12 months post-use show that she used the tablet successfully in her day-to-day life. She was even able to transfer her newly acquired ability to other available applications designed to monitor regular purchases, consult various recipes and play games. Tablet computers thereby offer a promising avenue for cognitive rehabilitation for persons with AD. This success was mainly achieved through a one-on-one individual programme tailored to this person. The limits and constraints of utilising tablet computers for persons with AD are discussed.

Design for Run-Time Monitor on Cloud Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Yun, Mira; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is the type of a parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring the system status change, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize resources on cloud computing. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data.

INTEGRATED MONITORING HARDWARE DEVELOPMENTS AT LOS ALAMOS

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

R. PARKER; J. HALBIG; ET AL

1999-09-01

The hardware of the integrated monitoring system supports a family of instruments having a common internal architecture and firmware. Instruments can be easily configured from application-specific personality boards combined with common master-processor and high- and low-voltage power supply boards, and basic operating firmware. The instruments are designed to function autonomously to survive power and communication outages and to adapt to changing conditions. The personality boards allow measurement of gross gammas and neutrons, neutron coincidence and multiplicity, and gamma spectra. In addition, the Intelligent Local Node (ILON) provides a moderate-bandwidth network to tie together instruments, sensors, and computers.

Personal customizing exercise with a wearable measurement and control unit.

PubMed

Wang, Zhihui; Kiryu, Tohru; Tamura, Naoki

2005-06-28

Recently, wearable technology has been used in various health-related fields to develop advanced monitoring solutions. However, the monitoring function alone cannot meet all the requirements of customizing machine-based exercise on an individual basis by relying on biosignal-based controls. We propose a new wearable unit design equipped with measurement and control functions to support the customization process. The wearable unit can measure the heart rate and electromyogram signals during exercise performance and output workload control commands to the exercise machines. The workload is continuously tracked with exercise programs set according to personally customized workload patterns and estimation results from the measured biosignals by a fuzzy control method. Exercise programs are adapted by relying on a computer workstation, which communicates with the wearable unit via wireless connections. A prototype of the wearable unit was tested together with an Internet-based cycle ergometer system to demonstrate that it is possible to customize exercise on an individual basis. We tested the wearable unit in nine people to assess its suitability to control cycle ergometer exercise. The results confirmed that the unit could successfully control the ergometer workload and continuously support gradual changes in physical activities. The design of wearable units equipped with measurement and control functions is an important step towards establishing a convenient and continuously supported wellness environment.

Learners' Field Dependence and the Effects of Personalized Narration on Learners' Computer Perceptions and Task-Related Attitudes in Multimedia Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Liew, Tze Wei; Tan, Su-Mae; Seydali, Rouzbeh

2014-01-01

In this article, the effects of personalized narration in multimedia learning on learners' computer perceptions and task-related attitudes were examined. Twenty-six field independent and 22 field dependent participants studied the computer-based multimedia lessons on C-Programming, either with personalized narration or non-personalized narration.…

Computer Models of Personality: Implications for Measurement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cranton, P. A.

1976-01-01

Current research on computer models of personality is reviewed and categorized under five headings: (1) models of belief systems; (2) models of interpersonal behavior; (3) models of decision-making processes; (4) prediction models; and (5) theory-based simulations of specific processes. The use of computer models in personality measurement is…

Qualification and Approval of Personal Computer-Based Aviation Training Devices

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1997-05-12

This Advisory Circular (AC) provides information and guidance to potential training device manufacturers and aviation training consumers concerning a means, acceptable to the Administrator, by which personal computer-based aviation training devices (...

Smokers' Views on Personal Carbon Monoxide Monitors, Associated Apps, and Their Use: An Interview and Think-Aloud Study.

PubMed

Herbeć, Aleksandra; Perski, Olga; Shahab, Lion; West, Robert

2018-02-07

Smartphone-based personal carbon monoxide (CO) monitors and associated apps, or "CO Smartphone Systems" (CSSs) for short, could enable smokers to independently monitor their smoking and quitting. This study explored views and preferences regarding CSSs and their use among 16 adult, UK-based smokers. First, semi-structured interviews explored participants' expectations of CSSs. Secondly, a think-aloud study identified participants' reactions to a personal CO monitor and to existing or prototype apps. Framework Analysis identified five themes: (1) General views, needs, and motivation to use CSSs; (2) Views on the personal CO monitor; (3) Practicalities of CSS use; (4) Desired features in associated apps; and (5) Factors affecting preferences for CSSs and their use. Participants had high expectations of CSSs and their potential to increase motivation. Priority app features included: easy CO testing journeys, relevant and motivating feedback, and recording of contextual data. Appearance and usability of the personal CO monitor, and accuracy and relevance of CO testing were considered important for engagement. Participants differed in their motivation to use and preferences for CSSs features and use, which might have non-trivial impact on evaluation efforts. Personal CO monitors and associated apps may be attractive tools for smokers, but making CSSs easy to use and evaluating these among different groups of smokers may be challenging.

A PC-based simulation of the National Transonic Facitity's safety microprocessor

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Thibodeaux, J. J.; Kilgore, W. A.; Balakrishna, S.

1993-01-01

A brief study was undertaken to demonstrate the feasibility of using a state-of-the-art off-the-shelf high speed personal computer for simulating a microprocessor presently used for wind tunnel safety purposes at Langley Research Center's National Transonic Facility (NTF). Currently, there is no active display of tunnel alarm/alert safety information provided to the tunnel operators, but rather such information is periodically recorded on a process monitoring computer printout. This does not provide on-line situational information nor permit rapid identification of safety operational violations which are able to halt tunnel operations. It was therefore decided to simulate the existing algorithms and briefly evaluate a real-time display which could provide both position and trouble shooting information.

Dance-the-Music: an educational platform for the modeling, recognition and audiovisual monitoring of dance steps using spatiotemporal motion templates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Maes, Pieter-Jan; Amelynck, Denis; Leman, Marc

2012-12-01

In this article, a computational platform is presented, entitled "Dance-the-Music", that can be used in a dance educational context to explore and learn the basics of dance steps. By introducing a method based on spatiotemporal motion templates, the platform facilitates to train basic step models from sequentially repeated dance figures performed by a dance teacher. Movements are captured with an optical motion capture system. The teachers' models can be visualized from a first-person perspective to instruct students how to perform the specific dance steps in the correct manner. Moreover, recognition algorithms-based on a template matching method-can determine the quality of a student's performance in real time by means of multimodal monitoring techniques. The results of an evaluation study suggest that the Dance-the-Music is effective in helping dance students to master the basics of dance figures.

Measured energy savings and performance of power-managed personal computers and monitors

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Nordman, B.; Piette, M.A.; Kinney, K.

1996-08-01

Personal computers and monitors are estimated to use 14 billion kWh/year of electricity, with power management potentially saving $600 million/year by the year 2000. The effort to capture these savings is lead by the US Environmental Protection Agency`s Energy Star program, which specifies a 30W maximum demand for the computer and for the monitor when in a {open_quote}sleep{close_quote} or idle mode. In this paper the authors discuss measured energy use and estimated savings for power-managed (Energy Star compliant) PCs and monitors. They collected electricity use measurements of six power-managed PCs and monitors in their office and five from two othermore » research projects. The devices are diverse in machine type, use patterns, and context. The analysis method estimates the time spent in each system operating mode (off, low-, and full-power) and combines these with real power measurements to derive hours of use per mode, energy use, and energy savings. Three schedules are explored in the {open_quotes}As-operated,{close_quotes} {open_quotes}Standardized,{close_quotes} and `Maximum` savings estimates. Energy savings are established by comparing the measurements to a baseline with power management disabled. As-operated energy savings for the eleven PCs and monitors ranged from zero to 75 kWh/year. Under the standard operating schedule (on 20% of nights and weekends), the savings are about 200 kWh/year. An audit of power management features and configurations for several dozen Energy Star machines found only 11% of CPU`s fully enabled and about two thirds of monitors were successfully power managed. The highest priority for greater power management savings is to enable monitors, as opposed to CPU`s, since they are generally easier to configure, less likely to interfere with system operation, and have greater savings. The difficulties in properly configuring PCs and monitors is the largest current barrier to achieving the savings potential from power management.« less

Cellphone-based devices for bioanalytical sciences

PubMed Central

Vashist, Sandeep Kumar; Mudanyali, Onur; Schneider, E.Marion; Zengerle, Roland; Ozcan, Aydogan

2014-01-01

During the last decade, there has been a rapidly growing trend toward the use of cellphone-based devices (CBDs) in bioanalytical sciences. For example, they have been used for digital microscopy, cytometry, read-out of immunoassays and lateral flow tests, electrochemical and surface plasmon resonance based bio-sensing, colorimetric detection and healthcare monitoring, among others. Cellphone can be considered as one of the most prospective devices for the development of next-generation point-of-care (POC) diagnostics platforms, enabling mobile healthcare delivery and personalized medicine. With more than 6.5 billion cellphone subscribers worldwide and approximately 1.6 billion new devices being sold each year, cellphone technology is also creating new business and research opportunities. Many cellphone-based devices, such as those targeted for diabetic management, weight management, monitoring of blood pressure and pulse rate, have already become commercially-available in recent years. In addition to such monitoring platforms, several other CBDs are also being introduced, targeting e.g., microscopic imaging and sensing applications for medical diagnostics using novel computational algorithms and components already embedded on cellphones. This manuscript aims to review these recent developments in CBDs for bioanalytical sciences along with some of the challenges involved and the future opportunities. PMID:24287630

Comparison of Knowledge and Attitudes Using Computer-Based and Face-to-Face Personal Hygiene Training Methods in Food Processing Facilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fenton, Ginger D.; LaBorde, Luke F.; Radhakrishna, Rama B.; Brown, J. Lynne; Cutter, Catherine N.

2006-01-01

Computer-based training is increasingly favored by food companies for training workers due to convenience, self-pacing ability, and ease of use. The objectives of this study were to determine if personal hygiene training, offered through a computer-based method, is as effective as a face-to-face method in knowledge acquisition and improved…

Monitoring of piglets' open field activity and choice behaviour during the replay of maternal vocalization: a comparison between Observer and PID technique.

PubMed

Puppe, B; Schön, P C; Wendland, K

1999-07-01

The paper presents a new system for the automatic monitoring of open field activity and choice behaviour of medium-sized animals. Passive infrared motion detectors (PID) were linked on-line via a digital I/O interface to a personal computer provided with self-developed analysis software based on LabVIEW (PID technique). The set up was used for testing 18 one-week-old piglets (Sus scrofa) for their approach to their mother's nursing vocalization replayed through loudspeakers. The results were validated by comparison with a conventional Observer technique, a computer-aided direct observation. In most of the cases, no differences were seen between the Observer and PID technique regarding the percentage of stay in previously defined open field segments, the locomotor open field activity, and the choice behaviour. The results revealed that piglets are clearly attracted by their mother's nursing vocalization. The monitoring system presented in this study is thus suitable for detailed behavioural investigations of individual acoustic recognition. In general, the PID technique is a useful tool for research into the behaviour of individual animals in a restricted open field which does not rely on subjective analysis by a human observer.

Computer-Based Script Training for Aphasia: Emerging Themes from Post-Treatment Interviews

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cherney, Leora R.; Halper, Anita S.; Kaye, Rosalind C.

2011-01-01

This study presents results of post-treatment interviews following computer-based script training for persons with chronic aphasia. Each of the 23 participants received 9 weeks of AphasiaScripts training. Post-treatment interviews were conducted with the person with aphasia and/or a significant other person. The 23 interviews yielded 584 coded…

LabVIEW Serial Driver Software for an Electronic Load

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Scullin, Vincent; Garcia, Christopher

2003-01-01

A LabVIEW-language computer program enables monitoring and control of a Transistor Devices, Inc., Dynaload WCL232 (or equivalent) electronic load via an RS-232 serial communication link between the electronic load and a remote personal computer. (The electronic load can operate at constant voltage, current, power consumption, or resistance.) The program generates a graphical user interface (GUI) at the computer that looks and acts like the front panel of the electronic load. Once the electronic load has been placed in remote-control mode, this program first queries the electronic load for the present values of all its operational and limit settings, and then drops into a cycle in which it reports the instantaneous voltage, current, and power values in displays that resemble those on the electronic load while monitoring the GUI images of pushbuttons for control actions by the user. By means of the pushbutton images and associated prompts, the user can perform such operations as changing limit values, the operating mode, or the set point. The benefit of this software is that it relieves the user of the need to learn one method for operating the electronic load locally and another method for operating it remotely via a personal computer.

NASA Tech Briefs, February 2001. Volume 25, No. 2

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2001-01-01

The topics include: 1) Application Briefs; 2) National Design Engineering Show Preview; 3) Marketing Inventions to Increase Income; 4) A Personal-Computer-Based Physiological Training System; 5) Reconfigurable Arrays of Transistors for Evolvable Hardware; 6) Active Tactile Display Device for Reading by a Blind Person; 7) Program Automates Management of IBM VM Computer Systems; 8) System for Monitoring the Environment of a Spacecraft Launch; 9) Measurement of Stresses and Strains in Muscles and Tendons; 10) Optical Measurement of Temperatures in Muscles and Tendons; 11) Small Low-Temperature Thermometer With Nanokelvin Resolution; 12) Heterodyne Interferometer With Phase-Modulated Carrier; 13) Rechargeable Batteries Based on Intercalation in Graphite; 14) Signal Processor for Doppler Measurements in Icing Research; 15) Model Optimizes Drying of Wet Sheets; 16) High-Performance POSS-Modified Polymeric Composites; 17) Model Simulates Semi-Solid Material Processing; 18) Modular Cryogenic Insulation; 19) Passive Venting for Alleviating Helicopter Tail-Boom Loads; 20) Computer Program Predicts Rocket Noise; 21) Process for Polishing Bare Aluminum to High Optical Quality; 22) External Adhesive Pressure-Wall Patch; 23) Java Implementation of Information-Sharing Protocol; 24) Electronic Bulletin Board Publishes Schedules in Real Time; 25) Apparatus Would Extract Water From the Martian Atmosphere; 26) Review of Research on Supercritical vs Subcritical Fluids; 27) Hybrid Regenerative Water-Recycling System; 28) Study of Fusion-Driven Plasma Thruster With Magnetic Nozzle; 29) Liquid/Vapor-Hydrazine Thruster Would Produce Small Impulses; and 30) Thruster Based on Sublimation of Solid Hydrazine

A wearable, mobile phone-based respiration monitoring system for sleep apnea syndrome detection.

PubMed

Ishida, Ryoichi; Yonezawa, Yoshiharu; Maki, Hiromichi; Ogawa, Hidekuni; Ninomiya, Ishio; Sada, Kouji; Hamada, Shingo; Hahn, Allen W; Caldwell, W Morton

2005-01-01

A new wearable respiration monitoring system has been developed for non-invasive detection of sleep apnea syndrome. The system, which is attached to a shirt, consists of a piezoelectric sensor, a low-power 8-bit single chip microcontroller, EEPROM and a 2.4 GHz low-power transmitting mobile phone (PHS). The piezoelectric sensor, whose electrical polarization voltage is produced by body movements, is installed inside the shirt and closely contacts the patient's chest. The low frequency components of body movements recorded by the sensor are mainly generated by respiration. The microcontroller sequentially stores the movement signal to the EEPROM for 5 minutes and detects, by time-frequency analysis, whether the patient has breathed during that time. When the patient is apneic for 10 sseconds, the microcontroller sends the recorded respiration waveform during and one minute before and after the apnea directly to the hospital server computer via the mobile phone. The server computer then creates apnea "filings" automatically for every patient. The system can be used at home and be self-applied by patients. Moreover, the system does not require any extra equipment such as a personal computer, PDA, or Internet connection.

New camera-based microswitch technology to monitor small head and mouth responses of children with multiple disabilities.

PubMed

Lancioni, Giulio E; Bellini, Domenico; Oliva, Doretta; Singh, Nirbhay N; O'Reilly, Mark F; Green, Vanessa A; Furniss, Fred

2014-06-01

Assessing a new camera-based microswitch technology, which did not require the use of color marks on the participants' face. Two children with extensive multiple disabilities participated. The responses selected for them consisted of small, lateral head movements and mouth closing or opening. The intervention was carried out according to a multiple probe design across responses. The technology involved a computer with a CPU using a 2-GHz clock, a USB video camera with a 16-mm lens, a USB cable connecting the camera and the computer, and a special software program written in ISO C++ language. The new technology was satisfactorily used with both children. Large increases in their responding were observed during the intervention periods (i.e. when the responses were followed by preferred stimulation). The new technology may be an important resource for persons with multiple disabilities and minimal motor behavior.

Design and Development of a Run-Time Monitor for Multi-Core Architectures in Cloud Computing

PubMed Central

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Crago, Stephen P.; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

2011-01-01

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring system status changes, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design and develop a Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize cloud computing resources for multi-core architectures. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through a performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data. PMID:22163811

Design and development of a run-time monitor for multi-core architectures in cloud computing.

PubMed

Kang, Mikyung; Kang, Dong-In; Crago, Stephen P; Park, Gyung-Leen; Lee, Junghoon

2011-01-01

Cloud computing is a new information technology trend that moves computing and data away from desktops and portable PCs into large data centers. The basic principle of cloud computing is to deliver applications as services over the Internet as well as infrastructure. A cloud is a type of parallel and distributed system consisting of a collection of inter-connected and virtualized computers that are dynamically provisioned and presented as one or more unified computing resources. The large-scale distributed applications on a cloud require adaptive service-based software, which has the capability of monitoring system status changes, analyzing the monitored information, and adapting its service configuration while considering tradeoffs among multiple QoS features simultaneously. In this paper, we design and develop a Run-Time Monitor (RTM) which is a system software to monitor the application behavior at run-time, analyze the collected information, and optimize cloud computing resources for multi-core architectures. RTM monitors application software through library instrumentation as well as underlying hardware through a performance counter optimizing its computing configuration based on the analyzed data.

A personal computer-based nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Job, Constantin; Pearson, Robert M.; Brown, Michael F.

1994-11-01

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy using personal computer-based hardware has the potential of enabling the application of NMR methods to fields where conventional state of the art equipment is either impractical or too costly. With such a strategy for data acquisition and processing, disciplines including civil engineering, agriculture, geology, archaeology, and others have the possibility of utilizing magnetic resonance techniques within the laboratory or conducting applications directly in the field. Another aspect is the possibility of utilizing existing NMR magnets which may be in good condition but unused because of outdated or nonrepairable electronics. Moreover, NMR applications based on personal computer technology may open up teaching possibilities at the college or even secondary school level. The goal of developing such a personal computer (PC)-based NMR standard is facilitated by existing technologies including logic cell arrays, direct digital frequency synthesis, use of PC-based electrical engineering software tools to fabricate electronic circuits, and the use of permanent magnets based on neodymium-iron-boron alloy. Utilizing such an approach, we have been able to place essentially an entire NMR spectrometer console on two printed circuit boards, with the exception of the receiver and radio frequency power amplifier. Future upgrades to include the deuterium lock and the decoupler unit are readily envisioned. The continued development of such PC-based NMR spectrometers is expected to benefit from the fast growing, practical, and low cost personal computer market.

The Accuracy of Cognitive Monitoring during Computer-Based Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Garhart, Casey; Hannafin, Michael J.

This study was conducted to determine the accuracy of learners' comprehension monitoring during computer-based instruction and to assess the relationship between enroute monitoring and different levels of learning. Participants were 50 university undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory educational psychology class. All students received…

"Internet of Things" Real-Time Free Flap Monitoring.

PubMed

Kim, Sang Hun; Shin, Ho Seong; Lee, Sang Hwan

2018-01-01

Free flaps are a common treatment option for head and neck reconstruction in plastic reconstructive surgery, and monitoring of the free flap is the most important factor for flap survival. In this study, the authors performed real-time free flap monitoring based on an implanted Doppler system and "internet of things" (IoT)/wireless Wi-Fi, which is a convenient, accurate, and efficient approach for surgeons to monitor a free flap. Implanted Doppler signals were checked continuously until the patient was discharged by the surgeon and residents using their own cellular phone or personal computer. If the surgeon decided that a revision procedure or exploration was required, the authors checked the consumed time (positive signal-to-operating room time) from the first notification when the flap's status was questioned to the determination for revision surgery according to a chart review. To compare the efficacy of real-time monitoring, the authors paired the same number of free flaps performed by the same surgeon and monitored the flaps using conventional methods such as a physical examination. The total survival rate was greater in the real-time monitoring group (94.7% versus 89.5%). The average time for the real-time monitoring group was shorter than that for the conventional group (65 minutes versus 86 minutes). Based on this study, real-time free flap monitoring using IoT technology is a method that surgeon and reconstruction team can monitor simultaneously at any time in any situation.

48 CFR 1523.7000 - Background.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient... purchase only microcomputers, including personal computers, monitors and printers, which meet “EPA Energy Star” requirements for energy efficiency. This equipment is often identified by the Energy StarTM logo...

48 CFR 1523.7000 - Background.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient... purchase only microcomputers, including personal computers, monitors and printers, which meet “EPA Energy Star” requirements for energy efficiency. This equipment is often identified by the Energy StarTM logo...

48 CFR 1523.7000 - Background.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... PROGRAMS ENVIRONMENTAL, CONSERVATION, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, AND DRUG-FREE WORKPLACE Energy-Efficient... purchase only microcomputers, including personal computers, monitors and printers, which meet “EPA Energy Star” requirements for energy efficiency. This equipment is often identified by the Energy StarTM logo...

Selected algorithms for measurement data processing in impulse-radar-based system for monitoring of human movements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miękina, Andrzej; Wagner, Jakub; Mazurek, Paweł; Morawski, Roman Z.

2016-11-01

The importance of research on new technologies that could be employed in care services for elderly and disabled persons is highlighted. Advantages of impulse-radar sensors, when applied for non-intrusive monitoring of such persons in their home environment, are indicated. Selected algorithms for the measurement data preprocessing - viz. the algorithms for clutter suppression and echo parameter estimation, as well as for estimation of the twodimensional position of a monitored person - are proposed. The capability of an impulse-radar- based system to provide some application-specific parameters, viz. the parameters characterising the patient's health condition, is also demonstrated.

Rapid P300 brain-computer interface communication with a head-mounted display

PubMed Central

Käthner, Ivo; Kübler, Andrea; Halder, Sebastian

2015-01-01

Visual ERP (P300) based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) allow for fast and reliable spelling and are intended as a muscle-independent communication channel for people with severe paralysis. However, they require the presentation of visual stimuli in the field of view of the user. A head-mounted display could allow convenient presentation of visual stimuli in situations, where mounting a conventional monitor might be difficult or not feasible (e.g., at a patient's bedside). To explore if similar accuracies can be achieved with a virtual reality (VR) headset compared to a conventional flat screen monitor, we conducted an experiment with 18 healthy participants. We also evaluated it with a person in the locked-in state (LIS) to verify that usage of the headset is possible for a severely paralyzed person. Healthy participants performed online spelling with three different display methods. In one condition a 5 × 5 letter matrix was presented on a conventional 22 inch TFT monitor. Two configurations of the VR headset were tested. In the first (glasses A), the same 5 × 5 matrix filled the field of view of the user. In the second (glasses B), single letters of the matrix filled the field of view of the user. The participant in the LIS tested the VR headset on three different occasions (glasses A condition only). For healthy participants, average online spelling accuracies were 94% (15.5 bits/min) using three flash sequences for spelling with the monitor and glasses A and 96% (16.2 bits/min) with glasses B. In one session, the participant in the LIS reached an online spelling accuracy of 100% (10 bits/min) using the glasses A condition. We also demonstrated that spelling with one flash sequence is possible with the VR headset for healthy users (mean: 32.1 bits/min, maximum reached by one user: 71.89 bits/min at 100% accuracy). We conclude that the VR headset allows for rapid P300 BCI communication in healthy users and may be a suitable display option for severely paralyzed persons. PMID:26097447

Computer-Assisted Monitoring Of A Complex System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Beil, Bob J.; Mickelson, Eric M.; Sterritt, John M.; Costantino, Rob W.; Houvener, Bob C.; Super, Mike A.

1995-01-01

Propulsion System Advisor (PSA) computer-based system assists engineers and technicians in analyzing masses of sensory data indicative of operating conditions of space shuttle propulsion system during pre-launch and launch activities. Designed solely for monitoring; does not perform any control functions. Although PSA developed for highly specialized application, serves as prototype of noncontrolling, computer-based subsystems for monitoring other complex systems like electric-power-distribution networks and factories.

Look who's judging-Feedback source modulates brain activation to performance feedback in social anxiety.

PubMed

Peterburs, Jutta; Sandrock, Carolin; Miltner, Wolfgang H R; Straube, Thomas

2016-06-01

It is as yet unknown if behavioral and neural correlates of performance monitoring in socially anxious individuals are affected by whether feedback is provided by a person or a computer. This fMRI study investigated modulation of feedback processing by feedback source (person vs. computer) in participants with high (HSA) (N=16) and low social anxiety (LSA) (N=16). Subjects performed a choice task in which they were informed that they would receive positive or negative feedback from a person or the computer. Subjective ratings indicated increased arousal and anxiety in HSA versus LSA, most pronounced for social and negative feedback. FMRI analyses yielded hyperactivation in ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)/anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula for social relative to computer feedback, and in mPFC/ventral ACC for positive relative to negative feedback in HSA as compared to LSA. These activation patterns are consistent with increased interoception and self-referential processing in social anxiety, especially during processing of positive feedback. Increased ACC activation in HSA to positive feedback may link to unexpectedness of (social) praise as posited in social anxiety disorder (SAD) psychopathology. Activation in rostral ACC showed a reversed pattern, with decreased activation to positive feedback in HSA, possibly indicating altered action values depending on feedback source and valence. The present findings corroborate a crucial role of mPFC for performance monitoring in social anxiety. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Development of Students' Personal Professional Theories in Senior Secondary Vocational Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schaap, H.; Van der Schaaf, M. F.; de Bruijn, E.

2011-01-01

Students in competence-based senior secondary vocational education are expected to actively construct personal knowledge during school-based learning and workplace learning. This study introduces the construct "personal professional theory" (PPT) to monitor and analyse students' personal knowledge development. It aims to investigate the…

Implementation methodology for interoperable personal health devices with low-voltage low-power constraints.

PubMed

Martinez-Espronceda, Miguel; Martinez, Ignacio; Serrano, Luis; Led, Santiago; Trigo, Jesús Daniel; Marzo, Asier; Escayola, Javier; Garcia, José

2011-05-01

Traditionally, e-Health solutions were located at the point of care (PoC), while the new ubiquitous user-centered paradigm draws on standard-based personal health devices (PHDs). Such devices place strict constraints on computation and battery efficiency that encouraged the International Organization for Standardization/IEEE11073 (X73) standard for medical devices to evolve from X73PoC to X73PHD. In this context, low-voltage low-power (LV-LP) technologies meet the restrictions of X73PHD-compliant devices. Since X73PHD does not approach the software architecture, the accomplishment of an efficient design falls directly on the software developer. Therefore, computational and battery performance of such LV-LP-constrained devices can even be outperformed through an efficient X73PHD implementation design. In this context, this paper proposes a new methodology to implement X73PHD into microcontroller-based platforms with LV-LP constraints. Such implementation methodology has been developed through a patterns-based approach and applied to a number of X73PHD-compliant agents (including weighing scale, blood pressure monitor, and thermometer specializations) and microprocessor architectures (8, 16, and 32 bits) as a proof of concept. As a reference, the results obtained in the weighing scale guarantee all features of X73PHD running over a microcontroller architecture based on ARM7TDMI requiring only 168 B of RAM and 2546 B of flash memory.

Remote Safety Monitoring for Elderly Persons Based on Omni-Vision Analysis

PubMed Central

Xiang, Yun; Tang, Yi-ping; Ma, Bao-qing; Yan, Hang-chen; Jiang, Jun; Tian, Xu-yuan

2015-01-01

Remote monitoring service for elderly persons is important as the aged populations in most developed countries continue growing. To monitor the safety and health of the elderly population, we propose a novel omni-directional vision sensor based system, which can detect and track object motion, recognize human posture, and analyze human behavior automatically. In this work, we have made the following contributions: (1) we develop a remote safety monitoring system which can provide real-time and automatic health care for the elderly persons and (2) we design a novel motion history or energy images based algorithm for motion object tracking. Our system can accurately and efficiently collect, analyze, and transfer elderly activity information and provide health care in real-time. Experimental results show that our technique can improve the data analysis efficiency by 58.5% for object tracking. Moreover, for the human posture recognition application, the success rate can reach 98.6% on average. PMID:25978761

Mobile personal health records for pregnancy monitoring functionalities: Analysis and potential.

PubMed

Bachiri, Mariam; Idri, Ali; Fernández-Alemán, José Luis; Toval, Ambrosio

2016-10-01

Personal Health Records (PHRs) are a rapidly growing area of health information technology. PHR users are able to manage their own health data and communicate with doctors in order to improve healthcare quality and efficiency. Mobile PHR (mPHR) applications for mobile devices have obtained an interesting market quota since the appearance of more powerful mobile devices. These devices allow users to gain access to applications that used to be available only for personal computers. This paper analyzes the functionalities of mobile PHRs that are specific to pregnancy monitoring. A well-known Systematic Literature Review (SLR) protocol was used in the analysis process. A questionnaire was developed for this task, based on the rigorous study of scientific literature concerning pregnancy and applications available on the market, with 9 data items and 35 quality assessments. The data items contain calendars, pregnancy information, health habits, counters, diaries, mobile features, security, backup, configuration and architectural design. A total of 33 mPHRs for pregnancy monitoring, available for iOS and Android, were selected from Apple App store and Google Play store, respectively. The results show that none of the mPHRs selected met 100% of the functionalities analyzed in this paper. The highest score achieved was 77%, while the lowest was 17%. In this paper, these features are discussed and possible paths for future development of similar applications are proposed, which may lead to a more efficient use of smartphone capabilities. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Personal discovery in diabetes self-management: Discovering cause and effect using self-monitoring data

PubMed Central

Mamykina, Lena; Heitkemper, Elizabeth M.; Smaldone, Arlene M.; Kukafka, Rita; Cole-Lewis, Heather J.; Davidson, Patricia G.; Mynatt, Elizabeth D.; Cassells, Andrea; Tobin, Jonathan N.; Hripcsak, George

2017-01-01

Objective To outline new design directions for informatics solutions that facilitate personal discovery with self-monitoring data. We investigate this question in the context of chronic disease self-management with the focus on type 2 diabetes. Materials and methods We conducted an observational qualitative study of discovery with personal data among adults attending a diabetes self-management education (DSME) program that utilized a discovery-based curriculum. The study included observations of class sessions, and interviews and focus groups with the educator and attendees of the program (n = 14). Results The main discovery in diabetes self-management evolved around discovering patterns of association between characteristics of individuals’ activities and changes in their blood glucose levels that the participants referred to as “cause and effect”. This discovery empowered individuals to actively engage in self-management and provided a desired flexibility in selection of personalized self-management strategies. We show that discovery of cause and effect involves four essential phases: (1) feature selection, (2) hypothesis generation, (3) feature evaluation, and (4) goal specification. Further, we identify opportunities to support discovery at each stage with informatics and data visualization solutions by providing assistance with: (1) active manipulation of collected data (e.g., grouping, filtering and side-by-side inspection), (2) hypotheses formulation (e.g., using natural language statements or constructing visual queries), (3) inference evaluation (e.g., through aggregation and visual comparison, and statistical analysis of associations), and (4) translation of discoveries into actionable goals (e.g., tailored selection from computable knowledge sources of effective diabetes self-management behaviors). Discussion The study suggests that discovery of cause and effect in diabetes can be a powerful approach to helping individuals to improve their self-management strategies, and that self-monitoring data can serve as a driving engine for personal discovery that may lead to sustainable behavior changes. Conclusions Enabling personal discovery is a promising new approach to enhancing chronic disease self-management with informatics interventions. PMID:28974460

Personal discovery in diabetes self-management: Discovering cause and effect using self-monitoring data.

PubMed

Mamykina, Lena; Heitkemper, Elizabeth M; Smaldone, Arlene M; Kukafka, Rita; Cole-Lewis, Heather J; Davidson, Patricia G; Mynatt, Elizabeth D; Cassells, Andrea; Tobin, Jonathan N; Hripcsak, George

2017-12-01

To outline new design directions for informatics solutions that facilitate personal discovery with self-monitoring data. We investigate this question in the context of chronic disease self-management with the focus on type 2 diabetes. We conducted an observational qualitative study of discovery with personal data among adults attending a diabetes self-management education (DSME) program that utilized a discovery-based curriculum. The study included observations of class sessions, and interviews and focus groups with the educator and attendees of the program (n = 14). The main discovery in diabetes self-management evolved around discovering patterns of association between characteristics of individuals' activities and changes in their blood glucose levels that the participants referred to as "cause and effect". This discovery empowered individuals to actively engage in self-management and provided a desired flexibility in selection of personalized self-management strategies. We show that discovery of cause and effect involves four essential phases: (1) feature selection, (2) hypothesis generation, (3) feature evaluation, and (4) goal specification. Further, we identify opportunities to support discovery at each stage with informatics and data visualization solutions by providing assistance with: (1) active manipulation of collected data (e.g., grouping, filtering and side-by-side inspection), (2) hypotheses formulation (e.g., using natural language statements or constructing visual queries), (3) inference evaluation (e.g., through aggregation and visual comparison, and statistical analysis of associations), and (4) translation of discoveries into actionable goals (e.g., tailored selection from computable knowledge sources of effective diabetes self-management behaviors). The study suggests that discovery of cause and effect in diabetes can be a powerful approach to helping individuals to improve their self-management strategies, and that self-monitoring data can serve as a driving engine for personal discovery that may lead to sustainable behavior changes. Enabling personal discovery is a promising new approach to enhancing chronic disease self-management with informatics interventions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Monitoring-Based Model for Personalizing the Clinical Process of Crohn’s Disease

PubMed Central

de Ramón-Fernández, Alberto; Ruiz-Fernández, Daniel; Vives-Boix, Víctor

2017-01-01

Crohn’s disease is a chronic pathology belonging to the group of inflammatory bowel diseases. Patients suffering from Crohn’s disease must be supervised by a medical specialist for the rest of their lives; furthermore, each patient has its own characteristics and is affected by the disease in a different way, so health recommendations and treatments cannot be generalized and should be individualized for a specific patient. To achieve this personalization in a cost-effective way using technology, we propose a model based on different information flows: control, personalization, and monitoring. As a result of the model and to perform a functional validation, an architecture based on services and a prototype of the system has been defined. In this prototype, a set of different devices and technologies to monitor variables from patients and their environment has been integrated. Artificial intelligence algorithms are also included to reduce the workload related to the review and analysis of the information gathered. Due to the continuous and automated monitoring of the Crohn’s patient, this proposal can help in the personalization of the Crohn’s disease clinical process. PMID:28678162

A PDA-based Network for Telemonitoring Asthma Triggering Gases in the El Paso School Districts of the US - Mexico Border Region.

PubMed

Shenoy, Namdev; Nazeran, Homer

2005-01-01

In this paper we describe the application of a personal digital assistant (PDA) or pocket PC as an effective communication device to telemonitor levels of asthma triggering gases collected from a remote location under test to a workstation which has a personal computer (PC) running on Windows XP® as the operating system. The Bluetooth® features of the PDA are explored to transmit data collected by a Direct™ Sense Tox toxic gas monitor equipped with five toxic gas probes and one temperature sensor in real time, thereby making this telemonitoring system an innovative instrument in monitoring levels of asthma triggering gases in the El Paso-border metropolitan region, a region in which asthma is highly prevalent especially in children. At the workstation or fixed location these readings are displayed using a custom made, user friendly graphical user interface (GUI) developed using software tools like action scripting with Macromedia® Flash™. The growing advancement in technology and ever diminishing sizes of handheld devices encouraged us to opt for this configuration. Moreover, the PDA and toxic gas monitor were also chosen for their light weight, portability, flexibility, low cost and data collection and transmission capabilities.

A Community-Based Participatory Approach to Personalized, Computer-Generated Nutrition Feedback Reports: The Healthy Environments Partnership

PubMed Central

Kannan, Srimathi; Schulz, Amy; Israel, Barbara; Ayra, Indira; Weir, Sheryl; Dvonch, Timothy J.; Rowe, Zachary; Miller, Patricia; Benjamin, Alison

2008-01-01

Background Computer tailoring and personalizing recommendations for dietary health-promoting behaviors are in accordance with community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles, which emphasizes research that benefits the participants and community involved. Objective To describe the CBPR process utilized to computer-generate and disseminate personalized nutrition feedback reports (NFRs) for Detroit Healthy Environments Partnership (HEP) study participants. METHODS The CBPR process included discussion and feedback from HEP partners on several draft personalized reports. The nutrition feedback process included defining the feedback objectives; prioritizing the nutrients; customizing the report design; reviewing and revising the NFR template and readability; producing and disseminating the report; and participant follow-up. Lessons Learned Application of CBPR principles in designing the NFR resulted in a reader-friendly product with useful recommendations to promote heart health. Conclusions A CBPR process can enhance computer tailoring of personalized NFRs to address racial and socioeconomic disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD). PMID:19337572

Adaptive awareness for personal and small group decision making.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Perano, Kenneth J.; Tucker, Steve; Pancerella, Carmen M.

2003-12-01

Many situations call for the use of sensors monitoring physiological and environmental data. In order to use the large amounts of sensor data to affect decision making, we are coupling heterogeneous sensors with small, light-weight processors, other powerful computers, wireless communications, and embedded intelligent software. The result is an adaptive awareness and warning tool, which provides both situation awareness and personal awareness to individuals and teams. Central to this tool is a sensor-independent architecture, which combines both software agents and a reusable core software framework that manages the available hardware resources and provides services to the agents. Agents can recognizemore » cues from the data, warn humans about situations, and act as decision-making aids. Within the agents, self-organizing maps (SOMs) are used to process physiological data in order to provide personal awareness. We have employed a novel clustering algorithm to train the SOM to discern individual body states and activities. This awareness tool has broad applicability to emergency teams, military squads, military medics, individual exercise and fitness monitoring, health monitoring for sick and elderly persons, and environmental monitoring in public places. This report discusses our hardware decisions, software framework, and a pilot awareness tool, which has been developed at Sandia National Laboratories.« less

Personal customizing exercise with a wearable measurement and control unit

PubMed Central

Wang, Zhihui; Kiryu, Tohru; Tamura, Naoki

2005-01-01

Background Recently, wearable technology has been used in various health-related fields to develop advanced monitoring solutions. However, the monitoring function alone cannot meet all the requirements of customizing machine-based exercise on an individual basis by relying on biosignal-based controls. We propose a new wearable unit design equipped with measurement and control functions to support the customization process. Methods The wearable unit can measure the heart rate and electromyogram signals during exercise performance and output workload control commands to the exercise machines. The workload is continuously tracked with exercise programs set according to personally customized workload patterns and estimation results from the measured biosignals by a fuzzy control method. Exercise programs are adapted by relying on a computer workstation, which communicates with the wearable unit via wireless connections. A prototype of the wearable unit was tested together with an Internet-based cycle ergometer system to demonstrate that it is possible to customize exercise on an individual basis. Results We tested the wearable unit in nine people to assess its suitability to control cycle ergometer exercise. The results confirmed that the unit could successfully control the ergometer workload and continuously support gradual changes in physical activities. Conclusion The design of wearable units equipped with measurement and control functions is an important step towards establishing a convenient and continuously supported wellness environment. PMID:15982425

Design and Development of Intelligent Electrodes for Future Digital Health Monitoring: A Review

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Khairuddin, A. M.; Azir, K. N. F. Ku; Kan, P. Eh

2018-03-01

Electrodes are sensors used in electrocardiography (ECG) monitoring system to diagnose heart diseases. Over the years, diverse types of electrodes have been designed and developed to improve ECG monitoring system. However, more recently, with the technological advances and capabilities from the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and data analytics in personalized healthcare, researchers are attempting to design and develop more effective as well as flexible ECG devices by using intelligent electrodes. This paper reviews previous works on electrodes used in electrocardiography (ECG) monitoring devices to identify the key ftures for designing and developing intelligent electrodes in digital health monitoring devices.

To track or not to track: user reactions to concepts in longitudinal health monitoring.

PubMed

Beaudin, Jennifer S; Intille, Stephen S; Morris, Margaret E

2006-01-01

Advances in ubiquitous computing, smart homes, and sensor technologies enable novel, longitudinal health monitoring applications in the home. Many home monitoring technologies have been proposed to detect health crises, support aging-in-place, and improve medical care. Health professionals and potential end users in the lay public, however, sometimes question whether home health monitoring is justified given the cost and potential invasion of privacy. The aim of the study was to elicit specific feedback from health professionals and laypeople about how they might use longitudinal health monitoring data for proactive health and well-being. Interviews were conducted with 8 health professionals and 26 laypeople. Participants were asked to evaluate mock data visualization displays that could be generated by novel home monitoring systems. The mock displays were used to elicit reactions to longitudinal monitoring in the home setting as well as what behaviors, events, and physiological indicators people were interested in tracking. Based on the qualitative data provided by the interviews, lists of benefits of and concerns about health tracking from the perspectives of the practitioners and laypeople were compiled. Variables of particular interest to the interviewees, as well as their specific ideas for applications of collected data, were documented. Based upon these interviews, we recommend that ubiquitous "monitoring" systems may be more readily adopted if they are developed as tools for personalized, longitudinal self-investigation that help end users learn about the conditions and variables that impact their social, cognitive, and physical health.

Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals: Part V.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Haruo; Yamada, Kenichi; Hori, Hajime; Kumagai, Shinji; Murata, Masaru; Nagoya, Toshio; Nakahara, Hirohiko; Mochida, Nobuyuki

2018-05-25

This Document, "Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals" ("this Guideline"), has been prepared by "The Committee for Personal Exposure Monitoring" ("the Committee") of the Expert Division of Occupational Hygiene & Ergonomics, Japan Society for Occupational Health. Considering the background of the growing importance of personal exposure monitoring in risk assessment and the need to prepare for the introduction of monitoring using personal samplers from an administrative perspective in recent years, the Committee was organized in November 2012. The Committee has prepared this Guideline as a "practical guideline" for personal exposure monitoring, so as to offer proposals and recommendations to the members of the Japan Society for Occupational Health and to society in general. The scope of this Guideline covers all chemical substances and all related workplaces regarded as targets for general assessment and the management of risk. It thus is not to be considered to comment on legal regulations and methodology. The main text provides the basic methods and concepts of personal exposure monitoring, while 31 "Appendices" are provided in this Guideline throughout the series; technical descriptions, statistical bases, and actual workplace examples are provided in these appendices, to assist better understanding. The personal exposure monitoring described as per this Guideline is equivalent to an "expert-centered basic method to reasonably proceed with the assessment and management of risk at workplaces." It is considered that practicing and expanding on this method will significantly contribute in reforming the overall framework of occupational hygiene management in Japan.

Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals: Part IV.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Haruo; Yamada, Kenichi; Hori, Hajime; Kumagai, Shinji; Murata, Masaru; Nagoya, Toshio; Nakahara, Hirohiko; Mochida, Nobuyuki

2018-03-27

This Document, "Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals" ("this Guideline"), has been prepared by "The Committee for Personal Exposure Monitoring" ("the Committee") of the Expert Division of Occupational Hygiene & Ergonomics, Japan Society for Occupational Health. Considering the background of the growing importance of personal exposure monitoring in risk assessment and the need to prepare for the introduction of monitoring using personal samplers from an administrative perspective in recent years, the Committee was organized in November 2012. The Committee has prepared this Guideline as a "practical guideline" for personal exposure monitoring, so as to offer proposals and recommendations to the members of the Japan Society for Occupational Health and to society in general. The scope of this Guideline covers all chemical substances and all related workplaces regarded as targets for general assessment and the management of risk. It thus is not to be considered to comment on legal regulations and methodology. The main text provides the basic methods and concepts of personal exposure monitoring, while 31 "Appendices" are provided in this Guideline throughout the series; technical descriptions, statistical bases, and actual workplace examples are provided in these appendices, to assist better understanding. The personal exposure monitoring described as per this Guideline is equivalent to an "expert-centered basic method to reasonably proceed with the assessment and management of risk at workplaces." It is considered that practicing and expanding on this method will significantly contribute in reforming the overall framework of occupational hygiene management in Japan.

Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals: Part III.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Haruo; Yamada, Kenichi; Hori, Hajime; Kumagai, Shinji; Murata, Masaru; Nagoya, Toshio; Nakahara, Hirohiko; Mochida, Nobuyuki

2018-01-25

This Document, "Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals" ("this Guideline"), has been prepared by "The Committee for Personal Exposure Monitoring" ("the Committee") of the Expert Division of Occupational Hygiene & Ergonomics, Japan Society for Occupational Health. Considering the background of the growing importance of personal exposure monitoring in risk assessment and the need to prepare for the introduction of monitoring using personal samplers from an administrative perspective in recent years, the Committee was organized in November 2012. The Committee has prepared this Guideline as a "practical guideline" for personal exposure monitoring, so as to offer proposals and recommendations to the members of the Japan Society for Occupational Health and to society in general. The scope of this Guideline covers all chemical substances and all related workplaces regarded as targets for general assessment and the management of risk. It thus is not to be considered to comment on legal regulations and methodology. The main text provides the basic methods and concepts of personal exposure monitoring, while 31 "Appendices" are provided in this Guideline throughout the series; technical descriptions, statistical bases, and actual workplace examples are provided in these appendices, to assist better understanding. The personal exposure monitoring described as per this Guideline is equivalent to an "expert-centered basic method to reasonably proceed with the assessment and management of risk at workplaces." It is considered that practicing and expanding on this method will significantly contribute in reforming the overall framework of occupational hygiene management in Japan.

Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals: Part I.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Haruo; Yamada, Kenichi; Hori, Hajime; Kumagai, Shinji; Murata, Masaru; Nagoya, Toshio; Nakahara, Hirohiko; Mochida, Nobuyuki

2017-09-28

This Document, "Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals" ("this Guideline"), has been prepared by "The Committee for Personal Exposure Monitoring" ("the Committee") of the Expert Division of Occupational Hygiene & Ergonomics, Japan Society for Occupational Health. Considering the background of the growing importance of personal exposure monitoring in risk assessment and the need to prepare for the introduction of monitoring using personal samplers from an administrative perspective in recent years, the Committee was organized in November 2012. The Committee has prepared this Guideline as a "practical guideline" for personal exposure monitoring, so as to offer proposals and recommendations to the members of the Japan Society for Occupational Health and to society in general. The scope of this Guideline covers all chemical substances and all related workplaces regarded as targets for general assessment and the management of risk. It thus is not to be considered to comment on legal regulations and methodology. The main text provides the basic methods and concepts of personal exposure monitoring, while 31 "Appendices" are provided later in this Guideline throughout the series; technical descriptions, statistical bases, and actual workplace examples are provided in these appendices, to assist better understanding. The personal exposure monitoring described as per this Guideline is equivalent to an "expert-centered basic method to reasonably proceed with the assessment and management of risk at workplaces." It is considered that practicing and expanding on this method will significantly contribute in reforming the overall framework of occupational hygiene management in Japan.

Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals: Part II.

PubMed

Hashimoto, Haruo; Yamada, Kenichi; Hori, Hajime; Kumagai, Shinji; Murata, Masaru; Nagoya, Toshio; Nakahara, Hirohiko; Mochida, Nobuyuki

2017-11-25

This Document, "Guidelines for personal exposure monitoring of chemicals" ("this Guideline"), has been prepared by "The Committee for Personal Exposure Monitoring" ("the Committee") of the Expert Division of Occupational Hygiene & Ergonomics, Japan Society for Occupational Health. Considering the background of the growing importance of personal exposure monitoring in risk assessment and the need to prepare for the introduction of monitoring using personal samplers from an administrative perspective in recent years, the Committee was organized in November 2012. The Committee has prepared this Guideline as a "practical guideline" for personal exposure monitoring, so as to offer proposals and recommendations to the members of the Japan Society for Occupational Health and to society in general. The scope of this Guideline covers all chemical substances and all related workplaces regarded as targets for general assessment and the management of risk. It thus is not to be considered to comment on legal regulations and methodology. The main text provides the basic methods and concepts of personal exposure monitoring, while 31 "Appendices" are provided in this Guideline throughout the series; technical descriptions, statistical bases, and actual workplace examples are provided in these appendices, to assist better understanding. The personal exposure monitoring described as per this Guideline is equivalent to an "expert-centered basic method to reasonably proceed with the assessment and management of risk at workplaces." It is considered that practicing and expanding on this method will significantly contribute in reforming the overall framework of occupational hygiene management in Japan.

New paradigms in telemedicine: ambient intelligence, wearable, pervasive and personalized.

PubMed

Rubel, Paul; Fayn, Jocelyne; Simon-Chautemps, Lucas; Atoui, Hussein; Ohlsson, Mattias; Telisson, David; Adami, Stefano; Arod, Sébastien; Forlini, Marie Claire; Malossi, Cesare; Placide, Joël; Ziliani, Gian Luca; Assanelli, Deodato; Chevalier, Philippe

2004-01-01

After decades of development of information systems dedicated to health professionals, there is an increasing demand for personalized and non-hospital based care. An especially critical domain is cardiology: almost two third of cardiac deaths occur out of hospital, and victims do not survive long enough to benefit from in-hospital treatments. We need to reduce the time before treatment. But symptoms are often interpreted wrongly. The only immediate diagnostic tool to assess the possibility of a cardiac event is the electrocardiogram (ECG). Event and transtelephonic ECG recorders are used to improve decision making but require setting up new infrastructures. The European EPI-MEDICS project has developed an intelligent Personal ECG Monitor (PEM) for the early detection of cardiac events. The PEM embeds advanced decision making techniques, generates different alarm levels and forwards alarm messages to the relevant care providers by means of new generation wireless communication. It is cost saving, involving care provider only if necessary and requiring no specific infrastructure. This solution is a typical example of pervasive computing and ambient intelligence that demonstrates how personalized, wearable, ubiquitous devices could improve healthcare.

Development of a personal computer-based secondary task procedure as a surrogate for a driving simulator

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2007-08-01

This research was conducted to develop and test a personal computer-based study procedure (PCSP) with secondary task loading for use in human factors laboratory experiments in lieu of a driving simulator to test reading time and understanding of traf...

Optical studies in the holographic ground station

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Workman, Gary L.

1991-01-01

The Holographic Group System (HGS) Facility in rooms 22 & 123, Building 4708 has been developed to provide for ground based research in determining pre-flight parameters and analyzing the results from space experiments. The University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) has researched the analysis aspects of the HGS and reports their findings here. Some of the results presented here also occur in the Facility Operating Procedure (FOP), which contains instructions for power up, operation, and powerdown of the Fluid Experiment System (FES) Holographic Ground System (HGS) Test Facility for the purpose of optically recording fluid and/or crystal behavior in a test article during ground based testing through the construction of holograms and recording of videotape. The alignment of the optical bench components, holographic reconstruction and and microscopy alignment sections were also included in the document for continuity even though they are not used until after optical recording of the test article) setup of support subsystems and the Automated Holography System (AHS) computer. The HGS provides optical recording and monitoring during GCEL runs or development testing of potential FES flight hardware or software. This recording/monitoring can be via 70mm holographic film, standard videotape, or digitized images on computer disk. All optical bench functions necessary to construct holograms will be under the control of the AHS personal computer (PC). These include type of exposure, time intervals between exposures, exposure length, film frame identification, film advancement, film platen evacuation and repressurization, light source diffuser introduction, and control of realtime video monitoring. The completed sequence of hologram types (single exposure, diffuse double exposure, etc.) and their time of occurrence can be displayed, printed, or stored on floppy disk posttest for the user.

The Effectiveness of a Web-Based Computer-Tailored Intervention on Workplace Sitting: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

PubMed

De Cocker, Katrien; De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse; Cardon, Greet; Vandelanotte, Corneel

2016-05-31

Effective interventions to influence workplace sitting are needed, as office-based workers demonstrate high levels of continued sitting, and sitting too much is associated with adverse health effects. Therefore, we developed a theory-driven, Web-based, interactive, computer-tailored intervention aimed at reducing and interrupting sitting at work. The objective of our study was to investigate the effects of this intervention on objectively measured sitting time, standing time, and breaks from sitting, as well as self-reported context-specific sitting among Flemish employees in a field-based approach. Employees (n=213) participated in a 3-group randomized controlled trial that assessed outcomes at baseline, 1-month follow-up, and 3-month follow-up through self-reports. A subsample (n=122) were willing to wear an activity monitor (activPAL) from Monday to Friday. The tailored group received an automated Web-based, computer-tailored intervention including personalized feedback and tips on how to reduce or interrupt workplace sitting. The generic group received an automated Web-based generic advice with tips. The control group was a wait-list control condition, initially receiving no intervention. Intervention effects were tested with repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance. The tailored intervention was successful in decreasing self-reported total workday sitting (time × group: P<.001), sitting at work (time × group: P<.001), and leisure time sitting (time × group: P=.03), and in increasing objectively measured breaks at work (time × group: P=.07); this was not the case in the other conditions. The changes in self-reported total nonworkday sitting, sitting during transport, television viewing, and personal computer use, objectively measured total sitting time, and sitting and standing time at work did not differ between conditions. Our results point out the significance of computer tailoring for sedentary behavior and its potential use in public health promotion, as the effects of the tailored condition were superior to the generic and control conditions. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02672215; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02672215 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6glPFBLWv).

The Effectiveness of a Web-Based Computer-Tailored Intervention on Workplace Sitting: A Randomized Controlled Trial

PubMed Central

De Bourdeaudhuij, Ilse; Cardon, Greet; Vandelanotte, Corneel

2016-01-01

Background Effective interventions to influence workplace sitting are needed, as office-based workers demonstrate high levels of continued sitting, and sitting too much is associated with adverse health effects. Therefore, we developed a theory-driven, Web-based, interactive, computer-tailored intervention aimed at reducing and interrupting sitting at work. Objective The objective of our study was to investigate the effects of this intervention on objectively measured sitting time, standing time, and breaks from sitting, as well as self-reported context-specific sitting among Flemish employees in a field-based approach. Methods Employees (n=213) participated in a 3-group randomized controlled trial that assessed outcomes at baseline, 1-month follow-up, and 3-month follow-up through self-reports. A subsample (n=122) were willing to wear an activity monitor (activPAL) from Monday to Friday. The tailored group received an automated Web-based, computer-tailored intervention including personalized feedback and tips on how to reduce or interrupt workplace sitting. The generic group received an automated Web-based generic advice with tips. The control group was a wait-list control condition, initially receiving no intervention. Intervention effects were tested with repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance. Results The tailored intervention was successful in decreasing self-reported total workday sitting (time × group: P<.001), sitting at work (time × group: P<.001), and leisure time sitting (time × group: P=.03), and in increasing objectively measured breaks at work (time × group: P=.07); this was not the case in the other conditions. The changes in self-reported total nonworkday sitting, sitting during transport, television viewing, and personal computer use, objectively measured total sitting time, and sitting and standing time at work did not differ between conditions. Conclusions Our results point out the significance of computer tailoring for sedentary behavior and its potential use in public health promotion, as the effects of the tailored condition were superior to the generic and control conditions. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT02672215; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02672215 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6glPFBLWv) PMID:27245789

[The Key Technology Study on Cloud Computing Platform for ECG Monitoring Based on Regional Internet of Things].

PubMed

Yang, Shu; Qiu, Yuyan; Shi, Bo

2016-09-01

This paper explores the methods of building the internet of things of a regional ECG monitoring, focused on the implementation of ECG monitoring center based on cloud computing platform. It analyzes implementation principles of automatic identifi cation in the types of arrhythmia. It also studies the system architecture and key techniques of cloud computing platform, including server load balancing technology, reliable storage of massive smalfi les and the implications of quick search function.

Triboelectric Nanogenerator Enabled Body Sensor Network for Self-Powered Human Heart-Rate Monitoring.

PubMed

Lin, Zhiming; Chen, Jun; Li, Xiaoshi; Zhou, Zhihao; Meng, Keyu; Wei, Wei; Yang, Jin; Wang, Zhong Lin

2017-09-26

Heart-rate monitoring plays a critical role in personal healthcare management. A low-cost, noninvasive, and user-friendly heart-rate monitoring system is highly desirable. Here, a self-powered wireless body sensor network (BSN) system is developed for heart-rate monitoring via integration of a downy-structure-based triboelectric nanogenerator (D-TENG), a power management circuit, a heart-rate sensor, a signal processing unit, and Bluetooth module for wireless data transmission. By converting the inertia energy of human walking into electric power, a maximum power of 2.28 mW with total conversion efficiency of 57.9% was delivered at low operation frequency, which is capable of immediately and sustainably driving the highly integrated BSN system. The acquired heart-rate signal by the sensor would be processed in the signal process circuit, sent to an external device via the Bluetooth module, and displayed on a personal cell phone in a real-time manner. Moreover, by combining a TENG-based generator and a TENG-based sensor, an all-TENG-based wireless BSN system was developed, realizing continuous and self-powered heart-rate monitoring. This work presents a potential method for personal heart-rate monitoring, featured as being self-powered, cost-effective, noninvasive, and user-friendly.

Age synthesis and estimation via faces: a survey.

PubMed

Fu, Yun; Guo, Guodong; Huang, Thomas S

2010-11-01

Human age, as an important personal trait, can be directly inferred by distinct patterns emerging from the facial appearance. Derived from rapid advances in computer graphics and machine vision, computer-based age synthesis and estimation via faces have become particularly prevalent topics recently because of their explosively emerging real-world applications, such as forensic art, electronic customer relationship management, security control and surveillance monitoring, biometrics, entertainment, and cosmetology. Age synthesis is defined to rerender a face image aesthetically with natural aging and rejuvenating effects on the individual face. Age estimation is defined to label a face image automatically with the exact age (year) or the age group (year range) of the individual face. Because of their particularity and complexity, both problems are attractive yet challenging to computer-based application system designers. Large efforts from both academia and industry have been devoted in the last a few decades. In this paper, we survey the complete state-of-the-art techniques in the face image-based age synthesis and estimation topics. Existing models, popular algorithms, system performances, technical difficulties, popular face aging databases, evaluation protocols, and promising future directions are also provided with systematic discussions.

A six step approach for developing computer based assessment in medical education.

PubMed

Hassanien, Mohammed Ahmed; Al-Hayani, Abdulmoneam; Abu-Kamer, Rasha; Almazrooa, Adnan

2013-01-01

Assessment, which entails the systematic evaluation of student learning, is an integral part of any educational process. Computer-based assessment (CBA) techniques provide a valuable resource to students seeking to evaluate their academic progress through instantaneous, personalized feedback. CBA reduces examination, grading and reviewing workloads and facilitates training. This paper describes a six step approach for developing CBA in higher education and evaluates student perceptions of computer-based summative assessment at the College of Medicine, King Abdulaziz University. A set of questionnaires were distributed to 341 third year medical students (161 female and 180 male) immediately after examinations in order to assess the adequacy of the system for the exam program. The respondents expressed high satisfaction with the first Saudi experience of CBA for final examinations. However, about 50% of them preferred the use of a pilot CBA before its formal application; hence, many did not recommend its use for future examinations. Both male and female respondents reported that the range of advantages offered by CBA outweighed any disadvantages. Further studies are required to monitor the extended employment of CBA technology for larger classes and for a variety of subjects at universities.

Testing the usability of two automated home-based patient-management systems.

PubMed

Farzanfar, Ramesh; Finkelstein, Joseph; Friedman, Robert H

2004-04-01

To explore to what extent observation and semistructured in-depth interviews provide effective tools for usability testing of two automated home-based systems aimed at monitoring patients' health status at home and improving self-care. Telephone-Linked Care for Diet Adherence in Dyslipidemia (TLC-DietAid) used computer telephony to interact with users and Home Asthma Telemonitoring System (HAT System) used a combination of Personal Digital Assistant (palmtops) and the Internet for similar purposes. Both systems were evaluated in two separate pilot studies. Our pilot studies uncovered "medium-specific" and "content-specific" issues that addressed either the process of the interaction or its content. The results demonstrated that patient-users tended to evaluate each system on the basis of how it fit into everyday life and corresponded to personal preferences. The methodology also allowed the system designers to understand users' concerns and the context of adoption in order to introduce necessary changes to the design to address such concerns.

Monitoring game-based motor rehabilitation of patients at home for better plans of care and quality of life.

PubMed

Ponte, S; Gabrielli, S; Jonsdottir, J; Morando, M; Dellepiane, S

2015-01-01

This paper describes the biomedical, remote monitoring infrastructure developed and currently tested in the EU REHAB@HOME project to support home rehabilitation of the upper extremity of persons post-stroke and in persons with other neurological disorders, such as Multiple Sclerosis patients, in order to track their progress over therapy and improve their Quality of Life. The paper will specifically focus on describing the initial testing of the tele-rehabilitation system's components for patients' biomedical monitoring over therapy, which support the delivery and monitoring of more personalized, engaging plans of care by rehabilitation centers and services.

Wide-area, real-time monitoring and visualization system

DOEpatents

Budhraja, Vikram S.; Dyer, James D.; Martinez Morales, Carlos A.

2013-03-19

A real-time performance monitoring system for monitoring an electric power grid. The electric power grid has a plurality of grid portions, each grid portion corresponding to one of a plurality of control areas. The real-time performance monitoring system includes a monitor computer for monitoring at least one of reliability metrics, generation metrics, transmission metrics, suppliers metrics, grid infrastructure security metrics, and markets metrics for the electric power grid. The data for metrics being monitored by the monitor computer are stored in a data base, and a visualization of the metrics is displayed on at least one display computer having a monitor. The at least one display computer in one said control area enables an operator to monitor the grid portion corresponding to a different said control area.

Wide-area, real-time monitoring and visualization system

DOEpatents

Budhraja, Vikram S [Los Angeles, CA; Dyer, James D [La Mirada, CA; Martinez Morales, Carlos A [Upland, CA

2011-11-15

A real-time performance monitoring system for monitoring an electric power grid. The electric power grid has a plurality of grid portions, each grid portion corresponding to one of a plurality of control areas. The real-time performance monitoring system includes a monitor computer for monitoring at least one of reliability metrics, generation metrics, transmission metrics, suppliers metrics, grid infrastructure security metrics, and markets metrics for the electric power grid. The data for metrics being monitored by the monitor computer are stored in a data base, and a visualization of the metrics is displayed on at least one display computer having a monitor. The at least one display computer in one said control area enables an operator to monitor the grid portion corresponding to a different said control area.

Real-time performance monitoring and management system

DOEpatents

Budhraja, Vikram S [Los Angeles, CA; Dyer, James D [La Mirada, CA; Martinez Morales, Carlos A [Upland, CA

2007-06-19

A real-time performance monitoring system for monitoring an electric power grid. The electric power grid has a plurality of grid portions, each grid portion corresponding to one of a plurality of control areas. The real-time performance monitoring system includes a monitor computer for monitoring at least one of reliability metrics, generation metrics, transmission metrics, suppliers metrics, grid infrastructure security metrics, and markets metrics for the electric power grid. The data for metrics being monitored by the monitor computer are stored in a data base, and a visualization of the metrics is displayed on at least one display computer having a monitor. The at least one display computer in one said control area enables an operator to monitor the grid portion corresponding to a different said control area.

Personalized professional content recommendation

DOEpatents

Xu, Songhua

2015-10-27

A personalized content recommendation system includes a client interface configured to automatically monitor a user's information data stream transmitted on the Internet. A hybrid contextual behavioral and collaborative personal interest inference engine resident to a non-transient media generates automatic predictions about the interests of individual users of the system. A database server retains the user's personal interest profile based on a plurality of monitored information. The system also includes a server programmed to filter items in an incoming information stream with the personal interest profile and is further programmed to identify only those items of the incoming information stream that substantially match the personal interest profile.

Computer-aided diagnosis of alcoholism-related EEG signals.

PubMed

Acharya, U Rajendra; S, Vidya; Bhat, Shreya; Adeli, Hojjat; Adeli, Amir

2014-12-01

Alcoholism is a severe disorder that affects the functionality of neurons in the central nervous system (CNS) and alters the behavior of the affected person. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals can be used as a diagnostic tool in the evaluation of subjects with alcoholism. The neurophysiological interpretation of EEG signals in persons with alcoholism (PWA) is based on observation and interpretation of the frequency and power in their EEGs compared to EEG signals from persons without alcoholism. This paper presents a review of the known features of EEGs obtained from PWA and proposes that the impact of alcoholism on the brain can be determined by computer-aided analysis of EEGs through extracting the minute variations in the EEG signals that can differentiate the EEGs of PWA from those of nonaffected persons. The authors advance the idea of automated computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) of alcoholism by employing the EEG signals. This is achieved through judicious combination of signal processing techniques such as wavelet, nonlinear dynamics, and chaos theory and pattern recognition and classification techniques. A CAD system is cost-effective and efficient and can be used as a decision support system by physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of alcoholism especially those who do not specialize in alcoholism or neurophysiology. It can also be of great value to rehabilitation centers to assess PWA over time and to monitor the impact of treatment aimed at minimizing or reversing the effects of the disease on the brain. A CAD system can be used to determine the extent of alcoholism-related changes in EEG signals (low, medium, high) and the effectiveness of therapeutic plans. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The effect of monitor raster latency on VEPs, ERPs and Brain-Computer Interface performance.

PubMed

Nagel, Sebastian; Dreher, Werner; Rosenstiel, Wolfgang; Spüler, Martin

2018-02-01

Visual neuroscience experiments and Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) control often require strict timings in a millisecond scale. As most experiments are performed using a personal computer (PC), the latencies that are introduced by the setup should be taken into account and be corrected. As a standard computer monitor uses a rastering to update each line of the image sequentially, this causes a monitor raster latency which depends on the position, on the monitor and the refresh rate. We technically measured the raster latencies of different monitors and present the effects on visual evoked potentials (VEPs) and event-related potentials (ERPs). Additionally we present a method for correcting the monitor raster latency and analyzed the performance difference of a code-modulated VEP BCI speller by correcting the latency. There are currently no other methods validating the effects of monitor raster latency on VEPs and ERPs. The timings of VEPs and ERPs are directly affected by the raster latency. Furthermore, correcting the raster latency resulted in a significant reduction of the target prediction error from 7.98% to 4.61% and also in a more reliable classification of targets by significantly increasing the distance between the most probable and the second most probable target by 18.23%. The monitor raster latency affects the timings of VEPs and ERPs, and correcting resulted in a significant error reduction of 42.23%. It is recommend to correct the raster latency for an increased BCI performance and methodical correctness. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of software application dedicated to impulse- radar-based system for monitoring of human movements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miękina, Andrzej; Wagner, Jakub; Mazurek, Paweł; Morawski, Roman Z.; Sudmann, Tobba T.; Børsheim, Ingebjørg T.; Øvsthus, Knut; Jacobsen, Frode F.; Ciamulski, Tomasz; Winiecki, Wiesław

2016-11-01

The importance of research on new technologies that could be employed in care services for elderly and disabled persons is highlighted. Advantages of radar sensors, when applied for non-invasive monitoring of such persons in their home environment, are indicated. A need for comprehensible visualisation of the intermediate results of measurement data processing is justified. Capability of an impulse-radar-based system to provide information, being of crucial importance for medical or healthcare personnel, are investigated. An exemplary software interface, tailored for non-technical users, is proposed, and preliminary results of impulse-radar-based monitoring of human movements are demonstrated.

A pilot study of change in cerebral activity during personality rating by questionnaire and personal computer.

PubMed

Sato, Emi; Matsuda, Kouhei

2018-06-11

The purpose of this study was to examine cerebral blood flow in the frontal cortex area during personality self-rating tasks. Our two hypotheses were (1) cerebral blood flow varies based on personality rating condition and (2) cerebral blood flow varies based on the personality traits. This experiment measured cerebral blood flow under 3 personal computer rating conditions and 2 questionnaire conditions. Comparing the rating conditions, the results of the t-test indicated that cerebral blood flow was higher in the questionnaire condition than it was in the personal computer condition. With respect to the Big Five, the result of the correlation coefficient, that is, cerebral blood flow during a personality rating task, changed according to the trait for agreeableness. The results of the analysis of the 5-cluster on individual differences indicated that certain personality traits were related to the factors that increased or decreased cerebral blood flow. An analysis of variance indicated that openness to experience and Behavioural Activation System-drive was significant given that participants with high intellectual curiosity were motivated in this experiment, thus, their cerebral blood flow may have increased. The significance of this experiment was that by employing certain performance measures we could examine differences in physical changes based on personality traits. © 2018 International Union of Psychological Science.

Evaluation of a Direct Personal Coarse Particulate Matter Monitor

EPA Science Inventory

One aspect of the North Carolina Adult Asthma and Environment study (NCAAES) was to evaluate personal exposures to coarse particulate matter (PM _10-2.5) and their associated variability. As part of this, we examined the ability of a community-based monitor to act as...

Curriculum-Based Measurement: Developing a Computer-Based Assessment Instrument for Monitoring Student Reading Progress on Multiple Indicators

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Forster, Natalie; Souvignier, Elmar

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the technical adequacy of a computer-based assessment instrument which is based on hierarchical models of text comprehension for monitoring student reading progress following the Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) approach. At intervals of two weeks, 120 third-grade students finished eight CBM tests. To…

BIO-Plex Information System Concept

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Jones, Harry; Boulanger, Richard; Arnold, James O. (Technical Monitor)

1999-01-01

This paper describes a suggested design for an integrated information system for the proposed BIO-Plex (Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Systems Test Complex) at Johnson Space Center (JSC), including distributed control systems, central control, networks, database servers, personal computers and workstations, applications software, and external communications. The system will have an open commercial computing and networking, architecture. The network will provide automatic real-time transfer of information to database server computers which perform data collection and validation. This information system will support integrated, data sharing applications for everything, from system alarms to management summaries. Most existing complex process control systems have information gaps between the different real time subsystems, between these subsystems and central controller, between the central controller and system level planning and analysis application software, and between the system level applications and management overview reporting. An integrated information system is vitally necessary as the basis for the integration of planning, scheduling, modeling, monitoring, and control, which will allow improved monitoring and control based on timely, accurate and complete data. Data describing the system configuration and the real time processes can be collected, checked and reconciled, analyzed and stored in database servers that can be accessed by all applications. The required technology is available. The only opportunity to design a distributed, nonredundant, integrated system is before it is built. Retrofit is extremely difficult and costly.

Algorithms for the detection of chewing behavior in dietary monitoring applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmalz, Mark S.; Helal, Abdelsalam; Mendez-Vasquez, Andres

2009-08-01

The detection of food consumption is key to the implementation of successful behavior modification in support of dietary monitoring and therapy, for example, during the course of controlling obesity, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease. Since the vast majority of humans consume food via mastication (chewing), we have designed an algorithm that automatically detects chewing behaviors in surveillance video of a person eating. Our algorithm first detects the mouth region, then computes the spatiotemporal frequency spectrum of a small perioral region (including the mouth). Spectral data are analyzed to determine the presence of periodic motion that characterizes chewing. A classifier is then applied to discriminate different types of chewing behaviors. Our algorithm was tested on seven volunteers, whose behaviors included chewing with mouth open, chewing with mouth closed, talking, static face presentation (control case), and moving face presentation. Early test results show that the chewing behaviors induce a temporal frequency peak at 0.5Hz to 2.5Hz, which is readily detected using a distance-based classifier. Computational cost is analyzed for implementation on embedded processing nodes, for example, in a healthcare sensor network. Complexity analysis emphasizes the relationship between the work and space estimates of the algorithm, and its estimated error. It is shown that chewing detection is possible within a computationally efficient, accurate, and subject-independent framework.

92. VIEW OF CHART RECORDERS AND PERSONAL COMPUTER LINING NORTHEAST ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

92. VIEW OF CHART RECORDERS AND PERSONAL COMPUTER LINING NORTHEAST CORNER OF AUTOPILOT ROOM - Vandenberg Air Force Base, Space Launch Complex 3, Launch Operations Building, Napa & Alden Roads, Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, CA

Embedded programmable blood pressure monitoring system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hasan, Md. Mahmud-Ul; Islam, Md. Kafiul; Shawon, Mehedi Azad; Nowrin, Tasnuva Faruk

2010-02-01

A more efficient newer algorithm of detecting systolic and diastolic pressure of human body along with a complete package of an effective user-friendly embedded programmable blood pressure monitoring system has been proposed in this paper to reduce the overall workload of medical personals as well as to monitor patient's condition more conveniently and accurately. Available devices for measuring blood pressure have some problems and limitations in case of both analog and digital devices. The sphygmomanometer, being analog device, is still being used widely because of its reliability and accuracy over digital ones. But it requires a skilled person to measure the blood pressure and obviously not being automated as well as time consuming. Our proposed system being a microcontroller based embedded system has the advantages of the available digital blood pressure machines along with a much improved form and has higher accuracy at the same time. This system can also be interfaced with computer through serial port/USB to publish the measured blood pressure data on the LAN or internet. The device can be programmed to determine the patient's blood pressure after each certain interval of time in a graphical form. To sense the pressure of human body, a pressure to voltage transducer is used along with a cuff in our system. During the blood pressure measurement cycle, the output voltage of the transducer is taken by the built-in ADC of microcontroller after an amplifier stage. The recorded data are then processed and analyzed using the effective software routine to determine the blood pressure of the person under test. Our proposed system is thus expected to certainly enhance the existing blood pressure monitoring system by providing accuracy, time efficiency, user-friendliness and at last but not the least the 'better way of monitoring patient's blood pressure under critical care' all together at the same time.

Geometric Data Perturbation-Based Personal Health Record Transactions in Cloud Computing

PubMed Central

Balasubramaniam, S.; Kavitha, V.

2015-01-01

Cloud computing is a new delivery model for information technology services and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources over the Internet. However, cloud computing raises concerns on how cloud service providers, user organizations, and governments should handle such information and interactions. Personal health records represent an emerging patient-centric model for health information exchange, and they are outsourced for storage by third parties, such as cloud providers. With these records, it is necessary for each patient to encrypt their own personal health data before uploading them to cloud servers. Current techniques for encryption primarily rely on conventional cryptographic approaches. However, key management issues remain largely unsolved with these cryptographic-based encryption techniques. We propose that personal health record transactions be managed using geometric data perturbation in cloud computing. In our proposed scheme, the personal health record database is perturbed using geometric data perturbation and outsourced to the Amazon EC2 cloud. PMID:25767826

Geometric data perturbation-based personal health record transactions in cloud computing.

PubMed

Balasubramaniam, S; Kavitha, V

2015-01-01

Cloud computing is a new delivery model for information technology services and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources over the Internet. However, cloud computing raises concerns on how cloud service providers, user organizations, and governments should handle such information and interactions. Personal health records represent an emerging patient-centric model for health information exchange, and they are outsourced for storage by third parties, such as cloud providers. With these records, it is necessary for each patient to encrypt their own personal health data before uploading them to cloud servers. Current techniques for encryption primarily rely on conventional cryptographic approaches. However, key management issues remain largely unsolved with these cryptographic-based encryption techniques. We propose that personal health record transactions be managed using geometric data perturbation in cloud computing. In our proposed scheme, the personal health record database is perturbed using geometric data perturbation and outsourced to the Amazon EC2 cloud.

[Precision Nursing: Individual-Based Knowledge Translation].

PubMed

Chiang, Li-Chi; Yeh, Mei-Ling; Su, Sui-Lung

2016-12-01

U.S. President Obama announced a new era of precision medicine in the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI). This initiative aims to accelerate the progress of personalized medicine in light of individual requirements for prevention and treatment in order to improve the state of individual and public health. The recent and dramatic development of large-scale biologic databases (such as the human genome sequence), powerful methods for characterizing patients (such as genomics, microbiome, diverse biomarkers, and even pharmacogenomics), and computational tools for analyzing big data are maximizing the potential benefits of precision medicine. Nursing science should follow and keep pace with this trend in order to develop empirical knowledge and expertise in the area of personalized nursing care. Nursing scientists must encourage, examine, and put into practice innovative research on precision nursing in order to provide evidence-based guidance to clinical practice. The applications in personalized precision nursing care include: explanations of personalized information such as the results of genetic testing; patient advocacy and support; anticipation of results and treatment; ongoing chronic monitoring; and support for shared decision-making throughout the disease trajectory. Further, attention must focus on the family and the ethical implications of taking a personalized approach to care. Nurses will need to embrace the paradigm shift to precision nursing and work collaboratively across disciplines to provide the optimal personalized care to patients. If realized, the full potential of precision nursing will provide the best chance for good health for all.

A Lossless Multichannel Bio-Signal Compression Based on Low-Complexity Joint Coding Scheme for Portable Medical Devices

PubMed Central

Kim, Dong-Sun; Kwon, Jin-San

2014-01-01

Research on real-time health systems have received great attention during recent years and the needs of high-quality personal multichannel medical signal compression for personal medical product applications are increasing. The international MPEG-4 audio lossless coding (ALS) standard supports a joint channel-coding scheme for improving compression performance of multichannel signals and it is very efficient compression method for multi-channel biosignals. However, the computational complexity of such a multichannel coding scheme is significantly greater than that of other lossless audio encoders. In this paper, we present a multichannel hardware encoder based on a low-complexity joint-coding technique and shared multiplier scheme for portable devices. A joint-coding decision method and a reference channel selection scheme are modified for a low-complexity joint coder. The proposed joint coding decision method determines the optimized joint-coding operation based on the relationship between the cross correlation of residual signals and the compression ratio. The reference channel selection is designed to select a channel for the entropy coding of the joint coding. The hardware encoder operates at a 40 MHz clock frequency and supports two-channel parallel encoding for the multichannel monitoring system. Experimental results show that the compression ratio increases by 0.06%, whereas the computational complexity decreases by 20.72% compared to the MPEG-4 ALS reference software encoder. In addition, the compression ratio increases by about 11.92%, compared to the single channel based bio-signal lossless data compressor. PMID:25237900

Assessment of toxic metals in waste personal computers.

PubMed

Kolias, Konstantinos; Hahladakis, John N; Gidarakos, Evangelos

2014-08-01

Considering the enormous production of waste personal computers nowadays, it is obvious that the study of their composition is necessary in order to regulate their management and prevent any environmental contamination caused by their inappropriate disposal. This study aimed at determining the toxic metals content of motherboards (printed circuit boards), monitor glass and monitor plastic housing of two Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors, three Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) monitors, one LCD touch screen monitor and six motherboards, all of which were discarded. In addition, concentrations of chromium (Cr), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb) and mercury (Hg) were compared with the respective limits set by the RoHS 2002/95/EC Directive, that was recently renewed by the 2012/19/EU recast, in order to verify manufacturers' compliance with the regulation. The research included disassembly, pulverization, digestion and chemical analyses of all the aforementioned devices. The toxic metals content of all samples was determined using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results demonstrated that concentrations of Pb in motherboards and funnel glass of devices with release dates before 2006, that is when the RoHS Directive came into force, exceeded the permissible limit. In general, except from Pb, higher metal concentrations were detected in motherboards in comparison with plastic housing and glass samples. Finally, the results of this work were encouraging, since concentrations of metals referred in the RoHS Directive were found in lower levels than the legislative limits. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analysing the performance of personal computers based on Intel microprocessors for sequence aligning bioinformatics applications.

PubMed

Nair, Pradeep S; John, Eugene B

2007-01-01

Aligning specific sequences against a very large number of other sequences is a central aspect of bioinformatics. With the widespread availability of personal computers in biology laboratories, sequence alignment is now often performed locally. This makes it necessary to analyse the performance of personal computers for sequence aligning bioinformatics benchmarks. In this paper, we analyse the performance of a personal computer for the popular BLAST and FASTA sequence alignment suites. Results indicate that these benchmarks have a large number of recurring operations and use memory operations extensively. It seems that the performance can be improved with a bigger L1-cache.

Computational modeling of radiofrequency ablation: evaluation on ex vivo data using ultrasound monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Audigier, Chloé; Kim, Younsu; Dillow, Austin; Boctor, Emad M.

2017-03-01

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is the most widely used minimally invasive ablative therapy for liver cancer, but it is challenged by a lack of patient-specific monitoring. Inter-patient tissue variability and the presence of blood vessels make the prediction of the RFA difficult. A monitoring tool which can be personalized for a given patient during the intervention would be helpful to achieve a complete tumor ablation. However, the clinicians do not have access to such a tool, which results in incomplete treatment and a large number of recurrences. Computational models can simulate the phenomena and mechanisms governing this therapy. The temperature evolution as well as the resulted ablation can be modeled. When combined together with intraoperative measurements, computational modeling becomes an accurate and powerful tool to gain quantitative understanding and to enable improvements in the ongoing clinical settings. This paper shows how computational models of RFA can be evaluated using intra-operative measurements. First, simulations are used to demonstrate the feasibility of the method, which is then evaluated on two ex vivo datasets. RFA is simulated on a simplified geometry to generate realistic longitudinal temperature maps and the resulted necrosis. Computed temperatures are compared with the temperature evolution recorded using thermometers, and with temperatures monitored by ultrasound (US) in a 2D plane containing the ablation tip. Two ablations are performed on two cadaveric bovine livers, and we achieve error of 2.2 °C on average between the computed and the thermistors temperature and 1.4 °C and 2.7 °C on average between the temperature computed and monitored by US during the ablation at two different time points (t = 240 s and t = 900 s).

Privacy-preserving self-helped medical diagnosis scheme based on secure two-party computation in wireless sensor networks.

PubMed

Sun, Yi; Wen, Qiaoyan; Zhang, Yudong; Li, Wenmin

2014-01-01

With the continuing growth of wireless sensor networks in pervasive medical care, people pay more and more attention to privacy in medical monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. On one hand, we expect the public health institutions to provide us with better service. On the other hand, we would not like to leak our personal health information to them. In order to balance this contradiction, in this paper we design a privacy-preserving self-helped medical diagnosis scheme based on secure two-party computation in wireless sensor networks so that patients can privately diagnose themselves by inputting a health card into a self-helped medical diagnosis ATM to obtain a diagnostic report just like drawing money from a bank ATM without revealing patients' health information and doctors' diagnostic skill. It makes secure self-helped disease diagnosis feasible and greatly benefits patients as well as relieving the heavy pressure of public health institutions.

Privacy-Preserving Self-Helped Medical Diagnosis Scheme Based on Secure Two-Party Computation in Wireless Sensor Networks

PubMed Central

Wen, Qiaoyan; Zhang, Yudong; Li, Wenmin

2014-01-01

With the continuing growth of wireless sensor networks in pervasive medical care, people pay more and more attention to privacy in medical monitoring, diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. On one hand, we expect the public health institutions to provide us with better service. On the other hand, we would not like to leak our personal health information to them. In order to balance this contradiction, in this paper we design a privacy-preserving self-helped medical diagnosis scheme based on secure two-party computation in wireless sensor networks so that patients can privately diagnose themselves by inputting a health card into a self-helped medical diagnosis ATM to obtain a diagnostic report just like drawing money from a bank ATM without revealing patients' health information and doctors' diagnostic skill. It makes secure self-helped disease diagnosis feasible and greatly benefits patients as well as relieving the heavy pressure of public health institutions. PMID:25126107

Novel Use of a Noninvasive Hemodynamic Monitor in a Personalized, Active Learning Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zoller, Jonathan K.; He, Jianghua; Ballew, Angela T.; Orr, Walter N.; Flynn, Brigid C.

2017-01-01

The present study furthered the concept of simulation-based medical education by applying a personalized active learning component. We tested this novel approach utilizing a noninvasive hemodynamic monitor with the capability to measure and display in real time numerous hemodynamic parameters in the exercising participant. Changes in medical…

The web-rhetoric of companies offering home-based personal health monitoring.

PubMed

Nordgren, Anders

2012-06-01

In this paper I investigate the web-rhetoric of companies offering home-based personal health monitoring to patients and elderly people. Two main rhetorical methods are found, namely a reference to practical benefits and a use of prestige words like "quality of life" and "independence". I interpret the practical benefits in terms of instrumental values and the prestige words in terms of final values. I also reconstruct the arguments on the websites in terms of six different types of argument. Finally, I articulate a general critique of the arguments, namely that the websites neglect the context of use of personal health monitoring technologies. Whether or not a technology is good depends on the use of the technology by a particular individual in a particular context. The technology is not good-or bad-in itself. I support this critique with a number of more specific arguments such as the risk for reduced personal contact. For some elderly people social contact with care providers is more valuable than the independent living made possible by remote monitoring, for others independence is more important.

Career Success: The Effects of Personality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lau, Victor P.; Shaffer, Margaret A.

1999-01-01

A model based on Bandura's Social Learning Theory proposes the following personality traits as determinants of career success: locus of control, self-monitoring, self-esteem, and optimism, along with job performance and person-to-environment fit. (SK)

Using a voice to put a name to a face: the psycholinguistics of proper name comprehension.

PubMed

Barr, Dale J; Jackson, Laura; Phillips, Isobel

2014-02-01

We propose that hearing a proper name (e.g., Kevin) in a particular voice serves as a compound memory cue that directly activates representations of a mutually known target person, often permitting reference resolution without any complex computation of shared knowledge. In a referential communication study, pairs of friends played a communication game, in which we monitored the eyes of one friend (the addressee) while he or she sought to identify the target person, in a set of four photos, on the basis of a name spoken aloud. When the name was spoken by a friend, addressees rapidly identified the target person, and this facilitation was independent of whether the friend was articulating a message he or she had designed versus one from a third party with whom the target person was not shared. Our findings suggest that the comprehension system takes advantage of regularities in the environment to minimize effortful computation about who knows what.

Development of Portable, Wireless and Smartphone Controllable Near-Infrared Spectroscopy System.

PubMed

Watanabe, Takashi; Sekine, Rui; Mizuno, Toshihiko; Miwa, Mitsuharu

We have developed portable near-infrared tissue oxygenation monitoring systems, called the "PocketNIRS Duo" and the "PocketNIRS HM", which features wireless data communication and a sampling rate of up to 60 data readings per second. The systems can be controlled by smartphone or personal computer. We demonstrate the efficacy of the systems for monitoring changes in brain and arm muscle hemodynamics and oxygenation in breath-holding and cuff-occlusion tests, respectively.Our systems should prove to be useful as an oxygenation monitor not only in research but also in healthcare applications.

Visual privacy by context: proposal and evaluation of a level-based visualisation scheme.

PubMed

Padilla-López, José Ramón; Chaaraoui, Alexandros Andre; Gu, Feng; Flórez-Revuelta, Francisco

2015-06-04

Privacy in image and video data has become an important subject since cameras are being installed in an increasing number of public and private spaces. Specifically, in assisted living, intelligent monitoring based on computer vision can allow one to provide risk detection and support services that increase people's autonomy at home. In the present work, a level-based visualisation scheme is proposed to provide visual privacy when human intervention is necessary, such as at telerehabilitation and safety assessment applications. Visualisation levels are dynamically selected based on the previously modelled context. In this way, different levels of protection can be provided, maintaining the necessary intelligibility required for the applications. Furthermore, a case study of a living room, where a top-view camera is installed, is presented. Finally, the performed survey-based evaluation indicates the degree of protection provided by the different visualisation models, as well as the personal privacy preferences and valuations of the users.

Secured remote health monitoring system

PubMed Central

Ganesh Kumar, Pugalendhi

2017-01-01

Wireless medical sensor network is used in healthcare applications that have the collections of biosensors connected to a human body or emergency care unit to monitor the patient's physiological vital status. The real-time medical data collected using wearable medical sensors are transmitted to a diagnostic centre. The data generated from the sensors are aggregated at this centre and transmitted further to the doctor's personal digital assistant for diagnosis. The unauthorised access of one's health data may lead to misuse and legal complications while unreliable data transmission or storage may lead to life threatening risk to patients. So, this Letter combines the symmetric algorithm and attribute-based encryption to secure the data transmission and access control system for medical sensor network. In this work, existing systems and their algorithm are compared for identifying the best performance. The work also shows the graphical comparison of encryption time, decryption time and total computation time of the existing and the proposed systems. PMID:29383257

PWL 1.0 Personal WaveLab: an object-oriented workbench for seismogram analysis on Windows systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bono, Andrea; Badiali, Lucio

2005-02-01

Personal WaveLab 1.0 wants to be the starting point for an ex novo development of seismic time-series analysis procedures for Windows-based personal computers. Our objective is two-fold. Firstly, being itself a stand-alone application, it allows to do "basic" digital or digitised seismic waveform analysis. Secondly, thanks to its architectural characteristics it can be the basis for the development of more complex and power featured applications. An expanded version of PWL, called SisPick!, is currently in use at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology) for real-time monitoring with purposes of Civil Protection. This means that about 90 users tested the application for more than 1 year, making its features more robust and efficient. SisPick! was also employed in the United Nations Nyragongo Project, in Congo, and during the Stromboli emergency in summer of 2002. The main appeals of the application package are: ease of use, object-oriented design, good computational speed, minimal need of disk space and the complete absence of third-party developed components (including ActiveX). Windows environment spares the user scripting or complex interaction with the system. The system is in constant development to answer the needs and suggestions of its users. Microsoft Visual Basic 6 source code, installation package, test data sets and documentation are available at no cost.

An internet-based wearable watch-over system for elderly and disabled utilizing EMG and accelerometer.

PubMed

Kishimoto, M; Yoshida, T; Hayasaka, T; Mori, D; Imai, Y; Matsuki, N; Ishikawa, T; Yamaguchi, T

2009-01-01

An effective way for preventing injuries and diseases among the elderly is to monitor their daily lives. In this regard, we propose the use of a "Hyper Hospital Network", which is an information support system for elderly people and patients. In the current study, we developed a wearable system for monitoring electromyography (EMG) and acceleration using the Hyper Hospital Network plan. The current system is an upgraded version of our previous system for gait analysis (Yoshida et al. [13], Telemedicine and e-Health 13 703-714), and lets us monitor decreases in exercise and the presence of a hemiplegic gait more accurately. To clarify the capabilities and reliability of the system, we performed three experimental evaluations: one to verify the performance of the wearable system, a second to detect a hemiplegic gait, and a third to monitor EMG and accelerations simultaneously. Our system successfully detected a lack of exercise by monitoring the iEMG in healthy volunteers. Moreover, by using EMG and acceleration signals simultaneously, the reliability of the Hampering Index (HI) for detecting hemiplegia walking was improved significantly. The present study provides useful knowledge for the development of a wearable computer designed to monitor the physical conditions of older persons and patients.

A handheld computer as part of a portable in vivo knee joint load monitoring system

PubMed Central

Szivek, JA; Nandakumar, VS; Geffre, CP; Townsend, CP

2009-01-01

In vivo measurement of loads and pressures acting on articular cartilage in the knee joint during various activities and rehabilitative therapies following focal defect repair will provide a means of designing activities that encourage faster and more complete healing of focal defects. It was the goal of this study to develop a totally portable monitoring system that could be used during various activities and allow continuous monitoring of forces acting on the knee. In order to make the monitoring system portable, a handheld computer with custom software, a USB powered miniature wireless receiver and a battery-powered coil were developed to replace a currently used computer, AC powered bench top receiver and power supply. A Dell handheld running Windows Mobile operating system(OS) programmed using Labview was used to collect strain measurements. Measurements collected by the handheld based system connected to the miniature wireless receiver were compared with the measurements collected by a hardwired system and a computer based system during bench top testing and in vivo testing. The newly developed handheld based system had a maximum accuracy of 99% when compared to the computer based system. PMID:19789715

A portable magnetic induction measurement system (PIMS).

PubMed

Cordes, Axel; Foussier, Jérôme; Pollig, Daniel; Leonhardt, Steffen

2012-02-22

For contactless monitoring of ventilation and heart activity, magnetic induction measurements are applicable. As the technique is harmless for the human body, it is well suited for long-term monitoring solutions, e.g., bedside monitoring, monitoring of home care patients, and the monitoring of persons in critical occupations. For such settings, a two-channel portable magnetic induction system has been developed, which is small and light enough to be fitted in a chair or bed. Because demodulation, control, and filtering are implemented on a front-end digital signal processor, a PC is not required (except for visualization/data storage during research and development). The system can be connected to a local area network (LAN) or wireless network (WiFi), allowing to connect several devices to a large monitoring system, e.g., for a residential home for the elderly or a hospital with low-risk patients not requiring standard ECG monitoring. To visualize data streams, a Qt-based (Qt-framework by Nokia, Espoo, Finland) monitoring application has been developed, which runs on Netbook computers, laptops, or standard PCs. To induce and measure the magnetic fields, external coils and amplifiers are required. This article describes the system and presents results for monitoring respiration and heart activity in a (divan) bed and for respiration monitoring in a chair. Planar configurations and orthogonal coil setups were examined during the measurement procedures. The measurement data were streamed over a LAN to a monitoring PC running Matlab (The MathWorks Inc, Natick, MA, USA).

Checkpoint triggering in a computer system

DOEpatents

Cher, Chen-Yong

2016-09-06

According to an aspect, a method for triggering creation of a checkpoint in a computer system includes executing a task in a processing node of the computer system and determining whether it is time to read a monitor associated with a metric of the task. The monitor is read to determine a value of the metric based on determining that it is time to read the monitor. A threshold for triggering creation of the checkpoint is determined based on the value of the metric. Based on determining that the value of the metric has crossed the threshold, the checkpoint including state data of the task is created to enable restarting execution of the task upon a restart operation.

Design and application of a web-based real-time personal PM2.5 exposure monitoring system.

PubMed

Sun, Qinghua; Zhuang, Jia; Du, Yanjun; Xu, Dandan; Li, Tiantian

2018-06-15

Growing demand from public health research for conduct large-scale epidemiological studies to explore health effect of PM 2.5 was well-documented. To address this need, we design a web-based real-time personal PM 2.5 exposure monitoring system (RPPM2.5 system) which can help researcher to get big data of personal PM 2.5 exposure with low-cost, low labor requirement, and low operating technical requirements. RPPM2.5 system can provide relative accurate real-time personal exposure data for individuals, researches, and decision maker. And this system has been used in a survey of PM 2.5 personal exposure level conducted in 5 cities of China and has provided mass of valuable data for epidemiological research. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Developing a multimodal biometric authentication system using soft computing methods.

PubMed

Malcangi, Mario

2015-01-01

Robust personal authentication is becoming ever more important in computer-based applications. Among a variety of methods, biometric offers several advantages, mainly in embedded system applications. Hard and soft multi-biometric, combined with hard and soft computing methods, can be applied to improve the personal authentication process and to generalize the applicability. This chapter describes the embedded implementation of a multi-biometric (voiceprint and fingerprint) multimodal identification system based on hard computing methods (DSP) for feature extraction and matching, an artificial neural network (ANN) for soft feature pattern matching, and a fuzzy logic engine (FLE) for data fusion and decision.

A computer-based physics laboratory apparatus: Signal generator software

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Thanakittiviroon, Tharest; Liangrocapart, Sompong

2005-09-01

This paper describes a computer-based physics laboratory apparatus to replace expensive instruments such as high-precision signal generators. This apparatus uses a sound card in a common personal computer to give sinusoidal signals with an accurate frequency that can be programmed to give different frequency signals repeatedly. An experiment on standing waves on an oscillating string uses this apparatus. In conjunction with interactive lab manuals, which have been developed using personal computers in our university, we achieve a complete set of low-cost, accurate, and easy-to-use equipment for teaching a physics laboratory.

Empirical Investigation of Select Personality, Attitudinal, and Experience-Based Antecedents of Cultural Intelligence in Undergraduate Business Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kurpis, Lada V.

2012-01-01

Fostering cultural intelligence development in undergraduate business students should be one of the goals of diversity education in undergraduate business programs due to the demands of the increasingly global workplace of today. A number of personality-based (e.g., self-monitoring personality trait), attitudinal (e.g., preference for jobs…

Climate@Home: Crowdsourcing Climate Change Research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, C.; Yang, C.; Li, J.; Sun, M.; Bambacus, M.

2011-12-01

Climate change deeply impacts human wellbeing. Significant amounts of resources have been invested in building super-computers that are capable of running advanced climate models, which help scientists understand climate change mechanisms, and predict its trend. Although climate change influences all human beings, the general public is largely excluded from the research. On the other hand, scientists are eagerly seeking communication mediums for effectively enlightening the public on climate change and its consequences. The Climate@Home project is devoted to connect the two ends with an innovative solution: crowdsourcing climate computing to the general public by harvesting volunteered computing resources from the participants. A distributed web-based computing platform will be built to support climate computing, and the general public can 'plug-in' their personal computers to participate in the research. People contribute the spare computing power of their computers to run a computer model, which is used by scientists to predict climate change. Traditionally, only super-computers could handle such a large computing processing load. By orchestrating massive amounts of personal computers to perform atomized data processing tasks, investments on new super-computers, energy consumed by super-computers, and carbon release from super-computers are reduced. Meanwhile, the platform forms a social network of climate researchers and the general public, which may be leveraged to raise climate awareness among the participants. A portal is to be built as the gateway to the climate@home project. Three types of roles and the corresponding functionalities are designed and supported. The end users include the citizen participants, climate scientists, and project managers. Citizen participants connect their computing resources to the platform by downloading and installing a computing engine on their personal computers. Computer climate models are defined at the server side. Climate scientists configure computer model parameters through the portal user interface. After model configuration, scientists then launch the computing task. Next, data is atomized and distributed to computing engines that are running on citizen participants' computers. Scientists will receive notifications on the completion of computing tasks, and examine modeling results via visualization modules of the portal. Computing tasks, computing resources, and participants are managed by project managers via portal tools. A portal prototype has been built for proof of concept. Three forums have been setup for different groups of users to share information on science aspect, technology aspect, and educational outreach aspect. A facebook account has been setup to distribute messages via the most popular social networking platform. New treads are synchronized from the forums to facebook. A mapping tool displays geographic locations of the participants and the status of tasks on each client node. A group of users have been invited to test functions such as forums, blogs, and computing resource monitoring.

Objective measures, sensors and computational techniques for stress recognition and classification: a survey.

PubMed

Sharma, Nandita; Gedeon, Tom

2012-12-01

Stress is a major growing concern in our day and age adversely impacting both individuals and society. Stress research has a wide range of benefits from improving personal operations, learning, and increasing work productivity to benefiting society - making it an interesting and socially beneficial area of research. This survey reviews sensors that have been used to measure stress and investigates techniques for modelling stress. It discusses non-invasive and unobtrusive sensors for measuring computed stress, a term we coin in the paper. Sensors that do not impede everyday activities that could be used by those who would like to monitor stress levels on a regular basis (e.g. vehicle drivers, patients with illnesses linked to stress) is the focus of the discussion. Computational techniques have the capacity to determine optimal sensor fusion and automate data analysis for stress recognition and classification. Several computational techniques have been developed to model stress based on techniques such as Bayesian networks, artificial neural networks, and support vector machines, which this survey investigates. The survey concludes with a summary and provides possible directions for further computational stress research. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a personal-computer-based intelligent tutoring system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mueller, Stephen J.

1988-01-01

A large number of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITSs) have been built since they were first proposed in the early 1970's. Research conducted on the use of the best of these systems has demonstrated their effectiveness in tutoring in selected domains. A prototype ITS for tutoring students in the use of CLIPS language: CLIPSIT (CLIPS Intelligent Tutor) was developed. For an ITS to be widely accepted, not only must it be effective, flexible, and very responsive, it must also be capable of functioning on readily available computers. While most ITSs have been developed on powerful workstations, CLIPSIT is designed for use on the IBM PC/XT/AT personal computer family (and their clones). There are many issues to consider when developing an ITS on a personal computer such as the teaching strategy, user interface, knowledge representation, and program design methodology. Based on experiences in developing CLIPSIT, results on how to address some of these issues are reported and approaches are suggested for maintaining a powerful learning environment while delivering robust performance within the speed and memory constraints of the personal computer.

CyberPsychological Computation on Social Community of Ubiquitous Learning.

PubMed

Zhou, Xuan; Dai, Genghui; Huang, Shuang; Sun, Xuemin; Hu, Feng; Hu, Hongzhi; Ivanović, Mirjana

2015-01-01

Under the modern network environment, ubiquitous learning has been a popular way for people to study knowledge, exchange ideas, and share skills in the cyberspace. Existing research findings indicate that the learners' initiative and community cohesion play vital roles in the social communities of ubiquitous learning, and therefore how to stimulate the learners' interest and participation willingness so as to improve their enjoyable experiences in the learning process should be the primary consideration on this issue. This paper aims to explore an effective method to monitor the learners' psychological reactions based on their behavioral features in cyberspace and therefore provide useful references for adjusting the strategies in the learning process. In doing so, this paper firstly analyzes the psychological assessment of the learners' situations as well as their typical behavioral patterns and then discusses the relationship between the learners' psychological reactions and their observable features in cyberspace. Finally, this paper puts forward a CyberPsychological computation method to estimate the learners' psychological states online. Considering the diversity of learners' habitual behaviors in the reactions to their psychological changes, a BP-GA neural network is proposed for the computation based on their personalized behavioral patterns.

CyberPsychological Computation on Social Community of Ubiquitous Learning

PubMed Central

Zhou, Xuan; Dai, Genghui; Huang, Shuang; Sun, Xuemin; Hu, Feng; Hu, Hongzhi; Ivanović, Mirjana

2015-01-01

Under the modern network environment, ubiquitous learning has been a popular way for people to study knowledge, exchange ideas, and share skills in the cyberspace. Existing research findings indicate that the learners' initiative and community cohesion play vital roles in the social communities of ubiquitous learning, and therefore how to stimulate the learners' interest and participation willingness so as to improve their enjoyable experiences in the learning process should be the primary consideration on this issue. This paper aims to explore an effective method to monitor the learners' psychological reactions based on their behavioral features in cyberspace and therefore provide useful references for adjusting the strategies in the learning process. In doing so, this paper firstly analyzes the psychological assessment of the learners' situations as well as their typical behavioral patterns and then discusses the relationship between the learners' psychological reactions and their observable features in cyberspace. Finally, this paper puts forward a CyberPsychological computation method to estimate the learners' psychological states online. Considering the diversity of learners' habitual behaviors in the reactions to their psychological changes, a BP-GA neural network is proposed for the computation based on their personalized behavioral patterns. PMID:26557846

Privacy Management and Networked PPD Systems - Challenges Solutions.

PubMed

Ruotsalainen, Pekka; Pharow, Peter; Petersen, Francoise

2015-01-01

Modern personal portable health devices (PPDs) become increasingly part of a larger, inhomogeneous information system. Information collected by sensors are stored and processed in global clouds. Services are often free of charge, but at the same time service providers' business model is based on the disclosure of users' intimate health information. Health data processed in PPD networks is not regulated by health care specific legislation. In PPD networks, there is no guarantee that stakeholders share same ethical principles with the user. Often service providers have own security and privacy policies and they rarely offer to the user possibilities to define own, or adapt existing privacy policies. This all raises huge ethical and privacy concerns. In this paper, the authors have analyzed privacy challenges in PPD networks from users' viewpoint using system modeling method and propose the principle "Personal Health Data under Personal Control" must generally be accepted at global level. Among possible implementation of this principle, the authors propose encryption, computer understandable privacy policies, and privacy labels or trust based privacy management methods. The latter can be realized using infrastructural trust calculation and monitoring service. A first step is to require the protection of personal health information and the principle proposed being internationally mandatory. This requires both regulatory and standardization activities, and the availability of open and certified software application which all service providers can implement. One of those applications should be the independent Trust verifier.

Distributed Computing Environment for Mine Warfare Command

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-06-01

based system to a decentralized network of personal computers over the past several years. This thesis analyzes the progress of the evolution as of May of...network of personal computers over the past several years. This thesis analyzes the progress of the evolution as of May of 1992. The building blocks of a...85 A. BACKGROUND ............. .................. 85 B. PAST ENVIRONMENT ........... ............... 86 C. PRESENT ENVIRONMENT

Eye-based Direct Interaction for Environmental Control in Heterogeneous Smart Environments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Corno, Fulvio; Gale, Alastair; Majaranta, Päivi; Räihä, Kari-Jouko

environmental control is the control, operation, and monitoring of an environment via intermediary technology such as a computer. Typically this means control of a domestic home.Within the scope of COGAIN, this environmental control concerns the control of the personal environment of a person (with or without a disability). This defines environmental control as the control of a home or domestic setting and those objects that are within that setting. Thus, we may say that environmental control systems enable anyone to operate a wide range of domestic appliances and other vital functions in the home by remote control. In recent years the problem of self-sufficiency for older people and people with a disability has attracted increasing attention and resources. The search for new solutions that can guarantee greater autonomy and a better quality of life has begun to exploit easily available state-of-the-art technology. Personal environmental control can be considered to be a comprehensive and effective aid, adaptable to the functional possibilities of the user and to their desired actions.

Unobtrusive measurement of daily computer use to detect mild cognitive impairment

PubMed Central

Kaye, Jeffrey; Mattek, Nora; Dodge, Hiroko H; Campbell, Ian; Hayes, Tamara; Austin, Daniel; Hatt, William; Wild, Katherine; Jimison, Holly; Pavel, Michael

2013-01-01

Background Mild disturbances of higher order activities of daily living are present in people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). These deficits may be difficult to detect among those still living independently. Unobtrusive continuous assessment of a complex activity such as home computer use may detect mild functional changes and identify MCI. We sought to determine whether long-term changes in remotely monitored computer use differ in persons with MCI in comparison to cognitively intact volunteers. Methods Participants enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study of unobtrusive in-home technologies to detect cognitive and motor decline in independently living seniors were assessed for computer usage (number of days with use, mean daily usage and coefficient of variation of use) measured by remotely monitoring computer session start and end times. Results Over 230,000 computer sessions from 113 computer users (mean age, 85; 38 with MCI) were acquired during a mean of 36 months. In mixed effects models there was no difference in computer usage at baseline between MCI and intact participants controlling for age, sex, education, race and computer experience. However, over time, between MCI and intact participants, there was a significant decrease in number of days with use (p=0.01), mean daily usage (~1% greater decrease/month; p=0.009) and an increase in day-to-day use variability (p=0.002). Conclusions Computer use change can be unobtrusively monitored and indicate individuals with MCI. With 79% of those 55–64 years old now online, this may be an ecologically valid and efficient approach to track subtle clinically meaningful change with aging. PMID:23688576

Processing of the WLCG monitoring data using NoSQL

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Andreeva, J.; Beche, A.; Belov, S.; Dzhunov, I.; Kadochnikov, I.; Karavakis, E.; Saiz, P.; Schovancova, J.; Tuckett, D.

2014-06-01

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) today includes more than 150 computing centres where more than 2 million jobs are being executed daily and petabytes of data are transferred between sites. Monitoring the computing activities of the LHC experiments, over such a huge heterogeneous infrastructure, is extremely demanding in terms of computation, performance and reliability. Furthermore, the generated monitoring flow is constantly increasing, which represents another challenge for the monitoring systems. While existing solutions are traditionally based on Oracle for data storage and processing, recent developments evaluate NoSQL for processing large-scale monitoring datasets. NoSQL databases are getting increasingly popular for processing datasets at the terabyte and petabyte scale using commodity hardware. In this contribution, the integration of NoSQL data processing in the Experiment Dashboard framework is described along with first experiences of using this technology for monitoring the LHC computing activities.

Privacy Policy Enforcement for Ambient Ubiquitous Services

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oyomno, Were; Jäppinen, Pekka; Kerttula, Esa

Ubiquitous service providers leverage miniaturised computing terminals equipped with wireless capabilities to avail new service models. These models are pivoted on personal and inexpensive terminals to customise services to individual preferences. Portability, small sizes and compact keyboards are few features popularising mobile terminals. Features enable storing and carrying of ever increasing proportions of personal data and ability to use them in service adaptations. Ubiquitous services automate deeper soliciting of personal data transparently without the need for user interactions. Transparent solicitations, acquisitions and handling of personal data legitimises privacy concerns regarding disclosures, retention and re-use of the data. This study presents a policy enforcement for ubiquitous services that safeguards handling of users personal data and monitors adherence to stipulated privacy policies. Enforcement structures towards usability and scalability are presented.

An Interactive Computer-Based Training Program for Beginner Personal Computer Maintenance.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Summers, Valerie Brooke

A computer-assisted instructional program, which was developed for teaching beginning computer maintenance to employees of Unisys, covered external hardware maintenance, proper diskette care, making software backups, and electro-static discharge prevention. The procedure used in developing the program was based upon the Dick and Carey (1985) model…

[Development and application of a web-based expert system using artificial intelligence for management of mental health by Korean emigrants].

PubMed

Bae, Jeongyee

2013-04-01

The purpose of this project was to develop an international web-based expert system using principals of artificial intelligence and user-centered design for management of mental health by Korean emigrants. Using this system, anyone can access the system via computer access to the web. Our design process utilized principles of user-centered design with 4 phases: needs assessment, analysis, design/development/testing, and application release. A survey was done with 3,235 Korean emigrants. Focus group interviews were also conducted. Survey and analysis results guided the design of the web-based expert system. With this system, anyone can check their mental health status by themselves using a personal computer. The system analyzes facts based on answers to automated questions, and suggests solutions accordingly. A history tracking mechanism enables monitoring and future analysis. In addition, this system will include intervention programs to promote mental health status. This system is interactive and accessible to anyone in the world. It is expected that this management system will contribute to Korean emigrants' mental health promotion and allow researchers and professionals to share information on mental health.

An Investigation of Learner-Control Variables in Vocabulary Learning Using Traditional Instruction and Two Forms of Computer-Based Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Balajthy, Ernest

1988-01-01

Investigates college students' ability to monitor learner-controlled vocabulary instruction when performed in traditional workbook-like tasks and in two different computer-based formats: video game and text game exercises. Suggests that developmental reading students are unable to monitor their own vocabulary development accurately. (MM)

[A personal computer-based system for online monitoring of neurologic intensive care patients].

PubMed

Stoll, M; Hamann, G; Jost, V; Schimrigk, K

1992-03-01

In the management of neurological intensive care patients with an intracranial space-consuming process the measurement and recording of intracranial pressure together with arterial blood pressure is of special interest. These parameters can be used to monitor the treatment of brain edema and hypertension. Intracranial pressure measurement is also important in the diagnosis of the various subtypes of hydrocephalus. Not only the absolute figures, but also the recognition of specific pressure-patterns is of particular clinical and scientific interest. This new, easily installed and inexpensive system comprises a PC and a conventional monitor, which are connected by an AD-conversion card. Our software, specially developed for this system demonstrates, stores and prints the online-course and the trend of the measurements. In addition it is also possible to view the online-course of conspicuous parts of the trend curve retrospectively and to use these values for statistical analyses. Object-orientated software development techniques were used for flexible graphic output on the screen, printer or to a file. Though developed for this specific purpose, this system is also suitable for recording continuous, longer-term measurements in general.

Reinforcement learning signals in the anterior cingulate cortex code for others' false beliefs.

PubMed

Apps, M A J; Green, R; Ramnani, N

2013-01-01

The ability to recognise that another's belief is false is a hallmark of our capacity to understand others' mental states. It has been suggested that the computational and neural mechanisms that underpin learning about others' mental states may be similar to those that underpin first-person Reinforcement Learning (RL). In RL, unexpected decision-making outcomes constitute prediction errors (PE), which are coded for by neurons in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC). Does the ACC signal the PEs (false beliefs) of others about the outcomes of their decisions? We scanned subjects using fMRI while they monitored a third-person's decisions and similar responses made by a computer. The outcomes of the trials were manipulated, such that the actual outcome was unexpectedly different from the predicted outcome on 1/3 of trials. We examined activity time-locked to privileged information which indicated the actual outcomes only to subjects. Activity in the gyral ACC was found when the outcomes of the third-person's decisions were unexpectedly positive. Activity in the sulcal ACC was found when the third-person's or computer's outcomes were unexpectedly positive. We suggest that a property of the ACC is that it codes PEs, with a portion of the gyral ACC specialised for processing the PEs of others. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Upgrades of DARWIN, a dose and spectrum monitoring system applicable to various types of radiation over wide energy ranges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sato, Tatsuhiko; Satoh, Daiki; Endo, Akira; Shigyo, Nobuhiro; Watanabe, Fusao; Sakurai, Hiroki; Arai, Yoichi

2011-05-01

A dose and spectrum monitoring system applicable to neutrons, photons and muons over wide ranges of energy, designated as DARWIN, has been developed for radiological protection in high-energy accelerator facilities. DARWIN consists of a phoswitch-type scintillation detector, a data-acquisition (DAQ) module for digital waveform analysis, and a personal computer equipped with a graphical-user-interface (GUI) program for controlling the system. The system was recently upgraded by introducing an original DAQ module based on a field programmable gate array, FPGA, and also by adding a function for estimating neutron and photon spectra based on an unfolding technique without requiring any specific scientific background of the user. The performance of the upgraded DARWIN was examined in various radiation fields, including an operational field in J-PARC. The experiments revealed that the dose rates and spectra measured by the upgraded DARWIN are quite reasonable, even in radiation fields with peak structures in terms of both spectrum and time variation. These results clearly demonstrate the usefulness of DARWIN for improving radiation safety in high-energy accelerator facilities.

Security of Personal Computer Systems: A Management Guide.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steinauer, Dennis D.

This report describes management and technical security considerations associated with the use of personal computer systems as well as other microprocessor-based systems designed for use in a general office environment. Its primary objective is to identify and discuss several areas of potential vulnerability and associated protective measures. The…

Smart Multi-Level Tool for Remote Patient Monitoring Based on a Wireless Sensor Network and Mobile Augmented Reality

PubMed Central

González, Fernando Cornelio Jimènez; Villegas, Osslan Osiris Vergara; Ramírez, Dulce Esperanza Torres; Sánchez, Vianey Guadalupe Cruz; Domínguez, Humberto Ochoa

2014-01-01

Technological innovations in the field of disease prevention and maintenance of patient health have enabled the evolution of fields such as monitoring systems. One of the main advances is the development of real-time monitors that use intelligent and wireless communication technology. In this paper, a system is presented for the remote monitoring of the body temperature and heart rate of a patient by means of a wireless sensor network (WSN) and mobile augmented reality (MAR). The combination of a WSN and MAR provides a novel alternative to remotely measure body temperature and heart rate in real time during patient care. The system is composed of (1) hardware such as Arduino microcontrollers (in the patient nodes), personal computers (for the nurse server), smartphones (for the mobile nurse monitor and the virtual patient file) and sensors (to measure body temperature and heart rate), (2) a network layer using WiFly technology, and (3) software such as LabView, Android SDK, and DroidAR. The results obtained from tests show that the system can perform effectively within a range of 20 m and requires ten minutes to stabilize the temperature sensor to detect hyperthermia, hypothermia or normal body temperature conditions. Additionally, the heart rate sensor can detect conditions of tachycardia and bradycardia. PMID:25230306

Smart multi-level tool for remote patient monitoring based on a wireless sensor network and mobile augmented reality.

PubMed

González, Fernando Cornelio Jiménez; Villegas, Osslan Osiris Vergara; Ramírez, Dulce Esperanza Torres; Sánchez, Vianey Guadalupe Cruz; Domínguez, Humberto Ochoa

2014-09-16

Technological innovations in the field of disease prevention and maintenance of patient health have enabled the evolution of fields such as monitoring systems. One of the main advances is the development of real-time monitors that use intelligent and wireless communication technology. In this paper, a system is presented for the remote monitoring of the body temperature and heart rate of a patient by means of a wireless sensor network (WSN) and mobile augmented reality (MAR). The combination of a WSN and MAR provides a novel alternative to remotely measure body temperature and heart rate in real time during patient care. The system is composed of (1) hardware such as Arduino microcontrollers (in the patient nodes), personal computers (for the nurse server), smartphones (for the mobile nurse monitor and the virtual patient file) and sensors (to measure body temperature and heart rate), (2) a network layer using WiFly technology, and (3) software such as LabView, Android SDK, and DroidAR. The results obtained from tests show that the system can perform effectively within a range of 20 m and requires ten minutes to stabilize the temperature sensor to detect hyperthermia, hypothermia or normal body temperature conditions. Additionally, the heart rate sensor can detect conditions of tachycardia and bradycardia.

Continuous cuff-less blood pressure monitoring based on the pulse arrival time approach: the impact of posture.

PubMed

Muehlsteff, J; Aubert, X A; Morren, G

2008-01-01

There is an unmet need for cuff-less blood pressure (BP) monitoring especially, in personal healthcare applications. The pulse arrival time (PAT) approach might offer a suitable solution to enable comfortable BP monitoring even at beat-level. However, the methodology is based on hemodynamic surrogate measures, which are sensitive to patient activities such as posture changes, not necessarily related to blood pressure variations. In this paper, we analyze the impact of posture on the PAT measure and related hemodynamic parameters such as the pre-ejection period in well-defined procedures. Additionally, the PAT of a monitored subject is investigated in an unsupervised scenario illustrating the complexity of such a measurement. Our results show the failure of blood pressure inference based on simple calibration strategies using the PAT measure only. We discuss opportunities to compensate for the observed effects towards the realization of wearable cuff-less blood pressure monitoring. These findings emphasize the importance of accessing context information in personal healthcare applications, where vital sign monitoring is typically unsupervised.

Adaptive runtime for a multiprocessing API

DOEpatents

Antao, Samuel F.; Bertolli, Carlo; Eichenberger, Alexandre E.; O'Brien, John K.

2016-11-15

A computer-implemented method includes selecting a runtime for executing a program. The runtime includes a first combination of feature implementations, where each feature implementation implements a feature of an application programming interface (API). Execution of the program is monitored, and the execution uses the runtime. Monitor data is generated based on the monitoring. A second combination of feature implementations are selected, by a computer processor, where the selection is based at least in part on the monitor data. The runtime is modified by activating the second combination of feature implementations to replace the first combination of feature implementations.

Adaptive runtime for a multiprocessing API

DOEpatents

Antao, Samuel F.; Bertolli, Carlo; Eichenberger, Alexandre E.; O'Brien, John K.

2016-10-11

A computer-implemented method includes selecting a runtime for executing a program. The runtime includes a first combination of feature implementations, where each feature implementation implements a feature of an application programming interface (API). Execution of the program is monitored, and the execution uses the runtime. Monitor data is generated based on the monitoring. A second combination of feature implementations are selected, by a computer processor, where the selection is based at least in part on the monitor data. The runtime is modified by activating the second combination of feature implementations to replace the first combination of feature implementations.

Design Process of a Goal-Based Scenario on Computing Fundamentals

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beriswill, Joanne Elizabeth

2014-01-01

In this design case, an instructor developed a goal-based scenario (GBS) for undergraduate computer fundamentals students to apply their knowledge of computer equipment and software. The GBS, entitled the MegaTech Project, presented the students with descriptions of the everyday activities of four persons needing to purchase a computer system. The…

Reactor Operations Monitoring System

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hart, M.M.

1989-01-01

The Reactor Operations Monitoring System (ROMS) is a VME based, parallel processor data acquisition and safety action system designed by the Equipment Engineering Section and Reactor Engineering Department of the Savannah River Site. The ROMS will be analyzing over 8 million signal samples per minute. Sixty-eight microprocessors are used in the ROMS in order to achieve a real-time data analysis. The ROMS is composed of multiple computer subsystems. Four redundant computer subsystems monitor 600 temperatures with 2400 thermocouples. Two computer subsystems share the monitoring of 600 reactor coolant flows. Additional computer subsystems are dedicated to monitoring 400 signals from assortedmore » process sensors. Data from these computer subsystems are transferred to two redundant process display computer subsystems which present process information to reactor operators and to reactor control computers. The ROMS is also designed to carry out safety functions based on its analysis of process data. The safety functions include initiating a reactor scram (shutdown), the injection of neutron poison, and the loadshed of selected equipment. A complete development Reactor Operations Monitoring System has been built. It is located in the Program Development Center at the Savannah River Site and is currently being used by the Reactor Engineering Department in software development. The Equipment Engineering Section is designing and fabricating the process interface hardware. Upon proof of hardware and design concept, orders will be placed for the final five systems located in the three reactor areas, the reactor training simulator, and the hardware maintenance center.« less

Seamless personal health information system in cloud computing.

PubMed

Chung, Wan-Young; Fong, Ee May

2014-01-01

Noncontact ECG measurement has gained popularity these days due to its noninvasive and conveniences to be applied on daily life. This approach does not require any direct contact between patient's skin and sensor for physiological signal measurement. The noncontact ECG measurement is integrated with mobile healthcare system for health status monitoring. Mobile phone acts as the personal health information system displaying health status and body mass index (BMI) tracking. Besides that, it plays an important role being the medical guidance providing medical knowledge database including symptom checker and health fitness guidance. At the same time, the system also features some unique medical functions that cater to the living demand of the patients or users, including regular medication reminders, alert alarm, medical guidance, appointment scheduling. Lastly, we demonstrate mobile healthcare system with web application for extended uses, thus health data are clouded into web server system and web database storage. This allows remote health status monitoring easily and so forth it promotes a cost effective personal healthcare system.

A new mobile ubiquitous computing application to control obesity: SapoFit.

PubMed

Rodrigues, Joel J P C; Lopes, Ivo M C; Silva, Bruno M C; Torre, Isabel de La

2013-01-01

The objective of this work was the proposal, design, construction and validation of a mobile health system for dietetic monitoring and assessment, called SapoFit. This application may be personalized to keep a daily personal health record of an individual's food intake and daily exercise and to share this with a social network. The initiative is a partnership with SAPO - Portugal Telecom. SapoFit uses Web services architecture, a relatively new model for distributed computing and application integration. SapoFit runs on a range of mobile platforms, and it has been implemented successfully in a range of mobile devices and has been evaluated by over 100 users. Most users strongly agree that SapoFit has an attractive design, the environment is user-friendly and intuitive, and the navigation options are clear.

77 FR 24571 - Blocking the Property and Suspending Entry Into the United States of Certain Persons With Respect...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-24

... Abuses by the Governments of Iran and Syria via Information Technology #0; #0; #0; Presidential Documents... Human Rights Abuses by the Governments of Iran and Syria via Information Technology By the authority... people of Iran and Syria by their governments, facilitated by computer and network disruption, monitoring...

Is dosimetry still a necessity in current dental practice?

PubMed

Reddy, S S; Rakesh, N; Chauhan, Pallavi; Clint, Joseph Ben; Sharma, Shivani

2015-12-01

Today, dentists have a wide range of imaging modalities to choose from, the film based techniques, digital techniques, and the recent introduction of 3D volumetric or cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). The inherent design features of the new generation dental x-ray equipment has significantly improved over the years with no evidence of substandard x-ray units in operation. In dental facilities radiological workload is comparatively low, newer radiation equipments and accessories follow safety guidelines and employ better radiation protection measures for the patient and the operator. Dentists' knowledge and expertise in radiation protection measures is good, enabling them to carry out riskfree radiation procedures in their practice. Therefore, the present study is aimed at assessing the need for dosimeters in current dental scenario. 'Is there currently a significant risk from dental radiography to merit the use of personal dosimetery in dental practice. 'Dental health professionals (Oral radiologists) and radiographic assistants of fourteen dental colleges in Karnataka state participated in this questionnaire study. The questionnaire consisted of the following questions--the make, type, year of manufacture of radiographic machines used in their setup, number of radiographs made per day in the institution, type of receptors used, number of personnel at risk for radiation exposure, radiation protection measures used, regular monitoring by personal dosimeters, equivalent dosage readings for the past 12 months and whether the reading of thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLD) for any personnel had exceeded the recommended exposure value in the last 3 years. Dosimetry records of the radiology staff in the last three years shows doses no more than 1.50 mSv per year. The various institutions' dose (person mSv) was in the range of 3.70 mSv-3.90 mSv. Personal monitoring for Dentists can be omitted in the dental colleges since the estimated dose of oral radiologists contributed less than 0.01 mSv to the total average annual effective dose equivalent. Hence personal monitoring services (TLD Badges) for dentists employed in dental colleges should not be made mandatory.

Personalized, relevance-based Multimodal Robotic Imaging and augmented reality for Computer Assisted Interventions.

PubMed

Navab, Nassir; Fellow, Miccai; Hennersperger, Christoph; Frisch, Benjamin; Fürst, Bernhard

2016-10-01

In the last decade, many researchers in medical image computing and computer assisted interventions across the world focused on the development of the Virtual Physiological Human (VPH), aiming at changing the practice of medicine from classification and treatment of diseases to that of modeling and treating patients. These projects resulted in major advancements in segmentation, registration, morphological, physiological and biomechanical modeling based on state of art medical imaging as well as other sensory data. However, a major issue which has not yet come into the focus is personalizing intra-operative imaging, allowing for optimal treatment. In this paper, we discuss the personalization of imaging and visualization process with particular focus on satisfying the challenging requirements of computer assisted interventions. We discuss such requirements and review a series of scientific contributions made by our research team to tackle some of these major challenges. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Dynamic virtual machine allocation policy in cloud computing complying with service level agreement using CloudSim

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Aneri, Parikh; Sumathy, S.

2017-11-01

Cloud computing provides services over the internet and provides application resources and data to the users based on their demand. Base of the Cloud Computing is consumer provider model. Cloud provider provides resources which consumer can access using cloud computing model in order to build their application based on their demand. Cloud data center is a bulk of resources on shared pool architecture for cloud user to access. Virtualization is the heart of the Cloud computing model, it provides virtual machine as per application specific configuration and those applications are free to choose their own configuration. On one hand, there is huge number of resources and on other hand it has to serve huge number of requests effectively. Therefore, resource allocation policy and scheduling policy play very important role in allocation and managing resources in this cloud computing model. This paper proposes the load balancing policy using Hungarian algorithm. Hungarian Algorithm provides dynamic load balancing policy with a monitor component. Monitor component helps to increase cloud resource utilization by managing the Hungarian algorithm by monitoring its state and altering its state based on artificial intelligent. CloudSim used in this proposal is an extensible toolkit and it simulates cloud computing environment.

Recommending personally interested contents by text mining, filtering, and interfaces

DOEpatents

Xu, Songhua

2015-10-27

A personalized content recommendation system includes a client interface device configured to monitor a user's information data stream. A collaborative filter remote from the client interface device generates automated predictions about the interests of the user. A database server stores personal behavioral profiles and user's preferences based on a plurality of monitored past behaviors and an output of the collaborative user personal interest inference engine. A programmed personal content recommendation server filters items in an incoming information stream with the personal behavioral profile and identifies only those items of the incoming information stream that substantially matches the personal behavioral profile. The identified personally relevant content is then recommended to the user following some priority that may consider the similarity between the personal interest matches, the context of the user information consumption behaviors that may be shown by the user's content consumption mode.

Monitoring for Renal Stone Recurrence in Astronauts With History of Stone

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Reyes, David P.; Sargsyan, Ashot; Locke, James; Davis, Jeffrey

2014-01-01

After an initial stone episode persons are at increased risk for future stone formation. A systematic approach is required to monitor the efficacy of treatment and preventive measures, and to assess the risk of developing new stones. This is important for persons working in critical jobs or austere environments, such as astronauts. A literature review of the current standards of care for renal stone monitoring and imaging was done. Military and civil aviation standards were also reviewed, as well as the medical precedents from the space program. Additionally, a new, more effective, renal stone ultrasound protocol has been developed. Using this work, a monitoring algorithm was proposed that takes into consideration the unique mission and operational environment of spaceflight. The approach to imaging persons with history of renal stones varies widely in the literature. Imaging is often done yearly or biannually, which may be too long for mission critical personnel. In the proposed algorithm astronauts with a history of renal stone, who may be under consideration for assignment, are imaged by a detailed, physiciandriven, ultrasound protocol. Unassigned personnel are monitored by yearly ultrasound and urine studies. Any positive ultrasound study is then followed by low-dose renal computed tomography scan. Other criteria are also established. The proposed algorithm provides a balanced approach between efficacy and reduced radiation exposure for the monitoring of astronauts with a renal stone history. This may eventually allow a transition from a risk-averse, to a risk-modifying approach that can enable continued service of individuals with history of renal stone that have adequately controlled risk factors.

The proposed monitoring system for the Fermilab D0 colliding beams detector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodwin, Robert; Florian, Robert; Johnson, Marvin; Jones, Alan; Shea, Mike

1986-06-01

The Fermilab D0 Detector is a collaborative effort that includes seventeen universities and national laboratories. The monitoring and control system for this detector will be separate from the online detector data system. A distributed, stand-alone, microprocessor-based system is being designed to allow monitoring and control functions to be available to the collaborators at their home institutions during the design, fabrication, and testing phases of the project. Individual stations are VMEbus-based 68000 systems that are networked together during installation using an ARCnet (by Datapoint Corporation) Local Area Network. One station, perhaps a MicroVAX, would have a hard disk to store a backup copy of the distributed database located in non-volatile RAM in the local stations. This station would also serve as a gateway to the online system, so that data from the control system will be available for logging with the detector data. Apple Macintosh personal computers are being developed for use as the local control consoles. Each would be interfaced to ARCnet to provide access to all control system data. Through the use of bit-mapped graphics with multiple windows and pull-down menus, a cost effective, flexible display system can be provided, taking advantage of familiar modern software tools to support the operator interface.

Archetype-Based Modeling of Persona for Comprehensive Personality Computing from Personal Big Data.

PubMed

Guo, Ao; Ma, Jianhua

2018-02-25

A model describing the wide variety of human behaviours called personality, is becoming increasingly popular among researchers due to the widespread availability of personal big data generated from the use of prevalent digital devices, e.g., smartphones and wearables. Such an approach can be used to model an individual and even digitally clone a person, e.g., a Cyber-I (cyber individual). This work is aimed at establishing a unique and comprehensive description for an individual to mesh with various personalized services and applications. An extensive research literature on or related to psychological modelling exists, i.e., into automatic personality computing. However, the integrity and accuracy of the results from current automatic personality computing is insufficient for the elaborate modeling in Cyber-I due to an insufficient number of data sources. To reach a comprehensive psychological description of a person, it is critical to bring in heterogeneous data sources that could provide plenty of personal data, i.e., the physiological data, and the Internet data. In addition, instead of calculating personality traits from personal data directly, an approach to a personality model derived from the theories of Carl Gustav Jung is used to measure a human subject's persona. Therefore, this research is focused on designing an archetype-based modeling of persona covering an individual's facets in different situations to approach a comprehensive personality model. Using personal big data to measure a specific persona in a certain scenario, our research is designed to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the generated personality model.

Archetype-Based Modeling of Persona for Comprehensive Personality Computing from Personal Big Data

PubMed Central

Ma, Jianhua

2018-01-01

A model describing the wide variety of human behaviours called personality, is becoming increasingly popular among researchers due to the widespread availability of personal big data generated from the use of prevalent digital devices, e.g., smartphones and wearables. Such an approach can be used to model an individual and even digitally clone a person, e.g., a Cyber-I (cyber individual). This work is aimed at establishing a unique and comprehensive description for an individual to mesh with various personalized services and applications. An extensive research literature on or related to psychological modelling exists, i.e., into automatic personality computing. However, the integrity and accuracy of the results from current automatic personality computing is insufficient for the elaborate modeling in Cyber-I due to an insufficient number of data sources. To reach a comprehensive psychological description of a person, it is critical to bring in heterogeneous data sources that could provide plenty of personal data, i.e., the physiological data, and the Internet data. In addition, instead of calculating personality traits from personal data directly, an approach to a personality model derived from the theories of Carl Gustav Jung is used to measure a human subject’s persona. Therefore, this research is focused on designing an archetype-based modeling of persona covering an individual’s facets in different situations to approach a comprehensive personality model. Using personal big data to measure a specific persona in a certain scenario, our research is designed to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the generated personality model. PMID:29495343

Recommendations for standardizing validation procedures assessing physical activity of older persons by monitoring body postures and movements.

PubMed

Lindemann, Ulrich; Zijlstra, Wiebren; Aminian, Kamiar; Chastin, Sebastien F M; de Bruin, Eling D; Helbostad, Jorunn L; Bussmann, Johannes B J

2014-01-10

Physical activity is an important determinant of health and well-being in older persons and contributes to their social participation and quality of life. Hence, assessment tools are needed to study this physical activity in free-living conditions. Wearable motion sensing technology is used to assess physical activity. However, there is a lack of harmonisation of validation protocols and applied statistics, which make it hard to compare available and future studies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to formulate recommendations for assessing the validity of sensor-based activity monitoring in older persons with focus on the measurement of body postures and movements. Validation studies of body-worn devices providing parameters on body postures and movements were identified and summarized and an extensive inter-active process between authors resulted in recommendations about: information on the assessed persons, the technical system, and the analysis of relevant parameters of physical activity, based on a standardized and semi-structured protocol. The recommended protocols can be regarded as a first attempt to standardize validity studies in the area of monitoring physical activity.

Education technology with continuous real time monitoring of the current functional and emotional students' states

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alyushin, M. V.; Kolobashkina, L. V.

2017-01-01

The education technology with continuous monitoring of the current functional and emotional students' states is suggested. The application of this technology allows one to increase the effectiveness of practice through informed planning of the training load. For monitoring the current functional and emotional students' states non-contact remote technologies of person bioparameters registration are encouraged to use. These technologies are based on recording and processing in real time the main person bioparameters in a purely passive mode. Experimental testing of this technology has confirmed its effectiveness.

Unobtrusive measurement of daily computer use to detect mild cognitive impairment.

PubMed

Kaye, Jeffrey; Mattek, Nora; Dodge, Hiroko H; Campbell, Ian; Hayes, Tamara; Austin, Daniel; Hatt, William; Wild, Katherine; Jimison, Holly; Pavel, Michael

2014-01-01

Mild disturbances of higher order activities of daily living are present in people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). These deficits may be difficult to detect among those still living independently. Unobtrusive continuous assessment of a complex activity such as home computer use may detect mild functional changes and identify MCI. We sought to determine whether long-term changes in remotely monitored computer use differ in persons with MCI in comparison with cognitively intact volunteers. Participants enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study of unobtrusive in-home technologies to detect cognitive and motor decline in independently living seniors were assessed for computer use (number of days with use, mean daily use, and coefficient of variation of use) measured by remotely monitoring computer session start and end times. More than 230,000 computer sessions from 113 computer users (mean age, 85 years; 38 with MCI) were acquired during a mean of 36 months. In mixed-effects models, there was no difference in computer use at baseline between MCI and intact participants controlling for age, sex, education, race, and computer experience. However, over time, between MCI and intact participants, there was a significant decrease in number of days with use (P = .01), mean daily use (∼1% greater decrease/month; P = .009), and an increase in day-to-day use variability (P = .002). Computer use change can be monitored unobtrusively and indicates individuals with MCI. With 79% of those 55 to 64 years old now online, this may be an ecologically valid and efficient approach to track subtle, clinically meaningful change with aging. Copyright © 2014 The Alzheimer's Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Progress Monitoring with Computer Adaptive Assessments: The Impact of Data Collection Schedule on Growth Estimates

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nelson, Peter M.; Van Norman, Ethan R.; Klingbeil, Dave A.; Parker, David C.

2017-01-01

Although extensive research exists on the use of curriculum-based measures for progress monitoring, little is known about using computer adaptive tests (CATs) for progress-monitoring purposes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the frequency of data collection on individual and group growth estimates using a CAT. Data were…

Behavior-Based Fault Monitoring

DTIC Science & Technology

1990-12-03

processor targeted for avionics and space applications . It appears that the signature monitoring technique can be extended to detect computer viruses as...most common approach is structural duplication. Although effective, duplication is too expensive for all but a few applications . Redundancy can also be...Signature Monitoring and Encryption," Int. Conf. on Dependable Computing for Critical Applications , August 1989. 7. K.D. Wilken and J.P. Shen

Personality Characteristics and Performance on Computer Assisted Instruction and Programmed Text.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Blitz, Allan N.; Smith, Timothy

An empirical study investigated whether personality characteristics have a bearing on an individual's success with particular modes of instruction, in this case, computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and the programed text (PT). The study was developed in an attempt to establish useful criteria on which to base a rationale for choosing suitable…

Web Program for Development of GUIs for Cluster Computers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Czikmantory, Akos; Cwik, Thomas; Klimeck, Gerhard; Hua, Hook; Oyafuso, Fabiano; Vinyard, Edward

2003-01-01

WIGLAF (a Web Interface Generator and Legacy Application Facade) is a computer program that provides a Web-based, distributed, graphical-user-interface (GUI) framework that can be adapted to any of a broad range of application programs, written in any programming language, that are executed remotely on any cluster computer system. WIGLAF enables the rapid development of a GUI for controlling and monitoring a specific application program running on the cluster and for transferring data to and from the application program. The only prerequisite for the execution of WIGLAF is a Web-browser program on a user's personal computer connected with the cluster via the Internet. WIGLAF has a client/server architecture: The server component is executed on the cluster system, where it controls the application program and serves data to the client component. The client component is an applet that runs in the Web browser. WIGLAF utilizes the Extensible Markup Language to hold all data associated with the application software, Java to enable platform-independent execution on the cluster system and the display of a GUI generator through the browser, and the Java Remote Method Invocation software package to provide simple, effective client/server networking.

DynAMo: A Modular Platform for Monitoring Process, Outcome, and Algorithm-Based Treatment Planning in Psychotherapy

PubMed Central

Laireiter, Anton Rupert

2017-01-01

Background In recent years, the assessment of mental disorders has become more and more personalized. Modern advancements such as Internet-enabled mobile phones and increased computing capacity make it possible to tap sources of information that have long been unavailable to mental health practitioners. Objective Software packages that combine algorithm-based treatment planning, process monitoring, and outcome monitoring are scarce. The objective of this study was to assess whether the DynAMo Web application can fill this gap by providing a software solution that can be used by both researchers to conduct state-of-the-art psychotherapy process research and clinicians to plan treatments and monitor psychotherapeutic processes. Methods In this paper, we report on the current state of a Web application that can be used for assessing the temporal structure of mental disorders using information on their temporal and synchronous associations. A treatment planning algorithm automatically interprets the data and delivers priority scores of symptoms to practitioners. The application is also capable of monitoring psychotherapeutic processes during therapy and of monitoring treatment outcomes. This application was developed using the R programming language (R Core Team, Vienna) and the Shiny Web application framework (RStudio, Inc, Boston). It is made entirely from open-source software packages and thus is easily extensible. Results The capabilities of the proposed application are demonstrated. Case illustrations are provided to exemplify its usefulness in clinical practice. Conclusions With the broad availability of Internet-enabled mobile phones and similar devices, collecting data on psychopathology and psychotherapeutic processes has become easier than ever. The proposed application is a valuable tool for capturing, processing, and visualizing these data. The combination of dynamic assessment and process- and outcome monitoring has the potential to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy. PMID:28729233

Development of radar-based system for monitoring of frail home-dwelling persons: A healthcare perspective

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sudmann, Tobba T.; Børsheim, Ingebjørg T.; Øvsthus, Knut; Ciamulski, Tomasz; Miękina, Andrzej; Wagner, Jakub; Mazurek, Paweł; Jacobsen, Frode F.

2016-11-01

This interdisciplinary project aims to develop and assess the functional potential of radar technology in the care services. The project mainly has an exploratory character where the technological and functional potential of impulse-radar sensor are tested out in monitoring of elderly and disabled people living in their own home. Designing a non-invasive system for monitoring of movements of frail persons living at home is the main goal, with the intent of assessing health and functional status through monitoring of activities of daily life (ADL) and detecting potentially dangerous situations, not the least related to a long lie following falls.

Algorithm for personal identification in distance learning system based on registration of keyboard rhythm

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nikitin, P. V.; Savinov, A. N.; Bazhenov, R. I.; Sivandaev, S. V.

2018-05-01

The article describes the method of identifying a person in distance learning systems based on a keyboard rhythm. An algorithm for the organization of access control is proposed, which implements authentication, identification and verification of a person using the keyboard rhythm. Authentication methods based on biometric personal parameters, including those based on the keyboard rhythm, due to the inexistence of biometric characteristics without a particular person, are able to provide an advanced accuracy and inability to refuse authorship and convenience for operators of automated systems, in comparison with other methods of conformity checking. Methods of permanent hidden keyboard monitoring allow detecting the substitution of a student and blocking the key system.

Application of a personal computer for the uncoupled vibration analysis of wind turbine blade and counterweight assemblies

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

White, P. R.; Little, R. R.

1985-01-01

A research effort was undertaken to develop personal computer based software for vibrational analysis. The software was developed to analytically determine the natural frequencies and mode shapes for the uncoupled lateral vibrations of the blade and counterweight assemblies used in a single bladed wind turbine. The uncoupled vibration analysis was performed in both the flapwise and chordwise directions for static rotor conditions. The effects of rotation on the uncoupled flapwise vibration of the blade and counterweight assemblies were evaluated for various rotor speeds up to 90 rpm. The theory, used in the vibration analysis codes, is based on a lumped mass formulation for the blade and counterweight assemblies. The codes are general so that other designs can be readily analyzed. The input for the codes is generally interactive to facilitate usage. The output of the codes is both tabular and graphical. Listings of the codes are provided. Predicted natural frequencies of the first several modes show reasonable agreement with experimental results. The analysis codes were originally developed on a DEC PDP 11/34 minicomputer and then downloaded and modified to run on an ITT XTRA personal computer. Studies conducted to evaluate the efficiency of running the programs on a personal computer as compared with the minicomputer indicated that, with the proper combination of hardware and software options, the efficiency of using a personal computer exceeds that of a minicomputer.

Designing personal exercise monitoring employing multiple modes of delivery: implications from a qualitative study on heart rate monitoring.

PubMed

Segerståhl, Katarina; Oinas-Kukkonen, Harri

2011-12-01

Various personal monitoring technologies have been introduced for supporting regular physical activity, which is of critical importance in reducing the risks of several chronic diseases. Recent studies suggest that combining multiple modes of delivery, such as text messages and mobile monitoring devices with web applications, holds potential for effectively supporting physical exercise. Of particular interest is how the functionality and content of these systems should be distributed across the different modes for successful outcomes. The aim of this study was to: (a) investigate how users incorporate a system employing two modes of delivery - a wearable heart rate monitor and a web service - into their training and (b) to analyze benefits and limitations in personal exercise monitoring and how they relate to the different modes in use. A qualitative field study employing diaries and semi-structured interviews was carried out with 30 participants who used a heart rate monitoring system comprising a wearable heart rate monitor, Polar FT60 and a web service, Polar Personal Trainer for a period of 21 days. The data were systematically analyzed to identify specific benefits and limitations associated with the system characteristics and modes as perceived by the end-users. The benefits include supporting exploratory learning, controlling target behavior, rectifying behaviors, motivation and logging support. The limitations are associated with information for validating the system, virtual coaching, task-technology fit, data integrity and privacy concerns. Mobile interfaces enable exploratory learning and controlling of target behaviors in situ, while web services can effectively support users' need for cognition within the early stages of adoption and long-term training with intelligent coaching functionality. This study explains several benefits and limitations in personal exercise monitoring. These can be addressed with crossmedial design, i.e., strategic distribution of functionality and content across modes within the system. Our findings suggest that personal exercise monitoring systems may be improved by more systematically combining mobile and web-based functionality. 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Portals for Real-Time Earthquake Data and Forecasting: Challenge and Promise (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rundle, J. B.; Holliday, J. R.; Graves, W. R.; Feltstykket, R.; Donnellan, A.; Glasscoe, M. T.

2013-12-01

Earthquake forecasts have been computed by a variety of countries world-wide for over two decades. For the most part, forecasts have been computed for insurance, reinsurance and underwriters of catastrophe bonds. However, recent events clearly demonstrate that mitigating personal risk is becoming the responsibility of individual members of the public. Open access to a variety of web-based forecasts, tools, utilities and information is therefore required. Portals for data and forecasts present particular challenges, and require the development of both apps and the client/server architecture to deliver the basic information in real time. The basic forecast model we consider is the Natural Time Weibull (NTW) method (JBR et al., Phys. Rev. E, 86, 021106, 2012). This model uses small earthquakes (';seismicity-based models') to forecast the occurrence of large earthquakes, via data-mining algorithms combined with the ANSS earthquake catalog. This method computes large earthquake probabilities using the number of small earthquakes that have occurred in a region since the last large earthquake. Localizing these forecasts in space so that global forecasts can be computed in real time presents special algorithmic challenges, which we describe in this talk. Using 25 years of data from the ANSS California-Nevada catalog of earthquakes, we compute real-time global forecasts at a grid scale of 0.1o. We analyze and monitor the performance of these models using the standard tests, which include the Reliability/Attributes and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) tests. It is clear from much of the analysis that data quality is a major limitation on the accurate computation of earthquake probabilities. We discuss the challenges of serving up these datasets over the web on web-based platforms such as those at www.quakesim.org , www.e-decider.org , and www.openhazards.com.

Inductive System Health Monitoring

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Iverson, David L.

2004-01-01

The Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) software was developed to provide a technique to automatically produce health monitoring knowledge bases for systems that are either difficult to model (simulate) with a computer or which require computer models that are too complex to use for real time monitoring. IMS uses nominal data sets collected either directly from the system or from simulations to build a knowledge base that can be used to detect anomalous behavior in the system. Machine learning and data mining techniques are used to characterize typical system behavior by extracting general classes of nominal data from archived data sets. IMS is able to monitor the system by comparing real time operational data with these classes. We present a description of learning and monitoring method used by IMS and summarize some recent IMS results.

Helmet-Cam: tool for assessing miners’ respirable dust exposure

PubMed Central

Cecala, A.B.; Reed, W.R.; Joy, G.J.; Westmoreland, S.C.; O’Brien, A.D.

2015-01-01

Video technology coupled with datalogging exposure monitors have been used to evaluate worker exposure to different types of contaminants. However, previous application of this technology used a stationary video camera to record the worker’s activity while the worker wore some type of contaminant monitor. These techniques are not applicable to mobile workers in the mining industry because of their need to move around the operation while performing their duties. The Helmet-Cam is a recently developed exposure assessment tool that integrates a person-wearable video recorder with a datalogging dust monitor. These are worn by the miner in a backpack, safety belt or safety vest to identify areas or job tasks of elevated exposure. After a miner performs his or her job while wearing the unit, the video and dust exposure data files are downloaded to a computer and then merged together through a NIOSH-developed computer software program called Enhanced Video Analysis of Dust Exposure (EVADE). By providing synchronized playback of the merged video footage and dust exposure data, the EVADE software allows for the assessment and identification of key work areas and processes, as well as work tasks that significantly impact a worker’s personal respirable dust exposure. The Helmet-Cam technology has been tested at a number of metal/nonmetal mining operations and has proven to be a valuable assessment tool. Mining companies wishing to use this technique can purchase a commercially available video camera and an instantaneous dust monitor to obtain the necessary data, and the NIOSH-developed EVADE software will be available for download at no cost on the NIOSH website. PMID:26380529

Visual Privacy by Context: Proposal and Evaluation of a Level-Based Visualisation Scheme

PubMed Central

Padilla-López, José Ramón; Chaaraoui, Alexandros Andre; Gu, Feng; Flórez-Revuelta, Francisco

2015-01-01

Privacy in image and video data has become an important subject since cameras are being installed in an increasing number of public and private spaces. Specifically, in assisted living, intelligent monitoring based on computer vision can allow one to provide risk detection and support services that increase people's autonomy at home. In the present work, a level-based visualisation scheme is proposed to provide visual privacy when human intervention is necessary, such as at telerehabilitation and safety assessment applications. Visualisation levels are dynamically selected based on the previously modelled context. In this way, different levels of protection can be provided, maintaining the necessary intelligibility required for the applications. Furthermore, a case study of a living room, where a top-view camera is installed, is presented. Finally, the performed survey-based evaluation indicates the degree of protection provided by the different visualisation models, as well as the personal privacy preferences and valuations of the users. PMID:26053746

Personalized Health Monitoring System for Managing Well-Being in Rural Areas.

PubMed

Nedungadi, Prema; Jayakumar, Akshay; Raman, Raghu

2017-12-14

Rural India lacks easy access to health practitioners and medical centers, depending instead on community health workers. In these areas, common ailments that are easy to manage with medicines, often lead to medical escalations and even fatalities due to lack of awareness and delayed diagnosis. The introduction of wearable health devices has made it easier to monitor health conditions and to connect doctors and patients in urban areas. However, existing initiatives have not succeeded in providing adequate health monitoring to rural and low-literate patients, as current methods are expensive, require consistent connectivity and expect literate users. Our design considerations address these concerns by providing low-cost medical devices connected to a low-cost health platform, along with personalized guidance based on patient physiological parameters in local languages, and alerts to medical practitioners in case of emergencies. This patient-centric integrated healthcare system is designed to manage the overall health of villagers with real-time health monitoring of patients, to offer guidance on preventive care, and to increase health awareness and self-monitoring at an affordable price. This personalized health monitoring system addresses the health-related needs in remote and rural areas by (1) empowering health workers in monitoring of basic health conditions for rural patients in order to prevent escalations, (2) personalized feedback regarding nutrition, exercise, diet, preventive Ayurveda care and yoga postures based on vital parameters and (3) reporting of patient data to the patient's health center with emergency alerts to doctor and patient. The system supports community health workers in the diagnostic procedure, management, and reporting of rural patients, and functions well even with only intermittent access to Internet.

Human Factors Feedback: Brain Acoustic Monitor

DTIC Science & Technology

2012-02-01

Microsoft Office Excel .................................................................12  iv 4.  Conclusions 13  5.  References 15  Appendix A...Panasonic Toughbook system. †Toughbook is registered trademark of Panasonic Corporation. ‡Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. 4...was preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP service pack 2 OS. This OS is widely used on IBM-style personal computers, and the BAM system did not

Management software for a universal device communication controller: application to monitoring and computerized infusions.

PubMed

Coussaert, E J; Cantraine, F R

1996-11-01

We designed a virtual device for a local area network observing, operating and connecting devices to a personal computer. To keep the widest field of application, we proceeded by using abstraction and specification rules of software engineering in the design and implementation of the hardware and software for the Infusion Monitor. We specially built a box of hardware to interface multiple medical instruments with different communication protocols to a PC via a single serial port. We called that box the Universal Device Communication Controller (UDCC). The use of the virtual device driver is illustrated by the Infusion Monitor implemented for the anaesthesia and intensive care workstation.

Developments of fast emittance monitors for ion sources at RCNP

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yorita, T., E-mail: yorita@rcnp.osaka-u.ac.jp; Hatanaka, K.; Fukuda, M.

2016-02-15

Recently, several developments of low energy beam transport line and its beam diagnostic systems have been performed to improve the injection efficiency of ion beam to azimuthally varying field cyclotron at Research Center for Nuclear Physics, Osaka University. One of those is the fast emittance monitor which can measure within several seconds for the efficient beam development and a Pepper-Pot Emittance Monitor (PPEM) has been developed. The PPEM consists of pepper-pot mask, multichannel plate, fluorescent screen, mirror, and CCD camera. The CCD image is taken via IEEE1394b to a personal computer and analyzed immediately and frequently, and then real timemore » measurement with about 2 Hz has been achieved.« less

A Fully Redundant On-Line Mass Spectrometer System Used to Monitor Cryogenic Fuel Leaks on the Space Shuttle

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Griffin, Timothy P.; Naylor, Guy R.; Haskell, William D.; Breznik, Greg S.; Mizell, Carolyn A.; Helms, William R.; Voska, N. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

An on-line gas monitoring system was developed to replace the older systems used to monitor for cryogenic leaks on the Space Shuttles before launch. The system uses a mass spectrometer to monitor multiple locations in the process, which allows the system to monitor all gas constituents of interest in a nearly simultaneous manner. The system is fully redundant and meets all requirements for ground support equipment (GSE). This includes ruggedness to withstand launch on the Mobile Launcher Platform (MLP), ease of operation, and minimal operator intervention. The system can be fully automated so that an operator is notified when an unusual situation or fault is detected. User inputs are through personal computer using mouse and keyboard commands. The graphical user for detecting cryogenic leaks, many other gas constituents could be monitored using the Hazardous Gas Detection System (HGDS) 2000.

Glucoweb: a case study of secure, remote biomonitoring and communication.

PubMed

Nigrin, D J; Kohane, I S

2000-01-01

As the Internet begins to play a greater role in many healthcare processes, it is inevitable that remote monitoring of patients' physiological parameters over the Internet will become increasingly commonplace. Internet-based communication between patients and their healthcare providers has already become prevalent, and has gained significant attention in terms of confidentiality issues. However, transmission of data directly from patients' physiological biomonitoring devices over the Web has garnered significantly less focus, especially in the area of authentication and security. In this paper, we describe a prototype system called Glucoweb, which allows patients with diabetes mellitus to transmit their self-monitored blood glucose data directly from their personal glucometer device to their diabetes care provider over the Internet. No customized software is necessary on the patient's computer, only a Web browser and active Internet connection. We use this example to highlight key authentication and security measures that should be considered for devices that transmit healthcare data to remote locations.

Pulsed laser fluorometry for environmental monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saunders, G. C.; Martin, J. C.; Jett, J. H.; Wilder, M. E.; Martinez, A.; Bentley, B. F.; Lopez, J.; Hutson, L.

A compact pulsed laser fluorometer has been incorporated into a continuous flow system developed to detect acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors and/or primary amine compounds in air and water. A pulsed nitrogen laser pumped dye laser excites fluorescent reactants which flow continuously through a quartz flow cell. Data are collected, analyzed, and displayed using a Macintosh II personal computer. For detection of cholinesterase inhibitors the fluorogenic substrate N methylindoxyl acetate is used to monitor the activity of immobilized enzyme. Presence of inhibitors results in a decrease of steady state fluorescence. Detection of compounds containing primary amines is based on their reaction with fluorescamine to rapidly produce intensely fluorescent products. Compounds of interest to our research were amino acids, peptides, and proteins. An increase in steady state fluorescence could be cause to evaluate the reasons for the change. The detection limit of the protein, bovine serum albumin (BSA) in water, is 10 ppT. Nebulized BSA concentrated by the LANL air sampler can be detected at sub ppT original air concentration.

Brain-Congruent Instruction: Does the Computer Make It Feasible?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stewart, William J.

1984-01-01

Based on the premise that computers could translate brain research findings into classroom practice, this article presents discoveries concerning human brain development, organization, and operation, and describes brain activity monitoring devices, brain function and structure variables, and a procedure for monitoring and analyzing brain activity…

Towards Intelligent Environments: An Augmented Reality–Brain–Machine Interface Operated with a See-Through Head-Mount Display

PubMed Central

Takano, Kouji; Hata, Naoki; Kansaku, Kenji

2011-01-01

The brain–machine interface (BMI) or brain–computer interface is a new interface technology that uses neurophysiological signals from the brain to control external machines or computers. This technology is expected to support daily activities, especially for persons with disabilities. To expand the range of activities enabled by this type of interface, here, we added augmented reality (AR) to a P300-based BMI. In this new system, we used a see-through head-mount display (HMD) to create control panels with flicker visual stimuli to support the user in areas close to controllable devices. When the attached camera detects an AR marker, the position and orientation of the marker are calculated, and the control panel for the pre-assigned appliance is created by the AR system and superimposed on the HMD. The participants were required to control system-compatible devices, and they successfully operated them without significant training. Online performance with the HMD was not different from that using an LCD monitor. Posterior and lateral (right or left) channel selections contributed to operation of the AR–BMI with both the HMD and LCD monitor. Our results indicate that AR–BMI systems operated with a see-through HMD may be useful in building advanced intelligent environments. PMID:21541307

IT Security Support for the Spaceport Command Control System Development

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Varise, Brian

2014-01-01

My job title is IT Security support for the Spaceport Command & Control System Development. As a cyber-security analyst it is my job to ensure NASA's information stays safe from cyber threats, such as, viruses, malware and denial-of-service attacks by establishing and enforcing system access controls. Security is very important in the world of technology and it is used everywhere from personal computers to giant networks ran by Government agencies worldwide. Without constant monitoring analysis, businesses, public organizations and government agencies are vulnerable to potential harmful infiltration of their computer information system. It is my responsibility to ensure authorized access by examining improper access, reporting violations, revoke access, monitor information request by new programming and recommend improvements. My department oversees the Launch Control System and networks. An audit will be conducted for the LCS based on compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I recently finished analyzing the SANS top 20 critical controls to give cost effective recommendations on various software and hardware products for compliance. Upon my completion of this internship, I will have successfully completed my duties as well as gain knowledge that will be helpful to my career in the future as a Cyber Security Analyst.

Games as Artistic Medium: Interfacing Complexity Theory in Game-Based Art Pedagogy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Patton, Ryan Matthew

2011-01-01

Having computer skills, let alone access to a personal computer, has become a necessary component of contemporary Western society and many parts of the world. Digital media literacy involves youth being able to view, participate in, and make creative works with technologies in personal and meaningful ways. Games, defined in this study as…

Computational metrology: enabling full-lot high-density fingerprint information without adding wafer metrology budget, and driving improved monitoring and process control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Hyun-Sok; Hyun, Min-Sung; Ju, Jae-Wuk; Kim, Young-Sik; Lambregts, Cees; van Rhee, Peter; Kim, Johan; McNamara, Elliott; Tel, Wim; Böcker, Paul; Oh, Nang-Lyeom; Lee, Jun-Hyung

2018-03-01

Computational metrology has been proposed as the way forward to resolve the need for increased metrology density, resulting from extending correction capabilities, without adding actual metrology budget. By exploiting TWINSCAN based metrology information, dense overlay fingerprints for every wafer can be computed. This extended metrology dataset enables new use cases, such as monitoring and control based on fingerprints for every wafer of the lot. This paper gives a detailed description, discusses the accuracy of the fingerprints computed, and will show results obtained in a DRAM HVM manufacturing environment. Also an outlook for improvements and extensions will be shared.

Predicting adult pulmonary ventilation volume and wearing complianceby on-board accelerometry during personal level exposure assessments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rodes, C. E.; Chillrud, S. N.; Haskell, W. L.; Intille, S. S.; Albinali, F.; Rosenberger, M. E.

2012-09-01

BackgroundMetabolic functions typically increase with human activity, but optimal methods to characterize activity levels for real-time predictions of ventilation volume (l min-1) during exposure assessments have not been available. Could tiny, triaxial accelerometers be incorporated into personal level monitors to define periods of acceptable wearing compliance, and allow the exposures (μg m-3) to be extended to potential doses in μg min-1 kg-1 of body weight? ObjectivesIn a pilot effort, we tested: 1) whether appropriately-processed accelerometer data could be utilized to predict compliance and in linear regressions to predict ventilation volumes in real-time as an on-board component of personal level exposure sensor systems, and 2) whether locating the exposure monitors on the chest in the breathing zone, provided comparable accelerometric data to other locations more typically utilized (waist, thigh, wrist, etc.). MethodsPrototype exposure monitors from RTI International and Columbia University were worn on the chest by a pilot cohort of adults while conducting an array of scripted activities (all <10 METS), spanning common recumbent, sedentary, and ambulatory activity categories. Referee Wocket accelerometers that were placed at various body locations allowed comparison with the chest-located exposure sensor accelerometers. An Oxycon Mobile mask was used to measure oral-nasal ventilation volumes in-situ. For the subset of participants with complete data (n = 22), linear regressions were constructed (processed accelerometric variable versus ventilation rate) for each participant and exposure monitor type, and Pearson correlations computed to compare across scenarios. ResultsTriaxial accelerometer data were demonstrated to be adequately sensitive indicators for predicting exposure monitor wearing compliance. Strong linear correlations (R values from 0.77 to 0.99) were observed for all participants for both exposure sensor accelerometer variables against ventilation volume for recumbent, sedentary, and ambulatory activities with MET values ˜<6. The RTI monitors mean R value of 0.91 was slightly higher than the Columbia monitors mean of 0.86 due to utilizing a 20 Hz data rate instead of a slower 1 Hz rate. A nominal mean regression slope was computed for the RTI system across participants and showed a modest RSD of +/-36.6%. Comparison of the correlation values of the exposure monitors with the Wocket accelerometers at various body locations showed statistically identical regressions for all sensors at alternate hip, ankle, upper arm, thigh, and pocket locations, but not for the Wocket accelerometer located at the dominant side wrist location (R = 0.57; p = 0.016). ConclusionsEven with a modest number of adult volunteers, the consistency and linearity of regression slopes for all subjects were very good with excellent within-person Pearson correlations for the accelerometer versus ventilation volume data. Computing accelerometric standard deviations allowed good sensitivity for compliance assessments even for sedentary activities. These pilot findings supported the hypothesis that a common linear regression is likely to be usable for a wider range of adults to predict ventilation volumes from accelerometry data over a range of low to moderate energy level activities. The predicted volumes would then allow real-time estimates of potential dose, enabling more robust panel studies. The poorer correlation in predicting ventilation rate for an accelerometer located on the wrist suggested that this location should not be considered for predictions of ventilation volume.

[Economic efficiency of computer monitoring of health].

PubMed

Il'icheva, N P; Stazhadze, L L

2001-01-01

Presents the method of computer monitoring of health, based on utilization of modern information technologies in public health. The method helps organize preventive activities of an outpatient clinic at a high level and essentially decrease the time and money loss. Efficiency of such preventive measures, increased number of computer and Internet users suggests that such methods are promising and further studies in this field are needed.

Research of pulse signal processing based on sleep-monitoring alarm system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Kaisheng; Zeng, Yuan

2009-07-01

From pulse diagnosis of Chinese herbalist doctor to the research of cardiovascular system by modem iatrology,they all have showed and proved that human pulse has a good affinity with diseases,especially cardiovascular diseases. Human pulse contains much physical information, and it will be propitious to know the human healthy state early so as to get therapy and recovery early when pulse signal is often detected and analyzed. study how to use the embedded microcontroller to transmit physiological signal from human to personal computer by infrared communication, and the normal sphygmic parameter in one's sleeping is compared with the one measured in order to judge whether one's sleeping condition is normal, finally ascertain the best control plan.

Developing Educational Computer Animation Based on Human Personality Types

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Musa, Sajid; Ziatdinov, Rushan; Sozcu, Omer Faruk; Griffiths, Carol

2015-01-01

Computer animation in the past decade has become one of the most noticeable features of technology-based learning environments. By its definition, it refers to simulated motion pictures showing movement of drawn objects, and is often defined as the art in movement. Its educational application known as educational computer animation is considered…

Design and Implementation of an MC68020-Based Educational Computer Board

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-12-01

device and the other for a Macintosh personal computer. A stored program can be installed in 8K bytes Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM) to initialize...MHz. It includes four * Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) chips which provide a storage of 32K bytes. Two Programmable Array Logic (PAL) chips...device and the other for a Macintosh personal computer. A stored program can be installed in 8K bytes Programmable Read Only Memory (PROM) to

Data base development and research and editorial support

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1988-01-01

The Life Sciences Bibliographic Data Base was created in 1981 and subsequently expanded. A systematic, professional system was developed to collect, organize, and disseminate information about scientific publications resulting from research. The data base consists of bibliographic information and hard copies of all research papers published by Life Sciences-supported investigators. Technical improvements were instituted in the database. To minimize costs, take advantage of advances in personal computer technology, and achieve maximum flexibility and control, the data base was transferred from the JSC computer to personal computers at George Washington University (GWU). GWU also performed a range of related activities such as conducting in-depth searches on a variety of subjects, retrieving scientific literature, preparing presentations, summarizing research progress, answering correspondence requiring reference support, and providing writing and editorial support.

Incorporating CLIPS into a personal-computer-based Intelligent Tutoring System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mueller, Stephen J.

1990-01-01

A large number of Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS's) have been built since they were first proposed in the early 1970's. Research conducted on the use of the best of these systems has demonstrated their effectiveness in tutoring in selected domains. Computer Sciences Corporation, Applied Technology Division, Houston Operations has been tasked by the Spacecraft Software Division at NASA/Johnson Space Center (NASA/JSC) to develop a number of lTS's in a variety of domains and on many different platforms. This paper will address issues facing the development of an ITS on a personal computer using the CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) language. For an ITS to be widely accepted, not only must it be effective, flexible, and very responsive, it must also be capable of functioning on readily available computers. There are many issues to consider when using CLIPS to develop an ITS on a personal computer. Some of these issues are the following: when to use CLIPS and when to use a procedural language such as C, how to maximize speed and minimize memory usage, and how to decrease the time required to load your rule base once you are ready to deliver the system. Based on experiences in developing the CLIPS Intelligent Tutoring System (CLIPSITS) on an IBM PC clone and an intelligent Physics Tutor on a Macintosh 2, this paper reports results on how to address some of these issues. It also suggests approaches for maintaining a powerful learning environment while delivering robust performance within the speed and memory constraints of the personal computer.

Automated Instructional Monitors for Complex Operational Tasks. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Feurzeig, Wallace

A computer-based instructional system is described which incorporates diagnosis of students difficulties in acquiring complex concepts and skills. A computer automatically generated a simulated display. It then monitored and analyzed a student's work in the performance of assigned training tasks. Two major tasks were studied. The first,…

Expertise transfer for expert system design

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Boose, J.H.

This book is about the Expertise Transfer System-a computer program which interviews experts and helps them build expert systems, i.e. computer programs that use knowledge from experts to make decisions and judgements under conditions of uncertainty. The techniques are useful to anyone who uses decision-making information based on the expertise of others. The methods can also be applied to personal decision-making. The interviewing methodology is borrowed from a branch of psychology called Personal Construct Theory. It is not necessary to use a computer to take advantage of the techniques from Personal Construction Theory; the fundamental procedures used by the Expertisemore » Transfer System can be performed using paper and pencil. It is not necessary that the reader understand very much about computers to understand the ideas in this book. The few relevant concepts from computer science and expert systems that are needed are explained in a straightforward manner. Ideas from Personal Construct Psychology are also introduced as needed.« less

Dynamic Computation Offloading for Low-Power Wearable Health Monitoring Systems.

PubMed

Kalantarian, Haik; Sideris, Costas; Mortazavi, Bobak; Alshurafa, Nabil; Sarrafzadeh, Majid

2017-03-01

The objective of this paper is to describe and evaluate an algorithm to reduce power usage and increase battery lifetime for wearable health-monitoring devices. We describe a novel dynamic computation offloading scheme for real-time wearable health monitoring devices that adjusts the partitioning of data processing between the wearable device and mobile application as a function of desired classification accuracy. By making the correct offloading decision based on current system parameters, we show that we are able to reduce system power by as much as 20%. We demonstrate that computation offloading can be applied to real-time monitoring systems, and yields significant power savings. Making correct offloading decisions for health monitoring devices can extend battery life and improve adherence.

Effects of ventilation rate per person and per floor area on perceived air quality, sick building syndrome symptoms, and decision-making.

PubMed

Maddalena, R; Mendell, M J; Eliseeva, K; Chan, W R; Sullivan, D P; Russell, M; Satish, U; Fisk, W J

2015-08-01

Ventilation rates (VRs) in buildings must adequately control indoor levels of pollutants; however, VRs are constrained by the energy costs. Experiments in a simulated office assessed the effects of VR per occupant on perceived air quality (PAQ), Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms, and decision-making performance. A parallel set of experiments assessed the effects of VR per unit floor area on the same outcomes. Sixteen blinded healthy young adult subjects participated in each study. Each exposure lasted four hours and each subject experienced two conditions in a within-subject study design. The order of presentation of test conditions, day of testing, and gender were balanced. Temperature, relative humidity, VRs, and concentrations of pollutants were monitored. Online surveys assessed PAQ and SBS symptoms and a validated computer-based tool measured decision-making performance. Neither changing the VR per person nor changing the VR per floor area, had consistent statistically significant effects on PAQ or SBS symptoms. However, reductions in either occupant-based VR or floor-area-based VR had a significant and independent negative impact on most decision-making measures. These results indicate that the changes in VR employed in the study influence performance of healthy young adults even when PAQ and SBS symptoms are unaffected. The study results indicate the importance of avoiding low VRs per person and low VRs per floor area to minimize decrements in cognitive performance. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Comparative study of methods for recognition of an unknown person's action from a video sequence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hori, Takayuki; Ohya, Jun; Kurumisawa, Jun

2009-02-01

This paper proposes a Tensor Decomposition Based method that can recognize an unknown person's action from a video sequence, where the unknown person is not included in the database (tensor) used for the recognition. The tensor consists of persons, actions and time-series image features. For the observed unknown person's action, one of the actions stored in the tensor is assumed. Using the motion signature obtained from the assumption, the unknown person's actions are synthesized. The actions of one of the persons in the tensor are replaced by the synthesized actions. Then, the core tensor for the replaced tensor is computed. This process is repeated for the actions and persons. For each iteration, the difference between the replaced and original core tensors is computed. The assumption that gives the minimal difference is the action recognition result. For the time-series image features to be stored in the tensor and to be extracted from the observed video sequence, the human body silhouette's contour shape based feature is used. To show the validity of our proposed method, our proposed method is experimentally compared with Nearest Neighbor rule and Principal Component analysis based method. Experiments using 33 persons' seven kinds of action show that our proposed method achieves better recognition accuracies for the seven actions than the other methods.

Historical review of computer-assisted cognitive retraining.

PubMed

Lynch, Bill

2002-10-01

This article details the introduction and development of the use of microcomputers as adjuncts to traditional cognitive rehabilitation of persons with acquired brain injury. The initial application of video games as therapeutic recreation in the late 1970s was soon followed in the early 1980s by the use of the first personal computers and available educational software. By the mid-1980s, both the IBM PC and Macintosh platforms were established, along with simplified programming languages that allowed individuals without extensive technical expertise to develop their own software. Several rehabilitation clinicians began to produce and market specially written cognitive retraining software for one or the other platform. Their work was detailed and reviewed, as was recently released software from commercial sources. The latter discussion included the latest developments in the rehabilitation applications of personal digital assistants and related organizing, reminding, and dictation devices. A summary of research on the general and specific efficacy of computer-assisted cognitive retraining illustrated the lingering controversy and skepticism that have been associated with this field since its inception. Computer-assisted cognitive retraining (CACR) can be an effective adjunct to a comprehensive program of cognitive rehabilitation. Training needs to be focused, structured, monitored, and as ecologically relevant as possible for optimum effect. Transfer or training or generalizability of skills remains a key issue in the field and should be considered the key criterion in evaluating whether to initiate or continue CACR.

An adaptive Kalman filter technique for context-aware heart rate monitoring.

PubMed

Xu, Min; Goldfain, Albert; Dellostritto, Jim; Iyengar, Satish

2012-01-01

Traditional physiological monitoring systems convert a person's vital sign waveforms, such as heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure, into meaningful information by comparing the instant reading with a preset threshold or a baseline without considering the contextual information of the person. It would be beneficial to incorporate the contextual data such as activity status of the person to the physiological data in order to obtain a more accurate representation of a person's physiological status. In this paper, we proposed an algorithm based on adaptive Kalman filter that describes the heart rate response with respect to different activity levels. It is towards our final goal of intelligent detection of any abnormality in the person's vital signs. Experimental results are provided to demonstrate the feasibility of the algorithm.

[Registration technology for mandibular angle osteotomy based on augmented reality].

PubMed

Zhu, Ming; Chai, Gang; Zhang, Yan; Ma, Xiao-Fei; Yu, Zhe-Yuan; Zhu, Yi-Jia

2010-12-01

To establish an effective path to register the operative plan to the real model of mandible made by rapid prototyping (RP) technology. Computerize tomography (CT) was performed on 20 patients to create 3D images, and computer aided operation planning information can be merged with the 3D images. Then dental cast was used to fix the signal which can be recognized by the software. The dental cast was transformed to 3D data with a laser scanner and a programmer that run on a personal computer named Rapidform matching the dental cast and the mandible image to generate the virtual image. Then the registration was achieved by video monitoring system. By using this technology, the virtual image of mandible and the cutting planes both can overlay the real model of mandible made by RP. This study found an effective way for registration by using dental cast, and this way might be a powerful option for the registration of augmented reality. Supported by Program for Innovation Research Team of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.

The monitoring and managing application of cloud computing based on Internet of Things.

PubMed

Luo, Shiliang; Ren, Bin

2016-07-01

Cloud computing and the Internet of Things are the two hot points in the Internet application field. The application of the two new technologies is in hot discussion and research, but quite less on the field of medical monitoring and managing application. Thus, in this paper, we study and analyze the application of cloud computing and the Internet of Things on the medical field. And we manage to make a combination of the two techniques in the medical monitoring and managing field. The model architecture for remote monitoring cloud platform of healthcare information (RMCPHI) was established firstly. Then the RMCPHI architecture was analyzed. Finally an efficient PSOSAA algorithm was proposed for the medical monitoring and managing application of cloud computing. Simulation results showed that our proposed scheme can improve the efficiency about 50%. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Software For Monitoring A Computer Network

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lee, Young H.

1992-01-01

SNMAT is rule-based expert-system computer program designed to assist personnel in monitoring status of computer network and identifying defective computers, workstations, and other components of network. Also assists in training network operators. Network for SNMAT located at Space Flight Operations Center (SFOC) at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Intended to serve as data-reduction system providing windows, menus, and graphs, enabling users to focus on relevant information. SNMAT expected to be adaptable to other computer networks; for example in management of repair, maintenance, and security, or in administration of planning systems, billing systems, or archives.

Implementation of an advanced clinical and administrative hospital information system.

PubMed

Vegoda, P R; Dyro, J F

1986-01-01

Over the last six years since University Hospital opened, the University Hospital Information System (UHIS) has continued to evolve to what is today an advanced administrative and clinical information system. At University Hospital UHIS is the way of conducting business. A wide range of patient care applications are operational including Patient Registration, ADT for Inpatient/Outpatient/Emergency Room visits, Advanced Order Entry/Result Reporting, Medical Records, Lab Automated Data Acquisition/Quality Control, Pharmacy, Radiology, Dietary, Respiratory Therapy, ECG, EEG, Cardiology, Physical/Occupational Therapy and Nursing. These systems and numerous financial systems have been installed in a highly tuned, efficient computer system. All applications are real-time, on-line, and data base oriented. Each system is provided with multiple data security levels, forward file recovery, and dynamic transaction backout of in-flight tasks. Sensitive medical information is safeguarded by job function passwords, identification codes, need-to-know master screens and terminal keylocks. University Hospital has an IBM 3083 CPU with five 3380 disk drives, four dual density tape drives, and a 3705 network controller. The network of 300 terminals and 100 printers is connected to the computer center by an RF broadband cable. The software is configured around the IBM/MVS operating system using CICS as the telecommunication monitor, IMS as the data base management system and PCS/ADS as the application enabling tool. The most extensive clinical system added to UHIS is the Physiological Monitoring/Patient Data Management System with serves 92 critical care beds. In keeping with the Hospital's philosophy of integrated computing, the PMS/PDMS with its network of minicomputers was linked to the UHIS system. In a pilot program, remote access to UHIS through the IBM personal computer has been implemented in several physician offices in the local community, further extending the communications horizons of University Hospital's Information System. The implications of remote access to PDMS through the IBM PC emulating a Siemens Model 420 Patient Data Management Terminal are being examined.

Ultra Low Power Signal Oriented Approach for Wireless Health Monitoring

PubMed Central

Marinkovic, Stevan; Popovici, Emanuel

2012-01-01

In recent years there is growing pressure on the medical sector to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving the quality of care. A potential solution to this problem is real time and/or remote patient monitoring by using mobile devices. To achieve this, medical sensors with wireless communication, computational and energy harvesting capabilities are networked on, or in, the human body forming what is commonly called a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). We present the implementation of a novel Wake Up Receiver (WUR) in the context of standardised wireless protocols, in a signal-oriented WBAN environment and present a novel protocol intended for wireless health monitoring (WhMAC). WhMAC is a TDMA-based protocol with very low power consumption. It utilises WBAN-specific features and a novel ultra low power wake up receiver technology, to achieve flexible and at the same time very low power wireless data transfer of physiological signals. As the main application is in the medical domain, or personal health monitoring, the protocol caters for different types of medical sensors. We define four sensor modes, in which the sensors can transmit data, depending on the sensor type and emergency level. A full power dissipation model is provided for the protocol, with individual hardware and application parameters. Finally, an example application shows the reduction in the power consumption for different data monitoring scenarios. PMID:22969379

Ultra low power signal oriented approach for wireless health monitoring.

PubMed

Marinkovic, Stevan; Popovici, Emanuel

2012-01-01

In recent years there is growing pressure on the medical sector to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving the quality of care. A potential solution to this problem is real time and/or remote patient monitoring by using mobile devices. To achieve this, medical sensors with wireless communication, computational and energy harvesting capabilities are networked on, or in, the human body forming what is commonly called a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). We present the implementation of a novel Wake Up Receiver (WUR) in the context of standardised wireless protocols, in a signal-oriented WBAN environment and present a novel protocol intended for wireless health monitoring (WhMAC). WhMAC is a TDMA-based protocol with very low power consumption. It utilises WBAN-specific features and a novel ultra low power wake up receiver technology, to achieve flexible and at the same time very low power wireless data transfer of physiological signals. As the main application is in the medical domain, or personal health monitoring, the protocol caters for different types of medical sensors. We define four sensor modes, in which the sensors can transmit data, depending on the sensor type and emergency level. A full power dissipation model is provided for the protocol, with individual hardware and application parameters. Finally, an example application shows the reduction in the power consumption for different data monitoring scenarios.

Terrace Layout Using a Computer Assisted System

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Development of a web-based terrace design tool based on the MOTERR program is presented, along with representative layouts for conventional and parallel terrace systems. Using digital elevation maps and geographic information systems (GIS), this tool utilizes personal computers to rapidly construct ...

Microenvironmental characteristics important for personal exposures to aldehydes in Sacramento, CA, and Milwaukee, WI

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raymer, J. H.; Akland, G.; Johnson, T. R.; Long, T.; Michael, L.; Cauble, L.; McCombs, M.

Oxygenated additives in gasoline are designed to decrease the ozone-forming hydrocarbons and total air toxics, yet they can increase the emissions of aldehydes and thus increase human exposure to these toxic compounds. This paper describes a study conducted to characterize targeted aldehydes in microenvironments in Sacramento, CA, and Milwaukee, WI, and to improve our understanding of the impact of the urban environment on human exposure to air toxics. Data were obtained from microenvironmental concentration measurements, integrated, 24-h personal measurements, indoor and outdoor pollutant monitors at the participants' residences, from ambient pollutant monitors at fixed-site locations in each city, and from real-time diaries and questionnaires completed by the technicians and participants. As part of this study, a model to predict personal exposures based on individual time/activity data was developed for comparison to measured concentrations. Predicted concentrations were generally within 25% of the measured concentrations. The microenvironments that people encounter daily provide for widely varying exposures to aldehydes. The activities that occur in those microenvironments can modulate the aldehyde concentrations dramatically, especially for environments such as "indoor at home." By considering personal activity, location (microenvironment), duration in the microenvironment, and a knowledge of the general concentrations of aldehydes in the various microenvironments, a simple model can do a reasonably good job of predicting the time-averaged personal exposures to aldehydes, even in the absence of monitoring data. Although concentrations of aldehydes measured indoors at the participants' homes tracked well with personal exposure, there were instances where personal exposures and indoor concentrations differed significantly. Key to the ability to predict exposure based on time/activity data is the quality and completeness of the microenvironmental characterizations for the chemicals of interest. Consistent with many earlier studies, personal exposures are difficult to predict using data from regional outdoor monitors.

Learning Tools for Knowledge Nomads: Using Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) in Web-based Learning Environments.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loh, Christian Sebastian

2001-01-01

Examines how mobile computers, or personal digital assistants (PDAs), can be used in a Web-based learning environment. Topics include wireless networks on college campuses; online learning; Web-based learning technologies; synchronous and asynchronous communication via the Web; content resources; Web connections; and collaborative learning. (LRW)

Computer-Based Video Instruction To Teach Persons with Moderate Intellectual Disabilities To Read Grocery Aisle Signs and Locate Items.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mechling, Linda C.; Gast, David L.; Langone, John

2002-01-01

A study evaluated use of computer-based video instruction to teach generalized reading of grocery store aisle signs and the location of the corresponding grocery items to four students (ages 9-17) mental retardation. The computer-based video program was successful in teaching generalized reading of signs and the location of items. (Contains…

A PC-Based Controller for Dextrous Arms

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fiorini, Paolo; Seraji, Homayoun; Long, Mark

1996-01-01

This paper describes the architecture and performance of a PC-based controller for 7-DOF dextrous manipulators. The computing platform is a 486-based personal computer equipped with a bus extender to access the robot Multibus controller, together with a single board computer as the graphical engine, and with a parallel I/O board to interface with a force-torque sensor mounted on the manipulator wrist.

Two Persons with Multiple Disabilities Use Camera-Based Microswitch Technology to Control Stimulation with Small Mouth and Eyelid Responses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lancioni, Giulio E.; Bellini, Domenico; Oliva, Doretta; Singh, Nirbhay N.; O'Reilly, Mark F.; Sigafoos, Jeff; Lang, Russell

2012-01-01

Background: A camera-based microswitch technology was recently developed to monitor small facial responses of persons with multiple disabilities and allow those responses to control environmental stimulation. This study assessed such a technology with 2 new participants using slight variations of previous responses. Method: The technology involved…

Validation of the Physical Activity Scale for individuals with physical disabilities.

PubMed

van den Berg-Emons, Rita J; L'Ortye, Annemiek A; Buffart, Laurien M; Nieuwenhuijsen, Channah; Nooijen, Carla F; Bergen, Michael P; Stam, Henk J; Bussmann, Johannes B

2011-06-01

To determine the criterion validity of the Physical Activity Scale for Individuals With Physical Disabilities (PASIPD) by means of daily physical activity levels measured by using a validated accelerometry-based activity monitor in a large group of persons with a physical disability. Cross-sectional. Participants' home environment. Ambulatory and nonambulatory persons with cerebral palsy, meningomyelocele, or spinal cord injury (N=124). Not applicable. Self-reported physical activity level measured by using the PASIPD, a 2-day recall questionnaire, was correlated to objectively measured physical activity level measured by using a validated accelerometry-based activity monitor. Significant Spearman correlation coefficients between the PASIPD and activity monitor outcome measures ranged from .22 to .37. The PASIPD overestimated the duration of physical activity measured by using the activity monitor (mean ± SD, 3.9±2.9 vs 1.5±0.9h/d; P<.01). Significant correlation (ρ=-.74; P<.01) was found between average number of hours of physical activity per day measured by using the 2 methods and difference in hours between methods. This indicates larger overestimation for persons with higher activity levels. The PASIPD correlated poorly with objective measurements using an accelerometry-based activity monitor in people with a physical disability. However, similar low correlations between objective and subjective activity measurements have been found in the general population. Users of the PASIPD should be cautious about overestimating physical activity levels. Copyright © 2011 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automating ATLAS Computing Operations using the Site Status Board

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

J, Andreeva; Iglesias C, Borrego; S, Campana; Girolamo A, Di; I, Dzhunov; Curull X, Espinal; S, Gayazov; E, Magradze; M, Nowotka M.; L, Rinaldi; P, Saiz; J, Schovancova; A, Stewart G.; M, Wright

2012-12-01

The automation of operations is essential to reduce manpower costs and improve the reliability of the system. The Site Status Board (SSB) is a framework which allows Virtual Organizations to monitor their computing activities at distributed sites and to evaluate site performance. The ATLAS experiment intensively uses the SSB for the distributed computing shifts, for estimating data processing and data transfer efficiencies at a particular site, and for implementing automatic exclusion of sites from computing activities, in case of potential problems. The ATLAS SSB provides a real-time aggregated monitoring view and keeps the history of the monitoring metrics. Based on this history, usability of a site from the perspective of ATLAS is calculated. The paper will describe how the SSB is integrated in the ATLAS operations and computing infrastructure and will cover implementation details of the ATLAS SSB sensors and alarm system, based on the information in the SSB. It will demonstrate the positive impact of the use of the SSB on the overall performance of ATLAS computing activities and will overview future plans.

Monitoring minimization of grade B environments based on risk assessment using three-dimensional airflow measurements and computer simulation.

PubMed

Katayama, Hirohito; Higo, Takashi; Tokunaga, Yuji; Katoh, Shigeo; Hiyama, Yukio; Morikawa, Kaoru

2008-01-01

A practical, risk-based monitoring approach using the combined data collected from actual experiments and computer simulations was developed for the qualification of an EU GMP Annex 1 Grade B, ISO Class 7 area. This approach can locate and minimize the representative number of sampling points used for microbial contamination risk assessment. We conducted a case study on an aseptic clean room, newly constructed and specifically designed for the use of a restricted access barrier system (RABS). Hotspots were located using three-dimensional airflow analysis based on a previously published empirical measurement method, the three-dimensional airflow analysis. Local mean age of air (LMAA) values were calculated based on computer simulations. Comparable results were found using actual measurements and simulations, demonstrating the potential usefulness of such tools in estimating contamination risks based on the airflow characteristics of a clean room. Intensive microbial monitoring and particle monitoring at the Grade B environmental qualification stage, as well as three-dimensional airflow analysis, were also conducted to reveal contamination hotspots. We found representative hotspots were located at perforated panels covering the air exhausts where the major piston airflows collect in the Grade B room, as well as at any locations within the room that were identified as having stagnant air. However, we also found that the floor surface air around the exit airway of the RABS EU GMP Annex 1 Grade A, ISO Class 5 area was always remarkably clean, possibly due to the immediate sweep of the piston airflow, which prevents dispersed human microbes from falling in a Stokes-type manner on settling plates placed on the floor around the Grade A exit airway. In addition, this airflow is expected to be clean with a significantly low LMAA. Based on these observed results, we propose a simplified daily monitoring program to monitor microbial contamination in Grade B environments. To locate hotspots we propose using a combination of computer simulation, actual airflow measurements, and intensive environmental monitoring at the qualification stage. Thereafter, instead of particle or microbial air monitoring, we recommend the use of microbial surface monitoring at the main air exhaust. These measures would be sufficient to assure the efficiency of the monitoring program, as well as to minimize the number of surface sampling points used in environments surrounding a RABS.

A trunk ranging system based on binocular stereo vision

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Xixuan; Kan, Jiangming

2017-07-01

Trunk ranging is an essential function for autonomous forestry robots. Traditional trunk ranging systems based on personal computers are not convenient in practical application. This paper examines the implementation of a trunk ranging system based on the binocular vision theory via TI's DaVinc DM37x system. The system is smaller and more reliable than that implemented using a personal computer. It calculates the three-dimensional information from the images acquired by binocular cameras, producing the targeting and ranging results. The experimental results show that the measurement error is small and the system design is feasible for autonomous forestry robots.

Preprototype vapor compression distillation subsystem. [recovering potable water from wastewater

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ellis, G. S.; Wynveen, R. A.; Schubert, F. H.

1979-01-01

A three-person capacity preprototype vapor compression distillation subsystem for recovering potable water from wastewater aboard spacecraft was designed, assembled, and tested. The major components of the subsystem are: (1) a distillation unit which includes a compressor, centrifuge, central shaft, and outer shell; (2) a purge pump; (3) a liquids pump; (4) a post-treat cartridge; (5) a recycle/filter tank; (6) an evaporator high liquid level sensor; and (7) the product water conductivity monitor. A computer based control monitor instrumentation carries out operating mode change sequences, monitors and displays subsystem parameters, maintains intramode controls, and stores and displays fault detection information. The mechanical hardware occupies 0.467 m3, requires 171 W of electrical power, and has a dry weight of 143 kg. The subsystem recovers potable water at a rate of 1.59 kg/hr, which is equivalent to a duty cycle of approximately 30% for a crew of three. The product water has no foul taste or odor. Continued development of the subsystem is recommended for reclaiming water for human consumption as well as for flash evaporator heat rejection, urinal flushing, washing, and other on-board water requirements.

Web-Based Mathematics Progress Monitoring in Second Grade

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Salaschek, Martin; Souvignier, Elmar

2014-01-01

We examined a web-based mathematics progress monitoring tool for second graders. The tool monitors the learning progress of two competences, number sense and computation. A total of 414 students from 19 classrooms in Germany were checked every 3 weeks from fall to spring. Correlational analyses indicate that alternate-form reliability was adequate…

Description of 'REQUEST-KYUSHYU' for KYUKEICHO regional data base

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Takimoto, Shin'ichi

Kyushu Economic Research Association (a foundational juridical person) initiated the regional database services, ' REQUEST-Kyushu ' recently. It is the full scale databases compiled based on the information and know-hows which the Association has accumulated over forty years. It covers the regional information database for journal and newspaper articles, and statistical information database for economic statistics. As to the former database it is searched on a personal computer and then a search result (original text) is sent through a facsimile. As to the latter, it is also searched on a personal computer where the data is processed, edited or downloaded. This paper describes characteristics, content and the system outline of 'REQUEST-Kyushu'.

Secondary Infections with Ebola Virus in Rural Communities, Liberia and Guinea, 2014-2015.

PubMed

Lindblade, Kim A; Nyenswah, Tolbert; Keita, Sakoba; Diallo, Boubakar; Kateh, Francis; Amoah, Aurora; Nagbe, Thomas K; Raghunathan, Pratima; Neatherlin, John C; Kinzer, Mike; Pillai, Satish K; Attfield, Kathleen R; Hajjeh, Rana; Dweh, Emmanuel; Painter, John; Barradas, Danielle T; Williams, Seymour G; Blackley, David J; Kirking, Hannah L; Patel, Monita R; Dea, Monica; Massoudi, Mehran S; Barskey, Albert E; Zarecki, Shauna L Mettee; Fomba, Moses; Grube, Steven; Belcher, Lisa; Broyles, Laura N; Maxwell, T Nikki; Hagan, Jose E; Yeoman, Kristin; Westercamp, Matthew; Mott, Joshua; Mahoney, Frank; Slutsker, Laurence; DeCock, Kevin M; Marston, Barbara; Dahl, Benjamin

2016-09-01

Persons who died of Ebola virus disease at home in rural communities in Liberia and Guinea resulted in more secondary infections than persons admitted to Ebola treatment units. Intensified monitoring of contacts of persons who died of this disease in the community is an evidence-based approach to reduce virus transmission in rural communities.

Interpreting text messages with graphic facial expression by deaf and hearing people.

PubMed

Saegusa, Chihiro; Namatame, Miki; Watanabe, Katsumi

2015-01-01

In interpreting verbal messages, humans use not only verbal information but also non-verbal signals such as facial expression. For example, when a person says "yes" with a troubled face, what he or she really means appears ambiguous. In the present study, we examined how deaf and hearing people differ in perceiving real meanings in texts accompanied by representations of facial expression. Deaf and hearing participants were asked to imagine that the face presented on the computer monitor was asked a question from another person (e.g., do you like her?). They observed either a realistic or a schematic face with a different magnitude of positive or negative expression on a computer monitor. A balloon that contained either a positive or negative text response to the question appeared at the same time as the face. Then, participants rated how much the individual on the monitor really meant it (i.e., perceived earnestness), using a 7-point scale. Results showed that the facial expression significantly modulated the perceived earnestness. The influence of positive expression on negative text responses was relatively weaker than that of negative expression on positive responses (i.e., "no" tended to mean "no" irrespective of facial expression) for both participant groups. However, this asymmetrical effect was stronger in the hearing group. These results suggest that the contribution of facial expression in perceiving real meanings from text messages is qualitatively similar but quantitatively different between deaf and hearing people.

Dynamic Enforcement of Knowledge-based Security Policies

DTIC Science & Technology

2011-04-05

foster and maintain relationships by sharing information with friends and fans. These services store users’ personal information and use it to customize...Facebook selects ads based on age, gender, and even sexual preference [2]. Unfortunately, once personal information is collected, users have limited...could use a storage server (e.g., running on their home network) that handles personal † University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science

Methods for Improving the User-Computer Interface. Technical Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCann, Patrick H.

This summary of methods for improving the user-computer interface is based on a review of the pertinent literature. Requirements of the personal computer user are identified and contrasted with computer designer perspectives towards the user. The user's psychological needs are described, so that the design of the user-computer interface may be…

Subtlenoise: sonification of distributed computing operations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Love, P. A.

2015-12-01

The operation of distributed computing systems requires comprehensive monitoring to ensure reliability and robustness. There are two components found in most monitoring systems: one being visually rich time-series graphs and another being notification systems for alerting operators under certain pre-defined conditions. In this paper the sonification of monitoring messages is explored using an architecture that fits easily within existing infrastructures based on mature opensource technologies such as ZeroMQ, Logstash, and Supercollider (a synth engine). Message attributes are mapped onto audio attributes based on broad classification of the message (continuous or discrete metrics) but keeping the audio stream subtle in nature. The benefits of audio rendering are described in the context of distributed computing operations and may provide a less intrusive way to understand the operational health of these systems.

Personalized glucose forecasting for type 2 diabetes using data assimilation

PubMed Central

Albers, David J.; Gluckman, Bruce; Ginsberg, Henry; Hripcsak, George; Mamykina, Lena

2017-01-01

Type 2 diabetes leads to premature death and reduced quality of life for 8% of Americans. Nutrition management is critical to maintaining glycemic control, yet it is difficult to achieve due to the high individual differences in glycemic response to nutrition. Anticipating glycemic impact of different meals can be challenging not only for individuals with diabetes, but also for expert diabetes educators. Personalized computational models that can accurately forecast an impact of a given meal on an individual’s blood glucose levels can serve as the engine for a new generation of decision support tools for individuals with diabetes. However, to be useful in practice, these computational engines need to generate accurate forecasts based on limited datasets consistent with typical self-monitoring practices of individuals with type 2 diabetes. This paper uses three forecasting machines: (i) data assimilation, a technique borrowed from atmospheric physics and engineering that uses Bayesian modeling to infuse data with human knowledge represented in a mechanistic model, to generate real-time, personalized, adaptable glucose forecasts; (ii) model averaging of data assimilation output; and (iii) dynamical Gaussian process model regression. The proposed data assimilation machine, the primary focus of the paper, uses a modified dual unscented Kalman filter to estimate states and parameters, personalizing the mechanistic models. Model selection is used to make a personalized model selection for the individual and their measurement characteristics. The data assimilation forecasts are empirically evaluated against actual postprandial glucose measurements captured by individuals with type 2 diabetes, and against predictions generated by experienced diabetes educators after reviewing a set of historical nutritional records and glucose measurements for the same individual. The evaluation suggests that the data assimilation forecasts compare well with specific glucose measurements and match or exceed in accuracy expert forecasts. We conclude by examining ways to present predictions as forecast-derived range quantities and evaluate the comparative advantages of these ranges. PMID:28448498

A vectorial semantics approach to personality assessment.

PubMed

Neuman, Yair; Cohen, Yochai

2014-04-23

Personality assessment and, specifically, the assessment of personality disorders have traditionally been indifferent to computational models. Computational personality is a new field that involves the automatic classification of individuals' personality traits that can be compared against gold-standard labels. In this context, we introduce a new vectorial semantics approach to personality assessment, which involves the construction of vectors representing personality dimensions and disorders, and the automatic measurements of the similarity between these vectors and texts written by human subjects. We evaluated our approach by using a corpus of 2468 essays written by students who were also assessed through the five-factor personality model. To validate our approach, we measured the similarity between the essays and the personality vectors to produce personality disorder scores. These scores and their correspondence with the subjects' classification of the five personality factors reproduce patterns well-documented in the psychological literature. In addition, we show that, based on the personality vectors, we can predict each of the five personality factors with high accuracy.

A Vectorial Semantics Approach to Personality Assessment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neuman, Yair; Cohen, Yochai

2014-04-01

Personality assessment and, specifically, the assessment of personality disorders have traditionally been indifferent to computational models. Computational personality is a new field that involves the automatic classification of individuals' personality traits that can be compared against gold-standard labels. In this context, we introduce a new vectorial semantics approach to personality assessment, which involves the construction of vectors representing personality dimensions and disorders, and the automatic measurements of the similarity between these vectors and texts written by human subjects. We evaluated our approach by using a corpus of 2468 essays written by students who were also assessed through the five-factor personality model. To validate our approach, we measured the similarity between the essays and the personality vectors to produce personality disorder scores. These scores and their correspondence with the subjects' classification of the five personality factors reproduce patterns well-documented in the psychological literature. In addition, we show that, based on the personality vectors, we can predict each of the five personality factors with high accuracy.

A Vectorial Semantics Approach to Personality Assessment

PubMed Central

Neuman, Yair; Cohen, Yochai

2014-01-01

Personality assessment and, specifically, the assessment of personality disorders have traditionally been indifferent to computational models. Computational personality is a new field that involves the automatic classification of individuals' personality traits that can be compared against gold-standard labels. In this context, we introduce a new vectorial semantics approach to personality assessment, which involves the construction of vectors representing personality dimensions and disorders, and the automatic measurements of the similarity between these vectors and texts written by human subjects. We evaluated our approach by using a corpus of 2468 essays written by students who were also assessed through the five-factor personality model. To validate our approach, we measured the similarity between the essays and the personality vectors to produce personality disorder scores. These scores and their correspondence with the subjects' classification of the five personality factors reproduce patterns well-documented in the psychological literature. In addition, we show that, based on the personality vectors, we can predict each of the five personality factors with high accuracy. PMID:24755833

Ultra-low power high precision magnetotelluric receiver array based customized computer and wireless sensor network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, R.; Xi, X.; Zhao, X.; He, L.; Yao, H.; Shen, R.

2016-12-01

Dense 3D magnetotelluric (MT) data acquisition owns the benefit of suppressing the static shift and topography effect, can achieve high precision and high resolution inversion for underground structure. This method may play an important role in mineral exploration, geothermal resources exploration, and hydrocarbon exploration. It's necessary to reduce the power consumption greatly of a MT signal receiver for large-scale 3D MT data acquisition while using sensor network to monitor data quality of deployed MT receivers. We adopted a series of technologies to realized above goal. At first, we designed an low-power embedded computer which can couple with other parts of MT receiver tightly and support wireless sensor network. The power consumption of our embedded computer is less than 1 watt. Then we designed 4-channel data acquisition subsystem which supports 24-bit analog-digital conversion, GPS synchronization, and real-time digital signal processing. Furthermore, we developed the power supply and power management subsystem for MT receiver. At last, a series of software, which support data acquisition, calibration, wireless sensor network, and testing, were developed. The software which runs on personal computer can monitor and control over 100 MT receivers on the field for data acquisition and quality control. The total power consumption of the receiver is about 2 watts at full operation. The standby power consumption is less than 0.1 watt. Our testing showed that the MT receiver can acquire good quality data at ground with electrical dipole length as 3 m. Over 100 MT receivers were made and used for large-scale geothermal exploration in China with great success.

An Ecological Framework for Cancer Communication: Implications for Research

PubMed Central

Intille, Stephen S; Zabinski, Marion F

2005-01-01

The field of cancer communication has undergone a major revolution as a result of the Internet. As recently as the early 1990s, face-to-face, print, and the telephone were the dominant methods of communication between health professionals and individuals in support of the prevention and treatment of cancer. Computer-supported interactive media existed, but this usually required sophisticated computer and video platforms that limited availability. The introduction of point-and-click interfaces for the Internet dramatically improved the ability of non-expert computer users to obtain and publish information electronically on the Web. Demand for Web access has driven computer sales for the home setting and improved the availability, capability, and affordability of desktop computers. New advances in information and computing technologies will lead to similarly dramatic changes in the affordability and accessibility of computers. Computers will move from the desktop into the environment and onto the body. Computers are becoming smaller, faster, more sophisticated, more responsive, less expensive, and—essentially—ubiquitous. Computers are evolving into much more than desktop communication devices. New computers include sensing, monitoring, geospatial tracking, just-in-time knowledge presentation, and a host of other information processes. The challenge for cancer communication researchers is to acknowledge the expanded capability of the Web and to move beyond the approaches to health promotion, behavior change, and communication that emerged during an era when language- and image-based interpersonal and mass communication strategies predominated. Ecological theory has been advanced since the early 1900s to explain the highly complex relationships among individuals, society, organizations, the built and natural environments, and personal and population health and well-being. This paper provides background on ecological theory, advances an Ecological Model of Internet-Based Cancer Communication intended to broaden the vision of potential uses of the Internet for cancer communication, and provides some examples of how such a model might inform future research and development in cancer communication. PMID:15998614

Direct Comparison of a Tablet Computer and a Personal Digital Assistant for Point-of-Care Documentation in Eye Care

PubMed Central

Silvey, Garry M.; Macri, Jennifer M.; Lee, Paul P.; Lobach, David F.

2005-01-01

New mobile computing devices including personal digital assistants (PDAs) and tablet computers have emerged to facilitate data collection at the point of care. Unfortunately, little research has been reported regarding which device is optimal for a given care setting. In this study we created and compared functionally identical applications on a Palm operating system-based PDA and a Windows-based tablet computer for point-of-care documentation of clinical observations by eye care professionals when caring for patients with diabetes. Eye-care professionals compared the devices through focus group sessions and through validated usability surveys. We found that the application on the tablet computer was preferred over the PDA for documenting the complex data related to eye care. Our findings suggest that the selection of a mobile computing platform depends on the amount and complexity of the data to be entered; the tablet computer functions better for high volume, complex data entry, and the PDA, for low volume, simple data entry. PMID:16779128

PC Tutor. Bericht uber ein PC-gestutzes Tutorensystem = PC Tutor. Report on a Tutoring System with Personal Computer. ZIFF Papiere 75.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fritsch, Helmut

A project was conducted to increase as well as to professionalize communication between tutors and learners in a West German university's distance education program by the use of personal computers. Two tutors worked on the systematic development of a PC-based correcting system. The goal, apart from developing general language skills in English,…

Increased Memory Load during Task Completion when Procedures Are Presented on Mobile Screens

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Byrd, Keena S.; Caldwell, Barrett S.

2011-01-01

The primary objective of this research was to compare procedure-based task performance using three common mobile screen sizes: ultra mobile personal computer (7 in./17.8 cm), personal data assistant (3.5 in./8.9 cm), and SmartPhone (2.8 in./7.1 cm). Subjects used these three screen sizes to view and execute a computer maintenance procedure.…

Prescription-event monitoring: developments in signal detection.

PubMed

Ferreira, Germano

2007-01-01

Prescription-event monitoring (PEM) is a non-interventional intensive method for post-marketing drug safety monitoring of newly licensed medicines. PEM studies are cohort studies where exposure is obtained from a centralised service and outcomes from simple questionnaires completed by general practitioners. Follow-up forms are sent for selected events. Because PEM captures all events and not only the suspected adverse drug reactions, PEM cohorts potentially differ in respect to the distribution of number of events per person depending on the nature of the drug under study. This variance can be related either with the condition for which the drug is prescribed (e.g. a condition causing high morbidity will have, in average, a higher number of events per person compared with a condition with lower morbidity) or with the drug effect itself. This paper describes an exploratory investigation of the distortion caused by product-related variations of the number of events to the interpretation of the proportional reporting ratio (PRR) values ("the higher the PRR, the greater the strength of the signal") computed using drug-cohort data. We studied this effect by assessing the agreement between the PRR based on events (event of interest vs all other events) and PRR based on cases (cases with the event of interest vs cases with any other events). PRR were calculated for all combinations reported to ten selected drugs against a comparator of 81 other drugs. Three of the ten drugs had a cohort with an apparent higher proportion of patients with lower number of events. The PRRs based on events were systematically higher than the PRR based on cases for the combinations reported to these three drugs. Additionally, when applying the threshold criteria for signal screening (n > or =3, PRR > or =1.5 and Chi-squared > or =4), the binary agreement was generally high but apparently lower for these three drugs. In conclusion, the distribution of events per patient in drug cohorts shall be examined when comparing the 'strength of the signals' across drugs using PRR values. Further research will be required to address the sensitivity and specificity of the two ways of calculating PRR using data derived from drug cohorts.

Automatic Recommendations for E-Learning Personalization Based on Web Usage Mining Techniques and Information Retrieval

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Khribi, Mohamed Koutheair; Jemni, Mohamed; Nasraoui, Olfa

2009-01-01

In this paper, we describe an automatic personalization approach aiming to provide online automatic recommendations for active learners without requiring their explicit feedback. Recommended learning resources are computed based on the current learner's recent navigation history, as well as exploiting similarities and dissimilarities among…

Novel use of a noninvasive hemodynamic monitor in a personalized, active learning simulation.

PubMed

Zoller, Jonathan K; He, Jianghua; Ballew, Angela T; Orr, Walter N; Flynn, Brigid C

2017-06-01

The present study furthered the concept of simulation-based medical education by applying a personalized active learning component. We tested this novel approach utilizing a noninvasive hemodynamic monitor with the capability to measure and display in real time numerous hemodynamic parameters in the exercising participant. Changes in medical knowledge concerning physiology were examined with a pre-and posttest. Simply by observation of one's own hemodynamic variables, the understanding of complex physiological concepts was significantly enhanced. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

University students' notebook computer use: lessons learned using e-diaries to report musculoskeletal discomfort.

PubMed

Jacobs, K; Foley, G; Punnett, L; Hall, V; Gore, R; Brownson, E; Ansong, E; Markowitz, J; McKinnon, M; Steinberg, S; Ing, A; Wuest, Ellen; Dibiccari, Leah

2011-02-01

The objective of this pilot study was to identify if notebook accessories (ergonomic chair, desktop monitor and notebook riser) combined with a wireless keyboard, mouse and participatory ergonomics training would have the greatest impact on reducing self-reported upper extremity musculoskeletal discomfort in university students. In addition to pre-post computing and health surveys, the Ecological Momentary Assessment was used to capture change in discomfort over time using a personal digital assistant (PDA) as the e-diary. The PDA was programmed with a survey containing 45 questions. Four groups of university students were randomised to either intervention (three external computer accessories) or to control. Participants reported less discomfort with the ergonomic chair and notebook riser based on the pre-post survey data and the e-diary/PDA ANOVA analysis. However, the PDA data, adjusted for the effect of hours per day of computer use, showed no benefit of the chair and limited benefit from the riser. Statement of Relevance:University students' use of notebook computers has increased. This study found evidence of a positive effect of an adjustable chair or notebook riser when combined with ergonomic training on reducing discomfort. Daily notebook computer use of 4 h was confirmed as a risk factor. Without some form of ergonomic intervention, these students are likely to enter the workforce with poor computing habits, which places them on the road to future injuries as technology continues to play a dominant role in their lives.

A personal computer-based, multitasking data acquisition system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Bailey, Steven A.

1990-01-01

A multitasking, data acquisition system was written to simultaneously collect meteorological radar and telemetry data from two sources. This system is based on the personal computer architecture. Data is collected via two asynchronous serial ports and is deposited to disk. The system is written in both the C programming language and assembler. It consists of three parts: a multitasking kernel for data collection, a shell with pull down windows as user interface, and a graphics processor for editing data and creating coded messages. An explanation of both system principles and program structure is presented.

Computer-generated graphical presentations: use of multimedia to enhance communication.

PubMed

Marks, L S; Penson, D F; Maller, J J; Nielsen, R T; deKernion, J B

1997-01-01

Personal computers may be used to create, store, and deliver graphical presentations. With computer-generated combinations of the five media (text, images, sound, video, and animation)--that is, multimedia presentations--the effectiveness of message delivery can be greatly increased. The basic tools are (1) a personal computer; (2) presentation software; and (3) a projector to enlarge the monitor images for audience viewing. Use of this new method has grown rapidly in the business-conference world, but has yet to gain widespread acceptance at medical meetings. We review herein the rationale for multimedia presentations in medicine (vis-à-vis traditional slide shows) as an improved means for increasing audience attention, comprehension, and retention. The evolution of multimedia is traced from earliest times to the present. The steps involved in making a multimedia presentation are summarized, emphasizing advances in technology that bring the new method within practical reach of busy physicians. Specific attention is given to software, digital image processing, storage devices, and delivery methods. Our development of a urology multimedia presentation--delivered May 4, 1996, before the Society for Urology and Engineering and now Internet-accessible at http://www.usrf.org--was the impetus for this work.

An Inexpensive High-Temporal Resolution Electronic Sun Journal for Monitoring Personal Day to Day Sun Exposure Patterns

PubMed Central

Downs, Nathan J.; Parisi, Alfio V.; Butler, Harry; Rawlings, Alex; Elrahoumi, Raja Salem

2017-01-01

Exposure to natural sunlight, specifically solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation contributes to lifetime risks of skin cancer, eye disease, and diseases associated with vitamin D insufficiency. Improved knowledge of personal sun exposure patterns can inform public health policy; and help target high-risk population groups. Subsequently, an extensive number of studies have been conducted to measure personal solar UV exposure in a variety of settings. Many of these studies, however, use digital or paper-based journals (self-reported volunteer recall), or employ cost prohibitive electronic UV dosimeters (that limit the size of sample populations), to estimate periods of exposure. A cost effective personal electronic sun journal (ESJ) built from readily available infrared photodiodes is presented in this research. The ESJ can be used to complement traditional UV dosimeters that measure total biologically effective exposure by providing a time-stamped sun exposure record. The ESJ can be easily attached to clothing and data logged to personal devices (including fitness monitors or smartphones). The ESJ improves upon self-reported exposure recording and is a cost effective high-temporal resolution option for monitoring personal sun exposure behavior in large population studies. PMID:29201865

Implementation of a Portable Personal EKG Signal Monitoring System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tan, Tan-Hsu; Chang, Ching-Su; Chen, Yung-Fu; Lee, Cheng

This research develops a portable personal EKG signal monitoring system to help patients monitor their EKG signals instantly to avoid the occurrence of tragedies. This system is built with two main units: signal pro-cessing unit and monitoring and evaluation unit. The first unit consists of EKG signal sensor, signal amplifier, digitalization circuit, and related control circuits. The second unit is a software tool developed on an embedded Linux platform (called CSA). Experimental result indicates that the proposed system has the practical potential for users in health monitoring. It is demonstrated to be more convenient and with greater portability than the conventional PC-based EKG signal monitoring systems. Furthermore, all the application units embedded in the system are built with open source codes, no licensed fee is required for operating systems and authorized applications. Thus, the building cost is much lower than the traditional systems.

Development of a wearable measurement and control unit for personal customizing machine-supported exercise.

PubMed

Wang, Zhihui; Tamura, Naoki; Kiryu, Tohru

2005-01-01

Wearable technology has been used in various health-related fields to develop advanced monitoring solutions. However, the monitoring function alone cannot meet all the requirements of personal customizing machine-supported exercise that have biosignal-based controls. In this paper, we propose a new wearable unit design equipped with measurement and control functions to support the personal customization process. The wearable unit can measure the heart rate and electromyogram signals during exercise and output workload control commands to the exercise machines. We then applied a prototype of the wearable unit to an Internet-based cycle ergometer system. The wearable unit was examined using twelve young people to check its feasibility. The results verified that the unit could successfully adapt to the control of the workload and was effective for continuously supporting gradual changes in physical activities.

HyperCard Monitor System.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harris, Julian; Maurer, Hermann

An investigation into high level event monitoring within the scope of a well-known multimedia application, HyperCard--a program on the Macintosh computer, is carried out. A monitoring system is defined as a system which automatically monitors usage of some activity and gathers statistics based on what is has observed. Monitor systems can give the…

Connecticut permanent long-term bridge monitoring network, volume 1 : monitoring of post-tensioned segmental concrete box-girder bridge - I-95 over the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook (bridge #6200).

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-08-01

This report describes the instrumentation and data acquisition for an eleven span segmental, post-tensioned : box-girder bridge in Connecticut. Based on a request from the designers, the computer-based remote : monitoring system was developed to coll...

Cloud-Based versus Local-Based Web Development Education: An Experimental Study in Learning Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pike, Ronald E.; Pittman, Jason M.; Hwang, Drew

2017-01-01

This paper investigates the use of a cloud computing environment to facilitate the teaching of web development at a university in the Southwestern United States. A between-subjects study of students in a web development course was conducted to assess the merits of a cloud computing environment instead of personal computers for developing websites.…

From intensive care monitoring to personal health monitoring to ambient intelligence.

PubMed

Rienhoff, Otto

2013-01-01

The historical roots of IT-based monitoring in health care are described. Since the 1970ies monitoring has been spreading to more and more domains of health care and public health. Today one can observe monitoring of persons in many environments and regarding widely different questions. While these monitoring applications have been introduced ethical questions have been raised to balance the possible positive and negative outcomes of the approaches. Today IT-technology is entering many parts of our life - IT eventually became what had been coined already in the last century by IBM as "electronic dust" which one can find in every part of our environment. As most of these "dust-particles" are able to observe something one can also understand this development as a development into ubiquitous monitoring of nearly everything at any time. The foreseen ambient intelligence worlds are also spaces of ambient monitoring. This article describes this historical development. It emphasizes why ethical and data protection questions are an absolute must in most IT activities today.

Shortcomings of low-cost imaging systems for viewing computed radiographs.

PubMed

Ricke, J; Hänninen, E L; Zielinski, C; Amthauer, H; Stroszczynski, C; Liebig, T; Wolf, M; Hosten, N

2000-01-01

To assess potential advantages of a new PC-based viewing tool featuring image post-processing for viewing computed radiographs on low-cost hardware (PC) with a common display card and color monitor, and to evaluate the effect of using color versus monochrome monitors. Computed radiographs of a statistical phantom were viewed on a PC, with and without post-processing (spatial frequency and contrast processing), employing a monochrome or a color monitor. Findings were compared with the viewing on a radiological Workstation and evaluated with ROC analysis. Image post-processing improved the perception of low-contrast details significantly irrespective of the monitor used. No significant difference in perception was observed between monochrome and color monitors. The review at the radiological Workstation was superior to the review done using the PC with image processing. Lower quality hardware (graphic card and monitor) used in low cost PCs negatively affects perception of low-contrast details in computed radiographs. In this situation, it is highly recommended to use spatial frequency and contrast processing. No significant quality gain has been observed for the high-end monochrome monitor compared to the color display. However, the color monitor was affected stronger by high ambient illumination.

System and Method for Monitoring Distributed Asset Data

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gorinevsky, Dimitry (Inventor)

2015-01-01

A computer-based monitoring system and monitoring method implemented in computer software for detecting, estimating, and reporting the condition states, their changes, and anomalies for many assets. The assets are of same type, are operated over a period of time, and outfitted with data collection systems. The proposed monitoring method accounts for variability of working conditions for each asset by using regression model that characterizes asset performance. The assets are of the same type but not identical. The proposed monitoring method accounts for asset-to-asset variability; it also accounts for drifts and trends in the asset condition and data. The proposed monitoring system can perform distributed processing of massive amounts of historical data without discarding any useful information where moving all the asset data into one central computing system might be infeasible. The overall processing is includes distributed preprocessing data records from each asset to produce compressed data.

Design of Remote Monitoring System of Irrigation based on GSM and ZigBee Technology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao xi, Zheng; Fang, Zhao; Shuaifei, Shao

2018-03-01

To solve the problems of low level of irrigation and waste of water resources, a remote monitoring system for farmland irrigation based on GSM communication technology and ZigBee technology was designed. The system is composed of sensors, GSM communication module, ZigBee module, host computer, valve and so on. The system detects and closes the pump and the electromagnetic valve according to the need of the system, and transmits the monitoring information to the host computer or the user’s Mobile phone through the GSM communication network. Experiments show that the system has low power consumption, friendly man-machine interface, convenient and simple. It can monitor agricultural environment remotely and control related irrigation equipment at any time and place, and can better meet the needs of remote monitoring of farmland irrigation.

Design of a Fatigue Detection System for High-Speed Trains Based on Driver Vigilance Using a Wireless Wearable EEG.

PubMed

Zhang, Xiaoliang; Li, Jiali; Liu, Yugang; Zhang, Zutao; Wang, Zhuojun; Luo, Dianyuan; Zhou, Xiang; Zhu, Miankuan; Salman, Waleed; Hu, Guangdi; Wang, Chunbai

2017-03-01

The vigilance of the driver is important for railway safety, despite not being included in the safety management system (SMS) for high-speed train safety. In this paper, a novel fatigue detection system for high-speed train safety based on monitoring train driver vigilance using a wireless wearable electroencephalograph (EEG) is presented. This system is designed to detect whether the driver is drowsiness. The proposed system consists of three main parts: (1) a wireless wearable EEG collection; (2) train driver vigilance detection; and (3) early warning device for train driver. In the first part, an 8-channel wireless wearable brain-computer interface (BCI) device acquires the locomotive driver's brain EEG signal comfortably under high-speed train-driving conditions. The recorded data are transmitted to a personal computer (PC) via Bluetooth. In the second step, a support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm is implemented to determine the vigilance level using the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) to extract the EEG power spectrum density (PSD). In addition, an early warning device begins to work if fatigue is detected. The simulation and test results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed fatigue detection system for high-speed train safety.

Home-Based Risk of Falling Assessment Test Using a Closed-Loop Balance Model.

PubMed

Ayena, Johannes C; Zaibi, Helmi; Otis, Martin J-D; Menelas, Bob-Antoine J

2016-12-01

The aim of this study is to improve and facilitate the methods used to assess risk of falling at home among older people through the computation of a risk of falling in real time in daily activities. In order to increase a real time computation of the risk of falling, a closed-loop balance model is proposed and compared with One-Leg Standing Test (OLST). This balance model allows studying the postural response of a person having an unpredictable perturbation. Twenty-nine volunteers participated in this study for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed system which includes seventeen elder participants: ten healthy elderly ( 68.4 ±5.5 years), seven Parkinson's disease (PD) subjects ( 66.28 ±8.9 years), and twelve healthy young adults ( 28.27 ±3.74 years). Our work suggests that there is a relationship between OLST score and the risk of falling based on center of pressure measurement with four low cost force sensors located inside an instrumented insole, which could be predicted using our suggested closed-loop balance model. For long term monitoring at home, this system could be included in a medical electronic record and could be useful as a diagnostic aid tool.

A Machine-Learning and Filtering Based Data Assimilation Framework for Geologic Carbon Sequestration Monitoring Optimization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, B.; Harp, D. R.; Lin, Y.; Keating, E. H.; Pawar, R.

2017-12-01

Monitoring is a crucial aspect of geologic carbon sequestration (GCS) risk management. It has gained importance as a means to ensure CO2 is safely and permanently stored underground throughout the lifecycle of a GCS project. Three issues are often involved in a monitoring project: (i) where is the optimal location to place the monitoring well(s), (ii) what type of data (pressure, rate and/or CO2 concentration) should be measured, and (iii) What is the optimal frequency to collect the data. In order to address these important issues, a filtering-based data assimilation procedure is developed to perform the monitoring optimization. The optimal monitoring strategy is selected based on the uncertainty reduction of the objective of interest (e.g., cumulative CO2 leak) for all potential monitoring strategies. To reduce the computational cost of the filtering-based data assimilation process, two machine-learning algorithms: Support Vector Regression (SVR) and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) are used to develop the computationally efficient reduced-order-models (ROMs) from full numerical simulations of CO2 and brine flow. The proposed framework for GCS monitoring optimization is demonstrated with two examples: a simple 3D synthetic case and a real field case named Rock Spring Uplift carbon storage site in Southwestern Wyoming.

Experimental evaluations of wearable ECG monitor.

PubMed

Ha, Kiryong; Kim, Youngsung; Jung, Junyoung; Lee, Jeunwoo

2008-01-01

Healthcare industry is changing with ubiquitous computing environment and wearable ECG measurement is one of the most popular approaches in this healthcare industry. Reliability and performance of healthcare device is fundamental issue for widespread adoptions, and interdisciplinary perspectives of wearable ECG monitor make this more difficult. In this paper, we propose evaluation criteria considering characteristic of both ECG measurement and ubiquitous computing. With our wearable ECG monitors, various levels of experimental analysis are performed based on evaluation strategy.

Computer Based Expert Systems.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Parry, James D.; Ferrara, Joseph M.

1985-01-01

Claims knowledge-based expert computer systems can meet needs of rural schools for affordable expert advice and support and will play an important role in the future of rural education. Describes potential applications in prediction, interpretation, diagnosis, remediation, planning, monitoring, and instruction. (NEC)

Triggers and monitoring in intelligent personal health record.

PubMed

Luo, Gang

2012-10-01

Although Web-based personal health records (PHRs) have been widely deployed, the existing ones have limited intelligence. Previously, we introduced expert system technology and Web search technology into the PHR domain and proposed the concept of an intelligent PHR (iPHR). iPHR provides personalized healthcare information to facilitate users' daily activities of living. The current iPHR is passive and follows the pull model of information distribution. This paper introduces triggers and monitoring into iPHR to make iPHR become active. Our idea is to let medical professionals pre-compile triggers and store them in iPHR's knowledge base. Each trigger corresponds to an abnormal event that may have potential medical impact. iPHR keeps collecting, processing, and analyzing the user's medical data from various sources such as wearable sensors. Whenever an abnormal event is detected from the user's medical data, the corresponding trigger fires and the related personalized healthcare information is pushed to the user using natural language generation technology, expert system technology, and Web search technology.

Secondary Infections with Ebola Virus in Rural Communities, Liberia and Guinea, 2014–2015

PubMed Central

Nyenswah, Tolbert; Keita, Sakoba; Diallo, Boubakar; Kateh, Francis; Amoah, Aurora; Nagbe, Thomas K.; Raghunathan, Pratima; Neatherlin, John C.; Kinzer, Mike; Pillai, Satish K.; Attfield, Kathleen R.; Hajjeh, Rana; Dweh, Emmanuel; Painter, John; Barradas, Danielle T.; Williams, Seymour G.; Blackley, David J.; Kirking, Hannah L.; Patel, Monita R.; Dea, Monica; Massoudi, Mehran S.; Barskey, Albert E.; Zarecki, Shauna L. Mettee; Fomba, Moses; Grube, Steven; Belcher, Lisa; Broyles, Laura N.; Maxwell, T. Nikki; Hagan, Jose E.; Yeoman, Kristin; Westercamp, Matthew; Mott, Joshua; Mahoney, Frank; Slutsker, Laurence; DeCock, Kevin M.; Marston, Barbara; Dahl, Benjamin

2016-01-01

Persons who died of Ebola virus disease at home in rural communities in Liberia and Guinea resulted in more secondary infections than persons admitted to Ebola treatment units. Intensified monitoring of contacts of persons who died of this disease in the community is an evidence-based approach to reduce virus transmission in rural communities. PMID:27268508

Novel technology for treating individuals with aphasia and concomitant cognitive deficits.

PubMed

Cherney, Leora R; Halper, Anita S

2008-01-01

This article describes three individuals with aphasia and concomitant cognitive deficits who used state-of-theart computer software for training conversational scripts. Participants were assessed before and after 9 weeks of a computer script training program. For each participant, three individualized scripts were developed, recorded on the software, and practiced sequentially at home. Weekly meetings with the speech-language pathologist occurred to monitor practice and assess progress. Baseline and posttreatment scripts were audiotaped, transcribed, and compared to the target scripts for content, grammatical productivity, and rate of production of script-related words. Interviews were conducted at the conclusion of treatment. There was great variability in improvements across scripts, with two participants improving on two of their three scripts in measures of content, grammatical productivity, and rate of production of scriptrelated words. One participant gained more than 5 points on the Aphasia Quotient of the Western Aphasia Battery. Five positive themes were consistently identified from exit interviews: increased verbal communication, improvements in other modalities and situations, communication changes noticed by others, increased confidence, and satisfaction with the software. Computer-based script training potentially may be an effective intervention for persons with chronic aphasia and concomitant cognitive deficits.

Novel Technology for Treating Individuals with Aphasia and Concomitant Cognitive Deficits

PubMed Central

Cherney, Leora R.; Halper, Anita S.

2009-01-01

Purpose This article describes three individuals with aphasia and concomitant cognitive deficits who used state-of-the-art computer software for training conversational scripts. Method Participants were assessed before and after 9 weeks of a computer script training program. For each participant, three individualized scripts were developed, recorded on the software, and practiced sequentially at home. Weekly meetings with the speech-language pathologist occurred to monitor practice and assess progress. Baseline and posttreatment scripts were audiotaped, transcribed, and compared to the target scripts for content, grammatical productivity, and rate of production of script-related words. Interviews were conducted at the conclusion of treatment. Results There was great variability in improvements across scripts, with two participants improving on two of their three scripts in measures of content, grammatical productivity, and rate of production of script-related words. One participant gained more than 5 points on the Aphasia Quotient of the Western Aphasia Battery. Five positive themes were consistently identified from exit interviews: increased verbal communication, improvements in other modalities and situations, communication changes noticed by others, increased confidence, and satisfaction with the software. Conclusion Computer-based script training potentially may be an effective intervention for persons with chronic aphasia and concomitant cognitive deficits. PMID:19158062

A Lightweight Encryption Scheme Combined with Trust Management for Privacy-Preserving in Body Sensor Networks.

PubMed

Guo, Ping; Wang, Jin; Ji, Sai; Geng, Xue Hua; Xiong, Neal N

2015-12-01

With the pervasiveness of smart phones and the advance of wireless body sensor network (BSN), mobile Healthcare (m-Healthcare), which extends the operation of Healthcare provider into a pervasive environment for better health monitoring, has attracted considerable interest recently. However, the flourish of m-Healthcare still faces many challenges including information security and privacy preservation. In this paper, we propose a secure and privacy-preserving framework combining with multilevel trust management. In our scheme, smart phone resources including computing power and energy can be opportunistically gathered to process the computing-intensive PHI (personal health information) during m-Healthcare emergency with minimal privacy disclosure. In specific, to leverage the PHI privacy disclosure and the high reliability of PHI process and transmission in m-Healthcare emergency, we introduce an efficient lightweight encryption for those users whose trust level is low, which is based on mix cipher algorithms and pair of plain text and cipher texts, and allow a medical user to decide who can participate in the opportunistic computing to assist in processing his overwhelming PHI data. Detailed security analysis and simulations show that the proposed framework can efficiently achieve user-centric privacy protection in m-Healthcare system.

Development of Experimental Army Enlisted Personnel Selection and Classification Tests and Job Performance Criteria

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-08-01

Covers interaction of type, image, motion, sound, and sequence in Design staging for various media formats including commercials. 3 Computer Programming...the Behavioral & Social Sciences ARI 2511 Jefferson Davis Highway 11. MONITOR REPORT NUMBER Arlington, VA 22202-3926 Technical Report 1168 12...situational judgment test, and indicators of person-environment fit (e.g., job satisfaction). 15. SUBJECT TERMS Behavioral and social science Personnel

Renal function monitoring in heart failure – what is the optimal frequency? A narrative review

PubMed Central

Wright, David; Devonald, Mark Alexander John; Pirmohamed, Munir

2017-01-01

The second most common cause of hospitalization due to adverse drug reactions in the UK is renal dysfunction due to diuretics, particularly in patients with heart failure, where diuretic therapy is a mainstay of treatment regimens. Therefore, the optimal frequency for monitoring renal function in these patients is an important consideration for preventing renal failure and hospitalization. This review looks at the current evidence for optimal monitoring practices of renal function in patients with heart failure according to national and international guidelines on the management of heart failure (AHA/NICE/ESC/SIGN). Current guidance of renal function monitoring is in large part based on expert opinion, with a lack of clinical studies that have specifically evaluated the optimal frequency of renal function monitoring in patients with heart failure. Furthermore, there is variability between guidelines, and recommendations are typically nonspecific. Safer prescribing of diuretics in combination with other antiheart failure treatments requires better evidence for frequency of renal function monitoring. We suggest developing more personalized monitoring rather than from the current medication‐based guidance. Such flexible clinical guidelines could be implemented using intelligent clinical decision support systems. Personalized renal function monitoring would be more effective in preventing renal decline, rather than reacting to it. PMID:28901643

Cloud Computing for Pharmacometrics: Using AWS, NONMEM, PsN, Grid Engine, and Sonic

PubMed Central

Sanduja, S; Jewell, P; Aron, E; Pharai, N

2015-01-01

Cloud computing allows pharmacometricians to access advanced hardware, network, and security resources available to expedite analysis and reporting. Cloud-based computing environments are available at a fraction of the time and effort when compared to traditional local datacenter-based solutions. This tutorial explains how to get started with building your own personal cloud computer cluster using Amazon Web Services (AWS), NONMEM, PsN, Grid Engine, and Sonic. PMID:26451333

Cloud Computing for Pharmacometrics: Using AWS, NONMEM, PsN, Grid Engine, and Sonic.

PubMed

Sanduja, S; Jewell, P; Aron, E; Pharai, N

2015-09-01

Cloud computing allows pharmacometricians to access advanced hardware, network, and security resources available to expedite analysis and reporting. Cloud-based computing environments are available at a fraction of the time and effort when compared to traditional local datacenter-based solutions. This tutorial explains how to get started with building your own personal cloud computer cluster using Amazon Web Services (AWS), NONMEM, PsN, Grid Engine, and Sonic.

Controlling front-end electronics boards using commercial solutions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Beneyton, R.; Gaspar, C.; Jost, B.; Schmeling, S.

2002-04-01

LHCb is a dedicated B-physics experiment under construction at CERN's large hadron collider (LHC) accelerator. This paper will describe the novel approach LHCb is taking toward controlling and monitoring of electronics boards. Instead of using the bus in a crate to exercise control over the boards, we use credit-card sized personal computers (CCPCs) connected via Ethernet to cheap control PCs. The CCPCs will provide a simple parallel, I2C, and JTAG buses toward the electronics board. Each board will be equipped with a CCPC and, hence, will be completely independently controlled. The advantages of this scheme versus the traditional bus-based scheme will be described. Also, the integration of the controls of the electronics boards into a commercial supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system will be shown.

A programmable closed-loop recording and stimulating wireless system for behaving small laboratory animals

PubMed Central

Angotzi, Gian Nicola; Boi, Fabio; Zordan, Stefano; Bonfanti, Andrea; Vato, Alessandro

2014-01-01

A portable 16-channels microcontroller-based wireless system for a bi-directional interaction with the central nervous system is presented in this work. The device is designed to be used with freely behaving small laboratory animals and allows recording of spontaneous and evoked neural activity wirelessly transmitted and stored on a personal computer. Biphasic current stimuli with programmable duration, frequency and amplitude may be triggered in real-time on the basis of the recorded neural activity as well as by the animal behavior within a specifically designed experimental setup. An intuitive graphical user interface was developed to configure and to monitor the whole system. The system was successfully tested through bench tests and in vivo measurements on behaving rats chronically implanted with multi-channels microwire arrays. PMID:25096831

Acceleration of the matrix multiplication of Radiance three phase daylighting simulations with parallel computing on heterogeneous hardware of personal computer

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zuo, Wangda; McNeil, Andrew; Wetter, Michael

2013-05-23

Building designers are increasingly relying on complex fenestration systems to reduce energy consumed for lighting and HVAC in low energy buildings. Radiance, a lighting simulation program, has been used to conduct daylighting simulations for complex fenestration systems. Depending on the configurations, the simulation can take hours or even days using a personal computer. This paper describes how to accelerate the matrix multiplication portion of a Radiance three-phase daylight simulation by conducting parallel computing on heterogeneous hardware of a personal computer. The algorithm was optimized and the computational part was implemented in parallel using OpenCL. The speed of new approach wasmore » evaluated using various daylighting simulation cases on a multicore central processing unit and a graphics processing unit. Based on the measurements and analysis of the time usage for the Radiance daylighting simulation, further speedups can be achieved by using fast I/O devices and storing the data in a binary format.« less

Usability of an Adaptive Computer Assistant that Improves Self-care and Health Literacy of Older Adults

PubMed Central

Blanson Henkemans, O. A.; Rogers, W. A.; Fisk, A. D.; Neerincx, M. A.; Lindenberg, J.; van der Mast, C. A. P. G.

2014-01-01

Summary Objectives We developed an adaptive computer assistant for the supervision of diabetics’ self-care, to support limiting illness and need for acute treatment, and improve health literacy. This assistant monitors self-care activities logged in the patient’s electronic diary. Accordingly, it provides context-aware feedback. The objective was to evaluate whether older adults in general can make use of the computer assistant and to compare an adaptive computer assistant with a fixed one, concerning its usability and contribution to health literacy. Methods We conducted a laboratory experiment in the Georgia Tech Aware Home wherein 28 older adults participated in a usability evaluation of the computer assistant, while engaged in scenarios reflecting normal and health-critical situations. We evaluated the assistant on effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and educational value. Finally, we studied the moderating effects of the subjects’ personal characteristics. Results Logging self-care tasks and receiving feedback from the computer assistant enhanced the subjects’ knowledge of diabetes. The adaptive assistant was more effective in dealing with normal and health-critical situations, and, generally, it led to more time efficiency. Subjects’ personal characteristics had substantial effects on the effectiveness and efficiency of the two computer assistants. Conclusions Older adults were able to use the adaptive computer assistant. In addition, it had a positive effect on the development of health literacy. The assistant has the potential to support older diabetics’ self care while maintaining quality of life. PMID:18213433

Towards a conceptual framework of OSH risk management in smart working environments based on smart PPE, ambient intelligence and the Internet of Things technologies.

PubMed

Podgórski, Daniel; Majchrzycka, Katarzyna; Dąbrowska, Anna; Gralewicz, Grzegorz; Okrasa, Małgorzata

2017-03-01

Recent developments in domains of ambient intelligence (AmI), Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems (CPS), ubiquitous/pervasive computing, etc., have led to numerous attempts to apply ICT solutions in the occupational safety and health (OSH) area. A literature review reveals a wide range of examples of smart materials, smart personal protective equipment and other AmI applications that have been developed to improve workers' safety and health. Because the use of these solutions modifies work methods, increases complexity of production processes and introduces high dynamism into thus created smart working environments (SWE), a new conceptual framework for dynamic OSH management in SWE is called for. A proposed framework is based on a new paradigm of OSH risk management consisting of real-time risk assessment and the capacity to monitor the risk level of each worker individually. A rationale for context-based reasoning in SWE and a respective model of the SWE-dedicated CPS are also proposed.

Cost efficiency and reimbursement of remote monitoring: a US perspective.

PubMed

Slotwiner, David; Wilkoff, Bruce

2013-06-01

Demographic and technological changes are driving increased utilization of cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs) remote monitoring. In the USA, fee-for-service model of healthcare delivery, services rendered are valued based upon time, intensity, and technical or practice expense costs. As a consequence of this perspective, and to contain spending, Medicare has grouped physician services into families. Spending within each family of services must, by law, remain budget neutral. Cardiac implantable electronic devices monitoring services, remote and in-person, are grouped into one family. As the volume of services within this family increases, the individual encounters are destined to be discounted into ever decreasing portions. However, if the value of remote monitoring is demonstrated to extend beyond the previous boundaries of in-person interrogations, a rational request can be made to reconsider the relative value of remote monitoring. Outcome data supporting the value-added benefits of remote monitoring are rapidly accumulating, including (i) patient convenience, with reduced use of office services, (ii) equal safety compared with in-person evaluation, (iii) shorter detection time to actionable events (arrhythmias, cardiovascular disease progression, and device malfunction), (iv) reduced length of stay for hospitalizations, (v) reduced inappropriate shocks, (vi) increased battery longevity, and (vii) a relative reduction in the risk of death. Fully automatic wireless technology, only recently widely implemented, will add considerable clinical efficiencies and further increase the value of remote monitoring. The U.S. challenge will be to appropriately define the relative value of CIEDs remote monitoring now that outcome data have demonstrated its value extends beyond in-person interrogation.

Computer vision-based analysis of foods: a non-destructive colour measurement tool to monitor quality and safety.

PubMed

Mogol, Burçe Ataç; Gökmen, Vural

2014-05-01

Computer vision-based image analysis has been widely used in food industry to monitor food quality. It allows low-cost and non-contact measurements of colour to be performed. In this paper, two computer vision-based image analysis approaches are discussed to extract mean colour or featured colour information from the digital images of foods. These types of information may be of particular importance as colour indicates certain chemical changes or physical properties in foods. As exemplified here, the mean CIE a* value or browning ratio determined by means of computer vision-based image analysis algorithms can be correlated with acrylamide content of potato chips or cookies. Or, porosity index as an important physical property of breadcrumb can be calculated easily. In this respect, computer vision-based image analysis provides a useful tool for automatic inspection of food products in a manufacturing line, and it can be actively involved in the decision-making process where rapid quality/safety evaluation is needed. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

Design of Remote GPRS-based Gas Data Monitoring System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Xiyue; Yang, Jianhua; Lu, Wei

2018-01-01

In order to solve the problem of remote data transmission of gas flowmeter, and realize unattended operation on the spot, an unattended remote monitoring system based on GPRS for gas data is designed in this paper. The slave computer of this system adopts embedded microprocessor to read data of gas flowmeter through rs-232 bus and transfers it to the host computer through DTU. In the host computer, the VB program dynamically binds the Winsock control to receive and parse data. By using dynamic data exchange, the Kingview configuration software realizes history trend curve, real time trend curve, alarm, print, web browsing and other functions.

Computer-based, personalized cognitive training versus classical computer games: a randomized double-blind prospective trial of cognitive stimulation.

PubMed

Peretz, Chava; Korczyn, Amos D; Shatil, Evelyn; Aharonson, Vered; Birnboim, Smadar; Giladi, Nir

2011-01-01

Many studies have suggested that cognitive training can result in cognitive gains in healthy older adults. We investigated whether personalized computerized cognitive training provides greater benefits than those obtained by playing conventional computer games. This was a randomized double-blind interventional study. Self-referred healthy older adults (n = 155, 68 ± 7 years old) were assigned to either a personalized, computerized cognitive training or to a computer games group. Cognitive performance was assessed at baseline and after 3 months by a neuropsychological assessment battery. Differences in cognitive performance scores between and within groups were evaluated using mixed effects models in 2 approaches: adherence only (AO; n = 121) and intention to treat (ITT; n = 155). Both groups improved in cognitive performance. The improvement in the personalized cognitive training group was significant (p < 0.03, AO and ITT approaches) in all 8 cognitive domains. However, in the computer games group it was significant (p < 0.05) in only 4 (AO) or 6 domains (ITT). In the AO analysis, personalized cognitive training was significantly more effective than playing games in improving visuospatial working memory (p = 0.0001), visuospatial learning (p = 0.0012) and focused attention (p = 0.0019). Personalized, computerized cognitive training appears to be more effective than computer games in improving cognitive performance in healthy older adults. Further studies are needed to evaluate the ecological validity of these findings. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Consequence assessment of large rock slope failures in Norway

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oppikofer, Thierry; Hermanns, Reginald L.; Horton, Pascal; Sandøy, Gro; Roberts, Nicholas J.; Jaboyedoff, Michel; Böhme, Martina; Yugsi Molina, Freddy X.

2014-05-01

Steep glacially carved valleys and fjords in Norway are prone to many landslide types, including large rockslides, rockfalls, and debris flows. Large rockslides and their secondary effects (rockslide-triggered displacement waves, inundation behind landslide dams and outburst floods from failure of landslide dams) pose a significant hazard to the population living in the valleys and along the fjords shoreline. The Geological Survey of Norway performs systematic mapping of unstable rock slopes in Norway and has detected more than 230 unstable slopes with significant postglacial deformation. This large number necessitates prioritisation of follow-up activities, such as more detailed investigations, periodic displacement measurements, continuous monitoring and early-warning systems. Prioritisation is achieved through a hazard and risk classification system, which has been developed by a panel of international and Norwegian experts (www.ngu.no/en-gb/hm/Publications/Reports/2012/2012-029). The risk classification system combines a qualitative hazard assessment with a consequences assessment focusing on potential life losses. The hazard assessment is based on a series of nine geomorphological, engineering geological and structural criteria, as well as displacement rates, past events and other signs of activity. We present a method for consequence assessment comprising four main steps: 1. computation of the volume of the unstable rock slope; 2. run-out assessment based on the volume-dependent angle of reach (Fahrböschung) or detailed numerical run-out modelling; 3. assessment of possible displacement wave propagation and run-up based on empirical relations or modelling in 2D or 3D; and 4. estimation of the number of persons exposed to rock avalanches or displacement waves. Volume computation of an unstable rock slope is based on the sloping local base level technique, which uses a digital elevation model to create a second-order curved surface between the mapped extent of the unstable rock slope. This surface represents the possible basal sliding surface of an unstable rock slope. The elevation difference between this surface and the topographic surface estimates the volume of the unstable rock slope. A tool has been developed for the present study to adapt the curvature parameters of the computed surface to local geological and structural conditions. The obtained volume is then used to define the angle of reach of a possible rock avalanche from the unstable rock slope by using empirical derived values of angle of reach vs. volume relations. Run-out area is calculated using FlowR; the software is widely used for run-out assessment of debris flows and is adapted here for assessment of rock avalanches, including their potential to ascend opposing slopes. Under certain conditions, more sophisticated and complex numerical run-out models are also used. For rock avalanches with potential to reach a fjord or a lake the propagation and run-up area of triggered displacement waves is assessed. Empirical relations of wave run-up height as a function of rock avalanche volume and distance from impact location are derived from a national and international inventory of landslide-triggered displacement waves. These empirical relations are used in first-level hazard assessment and where necessary, followed by 2D or 3D displacement wave modelling. Finally, the population exposed in the rock avalanche run-out area and in the run-up area of a possible displacement wave is assessed taking into account different population groups: inhabitants, persons in critical infrastructure (hospitals and other emergency services), persons in schools and kindergartens, persons at work or in shops, tourists, persons on ferries and so on. Exposure levels are defined for each population group and vulnerability values are set for the rock avalanche run-out area (100%) and the run-up area of a possible displacement wave (70%). Finally, the total number of persons within the hazard area is calculated taking into account exposure and vulnerability. The method for consequence assessment is currently tested through several case studies in Norway and, thereafter, applied to all unstable rock slopes in the country to assess their risk level. Follow-up activities (detailed investigations, periodic displacement measurements or continuous monitoring and early-warning systems) can then be prioritized based on the risk level and with a standard approach for whole Norway.

Personal Computer System for Automatic Coronary Venous Flow Measurement

PubMed Central

Dew, Robert B.

1985-01-01

We developed an automated system based on an IBM PC/XT Personal computer to measure coronary venous blood flow during cardiac catheterization. Flow is determined by a thermodilution technique in which a cold saline solution is infused through a catheter into the coronary venous system. Regional temperature fluctuations sensed by the catheter are used to determine great cardiac vein and coronary sinus blood flow. The computer system replaces manual methods of acquiring and analyzing temperature data related to flow measurement, thereby increasing the speed and accuracy with which repetitive flow determinations can be made.

Computer-Assisted Instruction for Severely Handicapped Persons: A Program Based on Stimulus Control Research Modifying Current Software and Hardware. November 1, 1988-April 1, 1990. Final Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karsh, Kathryn G.

This final report describes activities of a federally funded project which developed an educational computer-assisted instructional program for persons with severe disabilities. A preliminary review of the literature identified specific inadequacies of most software for this population, such as: too few examples of a task or concept thus limiting…

Smart wireless sensor for physiological monitoring.

PubMed

Tomasic, Ivan; Avbelj, Viktor; Trobec, Roman

2015-01-01

Presented is a wireless body sensor capable of measuring local potential differences on a body surface. By using on-sensor signal processing capabilities, and developed algorithms for off-line signal processing on a personal computing device, it is possible to record single channel ECG, heart rate, breathing rate, EMG, and when three sensors are applied, even the 12-lead ECG. The sensor is portable, unobtrusive, and suitable for both inpatient and outpatient monitoring. The paper presents the sensor's hardware and results of power consumption analysis. The sensor's capabilities of recording various physiological parameters are also presented and illustrated. The paper concludes with envisioned sensor's future developments and prospects.

Nontrivial, Nonintelligent, Computer-Based Learning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bork, Alfred

1987-01-01

This paper describes three interactive computer programs used with personal computers to present science learning modules for all ages. Developed by groups of teachers at the Educational Technology Center at the University of California, Irvine, these instructional materials do not use the techniques of contemporary artificial intelligence. (GDC)

Use of a turbine in a breath-by-breath computer-based respiratory measurement system.

PubMed

Venkateswaran, R S; Gallagher, R R

1997-01-01

The Computer-Based Respiratory Measurement System (CBRMS) is capable of analyzing individual breaths to monitor the kinetics of oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide production, tidal volumes, pulmonary ventilation, and other respiratory parameters during rest, exercise, and recovery. Respiratory gas volumes are measured by a calibrated turbine transducer while the respiratory gas concentrations are measured by a calibrated, fast-responding medical gas analyzer. To improve accuracy of the results, the inspiratory volumes and gas concentrations are measured and not assumed to be equal to expiratory volumes or ambient concentrations respectively. The respiratory gas volumes and concentration signals are digitized and stored in arrays. The gas volumes are converted to flow signals by software differentiation. These digitized data arrays are stored as files in a personal computer. Time alignment of the flow and gas concentration signals is performed at each breath for maximum accuracy in analysis. For system verification, data were obtained under resting conditions and under constant load exercises at 50 W, 100 W, and 150 W. These workloads were performed by a healthy, male subject on a bicycle ergometer. A strong correlation existed between the CBRMS steady-state results and the standard end-expirate bag collection technique. Thus, there is reason to believe that the CBRMS is capable of calculating respiratory transient responses accurately, a significant contribution to an understanding of total respiratory system function.

Development and usability of a computer-tailored pedometer-based physical activity advice for breast cancer survivors.

PubMed

De Cocker, K; Charlier, C; Van Hoof, E; Pauwels, E; Lechner, L; Bourgois, J; Spittaels, H; Vandelanotte, C; De Bourdeaudhuij, I

2015-09-01

This observational study aimed to adapt a computer-tailored step advice for the general population into a feasible advice for breast cancer survivors and to test its usability. First, several adaptations were made to the original design (adding cancer-related physical activity (PA) barriers and beliefs, and self-management strategies to improve survivors' personal control). Second, the adapted advice was evaluated in two phases: (1) a usability testing in healthy women (n = 3) and survivors (n = 6); and (2) a process evaluation during 3 weeks in breast cancer survivors (n = 8). Preliminary usability testing revealed no problems during logging-in; however, three survivors misinterpreted some questions. After refining the questionnaire and advice, survivors evaluated the advice as interesting, attractive to read, comprehensible and credible. Inactive survivors found the advice novel, but too long. The process evaluation indicated that the majority of the women (n = 5/8) reported increased steps. Monitoring step counts by using a pedometer was perceived as an important motivator to be more active. To conclude, this study provides initial support for the usability and acceptability of a computer-tailored pedometer-based PA advice for breast cancer survivors. After testing efficacy and effectiveness of this intervention, this tool can broaden the reach of PA promotion in breast cancer survivors. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Early Use of Internet-Based Educational Resources: Effects on Students' Engagement Modes and Flow Experience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hedman, Leif; Sharafi, Parvaneh

2004-01-01

This case study explores how educational training and clinical practice that uses personal computers (PCs) and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) to access Internet-based medical information, affects the engagement modes of students, flow experience components, and IT-competence. A questionnaire assessing these variables was administered before…

Evicase: an evidence-based case structuring approach for personalized healthcare.

PubMed

Carmeli, Boaz; Casali, Paolo; Goldbraich, Anna; Goldsteen, Abigail; Kent, Carmel; Licitra, Lisa; Locatelli, Paolo; Restifo, Nicola; Rinott, Ruty; Sini, Elena; Torresani, Michele; Waks, Zeev

2012-01-01

The personalized medicine era stresses a growing need to combine evidence-based medicine with case based reasoning in order to improve the care process. To address this need we suggest a framework to generate multi-tiered statistical structures we call Evicases. Evicase integrates established medical evidence together with patient cases from the bedside. It then uses machine learning algorithms to produce statistical results and aggregators, weighted predictions, and appropriate recommendations. Designed as a stand-alone structure, Evicase can be used for a range of decision support applications including guideline adherence monitoring and personalized prognostic predictions.

Monitoring Chewing and Eating in Free-Living Using Smart Eyeglasses.

PubMed

Zhang, Rui; Amft, Oliver

2018-01-01

We propose to 3-D-print personal fitted regular-look smart eyeglasses frames equipped with bilateral electromyography recording to monitor temporalis muscles' activity for automatic dietary monitoring. Personal fitting supported electrode-skin contacts are at temple ear bend and temple end positions. We evaluated the smart monitoring eyeglasses during in-lab and free-living studies of food chewing and eating event detection with ten participants. The in-lab study was designed to explore three natural food hardness levels and determine parameters of an energy-based chewing cycle detection. Our free-living study investigated whether chewing monitoring and eating event detection using smart eyeglasses is feasible in free-living. An eating event detection algorithm was developed to determine intake activities based on the estimated chewing rate. Results showed an average food hardness classification accuracy of 94% and chewing cycle detection precision and recall above 90% for the in-lab study and above 77% for the free-living study covering 122 hours of recordings. Eating detection revealed the 44 eating events with an average accuracy above 95%. We conclude that smart eyeglasses are suitable for monitoring chewing and eating events in free-living and even could provide further insights into the wearer's natural chewing patterns.

Multifunctional gold nanoparticles for targeted imaging of angiotensin converting enzyme design, characterization, and application

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ghann, William Emmanuel

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States with approximately one in every three death being attributed to these diseases. The overarching problem with heart diseases is that once a person has suffered from an attack, there is a high likelihood of a recurrent attack. According to the American Heart Association, approximately 785,000 Americans per year suffer from heart attacks for the first time and about half of the aforementioned experience an ensuing attack. The second attack is often fatal, and therefore relapse prevention is crucial. One of the possible ways of averting the recurrence of such an attack is through the precise monitoring of the preceding biomarkers or risk indicators. This project encompasses the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of nanoparticle-based contrast agents that can potentially be used in the monitoring of the reemergence of a biomarker expressed after a person has suffered myocardial infarction. The overexpression of this biomarker, angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE), is also associated with development of cardiac and pulmonary fibrosis. To this end, highly concentrated gold nanoparticles have been synthesized and conjugated to Lisinopril, an ACE inhibitor, for the molecular imaging of ACE using X-ray CT. Various stabilities studies were conducted to verify the resistance of this gold nanoprobe in biological relevant media. They have also been successfully used in X-ray computed tomography to visualize tissue ACE and thus render them potentially versatile in the monitoring of cardiovascular diseases. An MRI tag was also conjugated to the gold nanoparticle affording the opportunity for bimodal imaging of ACE. This contrast agent could further be used for the quantification using K-edge CT of the relationship between the amount of the said marker and its role in predicting the possibility of a successive heart attack. The prepared nanoparticle-based contrast agent could ultimately be used to monitor the levels of this biomarker in people predisposed to cardiovascular diseases due to genetic biases. It is anticipated that the targeted gold nanoparticle system could be applied in the design of similar multifunctional nanoparticles through the use of other disease-specific imaging nanoprobes.

Computer-Based and Paper-Based Measurement of Semantic Knowledge

DTIC Science & Technology

1989-01-01

of Personality Assessment , 34, 353-361. McArthur, D. L., & Choppin, B. H. (1984). Computerized diagnostic testing. Journal 15 of Educational...Computers in Human Behavior, 1, 49-58. Lushene, R. E., O’Neii, H. F., & Dunn, T. (1974). Equivalent validity of a completely computerized MMPI. Journal

Computer-aided personal interviewing. A new technique for data collection in epidemiologic surveys.

PubMed

Birkett, N J

1988-03-01

Most epidemiologic studies involve the collection of data directly from selected respondents. Traditionally, interviewers are provided with the interview in booklet form on paper and answers are recorded therein. On receipt at the study office, the interview results are coded, transcribed, and keypunched for analysis. The author's team has developed a method of personal interviewing which uses a structured interview stored on a lap-sized computer. Responses are entered into the computer and are subject to immediate error-checking and correction. All skip-patterns are automatic. Data entry to the final data-base involves no manual data transcription. A pilot evaluation with a preliminary version of the system using tape-recorded interviews in a test/re-test methodology revealed a slightly higher error rate, probably related to weaknesses in the pilot system and the training process. Computer interviews tended to be longer but other features of the interview process were not affected by computer. The author's team has now completed 2,505 interviews using this system in a community-based blood pressure survey. It has been well accepted by both interviewers and respondents. Failure to complete an interview on the computer was uncommon (5 per cent) and well-handled by paper back-up questionnaires. The results show that computer-aided personal interviewing in the home is feasible but that further evaluation is needed to establish the impact of this methodology on overall data quality.

Self-monitoring of dietary intake by young women: online food records completed on computer or smartphone are as accurate as paper-based food records but more acceptable.

PubMed

Hutchesson, Melinda J; Rollo, Megan E; Callister, Robin; Collins, Clare E

2015-01-01

Adherence and accuracy of self-monitoring of dietary intake influences success in weight management interventions. Information technologies such as computers and smartphones have the potential to improve adherence and accuracy by reducing the burden associated with monitoring dietary intake using traditional paper-based food records. We evaluated the acceptability and accuracy of three different 7-day food record methods (online accessed via computer, online accessed via smartphone, and paper-based). Young women (N=18; aged 23.4±2.9 years; body mass index 24.0±2.2) completed the three 7-day food records in random order with 7-day washout periods between each method. Total energy expenditure (TEE) was derived from resting energy expenditure (REE) measured by indirect calorimetry and physical activity level (PAL) derived from accelerometers (TEE=REE×PAL). Accuracy of the three methods was assessed by calculating absolute (energy intake [EI]-TEE) and percentage difference (EI/TEE×100) between self-reported EI and TEE. Acceptability was assessed via questionnaire. Mean±standard deviation TEE was 2,185±302 kcal/day and EI was 1,729±249 kcal/day, 1,675±287kcal/day, and 1,682±352 kcal/day for computer, smartphone, and paper records, respectively. There were no significant differences between absolute and percentage differences between EI and TEE for the three methods: computer, -510±389 kcal/day (78%); smartphone, -456±372 kcal/day (80%); and paper, -503±513 kcal/day (79%). Half of participants (n=9) preferred computer recording, 44.4% preferred smartphone, and 5.6% preferred paper-based records. Most participants (89%) least preferred the paper-based record. Because online food records completed on either computer or smartphone were as accurate as paper-based records but more acceptable to young women, they should be considered when self-monitoring of intake is recommended to young women. Copyright © 2015 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Adolescents' technology and face-to-face time use predict objective sleep outcomes.

PubMed

Tavernier, Royette; Heissel, Jennifer A; Sladek, Michael R; Grant, Kathryn E; Adam, Emma K

2017-08-01

The present study examined both within- and between-person associations between adolescents' time use (technology-based activities and face-to-face interactions with friends and family) and sleep behaviors. We also assessed whether age moderated associations between adolescents' time use with friends and family and sleep. Adolescents wore an actigraph monitor and completed brief evening surveys daily for 3 consecutive days. Adolescents (N=71; mean age=14.50 years old, SD=1.84; 43.7% female) were recruited from 3 public high schools in the Midwest. We assessed 8 technology-based activities (eg, texting, working on a computer), as well as time spent engaged in face-to-face interactions with friends and family, via questions on adolescents' evening surveys. Actigraph monitors assessed 3 sleep behaviors: sleep latency, sleep hours, and sleep efficiency. Hierarchical linear models indicated that texting and working on the computer were associated with shorter sleep, whereas time spent talking on the phone predicted longer sleep. Time spent with friends predicted shorter sleep latencies, while family time predicted longer sleep latencies. Age moderated the association between time spent with friends and sleep efficiency, as well as between family time and sleep efficiency. Specifically, longer time spent interacting with friends was associated with higher sleep efficiency but only among younger adolescents. Furthermore, longer family time was associated with higher sleep efficiency but only for older adolescents. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of regulating adolescents' technology use and improving opportunities for face-to-face interactions with friends, particularly for younger adolescents. Copyright © 2017 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Outpatient follow-up system using a personal computer for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after surgery.

PubMed

Itasaka, H; Matsumata, T; Taketomi, A; Yamamoto, K; Yanaga, K; Takenaka, K; Akazawa, K; Sugimachi, K

1994-12-01

A simple outpatient follow-up system was developed with a laptop personal computer to assist management of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma after hepatic resections. Since it is based on a non-relational database program and the graphical user interface of Macintosh operating system, those who are not a specialist of the computer operation can use it. It is helpful to promptly recognize current status and problems of the patients, to diagnose recurrences of the disease and to prevent lost from follow-up cases. A portability of the computer also facilitates utilization of these data everywhere, such as in clinical conferences and laboratories.

2005 Annual Health Physics Report for HEU Transparency Program

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Radev, R

2006-04-21

During the 2005 calendar year, LLNL provided health physics support for the Highly Enriched Uranium Transparency Program (HEU-TP) in external and internal radiation protection and technical expertise into matters related to BDMS radioactive sources and Russian radiation safety regulatory compliance. For the calendar year 2005, there were 161 person-trips that required dose monitoring of the U.S. monitors. Of the 161 person-trips, 149 person-trips were SMVs and 12 person-trips were Transparency Monitoring Office (TMO) trips. Additionally, there were 11 monitoring visits by TMO monitors to facilities other than UEIE and 3 to UEIE itself. There were two monitoring visits (source changes)more » that were back to back with 16 monitors. Each of these concurring visits were treated as single person-trips for dosimetry purposes. Counted individually, there were 191 individual person-visits in 2005. The LLNL Safety Laboratories Division provided the dosimetry services for the HEU-TP monitors.« less

Development of DASH Mobile: a mHealth lifestyle change intervention for the management of hypertension.

PubMed

Mann, Devin M; Kudesia, Valmeek; Reddy, Shivani; Weng, Michael; Imler, Daniel; Quintiliani, Lisa

2013-01-01

Several landmark studies based on the DASH diet have established the effectiveness of a lifestyle approach to blood pressure control that emphasizes a diet rich in fruits and vegetables with moderate portions of low-fat dairy and lean protein along with increased physical activity and reduced sodium intake. However, this evidence base remains underused due feasibility limitations of implementing these intense in-person interventions and poor engagement with desktop computer based versions. Mobile technologies such as smartphones and wireless sensors have the ability to deliver behavioral interventions in-the-moment and with reduced user burden. DASH Mobile is a new mHealth system being developed to deliver this evidence-based lifestyle intervention to hypertensive patients. The system consists of an Android based "app" that facilitates easy tracking of DASH food portions, integrated Bluetooth blood pressure, weight and pedometer monitoring, goal setting, simple data visualizations and multimedia video clips to train patients in the basic concepts of the lifestyle change plan. At present, the system is undergoing usability testing with a pilot clinical trial planned for Spring 2013.

An Uncertainty Quantification Framework for Prognostics and Condition-Based Monitoring

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Sankararaman, Shankar; Goebel, Kai

2014-01-01

This paper presents a computational framework for uncertainty quantification in prognostics in the context of condition-based monitoring of aerospace systems. The different sources of uncertainty and the various uncertainty quantification activities in condition-based prognostics are outlined in detail, and it is demonstrated that the Bayesian subjective approach is suitable for interpreting uncertainty in online monitoring. A state-space model-based framework for prognostics, that can rigorously account for the various sources of uncertainty, is presented. Prognostics consists of two important steps. First, the state of the system is estimated using Bayesian tracking, and then, the future states of the system are predicted until failure, thereby computing the remaining useful life of the system. The proposed framework is illustrated using the power system of a planetary rover test-bed, which is being developed and studied at NASA Ames Research Center.

Effects of Self-Instructional Methods and Above Real Time Training (ARTT) for Maneuvering Tasks on a Flight Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ali, Syed Firasat; Khan, Javed Khan; Rossi, Marcia J.; Crane, Peter; Heath, Bruce E.; Knighten, Tremaine; Culpepper, Christi

2003-01-01

Personal computer based flight simulators are expanding opportunities for providing low-cost pilot training. One advantage of these devices is the opportunity to incorporate instructional features into training scenarios that might not be cost effective with earlier systems. Research was conducted to evaluate the utility of different instructional features using a coordinated level turn as an aircraft maneuvering task. In study I, a comparison was made between automated computer grades of performance with certified flight instructors grades. Every one of the six student volunteers conducted a flight with level turns at two different bank angles. The automated computer grades were based on prescribed tolerances on bank angle, airspeed and altitude. Two certified flight instructors independently examined the video tapes of heads up and instrument displays of the flights and graded them. The comparison of automated grades with the instructors grades was based on correlations between them. In study II, a 2x2 between subjects factorial design was used to devise and conduct an experiment. Comparison was made between real time training and above real time training and between feedback and no feedback in training. The performance measure to monitor progress in training was based on deviations in bank angle and altitude. The performance measure was developed after completion of the experiment including the training and test flights. It was not envisaged before the experiment. The experiment did not include self- instructions as it was originally planned, although feedback by experimenter to the trainee was included in the study.

Effects of Self-Instructional Methods and Above Real Time Training (ARTT) for Maneuvering Tasks on a Flight Simulator

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Norlin, Ken (Technical Monitor); Ali, Syed Firasat; Khan, M. Javed; Rossi, Marcia J.; Crane, Peter; Heath, Bruce E.; Knighten, Tremaine; Culpepper, Christi

2003-01-01

Personal computer based flight simulators are expanding opportunities for providing low-cost pilot training. One advantage of these devices is the opportunity to incorporate instructional features into training scenarios that might not be cost effective with earlier systems. Research was conducted to evaluate the utility of different instructional features using a coordinated level turn as an aircraft maneuvering task. In study I, a comparison was made between automated computer grades of performance with certified flight instructors grades. Every one of the six student volunteers conducted a flight with level turns at two different bank angles. The automated computer grades were based on prescribed tolerances on bank angle, airspeed and altitude. Two certified flight instructors independently examined the video tapes of heads up and instrument displays of the flights and graded them. The comparison of automated grades with the instructors grades ms based on correlations between them. In study II, a 2x2 between subjects factorial design was used to devise and conduct an experiment. Comparison was made between real time training and above real time training and between feedback and no feedback in training. The performance measure to monitor progress in training was based on deviations in bank angle and altitude. The performance measure was developed after completion of the experiment including the training and test flights. It was not envisaged before the experiment. The experiment did not include self-instructions as it was originally planned, although feedback by experimenter to the trainee was included in the study.

Orientation-modulated attention effect on visual evoked potential: Application for PIN system using brain-computer interface.

PubMed

Wilaiprasitporn, Theerawit; Yagi, Tohru

2015-01-01

This research demonstrates the orientation-modulated attention effect on visual evoked potential. We combined this finding with our previous findings about the motion-modulated attention effect and used the result to develop novel visual stimuli for a personal identification number (PIN) application based on a brain-computer interface (BCI) framework. An electroencephalography amplifier with a single electrode channel was sufficient for our application. A computationally inexpensive algorithm and small datasets were used in processing. Seven healthy volunteers participated in experiments to measure offline performance. Mean accuracy was 83.3% at 13.9 bits/min. Encouraged by these results, we plan to continue developing the BCI-based personal identification application toward real-time systems.

A New Approach to Personalization: Integrating E-Learning and M-Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nedungadi, Prema; Raman, Raghu

2012-01-01

Most personalized learning systems are designed for either personal computers (e-learning) or mobile devices (m-learning). Our research has resulted in a cloud-based adaptive learning system that incorporates mobile devices into a classroom setting. This system is fully integrated into the formative assessment process and, most importantly,…

"It's Like a Cyber-Security Blanket": The Utility of Remote Activity Monitoring in Family Dementia Care.

PubMed

Mitchell, Lauren L; Peterson, Colleen M; Rud, Shaina R; Jutkowitz, Eric; Sarkinen, Andrielle; Trost, Sierra; Porta, Carolyn M; Finlay, Jessica M; Gaugler, Joseph E

2018-03-01

Technologies have emerged that aim to help older persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRDs) remain at home while also supporting their caregiving family members. However, the usefulness of these innovations, particularly in home-based care contexts, remains underexplored. The current study evaluated the acceptability and utility of an in-home remote activity monitoring (RAM) system for 30 family caregivers of persons with ADRD via quantitative survey data collected over a 6-month period and qualitative survey and interview data collected for up to 18 months. A parallel convergent mixed methods design was employed. The integrated qualitative and quantitative data suggested that RAM technology offered ongoing monitoring and provided caregivers with a sense of security. Considerable customization was needed so that RAM was most appropriate for persons with ADRD. The findings have important clinical implications when considering how RAM can supplement, or potentially substitute for, ADRD family care.

DynAMo: A Modular Platform for Monitoring Process, Outcome, and Algorithm-Based Treatment Planning in Psychotherapy.

PubMed

Kaiser, Tim; Laireiter, Anton Rupert

2017-07-20

In recent years, the assessment of mental disorders has become more and more personalized. Modern advancements such as Internet-enabled mobile phones and increased computing capacity make it possible to tap sources of information that have long been unavailable to mental health practitioners. Software packages that combine algorithm-based treatment planning, process monitoring, and outcome monitoring are scarce. The objective of this study was to assess whether the DynAMo Web application can fill this gap by providing a software solution that can be used by both researchers to conduct state-of-the-art psychotherapy process research and clinicians to plan treatments and monitor psychotherapeutic processes. In this paper, we report on the current state of a Web application that can be used for assessing the temporal structure of mental disorders using information on their temporal and synchronous associations. A treatment planning algorithm automatically interprets the data and delivers priority scores of symptoms to practitioners. The application is also capable of monitoring psychotherapeutic processes during therapy and of monitoring treatment outcomes. This application was developed using the R programming language (R Core Team, Vienna) and the Shiny Web application framework (RStudio, Inc, Boston). It is made entirely from open-source software packages and thus is easily extensible. The capabilities of the proposed application are demonstrated. Case illustrations are provided to exemplify its usefulness in clinical practice. With the broad availability of Internet-enabled mobile phones and similar devices, collecting data on psychopathology and psychotherapeutic processes has become easier than ever. The proposed application is a valuable tool for capturing, processing, and visualizing these data. The combination of dynamic assessment and process- and outcome monitoring has the potential to improve the efficacy and effectiveness of psychotherapy. ©Tim Kaiser, Anton Rupert Laireiter. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (http://medinform.jmir.org), 20.07.2017.

The Influence of Human and Environmental Exposure Factors on Personal NO2 Exposures

EPA Science Inventory

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) Detroit Exposure and Aerosol Research Study (DEARS) deployed a total of over 2000 nitrogen dioxide, NO₂, passive monitors during 3 years of field data collections. These 24-h based personal, residential outdoor and comm...

Ant-App-DB: a smart solution for monitoring arthropods activities, experimental data management and solar calculations without GPS in behavioral field studies.

PubMed

Ahmed, Zeeshan; Zeeshan, Saman; Fleischmann, Pauline; Rössler, Wolfgang; Dandekar, Thomas

2014-01-01

Field studies on arthropod ecology and behaviour require simple and robust monitoring tools, preferably with direct access to an integrated database. We have developed and here present a database tool allowing smart-phone based monitoring of arthropods. This smart phone application provides an easy solution to collect, manage and process the data in the field which has been a very difficult task for field biologists using traditional methods. To monitor our example species, the desert ant Cataglyphis fortis, we considered behavior, nest search runs, feeding habits and path segmentations including detailed information on solar position and azimuth calculation, ant orientation and time of day. For this we established a user friendly database system integrating the Ant-App-DB with a smart phone and tablet application, combining experimental data manipulation with data management and providing solar position and timing estimations without any GPS or GIS system. Moreover, the new desktop application Dataplus allows efficient data extraction and conversion from smart phone application to personal computers, for further ecological data analysis and sharing. All features, software code and database as well as Dataplus application are made available completely free of charge and sufficiently generic to be easily adapted to other field monitoring studies on arthropods or other migratory organisms. The software applications Ant-App-DB and Dataplus described here are developed using the Android SDK, Java, XML, C# and SQLite Database.

Ant-App-DB: a smart solution for monitoring arthropods activities, experimental data management and solar calculations without GPS in behavioral field studies

PubMed Central

Ahmed, Zeeshan; Zeeshan, Saman; Fleischmann, Pauline; Rössler, Wolfgang; Dandekar, Thomas

2015-01-01

Field studies on arthropod ecology and behaviour require simple and robust monitoring tools, preferably with direct access to an integrated database. We have developed and here present a database tool allowing smart-phone based monitoring of arthropods. This smart phone application provides an easy solution to collect, manage and process the data in the field which has been a very difficult task for field biologists using traditional methods. To monitor our example species, the desert ant Cataglyphis fortis, we considered behavior, nest search runs, feeding habits and path segmentations including detailed information on solar position and azimuth calculation, ant orientation and time of day. For this we established a user friendly database system integrating the Ant-App-DB with a smart phone and tablet application, combining experimental data manipulation with data management and providing solar position and timing estimations without any GPS or GIS system. Moreover, the new desktop application Dataplus allows efficient data extraction and conversion from smart phone application to personal computers, for further ecological data analysis and sharing. All features, software code and database as well as Dataplus application are made available completely free of charge and sufficiently generic to be easily adapted to other field monitoring studies on arthropods or other migratory organisms. The software applications Ant-App-DB and Dataplus described here are developed using the Android SDK, Java, XML, C# and SQLite Database. PMID:25977753

Modeling the Impact of Motivation, Personality, and Emotion on Social Behavior

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miller, Lynn C.; Read, Stephen J.; Zachary, Wayne; Rosoff, Andrew

Models seeking to predict human social behavior must contend with multiple sources of individual and group variability that underlie social behavior. One set of interrelated factors that strongly contribute to that variability - motivations, personality, and emotions - has been only minimally incorporated in previous computational models of social behavior. The Personality, Affect, Culture (PAC) framework is a theory-based computational model that addresses this gap. PAC is used to simulate social agents whose social behavior varies according to their personalities and emotions, which, in turn, vary according to their motivations and underlying motive control parameters. Examples involving disease spread and counter-insurgency operations show how PAC can be used to study behavioral variability in different social contexts.

36 CFR 1236.2 - What definitions apply to this part?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... users but does not retain any transmission data), data systems used to collect and process data that have been organized into data files or data bases on either personal computers or mainframe computers...

36 CFR 1236.2 - What definitions apply to this part?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... users but does not retain any transmission data), data systems used to collect and process data that have been organized into data files or data bases on either personal computers or mainframe computers...

36 CFR 1236.2 - What definitions apply to this part?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... users but does not retain any transmission data), data systems used to collect and process data that have been organized into data files or data bases on either personal computers or mainframe computers...

36 CFR 1236.2 - What definitions apply to this part?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... users but does not retain any transmission data), data systems used to collect and process data that have been organized into data files or data bases on either personal computers or mainframe computers...

77 FR 30540 - Proposed Collection; Comment Request; Cognitive Testing of Instrumentation and Materials for the...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-05-23

... methods of administration (e.g., computer assisted personal interviews [CAPI], audio computer assisted self-interviews [ACASI], web-based interviews). Cognitive testing of these materials and methods will...

Connecticut permanent long-term bridge monitoring network, volume 3 : monitoring of a multi-steel girder composite bridge - I-91 SB over the Mattabesset River in Cromwell (bridge #3078).

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2014-08-01

This report describes the instrumentation and data acquisition for a multi-girder, composite steel bridge in Connecticut. The : computer-based remote monitoring system was developed to collect information on the girder bending strains. The monitoring...

Registration of surface structures using airborne focused ultrasound.

PubMed

Sundström, N; Börjesson, P O; Holmer, N G; Olsson, L; Persson, H W

1991-01-01

A low-cost measuring system, based on a personal computer combined with standard equipment for complex measurements and signal processing, has been assembled. Such a system increases the possibilities for small hospitals and clinics to finance advanced measuring equipment. A description of equipment developed for airborne ultrasound together with a personal computer-based system for fast data acquisition and processing is given. Two air-adapted ultrasound transducers with high lateral resolution have been developed. Furthermore, a few results for fast and accurate estimation of signal arrival time are presented. The theoretical estimation models developed are applied to skin surface profile registrations.

A feasibility study of a personalized, internet-based compliance system for chronic disease management.

PubMed

Wang, X H; Istepanian, R S H; Geake, T; Hayes, J; Desco, M; Kontaxakis, G; Santos, A; Prentza, A; Pavlopoulos, S

2005-10-01

This paper describes a feasibility study on an Internet-based compliance system to provide personalized care for patients suffering from chronic diseases. Relevant medical trials from three different European countries provided preliminary evidence of the feasibility of the system and its efficacy in helping patients to manage their diseases at home. The study discusses further improvements not only for the C-Monitor system, but also for other Internet-based health-care services.

Wearable sensors for health monitoring

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Suciu, George; Butca, Cristina; Ochian, Adelina; Halunga, Simona

2015-02-01

In this paper we describe several wearable sensors, designed for monitoring the health condition of the patients, based on an experimental model. Wearable sensors enable long-term continuous physiological monitoring, which is important for the treatment and management of many chronic illnesses, neurological disorders, and mental health issues. The system is based on a wearable sensors network, which is connected to a computer or smartphone. The wearable sensor network integrates several wearable sensors that can measure different parameters such as body temperature, heart rate and carbon monoxide quantity from the air. After the portable sensors measuring parameter values, they are transmitted by microprocessor through the Bluetooth to the application developed on computer or smartphone, to be interpreted.

Novel diode-based laser system for combined transcutaneous monitoring and computer-controlled intermittent treatment of jaundiced neonates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamza, Mostafa; El-Ahl, Mohammad H. S.; Hamza, Ahmad M.

2001-06-01

The high efficacy of laser phototherapy combined with transcutaneous monitoring of serum bilirubin provides optimum safety for jaundiced infants from the risk of bilirubin encephalopathy. In this paper the authors introduce the design and operating principles of a new laser system that can provide simultaneous monitoring and treatment of several jaundiced babies at one time. The new system incorporates diode-based laser sources oscillating at selected wavelengths to achieve both transcutaneous differential absorption measurements of bilirubin concentration in addition to the computer controlled intermittent laser therapy through a network of optical fibers. The detailed description and operating characteristics of this system are presented.

Exploring JavaScript and ROOT technologies to create Web-based ATLAS analysis and monitoring tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sánchez Pineda, A.

2015-12-01

We explore the potential of current web applications to create online interfaces that allow the visualization, interaction and real cut-based physics analysis and monitoring of processes through a web browser. The project consists in the initial development of web- based and cloud computing services to allow students and researchers to perform fast and very useful cut-based analysis on a browser, reading and using real data and official Monte- Carlo simulations stored in ATLAS computing facilities. Several tools are considered: ROOT, JavaScript and HTML. Our study case is the current cut-based H → ZZ → llqq analysis of the ATLAS experiment. Preliminary but satisfactory results have been obtained online.

Optimizing Adversary Training and the Structure of the Navy Adversary Fleet

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-09-01

ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER 9. SPONSORING /MONITORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND ADDRESS(ES) OPNAV N98 2000 Navy Pentagon , Room 5C469 Washington DC, 20350...an overhaul of existing computers and encryption in the range operations centers (CDR R. Van Diepen, OPNAV Simulator Requirements Officer, personal...1.0. Using a simulated annealing heuristic algorithm in conjunction with the utility assignments, CNA found, in order of priority, that the following

Color in Computer-Assisted Instruction.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Steinberg, Esther R.

Color monitors are in wide use in computer systems. Thus, it is important to understand how to apply color effectively in computer assisted instruction (CAI) and computer based training (CBT). Color can enhance learning, but it does not automatically do so. Indiscriminate application of color can mislead a student and thereby even interfere with…

MixFit: Methodology for Computing Ancestry-Related Genetic Scores at the Individual Level and Its Application to the Estonian and Finnish Population Studies.

PubMed

Haller, Toomas; Leitsalu, Liis; Fischer, Krista; Nuotio, Marja-Liisa; Esko, Tõnu; Boomsma, Dorothea Irene; Kyvik, Kirsten Ohm; Spector, Tim D; Perola, Markus; Metspalu, Andres

2017-01-01

Ancestry information at the individual level can be a valuable resource for personalized medicine, medical, demographical and history research, as well as for tracing back personal history. We report a new method for quantitatively determining personal genetic ancestry based on genome-wide data. Numerical ancestry component scores are assigned to individuals based on comparisons with reference populations. These comparisons are conducted with an existing analytical pipeline making use of genotype phasing, similarity matrix computation and our addition-multidimensional best fitting by MixFit. The method is demonstrated by studying Estonian and Finnish populations in geographical context. We show the main differences in the genetic composition of these otherwise close European populations and how they have influenced each other. The components of our analytical pipeline are freely available computer programs and scripts one of which was developed in house (available at: www.geenivaramu.ee/en/tools/mixfit).

Reading disc-based bioassays with standard computer drives.

PubMed

Yu, Hua-Zhong; Li, Yunchao; Ou, Lily M-L

2013-02-19

Traditional methods of disease diagnosis are both time-consuming and labor-intensive, and many tests require expensive instrumentation and trained professionals, which restricts their use to biomedical laboratories. Because patients can wait several days (even weeks) for the results, the consequences of delayed treatment could be disastrous. Therefore, affordable and simple point-of-care (POC) biosensor devices could fill a diagnostic niche in the clinic or even at home, as personal glucose meters do for diabetics. These devices would allow patients to check their own health conditions and enable physicians to make prompt treatment decisions, which could improve the chances for rapid recovery and cure. Compact discs (CDs) provide inexpensive substrate materials for the preparation of microarray biochips, and conventional computer drives/disc players can be adapted as precise optical reading devices for signal processing. Researchers can employ the polycarbonate (PC) base of a CD as an alternative substrate to glass slides or silicon wafers for the preparation of microanalytical devices. Using the characteristic optical phenomena occurring on the metal layer of a CD, researchers can develop biosensors based on advanced spectroscopic readout (interferometry or surface plasmon resonance). If researchers integrate microfluidic functions with CD mechanics, they can control fluid transfer through the spinning motion of the disc, leading to "lab-on-a-CD" devices. Over the last decade, our laboratory has focused on the construction of POC biosensor devices from off-the-shelf CDs or DVDs and standard computer drives. Besides the initial studies of the suitability of CDs for surface and materials chemistry research (fabrication of self-assembled monolayers and oxide nanostructures), we have demonstrated that an ordinary optical drive, without modification of either the hardware or the software driver, can function as the signal transducing element for reading disc-based bioassays quantitatively. In this Account, we first provide a brief introduction to CD-related materials chemistry and microfluidics research. Then we describe the mild chemistry developed in our laboratory for the preparation of computer-readable biomolecular screening assays: photochemical activation of the polycarbonate (PC) disc surface and immobilization and delivery of probe and target biomolecules. We thoroughly discuss the analysis of the molecular recognition events: researchers can "read" these devices quantitatively with an unmodified optical drive of any personal computer. Finally, and critically, we illustrate our digitized molecular diagnosis approach with three trial systems: DNA hybridization, antibody-antigen binding, and ultrasensitive lead detection with a DNAzyme assay. These examples demonstrate the broad potential of this new analytical/diagnostic tool for medical screening, on-site food/water safety testing, and remote environmental monitoring.

The Role of Consumer-Controlled Personal Health Management Systems in the Evolution of Employer-Based Health Care Benefits.

PubMed

Jones, Spencer S; Caloyeras, John; Mattke, Soeren

2011-01-01

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has piqued employers' interest in new benefit designs because it includes numerous provisions that favor cost-reducing strategies, such as workplace wellness programs, value-based insurance design (VBID), and consumer-directed health plans (CDHPs). Consumer-controlled personal health management systems (HMSs) are a class of tools that provide encouragement, data, and decision support to individuals. Their functionalities fall into the following three categories: health information management, promotion of wellness and healthy lifestyles, and decision support. In this study, we review the evidence for many of the possible components of an HMS, including personal health records, web-based health risk assessments, integrated remote monitoring data, personalized health education and messaging, nutrition solutions and physical activity monitoring, diabetes-management solutions, medication reminders, vaccination and preventive-care applications, integrated incentive programs, social-networking tools, comparative data on price and value of providers, telehealth consultations, virtual coaching, and an integrated nurse hotline. The value of the HMS will be borne out as employers begin to adopt and implement these emerging technologies, enabling further assessment as their benefits and costs become better understood.

Hydrological Monitoring System Design and Implementation Based on IOT

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Kun; Zhang, Dacheng; Bo, Jingyi; Zhang, Zhiguang

In this article, an embedded system development platform based on GSM communication is proposed. Through its application in hydrology monitoring management, the author makes discussion about communication reliability and lightning protection, suggests detail solutions, and also analyzes design and realization of upper computer software. Finally, communication program is given. Hydrology monitoring system from wireless communication network is a typical practical application of embedded system, which has realized intelligence, modernization, high-efficiency and networking of hydrology monitoring management.

CAT Model with Personalized Algorithm for Evaluation of Estimated Student Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Andjelic, Svetlana; Cekerevac, Zoran

2014-01-01

This article presents the original model of the computer adaptive testing and grade formation, based on scientifically recognized theories. The base of the model is a personalized algorithm for selection of questions depending on the accuracy of the answer to the previous question. The test is divided into three basic levels of difficulty, and the…

Evolution of a web-based, prototype Personal Health Application for diabetes self-management.

PubMed

Fonda, Stephanie J; Kedziora, Richard J; Vigersky, Robert A; Bursell, Sven-Erik

2010-10-01

Behaviors carried out by the person with diabetes (e.g., healthy eating, physical activity, judicious use of medication, glucose monitoring, coping and problem-solving, regular clinic visits, etc.) are of central importance in diabetes management. To assist with these behaviors, we developed a prototype PHA for diabetes self-management that was based on User-Centered Design principles and congruent with the anticipatory vision of Project Health Design (PHD). This article presents aspects of the prototype PHA's functionality as conceived under PHD and describes modifications to the PHA now being undertaken under new sponsorship, in response to user feedback and timing tests we have performed. In brief, the prototype Personal Health Application (PHA) receives data on the major diabetes management domains from a Personal Health Record (PHR) and analyzes and provides feedback based on clinically vetted educational content. The information is presented within "gadgets" within a portal-based website. The PHR used for the first implementation was the Common Platform developed by PHD. Key changes include a re-conceptualization of the gadgets by topic areas originally defined by the American Association of Diabetes Educators, a refocusing on low-cost approaches to diabetes monitoring and data entry, and synchronization with a new PHR, Microsoft® HealthVault™. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Relative User Ratings of MMPI-2 Computer-Based Test Interpretations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Williams, John E.; Weed, Nathan C.

2004-01-01

There are eight commercially available computer-based test interpretations (CBTIs) for the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2), of which few have been empirically evaluated. Prospective users of these programs have little scientific data to guide choice of a program. This study compared ratings of these eight CBTIs. Test users…

User's guide to SILVAH

Treesearch

Peter D. Knopp; Susan L. Stout

2014-01-01

This user's guide for the SILVAH computer program, version 6.2, supersedes the 1992 user's guide (Gen. Tech. Rep. NE-162). Designed for stand-alone Windows-based personal computers, SILVAH recommends a silvicultural prescription for a forest stand based on a summary and analysis of field inventory data. The program also includes a simulator that can be used...

36 CFR § 1236.2 - What definitions apply to this part?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... users but does not retain any transmission data), data systems used to collect and process data that have been organized into data files or data bases on either personal computers or mainframe computers...

EVALUATION OF VENTILATION PERFORMANCE FOR INDOOR SPACE

EPA Science Inventory

The paper discusses a personal-computer-based application of computational fluid dynamics that can be used to determine the turbulent flow field and time-dependent/steady-state contaminant concentration distributions within isothermal indoor space. (NOTE: Ventilation performance ...

The Use of an Online Learning and Teaching System for Monitoring Computer Aided Design Student Participation and Predicting Student Success

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Akhtar, S.; Warburton, S.; Xu, W.

2017-01-01

In this paper we report on the use of a purpose built Computer Support Collaborative learning environment designed to support lab-based CAD teaching through the monitoring of student participation and identified predictors of success. This was carried out by analysing data from the interactive learning system and correlating student behaviour with…

ToTCompute: A Novel EEG-Based TimeOnTask Threshold Computation Mechanism for Engagement Modelling and Monitoring

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ghergulescu, Ioana; Muntean, Cristina Hava

2016-01-01

Engagement influences participation, progression and retention in game-based e-learning (GBeL). Therefore, GBeL systems should engage the players in order to support them to maximize their learning outcomes, and provide the players with adequate feedback to maintain their motivation. Innovative engagement monitoring solutions based on players'…

Renal function monitoring in heart failure - what is the optimal frequency? A narrative review.

PubMed

Al-Naher, Ahmed; Wright, David; Devonald, Mark Alexander John; Pirmohamed, Munir

2018-01-01

The second most common cause of hospitalization due to adverse drug reactions in the UK is renal dysfunction due to diuretics, particularly in patients with heart failure, where diuretic therapy is a mainstay of treatment regimens. Therefore, the optimal frequency for monitoring renal function in these patients is an important consideration for preventing renal failure and hospitalization. This review looks at the current evidence for optimal monitoring practices of renal function in patients with heart failure according to national and international guidelines on the management of heart failure (AHA/NICE/ESC/SIGN). Current guidance of renal function monitoring is in large part based on expert opinion, with a lack of clinical studies that have specifically evaluated the optimal frequency of renal function monitoring in patients with heart failure. Furthermore, there is variability between guidelines, and recommendations are typically nonspecific. Safer prescribing of diuretics in combination with other antiheart failure treatments requires better evidence for frequency of renal function monitoring. We suggest developing more personalized monitoring rather than from the current medication-based guidance. Such flexible clinical guidelines could be implemented using intelligent clinical decision support systems. Personalized renal function monitoring would be more effective in preventing renal decline, rather than reacting to it. © 2017 The Authors. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Pharmacological Society.

[Construction and analysis of a monitoring system with remote real-time multiple physiological parameters based on cloud computing].

PubMed

Zhu, Lingyun; Li, Lianjie; Meng, Chunyan

2014-12-01

There have been problems in the existing multiple physiological parameter real-time monitoring system, such as insufficient server capacity for physiological data storage and analysis so that data consistency can not be guaranteed, poor performance in real-time, and other issues caused by the growing scale of data. We therefore pro posed a new solution which was with multiple physiological parameters and could calculate clustered background data storage and processing based on cloud computing. Through our studies, a batch processing for longitudinal analysis of patients' historical data was introduced. The process included the resource virtualization of IaaS layer for cloud platform, the construction of real-time computing platform of PaaS layer, the reception and analysis of data stream of SaaS layer, and the bottleneck problem of multi-parameter data transmission, etc. The results were to achieve in real-time physiological information transmission, storage and analysis of a large amount of data. The simulation test results showed that the remote multiple physiological parameter monitoring system based on cloud platform had obvious advantages in processing time and load balancing over the traditional server model. This architecture solved the problems including long turnaround time, poor performance of real-time analysis, lack of extensibility and other issues, which exist in the traditional remote medical services. Technical support was provided in order to facilitate a "wearable wireless sensor plus mobile wireless transmission plus cloud computing service" mode moving towards home health monitoring for multiple physiological parameter wireless monitoring.

Type-A Personality and Stress Reduction Training Based on Transpersonal Psychology with Biofeedback and Computers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cassel, Russell N.; Sumantardja, Elmira N.

1982-01-01

Describes Type-A personality as the result of mad pursuit for excellence, characteristic in Western Culture. Relaxation training and stress reduction in management, combined with careful ordering of priorities for single goal attainment, results in Type-C personalities, which implies the development of coping skills for achieving goals.…

Digital health system for personalised COPD long-term management.

PubMed

Velardo, Carmelo; Shah, Syed Ahmar; Gibson, Oliver; Clifford, Gari; Heneghan, Carl; Rutter, Heather; Farmer, Andrew; Tarassenko, Lionel

2017-02-20

Recent telehealth studies have demonstrated minor impact on patients affected by long-term conditions. The use of technology does not guarantee the compliance required for sustained collection of high-quality symptom and physiological data. Remote monitoring alone is not sufficient for successful disease management. A patient-centred design approach is needed in order to allow the personalisation of interventions and encourage the completion of daily self-management tasks. A digital health system was designed to support patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in self-managing their condition. The system includes a mobile application running on a consumer tablet personal computer and a secure backend server accessible to the health professionals in charge of patient management. The patient daily routine included the completion of an adaptive, electronic symptom diary on the tablet, and the measurement of oxygen saturation via a wireless pulse oximeter. The design of the system was based on a patient-centred design approach, informed by patient workshops. One hundred and ten patients in the intervention arm of a randomised controlled trial were subsequently given the tablet computer and pulse oximeter for a 12-month period. Patients were encouraged, but not mandated, to use the digital health system daily. The average used was 6.0 times a week by all those who participated in the full trial. Three months after enrolment, patients were able to complete their symptom diary and oxygen saturation measurement in less than 1 m 40s (96% of symptom diaries). Custom algorithms, based on the self-monitoring data collected during the first 50 days of use, were developed to personalise alert thresholds. Strategies and tools aimed at refining a digital health intervention require iterative use to enable convergence on an optimal, usable design. 'Continuous improvement' allowed feedback from users to have an immediate impact on the design of the system (e.g., collection of quality data), resulting in high compliance with self-monitoring over a prolonged period of time (12-month). Health professionals were prompted by prioritisation algorithms to review patient data, which led to their regular use of the remote monitoring website throughout the trial. Trial registration: ISRCTN40367841 . Registered 17/10/2012.

Design of a Wireless Sensor System with the Algorithms of Heart Rate and Agility Index for Athlete Evaluation

PubMed Central

Li, Meina; Kim, Youn Tae

2017-01-01

Athlete evaluation systems can effectively monitor daily training and boost performance to reduce injuries. Conventional heart-rate measurement systems can be easily affected by artifact movement, especially in the case of athletes. Significant noise can be generated owing to high-intensity activities. To improve the comfort for athletes and the accuracy of monitoring, we have proposed to combine robust heart rate and agility index monitoring algorithms into a small, light, and single node. A band-pass-filter-based R-wave detection algorithm was developed. The agility index was calculated by preprocessing with band-pass filtering and employing the zero-crossing detection method. The evaluation was conducted under both laboratory and field environments to verify the accuracy and reliability of the algorithm. The heart rate and agility index measurements can be wirelessly transmitted to a personal computer in real time by the ZigBee telecommunication system. The results show that the error rate of measurement of the heart rate is within 2%, which is comparable with that of the traditional wired measurement method. The sensitivity of the agility index, which could be distinguished as the activity speed, changed slightly. Thus, we confirmed that the developed algorithm could be used in an effective and safe exercise-evaluation system for athletes. PMID:29039763

A mobile device system for early warning of ECG anomalies.

PubMed

Szczepański, Adam; Saeed, Khalid

2014-06-20

With the rapid increase in computational power of mobile devices the amount of ambient intelligence-based smart environment systems has increased greatly in recent years. A proposition of such a solution is described in this paper, namely real time monitoring of an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal during everyday activities for identification of life threatening situations. The paper, being both research and review, describes previous work of the authors, current state of the art in the context of the authors' work and the proposed aforementioned system. Although parts of the solution were described in earlier publications of the authors, the whole concept is presented completely for the first time along with the prototype implementation on mobile device-a Windows 8 tablet with Modern UI. The system has three main purposes. The first goal is the detection of sudden rapid cardiac malfunctions and informing the people in the patient's surroundings, family and friends and the nearest emergency station about the deteriorating health of the monitored person. The second goal is a monitoring of ECG signals under non-clinical conditions to detect anomalies that are typically not found during diagnostic tests. The third goal is to register and analyze repeatable, long-term disturbances in the regular signal and finding their patterns.

Use of Continuous Integration Tools for Application Performance Monitoring

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Vergara Larrea, Veronica G; Joubert, Wayne; Fuson, Christopher B

High performance computing systems are becom- ing increasingly complex, both in node architecture and in the multiple layers of software stack required to compile and run applications. As a consequence, the likelihood is increasing for application performance regressions to occur as a result of routine upgrades of system software components which interact in complex ways. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of continuous integration tools for application performance monitoring on HPC systems. In addition, this paper also describes a prototype system for application perfor- mance monitoring based on Jenkins, a Java-based continuous integration tool. The monitoringmore » system described leverages several features in Jenkins to track application performance results over time. Preliminary results and lessons learned from monitoring applications on Cray systems at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility are presented.« less

[Internet addiction--a case report].

PubMed

Pejović-Milovancević, Milica; Popović-Deusić, Smiljka; Draganić-Gajić, Saveta; Lecić-Tosevski, Dusica

2009-01-01

Some addictions cannot be connected with substance abuse (pathological gambling, video games playing, binge eating, compulsive physical activity, emotional relationship addiction, TV addiction). Since 1995, Internet addiction has been accepted as a clinical entity with profound negative effect on social, familial, educational and economical personal functioning. The diagnosis of Internet addiction could be established if the person spends more than 38 hours per week on the Internet exempting online professional needs. Basic symptoms are the increased number of hours spent in front of the computer along with the Internet use, development of abstinent syndrome if the Internet access is prohibited, sleep inversion, neglect of basic social requirements and personal hygiene, many somatic symptoms developed due to prolonged sitting or monitor watching, dissocial behaviour. In this paper, data about the Internet addiction are presented and a case report of an adolescent with developed Internet addiction.

Secondary hypertension due to isolated interrupted aortic arch in a 45-year-old person: A case report.

PubMed

Zhou, Jian Mei; Liu, Xin Wen; Yang, Yi; Wang, Bo Zhong; Wang, Jian An

2017-12-01

Though it is rare, isolated interrupted aortic arch (IAA) could lead to hypertension. Surgical repair is the only effective curative method to treat IAA conditions and patients with IAA can hardly survive to adulthood with medication alone. We report an IAA case that of a 45-year-old male patient who survived for 45 years without surgical treatment. A 45-year-old man was referred to the hospital presenting with abnormal blood pressure level. Both computed tomography angiogram (CTA) and angiography revealed IAA. The patient was diagnosed as IAA based on computed tomography angiogram (CTA) and angiography. The patient's blood pressure was severely high and refractory. He refused surgical treatment and accepted antihypertensive medication for 10 days. The patient's office blood pressure level was abnormal, fluctuating between 140/90 and 160/100 mm Hg, but 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring showed normal level. Hypertension due to IAA could be controlled with medications, even surgery is not performed. The discrepancy between ambulatory and office blood pressure levels may be due to the white coat effect.

Printable, scannable biometric templates for secure documents and materials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cambier, James L.; Musgrave, Clyde

2000-04-01

Biometric technology has been widely acknowledged as an effective means for enhancing private and public security through applications in physical access control, computer and computer network access control, medical records protection, banking security, public identification programs, and others. Nearly all of these applications involve use of a biometric token to control access to a physical entity or private information. There are also unique benefits to be derived from attaching a biometric template to a physical entity such as a document, package, laboratory sample, etc. Such an association allows fast, reliable, and highly accurate association of an individual person's identity to the physical entity, and can be used to enhance security, convenience, and privacy in many types of transactions. Examples include authentication of documents, tracking of laboratory samples in a testing environment, monitoring the movement of physical evidence within the criminal justice system, and authenticating the identity of both sending and receiving parties in shipment of high value parcels. A system is described which combines a biometric technology based on iris recognition with a printing and scanning technology for high-density bar codes.

Exploring methodological frameworks for a mental task-based near-infrared spectroscopy brain-computer interface.

PubMed

Weyand, Sabine; Takehara-Nishiuchi, Kaori; Chau, Tom

2015-10-30

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) enable users to interact with their environment using only cognitive activities. This paper presents the results of a comparison of four methodological frameworks used to select a pair of tasks to control a binary NIRS-BCI; specifically, three novel personalized task paradigms and the state-of-the-art prescribed task framework were explored. Three types of personalized task selection approaches were compared, including: user-selected mental tasks using weighted slope scores (WS-scores), user-selected mental tasks using pair-wise accuracy rankings (PWAR), and researcher-selected mental tasks using PWAR. These paradigms, along with the state-of-the-art prescribed mental task framework, where mental tasks are selected based on the most commonly used tasks in literature, were tested by ten able-bodied participants who took part in five NIRS-BCI sessions. The frameworks were compared in terms of their accuracy, perceived ease-of-use, computational time, user preference, and length of training. Most notably, researcher-selected personalized tasks resulted in significantly higher accuracies, while user-selected personalized tasks resulted in significantly higher perceived ease-of-use. It was also concluded that PWAR minimized the amount of data that needed to be collected; while, WS-scores maximized user satisfaction and minimized computational time. In comparison to the state-of-the-art prescribed mental tasks, our findings show that overall, personalized tasks appear to be superior to prescribed tasks with respect to accuracy and perceived ease-of-use. The deployment of personalized rather than prescribed mental tasks ought to be considered and further investigated in future NIRS-BCI studies. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Providing Assistive Technology Applications as a Service Through Cloud Computing.

PubMed

Mulfari, Davide; Celesti, Antonio; Villari, Massimo; Puliafito, Antonio

2015-01-01

Users with disabilities interact with Personal Computers (PCs) using Assistive Technology (AT) software solutions. Such applications run on a PC that a person with a disability commonly uses. However the configuration of AT applications is not trivial at all, especially whenever the user needs to work on a PC that does not allow him/her to rely on his / her AT tools (e.g., at work, at university, in an Internet point). In this paper, we discuss how cloud computing provides a valid technological solution to enhance such a scenario.With the emergence of cloud computing, many applications are executed on top of virtual machines (VMs). Virtualization allows us to achieve a software implementation of a real computer able to execute a standard operating system and any kind of application. In this paper we propose to build personalized VMs running AT programs and settings. By using the remote desktop technology, our solution enables users to control their customized virtual desktop environment by means of an HTML5-based web interface running on any computer equipped with a browser, whenever they are.

IBE-Lite: a lightweight identity-based cryptography for body sensor networks.

PubMed

Tan, Chiu C; Wang, Haodong; Zhong, Sheng; Li, Qun

2009-11-01

A body sensor network (BSN) is a network of sensors deployed on a person's body for health care monitoring. Since the sensors collect personal medical data, security and privacy are important components in a BSN. In this paper, we developed IBE-Lite, a lightweight identity-based encryption suitable for sensors in a BSN. We present protocols based on IBE-Lite that balance security and privacy with accessibility and perform evaluation using experiments conducted on commercially available sensors.

Physiological monitoring of team and task stressors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Orasanu, Judith; Tada, Yuri; Kraft, Norbert; Fischer, Ute

2005-05-01

Sending astronauts into space, especially on long-durations missions (e.g. three-year missions to Mars), entails enormous risk. Threats include both physical dangers of radiation, bone loss and other consequences of weightlessness, and also those arising from interpersonal problems associated with extended life in a high-risk isolated and confined environment. Before undertaking long-duration missions, NASA seeks to develop technologies to monitor indicators of potentially debilitating stress at both the individual and team level so that countermeasures can be introduced to prevent further deterioration. Doing so requires a better understanding of indicators of team health and performance. To that end, a study of team problem solving in a simulation environment was undertaken to explore effects of team and task stress. Groups of four males (25-45 yrs) engaged in six dynamic computer-based Antarctic search and rescue missions over four days. Both task and team stressors were manipulated. Physiological responses (ECG, respiration rate and amplitude, SCL, EMG, and PPG); communication (voice and email); individual personality and subjective team dynamics responses were collected and related to task performance. Initial analyses found that physiological measures can be used to identify transient stress, predict performance, and reflect subjective workload. Muscle tension and respiration were the most robust predictors. Not only the level of arousal but its variability during engagement in the task is important to consider. In general, less variability was found to be associated with higher levels of performance. Individuals scoring high on specific personality characteristics responded differently to task stress.

Multipath for Agricultural and Rural Information Services in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ge, Ningning; Zang, Zhiyuan; Gao, Lingwang; Shi, Qiang; Li, Jie; Xing, Chunlin; Shen, Zuorui

Internet cannot provide perfect information services for farmers in rural regions in China, because farmers in rural regions can hardly access the internet by now. But the wide coverage of mobile signal, telephone line, and television network, etc. gave us a chance to solve the problem. The integrated pest management platform of Northern fruit trees were developed based on the integrated technology, which can integrate the internet, mobile and fixed-line telephone network, and television network, to provide integrated pest management(IPM) information services for farmers in rural regions in E-mail, telephone-voice, short message, voice mail, videoconference or other format, to users' telephone, cell phone, personal computer, personal digital assistant(PDA), television, etc. alternatively. The architecture and the functions of the system were introduced in the paper. The system can manage the field monitoring data of agricultural pests, deal with enquiries to provide the necessary information to farmers accessing the interactive voice response(IVR) in the system with the experts on-line or off-line, and issue the early warnings about the fruit tree pests when it is necessary according to analysis on the monitoring data about the pests of fruit trees in variety of ways including SMS, fax, voice and intersystem e-mail.The system provides a platform and a new pattern for agricultural technology extension with a high coverage rate of agricultural technology in rural regions, and it can solve the problem of agriculture information service 'last kilometer' in China. The effectiveness of the system was certified.

Using the cloud to speed-up calibration of watershed-scale hydrologic models (Invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goodall, J. L.; Ercan, M. B.; Castronova, A. M.; Humphrey, M.; Beekwilder, N.; Steele, J.; Kim, I.

2013-12-01

This research focuses on using the cloud to address computational challenges associated with hydrologic modeling. One example is calibration of a watershed-scale hydrologic model, which can take days of execution time on typical computers. While parallel algorithms for model calibration exist and some researchers have used multi-core computers or clusters to run these algorithms, these solutions do not fully address the challenge because (i) calibration can still be too time consuming even on multicore personal computers and (ii) few in the community have the time and expertise needed to manage a compute cluster. Given this, another option for addressing this challenge that we are exploring through this work is the use of the cloud for speeding-up calibration of watershed-scale hydrologic models. The cloud used in this capacity provides a means for renting a specific number and type of machines for only the time needed to perform a calibration model run. The cloud allows one to precisely balance the duration of the calibration with the financial costs so that, if the budget allows, the calibration can be performed more quickly by renting more machines. Focusing specifically on the SWAT hydrologic model and a parallel version of the DDS calibration algorithm, we show significant speed-up time across a range of watershed sizes using up to 256 cores to perform a model calibration. The tool provides a simple web-based user interface and the ability to monitor the calibration job submission process during the calibration process. Finally this talk concludes with initial work to leverage the cloud for other tasks associated with hydrologic modeling including tasks related to preparing inputs for constructing place-based hydrologic models.

E-Learning Personalization Using Triple-Factor Approach in Standard-Based Education

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Laksitowening, K. A.; Santoso, H. B.; Hasibuan, Z. A.

2017-01-01

E-Learning can be a tool in monitoring learning process and progress towards the targeted competency. Process and progress on every learner can be different one to another, since every learner may have different learning type. Learning type itself can be identified by taking into account learning style, motivation, and knowledge ability. This study explores personalization for learning type based on Triple-Factor Approach. Considering that factors in Triple-Factor Approach are dynamic, the personalization system needs to accommodate the changes that may occurs. Originated from the issue, this study proposed personalization that guides learner progression dynamically towards stages of their learning process. The personalization is implemented in the form of interventions that trigger learner to access learning contents and discussion forums more often as well as improve their level of knowledge ability based on their state of learning type.

The GENIUS Grid Portal and robot certificates: a new tool for e-Science

PubMed Central

Barbera, Roberto; Donvito, Giacinto; Falzone, Alberto; La Rocca, Giuseppe; Milanesi, Luciano; Maggi, Giorgio Pietro; Vicario, Saverio

2009-01-01

Background Grid technology is the computing model which allows users to share a wide pletora of distributed computational resources regardless of their geographical location. Up to now, the high security policy requested in order to access distributed computing resources has been a rather big limiting factor when trying to broaden the usage of Grids into a wide community of users. Grid security is indeed based on the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) of X.509 certificates and the procedure to get and manage those certificates is unfortunately not straightforward. A first step to make Grids more appealing for new users has recently been achieved with the adoption of robot certificates. Methods Robot certificates have recently been introduced to perform automated tasks on Grids on behalf of users. They are extremely useful for instance to automate grid service monitoring, data processing production, distributed data collection systems. Basically these certificates can be used to identify a person responsible for an unattended service or process acting as client and/or server. Robot certificates can be installed on a smart card and used behind a portal by everyone interested in running the related applications in a Grid environment using a user-friendly graphic interface. In this work, the GENIUS Grid Portal, powered by EnginFrame, has been extended in order to support the new authentication based on the adoption of these robot certificates. Results The work carried out and reported in this manuscript is particularly relevant for all users who are not familiar with personal digital certificates and the technical aspects of the Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI). The valuable benefits introduced by robot certificates in e-Science can so be extended to users belonging to several scientific domains, providing an asset in raising Grid awareness to a wide number of potential users. Conclusion The adoption of Grid portals extended with robot certificates, can really contribute to creating transparent access to computational resources of Grid Infrastructures, enhancing the spread of this new paradigm in researchers' working life to address new global scientific challenges. The evaluated solution can of course be extended to other portals, applications and scientific communities. PMID:19534747

The GENIUS Grid Portal and robot certificates: a new tool for e-Science.

PubMed

Barbera, Roberto; Donvito, Giacinto; Falzone, Alberto; La Rocca, Giuseppe; Milanesi, Luciano; Maggi, Giorgio Pietro; Vicario, Saverio

2009-06-16

Grid technology is the computing model which allows users to share a wide pletora of distributed computational resources regardless of their geographical location. Up to now, the high security policy requested in order to access distributed computing resources has been a rather big limiting factor when trying to broaden the usage of Grids into a wide community of users. Grid security is indeed based on the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) of X.509 certificates and the procedure to get and manage those certificates is unfortunately not straightforward. A first step to make Grids more appealing for new users has recently been achieved with the adoption of robot certificates. Robot certificates have recently been introduced to perform automated tasks on Grids on behalf of users. They are extremely useful for instance to automate grid service monitoring, data processing production, distributed data collection systems. Basically these certificates can be used to identify a person responsible for an unattended service or process acting as client and/or server. Robot certificates can be installed on a smart card and used behind a portal by everyone interested in running the related applications in a Grid environment using a user-friendly graphic interface. In this work, the GENIUS Grid Portal, powered by EnginFrame, has been extended in order to support the new authentication based on the adoption of these robot certificates. The work carried out and reported in this manuscript is particularly relevant for all users who are not familiar with personal digital certificates and the technical aspects of the Grid Security Infrastructure (GSI). The valuable benefits introduced by robot certificates in e-Science can so be extended to users belonging to several scientific domains, providing an asset in raising Grid awareness to a wide number of potential users. The adoption of Grid portals extended with robot certificates, can really contribute to creating transparent access to computational resources of Grid Infrastructures, enhancing the spread of this new paradigm in researchers' working life to address new global scientific challenges. The evaluated solution can of course be extended to other portals, applications and scientific communities.

LEMON - LHC Era Monitoring for Large-Scale Infrastructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marian, Babik; Ivan, Fedorko; Nicholas, Hook; Hector, Lansdale Thomas; Daniel, Lenkes; Miroslav, Siket; Denis, Waldron

2011-12-01

At the present time computer centres are facing a massive rise in virtualization and cloud computing as these solutions bring advantages to service providers and consolidate the computer centre resources. However, as a result the monitoring complexity is increasing. Computer centre management requires not only to monitor servers, network equipment and associated software but also to collect additional environment and facilities data (e.g. temperature, power consumption, cooling efficiency, etc.) to have also a good overview of the infrastructure performance. The LHC Era Monitoring (Lemon) system is addressing these requirements for a very large scale infrastructure. The Lemon agent that collects data on every client and forwards the samples to the central measurement repository provides a flexible interface that allows rapid development of new sensors. The system allows also to report on behalf of remote devices such as switches and power supplies. Online and historical data can be visualized via a web-based interface or retrieved via command-line tools. The Lemon Alarm System component can be used for notifying the operator about error situations. In this article, an overview of the Lemon monitoring is provided together with a description of the CERN LEMON production instance. No direct comparison is made with other monitoring tool.

Job monitoring on DIRAC for Belle II distributed computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Yuji; Hayasaka, Kiyoshi; Hara, Takanori; Miyake, Hideki; Ueda, Ikuo

2015-12-01

We developed a monitoring system for Belle II distributed computing, which consists of active and passive methods. In this paper we describe the passive monitoring system, where information stored in the DIRAC database is processed and visualized. We divide the DIRAC workload management flow into steps and store characteristic variables which indicate issues. These variables are chosen carefully based on our experiences, then visualized. As a result, we are able to effectively detect issues. Finally, we discuss the future development for automating log analysis, notification of issues, and disabling problematic sites.

Real-Time Monitoring of Scada Based Control System for Filling Process

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soe, Aung Kyaw; Myint, Aung Naing; Latt, Maung Maung; Theingi

2008-10-01

This paper is a design of real-time monitoring for filling system using Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). The monitoring of production process is described in real-time using Visual Basic.Net programming under Visual Studio 2005 software without SCADA software. The software integrators are programmed to get the required information for the configuration screens. Simulation of components is expressed on the computer screen using parallel port between computers and filling devices. The programs of real-time simulation for the filling process from the pure drinking water industry are provided.

Are personal health records safe? A review of free web-accessible personal health record privacy policies.

PubMed

Carrión Señor, Inmaculada; Fernández-Alemán, José Luis; Toval, Ambrosio

2012-08-23

Several obstacles prevent the adoption and use of personal health record (PHR) systems, including users' concerns regarding the privacy and security of their personal health information. To analyze the privacy and security characteristics of PHR privacy policies. It is hoped that identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the PHR systems will be useful for PHR users, health care professionals, decision makers, and designers. We conducted a systematic review using the principal databases related to health and computer science to discover the Web-based and free PHR systems mentioned in published articles. The privacy policy of each PHR system selected was reviewed to extract its main privacy and security characteristics. The search of databases and the myPHR website provided a total of 52 PHR systems, of which 24 met our inclusion criteria. Of these, 17 (71%) allowed users to manage their data and to control access to their health care information. Only 9 (38%) PHR systems permitted users to check who had accessed their data. The majority of PHR systems used information related to the users' accesses to monitor and analyze system use, 12 (50%) of them aggregated user information to publish trends, and 20 (83%) used diverse types of security measures. Finally, 15 (63%) PHR systems were based on regulations or principles such as the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode). Most privacy policies of PHR systems do not provide an in-depth description of the security measures that they use. Moreover, compliance with standards and regulations in PHR systems is still low.

Are Personal Health Records Safe? A Review of Free Web-Accessible Personal Health Record Privacy Policies

PubMed Central

Fernández-Alemán, José Luis; Toval, Ambrosio

2012-01-01

Background Several obstacles prevent the adoption and use of personal health record (PHR) systems, including users’ concerns regarding the privacy and security of their personal health information. Objective To analyze the privacy and security characteristics of PHR privacy policies. It is hoped that identification of the strengths and weaknesses of the PHR systems will be useful for PHR users, health care professionals, decision makers, and designers. Methods We conducted a systematic review using the principal databases related to health and computer science to discover the Web-based and free PHR systems mentioned in published articles. The privacy policy of each PHR system selected was reviewed to extract its main privacy and security characteristics. Results The search of databases and the myPHR website provided a total of 52 PHR systems, of which 24 met our inclusion criteria. Of these, 17 (71%) allowed users to manage their data and to control access to their health care information. Only 9 (38%) PHR systems permitted users to check who had accessed their data. The majority of PHR systems used information related to the users’ accesses to monitor and analyze system use, 12 (50%) of them aggregated user information to publish trends, and 20 (83%) used diverse types of security measures. Finally, 15 (63%) PHR systems were based on regulations or principles such as the US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode). Conclusions Most privacy policies of PHR systems do not provide an in-depth description of the security measures that they use. Moreover, compliance with standards and regulations in PHR systems is still low. PMID:22917868

NASA Crew Personal Active Dosimeters (CPADs): Leveraging Novel Terrestrial Personal Radiation Monitoring Capabilities for Space Exploration

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leitgab, Martin; Semones, Edward; Lee, Kerry

2016-01-01

The NASA Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) is developing novel Crew Personal Active Dosimeters (CAPDs) for upcoming crewed space exploration missions and beyond. To reduce the resource footprint of the project a COTS dosimeter base is used for the development of CPADs. This base was identified from evaluations of existing COTS personal dosimeters against the concept of operations of future crewed missions and tests against detection requirements for radiation characteristic of the space environment. CPADs exploit operations efficiencies from novel features for space flight personal dosimeters such as real-time dose feedback, and autonomous measuring and data transmission capabilities. Preliminary CPAD design, results of radiation testing and aspects of operational integration will be presented.

IEEE-802.15.4-based low-power body sensor node with RF energy harvester.

PubMed

Tran, Thang Viet; Chung, Wan-Young

2014-01-01

This paper proposes the design and implementation of a low-voltage and low-power body sensor node based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard to collect electrocardiography (ECG) and photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. To achieve compact size, low supply voltage, and low power consumption, the proposed platform is integrated into a ZigBee mote, which contains a DC-DC booster, a PPG sensor interface module, and an ECG front-end circuit that has ultra-low current consumption. The input voltage of the proposed node is very low and has a wide range, from 0.65 V to 3.3 V. An RF energy harvester is also designed to charge the battery during the working mode or standby mode of the node. The power consumption of the proposed node reaches 14 mW in working mode to prolong the battery lifetime. The software is supported by the nesC language under the TinyOS environment, which enables the proposed node to be easily configured to function as an individual health monitoring node or a node in a wireless body sensor network (BSN). The proposed node is used to set up a wireless BSN that can simultaneously collect ECG and PPG signals and monitor the results on the personal computer.

Spinoff 2013

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2014-01-01

Topics covered include: Innovative Software Tools Measure Behavioral Alertness; Miniaturized, Portable Sensors Monitor Metabolic Health; Patient Simulators Train Emergency Caregivers; Solar Refrigerators Store Life-Saving Vaccines; Monitors Enable Medication Management in Patients' Homes; Handheld Diagnostic Device Delivers Quick Medical Readings; Experiments Result in Safer, Spin-Resistant Aircraft; Interfaces Visualize Data for Airline Safety, Efficiency; Data Mining Tools Make Flights Safer, More Efficient; NASA Standards Inform Comfortable Car Seats; Heat Shield Paves the Way for Commercial Space; Air Systems Provide Life Support to Miners; Coatings Preserve Metal, Stone, Tile, and Concrete; Robots Spur Software That Lends a Hand; Cloud-Based Data Sharing Connects Emergency Managers; Catalytic Converters Maintain Air Quality in Mines; NASA-Enhanced Water Bottles Filter Water on the Go; Brainwave Monitoring Software Improves Distracted Minds; Thermal Materials Protect Priceless, Personal Keepsakes; Home Air Purifiers Eradicate Harmful Pathogens; Thermal Materials Drive Professional Apparel Line; Radiant Barriers Save Energy in Buildings; Open Source Initiative Powers Real-Time Data Streams; Shuttle Engine Designs Revolutionize Solar Power; Procedure-Authoring Tool Improves Safety on Oil Rigs; Satellite Data Aid Monitoring of Nation's Forests; Mars Technologies Spawn Durable Wind Turbines; Programs Visualize Earth and Space for Interactive Education; Processor Units Reduce Satellite Construction Costs; Software Accelerates Computing Time for Complex Math; Simulation Tools Prevent Signal Interference on Spacecraft; Software Simplifies the Sharing of Numerical Models; Virtual Machine Language Controls Remote Devices; Micro-Accelerometers Monitor Equipment Health; Reactors Save Energy, Costs for Hydrogen Production; Cameras Monitor Spacecraft Integrity to Prevent Failures; Testing Devices Garner Data on Insulation Performance; Smart Sensors Gather Information for Machine Diagnostics; Oxygen Sensors Monitor Bioreactors and Ensure Health and Safety; Vision Algorithms Catch Defects in Screen Displays; and Deformable Mirrors Capture Exoplanet Data, Reflect Lasers.

76 FR 25277 - Lowering Miners' Exposure to Respirable Coal Mine Dust, Including Continuous Personal Dust Monitors

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-04

... 1219-AB64 Lowering Miners' Exposure to Respirable Coal Mine Dust, Including Continuous Personal Dust... to Respirable Coal Mine Dust, Including Continuous Personal Dust Monitors. This extension gives... Miners' Exposure to Respirable Coal Mine Dust, Including Continuous Personal Dust Monitors. In response...

The Relationship of Personality Traits and Self-Monitoring Behavior to Choice of Business Major.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noel, Noel Mark; Michaels Chad; Levas, Michael G.

2003-01-01

Using Cattell's 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire and the Revised Self-Monitoring Scale, 177 undergraduate business students assessed their personality traits. Personalities and self-monitoring differed by major (accounting, management information systems, marketing) in ways that supported conventional stereotypes. (Contains 24 references.) (SK)

Wireless Sensor Node for Autonomous Monitoring and Alerts in Remote Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Panangadan, Anand V. (Inventor); Monacos, Steve P. (Inventor)

2015-01-01

A method, apparatus, system, and computer program products provides personal alert and tracking capabilities using one or more nodes. Each node includes radio transceiver chips operating at different frequency ranges, a power amplifier, sensors, a display, and embedded software. The chips enable the node to operate as either a mobile sensor node or a relay base station node while providing a long distance relay link between nodes. The power amplifier enables a line-of-sight communication between the one or more nodes. The sensors provide a GPS signal, temperature, and accelerometer information (used to trigger an alert condition). The embedded software captures and processes the sensor information, provides a multi-hop packet routing protocol to relay the sensor information to and receive alert information from a command center, and to display the alert information on the display.

A Wireless Biomedical Signal Interface System-on-Chip for Body Sensor Networks.

PubMed

Lei Wang; Guang-Zhong Yang; Jin Huang; Jinyong Zhang; Li Yu; Zedong Nie; Cumming, D R S

2010-04-01

Recent years have seen the rapid development of biosensor technology, system-on-chip design, wireless technology. and ubiquitous computing. When assembled into an autonomous body sensor network (BSN), the technologies become powerful tools in well-being monitoring, medical diagnostics, and personal connectivity. In this paper, we describe the first demonstration of a fully customized mixed-signal silicon chip that has most of the attributes required for use in a wearable or implantable BSN. Our intellectual-property blocks include low-power analog sensor interface for temperature and pH, a data multiplexing and conversion module, a digital platform based around an 8-b microcontroller, data encoding for spread-spectrum wireless transmission, and a RF section requiring very few off-chip components. The chip has been fully evaluated and tested by connection to external sensors, and it satisfied typical system requirements.

The third level trigger and output event unit of the UA1 data-acquisition system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cittolin, S.; Demoulin, M.; Fucci, A.; Haynes, W.; Martin, B.; Porte, J. P.; Sphicas, P.

1989-12-01

The upgraded UA1 experiment utilizes twelve 3081/E emulators for its third-level trigger system. The system is interfaced to VME, and is controlled by 68000 microprocessor VME boards on the input and output. The output controller communicates with an IBM 9375 mainframe via the CERN-IBM developed VICI interface. The events selected by the emulators are output on IBM-3480 cassettes. The user interface to this system is based on a series of Macintosh personal computer connected to the VME bus. These Macs are also used for developing software for the emulators and for monitoring the entire system. The same configuration has also been used for offline event reconstruction. A description of the system, together with details of both the online and offline modes of operation and an eveluation of its performance are presented.

Monitoring system including an electronic sensor platform and an interrogation transceiver

DOEpatents

Kinzel, Robert L.; Sheets, Larry R.

2003-09-23

A wireless monitoring system suitable for a wide range of remote data collection applications. The system includes at least one Electronic Sensor Platform (ESP), an Interrogator Transceiver (IT) and a general purpose host computer. The ESP functions as a remote data collector from a number of digital and analog sensors located therein. The host computer provides for data logging, testing, demonstration, installation checkout, and troubleshooting of the system. The IT transmits signals from one or more ESP's to the host computer to the ESP's. The IT host computer may be powered by a common power supply, and each ESP is individually powered by a battery. This monitoring system has an extremely low power consumption which allows remote operation of the ESP for long periods; provides authenticated message traffic over a wireless network; utilizes state-of-health and tamper sensors to ensure that the ESP is secure and undamaged; has robust housing of the ESP suitable for use in radiation environments; and is low in cost. With one base station (host computer and interrogator transceiver), multiple ESP's may be controlled at a single monitoring site.

Performance evaluation of the active-flow personal DataRAM PM 2.5 mass monitor (Thermo Anderson pDR-1200) designed for continuous personal exposure measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chakrabarti, Bhabesh; Fine, Philip M.; Delfino, Ralph; Sioutas, Constantinos

The need for continuous personal monitoring for exposure to particulate matter has been demonstrated by recent health studies showing effects of PM exposure on time scales of less than a few hours. Filter-based methods cannot measure this short-term variation of PM levels, which can be quite significant considering human activity patterns. The goal of this study was to evaluate the active-flow personal DataRAM for PM 2.5 (MIE pDR-1200; Thermo Electron Corp., Franklin, MA) designed as a wearable monitor to continuously measure particle exposure. The instrument precision was found to be good (2.1%) and significantly higher than the passive pDR configuration tested previously. A comparison to other proven continuous monitors resulted in good agreement at low relative humidities. Results at higher humidity followed predictable trends and provided a correction scheme that improved the accuracy of pDR readings. The pDR response to particle size also corresponded to previously observed and theoretical errors. The active flow feature of the pDR allows collection of the sampled particles on a back-up filter. The 24-h mass measured on this filter was found to compare very well with a Federal Reference Method for PM 2.5 mass.

The Electronic Supervisor: New Technology, New Tensions.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Congress of the U.S., Washington, DC. Office of Technology Assessment.

Computer technology has made it possible for employers to collect and analyze management information about employees' work performance and equipment use. There are three main tools for supervising office activities. Computer-based (electronic) monitoring systems automatically record statistics about the work of employees using computer or…

A cloud-based electronic medical record for scheduling, tracking, and documenting examinations and treatment of retinopathy of prematurity.

PubMed

Arnold, Robert W; Jacob, Jack; Matrix, Zinnia

2012-01-01

Screening by neonatologists and staging by ophthalmologists is a cost-effective intervention, but inadvertent missed examinations create a high liability. Paper tracking, bedside schedule reminders, and a computer scheduling and reminder program were compared for speed of input and retrospective missed examination rate. A neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) process was then programmed for cloud-based distribution for inpatient and outpatient retinopathy of prematurity monitoring. Over 11 years, 367 premature infants in one NICU were prospectively monitored. The initial paper system missed 11% of potential examinations, the Windows server-based system missed 2%, and the current cloud-based system missed 0% of potential inpatient and outpatient examinations. Computer input of examinations took the same or less time than paper recording. A computer application with a deliberate NICU process improved the proportion of eligible neonates getting their scheduled eye examinations in a timely manner. Copyright 2012, SLACK Incorporated.

Solar Wind Monitor--A School Geophysics Project

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robinson, Ian

2018-01-01

Described is an established geophysics project to construct a solar wind monitor based on a nT resolution fluxgate magnetometer. Low-cost and appropriate from school to university level it incorporates elements of astrophysics, geophysics, electronics, programming, computer networking and signal processing. The system monitors the earth's field in…

Hey Buddy can you spare a DNA? New surveillance technologies and the growth of mandatory volunteerism in collecting personal information.

PubMed

Marx, Gary T

2007-01-01

The new social surveillance can be defined as scrutiny through the use of technical means to extract or create personal or group data, whether from individuals or contexts. Examples include: video cameras; computer matching, profiling and data mining; work, computer and electronic location monitoring; biometrics; DNA analysis; drug tests; brain scans for lie detection; various forms of imaging to reveal what is behind walls and enclosures. There are two problems with the new surveillance technologies. One is that they don't work and the other is that they work too well. If the first, they fail to prevent disasters, bring miscarriages of justice, and waste resources. If the second, they can further inequality and invidious social categorization; they chill liberty. These twin threats are part of the enduring paradox of democratic government that must be strong enough to maintain reasonable order, but not so strong as to become undemocratic.

26 CFR 1.168(j)-1T - Questions and answers concerning tax-exempt entity leasing rules (temporary).

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... technological equipment” means (1) any computer or peripheral equipment, (2) any high technology telephone..., electromechanical, or computer-based high technology equipment which is tangible personal property used in the... before the expiration of its physical useful life. High technology medical equipment may include computer...

Comparison of Interactive Computer-Based and Classroom Training on Human Rights Awareness in Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tardif-Williams, Christine Y.; Owen, Frances; Feldman, Maurice; Tarulli, Donato; Griffiths, Dorothy; Sales, Carol; McQueen-Fuentes, Glenys; Stoner, Karen

2007-01-01

We tested the effectiveness of an interactive, video CD-ROM in teaching persons with intellectual disabilities (ID) about their human rights. Thirty-nine participants with ID were trained using both a classroom activity-based version of the training program and the interactive CD-ROM in a counterbalanced presentation. All individuals were pre- and…

76 FR 58466 - Models To Advance Voluntary Corporate Notification to Consumers Regarding the Illicit Use of...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-09-21

...The U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of Homeland Security are requesting information on the requirements of, and possible approaches to creating, a voluntary industry code of conduct to address the detection, notification and mitigation of botnets.\\1\\ Over the past several years, botnets have increasingly put computer owners at risk. A botnet infection can lead to the monitoring of a consumer's personal information and communication, and exploitation of that consumer's computing power and Internet access. Networks of these compromised computers are often used to disseminate spam, to store and transfer illegal content, and to attack the servers of government and private entities with massive, distributed denial of service attacks. The Departments seek public comment from all Internet stakeholders, including the commercial, academic, and civil society sectors, on potential models for detection, notification, prevention, and mitigation of botnets' illicit use of computer equipment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Design and Implementation of an Operating System for the IBM Personal Computer.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-12-01

comprehensive study of an actual operating system in an effort to show students how theory has been put into action (Lions, 1978; McCharen, 1980). Another...Freedman, 1977). However, since it is easier to develop and maintain a program written in a high-order language (HOL), Pascal was chosen to be the primary...monolithic monitor approach and the kernel approach are strategies which can be used to structure operating systems ( Deitel , 1983; Holt, 1983

Children's Ability to Distinguish between Memories from Multiple Sources: Implications for the Quality and Accuracy of Eyewitness Statements.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roberts, Kim P.

2002-01-01

Outlines five perspectives addressing alternate aspects of the development of children's source monitoring: source-monitoring theory, fuzzy-trace theory, schema theory, person-based perspective, and mental-state reasoning model. Discusses research areas with relation to forensic developmental psychology: agent identity, prospective processing,…

Development of a wearable system module for monitoring physical and mental workload.

PubMed

Kim, Sinbae; Nakamura, Hiromi; Yoshida, Toshihiko; Kishimoto, Masamichi; Imai, Yohsuke; Matsuki, Noriaki; Ishikawa, Takuji; Yamaguchi, Takami

2008-11-01

The population of most developed countries is rapidly aging, which has created a growing demand for home care. A key issue in medicine is supporting the increasing number of elderly patients, both physically and mentally. In this study, we developed a wearable computer that contained modules for measuring electrocardiograms (ECGs) and femoral artery pulse waves using an accelerometer. This system has several benefits: (a) it can provide a database server in each patient's home; (b) its high extendibility and flexibility facilitate adaptation to a patient's needs; and (c) it allows patients to keep their own data, thus protecting the privacy of personal information. To clarify the capabilities and reliability of the system, we applied it to 8 healthy young volunteers during states of physical and mental work. This system successfully detected clear ECGs and femoral artery pulse waves to calculate important bioinformation, including heart rate, pulse wave velocity, and the power spectral density of spontaneous beat-to-beat oscillations in the R-R interval. In this study, we proposed the way to provide an assessment of the physical and mental condition of the subject using analysis of the bio-information with respect to the physical and mental workloads. The present study provides useful knowledge for the development of a wearable computer designed to monitor the physical and mental conditions of older persons and patients.

Multi-tasking computer control of video related equipment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Molina, Rod; Gilbert, Bob

1989-01-01

The flexibility, cost-effectiveness and widespread availability of personal computers now makes it possible to completely integrate the previously separate elements of video post-production into a single device. Specifically, a personal computer, such as the Commodore-Amiga, can perform multiple and simultaneous tasks from an individual unit. Relatively low cost, minimal space requirements and user-friendliness, provides the most favorable environment for the many phases of video post-production. Computers are well known for their basic abilities to process numbers, text and graphics and to reliably perform repetitive and tedious functions efficiently. These capabilities can now apply as either additions or alternatives to existing video post-production methods. A present example of computer-based video post-production technology is the RGB CVC (Computer and Video Creations) WorkSystem. A wide variety of integrated functions are made possible with an Amiga computer existing at the heart of the system.

Computer-based Written Emotional Disclosure: The Effects of Advance or Real-time Guidance and Moderation by Big 5 Personality Traits

PubMed Central

Beyer, Jonathan A.; Lumley, Mark A.; Latsch, Deborah A.; Oberleitner, Lindsay M.S.; Carty, Jennifer N.; Radcliffe, Alison M.

2014-01-01

Standard written emotional disclosure (WED) about stress, which is private and unguided, yields small health benefits. The effect of providing individualized guidance to writers may enhance WED, but has not been tested. This trial of computer-based WED compared two novel therapist-guided forms of WED—advance guidance (before sessions) or real-time guidance (during sessions, through instant messaging)—to both standard WED and control writing; it also tested Big 5 personality traits as moderators of guided WED. Young adult participants (n = 163) with unresolved stressful experiences were randomized to conditions, had three, 30-min computer-based writing sessions, and were reassessed 6 weeks later. Contrary to hypotheses, real-time guidance WED had poorer outcomes than the other conditions on several measures, and advance guidance WED also showed some poorer outcomes. Moderator analyses revealed that participants with low baseline agreeableness, low extraversion, or high conscientiousness had relatively poor responses to guidance. We conclude that providing guidance for WED, especially in real-time, may interfere with emotional processing of unresolved stress, particularly for people whose personalities have poor fit with this interactive form of WED. PMID:24266598

Quantifying medical student clinical experiences via an ICD Code Logging App.

PubMed

Rawlins, Fred; Sumpter, Cameron; Sutphin, Dean; Garner, Harold R

2018-03-01

The logging of ICD Diagnostic, Procedure and Drug codes is one means of tracking the experience of medical students' clinical rotations. The goal is to create a web-based computer and mobile application to track the progress of trainees, monitor the effectiveness of their training locations and be a means of sampling public health status. We have developed a web-based app in which medical trainees make entries via a simple and quick interface optimized for both mobile devices and personal computers. For each patient interaction, users enter ICD diagnostic, procedure, and drug codes via a hierarchical or search entry interface, as well as patient demographics (age range and gender, but no personal identifiers), and free-text notes. Users and administrators can review and edit input via a series of output interfaces. The user interface and back-end database are provided via dual redundant failover Linux servers. Students master the interface in ten minutes, and thereafter complete entries in less than one minute. Five hundred-forty 3rd year VCOM students each averaged 100 entries in the first four week clinical rotation. Data accumulated in various Appalachian clinics and Central American medical mission trips has demonstrated the public health surveillance utility of the application. PC and mobile apps can be used to collect medical trainee experience in real time or near real-time, quickly, and efficiently. This system has collected 75,596 entries to date, less than 2% of trainees have needed assistance to become proficient, and medical school administrators are using the various summaries to evaluate students and compare different rotation sites. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

PERSONAL COMPUTERS AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

EPA Science Inventory

This article discusses how personal computers can be applied to environmental engineering. fter explaining some of the differences between mainframe and Personal computers, we will review the development of personal computers and describe the areas of data management, interactive...

"Development of Model-Based Air Pollution Exposure Metrics for use in Epidemiologic Studies"

EPA Science Inventory

Population-based epidemiological studies of air pollution have traditionally relied upon imperfect surrogates of personal exposures, such as area-wide ambient air pollution levels based on readily available concentrations from central monitoring sites. U.S. EPA in collaboration w...

DEVELOPMENT OF MODEL-BASED AIR POLLUTION EXPOSURE METRICS FOR USE IN EPIDEMIOLOGIC STUDIES

EPA Science Inventory

Population-based epidemiological studies of air pollution have traditionally relied upon imperfect surrogates of personal exposures, such as area-wide ambient air pollution levels based on readily available concentrations from central monitoring sites. U.S. EPA in collaboration w...

Perceptions about computers and the internet in a pediatric clinic population.

PubMed

Carroll, Aaron E; Zimmerman, Frederick J; Rivara, Frederick P; Ebel, Beth E; Christakis, Dimitri A

2005-01-01

A digital divide with respect to computer and Internet access has been noted in numerous studies and reports. Equally important to ownership is comfort with computers and Internet technology, and concerns about privacy of personal data. To measure how households in a pediatric clinic vary in their attitudes toward computers, concerns about Internet confidentiality, and comfort using the Internet and whether these views are associated with household income or education. A phone survey was administered to a population-based sample of parents with children aged 0 to 11 years. All children received medical care from a community-based clinic network serving patients in King County, Wash. Eighty-eight percent of respondents used a computer once a week or more, and 83% of respondents reported favorable feelings toward computers. Although 97% of respondents were willing to share personal information over the Internet, many respondents considered data security important. While household income and parental education were associated with comfort and familiarity with computers, the effect is small. Respondents who already owned a computer and had Internet access did not differ in their perceptions according to socioeconomic or educational attainment. Most families like using computers and feel comfortable using the Internet regardless of socioeconomic status. Fears about the digital divide's impact on the attitudes of parents toward computers or their comfort using the Internet should not be seen as a barrier to developing Internet-based health interventions for a pediatric clinic population.

Understanding and Predicting Student Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in Game-Based Learning Environments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sabourin, Jennifer L.; Shores, Lucy R.; Mott, Bradford W.; Lester, James C.

2013-01-01

Self-regulated learning behaviors such as goal setting and monitoring have been found to be crucial to students' success in computer-based learning environments. Consequently, understanding students' self-regulated learning behavior has been the subject of increasing attention. Unfortunately, monitoring these behaviors in real-time has…

Estimating Risk to Humans Exposed to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Outbreaks in the United States, 2014–2017

PubMed Central

Olsen, Sonja; Havers, Fiona; Rolfes, Melissa; Blanton, Lenee; Rooney, Jane; Gomez, Thomas; Nelson, Deborah; Karli, Steven; Trock, Susan C; Fry, Alicia M

2017-01-01

Abstract Background In the USA, poultry outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (AI) caused by H5 and H7 viruses have raised concern about the risk of infections in humans. Based on data from Asian lineage H5 and H7 AI, which sporadically transmit from poultry to humans, CDC currently recommends active daily monitoring of persons exposed to H5 and H7 AI viruses, including those who wear personal protective equipment (PPE). Methods Persons exposed to HPAI-infected birds or contaminated environments in the USA were actively monitored during exposure and for 10 days post-exposure for illness, during 2014–2017. Some exposed persons were monitored on-site by USDA or contract safety officers, company staff, or state health officials. State health department staff monitored people during the 10-day post-exposure period. Persons reporting any respiratory illness or conjunctivitis were swabbed for molecular influenza testing. Preliminary results are presented. Results From 2014 to 2017, 270 detections in poultry/wild birds were reported and at least 606 persons were potentially exposed to AI virus by exposure to birds, carcasses, or environment. Most exposed persons wore PPE. No human infections with AI viruses were detected. Conclusion The risk of transmission of these H5 and H7 AI viruses to humans was low. These preliminary data offer evidence to change the recommendations for monitoring in persons exposed to these viruses. If final data support these findings, self-monitoring by workers with reporting to health departments if symptoms develop, rather than active monitoring by public health personnel, could be considered. However, it will be important to reconsider and update recommendations as the viruses evolve. Furthermore, risk of infection likely varies by exposure and those without PPE should be actively monitored. Year HPAI virus No. of detections reported Estimated no. birds destroyed No. of persons exposed No. HPAI positive/no. of ill and tested Percent ill of all exposed (95% exact binomial confidence interval) December 2014–June 2015 H5N2 H5N8 H5N1 H5 241 22 2 15,639,861 254,669 0 103 56 3 2 164 0/5 0 (0–0.02) 2016 H7N8 H5N2 1 1 42,600 0 319 Missing 0/20 Missing 0 (0–0.01) 2017 H7N9 H5N2 2 1 127,956 0 123 Missing 0/1 Missing 0 (0–0.03) Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures.

Hybrid-Aware Model for Senior Wellness Service in Smart Home.

PubMed

Jung, Yuchae

2017-05-22

Smart home technology with situation-awareness is important for seniors to improve safety and security. With the development of context-aware computing, wearable sensor technology, and ubiquitous computing, it is easier for seniors to manage their health problem in smart home environment. For monitoring senior activity in smart home, wearable, and motion sensors-such as respiration rate (RR), electrocardiography (ECG), body temperature, and blood pressure (BP)-were used for monitoring movements of seniors. For context-awareness, environmental sensors-such as gas, fire, smoke, dust, temperature, and light sensors-were used for senior location data collection. Based on senior activity, senior health status can be classified into positive and negative. Based on senior location and time, senior safety is classified into safe and emergency. In this paper, we propose a hybrid inspection service middleware for monitoring elderly health risk based on senior activity and location. This hybrid-aware model for the detection of abnormal status of seniors has four steps as follows: (1) data collection from biosensors and environmental sensors; (2) monitoring senior location and time of stay in each location using environmental sensors; (3) monitoring senior activity using biometric data; finally, (4) expectation-maximization based decision-making step recommending proper treatment based on a senior health risk ratio.

Hybrid-Aware Model for Senior Wellness Service in Smart Home

PubMed Central

Jung, Yuchae

2017-01-01

Smart home technology with situation-awareness is important for seniors to improve safety and security. With the development of context-aware computing, wearable sensor technology, and ubiquitous computing, it is easier for seniors to manage their health problem in smart home environment. For monitoring senior activity in smart home, wearable, and motion sensors—such as respiration rate (RR), electrocardiography (ECG), body temperature, and blood pressure (BP)—were used for monitoring movements of seniors. For context-awareness, environmental sensors—such as gas, fire, smoke, dust, temperature, and light sensors—were used for senior location data collection. Based on senior activity, senior health status can be classified into positive and negative. Based on senior location and time, senior safety is classified into safe and emergency. In this paper, we propose a hybrid inspection service middleware for monitoring elderly health risk based on senior activity and location. This hybrid-aware model for the detection of abnormal status of seniors has four steps as follows: (1) data collection from biosensors and environmental sensors; (2) monitoring senior location and time of stay in each location using environmental sensors; (3) monitoring senior activity using biometric data; finally, (4) expectation-maximization based decision-making step recommending proper treatment based on a senior health risk ratio. PMID:28531157

Expert systems for fault diagnosis in nuclear reactor control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jalel, N. A.; Nicholson, H.

1990-11-01

An expert system for accident analysis and fault diagnosis for the Loss Of Fluid Test (LOFT) reactor, a small scale pressurized water reactor, was developed for a personal computer. The knowledge of the system is presented using a production rule approach with a backward chaining inference engine. The data base of the system includes simulated dependent state variables of the LOFT reactor model. Another system is designed to assist the operator in choosing the appropriate cooling mode and to diagnose the fault in the selected cooling system. The response tree, which is used to provide the link between a list of very specific accident sequences and a set of generic emergency procedures which help the operator in monitoring system status, and to differentiate between different accident sequences and select the correct procedures, is used to build the system knowledge base. Both systems are written in TURBO PROLOG language and can be run on an IBM PC compatible with 640k RAM, 40 Mbyte hard disk and color graphics.

Mobile healthcare applications: system design review, critical issues and challenges.

PubMed

Baig, Mirza Mansoor; GholamHosseini, Hamid; Connolly, Martin J

2015-03-01

Mobile phones are becoming increasingly important in monitoring and delivery of healthcare interventions. They are often considered as pocket computers, due to their advanced computing features, enhanced preferences and diverse capabilities. Their sophisticated sensors and complex software applications make the mobile healthcare (m-health) based applications more feasible and innovative. In a number of scenarios user-friendliness, convenience and effectiveness of these systems have been acknowledged by both patients as well as healthcare providers. M-health technology employs advanced concepts and techniques from multidisciplinary fields of electrical engineering, computer science, biomedical engineering and medicine which benefit the innovations of these fields towards healthcare systems. This paper deals with two important aspects of current mobile phone based sensor applications in healthcare. Firstly, critical review of advanced applications such as; vital sign monitoring, blood glucose monitoring and in-built camera based smartphone sensor applications. Secondly, investigating challenges and critical issues related to the use of smartphones in healthcare including; reliability, efficiency, mobile phone platform variability, cost effectiveness, energy usage, user interface, quality of medical data, and security and privacy. It was found that the mobile based applications have been widely developed in recent years with fast growing deployment by healthcare professionals and patients. However, despite the advantages of smartphones in patient monitoring, education, and management there are some critical issues and challenges related to security and privacy of data, acceptability, reliability and cost that need to be addressed.

Remote maintenance monitoring system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Simpkins, Lorenz G. (Inventor); Owens, Richard C. (Inventor); Rochette, Donn A. (Inventor)

1992-01-01

A remote maintenance monitoring system retrofits to a given hardware device with a sensor implant which gathers and captures failure data from the hardware device, without interfering with its operation. Failure data is continuously obtained from predetermined critical points within the hardware device, and is analyzed with a diagnostic expert system, which isolates failure origin to a particular component within the hardware device. For example, monitoring of a computer-based device may include monitoring of parity error data therefrom, as well as monitoring power supply fluctuations therein, so that parity error and power supply anomaly data may be used to trace the failure origin to a particular plane or power supply within the computer-based device. A plurality of sensor implants may be rerofit to corresponding plural devices comprising a distributed large-scale system. Transparent interface of the sensors to the devices precludes operative interference with the distributed network. Retrofit capability of the sensors permits monitoring of even older devices having no built-in testing technology. Continuous real time monitoring of a distributed network of such devices, coupled with diagnostic expert system analysis thereof, permits capture and analysis of even intermittent failures, thereby facilitating maintenance of the monitored large-scale system.

eButton: A Wearable Computer for Health Monitoring and Personal Assistance

PubMed Central

Sun, Mingui; Burke, Lora E.; Mao, Zhi-Hong; Chen, Yiran; Chen, Hsin-Chen; Bai, Yicheng; Li, Yuecheng; Li, Chengliu; Jia, Wenyan

2014-01-01

Recent advances in mobile devices have made profound changes in people's daily lives. In particular, the impact of easy access of information by the smartphone has been tremendous. However, the impact of mobile devices on healthcare has been limited. Diagnosis and treatment of diseases are still initiated by occurrences of symptoms, and technologies and devices that emphasize on disease prevention and early detection outside hospitals are under-developed. Besides healthcare, mobile devices have not yet been designed to fully benefit people with special needs, such as the elderly and those suffering from certain disabilities, such blindness. In this paper, an overview of our research on a new wearable computer called eButton is presented. The concepts of its design and electronic implementation are described. Several applications of the eButton are described, including evaluating diet and physical activity, studying sedentary behavior, assisting the blind and visually impaired people, and monitoring older adults suffering from dementia. PMID:25340176

The Trans-Visible Navigator: A See-Through Neuronavigation System Using Augmented Reality.

PubMed

Watanabe, Eiju; Satoh, Makoto; Konno, Takehiko; Hirai, Masahiro; Yamaguchi, Takashi

2016-03-01

The neuronavigator has become indispensable for brain surgery and works in the manner of point-to-point navigation. Because the positional information is indicated on a personal computer (PC) monitor, surgeons are required to rotate the dimension of the magnetic resonance imaging/computed tomography scans to match the surgical field. In addition, they must frequently alternate their gaze between the surgical field and the PC monitor. To overcome these difficulties, we developed an augmented reality-based navigation system with whole-operation-room tracking. A tablet PC is used for visualization. The patient's head is captured by the back-face camera of the tablet. Three-dimensional images of intracranial structures are extracted from magnetic resonance imaging/computed tomography and are superimposed on the video image of the head. When viewed from various directions around the head, intracranial structures are displayed with corresponding angles as viewed from the camera direction, thus giving the surgeon the sensation of seeing through the head. Whole-operation-room tracking is realized using a VICON tracking system with 6 cameras. A phantom study showed a spatial resolution of about 1 mm. The present system was evaluated in 6 patients who underwent tumor resection surgery, and we showed that the system is useful for planning skin incisions as well as craniotomy and the localization of superficial tumors. The main advantage of the present system is that it achieves volumetric navigation in contrast to conventional point-to-point navigation. It extends augmented reality images directly onto real surgical images, thus helping the surgeon to integrate these 2 dimensions intuitively. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automatically-computed prehospital severity scores are equivalent to scores based on medic documentation.

PubMed

Reisner, Andrew T; Chen, Liangyou; McKenna, Thomas M; Reifman, Jaques

2008-10-01

Prehospital severity scores can be used in routine prehospital care, mass casualty care, and military triage. If computers could reliably calculate clinical scores, new clinical and research methodologies would be possible. One obstacle is that vital signs measured automatically can be unreliable. We hypothesized that Signal Quality Indices (SQI's), computer algorithms that differentiate between reliable and unreliable monitored physiologic data, could improve the predictive power of computer-calculated scores. In a retrospective analysis of trauma casualties transported by air ambulance, we computed the Triage Revised Trauma Score (RTS) from archived travel monitor data. We compared the areas-under-the-curve (AUC's) of receiver operating characteristic curves for prediction of mortality and red blood cell transfusion for 187 subjects with comparable quantities of good-quality and poor-quality data. Vital signs deemed reliable by SQI's led to significantly more discriminatory severity scores than vital signs deemed unreliable. We also compared automatically-computed RTS (using the SQI's) versus RTS computed from vital signs documented by medics. For the subjects in whom the SQI algorithms identified 15 consecutive seconds of reliable vital signs data (n = 350), the automatically-computed scores' AUC's were the same as the medic-based scores' AUC's. Using the Prehospital Index in place of RTS led to very similar results, corroborating our findings. SQI algorithms improve automatically-computed severity scores, and automatically-computed scores using SQI's are equivalent to medic-based scores.

Design of a Fatigue Detection System for High-Speed Trains Based on Driver Vigilance Using a Wireless Wearable EEG

PubMed Central

Zhang, Xiaoliang; Li, Jiali; Liu, Yugang; Zhang, Zutao; Wang, Zhuojun; Luo, Dianyuan; Zhou, Xiang; Zhu, Miankuan; Salman, Waleed; Hu, Guangdi; Wang, Chunbai

2017-01-01

The vigilance of the driver is important for railway safety, despite not being included in the safety management system (SMS) for high-speed train safety. In this paper, a novel fatigue detection system for high-speed train safety based on monitoring train driver vigilance using a wireless wearable electroencephalograph (EEG) is presented. This system is designed to detect whether the driver is drowsiness. The proposed system consists of three main parts: (1) a wireless wearable EEG collection; (2) train driver vigilance detection; and (3) early warning device for train driver. In the first part, an 8-channel wireless wearable brain-computer interface (BCI) device acquires the locomotive driver’s brain EEG signal comfortably under high-speed train-driving conditions. The recorded data are transmitted to a personal computer (PC) via Bluetooth. In the second step, a support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithm is implemented to determine the vigilance level using the Fast Fourier transform (FFT) to extract the EEG power spectrum density (PSD). In addition, an early warning device begins to work if fatigue is detected. The simulation and test results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed fatigue detection system for high-speed train safety. PMID:28257073

[Measurement of intracranial hematoma volume by personal computer].

PubMed

DU, Wanping; Tan, Lihua; Zhai, Ning; Zhou, Shunke; Wang, Rui; Xue, Gongshi; Xiao, An

2011-01-01

To explore the method for intracranial hematoma volume measurement by the personal computer. Forty cases of various intracranial hematomas were measured by the computer tomography with quantitative software and personal computer with Photoshop CS3 software, respectively. the data from the 2 methods were analyzed and compared. There was no difference between the data from the computer tomography and the personal computer (P>0.05). The personal computer with Photoshop CS3 software can measure the volume of various intracranial hematomas precisely, rapidly and simply. It should be recommended in the clinical medicolegal identification.

LTPP Computed Parameter: Moisture Content

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2008-01-01

A study was conducted to compute in situ soil parameters based on time domain reflectometry (TDR) traces obtained from Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) test sections instrumented for the seasonal monitoring program (SMP). Ten TDR sensors were in...

Computer ray tracing speeds.

PubMed

Robb, P; Pawlowski, B

1990-05-01

The results of measuring the ray trace speed and compilation speed of thirty-nine computers in fifty-seven configurations, ranging from personal computers to super computers, are described. A correlation of ray trace speed has been made with the LINPACK benchmark which allows the ray trace speed to be estimated using LINPACK performance data. The results indicate that the latest generation of workstations, using CPUs based on RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) technology, are as fast or faster than mainframe computers in compute-bound situations.

Protecting clinical data on Web client computers: the PCASSO approach.

PubMed Central

Masys, D. R.; Baker, D. B.

1998-01-01

The ubiquity and ease of use of the Web have made it an increasingly popular medium for communication of health-related information. Web interfaces to commercially available clinical information systems are now available or under development by most major vendors. To the extent that such interfaces involve the use of unprotected operating systems, they are vulnerable to security limitations of Web client software environments. The Patient Centered Access to Secure Systems Online (PCASSO) project extends the protections for person-identifiable health data on Web client computers. PCASSO uses several approaches, including physical protection of authentication information, execution containment, graphical displays, and monitoring the client system for intrusions and co-existing programs that may compromise security. PMID:9929243

Software Accelerates Computing Time for Complex Math

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

2014-01-01

Ames Research Center awarded Newark, Delaware-based EM Photonics Inc. SBIR funding to utilize graphic processing unit (GPU) technology- traditionally used for computer video games-to develop high-computing software called CULA. The software gives users the ability to run complex algorithms on personal computers with greater speed. As a result of the NASA collaboration, the number of employees at the company has increased 10 percent.

Embodying Others in Immersive Virtual Reality: Electro-Cortical Signatures of Monitoring the Errors in the Actions of an Avatar Seen from a First-Person Perspective.

PubMed

Pavone, Enea Francesco; Tieri, Gaetano; Rizza, Giulia; Tidoni, Emmanuele; Grisoni, Luigi; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

2016-01-13

Brain monitoring of errors in one's own and other's actions is crucial for a variety of processes, ranging from the fine-tuning of motor skill learning to important social functions, such as reading out and anticipating the intentions of others. Here, we combined immersive virtual reality and EEG recording to explore whether embodying the errors of an avatar by seeing it from a first-person perspective may activate the error monitoring system in the brain of an onlooker. We asked healthy participants to observe, from a first- or third-person perspective, an avatar performing a correct or an incorrect reach-to-grasp movement toward one of two virtual mugs placed on a table. At the end of each trial, participants reported verbally how much they embodied the avatar's arm. Ratings were maximal in first-person perspective, indicating that immersive virtual reality can be a powerful tool to induce embodiment of an artificial agent, even through mere visual perception and in the absence of any cross-modal boosting. Observation of erroneous grasping from a first-person perspective enhanced error-related negativity and medial-frontal theta power in the trials where human onlookers embodied the virtual character, hinting at the tight link between early, automatic coding of error detection and sense of embodiment. Error positivity was similar in 1PP and 3PP, suggesting that conscious coding of errors is similar for self and other. Thus, embodiment plays an important role in activating specific components of the action monitoring system when others' errors are coded as if they are one's own errors. Detecting errors in other's actions is crucial for social functions, such as reading out and anticipating the intentions of others. Using immersive virtual reality and EEG recording, we explored how the brain of an onlooker reacted to the errors of an avatar seen from a first-person perspective. We found that mere observation of erroneous actions enhances electrocortical markers of error detection in the trials where human onlookers embodied the virtual character. Thus, the cerebral system for action monitoring is maximally activated when others' errors are coded as if they are one's own errors. The results have important implications for understanding how the brain can control the external world and thus creating new brain-computer interfaces. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/360268-12$15.00/0.

DualTrust: A Trust Management Model for Swarm-Based Autonomic Computing Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Maiden, Wendy M.

Trust management techniques must be adapted to the unique needs of the application architectures and problem domains to which they are applied. For autonomic computing systems that utilize mobile agents and ant colony algorithms for their sensor layer, certain characteristics of the mobile agent ant swarm -- their lightweight, ephemeral nature and indirect communication -- make this adaptation especially challenging. This thesis looks at the trust issues and opportunities in swarm-based autonomic computing systems and finds that by monitoring the trustworthiness of the autonomic managers rather than the swarming sensors, the trust management problem becomes much more scalable and stillmore » serves to protect the swarm. After analyzing the applicability of trust management research as it has been applied to architectures with similar characteristics, this thesis specifies the required characteristics for trust management mechanisms used to monitor the trustworthiness of entities in a swarm-based autonomic computing system and describes a trust model that meets these requirements.« less

Role of Proteomics in the Development of Personalized Medicine.

PubMed

Jain, Kewal K

2016-01-01

Advances in proteomic technologies have made import contribution to the development of personalized medicine by facilitating detection of protein biomarkers, proteomics-based molecular diagnostics, as well as protein biochips and pharmacoproteomics. Application of nanobiotechnology in proteomics, nanoproteomics, has further enhanced applications in personalized medicine. Proteomics-based molecular diagnostics will have an important role in the diagnosis of certain conditions and understanding the pathomechanism of disease. Proteomics will be a good bridge between diagnostics and therapeutics; the integration of these will be important for advancing personalized medicine. Use of proteomic biomarkers and combination of pharmacoproteomics with pharmacogenomics will enable stratification of clinical trials and improve monitoring of patients for development of personalized therapies. Proteomics is an important component of several interacting technologies used for development of personalized medicine, which is depicted graphically. Finally, cancer is a good example of applications of proteomic technologies for personalized management of cancer. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Converting Static Image Datasets to Spiking Neuromorphic Datasets Using Saccades.

PubMed

Orchard, Garrick; Jayawant, Ajinkya; Cohen, Gregory K; Thakor, Nitish

2015-01-01

Creating datasets for Neuromorphic Vision is a challenging task. A lack of available recordings from Neuromorphic Vision sensors means that data must typically be recorded specifically for dataset creation rather than collecting and labeling existing data. The task is further complicated by a desire to simultaneously provide traditional frame-based recordings to allow for direct comparison with traditional Computer Vision algorithms. Here we propose a method for converting existing Computer Vision static image datasets into Neuromorphic Vision datasets using an actuated pan-tilt camera platform. Moving the sensor rather than the scene or image is a more biologically realistic approach to sensing and eliminates timing artifacts introduced by monitor updates when simulating motion on a computer monitor. We present conversion of two popular image datasets (MNIST and Caltech101) which have played important roles in the development of Computer Vision, and we provide performance metrics on these datasets using spike-based recognition algorithms. This work contributes datasets for future use in the field, as well as results from spike-based algorithms against which future works can compare. Furthermore, by converting datasets already popular in Computer Vision, we enable more direct comparison with frame-based approaches.

Applications of personal computers in geophysics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, W. H. K.; Lahr, J. C.; Habermann, R. E.

Since 1981, the use of personal computers (PCs) to increase productivity has become widespread. At present, more than 5 million personal computers are in operation for business, education, engineering, and scientific purposes. Activities within AGU reflect this trend: KOSMOS, the AGU electronic network, was introduced this year, and the AGU Committee on Personal Computers, chaired by W.H K. Lee (U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, Calif.), was recently formed. In addition, in conjunction with the 1986 AGU Fall Meeting, this committee is organizing a personal computer session and hands-on demonstrations to promote applications of personal computers in geophysics.

A Dedicated Computational Platform for Cellular Monte Carlo T-CAD Software Tools

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-07-14

computer that establishes an encrypted Virtual Private Network ( OpenVPN [44]) based on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) paradigm. Each user is given a...security certificate for each device used to connect to the computing nodes. Stable OpenVPN clients are available for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX...platform is granted by an encrypted connection base on the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, and implemented in the OpenVPN Virtual Personal Network

In person versus Computer Screening for Intimate Partner Violence Among Pregnant Patients

PubMed Central

Dado, Diane; Schussler, Sara; Hawker, Lynn; Holland, Cynthia L.; Burke, Jessica G.; Cluss, Patricia A.

2012-01-01

Objective To compare in person versus computerized screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) in a hospital-based prenatal clinic and explore women’s assessment of the screening methods. Methods We compared patient IPV disclosures on a computerized questionnaire to audio-taped first obstetric visits with an obstetric care provider and performed semi-structured interviews with patient participants who reported experiencing IPV. Results Two-hundred and fifty patient participants and 52 provider participants were in the study. Ninety-one (36%) patients disclosed IPV either via computer or in person. Of those who disclosed IPV, 60 (66%) disclosed via both methods, but 31 (34%) disclosed IPV via only one of the two methods. Twenty-three women returned for interviews. They recommended using both types together. While computerized screening was felt to be non-judgmental and more anonymous, in person screening allowed for tailored questioning and more emotional connection with the provider. Conclusion Computerized screening allowed disclosure without fear of immediate judgment. In person screening allows more flexibility in wording of questions regarding IPV and opportunity for interpersonal rapport. Practice Implications Both computerized or self-completed screening and in person screening is recommended. Providers should address IPV using non-judgmental, descriptive language, include assessments for psychological IPV, and repeat screening in person, even if no patient disclosure occurs via computer. PMID:22770815

In person versus computer screening for intimate partner violence among pregnant patients.

PubMed

Chang, Judy C; Dado, Diane; Schussler, Sara; Hawker, Lynn; Holland, Cynthia L; Burke, Jessica G; Cluss, Patricia A

2012-09-01

To compare in person versus computerized screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) in a hospital-based prenatal clinic and explore women's assessment of the screening methods. We compared patient IPV disclosures on a computerized questionnaire to audio-taped first obstetric visits with an obstetric care provider and performed semi-structured interviews with patient participants who reported experiencing IPV. Two-hundred and fifty patient participants and 52 provider participants were in the study. Ninety-one (36%) patients disclosed IPV either via computer or in person. Of those who disclosed IPV, 60 (66%) disclosed via both methods, but 31 (34%) disclosed IPV via only one of the two methods. Twenty-three women returned for interviews. They recommended using both types together. While computerized screening was felt to be non-judgmental and more anonymous, in person screening allowed for tailored questioning and more emotional connection with the provider. Computerized screening allowed disclosure without fear of immediate judgment. In person screening allows more flexibility in wording of questions regarding IPV and opportunity for interpersonal rapport. Both computerized or self-completed screening and in person screening is recommended. Providers should address IPV using non-judgmental, descriptive language, include assessments for psychological IPV, and repeat screening in person, even if no patient disclosure occurs via computer. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Designing Interaction for Next Generation Personal Computing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Michelis, Giorgio; Loregian, Marco; Moderini, Claudio; Marti, Patrizia; Colombo, Cesare; Bannon, Liam; Storni, Cristiano; Susani, Marco

Over two decades of research in the field of Interaction Design and Computer Supported Cooperative Work convinced us that the current design of workstations no longer fits users’ needs. It is time to design new personal computers based on metaphors alternative to the desktop one. With this SIG, we are seeking to involve international HCI professionals into the challenges of designing products that are radically new and tackling the many different issues of modern knowledge workers. We would like to engage a wider cross-section of the community: our focus will be on issues of development and participation and the impact of different values in our work.

2007 Annual Health Physics Report for the HEU Transparency Program

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Radev, R

2008-04-09

During the 2007 calendar year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provided health physics support for the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Transparency Program for external and internal radiation protection and technical expertise related to BDMS radioactive sources and Russian radiation safety regulatory compliance. For the calendar year 2007, there were 172 person-trips that required dose monitoring of the U.S. monitors. Of the 172 person-trips, 160 person-trips were SMVs and 12 person-trips were Transparency Monitoring Office (TMO) trips. There were 12 monitoring visits by TMO monitors to facilities other than UEIE and 10 to UEIE itself. There were two monitoring visits (sourcemore » changes) that were back to back with 14 monitors. LLNL's Hazard Control Division laboratories provided the dosimetry services for the HEU Transparency monitors.« less

Non-invasive, home-based electroencephalography hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring using skin surface electrodes: a single-case feasibility study.

PubMed

Clewett, Christopher J; Langley, Phillip; Bateson, Anthony D; Asghar, Aziz; Wilkinson, Antony J

2016-03-01

Hypoglycaemia unawareness is a common condition associated with increased risk of severe hypoglycaemia. The purpose of the authors' study was to develop a simple to use, home-based and non-invasive hypoglycaemia warning system based on electroencephalography (EEG), and to demonstrate its use in a single-case feasibility study. A participant with type 1 diabetes forms a single-person case study where blood sugar levels and EEG were recorded. EEG was recorded using skin surface electrodes placed behind the ear located within the T3 region by the participant in the home. EEG was analysed retrospectively to develop an algorithm which would trigger a warning if EEG changes associated with hypoglycaemia onset were detected. All hypoglycaemia events were detected by the EEG hypoglycaemia warning algorithm. Warnings were triggered with blood glucose concentration levels at or below 4.2 mmol/l in this participant and no warnings were issued when in euglycaemia. The feasibility of a non-invasive EEG-based hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring in the home has been demonstrated in a single case study. The results suggest that further studies are warranted to evaluate the system prospectively in a larger group of participants.

Networking and data management for health care monitoring of mobile patients.

PubMed

Amato, Giuseppe; Chessa, Stefano; Conforti, Fabrizio; Macerata, Alberto; Marchesi, Carlo

2005-01-01

The problem of medical devices and data integration in health care is discussed and a proposal for remote monitoring of patients based on recent developments in networking and data management is presented. In particular the paper discusses the benefits of the integration of personal medical devices into a Medical Information System and how wireless sensor networks and open protocols could be employed as building blocks of a patient monitoring system.

Personal carbon monoxide exposures of preschool children in Helsinki, Finland—comparison to ambient air concentrations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alm, S.; Mukala, K.; Tiittanen, P.; Jantunen, M. J.

The associations of personal carbon monoxide (CO) exposures with ambient air CO concentrations measured at fixed monitoring sites, were studied among 194 children aged 3-6 yr in four downtown and four suburban day-care centers in Helsinki, Finland. Each child carried a personal CO exposure monitor between 1 and 4 times for a time period of between 20 and 24 h. CO concentrations at two fixed monitoring sites were measured simultaneously. The CO concentrations measured at the fixed monitoring sites were usually lower (mean maximum 8-h concentration: 0.9 and 2.6 mg m -3) than the personal CO exposure concentrations (mean maximum 8-h concentration: 3.3 mg m -3). The fixed site CO concentrations were poor predictors of the personal CO exposure concentrations. However, the correlations between the personal CO exposure and the fixed monitoring site CO concentrations increased (-0.03--0.12 to 0.13-0.16) with increasing averaging times from 1 to 8 h. Also, the fixed monitoring site CO concentrations explained the mean daily or weekly personal CO exposures of a group of simultaneously measured children better than individual exposure CO concentrations. This study suggests that the short-term CO personal exposure of children cannot be meaningfully assessed using fixed monitoring sites.

Linear equations and rap battles: how students in a wired classroom utilized the computer as a resource to coordinate personal and mathematical positional identities in hybrid spaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Langer-Osuna, Jennifer

2015-03-01

This paper draws on the constructs of hybridity, figured worlds, and cultural capital to examine how a group of African-American students in a technology-driven, project-based algebra classroom utilized the computer as a resource to coordinate personal and mathematical positional identities during group work. Analyses of several vignettes of small group dynamics highlight how hybridity was established as the students engaged in multiple on-task and off-task computer-based activities, each of which drew on different lived experiences and forms of cultural capital. The paper ends with a discussion on how classrooms that make use of student-led collaborative work, and where students are afforded autonomy, have the potential to support the academic engagement of students from historically marginalized communities.

A remote monitor of bed patient cardiac vibration, respiration and movement.

PubMed

Mukai, Koji; Yonezawa, Yoshiharu; Ogawa, Hidekuni; Maki, Hiromichi; Caldwell, W Morton

2009-01-01

We have developed a remote system for monitoring heart rate, respiration rate and movement behavior of at-home elderly people who are living alone. The system consists of a 40 kHz ultrasonic transmitter and receiver, linear integrated circuits, a low-power 8-bit single chip microcomputer and an Internet server computer. The 40 kHz ultrasonic transmitter and receiver are installed into a bed mattress. The transmitted signal diffuses into the bed mattress, and the amplitude of the received ultrasonic wave is modulated by the shape of the mattress and parameters such as respiration, cardiac vibration and movement. The modulated ultrasonic signal is received and demodulated by an envelope detection circuit. Low, high and band pass filters separate the respiration, cardiac vibration and movement signals, which are fed into the microcontroller and digitized at a sampling rate of 50 Hz by 8-bit A/D converters. The digitized data are sent to the server computer as a serial signal. This computer stores the data and also creates a graphic chart of the latest hour. The person's family or caregiver can download this chart via the Internet at any time.

Application of Computer Simulation to Teach ATM Access to Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Davies, Daniel K.; Stock, Steven E.; Wehmeyer, Michael L.

2003-01-01

This study investigates use of computer simulation for teaching ATM use to adults with intellectual disabilities. ATM-SIM is a computer-based trainer used for teaching individuals with intellectual disabilities how to use an automated teller machine (ATM) to access their personal bank accounts. In the pilot evaluation, a prototype system was…

Implementation of an Electronic Data Collection Tool to Monitor Nursing-Sensitive Indicators in a Large Academic Health Sciences Centre.

PubMed

Backman, Chantal; Vanderloo, Saskia; Momtahan, Kathy; d'Entremont, Barb; Freeman, Lisa; Kachuik, Lynn; Rossy, Dianne; Mille, Toba; Mojaverian, Naghmeh; Lemire-Rodger, Ginette; Forster, Alan

2015-09-01

Monitoring the quality of nursing care is essential to identify patients at risk, measure adherence to hospital policies and evaluate the effectiveness of best practice interventions. However, monitoring nursing-sensitive indicators (NSI) is a challenge. Prevalence surveys are one method used by some organizations to monitor NSI, which are patient outcomes that are directly affected by the quantity or quality of nursing care that the patient receives. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of an innovative electronic data collection tool to monitor NSI. In the preliminary development work, we designed a mobile computing application with pre-populated patient census information to collect the nursing quality data. In subsequent phases, we refined this process by designing an electronic trigger using The Ottawa Hospital's Patient Safety Learning System, which automatically generated a case report form for each inpatient based on the hospital's daily patient census on the day of the prevalence survey. Both of these electronic data collection tools were accessible on tablet computers, which substantially reduced data collection, analysis and reporting time compared to previous paper-based methods. The electronic trigger provided improved completeness of the data. This work leveraged the use of tablet computers combined with a web-based application for patient data collection at point of care. Overall, the electronic methods improved data completeness and timeliness compared to traditional paper-based methods. This initiative has resulted in the ability to collect and report on NSI organization-wide to advance decision-making support and identify quality improvement opportunities within the organization. Copyright © 2015 Longwoods Publishing.

Web-based tailored nutrition education: results of a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

Oenema, A; Brug, J; Lechner, L

2001-12-01

There is ample evidence that printed, computer-tailored nutrition education is a more effective tool for motivating people to change to healthier diets than general nutrition education. New technology is now providing more advanced ways of delivering tailored messages, e.g. via the World Wide Web (WWW). Before disseminating a tailored intervention via the web, it is important to investigate the potential of web-based tailored nutrition education. The present study investigated the immediate impact of web-based computer-tailored nutrition education on personal awareness and intentions related to intake of fat, fruit and vegetables. A randomized controlled trial, with a pre-test-post-test control group design was conducted. Significant differences in awareness and intention to change were found between the intervention and control group at post-test. The tailored intervention was appreciated better, was rated as more personally relevant, and had more subjective impact on opinion and intentions to change than the general nutrition information. Computer literacy had no effect on these ratings. The results indicate that interactive, web-based computer-tailored nutrition education can lead to changes in determinants of behavior. Future research should be aimed at longer-term (behavioral) effects and the practicability of distributing tailored interventions via the WWW.

m2-ABKS: Attribute-Based Multi-Keyword Search over Encrypted Personal Health Records in Multi-Owner Setting.

PubMed

Miao, Yinbin; Ma, Jianfeng; Liu, Ximeng; Wei, Fushan; Liu, Zhiquan; Wang, Xu An

2016-11-01

Online personal health record (PHR) is more inclined to shift data storage and search operations to cloud server so as to enjoy the elastic resources and lessen computational burden in cloud storage. As multiple patients' data is always stored in the cloud server simultaneously, it is a challenge to guarantee the confidentiality of PHR data and allow data users to search encrypted data in an efficient and privacy-preserving way. To this end, we design a secure cryptographic primitive called as attribute-based multi-keyword search over encrypted personal health records in multi-owner setting to support both fine-grained access control and multi-keyword search via Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption. Formal security analysis proves our scheme is selectively secure against chosen-keyword attack. As a further contribution, we conduct empirical experiments over real-world dataset to show its feasibility and practicality in a broad range of actual scenarios without incurring additional computational burden.

"SmartMonitor"--an intelligent security system for the protection of individuals and small properties with the possibility of home automation.

PubMed

Frejlichowski, Dariusz; Gościewska, Katarzyna; Forczmański, Paweł; Hofman, Radosław

2014-06-05

"SmartMonitor" is an intelligent security system based on image analysis that combines the advantages of alarm, video surveillance and home automation systems. The system is a complete solution that automatically reacts to every learned situation in a pre-specified way and has various applications, e.g., home and surrounding protection against unauthorized intrusion, crime detection or supervision over ill persons. The software is based on well-known and proven methods and algorithms for visual content analysis (VCA) that were appropriately modified and adopted to fit specific needs and create a video processing model which consists of foreground region detection and localization, candidate object extraction, object classification and tracking. In this paper, the "SmartMonitor" system is presented along with its architecture, employed methods and algorithms, and object analysis approach. Some experimental results on system operation are also provided. In the paper, focus is put on one of the aforementioned functionalities of the system, namely supervision over ill persons.

Development of a Daily Life Support System for Elderly Persons with Dementia in the Care Facility.

PubMed

Takahashi, Yoshiyuki; Kawai, Toshihiro; Komeda, Takashi

2015-01-01

Taking care for dementia persons with BPSD is burdening on caregivers. To reduce caregivers' burdens and improve dementia persons' quality of life, monitoring and communication intervention system has been proposed. A part of the system, wandering and falling down detection system has been developed. It is designed based on the requirement of the caregivers working in the care facility. Functional test was carried out and had positive impressions from the caregivers.

A Novel Application for the Cavalieri Principle: A Stereological and Methodological Study

PubMed Central

Altunkaynak, Berrin Zuhal; Altunkaynak, Eyup; Unal, Deniz; Unal, Bunyamin

2009-01-01

Objective The Cavalieri principle was applied to consecutive pathology sections that were photographed at the same magnification and used to estimate tissue volumes via superimposing a point counting grid on these images. The goal of this study was to perform the Cavalieri method quickly and practically. Materials and Methods In this study, 10 adult female Sprague Dawley rats were used. Brain tissue was removed and sampled both systematically and randomly. Brain volumes were estimated using two different methods. First, all brain slices were scanned with an HP ScanJet 3400C scanner, and their images were shown on a PC monitor. Brain volume was then calculated based on these images. Second, all brain slices were photographed in 10× magnification with a microscope camera, and brain volumes were estimated based on these micrographs. Results There was no statistically significant difference between the volume measurements of the two techniques (P>0.05; Paired Samples t Test). Conclusion This study demonstrates that personal computer scanning of serial tissue sections allows for easy and reliable volume determination based on the Cavalieri method. PMID:25610077

A novel application for the cavalieri principle: a stereological and methodological study.

PubMed

Altunkaynak, Berrin Zuhal; Altunkaynak, Eyup; Unal, Deniz; Unal, Bunyamin

2009-08-01

The Cavalieri principle was applied to consecutive pathology sections that were photographed at the same magnification and used to estimate tissue volumes via superimposing a point counting grid on these images. The goal of this study was to perform the Cavalieri method quickly and practically. In this study, 10 adult female Sprague Dawley rats were used. Brain tissue was removed and sampled both systematically and randomly. Brain volumes were estimated using two different methods. First, all brain slices were scanned with an HP ScanJet 3400C scanner, and their images were shown on a PC monitor. Brain volume was then calculated based on these images. Second, all brain slices were photographed in 10× magnification with a microscope camera, and brain volumes were estimated based on these micrographs. There was no statistically significant difference between the volume measurements of the two techniques (P>0.05; Paired Samples t Test). This study demonstrates that personal computer scanning of serial tissue sections allows for easy and reliable volume determination based on the Cavalieri method.

[A capillary blood flow velocity detection system based on linear array charge-coupled devices].

PubMed

Zhou, Houming; Wang, Ruofeng; Dang, Qi; Yang, Li; Wang, Xiang

2017-12-01

In order to detect the flow characteristics of blood samples in the capillary, this paper introduces a blood flow velocity measurement system based on field-programmable gate array (FPGA), linear charge-coupled devices (CCD) and personal computer (PC) software structure. Based on the analysis of the TCD1703C and AD9826 device data sheets, Verilog HDL hardware description language was used to design and simulate the driver. Image signal acquisition and the extraction of the real-time edge information of the blood sample were carried out synchronously in the FPGA. Then a series of discrete displacement were performed in a differential operation to scan each of the blood samples displacement, so that the sample flow rate could be obtained. Finally, the feasibility of the blood flow velocity detection system was verified by simulation and debugging. After drawing the flow velocity curve and analyzing the velocity characteristics, the significance of measuring blood flow velocity is analyzed. The results show that the measurement of the system is less time-consuming and less complex than other flow rate monitoring schemes.

Effects of Person-Centered Attitudes on Professional and Social Competence in a Blended Learning Paradigm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Motschnig-Pitrik, Renate; Mallich, Katharina

2004-01-01

Web-based technology increases the hours we spend sitting in front of the screens of our computers. But can it also be used in a way to improve our social skills? The blended learning paradigm of Person-Centered e-Learning (PCeL) precisely aims to achieve intellectual as well as social and personal development by combining the benefits of online…