14 research outputs found
The invisible houses: re-thinking and designing low-cost housing in developing countries
No full textNot willing to limit the problem of low-cost, slum housing in developing countries to the shortage of their number or inadequacy of their form in The Invisible Houses, author Gonzalo Lizaralde draws on Calvino’s (1972) poetic invocations of the social and moral potential of the city to give form and shape to household needs and desires. Beyond the well-trodden policy lines of secure tenure and appropriate dwelling sizes, he argues for the need for the development of housing settlements for the poor that ‘create conditions in which people can live lives they have reason to value’ (p. 1)
Big Data Transformation in Agriculture: From Precision Agriculture Towards Smart Farming
No full text[EN] Big data is a concept that has changed the way to analyse data and information in different environments such as industry and recently, in agriculture. It is used to describe a large volume of data (structured or unstructured data), which are difficult to obtain, process or parse using conventional technologies and tools like relational databases or conventional statistics, in a reasonable time for their insight. However, Big Data is applied differently in each area to take advantage of its potential and capabilities. Specially in agriculture that presents more demanding conditions due to its inherent uncertainty, so Big Data methods and models from other environments cannot be used straight away in this area. In this paper, we present a review/update of term Big Data and analyse the evolution and the role of Big Data in agriculture outlined the element of collaboration.All authors acknowledge the partial support of Project 691249, RUC-APS: Enhancing and implementing Knowledge based ICT solutions within high Risk and Uncertain Conditions for Agriculture Production Systems, funded by the EU under its funding scheme H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015; and the project "Development of an integrated maturity model for agility, resilience and gender perspective in supply chains (MoMARGE). Application to the agricultural sector." Ref. GV/2017/025 funded by the Generalitat Valenciana. This first author was supported by the Aid Programme of Research and Development of Universitat Politecnica de Valencia [PAID-01-18].Rodríguez-Sánchez, MDLÁ.; Cuenca, L.; Ortiz Bas, Á. (2019). Big Data Transformation in Agriculture: From Precision Agriculture Towards Smart Farming. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology. 568:467-474. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28464-0_40S467474568Cox, M., Ellsworth, D.: Application-controlled demand paging for out-of-core visualization. In: Proceedings of the 8th Conference on Visualization 1997, p. 235. IEEE Computer Society Press (1997)Laney, D.: 3D data management: controlling data volume, velocity and variety. META Group Res. Note 6, 1 (2001)Beyer, M.A., Laney, D.: The Importance of “Big Data”: A Definition. Gartner, Stamford (2012)Kamilaris, A., et al.: A review on the practice of big data analysis in agriculture. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 143(C), 23–37 (2017)Marr, B.: How Much Data Do We Create Every Day? The Mind-Blowing Stats Everyone Should Read (2019). https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#5671a61d60baNIST. The definition of Big Data. https://bigdatawg.nist.gov/home.phpIBM. The definition of Big Data. https://www.ibm.com/analytics/hadoop/big-data-analyticsOracle. The definition of Big Data. https://www.oracle.com/big-data/guide/what-is-big-data.htmlShahbaz, M., Gao, Ch., Zhai, L., Shahzad, F., Hu, Y.: Investigating the adoption of big data analytics in healthcare: the moderating role of resistance to change. J. Big Data 6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40537-019-0170-yTrom, L., Cronje, J.: Analysis of data governance implications on big data. In: Arai, K., Bhatia, R. (eds.) FICC 2019. LNNS, vol. 69, pp. 645–654. Springer, Cham (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12388-8_45Tao, F., et al.: A field programmable gate array implemented fibre channel switch for big data communication towards smart manufacturing. Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing 57, 166–181 (2019)Lu, Y., Li, X., Zhong, J., Xiong, Y.: Research on the innovation of strategic business model in green agricultural products based on Internet of Things (IOT) - May 2010 (2010)Zhao, L., Yin, S., Liu, L., Zhang, Z., Wei, S.: A crop monitoring system based on wireless sensor network - December 2011 (2011)Chi, M., Plaza, A., Benediktsson, J.A., Sun, Z., Shen, J., Zhu, Y.: Big data for remote sensing: challenges and opportunities. Proc. IEEE 104(11), 2207–2219 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1109/jproc.2016.2598228Rodriguez, M.A., Cuenca, L., Bas, A.: FIWARE open source standard platform in smart farming - a review. In: Proceedings of the 19th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises, PRO-VE 2018, Cardiff, UK, 17–19 September 2018 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99127-6_50Stafford, J., LeBars, J.: A GPS backpack system for mapping soil and crop parameters in agricultural fields. J. Navig. 49(1), 9–21 (1996)Robert, P.C.: Precision agriculture: research needs and status in the USA. In: Stafford, J.V. (ed.) Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Precision Agriculture, Part 1, pp. 19–33. Academic Press, SCI/Sheffield (1999)Long, D.S., Nielsen, G.A., Henry, M.P., Westcott, M.P.: Remote sensing for northern plains precision agriculture. In: Paper Presented at the Space 2000, pp. 208–214 (2000)Ge, Y., Thomasson, J.A., Sui, R.: Remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture: a review. Front. Earth Sci. 5(3), 229–238 (2011)Sundmaeker, H., Verdouw, C., Wolfert, S., Pérez L.: Internet of food and farm 2020. In: Paper presented at Digitising the Industry - Internet of Things Connecting Physical, Digital and Virtual Worlds, River Publishers, Gistrup/Delft, pp. 129–151 (2016)Barmpounakis, S., et al.: Management and control applications in agriculture domain via a FI Business-to-Business platform. Inf. Process. Agric. 2(1), 51–63 (2015)Musat, G., et al.: Advanced services for efficient management of smart farms. J. Parallel Distrib. Comput. 116, 3–17 (2018)FIspace. https://www.fispace.eu/whatisfispace.htmlAgricolus (2019). https://www.agricolus.com/Paton, N.W.: Automating data preparation: can we? Should we? Must we? In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings, p. 2324 (2019)Kim, K.S., Yoo, B.H., Shelia, V., Porter, C.H., Hoogenboom, G.: START: a data preparation tool for crop simulation models using web-based soil databases. Comput. Electron. Agric. 154, 256–264 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2018.08.023IoF2020 (2019). https://www.iof2020.eu
FIWARE Open Source Standard Platform in Smart Farming - A Review
No full text[EN] FIWARE is an open source platform for the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) applications, driven by European Union and managed by FIWARE Foundation. Recently, FIWARE Foundation has launched his new product Agricolus, which focus on Smart Farming and it uses FIWARE infrastructure. Agricolus manages to bring Hardware and Software together in a decision-making process that support farming activities and offers a "plug and play" interface for precision agriculture. This is encompassed by the phenomenon of Smart Farming, which is a development that take advantage of the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) in the daily farm management. This review aims to gain insight into the state-of-the-art of FIWARE in Smart Farming and identify the components of Agricolus in comparison with essential FIWARE architecture.This research has been carried out in the framework of the project "Development of an integrated maturity model for agility, resilience and gender perspective in supply chains (MoMARGE). Application to the agricultural sector." Ref. GV/2017/025 funded by the Generalitat Valenciana.Rodríguez-Sánchez, MDLÁ.; Cuenca, L.; Ortiz Bas, Á. (2018). FIWARE Open Source Standard Platform in Smart Farming - A Review. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology. 534:581-589. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99127-6_50S581589534Robert, P.C.: Precision agriculture: research needs and status in the USA. In: Stafford, J.V. (ed.) Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Precision Agriculture, Part 1, pp. 19–33. Academic Press, SCI/Sheffield (1999)Ge, Y., Thomasson, J.A., Sui, R.: Remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture: a review. Front. Earth Sci. 5(3), 229–238 (2011)Sundmaeker, H., Verdouw, C., Wolfert, S., Pérez Freire L.: Internet of food and farm 2020. In: Vermesan, O., Friess, P. (eds.) Digitising the Industry - Internet of Things Connecting Physical, Digital and Virtual Worlds, pp. 129–151. River Publishers, Gistrup/Delft (2016)Lin, J., Liu, C.: Monitoring system based on wireless sensor network and a SocC platform in precision agriculture. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Communication Technology (ICCT), Hangzhou, pp. 101–104 (2008)Kaewmard, N., Saiyod, S.: Sensor data collection and irrigation control on vegetable crop using smart phone and wireless sensor networks for smart farm. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Wireless Sensors (ICWiSE), pp. 106–112 (2014)FIWARE. https://www.fiware.org/Future Internet Private Public Partnership (FI-PPP). https://www.fi-ppp.eu/Agricolus. https://www.agricolus.comFIWARE Generic Enablers. http://edu.fiware.org/FIWARE Catalogue. https://catalogue.fiware.org/enablersKamilaris, A., Gao, F., Prenafeta-Boldu, F.X., Ali, M.I.: Agri-IoT: a semantic framework for Internet of Things-enabled smart farming applications. In: IEEE 3rd World Forum on Internet of Things, WF-IoT 2016, pp. 442–447 (2017)López-Riquelme, J.A., Pavón-Pulido, N., Navarro-Hellín, H., Soto-Valles, F., Torres-Sánchez, R.: A software architecture based on FIWARE cloud for precision agriculture. Agric. Water Manag. 183, 123–135 (2017)Martínez, R., Pastor, J.Á., Álvarez, B., Iborra, A.: A testbed to evaluate the FIWARE-based IoT platform in the domain of precision agriculture. Sensors (Switzerland), 16(11) (2016)Pesonen, L.A., et al.: Cropinfra - an internet-based service infrastructure to support crop production in future farms. Biosys. Eng. 120, 92–101 (2014)Barmpounakis, S., et al.: Management and control applications in agriculture domain via a future internet business-to-business platform. Inf. Process. Agric. 2(1), 51–63 (2015)Kaloxylos, A., et al.: Farm management systems and the future internet era. Comput. Electron. Agric. 89, 130–144 (2012)Kaloxylos, A., et al.: A cloud-based farm management system: architecture and implementation. Comput. Electron. Agric. 100, 168–179 (2014)Ryu, M., Yun, J., Miao, T., Ahn, I.Y., Choi, S.C., Kim, J.: Design and implementation of a connected farm for smart farming system. In: 2015 IEEE SENSORS Proceedings, pp. 1–4 (2015)Layton, A.W., Balmos, A.D., Sabpisal, S., Ault, A., Krogmeier, J.V., Buckmaster, D.: ISOBlue: an open source project to bring agricultural machinery data into the cloud, Montreal, 13 July–16 July 2014. American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (2014)SmartAgriFood. http://smartagrifood.com/FIWARE MarketPlace. https://marketplace.fiware.orgFIWARE iHubs. https://www.fiware.org/community/fiware-ihubs/Agricolus in FIWARE MarketPlace. https://marketplace.fiware.org/pages/solutions/2ec3c741ef4dd8f83bab4e83Implementation example of Agricolus. http://www.libelium.com/increasing-tobacco-crops-quality-by-climatic-conditions-control/FIspace. https://www.fispace.eu/whatisfispace.htm
Ultrasound-Guided Nerve Blocks as Analgesia for Nonoperative Management of Distal Radius Fractures–Two Consecutive Randomized Controlled Trials
No full textEffects of Therapeutic Touch to Reduce Anxiety As a Complementary Therapy: A Systematic Review
No full text[1] Therapies, C. (2014). Complementary, Alternative, and Traditional Therapies, 34(6), 50–56.
[2] Gronowicz,G.,Secor,E.,Flynn,J.,Jellison,E.,&Kuhn,L.(2015).TherapeuticTouchhassignificanteffects onmouseBreastCancermetastasisandImmuneresponsesbutnotprimarytumorsize.Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2015, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/926565
[3] Ross, S., & Grande, R. (2017). A Practice-Based Theory of Healing Through Therapeutic Touch, 1–13
[4] Gregory,S.,&Verdouw,J.(2005).Therapeutictouch:Itsapplicationforresidentsinagedcare.Australian Nursing Journal (July 1993), 12(7), 23–25. Retrieved from http://www.healthyoutlook.com.au/images/ 0502_clin_update.pdf
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[9] Jung,M., Jonides,J., Northouse,L., Berman,M. G., Koelling,T.M.,& Pressler,S. J.(2017).Randomized Crossover Study of the Natural Restorative Environment Intervention to Improve Attention and Mood in Heart Failure. Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, 32(5), 464–479. https://doi.org/10.1097/JCN. 0000000000000368
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[12] Unit, D., Diego, S., Awdishu, L., & Diego, S. (2018). Copyright of Nephrology Nursing Journal is the property of American Nephrology Nurses ’ Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder ’ s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use., 45(2).
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[14] Article, O., Sancar, B., Yalcin, A. S., & Acikgoz, I. (2018). An examination of anxiety levels of nursing students caring for patients in terminal period, 34(1), 94–99.
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[16] Tabatabaee, A., Tafreshi, M., Rassouli, M., Aledavood, S., Majd, H., & Farahmand, and. (2016a). Effect of Therapeutic Touch in Patients with Cancer: a Literature Review. Medical Archives, 70(2), 142. https: //doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2016.70.142-147
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Lumped-Parameter Modelling of Cardiovascular System Dynamics under Different Healthy and Diseased Conditions
No full textCardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in the modern society, and research into the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases is an urgent task. Lumped-parameter mathematical modelling as an efficient and effective research technique has been extensively applied in the cardiovascular dynamics research, and has achieved enormous success in assisting the cardiovascular physiology study. This thesis reports a coherent work of lumped-parameter cardiovascular modelling based on some selected works that the author has conducted and published in the past several years. After a critical and comprehensive review of the concurrent lumped-parameter modelling technique, an improved lumped-parameter model that effectively describes the important cardiovascular features of heart valve dynamics and atrial-ventricular septum motion is presented. The model is then adapted to study several application cases of typical heart failure condition with ventricular assist device support, and extension of the lumped-parameter modelling for the optimisation of a pulsatile bioreactor in cardiovascular tissue engineering study. Some on-going works and future directions are also introduced. The reported modelling studies are useful for the cardiovascular physiology research and design optimisation of cardiovascular prosthetic organs
Pharmacology of novel psychoactive substances
No full textThis PhD work consists of an in vitro and in vivo part. In the in vivo part, we investigated the role of dopamine in the acute clinical effects of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, “ecstasy”) in healthy human subjects. The role of dopamine in the addictive effects of drug of abuse is well established, but whether it contributes to the acute psychotropic effects of MDMA is unclear.
In this pharmacological interaction study, we used the dopamine and weak norepinephrine transporter inhibitor bupropion (Stahl et al. 2004) as a pharmacological tool to block the MDMA-induced dopamine release and to study the role of dopamine in the effects of MDMA. We hypothesized that bupropion would decrease the subjective effects of MDMA to the extent that they depend on MDMA-induced release of dopamine.
We included 16 healthy human subjects in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. Bupropion pretreatment slightly increased MDMA plasma concentration and prolonged but not reduced the subjective effects contrary to our hypothesis. Additionally, bupropion reduced the MDMA-induced elevations in plasma norepinephrine concentrations and the heart rate response to MDMA.
These findings support a role for norepinephrine in the MDMA-induced cardiostimulant effects but no role for MDMA-induced transporter-mediated dopamine release in the elevated mood effects after MDMA administration. Possibly, most of the acute psychotropic effects of MDMA are mediated via transporter-mediated release of serotonin and norepinephrine as previously shown (Hysek et al. 2011, Hysek et al. 2012).
In the second and main part of this work we characterized the pharmacological profiles of novel psychoactive substances (NPS). Specifically, we studied whether and how potently NPS interacted with the human transporters for norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin, stably expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK293) cells. Additionally, we assessed binding affinity to the serotonin 5-HT1A, 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C-receptors and the activation potency and activation efficacy at 5-HT2A and 5-HT2B receptors. Furthermore, binding to alpha1A/2A-adrenergic, dopamine D1-3, histamine H1 receptors, as well as trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR1) was also assessed.
The NPS studied in this project included para-4-halogenated amphetamine derivatives, which were shown to be relatively more serotonergic than their non-4-halogenated counterparts and pyrovaleronering-substituted cathinones, which were highly potent dopamine transporter inhibitors with a high risk for abuse.
Para-halogenated drugs (4-fluoroephedrine, 4-fluoroamphetamine, 4-fluoromethamphetamine, 4-fluoromethcathinone, and 4-bromomethcathinone) also released monoamines, similar to MDMA, whereas pyrovalerones were found to be pure uptake inhibitors. Most benzofurans were similar to MDMA but slightly more serotoninergic than MDMA and additionally activated the serotonin 5-HT2B receptor.
The last big group of NPS studied in this project, were novel hallucinogens, which predominantly interacted with the 5-HT2A receptor. This serotonin receptor subtype mediates the hallucinogenic and hallucinogenic-like visual effects of classic serotonergic hallucinogens (Vollenweider et al. 1998, Nichols 2004, Halberstadt et al. 2013, Halberstadt et al. 2014, Halberstadt 2015).
Compounds tested in this project included the benzodifuran 8-Bromo-2,3,6,7-benzo-dihydro-difuran-ethylamine (2C-B-FLY), 2C-drugs with their highly potent N-(2-methoxy)benzyl (NBOMe)-derivatives, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Interestingly, NBOMe derivatives displayed higher affinities at the 5-HT2A receptor than LSD, together with a high selectivity for 5-HT2A over the 5-HT1A receptor, contrary to LSD. NBOMes were partial 5-HT2A receptor agonists, similar to LSD. These novel drugs likely carry a high hallucinogenic potential when used recreationally by humans and the high binding to α1A-receptor (Ki < 1µM) may result in additional vasocontrictive and cardiovascular stimulant effects.
Taken together, this PhD contributed to the understanding of the role of dopamine in the effects of MDMA, an important recreational substances. Additionally, we characterized the in vitro pharmacology of many novel designer drugs, which will be helpful in the prediction of the clinical toxicological effects of these newly used recreational drugs
Intraoperative transfusion practices in Europe
No full text© 2016 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Journal of Anaesthesia.Background: Transfusion of allogeneic blood influences outcome after surgery. Despite widespread availability of transfusion guidelines, transfusion practices might vary among physicians, departments, hospitals and countries. Our aim was to determine the amount of packed red blood cells (pRBC) and blood products transfused intraoperatively, and to describe factors determining transfusion throughout Europe. Methods: We did a prospective observational cohort study enrolling 5803 patients in 126 European centres that received at least one pRBC unit intraoperatively, during a continuous three month period in 2013. Results: The overall intraoperative transfusion rate was 1.8%; 59% of transfusions were at least partially initiated as a result of a physiological transfusion trigger- mostly because of hypotension (55.4%) and/or tachycardia (30.7%). Haemoglobin (Hb)- based transfusion trigger alone initiated only 8.5% of transfusions. The Hb concentration [mean (sd)] just before transfusion was 8.1 (1.7) g dl-1 and increased to 9.8 (1.8) g dl-1 after transfusion. The mean number of intraoperatively transfused pRBC units was 2.5 (2.7) units (median 2). Conclusions: Although European Society of Anaesthesiology transfusion guidelines are moderately implemented in Europe with respect to Hb threshold for transfusion (7-9 g dl-1), there is still an urgent need for further educational efforts that focus on the number of pRBC units to be transfused at this threshold
Intraoperative transfusion practices in Europe
No full text\ua9 2016 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Background: Transfusion of allogeneic blood influences outcome after surgery. Despite widespread availability of transfusion guidelines, transfusion practices might vary among physicians, departments, hospitals and countries. Our aim was to determine the amount of packed red blood cells (pRBC) and blood products transfused intraoperatively, and to describe factors determining transfusion throughout Europe. Methods: We did a prospective observational cohort study enrolling 5803 patients in 126 European centres that received at least one pRBC unit intraoperatively, during a continuous three month period in 2013. Results: The overall intraoperative transfusion rate was 1.8%; 59% of transfusions were at least partially initiated as a result of a physiological transfusion trigger- mostly because of hypotension (55.4%) and/or tachycardia (30.7%). Haemoglobin (Hb)- based transfusion trigger alone initiated only 8.5% of transfusions. The Hb concentration [mean (sd)] just before transfusion was 8.1 (1.7) g dl-1 and increased to 9.8 (1.8) g dl-1 after transfusion. The mean number of intraoperatively transfused pRBC units was 2.5 (2.7) units (median 2). Conclusions: Although European Society of Anaesthesiology transfusion guidelines are moderately implemented in Europe with respect to Hb threshold for transfusion (7-9 g dl-1), there is still an urgent need for further educational efforts that focus on the number of pRBC units to be transfused at this threshold
Role of the SAFE pathway and the mitochondria in HDL cholesterol (and its constituent sphingosine-1-phosphate) induced cardioprotection
No full textHigh density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) and its component sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) protect against myocardial infarction. Recently, the SAFE (survivor activating factor enhancement) pathway, involving tumour necrosis factor (TNF) and the transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT-3), has been identified as a key signalling pathway in cardioprotection, although the end effector remains unclear
