1,720,961 research outputs found
An embedded sensing and communication platform, and a healthcare model for remote monitoring of chronic diseases
Full text linkThis paper presents a new remote healthcare model, which, exploiting wireless biomedical sensors, an embedded local unit (gateway) for sensor data acquisition-processing-communication, and a remote e-Health service center, can be scaled in different telemedicine scenarios.The aim is avoiding hospitalization cost and long waiting lists for patients affected by chronic illness who need continuous and long-term monitoring of some vital parameters.In the “1:1” scenario, the patient has a set of biomedical sensors and a gateway to exchange data and healthcare protocols with the remote service center.In the “1:N” scenario the use of gateway and sensors is managed by a professional caregiver, e.g., assigned by the Public Health System to a number N of different patients.In the “point of care” scenario the patient, instead of being hospitalized, can take the needed measurements at a specific health corner, which is then connected to the remote e-Health center.A mix of commercially available sensors and new custom-designed ones is presented.The new custom-designed sensors range from a single-lead electrocardiograph for easy measurements taken by the patients at their home, to a multi-channel biomedical integrated circuit for acquisition of multi-channel bio signals, to a new motion sensor for patient posture estimation and fall detection.Experimental trials in real-world telemedicine applications assess the proposed system in terms of easy usability from patients, specialist and family doctors, and caregivers, in terms of scalability in different scenarios, and in terms of suitability for implementation of needed care plans
A novel device for self-acquisition of ECG signal in telemedicine systems for chronic patients
Full text linkThe increasing diffusion of chronic diseases represents a challenge for the health systems that have to deal with rising costs caused by the large number of patients. The ICT-enabled telemedicine systems represent a promising solution to provide effective treatments, to reduce hospitalizations and related costs and to improve the patients' quality of life. These systems allow to monitor the clinical status of the patients through self-measured vital signs. The electrocardiogram (ECG) represents one of the most practiced clinical exams in the treatment of chronic patients, but ECG devices currently known for medical purpose are difficult to be used by non-skilled persons, and they are definitively not suitable for such telemedicine systems. This paper introduces a user-friendly and ergonomic device conceived to be used autonomously by the patient to record high quality ECGs. The device acquires the first lead of the ECG from the patient's hands exploiting dry metal electrodes. The device requires few basic actions to be operated and can transmit collected data via Bluetooth connectivity. The developed dedicated API makes also possible an easy integration of the device into telemedicine systems
An Aid System for Autonomous Mobility of Visually Impaired People on the Historical City Walls in Lucca, Italy
Full text linkThe research project “The Walls for All” (in Italian “Le Mura per Tutti”) aims at the realization of an aid system for visually impaired people, promoting autonomous mobility in a free time/cultural outdoor scenario. The selected installation site is a 4 km pedestrian and bike wide lane on top of the historical walls of Lucca city, Tuscany, Italy. The proposed system guides the user on predefined tracks (virtual path), realized by means of buried cables, that can be detected with the help of the Smart Cane, a traditional white cane equipped with custom electronics; and a mobile device featuring an ad-hoc developed Android application that provides geo-referenced guidance and context information. The system has been conceived, designed and successfully tested by visually impaired people of the Italian Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired—Section of Lucca
A telemedicine service platform exploiting BT/BLE wearable sensors for remote monitoring of chronic patients
Full text linkThis paper presents a telemedicine hardware/software platform for data acquisition, communication, processing, presentation and storage, aimed to remotely monitor lifestyle, vital signs and in general the clinical status of patients affected by chronic diseases. Such platform is useful to support an innovative ICT-based application of the Chronic Care Model (CCM). The platform exploits wearable sensors, a BT/BLE connectivity to the local gateway and then a connection, using standard formats and cyber-secure protocols, to a server-based application and repository. The platform allows clinicians and practitioners to realize aggravations and act promptly, before they become irreversible and lead to hospitalization. The system also implements data analysis, by processing multiple parameters in parallel. As well as monitoring the state of health, the proposed telemedicine platform can be also used to monitor the emotional and psychological state of the patient
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
