Novel Method to Detect Pitfalls of Intracoronary Pressure Measurements by Pressure Waveform Analysis.

Potential pitfalls of fractional flow reserve (FFR) measurements are well-known drawbacks of invasive physiology measurement, e.g., significant drift of the distal pressure trace may lead to the misclassification of stenoses.

Evaluation of blood glucose level control in type 1 diabetic patients using deep reinforcement learning.

Diabetes mellitus is a disease associated with abnormally high levels of blood glucose due to a lack of insulin. Combining an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor with a control algorithm to deliver insulin is an alternative to patient self-management of insulin doses to control blood glucose levels in diabetes mellitus patients. In this work, we propose a closed-loop control for blood glucose levels based on deep reinforcement learning.

Enhancing Extensive and Remote LoRa Deployments through MEC-Powered Drone Gateways.

The distribution of Internet of Things (IoT) devices in remote areas and the need for network resilience in such deployments is increasingly important in smart spaces covering scenarios, such as agriculture, forest, coast preservation, and connectivity survival against disasters. Although Low-Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technologies, like LoRa, support high connectivity ranges, communication paths can suffer from obstruction due to orography or buildings, and large areas are still difficult to cover with wired gateways, due to the lack of network or power infrastructure. The proposal presented herein proposes to mount LPWAN gateways in drones in order to generate airborne network segments providing enhanced connectivity to sensor nodes wherever needed.

Impact of SCHC Compression and Fragmentation in LPWAN: A Case Study with LoRaWAN.

The dawn of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has brought about a series of novel services never imagined until recently. However, certain deployments such as those employing Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN)-based technologies may present severe network restrictions in terms of throughput and supported packet length. This situation prompts the isolation of LPWAN systems on islands with limited interoperability with the Internet.

Empowering the Internet of Vehicles with Multi-RAT 5G Network Slicing.

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a hot research niche exploiting the synergy between Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) and the Internet of Things (IoT), which can greatly benefit of the upcoming development of 5G technologies. The variety of end-devices, applications, and Radio Access Technologies (RATs) in IoV calls for new networking schemes that assure the Quality of Service (QoS) demanded by the users. To this end, network slicing techniques enable traffic differentiation with the aim of ensuring flow isolation, resource assignment, and network scalability.

Titanium dioxide modified with silver by two methods for bactericidal applications.

"Titanium dioxide (TiO) is a semiconductor material that exhibits antibacterial activity due to its photocatalytic properties under ultraviolet light. On the other hand, silver also exhibits strong antibacterial activity towards a wide range of microorganisms and TiO with silver addition exhibits more efficient photocatalytic properties than unmodified TiO. In this work, TiO nanoparticles were synthesized by the hydrothermal method and modified with silver by two different methods: wet impregnation () and incorporation.

Silk fibroin hydrogels from the Colombian silkworm Bombyx mori L: Evaluation of physicochemical properties.

Hydrogel scaffolds are important materials in tissue engineering, and their characterization is essential to determine potential biomedical applications according to their mechanical and structural behavior. In this work, silk fibroin hydrogels were synthesized by two different methods (vortex and sonication), and agarose hydrogels were also obtained for comparison purposes. Samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, infrared analysis, thermo-gravimetrical analysis, confined compression test, and rheological test.

LPWAN-Based Vehicular Monitoring Platform with a Generic IP Network Interface.

Remote vehicle monitoring is a field that has recently attracted the attention of both academia and industry. With the dawn of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, the possibilities for performing this task have multiplied, due to the emergence of low-cost and multi-purpose monitoring devices and the evolution of wireless transmission technologies. Low Power-Wide Area Network (LPWAN) encompasses a set of IoT communication technologies that are gaining momentum, due to their highly valued features regarding transmission distance and end-device energy consumption.

QTL analysis reveals quantitative resistant loci for Phytophthora infestans and Tecia solanivora in tetraploid potato (Solanum tuberosum L.).

Late blight and Guatemalan potato tuber moth caused by Phytophthora infestans and Tecia solanivora, respectively, are major phytosanitary problems on potato crops in Colombia and Ecuador. Hence, the development of resistant cultivars is an alternative for their control. However, breeding initiatives for durable resistance using molecular tools are limited due to the genome complexity and high heterozygosity in autotetraploid potatoes.

Enhancing LoRaWAN Security through a Lightweight and Authenticated Key Management Approach.

Luckily, new communication technologies and protocols are nowadays designed considering security issues. A clear example of this can be found in the Internet of Things (IoT) field, a quite recent area where communication technologies such as ZigBee or IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) already include security features to guarantee authentication, confidentiality and integrity. More recent technologies are Low-Power Wide-Area Networks (LP-WAN), which also consider security, but present initial approaches that can be further improved.

Less invasive fractional flow reserve measurement from 3-dimensional quantitative coronary angiography and classic fluid dynamic equations.

Aims: The aim of this study was to develop a simplified model of FFR calculation (FFRsim) derived from three-dimensional (3D) coronary angiographic data and classic fluid dynamic equations without using finite element analysis.

Methods And Results: Intracoronary pressure measurements were performed by pressure wire sensors. The lumens of the interrogated vessel segments were reconstructed in 3D.

Leveraging state cancer registries to measure and improve the quality of cancer care: a potential strategy for California and beyond.

Despite recent increased attention to healthcare performance and the burden of disease from cancer, measures of quality of cancer care are not readily available. In 2013, the California HealthCare Foundation convened an expert workgroup to explore the potential for leveraging data in the California Cancer Registry (CCR), one of the world's largest population-based cancer registries, for measuring and improving the quality of cancer care. The workgroup assessed current registry operations, the value to be gained by linking CCR data with health insurance claims or encounter data and clinical data contained in health system electronic health records, and potential barriers to these linkages.

Engaging physicians and consumers in conversations about treatment overuse and waste: a short history of the choosing wisely campaign.

Wise management of health care resources is a core tenet of medical professionalism. To support physicians in fulfilling this responsibility and to engage patients in discussions about unnecessary care, tests, and procedures, in April 2012 the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, Consumer Reports, and nine medical specialty societies launched the Choosing Wisely campaign. The authors describe the rationale for and history of the campaign, its structure and approach in terms of engaging both physicians and patients, lessons learned, and future steps.

Communicating information about "what not to do" to consumers.

Background: Americans devote more resources to health care than any other developed country, and yet they have worse health outcomes and less access. This creates a perfect set of opportunities for Consumer Reports, a nonprofit consumer advocacy and multimedia organization known for its focus on individual consumers in markets where significant amounts of misinformation is in play. Consumer Reports uses comparisons/ratings based on the best available data to "level" the market playing field.

Oncogenic miR-181a/b affect the DNA damage response in aggressive breast cancer.

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous tumor type characterized by a complex spectrum of molecular aberrations, resulting in a diverse array of malignant features and clinical outcomes. Deciphering the molecular mechanisms that fuel breast cancer development and act as determinants of aggressiveness is a primary need to improve patient management. Among other alterations, aberrant expression of microRNAs has been found in breast cancer and other human tumors, where they act as either oncogenes or tumor suppressors by virtue of their ability to finely modulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level.

A new taxonomy for stakeholder engagement in patient-centered outcomes research.

Despite widespread agreement that stakeholder engagement is needed in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), no taxonomy exists to guide researchers and policy makers on how to address this need. We followed an iterative process, including several stages of stakeholder review, to address three questions: (1) Who are the stakeholders in PCOR? (2) What roles and responsibilities can stakeholders have in PCOR? (3) How can researchers start engaging stakeholders? We introduce a flexible taxonomy called the 7Ps of Stakeholder Engagement and Six Stages of Research for identifying stakeholders and developing engagement strategies across the full spectrum of research activities. The path toward engagement will not be uniform across every research program, but this taxonomy offers a common starting point and a flexible approach.

Plaque volume derived from three-dimensional reconstruction of coronary angiography predicts the fractional flow reserve.

Objectives: To compare the data calculated from the three dimensional (3D) reconstruction of a coronary stenosis with the fractional flow reserve (FFR) values measured on the same coronary segment.

Methods: Multiple projections of 22 patients (7 female, 15 male, age: 61 ± 9.73 years) were evaluated by the IC30 software of the Axiom Artis X-ray machine.