Surgical cancellation: a challenge for clinical management post Covid 19

Aim: To determine the frequency, the causes and the associated factors of the surgical cancellation of scheduled surgeries at the Hospital Base Valdivia between the years 2014 and 2018. Materials and Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out. Were described the frequency of suspension of scheduled surgeries of the establishment, by specialty and their main causes, identifying those that can be avoided. In addition, the factors associated with suspension were identified by logistic regression. Results: The suspension rate in the 5 years of study was 11.2%. Neurosurgery and Traumatology had the highest frequency of surgical cancellation (18.8% y 13.9%, respectively), Obstetrics, and Gynecology the lowest (4.1%). The most frequent causes of suspension were the absence of the patient (16.9%), the prolongation of the previous surgery (16.4%) and the suspension of activities due to Union reasons (7.9%). 80.1% of the causes were avoidable. The age and surgical specialty were the most relevant associated factorsmDiscussion: A high rate of surgical suspensions and most for avoidable reasons were evident. Reducing surgical cancellations can be the most cost effective intervention to help reduce the extensive post-health crisis surgical waiting lists by COVID 19, as it only requires optimizing existing resources. Conclusions: Surgical suspension is a common problem in the surgical process. Our results allow to identify the groups most at risk of suspension, assign responsibilities to surgical teams and develop effective strategies for their prevention. © 2022, Sociedad de Cirujanos de Chile. All rights reserved.

AMobileQoE: An SPL Framework to Measure the QoE of Android Applications

Mobile applications are increasingly present in most aspects of our daily life, satisfying the needs of information, communication, and entertainment. Different factors can degrade the performance of these applications or services, and users can undergo unsatisfactory experiences. To achieve acceptance of mobile applications by the user, it is necessary to consider the Quality of Experience, which allows to measure the quality of an application based on the user’s perception. This work presents AMobileQoE, an SPL framework to automatically generate the code necessary to analyse the QoE of mobile applications following the Design Science Research approach. It enables developers to generate more than a thousand different product configurations to measure QoE from a set of network, device, and user metrics. The CovidInfo application was developed to test the SPL framework in a real context with real users, showing the ease of integration and the lightness of the framework. Furthermore, a quality assessment was performed on AMobileQoE showing a high degree of modularity and variability. © 2022 River Publishers.

Mobile QoE exploration: An unsupervised field study in an Argentine Patagonian city

Mobile devices are the main Internet access means today. Smartphones' capabilities added to the growth of wireless networks, enable millions of people to take advantage of resources, contents and applications for different purposes on a daily basis a degraded performance can be produced by different factors and users can undergo unsatisfactory experiences therefore, Quality of Experience (QoE) is a research topic of wide interest, which provides methods to analyze the general acceptability of an application or service, as subjectively perceived by the end user. This perception can be influenced by users' expectations and their context the QoE can be analyzed through subjective metrics obtained from questionnaires and/or surveys and/or objective metrics calculated automatically from the device's properties and Quality of Service (QoS). This work presents the findings of an unsupervised field study conducted over 17 days in the city Rio Gallegos, Argentina, to explore mobile QoE. Furthermore, the correspondence between the objective observations and the users' opinions were analyzed to identify contextual conditions that can influence the obtained results. For this reason, the CovidInfo application was developed and publicly shared. Using their own mobile devices in everyday context, 31 users interacted with the CovidInfo application, recording values for eight objective metrics and users' opinion the total data set collected consisted of 16990 records the analysis of the CovidInfo application yielded positive results, while 89% of the registered values corresponded to a good QoE. This allowed establishing a relationship between the values recorded for the objective metrics and those of the users' opinion, both of which showed good values (88% and 97%, respectively). © 2020 IEEE.

Novel antimicrobial materials designed for the 3D printing of medical devices used during the COVID-19 crisis

Purpose: This study aims to describe the preparation of antimicrobial material usable in 3D printing of medical devices. Despite the wealth of technological progress at the time of the crisis caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus: Virus that causes current Pandemic situation (COVID-19), the global population had long been exposed beforehand to an acute absence of essential medical devices. As a response, a new type of composite materials intended for rapid prototyping, based on layered silicate saponite (Sap), antimicrobial dye phloxine B (PhB) and thermoplastics, has been recently developed. Design/methodology/approach: Sap was modified with a cationic surfactant and subsequently functionalized with PhB. The hybrid material in powder form was then grounded with polyethylene terephthalate-glycol (PETG) or polylactic acid (PLA) in a precisely defined weight ratio and extruded into printing filaments. The stability and level of cytotoxicity of these materials in various physiological environments simulating the human body have been studied. The applicability of these materials in bacteria and a yeast-infected environment was evaluated. Findings: Ideal content of the hybrid material, with respect to thermoplastic, was 15 weight %. Optimal printing temperature and speed, with respect to maintaining antimicrobial activity of the prepared materials, were T = 215°C at 50 mm/s for PETG/SapPhB and T = 230°C at 40 mm/s for PLA/SapPhB. 3 D-printed air filters made of these materials could keep inner air flow at 63.5% and 76.8% of the original value for the PLA/SapPhB and PETG/SapPhB, respectively, whereas the same components made without PhB had a 100% reduction of airflow. Practical implications: The designed materials can be used for rapid prototyping of medical devices. Originality/value: The new materials have been immediately used in the construction of an emergency lung ventilator, Q-vent, which has been used in different countries during the COVID-19 crisis. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.