Using Cognitive-Motor Dual-Tasks and Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy to Characterize Older Adults with and without Subjective Cognitive Decline.

BACKGROUND: Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) refers to individuals who report persistent cognitive deficits but perform normally on neuropsychological tests. Performance may be facilitated by increased prefrontal cortex activation, known as neural compensation, and could be used to differentiate between older adults with and without SCD. OBJECTIVE: This cross-sectional pilot study measured changes in the hemodynamic response (ΔHbO2) using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) as well as cognitive and motor performance during fine and gross motor dual-tasks in older adults with and without SCD. METHODS: Twenty older adults over 60 years old with (n = 10) and without (n = 10) SCD were recruited. Two experiments were conducted using 1) gross motor walking and 2) fine motor finger tapping tasks that were paired with an n-back working memory task. Participants also completed neuropsychological assessments and questionnaires on everyday functioning. RESULTS: Repeated measures ANOVAs demonstrated slower response times during dual-task gait compared to the single task (p = 0.032) and in the non-SCD group, slower gait speed was also observed in the dual compared to single task (p = 0.044). Response times during dual-task finger tapping were slower than the single task (p = 0.049) and greater ΔHbO2 was observed overall in the SCD compared to non-SCD group (p = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Examining neural and performance outcomes revealed differences between SCD and non-SCD groups and single and dual-tasks. Greater brain activation during dual-task finger tapping may reflect neural compensation, which should be examined in a larger sample and longitudinally to better characterize SCD.

Towards a Machine Learning-Based Digital Twin for Non-Invasive Human Bio-Signal Fusion.

Human bio-signal fusion is considered a critical technological solution that needs to be advanced to enable modern and secure digital health and well-being applications in the metaverse. To support such efforts, we propose a new data-driven digital twin (DT) system to fuse three human physiological bio-signals: heart rate (HR), breathing rate (BR), and blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2). To accomplish this goal, we design a computer vision technology based on the non-invasive photoplethysmography (PPG) technique to extract raw time-series bio-signal data from facial video frames. Then, we implement machine learning (ML) technology to model and measure the bio-signals. We accurately demonstrate the digital twin capability in the modelling and measuring of three human bio-signals, HR, BR, and SpO2, and achieve strong performance compared to the ground-truth values. This research sets the foundation and the path forward for realizing a holistic human health and well-being DT model for real-world medical applications.

Deep learning in multimedia healthcare applications: a review.

The increase in chronic diseases has affected the countries' health system and economy. With the recent COVID-19 virus, humanity has experienced a great challenge, which has led to make efforts to detect it and prevent its spread. Hence, it is necessary to develop new solutions that are based on technology and low cost, to satisfy the citizens' needs. Deep learning techniques is a technological solution that has been used in healthcare lately. Nowadays, with the increase in chips processing capabilities, increase size of data, and the progress in deep learning research, healthcare applications have been proposed to provide citizens' health needs. In addition, a big amount of data is generated every day. Development in Internet of Things, gadgets, and phones has allowed the access to multimedia data. Data such as images, video, audio and text are used as input of applications based on deep learning methods to support healthcare system to diagnose, predict, or treat patients. This review pretends to give an overview of proposed healthcare solutions based on deep learning techniques using multimedia data. We show the use of deep learning in healthcare, explain the different types of multimedia data, show some relevant deep learning multimedia applications in healthcare, and highlight some challenges in this research area.

Modulation Spectral Signal Representation for Quality Measurement and Enhancement of Wearable Device Data: A Technical Note.

Wearable devices are burgeoning, and applications across numerous verticals are emerging, including human performance monitoring, at-home patient monitoring, and health tracking, to name a few. Off-the-shelf wearables have been developed with focus on portability, usability, and low-cost. As such, when deployed in highly ecological settings, wearable data can be corrupted by artifacts and by missing data, thus severely hampering performance. In this technical note, we overview a signal processing representation called the modulation spectrum. The representation quantifies the rate-of-change of different spectral magnitude components and is shown to separate signal from noise, thus allowing for improved quality measurement, quality enhancement, and noise-robust feature extraction, as well as for disease characterization. We provide an overview of numerous applications developed by the authors over the last decade spanning different wearable modalities and list the results obtained from experimental results alongside comparisons with various state-of-the-art benchmark methods. Open-source software is showcased with the hope that new applications can be developed. We conclude with a discussion on possible future research directions, such as context awareness, signal compression, and improved input representations for deep learning algorithms.

Descripción de las lesiones relacionadas con la dependencia en una clínica cardiovascular / Dependence-related lesions in a cardiovascular clinic

Objetivos: Describir las lesiones relacionadas con la dependencia en una clínica cardiovascular de alto nivel de atención, de la Ciudad de Medellín, Colombia, en el año 2018. Metodología: Estudio descriptivo retrospectivo con una muestra no probabilística a conveniencia. A las variables de naturaleza cuantitativa, previa prueba de normalidad de Shapiro Wilk, se les calcularon la mediana con sus respectivos rangos intercuartílicos y los valores mínimo y máximo. Las variables de naturaleza cualitativa se presentan con frecuencias absolutas y relativas. Resultados: Se presentaron 167 pacientes con lesiones para una incidencia global del 2,8%; las lesiones más frecuentes fueron causadas por dispositivos médicos (50,9%). Las lesiones por apoyo fueron del 28,7%; por adhesivo, del 18,6%; y por humedad, del 1,8%. No se presentaron lesiones por fricción. El 73,1% de las lesiones se presentaron en pacientes adultos. El 77,2% tenía clasificación de riesgo alto; el 60,5% de las lesiones fueron de categoría 1. De acuerdo con el sitio anatómico, la mayoría de las lesiones se presentaron en cara y cuello (47,9%), seguido de pelvis y miembros inferiores (40,1%). En el análisis de calidad se encontró que el 60,5% fue evitable. Conclusiones: La mayoría de las lesiones relacionadas con la dependencia fueron secundarias al uso de dispositivos médicos. Es necesario continuar haciendo estudios que brinden información sobre los diferentes tipos de lesiones por dependencia, ya que las medidas de prevención y los cuidados de estas varían de acuerdo con el mecanismo de producción (AU)

Aim: To describe dependence-related lesions in a high level of care cardiovascular clinic in the city of Medellin, Colombia, in 2018. Method: Retrospective descriptive study with a non-probabilistic sample. Quantitative data were calculated with median and their respective interquartile ranges, minimum and maximum values. Qualitative data is presented with absolute and relative frequencies. Results: 167 patients suffered dependence-related lesions, incidence 2.8%. The most frequent lesions were caused by medical devices (50.9%), by pressure (28.7), by Medical Adhesive-Related Skin Injury (18.6), and by humidity (1.8%). There were not friction injuries. 73.1% of the lesions occurred in adult patients. % had a high risk classification; 60.5% of the injuries were category 1. According to the anatomical site, most lesions were presented in the face and neck (47.9%), followed by the pelvis and lower limbs (40.1%). In the quality analysis it was found that 60.5% were avoidable. Conclusions: The majority of dependence-related lesions were secondary to the use of medical devices. It is necessary to make more researches that show the different type of dependence-related lesions, since caring and prevention measures vary according to the production mechanism (AU)

Streamlined production, purification, and characterization of recombinant extracellular polyhydroxybutyrate depolymerases.

Heterologous production of extracellular polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) depolymerases (PhaZs) has been of interest for over 30 years, but implementation is sometimes difficult and can limit the scope of research. With the constant development of tools to improve recombinant protein production in Escherichia coli, we propose a method that takes characteristics of PhaZs from different bacterial strains into account. Recombinant His-tagged versions of PhaZs (rPhaZ) from Comamonas testosteroni 31A, Cupriavidus sp. T1, Marinobacter algicola DG893, Pseudomonas stutzeri, and Ralstonia sp. were successfully produced with varying expression, solubility, and purity levels. PhaZs from C. testosteroni and P. stutzeri were more amenable to heterologous expression in all aspects; however, using the E. coli Rosetta-gami B(DE3) expression strain and establishing optimal conditions for expression and purification (variation of IPTG concentration and use of size exclusion columns) helped circumvent low expression and purity for the other PhaZs. Degradation activity of the rPhaZs was compared using a simple PHB plate-based method, adapted to test for various pH and temperatures. rPhaZ from M. algicola presented the highest activity at 15°C, and rPhaZs from Cupriavidus sp. T1 and Ralstonia sp. had the highest activity at pH 5.4. The methods proposed herein can be used to test the production of soluble recombinant PhaZs and to perform preliminary evaluation for applications that require PHB degradation.

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) biodegradation using bacterial strains with demonstrated and predicted PHB depolymerase activity.

The biodegradation of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) has been broadly investigated, but studies typically focus on a single strain or enzyme and little attention has been paid to comparing the interaction of different PHB depolymerase (PhaZ)-producing strains with this biopolymer. In this work, we selected nine bacterial strains-five with demonstrated and four with predicted PhaZ activity-to compare their effectiveness at degrading PHB film provided as sole carbon source. Each of the strains with demonstrated activity were able to use the PHB film (maximum mass losses ranging from 12% after 2 days for Paucimonas lemoignei to 90% after 4 days for Cupriavidus sp.), and to a lower extent Marinobacter algicola DG893 (with a predicted PhaZ) achieved PHB film mass loss of 11% after 2 weeks of exposure. Among the strains with proven PhaZ activity, Ralstonia sp. showed the highest specific activity since less biomass was required to degrade the polymer in comparison to the other strains. In the case of Ralstonia sp., PHB continued to be degraded at pH values as low as pH 3.3-3.7. In addition, analysis of the extracellular fractions of the strains with demonstrated activity showed that Comamonas testosteroni, Cupriavidus sp., and Ralstonia sp. readily degraded both PHB film and PHB particles in agar suspensions. This study highlights that whole cell cultures and enzymatic (extracellular) fractions display different levels of activity, an important factor in the development of PHB-based applications and in understanding the fate of PHB and other PHAs released in the environment. Furthermore, predictions of PhaZ functionality from genome sequencing analyses remain to be validated by experimental results; PHB-degrading ability could not be proven for three of four investigated species predicted by the polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) depolymerase engineering database.

Adaptive Spectro-Temporal Filtering for Electrocardiogram Signal Enhancement.

Advances in low-cost portable electrocardiogram (ECG) devices have opened doors for numerous new applications, including fitness tracking, remote health, and peak athletic performance monitoring, to name a few. Many such devices, however, have been shown to be highly contaminated by movement and/or muscle contraction artifacts, which, in turn, can lead to erroneous heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) analyses. Here, we propose a new denoising method based on adaptive spectro-temporal filtering for ECG enhancement. The algorithm relies on the so-called modulation spectral signal representation, which is shown to accurately separate ECG and noise components. The proposed method was tested on synthetic ECG signals corrupted with varying levels of recorded noise and on long-term bedside noisy ECG recordings. Gains over a state-of-the-art wavelet-based denoising algorithm were achieved, particularly for very noisy scenarios. Overall, the proposed algorithm achieved a 61.8% gain in signal-to-noise ratio improvement, a three times reduction in average heart rate measurement error, and a 15% reduction in HRV measurement error relative to the benchmark, thus suggesting that it is an ideal candidate for ECG-based fitness/athletic monitoring applications.

Spectro-Temporal Electrocardiogram Analysis for Noise-Robust Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability Measurement.

The last few years has seen a proliferation of wearable electrocardiogram (ECG) devices in the market with applications in fitness tracking, patient monitoring, athletic performance assessment, stress and fatigue detection, and biometrics, to name a few. The majority of these applications rely on the computation of the heart rate (HR) and the so-called heart rate variability (HRV) index via time-, frequency-, or non-linear-domain approaches. Wearable/portable devices, however, are highly susceptible to artifacts, particularly those resultant from movement. These artifacts can hamper HR/HRV measurement, thus pose a serious threat to cardiac monitoring applications. While current solutions rely on ECG enhancement as a pre-processing step prior to HR/HRV calculation, existing artifact removal algorithms still perform poorly under extremely noisy scenarios. To overcome this limitation, we take an alternate approach and propose the use of a spectro-temporal ECG signal representation that we show separates cardiac components from artifacts. More specifically, by quantifying the rate-of-change of ECG spectral components over time, we show that heart rate estimates can be reliably obtained even in extremely noisy signals, thus bypassing the need for ECG enhancement. With such HR measurements in hands, we then propose a new noise-robust HRV index termed MD-HRV (modulation-domain HRV) computed as the standard deviation of the obtained HR values. Experiments with synthetic ECG signals corrupted at various different signal-to-noise levels, as well as recorded noisy signals show the proposed measure outperforming several HRV benchmark parameters computed post wavelet-based enhancement. These findings suggest that the proposed HR measures and derived MD-HRV metric are well-suited for ambulant cardiac monitoring applications, particularly those involving intense movement (e.g., elite athletic training).

Planificación cognitiva en niños con déficit auditivo / Cognitive planning for children with auditory deficit

Este estudio busca abordar y explorar la habilidad para planificar de los niños con déficit auditivo ante una Situación de Resolución de Problemas (SRP), por medio del uso de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC), como una herramienta para acceder, de manera objetiva, a los procesos cognitivos del niño con déficit auditivo, sin demandarle ningún tipo de lenguaje verbal, escrito o por medio de señas. Se analizó el desempeño de 11 niños con déficit auditivo que asisten al Instituto para Niños Ciegos y Sordos del Valle del Cauca, con edades entre 4 y 5 años, quienes utilizan ayudas tecnológicas tales como el implante coclear y audífonos. Se realizó un estudio de carácter descriptivo y transversal a partir de una escala de medición continua, con un análisis de los resultados de tipo cuantitativo y cualitativo. Entre los principales resultados del estudio se encuentran: la presencia de mejoras en el desempeño de los niños a través de los tres intentos que debían realizar para resolver la SRP. Aunque las diferencias inter-intentos no fueron estadísticamente significativas, se observó que los niños con déficit auditivo son capaces de trazarse planes parciales y de utilizar estrategias sofisticadas en la resolución de la tarea. Se concluye sobre la importancia de utilizar instrumentos de recolección de la información, adaptados a las necesidades y características de cada población, al momento de evaluar, describir y potencializar los procesos cognitivos de los niños, en este caso de los niños con déficit auditivo.

This work looks for to approach and to explore the ability to plan of children with auditory deficit, in face to a situation of resolution of problems (SRP), using the information and the communication’s technologies (ICT), like a tool to consent from an objective way to the children’s cognitive processes with auditory deficit, without demanding him any type of verbal, written language or by means of signs. The acting of 11 children who attend of the institute from the instituto para niños ciegos y sordos del Valle del Cauca, with auditory deficit and with ages between 4 and 5 years that use such technological helps as the one it implants cochlear and headsets was analyzed. It was carried out a study of descriptive and traverse character starting from a continuous mensuration scale, with an analysis of the results of quantitative and qualitative. Among the main results of the study it can say that the presence of improvements in the acting of the children through the three intents that they should carry out to solve the SRP. Although the differences inter-intents were not statistically significant, it was observed that the children with auditory deficit are able to be traced partial plans and to use sophisticated strategies in the resolution of the task. It was conclude about the importance to use gathering instruments of the information adapted to the necessities and characteristic of each population, at the moment to evaluate, to describe and improve the cognitive processes of the children, in this case of the children with auditory deficit.

Este estudo procura abordar e explorar a habilidade para planificar em meninos com déficit auditivo ante uma situação de resolução de problemas (SRP), por meio do uso das tecnologias da informação e a comunicação (CACOETE), como uma ferramenta para aceder de maneira objetiva aos processos cognitivos do menino com déficit auditivo, sem demandar-lhe nenhum tipo de linguagem verbal, escrito ou por meio de senhas. Analisou-se o desempenho de 11 meninos com déficit auditivo que assistem ao Instituto para Niños Ciegos y Sordos do Valle del Cauca, com idades entre 4 e 5 anos, que utilizam ajudas tecnológicas tais como o implante coclear e aparelhos auditivos. Realizou-se um estudo de caráter descritivo e transversal a partir de uma escala de medição contínua, com uma análise dos resultados de tipo quantitativo e qualitativo. Entre os principais resultados do estudo se encontram: a presença de melhoras no desempenho dos meninos através das três tentativas que deviam realizar para resolver a SRP. Ainda que as diferenças inter-tentativas não foram estatisticamente significativas, observou-se que os meninos com déficit auditivo são capazes de traçar-se planos parciais e de utilizar estratégias sofisticadas na resolução da tarefa. Conclui-se sobre a importância de utilizar instrumentos de recolha da informação adaptados às necessidades e características de cada população, ao momento de avaliar, descrever e potencializar os processos cognitivos dos meninos, neste caso dos meninos com déficit auditivo.