Rich internet application system for patient-centric healthcare data management using handheld devices.

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) are an emerging software platform that blurs the line between web service and native application, and is a powerful tool for handheld device deployment. By democratizing health data management and widening its availability, this software platform has the potential to revolutionize telemedicine, clinical practice, medical education and information distribution, particularly in rural areas, and to make patient-centric medical computing a reality. In this paper, we propose a telemedicine application that leverages the ability of a mobile RIA platform to transcode, organise and present textual and multimedia data, which are sourced from medical database software. We adopted a web-based approach to communicate, in real-time, with an established hospital information system via a custom RIA. The proposed solution allows communication between handheld devices and a hospital information system for media streaming with support for real-time encryption, on any RIA enabled platform. We demonstrate our prototype's ability to securely and rapidly access, without installation requirements, medical data ranging from simple textual records to multi-slice PET-CT images and maximum intensity (MIP) projections.

Automatic mobile device synchronization and remote control system for high-performance medical applications.

The field of telemedicine is in need of generic solutions that harness the power of small, easily carried computing devices to increase efficiency and decrease the likelihood of medical errors. Our study resolved to build a framework to bridge the gap between handheld and desktop solutions by developing an automated network protocol that wirelessly propagates application data and images prepared by a powerful workstation to handheld clients for storage, display and collaborative manipulation. To this end, we present the Mobile Active Medical Protocol (MAMP), a framework capable of nigh-effortlessly linking medical workstation solutions to corresponding control interfaces on handheld devices for remote storage, control and display. The ease-of-use, encapsulation and applicability of this automated solution is designed to provide significant benefits to the rapid development of telemedical solutions. Our results demonstrate that the design of this system allows an acceptable data transfer rate, a usable framerate for diagnostic solutions and enough flexibility to enable its use in a wide variety of cases. To this end, we also present a large-scale multi-modality image viewer as an example application based on the MAMP.

Nutrient emissions from diffuse and point sources into the River Danube and its main tributaries for the period of 1998-2000--results and problems.

Nutrient emissions by point and diffuse sources were estimated for 388 sub-catchments of the Danube river basin for the period 1998-2000 by means of the Model MONERIS. For nitrogen total emissions of 684 kt/a N were estimated for the Danube basin. 80% of these emissions were caused by diffuse sources (mainly groundwater, urban areas and tile drainage). For phosphorus the emission was 57 kt/a P, with a contribution of diffuse sources to this sum of 58%. The comparison of calculated and observed loads shows that the mean deviation for the investigated sub-catchments of the Danube river basin is 20% for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and 34% for phosphorus. The spatial resolution of the emission calculations allows the identification of regional hot spots and the derivation of specific regional measures to reduce the emissions into the Danube and consequently into the Western Black Sea.

Training improves the adaptation to changing visual conditions in maintaining human posture control in a test of sinusoidal oscillation of the support.

Balance control relies on somesthetic, visual and vestibular afferences, their central processing, and adequate motor responses. We studied the consequences on postural control of the suppression of visual afferences by eye closure, during a dynamic posturographic test in six sportsmen and 14 non-sportsmen. Suppression of visual afferences during the test led to a prolongation of the pattern initially recorded with eyes open, followed by a transitory adaptive pattern, then a typical eyes closed pattern. Repetition of the test showed a progressively longer persistence of the eyes open pattern and disappearance of the adaptive one. This evolution was significantly faster in sportsmen. This progressively longer duration of the eyes open pattern may be explained by the intervention of short term memory. Our data further indicate that training improves adaptive posture control.

Vestibular Evoked Potentials (VestEP) and Brain Electrical Activity Mapping - A Test of Vestibular Function - A Review (1990 - 1996).

Brain Electrical Activity Mapping of Vestibular Evoked Potentials (BEAM-VestEP) is a new technology for investigation of the spatial and temporal properties of a rotationally-induced brain electrical events. The method consists of multichannel EEG registration and mapping of the brain isoelectrical contours during short-lasting repetitive angular accelerations. A special data bank containing more than 400 BEAM-VestEP investigations on more than 300 persons, either symptom free volunteers or neurotological patients suffering from vertigo, tinnitus, sudden hearing loss, acoustic tumors, balance disorders, has been created for this study. The VestEP wave set consists of 5 - 7 positive/negative wave components, appearing within the time interval of 70 - 850 ms after the onset of the acceleratory step stimulus. The principle components analysis reveals that the shortest latencies and the highest amplitudes of the VestEPs can be registered from the central transversal line of electrodes, T3-C3-Cz-C4-T4. The later components are generated from the more frontally located cortical areas. The VestEP is a compound electrical phenomenon. The initial complex ( waves I - III) is related to the activation of specific (vestibular) cortical areas. The later complex (waves IV - VI) reflects the supramodal cortical proceedings with sensory information (cognitive components).

Vestibular Evoked Potentials in Two Patients with Bilateral Vestibular Loss.

The Brain Electrical Activity Mapping (BEAM) of Vestibular Evoked Potentials (VestEP) is a new method in the toolbox of the neurootologist. Two cases of bilateral vestibular loss, diagnosed by classical neurootological methods (highlighted by caloric and optokinetic tests' electronystagmography recording), are reported. The additional information, provided by the Vestibular Evoked Potentials (VestEP) and its high clinical significance for a more accurate neurootologic diagnosis are discussed.