Juan José Carrasco

Machine learning methods to forecast temperature in buildings

Efficient management of energy in buildings saves a very important amount of resources (both economic and technological). As a consequence, there is a very active research in this field. One of the keys of energy management is the prediction of the variables that directly affect building energy consumption and personal comfort. Among these variables, one can highlight the temperature in each room of a building. In this work we apply different machine learning techniques along with other classical ones for predicting the temperatures in different rooms. The obtained results demonstrate the validity of these techniques for predicting temperatures and, therefore, for the establishment of optimal policies of energy consumption.

ELM Regularized Method for Classification Problems

Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is a recently proposed algorithm, efficient and fast for learning the parameters of single layer neural structures. One of the main problems of this algorithm is to choose the optimal architecture for a given problem solution. To solve this limitation several solutions have been proposed in the literature, including the regularization of the structure. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no works where such adjustment is applied to classification problems in the presence of a non-linearity in the output; all published works tackle modelling or regression problems. Our proposal has been applied to a series of standard databases for the evaluation of machine learning techniques. Results obtained in terms of classification success rate and training time, are compared to the original ELM, to the well known Least Square Support Vector Machine (LS-SVM) algorithm and with two other methods based on the ELM regularization: Optimally Pruned Extreme Learning Machine (OP-ELM) and Bayesian Extreme Learning Machine (BELM). The obtained results clearly demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method and its superiority over a classical approach.

Quantification of physical activity in adult patients with haemophilic arthropathy in prophylaxis treatment using a fitness tracker

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HemoKinect: A Microsoft Kinect V2 Based Exergaming Software to Supervise Physical Exercise of Patients with Hemophilia

Patients with hemophilia need to strictly follow exercise routines to minimize their risk of suffering bleeding in joints, known as hemarthrosis. This paper introduces and validates a new exergaming software tool called HemoKinect that intends to keep track of exercises using Microsoft Kinect V2’s body tracking capabilities. The software has been developed in C++ and MATLAB. The Kinect SDK V2.0 libraries have been used to obtain 3D joint positions from the Kinect color and depth sensors. Performing angle calculations and center-of-mass (COM) estimations using these joint positions, HemoKinect can evaluate the following exercises: elbow flexion/extension, knee flexion/extension (squat), step climb (ankle exercise) and multi-directional balance based on COM. The software generates reports and progress graphs and is able to directly send the results to the physician via email. Exercises have been validated with 10 controls and eight patients. HemoKinect successfully registered elbow and knee exercises, while displaying real-time joint angle measurements. Additionally, steps were successfully counted in up to 78% of the cases. Regarding balance, differences were found in the scores according to the difficulty level and direction. HemoKinect supposes a significant leap forward in terms of exergaming applicability to rehabilitation of patients with hemophilia, allowing remote supervision.

Concurrent validation of the OMNI-Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion with elastic bands in the elderly

Purpose: To examine the concurrent validity of the OMNI‐Resistance Exercise Scale of perceived exertion using elastic bands in elder population. Methods: Twenty‐six participants performed three separate sets of 15 repetitions (low‐ medium‐ and high‐intensity) for 4 different exercises (2 for the upper‐limb and 2 for the lower limb), over two different testing sessions. The criterion variables were heart rate and applied force (average and maximum). In addition to these dependent variables, the active muscle and overall body OMNI‐RES for elastic bands scores were collected at the end of each repetition. Results: Significant differences in heart rate, applied force and OMNI‐RES scores between the low‐ and high‐intensity sets were observed. For all the four exercises, high intensity sets elicited higher heart rate, applied force, and RPE compared to the medium and the low overloads. Intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.79 in heart rate and ranged 0.69–0.80 in OMNI‐RES Scale and 0.76–0.86 for the applied force. Conclusion: A strong positive and linear relationship was observed between the rating of perceived exertion and both heart rate and applied force. The OMNI‐RES scale with elastic bands demonstrated to be a valid method for assessing the perceived exertion during resistance exercises and consequently represent a useful tool for prescribing exercise intensity to the elderly. HighlightsElastic bands scale is a suitable tool for controlling training intensity with older adults.It can be used during different resistance exercises, sets and sessions.Changing the grip width provokes an increase in the applied force and heart rate responses.

Effect of radiosynoviorthesis on the progression of arthropathy and haemarthrosis reduction in haemophilic patients

Repeated haemarthrosis is widely accepted as the triggering cause of synovitis and haemophilic arthropathy. A first‐line treatment of chronic synovitis is radiosynoviorthesis (RS). The aim of this study was to evaluate the RS effects on the progression of arthropathy and on a reduction in bleeding in patients with haemophilia.