Monica Huerta

A Review of Automatic Patient Identification Options for Public Health Care Centers with Restricted Budgets

A comparative review is presented of available technologies suitable for automatic reading of patient identification bracelet tags. Existing technologies’ backgrounds, characteristics, advantages and disadvantages, are described in relation to their possible use by public health care centers with budgetary limitations. A comparative assessment is presented of suitable automatic identification systems based on graphic codes, both one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D), printed on labels, as well as those based on radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The analysis looks at the tradeoffs of these technologies to provide guidance to hospital administrator looking to deploy patient identification technology. The results suggest that affordable automatic patient identification systems can be easily and inexpensively implemented using 2D code printed on low cost bracelet labels, which can then be read and automatically decoded by ordinary mobile smart phones. Because of mobile smart phones’ present versatility and ubiquity, the implantation and operation of 2D code, and especially Quick Response® (QR) Code, technology emerges as a very attractive alternative to automate the patients’ identification processes in low-budget situations.

IntServ6: an approach to support QoS over IPv6 networks

This paper proposes an approach to support end-to-end quality of service over IPv6 networks. In our solution, IPv6 flow labels are used to give better performance into the process of packet classification on network routers. In order to evaluate our proposal, a router model is obtained and it is compared with other technologies as IntServ and MPLS. As result, we obtain a solution with benefits of QoS support and label switching in IPv6 routers.

Guidelines for designing wireless communications for rural telemedicine in developing countries.

The majority of ambulatory primary health-care centres (PHCCs) in rural and marginal suburban areas in Latin America, as in most developing countries, suffer from poor infrastructure, lack of suitable communications services, inadequate roads, non-existent or highly unreliable electrification, significant budgetary limitations and isolation from the rest of the health-care system. Such conditions represent serious obstacles to disease prevention, diagnosis, secondary care referral and even proper emergency treatment. The installation of suitable communications infrastructure, in the form of computer networks, is a practical answer to this problem. Such networks can provide telemedicine services to remotely located PHCCs by connecting them to a central health institution, where a wide range of general and specialty diagnostic and therapeutic services are likely to be available. Several of these networks are already being implemented in Latin America. We provide here some methodological guidelines we have found useful for implementing wireless telemedicine communications networks.

Municipal Communications Infrastructure for Rural Telemedicine in a Latin-American Country

A design methodology for a pilot communications infrastructure to enable Telemedicine services in ambulatory primary health care centers located within “Baruta” and “El Hatillo” municipalities in Venezuelas Miranda state. The main purpose of the proposed infrastructure is to provide voice and data network connectivity between these primary care centers and a chief facility, a local major hospital. The design of the infrastructure was based on a prior assessment of the physical infrastructure and medical resources available at the ambulatory centers, as well as the characteristics of their surroundings. A wireless IEEE 802.11 technology was chosen as being the most adequate for this particular application, after having considered several other alternatives. Features such as technical adequacy, ease and cost of installation and operation, etc, were used as selection criteria. The design included both physical and logical aspects of the infrastructure. The designs performance was analyzed under the simultaneous use of different applications regarding quality of service, bandwidth, and delay parameters. Simulations results indicate the feasibility of the proposed communication infrastructure for this type of primary health care centers.

Diagnosis of the corporal movement in Parkinson’s Disease using Kinect Sensors.

This paper presents an approach to capture of the human movement and posture with a Kinect Sensor, in order to assist physicians in the Parkinson’s Diagnosis. The Kinect Sensor allow to measure displacements in the motionless posture that can be interpreted as increments of tremors intensity.

Fuzzy system of irrigation applied to the growth of habanero pepper ( capsicum chinense jacq.) under protected conditions in Yucatan, Mexico

Agriculture is the largest user of water worldwide by using about 70 percent of total consumption. The world food production depends on the availability of water, considering factors such as demographic and climate change, so the use of efficient irrigation is necessary to apply the correct amount of water to crops. The traditional irrigation systems generally program their scheme based on measurements made at Class A evaporimeter pan. In this paper an irrigation scheme defined by an algorithm that automates the amount of water supplied is presented, it considers the consumption of habanero pepper crop, and a fuzzy system evaluates the necessary duration of irrigation. The climatic variables considered are temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture. The algorithm was programmed in a microcontroller Atmel 328p included in Arduino platform, with the addition of a ZigBee wireless system that allows for monitoring through a PC. The climatic variables were inserted into the fuzzy system by sets of trapezoidal and triangular form and a Mamdani type inference mechanism in which the knowledge of an expert is registered through the fuzzy rules. The system was applied to a habanero pepper crop at Conkal Institute of Technology in Yucatan, Mexico.

The neuroid: A novel and simplified neuron-model

In this paper we introduce a novel computational neuron-model, the Neuroid, which is based on three basic operations that are carried out by nerve cells to process the incoming information, such as comparison, and frequency pulse modulation-demodulation. The model was implemented using LabVIEW 10.0, in order to assign to each of these operations, an execution block (Virtual Instrument). The results of its implementation showed a very similar behavior to that exhibited by real neurons. Furthermore, due to its simplicity and low computational requirements, it is expected that the Neuroid can be used to create several software models of biological neural systems, either for research or teaching purposes.

Mechanisms of security based on digital certificates applied in a telemedicine network

The medical patients information is private and extremely sensitive. This information has to be stored and transmitted carefully because it can be exposed to a series of threats and it is necessary to be protected. This research contemplates the security mechanisms based on digital certificates applied to a pilot telemedicine network, that guarantees the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the medical information of the patients for the hospitable centers involved. The prototype telemedicine network will interconnect hospitals in the municipalities of Baruta and Hatillo Miranda State, in Venezuela by Internet, to provide and support a health care system in inaccessible areas, and the transmission of patients biomedical signals and the health education to people through secure mechanisms such as digital certificates.

A Kinect Based Approach to Assist in the Diagnosis and Quantification of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a degenerative process of the central nervous system. Its main body symptoms are tremors, rigidity, bradykinesia and walking difficulty. These symptoms may increase and so it is necessary to have a constant and successful evaluation, so the PD patient may receive the appropriate treatment. There are systems that enable the monitoring of tremors based on sensors, most of them attached to the patient’s body. Some such systems comprise accelerometers or use of Nintendo Wii Remote sensors (NWR). As a proposal that allows true portability, without the attachment of a single sensor to the patient’s body, or need for batteries, this paper introduces a pilot system that allows to diagnose PD and evaluate its severity using Kinect sensors.

A review of XDMA-WDM-PON for Next Generation Optical Access Networks

Hybrid Wavelength Division Multiplexing-Passive Optical Networks (XDMA-WDM-PON) seems to be the solution to tackle the requirements for optical access networks of the future. This article presents the trending for Next Generation Optical Access Networks (NG-OAN). In this work the requirements for optical access networks of the future are summarized in order to compare several XDMA-WDM-PON proposed solutions. Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Optical Code Division Multiple Access (OCDMA) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) covers the main requirements for future Passive Optical Networks. The results demonstrate that the future optical access networks will be supported by OFDM-WDM-PON architectures.