Ricardo Valentim

Computer-aided detection system for lung cancer in computed tomography scans: review and future prospects.

IntroductionThe goal of this paper is to present a critical review of major Computer-Aided Detection systems (CADe) for lung cancer in order to identify challenges for future research. CADe systems must meet the following requirements: improve the performance of radiologists providing high sensitivity in the diagnosis, a low number of false positives (FP), have high processing speed, present high level of automation, low cost (of implementation, training, support and maintenance), the ability to detect different types and shapes of nodules, and software security assurance.MethodsThe relevant literature related to “CADe for lung cancer” was obtained from PubMed, IEEEXplore and Science Direct database. Articles published from 2009 to 2013, and some articles previously published, were used. A systemic analysis was made on these articles and the results were summarized.DiscussionBased on literature search, it was observed that many if not all systems described in this survey have the potential to be important in clinical practice. However, no significant improvement was observed in sensitivity, number of false positives, level of automation and ability to detect different types and shapes of nodules in the studied period. Challenges were presented for future research.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to improve existing systems and propose new solutions. For this, we believe that collaborative efforts through the creation of open source software communities are necessary to develop a CADe system with all the requirements mentioned and with a short development cycle. In addition, future CADe systems should improve the level of automation, through integration with picture archiving and communication systems (PACS) and the electronic record of the patient, decrease the number of false positives, measure the evolution of tumors, evaluate the evolution of the oncological treatment, and its possible prognosis.

A fuzzy model for processing and monitoring vital signs in ICU patients

BackgroundThe area of the hospital automation has been the subject of much research, addressing relevant issues which can be automated, such as: management and control (electronic medical records, scheduling appointments, hospitalization, among others); communication (tracking patients, staff and materials), development of medical, hospital and laboratory equipment; monitoring (patients, staff and materials); and aid to medical diagnosis (according to each speciality).MethodsIn this context, this paper presents a Fuzzy model for helping medical diagnosis of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients and their vital signs monitored through a multiparameter heart screen. Intelligent systems techniques were used in the data acquisition and processing (sorting, transforming, among others) it into useful information, conducting pre-diagnosis and providing, when necessary, alert signs to the medical staff.ConclusionsThe use of fuzzy logic turned to the medical area can be very useful if seen as a tool to assist specialists in this area. This paper presented a fuzzy model able to monitor and classify the condition of the vital signs of hospitalized patients, sending alerts according to the pre-diagnosis done helping the medical diagnosis.

Analysis of Protocols to Ethernet Automation Networks

The Ethernet technology dominates the market of computer networks. However, it was not been established as technology for industrial automation, where the requirements demand determinism and real-time performance. Many solutions have been proposed to solve the problem of non-determinism, which are based on TDMA (time division multiple access), token passing and master-slave. This article realizes measurements performance comparing implementations in the data communication with UDP and RAW Ethernet protocols, identifying the most viable alternative to support the development of real-time application to industrial automation networks

Classification of cardiac arrhythmias using competitive networks

Information generated by sensors that collect a patients vital signals are continuous and unlimited data sequences. Traditionally, this information requires special equipment and programs to monitor them. These programs process and react to the continuous entry of data from different origins. Thus, the purpose of this study is to analyze the data produced by these biomedical devices, in this case the electrocardiogram (ECG). Processing uses a neural classifier, Kohonen competitive neural networks, detecting if the ECG shows any cardiac arrhythmia. In fact, it is possible to classify an ECG signal and thereby detect if it is exhibiting or not any alteration, according to normality.

Middleware for remote healthcare monitoring

The development of middleware has emerged as an area of expanding research, focused on the integration of services available for distributed applications. In this context, many challenges have also arisen with the use of middleware, such as communication, flexibility, performance, as well as integration with the Web and the computer itself. The development of middleware for mobile computing poses new challenges to developers because of the limitations of mobile devices. Thus, these developers must understand the new mobile computing and middleware technologies in order to integrate them. The objective of this work is to develop a service-oriented context-aware middleware for real-time data management in real-time using mobile devices.

AngelCare mobile system: Homecare patient monitoring using Bluetooth and GPRS.

The quick progress in technology has brought new paradigms to the computing area, bringing with them many benefits to society. The paradigm of ubiquitous computing brings innovations applying computing in peoples daily life without being noticed. For this, it has used the combination of several existing technologies like wireless communications and sensors. Several of the benefits have reached the medical area, bringing new methods of surgery, appointments and examinations. This work presents telemedicine software that adds the idea of ubiquity to the medical area, innovating the relation between doctor and patient. It also brings security and confidence to a patient being monitored in homecare.

Modeling of medical care with stochastic Petri Nets

Due to the need for management, control, and monitoring of information in an effient way. The hospital automation has been the object of a number of studies owing to constantly evolving technologies. However, many hospital processes are still manual in private and public hospitals. Thus, the aim of this study is to model and simulate of medical care provided to patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), using stochastic Petri Nets and their possible use in a number of automation processes.

An approach for recommending personalized contents for homecare users in the context of health 2.0

This paper proposes a content recommendation mechanism as part of a model for implementing ubiquitous learning for supporting people with chronic diseases who are treated at home, so that they can learn more about treatments for their disease. In the proposed approach, the learning takes place based on day-to-day activities and real situations. In this case, the model supports the development of tools that can learn about the users context, based on data obtained via sensors installed on users or in their home, as well as data supplied directly by the user interface of their mobile devices, and data provided by the healthcare team, and, after that, recommend contents about their diseases.

Performance Measurements of Protocols to Ethernet Real-Time Applications

This paper realizes performance measurements comparing implementations of data communication with UDP and RAW protocols over Ethernet Technology, identifying the most viable alternative to support the development of distributes real-time application, searching a protocol solution to nondeterminism of bus arbitration scheme in industrial network based on Ethernet technology.

Service-oriented biomedical devices

The great diversity in the architecture of biomedical devices, coupled with their different communication protocols, has hindered the implementation of systems that need access to these devices. Given these differences, arises the need to provide access to such devices in a transparent way. In this sense, this paper proposes an service-oriented architecture to access biomedical devices as a way to abstract the mechanism for writing and reading data on these devices, thus contributing to the increase in quality and productivity of biomedical systems in order to enable that the focus of the development team of biomedical software is almost exclusively intended for its functional requirements, i.e. business rules relevant to the problem domain. For the development of this work, technologies such as the XML language and the Java programming language were used and concepts of Software Engineering as Design Patterns. After the proposition of the architecture, tests in order to validate the proposed architecture were performed.