Search Results (23)

Background/Objectives: The use of coercive measures in psychiatry is an ethically controversial issue. Staff attitude towards coercive measures could explain the different application frequencies of coercive measures across psychiatric services. Methods: We analyzed the attitude towards coercion held by professionals working in a psychiatric department using the Staff Attitude to Coercion Scale (SACS). We statistically evaluated the correlation between the SACS score and the demographic and work characteristics of professionals. Results: The most represented category of participants was nurses (73.03%). Most professionals worked in a Mental Health Community Service (MHCS) (72.09%). We reported a score of 41.9 ± 8.8 SD in total SACS and high scores in two SACS factors: “Coercion as offending” and “Coercion as care and security”. Professionals working in Service for Psychiatric Diagnosis and Care (SPDC) showed reduced scores in total SACS and the SACS dimension “Coercion as offending” score. Place of work, particularly “working in SPDC”, was statistically significantly associated with total SACS in a positive way and with the “Coercion as offending” score in a negative way in our regression multivariate test. Conclusions: Our professionals showed a predominantly critical and pragmatic attitude towards coercive measures. The professionals who are more frequently exposed to violent and aggressive behavior, such as those who work in SPDC, showed a reduced critical attitude towards coercion in comparison with those working in MHCS, suggesting that exposure to violence can shape the response of professionals. Full article

The increasing demand for personalized healthcare, particularly among individuals requiring continuous health monitoring, has driven significant advancements in sensor technology. Wearable, non-continuous monitoring, and non-contact sensors are leading this innovation, providing novel methods for monitoring vital signs and physiological data in both clinical and home settings. However, there is a lack of comprehensive comparative studies assessing the overall functionality of these technologies. This paper aims to address this gap by presenting a detailed comparative analysis of selected wearable, non-continuous monitoring, and non-contact sensors used for health monitoring. To achieve this, we conducted a comprehensive evaluation of various sensors available on the market, utilizing key indicators such as sensor performance, usability, associated platforms functionality, data management, battery efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. Our findings highlight the strengths and limitations of each sensor type, thus offering valuable insights for the selection of the most appropriate technology based on specific healthcare needs. This study has the potential to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, healthcare providers, and policymakers, contributing to a deeper understanding of existing user-centered health monitoring solutions. Full article

Visible Light Communication (VLC) is a cutting-edge transmission technique where data is sent by modulating light intensity. Manchester On–Off Keying (OOK) is among the most used modulation techniques in VLC and is normed by IEEE 802.15.7 standard for wireless networks. Various Manchester decoder schemes are documented in the literature, often leveraging minimal two-level analog-to-digital converters followed by straightforward digital logic. These methods often compromise performance for simplicity. However, the VLC applications in fields like automotive and/or aerospace require the maximum performance in terms of bit error rate (BER) with respect to Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), together with a real-time low-latency implementation. In this work, we introduce a high-performance Manchester decoder and detail its implementation in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The decoder operates by acquiring a fully resolved signal (12-bit resolution) and by calculating the phase of the transmitted bit. Additionally, the proposed decoder achieves and maintains synchronization with the incoming signal, tolerating frequency shifts and jitter up to 1%. The Manchester decoder was tested in a VLC system with automotive-certified headlamps, realizing an IEEE 802.15.7-compliant link at 100 kb/s. The proposed decoder ensures a BER below 10⁻² for SNR > −12 dB and, compared to a standard decoder, achieves the same BER when the input signal has an SNR of 10 dB lower. Full article

This paper presents a co-designed solution aimed at improving community healthcare assistance management. To enhance patients’ self-awareness of their health status, encouraging active participation in care process, and to support nurses in delivering patient-centered care, we have developed an innovative platform with a highly customized app. This platform was designed using a multi-disciplinary, bottom-up approach. Patient data collection and processing facilitate the automation of care timeline planning, based on real-time patients’ needs and the available resources. To achieve this goal, different components have been considered: real-time health data collection and processing, patient care planning, decision support for nurses, secure communication for data transmission, and user-friendly interfaces to ensure easy access to platform functionalities. Full article

Over the past few decades, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have revolutionized the fields of nursing and patient healthcare management. This scoping review and the accompanying case studies shed light on the extensive scope and impact of ICT in these critical healthcare domains. The scoping review explores the wide array of ICT tools employed in nursing care and patient healthcare management. These tools encompass electronic health records systems, mobile applications, telemedicine solutions, remote monitoring systems, and more. This article underscores how these technologies have enhanced the efficiency, accuracy, and accessibility of clinical information, contributing to improved patient care. ICT revolution has revitalized nursing care and patient management, improving the quality of care and patient satisfaction. This review and the accompanying case studies emphasize the ongoing potential of ICT in the healthcare sector and call for further research to maximize its benefits. Full article

The applied behavior analysis (ABA) model emphasizes observable and measurable behaviors by carrying out decision making using experimental data (behavioral observation assessment strategies). In this framework, information and communication technology (ICT) becomes highly suitable for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the methodology. This paper aims to delve into the potential of ICT in providing innovative solutions to support ABA applications. It focuses on how ICT can contribute to fostering social inclusion with respect to children with neurodevelopmental disorders. ICT offers advanced solutions for continuous and context-aware monitoring, as well as automatic real-time behavior assessments. Wireless sensor systems (wearable perceptual, biomedical, motion, location, and environmental sensors) facilitate real-time behavioral monitoring in various contexts, enabling the collection of behavior-related data that may not be readily evident in traditional observational studies. Moreover, the incorporation of artificial intelligence algorithms that are appropriately trained can further assist therapists throughout the different phases of ABA therapy. These algorithms can provide intervention guidelines and deliver an automatic behavioral analysis that is personalized to the child’s unique profile. By leveraging the power of ICT, ABA practitioners can benefit from cutting-edge technological advancements to optimize their therapeutic interventions and outcomes for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, ultimately contributing to their social inclusion and overall wellbeing. Full article

Visible light communications (VLC) is a technology that enables the transmission of digital information with a light source. VLC is nowadays seen as a promising technology for indoor applications, helping WiFi to handle the spectrum crunch. Possible indoor applications range from Internet connection at home/office to multimedia content delivery in a museum. Despite the vast interest of researchers in both theoretical analysis and experimentation on VLC technology, no studies have been carried out on the human perceptions of objects illuminated by VLC-based lamps. It is important to define if a VLC lamp decreases the reading capability or modifies the color perception in order to make VLC a technology appropriate for everyday life use. This paper describes the results of psychophysical tests on humans to define if VLC lamps modify the perception of colors or the reading speed. The results of the reading speed test showed a $0.97$ correlation coefficient between tests with and without VLC modulated light, leading us to conclude that there is no difference in the reading speed capability with and without VLC-modulated light. The results of the color perception test showed a Fisher exact test p-value of $0.2351$, showing that the perception of color is not influenced by the presence of the VLC modulated light. Full article

Visible Light Communication (VLC) represents an emerging technology where a short-range data connection is obtained by modulating the energy radiated by Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) at frequencies from a few kHz up to hundreds of MHz. The bandwidth/distance performance of such links is a compromise related to the available Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR). At present, VLC links with bandwidth beyond the Gb/s and distance limited to a few cm or distances up to 100 m but data rates of a few kb/s have been demonstrated. Chirp coding with pulse compression is a well-known technique capable of recovering useful data from low SNR signals, widely employed, for example, in radar. In spite of the possible advantages, its application in VLC has never been investigated. Unfortunately, the pulse compressor is quite calculation-intensive, and only devices like Field-Programmable-Gate-Arrays (FPGAs) can support a low-latency real-time implementation. In this paper we demonstrate a real-time VLC link based on chirp coding and pulse compression coded in FPGA. For example, a chirp with bandwidth and length of 1.7 MHz and 17.92 µs, respectively, is demonstrated to support a link at 1.56 Mb/s over 2.8 m distance and a latency below 40 µs. Moreover, the communication-distance increase achievable by chirps of increasing temporal length is demonstrated and compared to the theoretical background. Full article

In the current Information Age, it is usual to access our personal and professional information, such as bank account data or private documents, in a telematic manner. To ensure the privacy of this information, user authentication systems should be accurately developed. In this work, we focus on biometric authentication, as it depends on the user’s inherent characteristics and, therefore, offers personalized authentication systems. Specifically, we propose an electrocardiogram (EEG)-based user authentication system by employing One-Class and Multi-Class Machine Learning classifiers. In this sense, the main novelty of this article is the introduction of Isolation Forest and Local Outlier Factor classifiers as new tools for user authentication and the investigation of their suitability with EEG data. Additionally, we identify the EEG channels and brainwaves with greater contribution to the authentication and compare them with the traditional dimensionality reduction techniques, Principal Component Analysis, and ${\chi }^2$ statistical test. In our final proposal, we elaborate on a hybrid system resistant to random forgery attacks using an Isolation Forest and a Random Forest classifiers, obtaining a final accuracy of $82.3\%$, a precision of $91.1\%$ and a recall of $75.3\%$. Full article

In this paper, we present very recent results regarding the latency characterization of a novel bidirectional visible light communication (VLC) system for vehicular applications, which could be relevant in intelligent transportation system (ITS) safety applications, such as the assisted and automated braking of cars and motorbikes in critical situations. The VLC system has been implemented using real motorbike head- and tail-lights with distances up to 27 m in a realistic outdoor scenario. We performed a detailed statistical analysis of the observed error distribution in the communication process, assessing the most probable statistical values of expected latency depending on the observed packet error rate (PER). A minimum attainable observed round-trip latency of 2.5 ms was measured. Using our dataset, we have also estimated the probability to receive correctly a message with a specific average latency for a target PER, and we compare it to the ultra-reliable low-latency (URLL) 5G communications service. In addition, a mobility model is implemented to compare the VLC and radio frequency (RF) technologies (IEEE802.11p, LTE, 5G) to support an automated braking systems for vehicles in urban platooning. Full article

The wide variety of services and applications that shall be supported by future wireless systems will lead to a high amount of sensitive data exchanged via radio, thus introducing a significant challenge for security. Moreover, in new networking paradigms, such as the Internet of Things, traditional methods of security may be difficult to implement due to the radical change of requirements and constraints. In such contexts, physical layer security is a promising additional means to realize communication security with low complexity. In particular, this paper focuses on node authentication and spoofing detection in an actual wireless sensor network (WSN), where multiple nodes communicate with a sink node. Nodes are in fixed positions, but the communication channels varies due to the scatterers’ movement. In the proposed security framework, the sink node is able to perform a continuous authentication of nodes during communication based on wireless fingerprinting. In particular, a machine learning approach is used for authorized nodes classification by means of the identification of specific attributes of their wireless channel. Then classification results are compared with the node ID in order to detect if the message has been generated by a node other than its claimed source. Finally, in order to increase the spoofing detection performance in small networks, the use of low-complexity sentinel nodes is proposed here. Results show the good performance of the proposed method that is suitable for actual implementation in a WSN. Full article

In the last years a large variety of eHealth services and Apps for professional medical users have been developed for different scenarios. The increasing elderly population (+100% in 2050) makes urgent to implement tele-medicine paradigm in the healthcare structures. The need of monitoring large number of patients distributed over the territory, together with the lack of medical resources, makes the adoption of Information Communication Technologies (ICT) crucial for the future healthcare services. This paper presents an ICT architecture model for the provision of tele-monitoring services within a novel proposed remote monitoring concept for healthcare, considering the new Family and Community Nurse (FCN). An integrated and personalized tele-monitoring solution is presented, through a detailed description of the reference network architecture and service platform. Moreover, the preliminary results of the experimental activities carried out for the evaluation of the system in terms of usability in operational scenarios are provided. Full article

In this paper, we propose an unobtrusive method and architecture for monitoring a person’s presence and collecting his/her health-related parameters simultaneously in a home environment. The system is based on using a single ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse-radar as a sensing device. Using UWB radars, we aim to recognize a person and some preselected movements without camera-type monitoring. Via the experimental work, we have also demonstrated that, by using a UWB signal, it is possible to detect small chest movements remotely to recognize coughing, for example. In addition, based on statistical data analysis, a person’s posture in a room can be recognized in a steady situation. In addition, we implemented a machine learning technique (k-nearest neighbour) to automatically classify a static posture using UWB radar data. Skewness, kurtosis and received power are used in posture classification during the postprocessing. The classification accuracy achieved is more than 99%. In this paper, we also present reliability and fault tolerance analyses for three kinds of UWB radar network architectures to point out the weakest item in the installation. This information is highly important in the system’s implementation. Full article

Residual motion of upper limbs in individuals who experienced cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) is vital to achieve functional independence. Several interventions were developed to restore shoulder range of motion (ROM) in CSCI patients. However, shoulder ROM assessment in clinical practice is commonly limited to use of a simple goniometer. Conventional goniometric measurements are operator-dependent and require significant time and effort. Therefore, innovative technology for supporting medical personnel in objectively and reliably measuring the efficacy of treatments for shoulder ROM in CSCI patients would be extremely desirable. This study evaluated the validity of a customized wireless wearable sensors (Inertial Measurement Units—IMUs) system for shoulder ROM assessment in CSCI patients in clinical setting. Eight CSCI patients and eight healthy controls performed four shoulder movements (forward flexion, abduction, and internal and external rotation) with dominant arm. Every movement was evaluated with a goniometer by different testers and with the IMU system at the same time. Validity was evaluated by comparing IMUs and goniometer measurements using Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Limits of Agreement (LOA). inter-tester reliability of IMUs and goniometer measurements was also investigated. Preliminary results provide essential information on the accuracy of the proposed wireless wearable sensors system in acquiring objective measurements of the shoulder movements in CSCI patients. Full article