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The article presents information on a research regarding the neuropsychological assessment of neurodegenerative diseases using the computer program Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). The use of CANTAB in the neuropsychiatry can improve the quality of the tests since computerized tests have many advantages such as precision, speed and reliability. CANTAB is designed to test different aspects of mental functioning in order to construct performance profiles for patients.

The article offers information on how to select computer software package for health care professionals in Brighton Health District in England. A straightforward method has been described for applying users' own judgment to the computer software selection problem. Furthermore, it has found out that many uses can be found for the method.

The thermal management system is one of the important assemblies that ensure the secure operation of electric vehicles (EVs). Using intelligent algorithms to optimize the control strategy of the thermal management system can reduce energy consumption under the premise of effective heat dissipation of EVs. This paper attempts to construct the control strategy of EV thermal management system by coupling the modified genetic algorithm (MGA) and support vector regression (SVR). Firstly, the double-population adaptive mutation method and a novel optimization process are adopted to obtain MGA. Afterward, the performance of MGA is verified by four benchmark functions compared with three typical algorithms, which are genetic algorithm (GA), double-population genetic algorithm (DPGA), and quantum genetic algorithm (QGA). The results demonstrate that the accuracy and stability of MGA are obviously better than the other three algorithms. Secondly, MGA is applied to modify parameters of SVR kernel function, and the accuracy of MGA-SVR algorithm is verified by the Auto-MPG and Computer Hardware data sets. The mean square deviations of the SVR algorithm test set are 0.0186 and 0.0806, respectively, and the mean square deviations of the MGA-SVR algorithm test set are 0.0099 and 0.0054, respectively, which fully shows that MGA-SVR have more accurate forecasting capabilities. Finally, the thermal management system model of EV is built by the one-dimensional simulation software KULI. Under the Chinese working condition, fan speed which meets the cooling requirements of the motor and controller is obtained from the KULI model, and the database is constructed. Then, MGA-SVR is trained by database and employed to predict fan speed under the Chinese working condition and obtain control strategy of the thermal management system. Compared with traditional control strategy, the thermal management system based on MGA-SVR control strategy can not only meet the radiating requirements, but also effectively reduce the power consumption of fans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New technologies like computers alter skill requirements. This paper explores two related effects of the spread of computers on older workers, using data from the Current Population Survey and the Health and Retirement Study. One conclusion is that impending retirement, rather than age alone, explains why older workers used computers less than prime-age workers did. A second conclusion is that computer users retired later than non-users. Although this pattern may arise because workers planning later retirement decided to acquire computer skills, the empirical analysis suggests that the causation also went in the other direction, with computer users choosing to delay retirement. It will be important to understand these effects as the baby boom cohort nears retirement, while technologies continue to change rapidly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an update on the "Journal of Building Physics" (JBP). It states that Staf Roels, an associate professor at the Laboratory of Building Physics of Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and Jan Kosny, a senior research engineer in the Building Envelopes Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, have joined the editorial board of JBP. It cites that one of the initiatives of the journal involves a conference on the use of computers in buildings.

This case study is the result of a project conducted on behalf of a company that uses its own returnable containers to transport purchased parts from suppliers. The objective of this project was to develop a proposal to enable the company to more effectively track and manage its returnable containers. The research activities in support of this project included (1) the analysis and documentation of the physical flow and the information flow associated with the containers and (2) the investigation of new technologies to improve the automatic identification and tracking of containers. This paper explains the automatic identification technologies and important criteria for selection. A companion paper details the flow of information and containers within the logistics chain, and it identifies areas for improving the management of the containers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on a research paper on a method game that uses a computer for assessing methods. He discusses the performance of a machine and machine players, the need to evaluate all methods, the notion that critical evaluation drives innovation, and the benefits of the method game proposed by the authors of the research paper.

Introduces a series of articles on computing applications.

Large parallel machines with hundreds of thousands of processors are becoming more prevalent. Ensuring good load balance is critical for scaling certain classes of parallel applications on even thousands of processors. Centralized load balancing algorithms suffer from scalability problems, especially on machines with a relatively small amount of memory. Fully distributed load balancing algorithms, on the other hand, tend to take longer to arrive at good solutions. In this paper, we present an automatic dynamic hierarchical load balancing method that overcomes the scalability challenges of centralized schemes and longer running times of traditional distributed schemes. Our solution overcomes these issues by creating multiple levels of load balancing domains which form a tree. This hierarchical method is demonstrated within a measurement-based load balancing framework in Charm++. We discuss techniques to deal with scalability challenges of load balancing at very large scale. We present performance data of the hierarchical load balancing method on up to 16,384 cores of Ranger (at the Texas Advanced Computing Center) and 65,536 cores of Intrepid (the Blue Gene/P at Argonne National Laboratory) for a synthetic benchmark. We also demonstrate the successful deployment of the method in a scientific application, NAMD, with results on Intrepid. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Performance analysis of applications on modern high-end petascale systems is increasingly challenging due to the rising complexity and quantity of the computing units. This paper presents a performance-analysis study using the Vampir performance-analysis tool suite, which examines application behavior as well as the fundamental system properties. This study was carried out on the Jaguar system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the fastest computer on the November 2009 Top500 list. We analyzed the FLASH simulation code that is designed to be scaled with tens of thousands of CPU cores, which means that using existing performance-analysis tools is very complex. The study reveals two classes of performance problems that are relevant for very high CPU counts: MPI communication and scalable I/O. For both, solutions are presented and verified. Finally, the paper proposes improvements and extensions for event tracing tools in order to allow scalability of the tools towards higher degrees of parallelism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is a summary of the recently accomplished research work on flexible gripping systems. The goal is to develop a gripper which can be used for a great amount of geometrically variant workpieces. The economic aspect is of particular importance during the whole development. The high flexibility of the gripper is obtained by three parallel used principles. These are human and computer based analysis of the gripping object as well as mechanical adaptation of the gripper to the object with the help of servo motors. The focus is on the gripping of free-form surfaces with suction cup. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile device usage in online surveys has steadily increased in recent years. As mobile devices differ, for example, in their handling, from computers, device effects within online surveys are found for several data quality indicators. However, results concerning these device effects are neither comprehensive nor conclusive because existing research are often based on nonoptimized designs or do not account for the type of mobile device, for example, smartphone or tablet. This study uses data from the emigrant sample of the German Emigration and Remigration Panel Study (GERPS) a probability-based online survey (n = 4,888)--which made use of a mobile-optimized design--to compare data quality between smartphone, tablet, and computer respondents. Propensity score weighting was employed to account for device choice selectivity effects. The data quality indicators showed mixed results and smaller data quality differences across computers, smartphones, and tablets compared to previous studies. Higher dropout rates on mobile devices and here especially on smartphones remain the major challenge for survey participation, especially on small screens. However, our results render mixed-device data collection via mobileoptimized online surveys as a promising data collection approach, especially for exploiting the large response potentially associated with smartphone and tablet respondents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population health data, collected worldwide in an effort to monitor mortality and morbidity of mothers and babies, namely, perinatal data, are mandated at a federal level within Australia. The data are used to monitor patterns in midwifery, obstetric and neonatal practice, health outcomes, used for research purposes, funding allocation and education. Accuracy in perinatal data is most often reported via quantitative validation studies of perinatal data collections both internationally and in Australia. These studies report varying levels of accuracy and suggest researchers need to be more aware of the quality of data they use. This article presents findings regarding issues of concern identified by midwives relating to their perceptions of how technology affects the accuracy of perinatal data records. Perinatal data records are perceived to be more complete when completed electronically. However, issues regarding system functionality, the inconsistent use of terminology, lack of data standards and the absence of clear, written records contribute to midwives’ perceptions of the negative influence of technology on the quality of perinatal data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These papers illustrate the complications of historical research. Even though they cover events over only the last four decades and chiefly the last two, it has been difficult to obtain accurate accounts of such matters as "the Salisbury affair" and numerous other incidents. The memories of living respondents are defective; official records are incomplete and tend to report conclusions without the details that contributed to decisions. Personal, emotional, and "political" involvements of participants bias their reports, and subsequent events modify interpretations. As computers increasingly become the record keepers of the society, the problems of historians are becoming even more complex. For records on computer cards, tapes, and printouts tend to be destroyed sooner than those which are on ledgers of other kinds. Many of the problems within both associations have reflected the complications of operating with a volunteer staff. One of the major developments in both organizations has been the shift from a minimal role played by sociologists to dominance by them.

Electronic laboratory notebooks (ELNs) are increasingly replacing paper notebooks in life science laboratories, including those in industry, academic settings, and hospitals. ELNs offer significant advantages over paper notebooks, but adopting them in a predominantly paper-based environment is usually disruptive. The benefits of ELN increase when they are integrated with other laboratory informatics tools such as laboratory information management systems, chromatography data systems, analytical instrumentation, and scientific data management systems, but there is no well-established path for effective integration of these tools. In this article, we review and evaluate some of the approaches that have been taken thus far and also some radical new methods of integration that are emerging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While image texture is effective for use in pattern-recognition and image-analysis algorithms, textural features are time-consuming to calculate on standard CPUs. Therefore, we present novel implementations of textural-feature algorithms on graphics processors (GPUs), enabling fast color and texture analysis. Since different textural-feature calculations exhibit diverse characteristics, we focus on using general and algorithm-specific techniques to exploit the inherent parallelism and computational power of a GPU. Common operations required during the textural-feature pipeline range from streaming computations to recursive procedures, from arithmetically intensive transcendental functions to matrix operations. Some of these kernels are well-suited to GPUs, while others require considerable programming effort to fully exploit the memory hierarchy due to their memory-usage patterns. In this paper, different strategies for computing textural features on GPUs are compared with counterpart implementations on multicore CPUs, and experimental results show GPU results reaching a speedup of 500 times for certain operations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Thermal flying-height control sliders are currently used in most hard disk drives as an approach to increase the capacity and reliability. This paper discusses our recent numerical studies of the sliders’ flying performances, namely, the heat transfer between the slider and the disk, the flyability of the sliders at different altitudes, and the effect of the disk’s lubricant and roughness on the slider’s flying stability. We validate previous investigations based on a heat transfer model derived from the first-order slip theory and identify the instability regimes for a slider flying over a lubricated rough disk. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Electronic laboratory notebooks are becoming an increasingly popular tool for research and routine laboratories as part of a way to optimize workflow and minimize cost while realizing time-saving benefits. The number and variety of available solutions are quickly increasing; making selection of the right notebook a cumbersome process. To allay some of the strain associated with an exhaustive search through notebook technologies, this paper details some key features from a pool of 35 electronic notebooks available today. This review effectively classifies these notebooks into five categories based on market audience as follows: notebooks suited for a Quality environment can be found within the Quality Assurance/Quality Control pool. Notebooks suited for specialized tasks in Biology or Chemistry can be found within the Biology or Chemistry pools, respectively. Notebooks that are suitable for general science functionalities can be found under either the Research and Development or the Multidiscipline pools. Lastly, notebooks that are designed and developed for the spectrum of stringent Quality laboratories to free-form research laboratories can be found within the Multidiscipline pool. The guidelines put forth in this paper eliminate the need to perform an exhaustive search for a suitable notebook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Temporal and sequential information is essential to any agent continually interacting with its environment. In this paper, we test whether it is possible to evolve a recurrent neural network controller to match the dynamic requirement of the task. As a benchmark, we consider a sequential navigation task where the agent has to alternately visit two rewarding sites to obtain food and water after first visiting the nest. To achieve a better fitness, the agent must select relevant sensory inputs and update its working memory to realize a non-Markovian sequential behavior in which the preceding state alone does not determine the next action. We compare the performance of a feed-forward and recurrent neural control architectures in different environment settings and analyze the neural mechanisms and environment features exploited by the agents to achieve their goal. Simulation and experimental results using the Cyber Rodent robot show that a modular architecture with a locally excitatory recurrent layer outperformed the general recurrent controller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online organizing is situated in offline practices. Recent theorizing has examined how online and offline practices co-evolve over time, but given limited attention to how they co-exist in time. Yet, without being 'here' in an embodied material practice, we cannot experience being 'there' online. Understanding the co-existence of online and offline practices is important as organizing becomes actively negotiated in the moments of being simultaneously here offline and there online. In this article, we pull the field of view back from the computer screen to theorize the simultaneity of online organizing with multiple offline practices in which participants are embodied and engage materially. We articulate how, in the case of the video conference, the shared experience of presence, proximity and participation in online organizing is constituted in relation to multiple – but mostly unshared – offline practices. We argue that this interconnection with multiple offline practices can blur boundaries, divert purposes and lead to glitches and breakdowns in online organizing. We make two contributions. First, we recast online organizing as embedded in multiple, mostly unshared, offline practices. Second, we develop understanding of the co-existence of online and offline in time, and its implications for interacting and organizing online. We conclude by suggesting new directions for research on organizing across simultaneously co-existing online and offline practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: During the pandemic, health issues associated with using digital devices and exploring social media, such as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), have increased considerably. Objectives: This study looked into CVS and its significance in Jordan and the CVS outcomes of undergraduate nursing students who used digital devices to surf social media during COVID-19. Methods: To assess CVS, a quantitative cross-sectional research design was used. Data were collected in 2022 through an online diagnostic and formative survey utilizing the CVS-Questionnaire (CVS-Q) with 310 undergraduate nursing students from a government and a private university in Jordan. Descriptive statistics and the univariate general linear model were used to analyze the collected data. Results: To report the prevalence of CVS among the studied sample, the median score was 1.80. The median prevalence score was 24.50 (range = 13–31), and 26.75% of participants reported having intense social media searches. For a student in this study to be diagnosed with CVS, they must receive a score of at least 5, and the current sample score was around 2, indicating they didn't have a CVS; however, it was moderate when it occurred. About 26.75% of participants reported having problematic social media searches. Back and neck pain and headaches were the typical signs of CVS. The average daily hours spent using digital devices for social media searches increased during the pandemic utilizing mobile phones, especially among male nursing students. Being a junior student with no social media account and unable to balance study and social media were among the predictors of CVS. Most students used protective tools on their digital devices, such as protective films and phone screens, to prevent or accommodate CVS. Conclusion: There were no prior collected data about CVS in Jordan, and based on the international trend, the COVID-19 pandemic didn't directly contribute to the prevalence of CVS. However, when the CVS occurred, it was moderate, which mandates proactive and prophylactic redesigning of our educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper illustrates one attempt to evaluate empirically the integration of microcomputers in an introductory sociology course organized around generic learning objectives based on substantive areas. These objectives were augmented with tutorials on test items including hints, solutions, and practice tests. We evaluated computer integration with an experimental design that compared a traditional and a computerized introductory sociology course. Findings showed that the computerized group surpassed the traditional group in performance and attitude. Furthermore, this study suggests that students of all ability levels benefit from computer integration and use based on generic learning objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several authoritative sources have raised the possibility that computer counting and monitoring of work in automated workplaces will transform offices into electronic sweatshops. This paper examines this idea from the vantage point of industrial sociology and managerial theory. Five theoretical models are developed, each of which generates hypotheses about the contexts in which work monitoring becomes important. A brief history of clerical work is given which shows the antecedents of surveillance and work-measurement in this sphere, and a case study of control in an automated office is presented in order to illustrate certain practical limitations on the use of computer surveillance. These insights are combined into a synthetic model which describes those contexts in which surveillance would be likely to result in speed-ups, and those where it would not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the Industrial Relation section of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The principal research projects at present and in the coming year center on the implications of technological change and automation under a grant to the Section and to the Sloan School of Management, in which the Section is now administratively housed. The impact of computers on management organization and the nature of managerial work has been and is the principal research area. Professor Douglass V. Brown is in general charge of the over-all project, and Professor Charles A. Myers has taken responsibility for theses and special studies in the computer-impact area. Studies in the life insurance industry have been conducted by Professor George E. Delehanty, who was on leave from Northwestern University in 1964-1965. A paper by Delehanty, "Computers and the Organization Structure in Life Insurance Firms: The External and Internal Economic Environment," will appear in published form. A doctoral thesis on "The Impact of Office Automation on Supervisory Behavior" by David R. Meredith, based on a special study in one of the insurance companies involved in the research, was completed in June 1966.

Disengaged item responses pose a threat to the validity of the results provided by large-scale assessments. Several procedures for identifying disengaged responses on the basis of observed response times have been suggested, and item response theory (IRT) models for response engagement have been proposed. We outline that response time-based procedures for classifying response engagement and IRT models for response engagement are based on common ideas, and we propose the distinction between independent and dependent latent class IRT models. In all IRT models considered, response engagement is represented by an item-level latent class variable, but the models assume that response times either reflect or predict engagement. We summarize existing IRT models that belong to each group and extend them to increase their flexibility. Furthermore, we propose a flexible multilevel mixture IRT framework in which all IRT models can be estimated by means of marginal maximum likelihood. The framework is based on the widespread Mplus software, thereby making the procedure accessible to a broad audience. The procedures are illustrated on the basis of publicly available large-scale data. Our results show that the different IRT models for response engagement provided slightly different adjustments of item parameters of individuals' proficiency estimates relative to a conventional IRT model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on the highlights of the meeting of the Forum on Computers in Medicine which was held from April 1 to 2, 1993. Several topics discussed include imaging, computer-based training, information systems and audit, neural networks and computer applications. The meeting also featured poster presentations and working demonstrations.

Wollack et al. (2015) suggested the erasure detection index (EDI) for detecting fraudulent erasures for individual examinees. Wollack and Eckerly (2017) and Sinharay (2018) extended the index of Wollack et al. (2015) to suggest three EDIs for detecting fraudulent erasures at the aggregate or group level. This article follows up on the research of Wollack and Eckerly (2017) and Sinharay (2018) and suggests a new aggregate-level EDI by incorporating the empirical best linear unbiased predictor from the literature of linear mixed-effects models (e.g., McCulloch et al., 2008). A simulation study shows that the new EDI has larger power than the indices of Wollack and Eckerly (2017) and Sinharay (2018). In addition, the new index has satisfactory Type I error rates. A real data example is also included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research published within the issue including one by Eriksson-Backa et al. on health information literacy, Holtgräfe and Zentes on the determinants of online non-prescription drug information-seeking and Butterworth et al. on health information behaviours.

Research on international relations at Northwestern University in the 1960s and 1970s revolved around Harold Gueztkow’s pioneering work on the simulation of international processes. As a beginning faculty member, I benefited from the insights and excitement of that special time and place. As a participant in one of his events, I experienced the challenges he faced in carrying off the complex operation of man-machine simulation, when the machines consisted of typewriters, thermofax machines, and a mainframe computers with punch-card input. As a beneficiary of the revolution introduced by networked microcomputers, I realized that Guetzkow’s successes would have been multiplied many times over if the proper technology had been available to him. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores a workflow engine-driven Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based cooperative computing paradigm in grid environments. Accordingly, cooperative computing in grid environments has emerged to be attractive as an emerging computational paradigm of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), which is centered on understanding how remote collaboration is carried out in a dynamic way. To create the best out of this cooperative computing, its processes have been organized in the form of VO, consisting of a group of participant organizations who seek to share certain Web-Based Computational/Computing Resources (WBCR) for a common purpose.

The article features the Spatial Model of Interaction (SMI), considered as one of the most successful models of awareness in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). SMI is said to be based on a set of key concepts which are abstract and open enough as to be reinterpreted in many other contexts with very different meanings. It is useful in managing awareness of interaction through these sets of concepts, in order to manage task delivery in collaborative distributed systems. Its key concepts is called Awareness Model for Balancing the Load in Collaborative Grid Environments (AMBLE). Work Engine-AMBLE (WE-AMBLE) has been launched to apply successful agent-based theories, techniques and principles to deal with resources sharing.

The article presents information on the usage of a new hardware performance monitor which has been designed to measure data structure-specific cache eviction information. It also describes how to use the hardware to determine efficiently the cache behavior of application data structures at the source code level. In order to measure the number of cache misses and evictions that relate to specific data structures, it is necessary for instrumentation code to be able to determine the addresses. Most current processors include some kind of performance monitoring counters on-chip.

The article focuses on the complexity results for collective communications involved in the execution of a complex application deployed on heterogeneous platforms. The most primary collective communication form is the one-to-all broadcast, or single-node broadcast. Three main problems are put into consideration: (1) atomic (2) pipelined and (3) series. The goal for the first two variants is to minimize the makespan of the schedule and for the third is optimization of the throughput of the steady-state operation. Achieving the best throughput requires the target platform to be used completely.

Wearable computer comfort can be affected by numerous factors, making its assessment based on one value with one scale inappropriate. This paper presents a tool that measures wearable comfort across six dimensions: emotion, attachment, harm, perceived change, movement, and anxiety. The dimensions for these comfort rating scales were specifically developed for wearable equipment assessment by applying multidimensional scaling to a comfort term association matrix developed using the results of groupings of wearable computer comfort terms. Testing the scales on four different types of wearable computer showed that the scales can be used to highlight differences in comfort between different types of technology for different aspects of comfort. An intraclass correlation of .872 suggested that the scales were used with a high level of reliability. A second study showed that modifications made to a wearable computer resulted in improvements in comfort, although they were not significant (p > .05). A potential application for this research is as an aid to designers and researchers for assessing the wearability, in terms of comfort, of wearable computer devices and to determine the effectiveness of any modifications made to the design of a wearable device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interviews mathematician Bert F. Green about his personal life and career. Educational background; Awards received; Early recognition of the importance of computers; History with computer-based adaptive testing; Stand on the debate over null-hypothesis testing.

Retinal painting, anorthoscopic perception and amodal completion are terms to describe visual phenomena that highlight the spatiotemporal integrative mechanisms that underlie primate vision. Although commonly studied using simplified lab-friendly stimuli presented on a computer screen, this is a report of observations made in a novel real-world context that highlight the rich contributions the mechanisms underlying these phenomena make to naturalistic vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that described an implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) on the Portals 3.0 data movement layer. Information on Portals 3.0; Initial MPI implementation; Performance.

By demonstrations in LOTUS 123, the value of spreadsheets for teaching sociology is suggested, either to supplement or to survive without, statistical packages. Even those who have access to only the most limited computer resources, such as interpreter BASIC, can teach themselves and others the fundamentals of statistical analysis. The approach is built around linear algebra. Examples of most of the elementary matrix procedures are presented in 123. In addition, examples of Cholesky factorization, eigenstructure solution, correlation analysis, and discriminant analysis are offered in detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Industrial Relations Section of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Research work is continuing on: the impact of computers on organizations and work, and; labor markets. Two research conferences have been held in the first area, one on the impact of computers on management and one on computer-based job-man matching systems. Some thesis research is continuing after the publication of the book "The Impact of Computers on Management," edited by the author of this article. A third research conference, on the implications of computers for collective bargaining, was held at M.I.T. in April 1968, drawing participants from unions, industry, universities, and the Labor-Management Institute of the American Arbitration Association, which co-sponsored the conference. Abraham J. Siegel, who is also associate dean of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, organized and chaired the conference and is preparing the papers and proceedings for publication. In the second major research area, labor markets, the Kendall Square labor market study, financed by a separate grant from the Ford Foundation.

Prospective longitudinal data collection is an important way for researchers and evaluators to assess change. In school-based settings, for low-risk and/or likely-beneficial interventions or surveys, data quality and ethical standards are both arguably stronger when using a waiver of parental consent—but doing so often requires the use of anonymous data collection methods. The standard solution to this problem has been the use of a self-generated identification code. However, such codes often incorporate personalized elements (e.g., birth month, middle initial) that, even when meeting the technical standard for anonymity, may raise concerns among both youth participants and their parents, potentially altering willingness to participate, response quality, or generating outrage. There may be value, therefore, in developing a self-generated identification code and matching approach that not only is technically anonymous but also appears anonymous to a research-naive individual. This article provides a proof of concept for a novel matching approach for school-based longitudinal data collection that potentially accomplishes this goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical for the early diagnosis of genetic disorders, a Family Health History (FHx) can be collected in several ways including electronic FHx tools, which aid easy editing and sharing by linking with other information management portals. The user acceptance of such systems is critical, especially among older adults experiencing motor and cognitive issues. This study investigated two types of FHx interfaces, standard and Virtual Conversational Agent (VCA), using 30 young (between 18 and 30) and 24 older participants (over 60). Workload, usability and performance data were collected. Even though participants required less time to complete three of five tasks on the standard interface, the VCA interface performed better in terms of subjective workload and usability. Additionally, 67% of the older adults preferred the VCA interface since it provided context-based guidance during the data collection process. The results from this study have implications for the use of virtual assistants in FHx and other areas of data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we present a mobile application that accurately determines the distance between an optical sensor and the human corneal limbus for visual acuity assessment. The application uses digital image processing and randomized circle detection to locate the cornea. Then, a reference scaling measurement is employed to calculate distance from the sensor to a user. To determine accuracy and generalizability, testing was conducted both with 200 static images, 25 images each of males and females for four ethnic groups from a facial image database, and live image streams from a test subject. Average absolute corneal radius error over 10 trials for the static images was 6.36%, while average absolute distance error for the live image streams was less than 1%. Subsequently, distance measurements were used to scale letter sizes for a Snellen Chart-based visual acuity assessment. This system enables monitoring of chronic retinal diseases, as patients can quickly and accurately measure their visual acuity through the mobile eye exam suite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health self-management has become a new trend in healthcare management due to its effectiveness in improving patient health, quality of life, and life satisfaction and simultaneously reducing the cost of care. To evaluate the potential of mobile health, we developed an online health self-management system for mobile or desktop environment to help patients self-manage their health in home settings. Certain elements (e.g. education, entertainment, and rewards) were built into the system to encourage patients to both adopt and continue using it. The system was shown to two groups of patients: an Internet-panel group of 198 patients with one or more serious chronic illnesses and 83 peripheral arterial disease patients in an in-person study group. A statistical model based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and use of Technology in a consumer context was used to analyze the results. The results from both groups confirmed that such systems, from the perspectives of patients (in a "pre-use" stage), are useful, beneficial, and rewarding to use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong push towards standardisation of treatment approaches, care processes and documentation of clinical practice. However, confusion persists regarding terminology and description of many clinical care process specifications which this research seeks to resolve by developing a taxonomic characterisation of clinical care process specifications. Literature on clinical care process specifications was analysed, creating the starting point for identifying common characteristics and how each is constructed and used in the clinical setting. A taxonomy for clinical care process specifications is presented. The De Bleser approach to limited clinical care process specifications characterisation was extended and each clinical care process specification is successfully characterised in terms of purpose, core elements and relationship to the other clinical care process specification types. A case study on the diagnosis and treatment of Type 2 Diabetes in the United Kingdom was used to evaluate the taxonomy and demonstrate how the characterisation framework applies. Standardising clinical care process specifications ensures that the format and content are consistent with expectations, can be read more quickly and high-quality information can be recorded about the patient. Standardisation also enables computer interpretability, which is important in integrating Learning Health Systems into the modern clinical environment. The approach presented allows terminologies for clinical care process specifications that were widely used interchangeably to be easily distinguished, thus, eliminating the existing confusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does computerization increase or reduce the extent of skills that workers are required to have? The authors argue that the effects of computer-based technologies (CBT) are neither universal nor uniform. Rather, effects depend on the level of skill required by occupations prior to the introduction of CBT, and as such, a bifurcation emerges: occupations that historically (pre-computerization) could be accomplished with low skills and that entailed low-complexity tasks do not experience significant CBT, and they remain low skill or become less-skilled occupations, whereas historically high-skill occupations that entailed high-complexity tasks see an increase in CBT and the skills they require. The authors test this proposition using a unique data set that includes measures of the degree of computerization and changes attendant to computerization in the level of seven skills of core employees for a sample of 819 firms during 2000. This data set is linked by core employees' occupation to U.S. occupation- level data on three dimensions of task complexity during 1971 (pre-CBT). The authors find that occupations with higher pre- CBT task complexity are associated with subsequent adoption and intensity of CBT, and that CBT affects most skills positively. For simple tasks, however, CBT does not affect skills or affects them negatively. Results shed light on the skill-based technological change and skilling-deskilling debates and suggest that the relationships are contingent in more nuanced ways than the literature has suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the use of Instagram by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the representative public health authorities in the United States. For this aim, all of the photos uploaded on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Instagram account were crawled and the content of them were analyzed using Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services. Also, engagement was measured by the sum of numbers of likes and comments to each photo, and sentiment analysis of comments was conducted. Results suggest that the photos that can be categorized into "text" and "people" took the largest share in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Instagram photos. And it was found that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's major way of delivering messages on Instagram was to imprint key messages that call for actions for better health on photos and to provide the source of complementary information on text component of each post. It was also found that photos with more and bigger human faces had lower level of engagement than the others, and happiness and neutral emotions expressed on the faces in photos were negatively associated with engagement. The features whose high value would make the photos look splendid and gaudy were negatively correlated with engagement, but sharpness was positively correlated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detecting the electrocardiogram pattern in Internet of Things–based healthcare system and notifying this to the user is a challenging task. Using advance computing methods for classification of electrocardiogram signal is a notable research topic. In this research work, an intelligent electrocardiogram signal classification, employing deep learning algorithm, developed and tested in Internet of Things–based smart healthcare system was proposed. For classification of acquired electrocardiogram signal, a partitioned deep convolutional neural network was proposed. The electrocardiogram feature continuously in the Internet of Things–based monitoring system was learnt. To make use of learned features in the continuous time series data, it forms a higher order space in the server. We have made quantifiable comparative analysis with other classification algorithm with the same time series data collected from different atrial fibrillation samples in the Internet of Things–based e-health system. Our proposed algorithm learned features were tested in atrial fibrillation classified signal with other conventional classifiers with various performance indices. We obtained an accuracy of 96.3 percent with 93.5-percent sensitivity and 97.5-percent precision. From the obtained result, processing with proposed deep convolutional neural network provides reliable timely assist and accurate classification of electrocardiogram signal in Internet of Things–based smart healthcare system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adalat (Nifedipine) is a calcium-channel blocker that is also used as an antihypertensive drug. The drug was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1985 but was discontinued in 1996 on account, among other things, of interactions with other medications. Nonetheless, Adalat is still used in other countries to treat congestive heart failure. We examine all the congestive heart failure electronic health records of the largest medical center in Israel to discover whether, possibly, taking Adalat with other medications is associated with patient death. This study examines a semantic space built by running latent semantic analysis on the entire corpus of congestive heart failure electronic health records of that medical center, encompassing 8 years of data on almost 12,000 patients. Through this semantic space, the most highly correlated medications and medical conditions that co-occurred with Adalat were identified. This was done separately for men and women. The results show that Adalat is correlated with different medications and conditions across genders. The data also suggest that taking Adalat with Captopril (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor) or Rulid (antibiotic) might be dangerous in both genders. The study thus demonstrates the potential of applying latent semantic analysis to identify potentially dangerous drug interactions that may have otherwise gone under the radar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmanned aerial vehicle is a typical field robot which can work in many unstructured environments like mines, forests, and even radiation areas. In our mine monitoring system built in a northeast province of China, special designed unmanned aerial vehicle is applied to take photos and perceive the environment. We select a series of image-based techniques to process aerial pictures to monitor the slope. The visual features are initially refined by histogram equalization. Then, the rocks and cracks can be detected by different digital image processing operators, like Canny, so as to assess displacements. Advanced semantic segmentation model, U-Net, is also selected to process the problem. Experimental results show that both Canny and U-Net can perceive the edges in pictures effectively, better than other operators. In addition, we model the inspection mission for mine slopes into a traveling salesman problem, then plan the path for unmanned aerial vehicle by swarm intelligence-based optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]