Asthma,rhinitis and eczema(allergic or non-allergic)have increased throughout the world during the last decades,especially among children.Changes in the indoor environment are suspected to be important causes.China ha...Asthma,rhinitis and eczema(allergic or non-allergic)have increased throughout the world during the last decades,especially among children.Changes in the indoor environment are suspected to be important causes.China has experienced a dramatic change in indoor environmental exposures during the past two decades.However,such changes and their associations with children’s asthma and other health aspects have not been thoroughly studied.China,Children,Homes,Health(CCHH),Phase I,was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 48219 children 1–8 years old in 10 Chinese cities during 2010–2012.The questionnaire includes the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood(ISAAC)core health questions and additional questions regarding housing,life habits and outdoor environment.In health analyses,children aged 3–6 years old were included.The prevalences of doctor diagnosed asthma varied from 1.7%to 9.8%(mean 6.8%),a large increase from 0.91%in 1999 and 1.50%in2000.The prevalence of wheeze,rhinitis and atopic eczema(last 12 months)varied from 13.9%to 23.7%,24.0%to 50.8%and4.8%to 15.8%,respectively.Taiyuan had the lowest prevalences of all illnesses and Shanghai the highest,except for wheezewhere the highest value was for Urumqi.We found(1)no obvious association between disease prevalences and ambient PM10concentrations and(2)higher prevalences of disease in humid climates with hot summers and cold winters,but with no centrally heated buildings.Associations between the diseases and economic status as indexed by Gross Domestic Product(GDP)requires further study.展开更多
Purpose: The concept of security is related to the experience of health but has ever so often been argued from a risk perspective rather than from a promotional perspective. The experience of older persons’ sense of ...Purpose: The concept of security is related to the experience of health but has ever so often been argued from a risk perspective rather than from a promotional perspective. The experience of older persons’ sense of security in private homes and in nursing homes seems to be missing when it comes to promote aging well throughout the life span. This study aimed to describe and analyze factors related to the sense of security of older persons receiving care in nursing homes in Sweden. Design and Methods: The study was based on a questionnaire from a total of 495 persons aged ≥ 65 in private homes (n = 350) or nursing homes (n = 145) in Sweden. Results: Secure relationships, sense of control, and perceived health were significantly related to the subjects’ sense of security. No significant relationships were found between sense of security and having a personal emergency response alarm. Implications: Experience of sense of security from the older person perspective differs depending on the context. To promote the sense of security within the care of older persons, methods on how to establish secure relations as well as the sense of control and knowledge need to be further tested, developed and analyzed together with older persons.展开更多
Medications are beneficial for curing or managing acute and chronic illnesses. Medications typically have positive outcomes, although older people are prone to drug-related problems. Community-dwelling seniors are at ...Medications are beneficial for curing or managing acute and chronic illnesses. Medications typically have positive outcomes, although older people are prone to drug-related problems. Community-dwelling seniors are at particularly high risk of polypharmacy, as they tend to receive many prescriptions over time and from different care providers. Continuing-care facility admission presents an excellent opportunity for a comprehensive medication review. A research study was conducted to describe and compare medications taken by community-dwelling seniors prior to and following admission to a continuing-care facility. This pilot project involved data being gathered from the charts of deceased residents, as required by a University Health Research Ethics Board, who had been cared for at one large local continuing-care facility. The facility administrators also approved this study, in part to evaluate their policy to conduct a medication review for all new residents within six weeks of entry. This study revealed a slight but statistically significant reduction in the number of medications following this review. Other issues such as medication interactions and required dosage changes were addressed by this medication review. Although this study was confined to one continuing-care facility and a small number of residents, the findings suggest medication reviews would be beneficial upon admission to all continuing-care facilities, and annually perhaps through other means for older persons living in the community.展开更多
This paper presents a decentralized control strategy for the scheduling of electrical energy activities of a microgrid composed of smart homes connected to a distributor and exchanging renewable energy produced by ind...This paper presents a decentralized control strategy for the scheduling of electrical energy activities of a microgrid composed of smart homes connected to a distributor and exchanging renewable energy produced by individually owned distributed energy resources. The scheduling problem is stated and solved with the aim of reducing the overall energy supply from the grid, by allowing users to exchange the surplus renewable energy and by optimally planning users' controllable loads. We assume that each smart home can both buy/sell energy from/to the grid taking into account time-varying non-linear pricing signals. Simultaneously, smart homes cooperate and may buy/sell locally harvested renewable energy from/to other smart homes. The resulting optimization problem is formulated as a non-convex non-linear programming problem with a coupling of decision variables in the constraints. The proposed solution is based on a novel heuristic iterative decentralized scheme algorithm that suitably extends the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers to a non-convex and decentralized setting. We discuss the conditions that guarantee the convergence of the presented algorithm. Finally, the application of the proposed technique to a case study under several scenarios shows its effectiveness.展开更多
Objective:It is aimed to investigate the nursing competence and corresponding influence factors of dementia caregivers in long-term care institutions of Tianjin and identify the training needs of caregivers.Methods:In...Objective:It is aimed to investigate the nursing competence and corresponding influence factors of dementia caregivers in long-term care institutions of Tianjin and identify the training needs of caregivers.Methods:In the cross-section survey of this study,246 dementia caregivers were selected from 6 long-term care institutions in Tianjin as objects of study through convenient sampling.Results:The scores for nursing competence of dementia caregivers were 140.28±7.73,at a moderate level.Study findings that nursing competence of dementia caregivers were positively associated with the work experience(β=0.115,P=0.005),educational level(β=0.333,P<0.01),pervdceived health status(β=0.108,P=0.003)and training times within 1 year(β=0.371,P<0.01).Through the analysis,it is found that the training needs of dementia caregivers are inconsistent with the current situation in terms of content,methods and teachers.There are some problems in the training,such as unreasonable time,single mode and not deepening the understanding of the elderly with dementia.Conclusion:Long term care institutions shall arrange training no less than 12 times a year and evaluate training needs regularly to improve training effect.Providing online and offline training and adding more specialized contents like case analysis,employing experts in the field of dementia to teach courses.展开更多
OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of five-element music therapy on elderly patients with seasonal affective disorder in a Chinese nursing home.METHODS: The patients(n=50) were recruited from a Shijingshan district nur...OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of five-element music therapy on elderly patients with seasonal affective disorder in a Chinese nursing home.METHODS: The patients(n=50) were recruited from a Shijingshan district nursing home in Beijing,China. They were randomly assigned to two groups, a treatment group and a control group,with 25 participants in each group. The patients received music therapy for 1-2 h each week over an8-week period. The music therapy involved four phases: introduction, activities, listening to the Chinese five-element music, and a concluding phase.The participants in the control group did not listen to the five-element music. This study consisted of two parts:(a) a qualitative study that used focus groups to understand the feelings of the patients with seasonal affective disorder;(b) a quantitative study that involved administration of the self-rating depression scale(SDS) and Hamilton depression scale(HAMD) before and after treatment.RESULTS:(a) Qualitative analysis results: strength derived from the five-element group music therapy and emotional adjustment. The five-element group music therapy can reduce patients' psychological distress and let them feel inner peace and enhance their life satisfaction.(b) No significant difference in SDS and HAMD scores was found between the two groups(P>0.05) prior to treatment. After treatment,the mean SDS score of the control group was 49.9±18.8, while the treatment group's score was 40.2±18.1. The HAMD score of the control group was11.2±3.1, and the treatment group's score was 8.8±4.9. Following 8 weeks of music therapy, the SDS and HAMD scores of the treatment group were significantly lower than those for the control group(P<0.05).CONCLUSION: Five-element music therapy alleviated the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder in the elderly patients.展开更多
LEED for Homes是美国市场化程度较高的成熟的绿色建筑评价体系——LEED体系中专业评价新建居住建筑物的版本。本文通过对2008年1月发布的LEED for Homes正式版本中评价方法、质量管理和评价流程的分析研究,总结了其成功经验,得...LEED for Homes是美国市场化程度较高的成熟的绿色建筑评价体系——LEED体系中专业评价新建居住建筑物的版本。本文通过对2008年1月发布的LEED for Homes正式版本中评价方法、质量管理和评价流程的分析研究,总结了其成功经验,得出对我国城镇可持续发展人居工程评价的启示。展开更多
This study described programs that support length of stay reduction in the metropolitan area of Syracuse, New York. It demonstrated that these initiatives could improve hospital efficiency by expediting the movement o...This study described programs that support length of stay reduction in the metropolitan area of Syracuse, New York. It demonstrated that these initiatives could improve hospital efficiency by expediting the movement of patients from inpatient hospitals to nursing homes at the community level. The Subacute and Complex Care Programs have focused on hospital patients with some of the longest lengths of stay. The inpatient days associated with these patients have the greatest potential for moving from acute care to long-term care providers. The use of these programs has the potential for saving staff time in hospitals associated with nurses, as well as pharmaceuticals and testing. All of these resources have contributed to the high costs of inpatient acute care.展开更多
Two artificial agents(a humanoid robot and a virtual human) are enriched with various similar intelligence,autonomy, functionalities and interaction modalities. The agents are integrated in the form of a cyber-physica...Two artificial agents(a humanoid robot and a virtual human) are enriched with various similar intelligence,autonomy, functionalities and interaction modalities. The agents are integrated in the form of a cyber-physical-social system(CPSS) through a shared communication platform to create a social ecology. In the ecology, the agents collaborate(assist each other) to perform a real-world task(search for a hidden object)for the benefits of humans. A robot-virtual human bilateral trust model is derived and a real-time trust measurement method is developed. The role of taking initiative in the collaboration is switched between the agents following a finite state machine model triggered by bilateral trust, which results in a mixedinitiative collaboration. A scheme is developed to evaluate the performance of the agents in the ecology through the CPSS.The results show that the robot and the virtual human perform satisfactorily in the collaboration through the CPSS. The results thus prove the effectiveness of the real-world ecology between artificial agents of heterogeneous realities through a shared platform based on trust-triggered mixed-initiatives. The results can help develop adaptive social ecology comprising intelligent agents of heterogeneous realities to assist humans in various tasks through collaboration between the agents in the form of a CPSS.展开更多
This year has seen big success for China’s home stay industry,as more and more people have become the owners of homestays.According to the 2023 Insight into the Homestay Industry released by tujia.com,the number of h...This year has seen big success for China’s home stay industry,as more and more people have become the owners of homestays.According to the 2023 Insight into the Homestay Industry released by tujia.com,the number of homestay owners has increased by 77%from 2019.In addition,the booking volume of homestays with the labels of ceramic art,beachcombing and planting experiences has increased by 90-230%.展开更多
Energy is essential to practically all exercises and is imperative for the development of personal satisfaction.So,valuable energy has been in great demand for many years,especially for using smart homes and structure...Energy is essential to practically all exercises and is imperative for the development of personal satisfaction.So,valuable energy has been in great demand for many years,especially for using smart homes and structures,as individuals quickly improve their way of life depending on current innovations.However,there is a shortage of energy,as the energy required is higher than that produced.Many new plans are being designed to meet the consumer’s energy requirements.In many regions,energy utilization in the housing area is 30%–40%.The growth of smart homes has raised the requirement for intelligence in applications such as asset management,energy-efficient automation,security,and healthcare monitoring to learn about residents’actions and forecast their future demands.To overcome the challenges of energy consumption optimization,in this study,we apply an energy management technique.Data fusion has recently attracted much energy efficiency in buildings,where numerous types of information are processed.The proposed research developed a data fusion model to predict energy consumption for accuracy and miss rate.The results of the proposed approach are compared with those of the previously published techniques and found that the prediction accuracy of the proposed method is 92%,which is higher than the previously published approaches.展开更多
DCR-OL is a Distributed Collaborative Reasoning multi-agent model with an Online Learning thataims to identify human activities in smart homes from distributed, heterogeneous and dynamicsensor data. In this model, dis...DCR-OL is a Distributed Collaborative Reasoning multi-agent model with an Online Learning thataims to identify human activities in smart homes from distributed, heterogeneous and dynamicsensor data. In this model, distributed learning agents with diverse classifiers, detect sensorstream data, make local predictions, communicate and collaborate to identify current activities.Then, they learn from their collaborations to improve their own performance in activity recognition.Conflict resolution strategies are applied to generate one final predicted activity when thelocal predicted activity of an agent is different from received predicted activities of other agents.In this paper, two conflict resolution strategies using online learning, w-max-trust and w-maxfreq,are proposed. We experimentally test these strategies by performing an evaluation studyon the Aruba dataset. The obtained results indicate an enhancement in terms of accuracy and Fmeasuremetrics compared to the offline strategies max-trust and max-freq and also to the onlineexisting one max-wPerf .展开更多
Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,S...Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,Smart home).To handle these attacks,most studies have hitherto proposed authentication protocols that cannot necessarily be implemented in devices,especially during Device-to-Device(D2D)interactions.Tapping into the potential of Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts,this work proposes a lightweight authentication mechanism that enables safe D2D interactions in a smart home.The Ethereum blockchain enables the implementation of a decentralized prototype as well as a peer-to-peer distributed ledger system.The work also uses a single server queuing system model and the authentication mechanism to curtail DDoS attacks by controlling the number of service requests in the system.The simulation was conducted twenty times,each with varying number of devices chosen at random(ranging from 1 to 30).Each requester device sends an arbitrary request with a unique resource requirement at a time.This is done to measure the system's consistency across a variety of device capabilities.The experimental results show that the proposed protocol not only prevents colluding attacks,but also outperforms the benchmark protocols in terms of computational cost,message processing,and response times.展开更多
Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,S...Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,Smart home).To handle these attacks,most studies have hitherto proposed authentication protocols that cannot necessarily be implemented in devices,especially during Device-to-Device(D2D)interactions.Tapping into the potential of Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts,this work proposes a lightweight authentication mechanism that enables safe D2D interactions in a smart home.The Ethereum blockchain enables the implementation of a decentralized prototype as well as a peer-to-peer distributed ledger system.The work also uses a single server queuing system model and the authentication mechanism to curtail DDoS attacks by controlling the number of service requests in the system.The simulation was conducted twenty times,each with varying number of devices chosen at random(ranging from 1 to 30).Each requester device sends an arbitrary request with a unique resource requirement at a time.This is done to measure the system's consistency across a variety of device capabilities.The experimental results show that the proposed protocol not only prevents colluding attacks,but also outperforms the benchmark protocols in terms of computational cost,message processing,and response times.展开更多
The enormous energy use of the building sector and the requirements for indoor living quality that aim to improve occupants' productivity and health, prioritize Smart Buildings as an emerging technology. The Heati...The enormous energy use of the building sector and the requirements for indoor living quality that aim to improve occupants' productivity and health, prioritize Smart Buildings as an emerging technology. The Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning(HVAC) system is considered one of the most critical and essential parts in buildings since it consumes the largest amount of energy and is responsible for humans comfort. Due to the intermittent operation of HVAC systems, faults are more likely to occur, possibly increasing eventually building's energy consumption and/or downgrading indoor living quality. The complexity and large scale nature of HVAC systems complicate the diagnosis of faults in a centralized framework. This paper presents a distributed intelligent fault diagnosis algorithm for detecting and isolating multiple sensor faults in large-scale HVAC systems.Modeling the HVAC system as a network of interconnected subsystems allows the design of a set of distributed sensor fault diagnosis agents capable of isolating multiple sensor faults by applying a combinatorial decision logic and diagnostic reasoning. The performance of the proposed method is investigated with respect to robustness, fault detectability and scalability. Simulations are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in the presence of multiple sensor faults applied to a 83-zone HVAC system and to evaluate the sensitivity of the method with respect to sensor noise variance.展开更多
With the growing aging population, age-related diseases have increased considerably over the years.In response to these, Ambient Assistive Living（AAL） systems are being developed and are continually evolving to enri...With the growing aging population, age-related diseases have increased considerably over the years.In response to these, Ambient Assistive Living（AAL） systems are being developed and are continually evolving to enrich and support independent living. While most researchers investigate robust Activity Recognition（AR）techniques, this paper focuses on some of the architectural challenges of the AAL systems. This work proposes a system architecture that fuses varying software design patterns and integrates readily available hardware devices to create Wireless Sensor Networks（WSNs） for real-time applications. The system architecture brings together the Service-Oriented Architecture（SOA）, semantic web technologies, and other methods to address some of the shortcomings of the preceding system implementations using off-the-shelf and open source components. In order to validate the proposed architecture, a prototype is developed and tested positively to recognize basic user activities in real time. The system provides a base that can be further extended in many areas of AAL systems,including composite AR.展开更多
David Mungania has always dreamt of owning a house. But the major obstacle for him is the high cost of housing. Being a tenant is costly and the stress of finding money for the high monthly rent adds to his woes.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(51136002,51076079,51006057)Ministry of Science and Technology of China(2012BAJ02B03)National High Technology Research and Development Program of China(2010AA064903)
文摘Asthma,rhinitis and eczema(allergic or non-allergic)have increased throughout the world during the last decades,especially among children.Changes in the indoor environment are suspected to be important causes.China has experienced a dramatic change in indoor environmental exposures during the past two decades.However,such changes and their associations with children’s asthma and other health aspects have not been thoroughly studied.China,Children,Homes,Health(CCHH),Phase I,was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey of 48219 children 1–8 years old in 10 Chinese cities during 2010–2012.The questionnaire includes the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood(ISAAC)core health questions and additional questions regarding housing,life habits and outdoor environment.In health analyses,children aged 3–6 years old were included.The prevalences of doctor diagnosed asthma varied from 1.7%to 9.8%(mean 6.8%),a large increase from 0.91%in 1999 and 1.50%in2000.The prevalence of wheeze,rhinitis and atopic eczema(last 12 months)varied from 13.9%to 23.7%,24.0%to 50.8%and4.8%to 15.8%,respectively.Taiyuan had the lowest prevalences of all illnesses and Shanghai the highest,except for wheezewhere the highest value was for Urumqi.We found(1)no obvious association between disease prevalences and ambient PM10concentrations and(2)higher prevalences of disease in humid climates with hot summers and cold winters,but with no centrally heated buildings.Associations between the diseases and economic status as indexed by Gross Domestic Product(GDP)requires further study.
文摘Purpose: The concept of security is related to the experience of health but has ever so often been argued from a risk perspective rather than from a promotional perspective. The experience of older persons’ sense of security in private homes and in nursing homes seems to be missing when it comes to promote aging well throughout the life span. This study aimed to describe and analyze factors related to the sense of security of older persons receiving care in nursing homes in Sweden. Design and Methods: The study was based on a questionnaire from a total of 495 persons aged ≥ 65 in private homes (n = 350) or nursing homes (n = 145) in Sweden. Results: Secure relationships, sense of control, and perceived health were significantly related to the subjects’ sense of security. No significant relationships were found between sense of security and having a personal emergency response alarm. Implications: Experience of sense of security from the older person perspective differs depending on the context. To promote the sense of security within the care of older persons, methods on how to establish secure relations as well as the sense of control and knowledge need to be further tested, developed and analyzed together with older persons.
文摘Medications are beneficial for curing or managing acute and chronic illnesses. Medications typically have positive outcomes, although older people are prone to drug-related problems. Community-dwelling seniors are at particularly high risk of polypharmacy, as they tend to receive many prescriptions over time and from different care providers. Continuing-care facility admission presents an excellent opportunity for a comprehensive medication review. A research study was conducted to describe and compare medications taken by community-dwelling seniors prior to and following admission to a continuing-care facility. This pilot project involved data being gathered from the charts of deceased residents, as required by a University Health Research Ethics Board, who had been cared for at one large local continuing-care facility. The facility administrators also approved this study, in part to evaluate their policy to conduct a medication review for all new residents within six weeks of entry. This study revealed a slight but statistically significant reduction in the number of medications following this review. Other issues such as medication interactions and required dosage changes were addressed by this medication review. Although this study was confined to one continuing-care facility and a small number of residents, the findings suggest medication reviews would be beneficial upon admission to all continuing-care facilities, and annually perhaps through other means for older persons living in the community.
基金supported by European Regional Development Fund in the "Apulian Technology Clusters SMARTPUGLIA 2020"Program
文摘This paper presents a decentralized control strategy for the scheduling of electrical energy activities of a microgrid composed of smart homes connected to a distributor and exchanging renewable energy produced by individually owned distributed energy resources. The scheduling problem is stated and solved with the aim of reducing the overall energy supply from the grid, by allowing users to exchange the surplus renewable energy and by optimally planning users' controllable loads. We assume that each smart home can both buy/sell energy from/to the grid taking into account time-varying non-linear pricing signals. Simultaneously, smart homes cooperate and may buy/sell locally harvested renewable energy from/to other smart homes. The resulting optimization problem is formulated as a non-convex non-linear programming problem with a coupling of decision variables in the constraints. The proposed solution is based on a novel heuristic iterative decentralized scheme algorithm that suitably extends the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers to a non-convex and decentralized setting. We discuss the conditions that guarantee the convergence of the presented algorithm. Finally, the application of the proposed technique to a case study under several scenarios shows its effectiveness.
文摘Objective:It is aimed to investigate the nursing competence and corresponding influence factors of dementia caregivers in long-term care institutions of Tianjin and identify the training needs of caregivers.Methods:In the cross-section survey of this study,246 dementia caregivers were selected from 6 long-term care institutions in Tianjin as objects of study through convenient sampling.Results:The scores for nursing competence of dementia caregivers were 140.28±7.73,at a moderate level.Study findings that nursing competence of dementia caregivers were positively associated with the work experience(β=0.115,P=0.005),educational level(β=0.333,P<0.01),pervdceived health status(β=0.108,P=0.003)and training times within 1 year(β=0.371,P<0.01).Through the analysis,it is found that the training needs of dementia caregivers are inconsistent with the current situation in terms of content,methods and teachers.There are some problems in the training,such as unreasonable time,single mode and not deepening the understanding of the elderly with dementia.Conclusion:Long term care institutions shall arrange training no less than 12 times a year and evaluate training needs regularly to improve training effect.Providing online and offline training and adding more specialized contents like case analysis,employing experts in the field of dementia to teach courses.
基金Supported by the Assistance Project for the Developing Country Funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No.KY201302010)the National Major Foundational Research Development Project (973 project) (No.2011CB505404)+2 种基金the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine Innovative Group (No.2011-CXTD-05)the National Scienceand Technology Project in'12th Five Year Plan'Funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology (No.2012BA125B05)the National Basic Research Program of China (No.81173381)
文摘OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of five-element music therapy on elderly patients with seasonal affective disorder in a Chinese nursing home.METHODS: The patients(n=50) were recruited from a Shijingshan district nursing home in Beijing,China. They were randomly assigned to two groups, a treatment group and a control group,with 25 participants in each group. The patients received music therapy for 1-2 h each week over an8-week period. The music therapy involved four phases: introduction, activities, listening to the Chinese five-element music, and a concluding phase.The participants in the control group did not listen to the five-element music. This study consisted of two parts:(a) a qualitative study that used focus groups to understand the feelings of the patients with seasonal affective disorder;(b) a quantitative study that involved administration of the self-rating depression scale(SDS) and Hamilton depression scale(HAMD) before and after treatment.RESULTS:(a) Qualitative analysis results: strength derived from the five-element group music therapy and emotional adjustment. The five-element group music therapy can reduce patients' psychological distress and let them feel inner peace and enhance their life satisfaction.(b) No significant difference in SDS and HAMD scores was found between the two groups(P>0.05) prior to treatment. After treatment,the mean SDS score of the control group was 49.9±18.8, while the treatment group's score was 40.2±18.1. The HAMD score of the control group was11.2±3.1, and the treatment group's score was 8.8±4.9. Following 8 weeks of music therapy, the SDS and HAMD scores of the treatment group were significantly lower than those for the control group(P<0.05).CONCLUSION: Five-element music therapy alleviated the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder in the elderly patients.
文摘This study described programs that support length of stay reduction in the metropolitan area of Syracuse, New York. It demonstrated that these initiatives could improve hospital efficiency by expediting the movement of patients from inpatient hospitals to nursing homes at the community level. The Subacute and Complex Care Programs have focused on hospital patients with some of the longest lengths of stay. The inpatient days associated with these patients have the greatest potential for moving from acute care to long-term care providers. The use of these programs has the potential for saving staff time in hospitals associated with nurses, as well as pharmaceuticals and testing. All of these resources have contributed to the high costs of inpatient acute care.
文摘Two artificial agents(a humanoid robot and a virtual human) are enriched with various similar intelligence,autonomy, functionalities and interaction modalities. The agents are integrated in the form of a cyber-physical-social system(CPSS) through a shared communication platform to create a social ecology. In the ecology, the agents collaborate(assist each other) to perform a real-world task(search for a hidden object)for the benefits of humans. A robot-virtual human bilateral trust model is derived and a real-time trust measurement method is developed. The role of taking initiative in the collaboration is switched between the agents following a finite state machine model triggered by bilateral trust, which results in a mixedinitiative collaboration. A scheme is developed to evaluate the performance of the agents in the ecology through the CPSS.The results show that the robot and the virtual human perform satisfactorily in the collaboration through the CPSS. The results thus prove the effectiveness of the real-world ecology between artificial agents of heterogeneous realities through a shared platform based on trust-triggered mixed-initiatives. The results can help develop adaptive social ecology comprising intelligent agents of heterogeneous realities to assist humans in various tasks through collaboration between the agents in the form of a CPSS.
文摘This year has seen big success for China’s home stay industry,as more and more people have become the owners of homestays.According to the 2023 Insight into the Homestay Industry released by tujia.com,the number of homestay owners has increased by 77%from 2019.In addition,the booking volume of homestays with the labels of ceramic art,beachcombing and planting experiences has increased by 90-230%.
文摘Energy is essential to practically all exercises and is imperative for the development of personal satisfaction.So,valuable energy has been in great demand for many years,especially for using smart homes and structures,as individuals quickly improve their way of life depending on current innovations.However,there is a shortage of energy,as the energy required is higher than that produced.Many new plans are being designed to meet the consumer’s energy requirements.In many regions,energy utilization in the housing area is 30%–40%.The growth of smart homes has raised the requirement for intelligence in applications such as asset management,energy-efficient automation,security,and healthcare monitoring to learn about residents’actions and forecast their future demands.To overcome the challenges of energy consumption optimization,in this study,we apply an energy management technique.Data fusion has recently attracted much energy efficiency in buildings,where numerous types of information are processed.The proposed research developed a data fusion model to predict energy consumption for accuracy and miss rate.The results of the proposed approach are compared with those of the previously published techniques and found that the prediction accuracy of the proposed method is 92%,which is higher than the previously published approaches.
文摘DCR-OL is a Distributed Collaborative Reasoning multi-agent model with an Online Learning thataims to identify human activities in smart homes from distributed, heterogeneous and dynamicsensor data. In this model, distributed learning agents with diverse classifiers, detect sensorstream data, make local predictions, communicate and collaborate to identify current activities.Then, they learn from their collaborations to improve their own performance in activity recognition.Conflict resolution strategies are applied to generate one final predicted activity when thelocal predicted activity of an agent is different from received predicted activities of other agents.In this paper, two conflict resolution strategies using online learning, w-max-trust and w-maxfreq,are proposed. We experimentally test these strategies by performing an evaluation studyon the Aruba dataset. The obtained results indicate an enhancement in terms of accuracy and Fmeasuremetrics compared to the offline strategies max-trust and max-freq and also to the onlineexisting one max-wPerf .
文摘Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,Smart home).To handle these attacks,most studies have hitherto proposed authentication protocols that cannot necessarily be implemented in devices,especially during Device-to-Device(D2D)interactions.Tapping into the potential of Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts,this work proposes a lightweight authentication mechanism that enables safe D2D interactions in a smart home.The Ethereum blockchain enables the implementation of a decentralized prototype as well as a peer-to-peer distributed ledger system.The work also uses a single server queuing system model and the authentication mechanism to curtail DDoS attacks by controlling the number of service requests in the system.The simulation was conducted twenty times,each with varying number of devices chosen at random(ranging from 1 to 30).Each requester device sends an arbitrary request with a unique resource requirement at a time.This is done to measure the system's consistency across a variety of device capabilities.The experimental results show that the proposed protocol not only prevents colluding attacks,but also outperforms the benchmark protocols in terms of computational cost,message processing,and response times.
文摘Smart home devices are vulnerable to a variety of attacks.The matter gets more complicated when a number of devices collaborate to launch a colluding attack(e.g.,Distributed-Denial-of-Service(DDoS))in a network(e.g.,Smart home).To handle these attacks,most studies have hitherto proposed authentication protocols that cannot necessarily be implemented in devices,especially during Device-to-Device(D2D)interactions.Tapping into the potential of Ethereum blockchain and smart contracts,this work proposes a lightweight authentication mechanism that enables safe D2D interactions in a smart home.The Ethereum blockchain enables the implementation of a decentralized prototype as well as a peer-to-peer distributed ledger system.The work also uses a single server queuing system model and the authentication mechanism to curtail DDoS attacks by controlling the number of service requests in the system.The simulation was conducted twenty times,each with varying number of devices chosen at random(ranging from 1 to 30).Each requester device sends an arbitrary request with a unique resource requirement at a time.This is done to measure the system's consistency across a variety of device capabilities.The experimental results show that the proposed protocol not only prevents colluding attacks,but also outperforms the benchmark protocols in terms of computational cost,message processing,and response times.
基金supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme(739551)(KIOS CoE)。
文摘The enormous energy use of the building sector and the requirements for indoor living quality that aim to improve occupants' productivity and health, prioritize Smart Buildings as an emerging technology. The Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning(HVAC) system is considered one of the most critical and essential parts in buildings since it consumes the largest amount of energy and is responsible for humans comfort. Due to the intermittent operation of HVAC systems, faults are more likely to occur, possibly increasing eventually building's energy consumption and/or downgrading indoor living quality. The complexity and large scale nature of HVAC systems complicate the diagnosis of faults in a centralized framework. This paper presents a distributed intelligent fault diagnosis algorithm for detecting and isolating multiple sensor faults in large-scale HVAC systems.Modeling the HVAC system as a network of interconnected subsystems allows the design of a set of distributed sensor fault diagnosis agents capable of isolating multiple sensor faults by applying a combinatorial decision logic and diagnostic reasoning. The performance of the proposed method is investigated with respect to robustness, fault detectability and scalability. Simulations are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in the presence of multiple sensor faults applied to a 83-zone HVAC system and to evaluate the sensitivity of the method with respect to sensor noise variance.
基金partially supported by EU H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie ActionsITNETN(ACROSSING Project ID:676157)Research Investment Fund,DMU
文摘With the growing aging population, age-related diseases have increased considerably over the years.In response to these, Ambient Assistive Living（AAL） systems are being developed and are continually evolving to enrich and support independent living. While most researchers investigate robust Activity Recognition（AR）techniques, this paper focuses on some of the architectural challenges of the AAL systems. This work proposes a system architecture that fuses varying software design patterns and integrates readily available hardware devices to create Wireless Sensor Networks（WSNs） for real-time applications. The system architecture brings together the Service-Oriented Architecture（SOA）, semantic web technologies, and other methods to address some of the shortcomings of the preceding system implementations using off-the-shelf and open source components. In order to validate the proposed architecture, a prototype is developed and tested positively to recognize basic user activities in real time. The system provides a base that can be further extended in many areas of AAL systems,including composite AR.
文摘David Mungania has always dreamt of owning a house. But the major obstacle for him is the high cost of housing. Being a tenant is costly and the stress of finding money for the high monthly rent adds to his woes.
