N-WRETS: Near-Lossless Wireless Real-time Efficient Electroencephalogram Transmission Solution to Support Sleep Disorder Monitoring Platforms.

BACKGROUND: Sleep disorders lead to many adverse complications and chronic diseases. Sleep disorder-related healthcare costs are tens of billions of dollars worldwide. Sleep monitoring solutions have thus been the focus of research and industrial interest. However, the problem of limited bandwidth and battery consumption hinders the accuracy and practical use of sleep monitoring aids. INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study is to propose Near-Lossless Wireless Real-time Efficient electroencephalogram Transmission Solution (N-WRETS) solution that solves the issue of limited bandwidth and battery consumption, thereby supporting platforms dedicated to sleep disorder monitoring. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Electroencephalography (EEG) data materials were obtained from the Physionet PhysioBank database. The CAP Sleep Database was used. C programming was used for development. RESULTS: To evaluate transmission efficiency, the compression ratio (CR) was compared to prior studies. The N-WRETS CR of 11.34 exceeded other reported values. DISCUSSION: Compared to prior related research, N-WRETS showed the highest compression performance for EEG, but showed the lowest stability, which was a trade-off for its high efficiency. This article opens a possibility for future research to improve the performance of EEG compression algorithms according to sleep disease type. N-WRETS is also near-lossless, which is fit for priceless EEG data that contain important information on the patient's health. The proposed solution also supported wireless real-time transmission, which was another distinctive characteristic compared to related studies. CONCLUSIONS: N-WRETS may provide a platform in which sleep disorder patients may be properly monitored in real time. The system could overcome the problems of limited bandwidth and battery consumption.

Accepting telemedicine in a circulatory medicine ward in major hospitals in South Korea: patients' and health professionals' perception of real-time electrocardiogram monitoring.

BACKGROUND: South Korean government is currently in progress of expanding the coverage of telemedicine projects as part of an attempt to vitalize service industry, but is facing fierce opposition from KMA. Practice of telemedicine requires sufficient discussions among related parties. Although the participation of medical specialists is important, agreement from the public is essential. METHODS: Three main tertiary care centers in Seoul were selected for data collection. A total of 224 patients (patients n = 180, patient guardian n = 44) and medical professionals (n = 41) were selected using simple random sampling. Mixed method of quantitative survey and qualitative semi-interview was used. RESULTS: This study analyzed patients' and medical professionals' perception about the application of telemedicine in cardiology ward in tertiary care centers to provide baseline data when developing and applying telemedicine services. Results implied high need for encouraging telemedicine projects in order to appeal needs among population by providing experience (p < 0.001) and knowledge (p < 0.001). Other results showed that the need for electrocardiography monitoring was high among not only in remote areas but also in areas close to the capital. 64.52% of all participants thought that telemedicine was needed, and 73.21% of participants were willing to use telemedicine service if provided. Semi-interviews revealed that participants expected more cost and time saving services through remote treatment, by not having to visit long distance hospitals frequently. CONCLUSIONS: Research results oppose Korean Medical Association's opinion that the population is against enforcing telemedicine related laws. The findings in this study reflect an up-to-date perception of telemedicine among patients and medical professionals in a tertiary care centers' cardiology ward. Moreover, the study provides a baseline that is needed in order to overcome past failures and to successfully implement telemedicine in South Korea.

An optimized compression algorithm for real-time ECG data transmission in wireless network of medical information systems.

Recent medical information systems are striving towards real-time monitoring models to care patients anytime and anywhere through ECG signals. However, there are several limitations such as data distortion and limited bandwidth in wireless communications. In order to overcome such limitations, this research focuses on compression. Few researches have been made to develop a specialized compression algorithm for ECG data transmission in real-time monitoring wireless network. Not only that, recent researches' algorithm is not appropriate for ECG signals. Therefore this paper presents a more developed algorithm EDLZW for efficient ECG data transmission. Results actually showed that the EDLZW compression ratio was 8.66, which was a performance that was 4 times better than any other recent compression method widely used today.

Factors affecting shoulder-pelvic integration during axial trunk rotation in subjects with recurrent low back pain.

INTRODUCTION: Shoulder-pelvic integration could play a central role in the control of dynamic posture and movement. However, kinematic coordination during axial trunk rotation has not been carefully investigated in subjects with recurrent low back pain (LBP). The purpose of this study was to compare the maximum rotational angles of the shoulders and pelvis in the transverse plane between subjects with and without recurrent LBP. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 38 age-matched subjects (19 control subjects: 69.00 ± 5.75 years old and 19 subjects with LBP: 68.79 ± 5.40 years old) participated in the study. The axial trunk rotation test was conducted in the upright position with bilateral hips and knees fully extended and both feet shoulder width apart. RESULTS: The results of this study indicated that there was a difference in pelvic girdle rotation between groups (100.79 ± 26.46 in the control group, 82.12 ± 23.16 in the LBP group; t = 2.31, p = 0.02); however, there was no difference for the shoulder girdle (177.63 ± 36.98 in the control group, 156.42 ± 30.09 in the LBP group; t = 1.91, p = 0.06). There were interactions with age (F = 9.27, p = 0.004) and BMI (F = 7.50, p = 0.01) with the rotational angles of the shoulder and pelvis. CONCLUSION: These results indicated a different pattern of trunk rotation movement with the age and BMI serving as important factors to consider for recurrent LBP. The results of our study also indicated a different pattern of shoulder and pelvic coordination with age and gender. Clinicians need to consider the consequences of limited shoulder-pelvic rotational angles, especially limited rotational angle on the pelvis during trunk axial rotation. Further studies are required to determine the causes of the underlying problems for clinical decision-making and altered shoulder-pelvic rotation in subjects with recurrent LBP.

Machine Learning-Based Data Mining Method for Sentiment Analysis of the Sewol Ferry Disaster's Effect on Social Stress.

The Sewol Ferry Disaster which took place in 16th of April, 2014, was a national level disaster in South Korea that caused severe social distress nation-wide. No research at the domestic level thus far has examined the influence of the disaster on social stress through a sentiment analysis of social media data. Data extracted from YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook were used in this study. The population was users who were randomly selected from the aforementioned social media platforms who had posted texts related to the disaster from April 2014 to March 2015. ANOVA was used for statistical comparison between negative, neutral, and positive sentiments under a 95% confidence level. For NLP-based data mining results, bar graph and word cloud analysis as well as analyses of phrases, entities, and queries were implemented. Research results showed a significantly negative sentiment on all social media platforms. This was mainly related to fundamental agents such as ex-president Park and her related political parties and politicians. YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook results showed negative sentiment in phrases (63.5, 69.4, and 58.9%, respectively), entity (81.1, 69.9, and 76.0%, respectively), and query topic (75.0, 85.4, and 75.0%, respectively). All results were statistically significant (p < 0.001). This research provides scientific evidence of the negative psychological impact of the disaster on the Korean population. This study is significant because it is the first research to conduct sentiment analysis of data extracted from the three largest existing social media platforms regarding the issue of the disaster.

Determinants of public phobia about infectious diseases in South Korea: effect of health communication and gender difference.

This study investigated the individual and social determinants of the public's phobia of infectious diseases in South Korea, where collective action was recently fueled by the public phobia over mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy [BSE]). Gender-specific multivariate regression was used to compare the public perception of BSE and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). The analysis results differentiated between the determinants of the phobia for the 2 diseases, BSE and HPAI (N = 1002). As with HIV/AIDS and leprosy, the public fear of HPAI was expressed as a disease phobia that seeks to ensure the social exclusion of infection sources, whereas the fear of BSE was influenced by social and communication factors. Therefore, BSE, unlike previous HPAI, can be rapidly amplified amid the growing distrust in health communication, in which case the social determinants of disease phobia are associated with communicator trust, social values, and political attitude toward diseases rather than disease perception.

Spectral and entropy changes for back muscle fatigability following spinal stabilization exercises.

The entropy of electromyography (EMG) signals suggests a possible tool for the clinical assessment of low back pain (LBP). However, a general physiological mechanism for entropy and pain and/or dysfunction following exercise intervention is still unknown. This comparative study investigated the differences between entropy levels of the EMG signals and the slope of median frequency (MF) based on power spectrum analysis in chronic LBP subjects after 4 weeks of spinal stabilization exercises (SSEs). In total, 46 subjects (24 female and 22 male) participated in the exercise program; the EMG signals of their thoracic and lumbar erector spinae muscles were measured. Following the SSEs, the level of pain as measured by the Million Visual Analog Scale decreased significantly from 3.80 to 2.81 (T = 3.42, p = 0.001). The Shannon entropy levels of the EMG signals were not different based on the back muscles (F = 2.86, p = 0.09) but demonstrated a significant interaction with pain level (F = 7.17, p = 0.01). The slope of MF differed among the muscles (F = 12.06, p = 0.01); however, no interaction with the level of pain was found (F = 0.19, p = 0.66). Therefore, the Shannon entropy of the EMG signals might be a useful and valuable clinical tool to measure pain following intervention.