Detecting and Understanding Social Influence During Drinking Situations: Protocol for a Bluetooth-Based Sensor Feasibility and Acceptability Study.

BACKGROUND: High-risk alcohol consumption among young adults frequently occurs in the presence of peers who are also drinking. A high-risk drinking situation may consist of particular social network members who have a primary association with drinking. Fine-grained approaches such as ecological momentary assessment (EMA) are growing in popularity for studying real-time social influence, but studies using these approaches exclusively rely on participant self-report. Passive indicators of peer presence using Bluetooth-based technology to detect real-time interactions have the potential to assist in the development of just-in-time interventions. OBJECTIVE: This study seeks to examine the feasibility and acceptability of using a Bluetooth-based sensor and smartphone app to measure social contact in real-world drinking situations. METHODS: Young adults (N=20) who drink heavily and report social drinking will be recruited from the community to participate in a 3-week EMA study. Using a social network interview, index participants will identify and recruit 3 of their friends to carry a Bluetooth beacon. Participants will complete a series of EMA reports on their own personal Android devices including random reports; morning reports; first-drink reports; and signal-contingent reports, which are triggered following the detection of a beacon carried by a peer participant. EMA will assess alcohol use and characteristics of the social environment, including who is nearby and who is drinking. For items about peer proximity and peer drinking, a customized peer list will be presented to participants. Feedback about the study protocol will be ascertained through weekly contact with both index and peer participants, followed by a qualitative interview at the end of the study. We will examine the feasibility and acceptability of recruitment, enrollment of participants and peers, and retention. Feasibility will be determined using indexes of eligibility, enrollment, and recruitment. Acceptability will be determined through participant enrollment and retention, protocol compliance, and participant-reported measures of acceptability. Feasibility and acceptability for peer participants will be informed by enrollment rates, latency to enrollment, compliance with carrying the beacon, and self-reported reasons for compliance or noncompliance with beacon procedures. Finally, EMA data about peer proximity and peer drinking will support the validity of the peer selection process. RESULTS: Participant recruitment began in February 2023, and enrollment was completed in December 2023. Results will be reported in 2025. CONCLUSIONS: The protocol allows us to examine the feasibility and acceptability of a Bluetooth-based sensor for the detection of social contact between index participants and their friends, including social interactions during real-world drinking situations. Data from this study will inform just-in-time adaptive interventions seeking to address drinking in the natural environment by providing personalized feedback about a high-risk social context and alerting an individual that they are in a potentially unsafe situation. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/50650.

A Bluetooth-Based Smartphone App for Detecting Peer Proximity: Protocol for Evaluating Functionality and Validity.

BACKGROUND: While ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is commonly used to study social contexts and social influence in the real world, EMA almost exclusively relies on participant self-report of present circumstances, including the proximity to influential peers. There is the potential for developing a proximity sensing approach that uses small Bluetooth beacons and smartphone-based detection and data collection to collect information about interactions between individuals passively in real time. OBJECTIVE: This paper aims to describe the methods for evaluating the functionality and validity of a Bluetooth-based beacon and a smartphone app to identify when ≥2 individuals are physically proximal. METHODS: We will recruit 20 participants aged 18 to 29 years with Android smartphones to complete a 3-week study during which beacon detection and self-report data will be collected using a smartphone app (MEI Research). Using an interviewer-administered social network interview, participants will identify up to 3 peers of the same age who are influential on health behavior (alcohol use in this study). These peers will be asked to carry a Bluetooth beacon (Kontakt asset tag) for the duration of the study; each beacon has a unique ID that, when detected, will be recorded by the app on the participant's phone. Participants will be prompted to respond to EMA surveys (signal-contingent reports) when a peer beacon encounter meets our criteria and randomly 3 times daily (random reports) and every morning (morning reports) to collect information about the presence of peers. In all reports, the individualized list of peers will be presented to participants, followed by questions about peer and participant behavior, including alcohol use. Data from multiple app data sets, including beacon encounter specifications, notification, and app logs, participant EMA self-reports and postparticipation interviews, and peer surveys, will be used to evaluate project goals. We will examine the functionality of the technology, including the stability of the app (eg, app crashes and issues opening the app), beacon-to-app detection (ie, does the app detect proximal beacons?), and beacon encounter notification when encounter criteria are met. The validity of the technology will be defined as the concordance between passive detection of peers via beacon-to-app communication and the participant's EMA report of peer presence. Disagreement between the beacon and self-report data (ie, false negatives and false positives) will be investigated in multiple ways (ie, to determine if the reason was technology-related or participant compliance-related) using encounter data and information collected from participants and peers. RESULTS: Participant recruitment began in February 2023, and enrollment was completed in December 2023. Results will be reported in 2025. CONCLUSIONS: This Bluetooth-based technology has important applications and clinical implications for various health behaviors, including the potential for just-in-time adaptive interventions that target high-risk behavior in real time. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/50241.

Design of intelligent positioning system for mobile medical equipment in operating room based on Bluetooth technology / 医疗卫生装备

Objective To develop an intelligent positioning system for mobile medical equipment in the operating room based on Bluetooth technology to enhance medical equipment management efficiency.Methods The intelligent positioning system for mobile medical equipment used received signal strength indication(RSSI)algorithm and multi-gateway trajectory filtering algorithm to realize Bluetooth positioning,which was composed of Bluetooth gateways,Bluetooth beacons,Bluetooth labels and a background data processing platform.The Bluetooth gateway consisted of an active power over ethernet(POE)module,a DC power module,a CPU,a Wi-Fi module and a Bluetooth module;the Bluetooth beacon included a beacon control unit,a Bluetooth transmitter module and a Bluetooth receiver module;the Bluetooth label was made up of a microcontroller unit(MCU),a Bluetooth module,an anti-temper switch and a accelerometer;the data processing platform had the front end developed with Vue architecture and the back end with Java language.Results The system developed could accurately locate the medical equipment in the operating room without electromagnetic interference to other medical devices.Conclusion The system developed gains advantages in high positioning accuracy,low electromagnetic interference,high stability and reliability and low cost,which improves the positioning and management efficiency of medical equipment under the premise of ensuring safety.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2023,44(9):29-32]

[Research on Hospital Operating Room Management System Based on PDA Code Scanning Technology].

In view of the high recognition error rate and long scanning time in the existing hospital scanning technology, a new hospital operating room scanning system is designed based on personal digital assistant (PDA). The PDA scanning device adopts PIC16F877A microcontroller of 8 bit for wireless transmission through RFID and bluetooth technology, the code scanning efficiency is greatly improved. In addition, in order to improve the accuracy of image analysis, this study also adopts the energy driven sampling classification algorithm (EDS-CA) to properly preprocess the medical data information received through PDA scanning, then constructs a function classifier, and improves the image processing efficiency according to the EDS-CA reduction process. The experimental results show that the average accuracy of the code scanning system designed in this study is 95%, which proves that PDA code scanning has good performance.

Quantifying SARS-CoV-2 Infection Risk Within the Google/Apple Exposure Notification Framework to Inform Quarantine Recommendations.

Most early Bluetooth-based exposure notification apps use three binary classifications to recommend quarantine following SARS-CoV-2 exposure: a window of infectiousness in the transmitter, ≥15 minutes duration, and Bluetooth attenuation below a threshold. However, Bluetooth attenuation is not a reliable measure of distance, and infection risk is not a binary function of distance, nor duration, nor timing. We model uncertainty in the shape and orientation of an exhaled virus-containing plume and in inhalation parameters, and measure uncertainty in distance as a function of Bluetooth attenuation. We calculate expected dose by combining this with estimated infectiousness based on timing relative to symptom onset. We calibrate an exponential dose-response curve based on infection probabilities of household contacts. The probability of current or future infectiousness, conditioned on how long postexposure an exposed individual has been symptom-free, decreases during quarantine, with shape determined by incubation periods, proportion of asymptomatic cases, and asymptomatic shedding durations. It can be adjusted for negative test results using Bayes' theorem. We capture a 10-fold range of risk using six infectiousness values, 11-fold range using three Bluetooth attenuation bins, ∼sixfold range from exposure duration given the 30 minute duration cap imposed by the Google/Apple v1.1, and ∼11-fold between the beginning and end of 14 day quarantine. Public health authorities can either set a threshold on initial infection risk to determine 14-day quarantine onset, or on the conditional probability of current and future infectiousness conditions to determine both quarantine and duration.

Wireless Module for Nondestructive Testing/Structural Health Monitoring Applications Based on Solitary Waves.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the use of highly nonlinear solitary waves (HNSWs) for nondestructive evaluation and structural health monitoring applications. HNSWs are mechanical waves that can form and travel in highly nonlinear systems, such as granular particles in Hertzian contact. The easiest setup consists of a built-in transducer in drypoint contact with the structure or material to be inspected/monitored. The transducer is made of a monoperiodic array of spherical particles that enables the excitation and detection of the solitary waves. The transducer is wired to a data acquisition system that controls the functionality of the transducer and stores the time series for post-processing. In this paper, the design and testing of a wireless unit that enables the remote control of a transducer without the need to connect it to sophisticated test equipment are presented. Comparative tests and analyses between the measurements obtained with the newly designed wireless unit and the conventional wired configuration are provided. The results are corroborated by an analytical model that predicts the dynamic interaction between solitary waves and materials with different modulus. The advantages and limitations of the proposed wireless platform are given along with some suggestions for future developments.

Objective and perceptual comparisons of two bluetooth hearing aid assistive devices.

PURPOSE: With the advent of Bluetooth technology, many of the assistive listening devices for hearing have become manufacturer specific, with little objective information about the performance provided. METHOD: Thirty native English-speaking adults (mean age 29.8) with normal hearing were tested pseudo-randomly with two major hearing aid manufacturers' proprietary Bluetooth connectivity devices paired to the accompanying manufacturer's specific hearing aids. Sentence recognition performance was objectively measured for each system with signals transmitted via a land-line to the same iPhone in two conditions. RESULTS: There was a significant effect of participant's performance according to listening condition. There was no significant effect between device manufacturers according to listening condition, but there was a significant effect in participant's perception of "quality of sound". CONCLUSIONS: Despite differences in signal transmission for each devise, when worn by participants both the systems performed equally. In fact, participants expressed personal preferences for specific technology that was largely due to their perceived quality of sound while listening to recorded signals. While further research is necessary to investigate other measures of benefit for Bluetooth connectivity devices, preliminary data suggest that in order to ensure comfort and compatibility, not only should objective measures of the patient benefit be completed, but also assessing the patient's perception of benefit is equally important. Implications for Rehabilitation All professionals who work with individuals with hearing loss, become aware of the differences in the multiple choices for assistive technology readily available for hearing loss. With the ever growing dispensing of Bluetooth connectivity devices coupled to hearing aids, there is an increased burden to determine whether performance differences could exist between manufacturers. There is a growing need to investigate other measures of benefit for Bluetooth hearing aid connectivity devices that not only include objective measures, but also patient perception of benefit.

Development of calibration device for platelet thermostatic storage box / 中国医学装备

Objective:The platelet thermostatic storage box is widely used in hospital, laboratory, and blood station. It is very necessary to develop a calibration device to ensure the accuracy of the technical parameters.Methods: Using Infrared emitter, digital temperature sensor, ARM microcontroller etc to form a calibration device, the parameters of temperature, amplitude and frequency are processed. Data is transferred by Bluetooth communication, final; the test report is printed out for clinical.Results: The calibration device is developed, it can detect the important performance parameters of preservation box, it can ensure the safety of patient's blood transfusion. Conclusion: This calibration device is simple operation, strong practicability, stable performance; it can detect the technical parameters of platelet thermostatic storage box through experiment to ensure the safety and quality.

Going mobile with a multiaccess service for the management of diabetic patients.

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is one of the chronic diseases exploiting the largest number of telemedicine systems. Our research group has been involved since 1996 in two projects funded by the European Union proposing innovative architectures and services according to the best current medical practices and advances in the information technology area. METHOD: We propose an enhanced architecture for telemedicine giving rise to a multitier application. The lower tier is represented by a mobile phone hosting the patient unit able to acquire data and provide first-level advice to the patient. The patient unit also facilitates interaction with the health care center, representing the higher tier, by automatically uploading data and receiving back any therapeutic plan supplied by the physician. On the patient's side the mobile phone exploits Bluetooth technology and therefore acts as a hub for a wireless network, possibly including several devices in addition to the glucometer. RESULTS: A new system architecture based on mobile technology is being used to implement several prototypes for assessing its functionality. A subsequent effort will be undertaken to exploit the new system within a pilot study for the follow-up of patients cared at a major hospital located in northern Italy. CONCLUSION: We expect that the new architecture will enhance the interaction between patient and caring physician, simplifying and improving metabolic control. In addition to sending glycemic data to the caring center, we also plan to automatically download the therapeutic protocols provided by the physician to the insulin pump and collect data from multiple sensors.

Implementation of physiological electrical signal transmission based on Bluetooth protocol / 医疗卫生装备

Bluetooth is a new widely accepted standard of short distance communication in personal area networks (PANs). By analyzing the communication process based on Bluetooth protocol and requirements of physiological electrical signal transmission, such operations are performed as the design of Bluetooth model for measurement of heart sound, the development of Bluetooth network communication library and the implementation of the model by programming.

ECG monitoring module based on Bluetooth technology / 医疗卫生装备

Objective To realize excellent remote medical treatment for patients.Methods The ECG monitoring module based on Bluetooth technology was designed.The ECG module and Bluetooth radio-frequency module,which possessed the function of data acquisition and simple processing,were connected through data wire to act as ECG terminal.By using C8051F020 and ROK 101 007 Bluetooth module,ECG Bluetooth transmission module read in HCI command through serial port,thus realizing mutual communication.VC++6.0 was used as developing tool to edit remote monitoring server programme running on the computers in monitoring center.Results ECG monitoring module could acquire ECG data in real time and transmit it to personal computers,and then send it to the monitoring center through Wide Band.In this way,real-time information exchange between doctors and users was realized.Conclusion This module makes full use of the advantages of Bluetooth technology and has strong practicability.

Applications of communication and network technologies to designs of medical equipments / 医疗卫生装备

This paper introduces the applications of network technology, wire and wireless technologies to designs of medical equipments. The theories and applications of such technologies are presented as the ones of serial communication, concurrent communication, USB interface, Bluetooth HomeRF, wireless network communication and GPRS.