Brazilian advanced specialty programs in endodontics: characteristicsand distribution / Cursos de especialização em endodontia no Brasil: características e distribuição

The existence of several Endodontics specialty programs in Brazil is known. However, there was no precise information regarding their geographic distribution, duration, workloadandthe profiles of the program's directors. There was also no meanstodetermineif the requirements defined by the country's legal bodies were fulfilled by the institutions.The present cross-sectionalstudy was conductedto bring together characteristics and peculiarities of all Brazilian endodontics advanced specialty programs, searching for information on the regulatory-agencies webpages and other venues. We searched the Ministry of Education'swebsite to locateinformation such as geographical location, duration (months), number of hours, and program director professional degreeprofile.Program's homepages were searched to collect additional information­frequency, periodicity, costs, number of faculties. The searcheswere made between August 2019 and October 2019,identifying 505 registered programs and 117specific program's websites. It was observed that 39% of the programsare in the Southeast regionand 61.2% have a duration of 24 months. Additionally, a majority of the program's directorswere male, accounting for 69.1% of the sample. The most common highest qualification held by themwas a Masters' degree(45.1%).Regarding the 117programs that had specific websites,they presented insufficient information, for instance:the frequency was only reported in 81 programs/websites, the number of teachersonlyin 51,andtotal feesonlyin 65. It wasconcluded that there arevarious Endodontic specialization programs in Brazil, benefiting the different students' profiles. Also, there is alack of clear information on some programs (AU).

Sabe-se da existência de diversos cursos de especialização em Endodontia no Brasil. Porém, não havia informações precisas acerca da distribuição geográfica, duração, carga horária e perfil dos diretores dos cursos. Também não havia formas de determinar se as exigências definidas pelos órgãos legais do país estavam sendo cumpridas. O presente estudo transversal foi conduzido para reunir características e peculiaridades de todos os cursos de especialização em Endodontia no Brasil, buscando informações nos sitesdas agências reguladoras e em outras fontes. Buscou-se o site do Ministério de Educação para encontrar informações quanto à localização geográfica, duração (em meses), número de horas e perfil profissional do(a) coordenador(a) do curso. Os sites dos cursos foram pesquisados para coleta de informações adicionais ­frequência, periodicidade, custos, número de professores. As buscas ocorreram entre agosto e outubro de 2019, identificando 505 cursos registrados e 117 sitesespecíficos desses cursos. Observou-se que 39% dos cursos localizam-se na região Sudeste e 61,2% têm uma duração de 24 meses. Ainda, a maioria dos coordenadores são do sexo masculino, somando 69,1% da amostra. A maior qualificação entre eles foi o título de Mestre (45,1%). Em relação aos 117 cursos que possuíam sitesespecíficos, as informações apresentadas foram insuficientes: a frequência foi informada apenas em 81 programas/sites, o número de professores apenas em 51 e o total de mensalidades apenas em 65. Conclui-se que há uma grande quantidade de cursos de Endodontia no Brasil, beneficiando os diferentes perfis dos estudantes. Ainda, há uma falta de informação clara sobre alguns cursos (AU).

Odontologia para Pacientes com Necessidades Especiais: uma análise das estruturas curriculares dos cursos de Odontologia da região Nordeste / Dentistry for Patients with Special Needs: an analysis of the curricular structures of Dentistry courses in the Northeast region

O estudo objetivou analisar as estruturas curriculares dos cursos de Odontologia da região Nordeste e investigar a presença do componente curricular Odontologia para Pacientes com Necessidades Especiais(OPNE). Trata-se de um estudo seccional, descritivo e quantitativo. Os dados foram coletados entre junho e dezembro de 2020 no sítio eletrônico do Ministério da Educação (e-MEC) e nos portaisdas instituições de ensino identificadas,comanálise das estruturas curriculares dos cursos. Havia138 cursos de Odontologia autorizados e cadastrados na plataformaedestes, seteforam excluídos por ausência de portal atualizado ou por ainda não ter formado pelo menos umaturma. Dos 131 cursos de graduação em Odontologia analisados, verificou-se que 62 IES (47,30%) ofertavam o componente OPNE, dentre as quais53 (40,50%) o ofertavam como componente obrigatório.O estado da Paraíba apresentou a maior frequência (n=13, 86,7%) de cursos que ofertam o componente curricular, enquanto o estado de Sergipe obteve a menor frequência (n=1, 16,7%).Conclui-se que o componente curricular OPNE é pouco ofertado nos cursos de graduação em Odontologia na região Nordeste,o que pode impactardiretamente na capacitação dos profissionais para prestar um melhor cuidado de saúde bucal para essa população (AU).

The study aimed to analyze the curricular structures of the Dentistry courses in the Northeast region and investigate the curricular component named DPSN (Dentistry for Patients with Special Needs). This is a sectional, descriptive and quantitative study. The data were collected between June and November 2020 on the Ministry of Education's (e-MEC) website and the educational institutions' portals identified by analyzing the curricular structures of the courses. There were 138 authorized Dentistry courses registered on the platform; and, of these, seven were excluded for lack of an updated portal or for not having at least one formed class. Of the 131 analyzed undergraduate courses in Dentistry, it was found that 62 HEI (47.30%) offered the DPSN component, among which 53 (40.50%) offered it as a compulsory component. The state of Paraíba showed the highest frequency (n=13, 86.7%) of the courses offering the curricular component, while the state of Sergipe obtained the lowest frequency (n=1, 16.7%). It is concluded that the DPSN curricular component islittle offered in the undergraduate courses in Dentistry in the Northeast region and directly impacts professionals' training to provide better oral health care for this population (AU).

Ensino da segurança do paciente na graduação em enfermagem no estado da Bahia / Enseñanza sobre la seguridad del paciente en el pregrado en enfermería en el estado de Bahia-Brasil / Teaching patient safety in undergraduate nursing in the state of Bahia

RESUMO Objetivo: identificar o tema segurança do paciente nos componentes curriculares de cursos de graduação em enfermagem no estado da Bahia. Método: pesquisa quantitativa, descritiva, exploratória de base documental desenvolvida em fevereiro de 2019, com dados extraídos da Matriz Curricular, Projeto Pedagógico e Ementa, disponíveis nos websites de instituições de ensino superior com situação ativa no sistema e-MEC. Resultados: das 75 instituições cadastradas, nove eram públicas, e 66 privadas. O tema segurança do paciente não foi encontrado em nenhum website de universidades públicas e apenas em 8,06% das privadas. O contato inicial com a temática dava-se no 3º semestre, a carga horária média das disciplinas que abordavam o tema variava de 30 a 306 horas e o componente curricular era obrigatório para estas disciplinas. Apenas 1,71% dos websites das instituições públicas apresentavam todos os documentos pesquisados, enquanto as privadas apresentaram 33,33%, a matriz curricular foi o documento mais disponibilizado. Conclusão: a inserção do tema segurança do paciente nos componentes curriculares mostrou-se insuficiente, apontando necessidade de revisão dos processos formativos e inclusão de abordagem interdisciplinar e transdisciplinar, tendo em vista a complexidade do cuidado em saúde e a importância do desenvolvimento de competências específicas com foco na segurança do paciente.

RESUMEN Objetivo: identificar el tema seguridad del paciente en los componentes curriculares de cursos de pregrado en enfermería en el estado de Bahia-Brasil. Método: investigación cuantitativa, descriptiva, exploratoria de base documental desarrollada en febrero de 2019, con datos extraídos de la Matriz Curricular, Proyecto Pedagógico y Directrices, disponibles en los sitios electrónicos de instituciones de enseñanza superior con situación activa en el sistema e-MEC. Resultados: de las 75 instituciones registradas, nueve eran públicas y 66 privadas. El tema de la seguridad del paciente no se encontró en ningún website de universidades públicas y solo en el 8,06% de las privadas. El contacto inicial con la temática se trabajaba en el 3º semestre, el promedio de la carga horaria de las asignaturas que trataban el tema variaba de 30 a 306 horas y el componente curricular era obligatorio para estas asignaturas. Solo el 1,71% de los sitios electrónicos de las instituciones públicas presentaba todos los documentos investigados, mientras que los privados presentaron el 33,33%, la matriz curricular fue el documento más disponible. Conclusión: la inserción del tema seguridad del paciente en los componentes curriculares se mostró insuficiente, señalando necesidad de revisión de los procesos formativos e inclusión de abordaje interdisciplinario y transdisciplinario, teniendo en cuenta la complejidad del cuidado de la salud y la importancia del desarrollo de competencias específicas centradas en la seguridad del paciente.

ABSTRACT Objective: to identify the theme of patient safety in the curricular components of undergraduate nursing courses in the state of Bahia. Method: quantitative, descriptive, exploratory research of documentary basis developed in February 2019, with data extracted from the Curricular Matrix, Pedagogical Project and Menu, available on the websites of higher education institutions with active situation in the e-MEC system. Results: of the 75 registered institutions, nine were public, and 66 were private. The theme of patient safety was not found in any website of public universities and only in 8.06% of private universities. The initial contact with the theme took place in the 3rd semester, the average workload of the subjects that addressed the theme ranged from 30 to 306 hours and the curricular component was mandatory for these disciplines. Only 1.71% of the websites of public institutions had all the documents surveyed, while the private ones presented 33.33%, the curriculum matrix was the most available document. Conclusion: the insertion of the patient safety theme in the curricular components proved insufficient, pointing out the need for review of training processes and inclusion of an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach, in view of the complexity of health care and the importance of developing specific competencies focused on patient safety.

New constructions of equality test scheme for cloud-assisted wireless sensor networks.

Public key encryption with equality test enables the user to determine whether two ciphertexts contain the same information without decryption. Therefore, it may serve as promising cryptographic technique for cloud-assisted wireless sensor networks (CWSNs) to maintain data privacy. In this paper, an efficient RSA with equality test algorithm is proposed. The presented scheme also handles the attackers based on their authorization ability. Precisely, the proposed scheme is proved to be one-way against chosen-ciphertext attack security and indistinguishable against chosen ciphertext attacks. Moreover, the experimental evaluations depict that the underlying scheme is efficient in terms of encryption, decryption, and equality testing. Thus, this scheme may be used as a practical solution in context of CWSNs, where the users may compare two ciphertexts without decryption.

Upscaling human activity data: A statistical ecology approach.

Big data require new techniques to handle the information they come with. Here we consider four datasets (email communication, Twitter posts, Wikipedia articles and Gutenberg books) and propose a novel statistical framework to predict global statistics from random samples. More precisely, we infer the number of senders, hashtags and words of the whole dataset and how their abundances (i.e. the popularity of a hashtag) change through scales from a small sample of sent emails per sender, posts per hashtag and word occurrences. Our approach is grounded on statistical ecology as we map inference of human activities into the unseen species problem in biodiversity. Our findings may have applications to resource management in emails, collective attention monitoring in Twitter and language learning process in word databases.

Evaluación de usabilidad de sitios web de bibliotecas de universidades públicas chilenas a partir del método SIRIUS / Usability evaluation of chilean academic public library web sites using the SIRIUS method

Resumen Este artículo presenta los resultados de una evaluación heurística de usabilidad aplicada a 17 sitios web de bibliotecas de universidades públicas chilenas, a través del método SIRIUS, "Sistema de Evaluación de la Usabilidad Web Orientado al Usuario y Basado en la Determinación de Tareas Críticas". Para la recolección de datos se utilizó la pauta fija de SIRIUS que contiene 10 heurísticas subdivididas en un total de 83 sub-heurísticas evaluadas por cinco personas expertas con conocimiento en sitios web de bibliotecas y usabilidad. Los resultados indican que las bibliotecas universitarias mejor evaluadas presentan buenos mecanismos de rotulado, layout (diseño) y facilidad de interacción, mientras que, en su conjunto, los sitios web carecen de ayudas de navegación para las personas usuarias. Finalmente, se concluye que la evaluación heurística es un método válido, rápido, fácil y aplicable en sitios web de bibliotecas universitarias, siempre y cuando se definan adecuadamente las personas expertas y las heurísticas. Asimismo, SIRIUS resulta una herramienta adecuada al contar con una pauta fija que permite obtener evaluaciones con rapidez y facilitar la comparación de sus resultados.

Abstract This article presents the results of a heuristic usability evaluation applied to 17 websites of libraries of public chilean universities, using the SIRIUS method "System of Web Usability Evaluation, User Oriented and Based on the Determination of Critical Tasks" For data collection, SIRIUS fixed guideline was used, which contains 10 heuristics that are subdivided into a total of 83 sub-heuristics evaluated by 5 experts with knowledge about libraries and usability websites. The results indicate that the best evaluated university libraries have good labeling mechanisms, layout and ease of interaction, while, as a whole, the websites lack navigation aids for their users. Finally, it is concluded that heuristic evaluation is a valid, fast, easy and applicable method in university library websites, as long as experts and heuristics are properly defined. Likewise, SIRIUS is an adequate tool since it has a fixed guideline that allows evaluations to be obtained quickly and to facilitate the comparison of its results.

"I'll use it differently now": using dual-systems theory to explore youth engagement with networked technologies.

OBJECTIVES: Many young Canadians experience high levels of networked connectivity, which some suggest may negatively impact their health. Adult monitoring has not been shown to be an effective long-term strategy for supporting young people in healthy engagement with tech. In this study, we explore the benefits of empowering young people to set healthy goals and monitor themselves. We engage with Shapka's (2019) critique of dual-systems theory, and consider the relationship between the neurological and behavioural systems in relation to adolescent internet use. METHODS: Using a youth participatory action research approach, we co-designed a project with six adolescents to explore the ways that their use of networked technologies was affecting their lives by disconnecting and observing how the lack of networked connectivity changed their experiences. The youth used a media diary to track their use of devices both before and after disconnecting. RESULTS: The main benefit of disconnecting appeared to be having the opportunity to reflect on one's own use of networked devices. This enabled the participants to reconnect in a more intentional way. Findings support Shapka's speculation that dual-systems theory, with a focus on regulation, may not be the most useful way of supporting adolescents in developing healthy habits around their wired tech. CONCLUSION: Adolescent experiences of networked technologies are complex, yet they are able to navigate this landscape with intelligent strategies. Their self-directed exploration of disconnection helped them to become reflexive practitioners who were able to revisit their use of networked technologies with new insights and self-control.

RéSUMé: OBJECTIFS: Les niveaux élevés de connectivité réseau sont courants chez les jeunes Canadiens, ce qui pourrait avoir des effets nuisibles sur leur santé. La surveillance par les adultes n'est pas une stratégie efficace à long terme pour aider les jeunes à établir une relation saine avec la technologie. Nous explorons ici les avantages de donner aux jeunes les moyens de se fixer des objectifs sains et de s'autosurveiller. Nous abordons la critique par Shapka de la théorie des systèmes duels (2019) et considérons la relation entre les systèmes neurologique et comportemental en lien avec l'utilisation d'Internet par les adolescents. MéTHODE: À l'aide d'une démarche de recherche-action participative avec des jeunes, nous avons conçu, en collaboration avec six adolescents, un projet pour explorer les effets de l'utilisation des technologies réseau dans leurs vies en les déconnectant et en observant en quoi l'absence de connectivité réseau modifiait leur expérience. Les jeunes ont noté leur utilisation d'appareils en réseau avant et après la déconnexion dans un « journal médias ¼. RéSULTATS: Le principal avantage de la déconnexion semblait être la possibilité de réfléchir à sa propre utilisation des appareils en réseau. Les participants ont ainsi pu rétablir cette connexion de façon plus intentionnelle. Nos constatations confirment l'hypothèse de Shapka selon laquelle la théorie des systèmes duels, axée sur la réglementation, n'est peut-être pas le meilleur moyen d'aider les adolescents à acquérir de saines habitudes face à leurs appareils en réseau. CONCLUSION: L'expérience des technologies réseau chez les adolescents est complexe, mais avec des stratégies intelligentes, ils réussissent à trouver leur voie. Leur exploration autodirigée de la déconnexion les a aidés à devenir des praticiens réfléchis, capables de retourner à leur utilisation des technologies réseau avec plus de retenue et des vues plus larges.

A Methodology for Network Analysis to Improve the Cyber-Physicals Communications in Next-Generation Networks.

Cyber-physical systems allow creating new applications and services which will bring people, data, processes, and things together. The network is the backbone that interconnects this new paradigm, especially 5G networks that will expand the coverage, reduce the latency, and enhance the data rate. In this sense, network analytics will increase the knowledge about the network and its interconnected devices, being a key feature especially with the increment in the number of physical things (sensors, actuators, smartphones, tablets, and so on). With this increment, the usage of online networking services and applications will grow, and network operators require to detect and analyze all issues related to the network. In this article, a methodology to analyze real network information provided by a network operator and acquire knowledge of the communications is presented. Various real data sets, provided by Telecom Italia, are analyzed to compare two different zones: one located in the urban area of Milan, Italy, and its surroundings, and the second in the province of Trento, Italy. These data sets describe different areas and shapes that cover a metropolitan area in the first case and a mainly rural area in the second case, which implies that these areas will have different comportments. To compare these comportments and group them in a single cluster set, a new technique is presented in this paper to establish a relationship between them and reduce those that could be similar.

Digital Era of Mobile Communications and Smartphones: A Novel Analysis of Patient Comprehension of Cancer-Related Information Available Through Mobile Applications.

Many Americans use smartphone-based mobile applications to acquire health information. Our study evaluated the readability of mobile application-based patient educational materials (PEMs) about five prevalent cancers in the United States. The Apple and Google mobile application marketplaces were queried for breast, colon, lung, prostate, and stomach cancer-related applications, which were subsequently screened for PEMs and assessed with 10 validated readability assessments. Twenty-one pertinent applications yielded 249 articles that were written at an 11.8 ± 2.3 grade level; only 12 (4.8%) articles were written below an eighth grade level. The majority of cancer-related PEMs were written at too difficult reading levels for American patients.

ODAL: A one-shot distributed algorithm to perform logistic regressions on electronic health records data from multiple clinical sites.

Electronic Health Records (EHR) contain extensive information on various health outcomes and risk factors, and therefore have been broadly used in healthcare research. Integrating EHR data from multiple clinical sites can accelerate knowledge discovery and risk prediction by providing a larger sample size in a more general population which potentially reduces clinical bias and improves estimation and prediction accuracy. To overcome the barrier of patient-level data sharing, distributed algorithms are developed to conduct statistical analyses across multiple sites through sharing only aggregated information. The current distributed algorithm often requires iterative information evaluation and transferring across sites, which can potentially lead to a high communication cost in practical settings. In this study, we propose a privacy-preserving and communication-efficient distributed algorithm for logistic regression without requiring iterative communications across sites. Our simulation study showed our algorithm reached comparative accuracy comparing to the oracle estimator where data are pooled together. We applied our algorithm to an EHR data from the University of Pennsylvania health system to evaluate the risks of fetal loss due to various medication exposures.

A compact network learning model for distribution regression.

Despite the superior performance of deep learning in many applications, challenges remain in the area of regression on function spaces. In particular, neural networks are unable to encode function inputs compactly as each node encodes just a real value. We propose a novel idea to address this shortcoming: to encode an entire function in a single network node. To that end, we design a compact network representation that encodes and propagates functions in single nodes for the distribution regression task. Our proposed distribution regression network (DRN) achieves higher prediction accuracies while using fewer parameters than traditional neural networks.

Lessons from meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials for analysis of distributed networks of observational databases.

Networks of constellations of longitudinal observational databases, often electronic medical records or transactional insurance claims or both, are increasingly being used for studying the effects of medicinal products in real-world use. Such databases are frequently configured as distributed networks. That is, patient-level data are kept behind firewalls and not communicated outside of the data vendor other than in aggregate form. Instead, data are standardized across the network, and queries of the network are executed locally by data partners, and summary results provided to a central research partner(s) for amalgamation, aggregation, and summarization. Such networks can be huge covering years of data on upwards of 100 million patients. Examples of such networks include the FDA Sentinel Network, ASPEN, CNODES, and EU-ADR. As this is a new emerging field, we note in this paper the conceptual similarities and differences between the analysis of distributed networks and the now well-established field of meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs). We recommend, wherever appropriate, to apply learnings from meta-analysis to help guide the development of distributed network analyses of longitudinal observational databases.

Detection of slow port scans in flow-based network traffic.

Frequently, port scans are early indicators of more serious attacks. Unfortunately, the detection of slow port scans in company networks is challenging due to the massive amount of network data. This paper proposes an innovative approach for preprocessing flow-based data which is specifically tailored to the detection of slow port scans. The preprocessing chain generates new objects based on flow-based data aggregated over time windows while taking domain knowledge as well as additional knowledge about the network structure into account. The computed objects are used as input for the further analysis. Based on these objects, we propose two different approaches for detection of slow port scans. One approach is unsupervised and uses sequential hypothesis testing whereas the other approach is supervised and uses classification algorithms. We compare both approaches with existing port scan detection algorithms on the flow-based CIDDS-001 data set. Experiments indicate that the proposed approaches achieve better detection rates and exhibit less false alarms than similar algorithms.

Like an extended family: Relationships that emerge when older caregivers use written messages to communicate in an ICT-based healthcare service.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationships that emerge amongst caregivers of persons with dementia and stroke when caregivers use written messages as their communication tool in a closed information and communication technology (ICT)-based support group. METHODS: An explorative design with a qualitative approach was used that applied systematic text condensation (STC) to analyse 173 written messages extracted from a web forum. RESULTS: Empathetic, empowering and familiar relationships emerged amongst peers of older caregivers when the caregivers used written messages as their communication tool. The empathetic relationship was characterised by sincerity and openness when the caregivers shared emotions related to caregiving. The empowering relationship reflected a fellowship based on solidarity influenced by a sense of optimism and a willingness to share knowledge to support one another in overcoming challenges. In the familiar relationship, the caregivers were thoughtful and good-humoured with one another and displayed an attitude of consideration towards one another, as in an extended family. PRACTICE IMPLICATION: The use of computer-mediated communication in health care service will change the context of establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships. Therefore, greater knowledge regarding how the peers of caregivers interact with one another is vital so nurses may better support and educate ICT-based support groups.

Using a Medical Intranet of Things System to Prevent Bed Falls in an Acute Care Hospital: A Pilot Study.

BACKGROUND: Hospitalized patients in the United States experience falls at a rate of 2.6 to 17.1 per 1000 patient-days, with the majority occurring when a patient is moving to, from, and around the bed. Each fall with injury costs an average of US $14,000. OBJECTIVE: The aim was to conduct a technology evaluation, including feasibility, usability, and user experience, of a medical sensor-based Intranet of things (IoT) system in facilitating nursing response to bed exits in an acute care hospital. METHODS: Patients 18 years and older with a Morse fall score of 45 or greater were recruited from a 35-bed medical-surgical ward in a 317-bed Massachusetts teaching hospital. Eligible patients were recruited between August 4, 2015 and July 31, 2016. Participants received a sensor pad placed between the top of their mattress and bed sheet. The sensor pad was positioned to monitor movement from patients' shoulders to their thighs. The SensableCare System was evaluated for monitoring patient movement and delivering timely alerts to nursing staff via mobile devices when there appeared to be a bed-exit attempt. Sensor pad data were collected automatically from the system. The primary outcomes included number of falls, time to turn off bed-exit alerts, and the number of attempted bed-exit events. Data on patient falls were collected by clinical research assistants and confirmed with the unit nurse manager. Explanatory variables included room locations (zones 1-3), day of the week, nursing shift, and Morse Fall Scale (ie, positive fall history, positive secondary diagnosis, positive ambulatory aid, weak impaired gait/transfer, positive IV/saline lock, mentally forgets limitations). We also assessed user experience via nurse focus groups. Qualitative data regarding staff interactions with the system were collected during two focus groups with 25 total nurses, each lasting approximately 1.5 hours. RESULTS: A total of 91 patients used the system for 234.0 patient-days and experienced no bed falls during the study period. On average, patients were assisted/returned to bed 46 seconds after the alert system was triggered. Response times were longer during the overnight nursing shift versus day shift (P=.005), but were independent of the patient's location on the unit. Focus groups revealed that nurses found the system integrated well into the clinical nursing workflow and the alerts were helpful in patient monitoring. CONCLUSIONS: A medical IoT system can be integrated into the existing nursing workflow and may reduce patient bed fall risk in acute care hospitals, a high priority but an elusive patient safety challenge. By using an alerting system that sends notifications directly to nurses' mobile devices, nurses can equally respond to unassisted bed-exit attempts wherever patients are located on the ward. Further study, including a fully powered randomized controlled trial, is needed to assess effectiveness across hospital settings.

Study of the uses of Information and Communication Technologies by Pain Treatment Unit Physicians.

Adequate use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in health has been shown to save the patient and caregiver time, improve access to the health system, improve diagnosis and control of disease or treatment. All this results in cost savings, and more importantly, they help improve the quality of service and the lives of patients. The purpose of this study is to analyse the differences in the uses of this ICTs between those physicians that belong to Pain Treatment Units (PU) and other physicians that work in pain not linked to these PUs. An online survey, generated by Netquest online survey tool, was sent to both groups of professionals and the data collected was statistical analysed through a logistic regression methodology which is the Logit binomial model. Our results show that those physicians that belong to PUs use ICTs more frequently and consider it more relevant to their clinical practice.

Cost-Efficient and Multi-Functional Secure Aggregation in Large Scale Distributed Application.

Secure aggregation is an essential component of modern distributed applications and data mining platforms. Aggregated statistical results are typically adopted in constructing a data cube for data analysis at multiple abstraction levels in data warehouse platforms. Generating different types of statistical results efficiently at the same time (or referred to as enabling multi-functional support) is a fundamental requirement in practice. However, most of the existing schemes support a very limited number of statistics. Securely obtaining typical statistical results simultaneously in the distribution system, without recovering the original data, is still an open problem. In this paper, we present SEDAR, which is a SEcure Data Aggregation scheme under the Range segmentation model. Range segmentation model is proposed to reduce the communication cost by capturing the data characteristics, and different range uses different aggregation strategy. For raw data in the dominant range, SEDAR encodes them into well defined vectors to provide value-preservation and order-preservation, and thus provides the basis for multi-functional aggregation. A homomorphic encryption scheme is used to achieve data privacy. We also present two enhanced versions. The first one is a Random based SEDAR (REDAR), and the second is a Compression based SEDAR (CEDAR). Both of them can significantly reduce communication cost with the trade-off lower security and lower accuracy, respectively. Experimental evaluations, based on six different scenes of real data, show that all of them have an excellent performance on cost and accuracy.

Avoiding Biased-Feeding in the Scheduling of Collaborative Multipath TCP.

Smartphones have become the major communication and portable computing devices that access the Internet through Wi-Fi or mobile networks. Unfortunately, users without a mobile data subscription can only access the Internet at limited locations, such as hotspots. In this paper, we propose a collaborative bandwidth sharing protocol (CBSP) built on top of MultiPath TCP (MPTCP). CBSP enables users to buy bandwidth on demand from neighbors (called Helpers) and uses virtual interfaces to bind the subflows of MPTCP to avoid modifying the implementation of MPTCP. However, although MPTCP provides the required multi-homing functionality for bandwidth sharing, the current packet scheduling in collaborative MPTCP (e.g., Co-MPTCP) leads to the so-called biased-feeding problem. In this problem, the fastest link might always be selected to send packets whenever it has available cwnd, which results in other links not being fully utilized. In this work, we set out to design an algorithm, called Scheduled Window-based Transmission Control (SWTC), to improve the performance of packet scheduling in MPTCP, and we perform extensive simulations to evaluate its performance.

Moving Toward a Virtual Knowledge Platform for Faith Community Nurses.

In preparation for the development of a virtual knowledge platform for faith community nurses, a review of literature explored the prevalence and context of electronic knowledge management initiatives. The review revealed that healthcare, business, and global virtual knowledge platforms have been developed to elicit certain behaviors in users. For those who develop virtual knowledge platforms, the results are improved efficiency, innovation, accessibility, and cost savings. The main component of virtual knowledge platforms is a central repository or an infrastructure where knowledge is created, acquired, stored (documents), updated, and shared internally and externally. The refinery processes refer to technology mechanisms that make content accessible. A transparent collaboration among information technology, knowledge owners, and users is needed to successfully sustain a virtual knowledge platform. Faith community nurses often practice in isolated environments. A virtual knowledge platform where practice resources and tools are shared, and communication among peers exists, may improve knowledge and skills and result in a positive impact on patient outcomes.