2D-Tasks for Cognitive Rehabilitation

Neuropsychological Rehabilitation is a complex clinic process which tries to restore or compensate cognitive and behavioral disorders in people suffering from a central nervous system injury. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Biomedical Engineering play an essential role in this field, allowing improvement and expansion of present rehabilitation programs. This paper presents a set of cognitive rehabilitation 2D-Tasks for patients with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI). These tasks allow a high degree of personalization and individualization in therapies, based on the opportunities offered by new technologies.

Entornos virtuales de vídeo interactivo para neurorrehabilitación cognitiva

En pocos años, la discapacidad de origen cognitivo será uno de los principales problemas de salud. El déficit cognitivo influye en la ejecución de todas las actividades de la vida diaria. Pacientes con una afección de este tipo ven alterados su entorno social y familiar. Por todo ello, se hace imprescindible el desarrollo de programas de rehabilitación que permitan minimizar las consecuencias de las lesiones adquiridas y restituir o compensar las funciones afectadas. En la actualidad nos encontramos en un momento de cambio en las metodologías de la neurorrehabilitación, donde los entornos virtuales digitales interactivos son una fuente de innovación y una ventana terapéutica para la generación de nuevas estrategias basadas en una rehabilitación personalizada, monitorizada y ubicua, con la que lograr el máximo nivel de realización en las actividades de vida diaria. En este trabajo de investigación se plantea el uso del vídeo interactivo como medio tecnológico para realizar las terapias de rehabilitación cognitiva. Se presenta una prueba de concepto de una actividad de vida diaria y su posterior análisis por el equipo clínico del Instituí Guttmann. Los resultados preliminares apoyan su uso para alcanzar una rehabilitación basada en el nuevo paradigma.

Desarrollo de un modelo para la caracterización termoeconómica de ciclos combinados de turbinas de gas y de vapor en condiciones de carga variable

En la actualidad, el interés por las plantas de potencia de ciclo combinado de gas y vapor ha experimentado un notable aumento debido a su alto rendimiento, bajo coste de generación y rápida construcción. El objetivo fundamental de la tesis es profundizar en el conocimiento de esta tecnología, insuficientemente conocida hasta el momento debido al gran número de grados de libertad que existen en el diseño de este tipo de instalaciones. El estudio se realizó en varias fases. La primera consistió en analizar y estudiar las distintas tecnologías que se pueden emplear en este tipo de centrales, algunas muy recientes o en fase de investigación, como las turbinas de gas de geometría variable, las turbinas de gas refrigeradas con agua o vapor del ciclo de vapor o las calderas de paso único que trabajan con agua en condiciones supercríticas. Posteriormente se elaboraron los modelos matemáticos que permiten la simulación termodinámica de cada uno de los componentes que integran las plantas, tanto en el punto de diseño como a cargas parciales. Al mismo tiempo, se desarrolló una metodología novedosa que permite resolver el sistema de ecuaciones que resulta de la simulación de cualquier configuración posible de ciclo combinado. De esa forma se puede conocer el comportamiento de cualquier planta en cualquier punto de funcionamiento. Por último se desarrolló un modelo de atribución de costes para este tipo de centrales. Con dicho modelo, los estudios se pueden realizar no sólo desde un punto de vista termodinámico sino también termoeconómico, con lo que se pueden encontrar soluciones de compromiso entre rendimiento y coste, asignar costes de producción, determinar curvas de oferta, beneficios económicos de la planta y delimitar el rango de potencias donde la planta es rentable. El programa informático, desarrollado en paralelo con los modelos de simulación, se ha empleado para obtener resultados de forma intensiva. El estudio de los resultados permite profundizar ampliamente en el conocimiento de la tecnología y, así, desarrollar una metodología de diseño de este tipo de plantas bajo un criterio termoeconómico. ABSTRACT The growing energy demand and the need of shrinking costs have led to the design of high efficiency and quick installation power plants. The success of combined cycle gas turbine power plants lies on their high efficiency, low cost and short construction lead time. The main objective of the work is to study in detail this technology, which is not thoroughly known owing to the great number of degrees of freedom that exist in the design of this kind of power plants. The study is divided into three parts. Firstly, the different technologies and components that could be used in any configuration of a combined cycle gas turbine power plant are studied. Some of them could be of recent technology, such as the variable inlet guide vane compressors, the H-technology for gas turbine cooling or the once-through heat recovery steam generators, used with water at supercritical conditions. Secondly, a mathematical model has been developed to simulate at full and part load the components of the power plant. At the same time, a new methodology is proposed in order to solve the equation system resulting for any possible power plant configuration. Therefore, any combined cycle gas turbine could be simulated at any part load condition. Finally a themoeconomic model is proposed. This model allows studying the power plant not only from a thermodynamic point of view but also from a thermoeconomic one. Likewise, it allows determining the generating costs or the cash flow, thus achieving a trade off between efficiency and cost. Likewise, the model calculates the part load range where the power plant is profitable. Once the thermodynamic and thermoeconomic models are developed, they are intensively used in order to gain knowledge in the combined cycle gas turbine technology and, in this way, to propose a methodology aimed at the design of this kind of power plants from a thermoeconomic point of view.

Hacia el concepto de moda sostenible

¿Cómo se puede establecer un “consumo responsable” en moda? Procesos de creación y nuevos hábitos de consumo se suman para construir un panorama más razonable que haga posible un sistema de la moda sostenible

Integración de tecnologías eye-tracking con vídeos interactivos para neurorrehabilitación cognitiva

La integración de las nuevas tecnologías en el proceso de rehabilitación permite la generación de terapias personalizadas, ubicuas y basadas en la evidencia. Tecnologías como el vídeo interactivo son propicias para el desarrollo de entornos virtuales en los que el paciente se ve inmerso dentro de actividades de la vida diaria en los que tiene que lograr un objetivo ecológico en un contexto seguro, controlado y adaptado a su perfil disfuncional. Dentro de este marco de rehabilitación la interacción visual paciente-entorno virtual se entiende como el mecanismo de comunicación principal, siendo además la atención visual un reflejo del estado cognitivo del paciente. El trabajo presentado en este artículo permite la integración de un sistema de eye-tracking con un entorno de neurorrehabilitación basado en vídeo interactivo. El objetivo último del sistema es la monitorización en tiempo real de la atención visual del usuario durante el proceso de neurorrehabilitación. Esta monitorización permite no sólo reproducir la ejecución de la actividad junto con el foco de la mirada, sino también detectar faltas de atención por parte del usuario, que permiten al vídeo interactivo reaccionar y adaptar la presentación de estímulos para ayudar a centrar su atención y así completar el objetivo de la actividad.

Identificación de Oportunidades de Mejora en Procesos de Neurorrehabilitación

El modelado de procesos es una técnica de gestión empresarial destinada a la mejora continua de los procesos de una organización, como base operativa y estructural de la misma. En el ámbito de la Neurorrehabilitación, crece el interés por los mapas de procesos como herramienta de comprensión, representación y análisis de los procesos clínicos. El presente trabajo se centra en la identificación de oportunidades de mejora de las actividades de rehabilitación, con el objetivo de definir nuevas estrategias de monitorización y automatización que permitan su evolución hacia el nuevo modelo de rehabilitación ubicua, personalizada y basada en la evidencia.

Modelling sugar beet water use in Spain

Crop production has a great contribution to water use and abstraction. Sugar beet is an important crop in irrigated land in Spain and covers 70.000 Ha. Crop and resources management are key factors for a sustainable agriculture. The aim of this work is to mode the sugar beet crop growth and water consumption in order to quantify crop water use and virtual water content in different growing conditions.

Las tres purpuras de Alzira. Bernardo, Maria y Gracia vida y martirio de los tres santos hermanos ...

Contiene: Fe de erratas, Indice de las cosas contenidas a dos col., p. 130-139 ; Indice locorum sacrae, p. 140-146 ; Indice axiomatum, p. 147-150 ; Biografía de S. Bernardo en latín, p. 151-152

Cognitive neurorehabilitation based on interactive video technology

Cognitive impairment is the main cause of disability in developed societies. New interactive technologies help therapists in neurorehabilitation in order to increase patients’ autonomy and quality of life. This work proposes Interactive Video (IV) as a technology to develop cognitive rehabilitation tasks based on Activities of Daily Living (ADL). ADL cognitive task has been developed and integrated with eye-tracking technology for task interaction and patients’ performance monitoring.

Knowledge representation tool for cognitiveprocesses modeling

In the last decades, neuropsychological theories tend to consider cognitive functions as a result of the whole brainwork and not as individual local areas of its cortex. Studies based on neuroimaging techniques have increased in the last years, promoting an exponential growth of the body of knowledge about relations between cognitive functions and brain structures [1]. However, so fast evolution make complicated to integrate them in verifiable theories and, even more, translated in to cognitive rehabilitation. The aim of this research work is to develop a cognitive process-modeling tool. The purpose of this system is, in the first term, to represent multidimensional data, from structural and functional connectivity, neuroimaging, data from lesion studies and derived data from clinical intervention [2][3]. This will allow to identify consolidated knowledge, hypothesis, experimental designs, new data from ongoing studies and emerging results from clinical interventions. In the second term, we pursuit to use Artificial Intelligence to assist in decision making allowing to advance towards evidence based and personalized treatments in cognitive rehabilitation. This work presents the knowledge base design of the knowledge representation tool. It is compound of two different taxonomies (structure and function) and a set of tags linking both taxonomies at different levels of structural and functional organization. The remainder of the abstract is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the web application used for gathering necessary information for generating the knowledge base, Section 3 describes knowledge base structure and finally Section 4 expounds reached conclusions.

Neuroanatomic-based detection algorithm for automatic labeling of brain structures in brain injury

The number and grade of injured neuroanatomic structures and the type of injury determine the degree of impairment after a brain injury event and the recovery options of the patient. However, the body of knowledge and clinical intervention guides are basically focused on functional disorder and they still do not take into account the location of injuries. The prognostic value of location information is not known in detail either. This paper proposes a feature-based detection algorithm, named Neuroanatomic-Based Detection Algorithm (NBDA), based on SURF (Speeded Up Robust Feature) to label anatomical brain structures on cortical and sub-cortical areas. Themain goal is to register injured neuroanatomic structures to generate a database containing patient?s structural impairment profile. This kind of information permits to establish a relation with functional disorders and the prognostic evolution during neurorehabilitation procedures.

A graphical tool for designing interactive video cognitive rehabilitation therapies

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) has become one of the most common causes of neurological disability in developed countries. Cognitive disorders result in a loss of independence and therefore patients? quality of life. Cognitive rehabilitation aims to promote patients? skills to achieve their highest degree of personal autonomy. New technologies such as interactive video, whereby real situations of daily living are reproduced within a controlled virtual environment, enable the design of personalized therapies with a high level of generalization and a great ecological validity. This paper presents a graphical tool that allows neuropsychologists to design, modify, and configure interactive video therapeutic activities, through the combination of graphic and natural language. The tool has been validated creating several Activities of Daily Living and a preliminary usability evaluation has been performed showing a good clinical acceptance in the definition of complex interactive video therapies for cognitive rehabilitation.

Monitoring visual attention on a neurorehabilitation environment based on interactive video

The use of new technologies in neurorehabilitation has led to higher intensity rehabilitation processes, extending therapies in an economically sustainable way. Interactive Video (IV) technology allows therapists to work with virtual environments that reproduce real situations. In this way, patients deal with Activities of the Daily Living (ADL) immersed within enhanced environments [1]. These rehabilitation exercises, which focus in re-learning lost functions, will try to modulate the neural plasticity processes [2]. This research presents a system where a neurorehabilitation IV-based environment has been integrated with an eye-tracker device in order to monitor and to interact using visual attention. While patients are interacting with the neurorehabilitation environment, their visual behavior is closely related with their cognitive state, which in turn mirrors the brain damage condition suffered by them [3] [4]. Patients’ gaze data can provide knowledge on their attention focus and their cognitive state, as well as on the validity of the rehabilitation tasks proposed [5].

Clustering techniques for patients suffering acquired brain injury inneuro personal trainer

The study of the effectiveness of the cognitive rehabilitation processes and the identification of cognitive profiles, in order to define comparable populations, is a controversial area, but concurrently it is strongly needed in order to improve therapies. There is limited evidence about cognitive rehabilitation efficacy. Many of the trials conclude that in spite of an apparent clinical good response, differences do not show statistical significance. The common feature in all these trials is heterogeneity among populations. In this situation, observational studies on very well controlled cohort of studies, together with innovative methods in knowledge extraction, could provide methodological insights for the design of more accurate comparative trials. Some correlation studies between neuropsychological tests and patients capacities have been carried out -1---2- and also correlation between tests and morphological changes in the brain -3-. The procedures efficacy depends on three main factors: the affectation profile, the scheduled tasks and the execution results. The relationship between them makes up the cognitive rehabilitation as a discipline, but its structure is not properly defined. In this work we present a clustering method used in Neuro Personal Trainer (NPT) to group patients into cognitive profiles using data mining techniques. The system uses these clusters to personalize treatments, using the patients assigned cluster to select which tasks are more suitable for its concrete needs, by comparing the results obtained in the past by patients with the same profile.