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At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Perceptual and attentional effects on drivers' speed selection at curves.

This paper describes an experiment comparing the relative effectiveness of various types of warnings on drivers' speed selection at curves. The experiment compared three types of curve warnings across three different curve types in a driving simulator. All of the warnings worked reasonably well for severe curves (45 km/h), regardless of demands from a secondary (cell phone) task. For less demanding curves, only those warnings with a strong perceptual component (i.e., implicit cues) were effective in reducing drivers' curve speeds in the presence of the cell phone task. The design implications of these data appear straightforward; curve warnings that contain perceptual components or emphasise the physical features of the curve work best, particularly in cognitively demanding situations. The cell phone task added to driver workload and drivers became less responsive to primary task demands (i.e., speeds were elevated and reaction times were longer).

Adolescent↗

An analysis of inpatient nursing communications needs.

The health care environment is communications and information intensive. Nurses especially have communications as part of their routine activities, yet little is known about specific nursing communications needs and technologies that might address these needs. This project analyzed the specific communications needs of nurses at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, MA, through focus group meetings, nursing staff interviews, and direct observation of unit communications. Based on these data, an ideal requirements list for a nursing communication system was created. Data were also gathered and analyzed from units piloting cell phones as nursing communications tools. On non-cell phone units we found that the bulk of communication activity is from the front desk operations associate to the nurse through a sub-optimal overhead paging system that is often unclear or inaudible. The pilot of cellular phones has demonstrated improvements in nursing communications at MGH and there are indications that other emerging technologies will be better able to address the ideal communication needs of nurses.

Academic Medical Centers↗

Cellular telephone use and risk of acoustic neuroma.

Despite limited evidence, cellular telephones have been claimed to cause cancer, especially in the brain. In this Danish study, the authors examined the possible association between use of cellular telephones and development of acoustic neuroma. Between 2000 and 2002, they ascertained 106 incident cases and matched these persons with 212 randomly sampled, population-based controls on age and sex. The data obtained included information on use of cellular telephones from personal interviews, data from medical records, and the results of radiologic examinations. The authors obtained information on socioeconomic factors from Statistics Denmark. The overall estimated relative risk of acoustic neuroma was 0.90 (95% confidence interval: 0.51, 1.57). Use of a cell phone for 10 years or more did not increase acoustic neuroma risk over that of short-term users. Furthermore, tumors did not occur more frequently on the side of the head on which the telephone was typically used, and the size of the tumor did not correlate with the pattern of cell phone use. The results of this prospective, population-based, nationwide study, which included a large number of long-term users of cellular telephones, do not support an association between cell phone use and risk of acoustic neuroma.

Adult↗

Effect of immobilization and concurrent exposure to a pulse-modulated microwave field on core body temperature, plasma ACTH and corticosteroid, and brain ornithine decarboxylase, Fos and Jun mRNA.

Exposure of humans and rodents to radiofrequency (RF) cell phone fields has been reported to alter a number of stress- related parameters. To study this potential relationship in more detail, tube-restrained immobilized Fischer 344 rats were exposed in the near field in a dose-dependent manner to pulse-modulated (11 packets/s) digital cell phone microwave fields at 1.6 GHz in accordance with the Iridium protocol. Core body temperatures, plasma levels of the stress-induced hormones adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and corticosterone, and brain levels of ornithine decarboxylase (Odc), Fos and Jun mRNAs were measured as potential markers of stress responses mediated by RF radiation. We tested the effects of the loose-tube immobilization with and without prior conditioning throughout a 2-h period (required for near-field head exposure to RF fields), on core body temperature, plasma ACTH and corticosteroids. Core body temperature increased transiently (+/-0.3 degrees C) during the initial 30 min of loose-tube restraint in conditioned animals. When conditioned/tube-trained animals were followed as a function of time after immobilization, both the ACTH and corticosterone levels were increased by nearly 10-fold. For example, within 2-3 min, ACTH increased to 83.2 +/- 31.0 pg/dl, compared to 28.1 +/- 7.7 pg/dl for cage controls, reaching a maximum at 15-30 min (254.6 +/- 46.8 pg/dl) before returning to near resting levels by 120 min (31.2 +/- 10.2 pg/dl). However, when non-tube-trained animals were submitted to loose-tube immobilization, these animals demonstrated significantly higher (3-10-fold greater) hormone levels at 120 min than their tube-trained counterparts (313.5 +/- 54.8 compared to 31.2 +/- 10.2 pg/dl; corticosterone, 12.2 +/- 6.2 microg/dl compared to 37.1 +/- 6.4 microg/dl). Hormone levels in exposed animals were also compared to those in swim-stressed animals. Swimming stress also resulted in marked elevation in both ACTH and corticosterone levels, which were 10-20 fold higher (541.8 compared to 27.2-59.1 pg/dl for ACTH) and 2-5 fold higher (45.7 compared to 8.4- 20.0 microg/dl for corticosteroids) than the cage control animals. Three time-averaged brain SAR levels of 0.16, 1.6 and 5 W/ kg were tested in a single 2-h RF-field exposure to the Iridium cell phone field. When RF-exposed and sham-exposed (immobilized) animals were compared, no differences were seen in core body temperature, corticosterone or ACTH that could be attributed to near-field RF radiation. Levels of Odc, Fos and Jun mRNA were also monitored in brains of animals exposed to the RF field for 2 h, and they showed no differences from sham-exposed (loose-tube immobilized) animals that were due to RF-field exposure. These data suggest that a significant stress response, indicated by a transient increase in core body temperature, ACTH and corticosterone, occurred in animals placed in even the mild loose-tube immobilization required for near-field RF exposure employed here and in our other studies. Failure to adequately characterize and control this immobilization response with appropriate cage control animals, as described previously, could significantly mask any potential effects mediated by the RF field on these and other stress-related parameters. We conclude that the pulse-modulated digital Iridium RF field at SARs up to 5 W/kg is incapable of altering these stress-related responses. This conclusion is further supported by our use of an RF-field exposure apparatus that minimized immobilization stress; the use of conditioned/tube-trained animals and the measurement of hormonal and molecular markers after 2 h RF-field exposure when the stress-mediated effects were complete further support our conclusion.

Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗

Cellular phones: are they detrimental?

The issue of possible health effects of cellular phones is very much alive in the public's mind where the rapid increase in the number of the users of cell phones in the last decade has increased the exposure of people to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Health consequences of long term use of mobile phones are not known in detail but available data indicates the development of non specific annoying symptoms on acute exposure to mobile phone radiations. In an attempt to determine the prevalence of such cell phones associated health manifestations and the factors affecting their occurrence, a cross sectional study was conducted in five randomly selected faculties of Alexandria University. Where, 300 individuals including teaching staff, students and literate employee were equally allocated and randomly selected among the five faculties. Data about mobile phone's users and their medical history, their pattern of mobile usage and the possible deleterious health manifestations associated with cellular phone use was collected. The results revealed 68% prevalence of mobile phone usage, nearly three quarters of them (72.5%) were complainers of the health manifestations. They suffered from headache (43%), earache (38.3%), sense of fatigue (31.6%), sleep disturbance (29.5%), concentration difficulty (28.5%) and face burning sensation (19.2%). Both univariate and multivariate analysis were consistent in their findings. Symptomatic users were found to have significantly higher frequency of calls/day, longer call duration and longer total duration of mobile phone usage/day than non symptomatic users. For headache both call duration and frequency of calls/day were the significant predicting factors for its occurrence (chi2 = 18.208, p = 0.0001). For earache, in addition to call duration, the longer period of owning the mobile phone were significant predictors (chi2 = 16.996, p = 0.0002). Sense of fatigue was significantly affected by both call duration and age of the user (chi2 = 24.214, p = 0.0000), while burning sensation was only affected by frequency of calls/day (chi2 = 5.360, p = 0.020). According to the 95% confidence interval of frequency and duration of calls, the study recommended not to increase the call duration more than four minutes and limit their frequency to less than seven calls/day with total duration of exposure less than 22 min./day.

Adult↗

Intelligent mobile voice information centre system: Taking the emergency triage support system as an example.

According to research by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Taiwan has the highest percentage of people holding mobile (cell) phones, and every one has one or two cell phones. We usually use mobile phones to make contact with hospitals or dial 119 in an emergency. We have developed a new call flow style and combine traditional passive call flow. The system is designed with a voice menu and users can command services actively. The telephone connects to a computer server to enter the call flow module with ASR and TTS. The recognition term comes from a voice term database. The voice management center is an ER triage decision system. We have tested three scenarios which are DOA, a large number of patients and critical trauma. We measured the completion time and recognition rate for all the scenarios. The recognition rate in all three cases was above 90%. The average completion time for DOA is 38.6 seconds, for the large number of patients is 20 seconds and for the critical trauma case, the average is 252.7 seconds. It is too slow to input one patient's data but the communication transfer of the message is fast and convenient; the DOA notice only takes 38 seconds to inform medical staff, which is very efficient and medical staff believe that this can help their communication. We will continue to extend our system and further apply it to other domains. Future studies may combine the Internet platform with the WiFi phone and soft phone (Skype) and broaden the scope of the application in Taiwan.

Emergency Medical Services↗

Ultrasound image transmission via camera phones for overreading.

UNLABELLED: Emergency physicians using ultrasound frequently encounter unfamiliar findings during routine ultrasound examination. This is especially common for less experienced practitioners. OBJECTIVE: To compare high-resolution thermal printer ultrasound images and images recorded and transmitted via commercial camera cell phones. METHODS: This was a study comparing randomly selected images of actual ultrasound examinations performed in an academic level I ED with hospital-based emergency ultrasound credentialing. Two hospital credentialed emergency sonologists with extensive experience were asked to review 50 randomly selected images from actual patients as seen on a camera cell phone screen after being captured from a high-resolution thermal printout and sent to a similar phone. Reviewers recorded initial impression of the image and identified structures, measurements, and pathology. After hearing a brief clinical vignette, reviewer rated the images for image quality, detail, resolution, as previously defined, on a 10-point Likert scale. This process was then repeated with the original thermal printouts. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, agreement analysis, and the Student t test. RESULTS: Reviewers showed good interrater agreement for pathology and structure detection between phone and thermal printer images. There was no statistically significant difference in image quality, resolution, and detail between phone images and thermal printer images. However, there was statistically significantly increase in confidence in diagnosis for reviewers when using thermal printer images as compared with phone images, P = .003 and P = .02. Several phone images were felt to be suboptimal, and there was moderate agreement on these between reviewers. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasound pictures recorded by one phone and then sent to another yielded images that showed no statistically significant differences from traditional high-resolution thermal printouts in image quality, detail, and resolution. Measurements were too small to be read on the camera phones, and reviewers had statistically significantly lower confidence in their diagnosis when using the camera phones to review images.

Cell Phone↗

Development of electronic barcodes for use in plant pathology and functional genomics.

We have developed a novel 'electronic barcode' system that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, cell phones, and portable computers to link phenotypic, environmental, and genomic data. We describe a secure, inexpensive system to record and retrieve data from plant samples. It utilizes RFID tags, computers, PDAs, and cell phones to link, record, and retrieve positional, and functional genomic data. Our results suggest that RFID tags can be used in functional genomic screens to record information that is involved in plant development or disease.

Arabidopsis↗

New challenges for telephone survey research in the twenty-first century.

Telephone surveys are critical for examining cross-sectional characteristics of population subgroups, tracking trends in prevalence of conditions and risk behaviors over time, identifying risk factors associated with multiple health conditions, and assessing the effects of interventions. Technology has aided telephone research through advances such as computer-assisted telephone interviewing. However, technology such as answering machines and caller ID has contributed to declines in response rates and has increased costs of conducting telephone surveys. The exponential increase in cell phone utilization presents a challenge to the tradition of random digit dial (RDD) surveys of households. Because telephone surveys are used by other industries such as marketing and public opinion polling, the marketplace may help drive innovation and adaptation. Cell phones have made telephone communication an even greater part of the everyday culture and could make potential telephone survey respondents even more accessible to public health researchers.

Bias↗

Emerging communication technologies in emergency medical services.

Advances in communication technologies are changing the face of emergency medical services (EMS). Two communication technologies in particular--cellular-enhanced 9-1-1 service and automatic crash notification (ACN)--will have a considerable impact on EMS. Although enhanced 9-1-1 service from land-line phones is now available in nearly every EMS system across the country, enhanced 9-1-1 service from cell phones currently does not exist. With more and more emergency calls made from cell phones, the implementation of this service is a clear priority. Automatic crash notification, a quickly emerging technology, can potentially provide EMS systems with invaluable data within seconds of when a collision occurs. However, many issues with regard to ACN systems need to be addressed, including liability concerns, access to ACN data, ability of drivers to understand the ACN system, and ACN system architecture. The potential interfaces between ACN systems and EMS systems create significant opportunities to enhance EMS resource management and care of patients involved in motor vehicle crashes. With both cellular-enhanced 9-1-1 and ACN in their infancy, EMS physicians and administrators have a valuable opportunity to provide leadership in the development of these services.

Accidents, Traffic↗

Effects of remote and in-person verbal interactions on verbalization rates and attention to dynamic spatial scenes.

This study focused on how teams allocated attention between a driving-related spatial task and a verbal task, and how different kinds of verbal interactions affected performance of the driving-related task. In Experiment 1, 29 two-person teams performed an interactive verbal task while one team member also performed a simulated driving task. Of the team members performing only the verbal task, half could see their partner's spatial situation, as a car passenger can (in-person condition), and half were remotely located, similar to someone speaking to a driver using a cell-phone. Teams interacted verbally at an overall slower rate during remote than in-person interactions, suggesting that remote verbal interactions are more difficult than in-person interactions. Verbal interactions degraded situation awareness for driving-related information while performing the spatial task; and this degradation was not greater during remote than in-person interactions. Experiment 2 used a faster-paced verbal task and found greater degradation of situation awareness due to the verbal task. These findings are potentially relevant to the issue of how passenger and cell-phone conversations affect driving performance.

Accidents, Traffic↗

[Evaluation of the effects of electric and magnetic fields in humans].

During the twentieth century, environmental exposure to electromagnetic fields generated by human activity has increased regularly, at the same time as the quest for electrical energy. Therefore we are all exposed to a complex set of electric and magnetic fields of weak intensity. The levels of exposure of the general population range from 5 to 50 V/m for electric fields and from 0.01 to 0.2 micro T for magnetic fields. Fields in cause are essentially those associated to the use of the electric current (extremely low frequency, ELF: 50 Hz in France, 60 Hz in the United States) and those related to the use of cell phones (radio frequency: 900 and 1,800 MHz). The question of the possible risk on health by exposure to electric and/or magnetic fields became a concern to scientists and is now an important public debate. A number of expertises, led in particular by the WHO, leaning on the careful inspection of scientific publications from numerous countries, conclude that current data do not allow to assert the existence of sanitary effects; however our knowledge of the biologic effects of electromagnetic fields still contains certain gaps which should be filled. Indeed, the numerous epidemiological studies relative to the occurrence of cancer by exposure to electromagnetic fields are conflicting. In every case the increase of the risk, when described, is always weak. The measure of the Relative Risk (RR) which establishes the relation is approximately 2-3. At present, some data concerning the risk of childhood leukemia in the event of exposure of ELF generated in the home indicate that this risk can exist when children are chronically exposed to more than 0.4 micro T (the relative risk is in the order of 2). In the field of radio frequencies, the increasing use of cell phones (38 million users in France) and their antennae - basis are another subject of concern for the effects on health they are susceptible to produce. Large-scale studies, implying numerous countries, carried on at present within the framework of the WHO should bring elements of answer to the unresolved questions.

Cell Phone↗

Cellular phones and their hazards: the current evidence.

The past decade has seen an exponential increase globally in the use of cellular phones (popularly known as mobile or cell phones). These phones are convenient and trendy. Discarding the wire means that the communication is through electromagnetic waves, which could have potential hazards. Alarmist reports in the lay press and high profile lawsuits, particularly in the West, have attracted attention to the possible harmful effects of cellular phones. Adverse effects investigated by various clinical trials include the possible link to increased risk of vehicular accidents, leukaemias, sleep disturbances and the more serious brain tumours. Available level II evidence suggests that the only proven side-effect is an increased risk of vehicular accidents. So far, all studies have consistently negated any association between cellular phones and brain tumours. Yet, the final word remains to be said.

Accidents, Traffic↗

Cellular phones and risk of brain tumors.

As cellular telephones are a relatively new technology, we do not yet have long-term follow-up on their possible biological effects. However, the lack of ionizing radiation and the low energy level emitted from cell phones and absorbed by human tissues make it unlikely that these devices cause cancer. Moreover, several well-designed epidemiologic studies find no consistent association between cell phone use and brain cancer. It is impossible to prove that any product or exposure is absolutely safe, especially in the absence of very long-term follow-up. Accordingly, the following summary from the Food and Drug Administration Center for Devices and Radiological Health offers advice to people concerned about their risk: If there is a risk from these products--and at this point we do not know that there is--it is probably very small. But if people are concerned about avoiding even potential risks, there are simple steps they can take to do so. People who must conduct extended conversations in their cars every day could switch to a type of mobile phone that places more distance between their bodies and the source of the RF, since the exposure level drops off dramatically with distance. For example, they could switch to: a mobile phone in which the antenna is located outside the vehicle, a hand-held phone with a built-in antenna connected to a different antenna mounted on the outside of the car or built into a separate package, or a headset with a remote antenna to a mobile phone carried at the waist. Again the scientific data do not demonstrate that mobile phones are harmful. But if people are concerned about the radiofrequency energy from these products, taking the simple precautions outlined above can reduce any possible risk. In addition, people who are concerned might choose digital rather than analog telephones, since the former use lower RF levels.

Brain Neoplasms↗

Illumination-tolerant face verification of low-bit-rate JPEG2000 wavelet images with advanced correlation filters for handheld devices.

Face recognition on mobile devices, such as personal digital assistants and cell phones, is a big challenge owing to the limited computational resources available to run verifications on the devices themselves. One approach is to transmit the captured face images by use of the cell-phone connection and to run the verification on a remote station. However, owing to limitations in communication bandwidth, it may be necessary to transmit a compressed version of the image. We propose using the image compression standard JPEG2000, which is a wavelet-based compression engine used to compress the face images to low bit rates suitable for transmission over low-bandwidth communication channels. At the receiver end, the face images are reconstructed with a JPEG2000 decoder and are fed into the verification engine. We explore how advanced correlation filters, such as the minimum average correlation energy filter [Appl. Opt. 26, 3633 (1987)] and its variants, perform by using face images captured under different illumination conditions and encoded with different bit rates under the JPEG2000 wavelet-encoding standard. We evaluate the performance of these filters by using illumination variations from the Carnegie Mellon University's Pose, Illumination, and Expression (PIE) face database. We also demonstrate the tolerance of these filters to noisy versions of images with illumination variations.

Algorithms↗

Cellular telephones and driving performance: the effects of attentional demands on motor vehicle crash risk.

This study examines the effects of conversation mode and split-attention communication training on driving performance. The study is based on an experiment where drivers with and without communication training (pilots vs. nonpilots) completed a simulated driving course while involved in one of three conversation modes: no conversation, conversation with passenger, or conversation on a hands-free cellular telephone. Results indicate that cellular telephone conversations consume more attention and interfere more with driving than passenger conversations. Cell phone conversations lack the nonverbal cues available during close-contact conversations and conversation participants expend significant cognitive resources to compensate for the lack of such cues. The results also demonstrate that communication training may reduce the hazardous effects of cell phone conversations on driving performance.

Journal Article↗

Portable phones in hemodialysis units: are we interfering?

Are portable and/or cell phones too risky to use in hemodialysis units? How can electromagnetic interference affect the equipment? Is there a real concern for health care workers and patients? This article offers answers to the above questions as well as reviews the different recommendations and guidelines from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in order to formalize recommendations and help us make a decision.

Cell Phone↗

The effect of distractions on the crash types of teenage drivers.

Teenage drivers are overrepresented in crashes when compared to middle-aged drivers. Driver distraction is becoming a greater concern among this group as in-vehicle devices, opportunities for distractions, and teenage drivers' willingness to engage in these activities increase. The objective of this study was to determine how different distraction factors impact the crash types that are common among teenage drivers. A multinomial logit model was developed to predict the likelihood that a driver will be involved in one of three common crash types: an angular collision with a moving vehicle, a rear-end collision with a moving lead vehicle, and a collision with a fixed object. These crashes were evaluated in terms of four driver distraction categories: cognitive, cell phone related, in-vehicle, and passenger-related distractions. Different driver distractions have varying effects on teenage drivers' crash involvement. Teenage drivers that were distracted at an intersection by passengers or cognitively were more likely to be involved in rear-end and angular collisions when compared to fixed-object collisions. In-vehicle distractions resulted in a greater likelihood of a collision with a fixed object when compared to angular collisions. Cell phone distractions resulted in a higher likelihood of rear-end collision. The results from this study need to be evaluated with caution due to the limited number of distraction related cases available in the U.S. GES crash database. Implications for identifying and improving the reporting of driver distraction related factors are therefore discussed.

Accidents, Traffic↗