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The Internet engages us, not only because it takes us to unexpected places with content to explore, but also because the trip is complete with images and sounds. So in this multimedia wonderland, how can one find images and, as importantly, use them responsibly?
We have developed two telecare applications based on mobile telephony (WAP) and WEB. The first can be used to request Basic Life Support (BLS) guidelines any time by using a WAP device and to teach people and non-professionals involved in health care emergency situations. The second is a WEB-WAP based tool for medical data retrieval and at-home health care monitoring of chronically ill patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) or diabetes. Medical education content related to these diseases is available on the WEB and on the WAP device. The WAP application uses the features found in the last generation of mobile phones such as better multimedia information presentations, better interactivity capabilities, and enhanced ease of use. Based on these two applications, a promising platform is offered for developing applications in health care, home care, medical monitoring and health education ensuring continuity of care. In the paper we present the preliminary results of a pilot test at Thessaloniki University (Greece) where the WEB-WAP based tool is used to monitor patients with diabetes or CHF.
OBJECTIVES: a) The use of information technology (IT) based solutions for quality health delivery in regional health information networks and the study of the enabling factors for their use in a regional health care network from key classes of users such as the medical personnel and the citizens. b) Identification of potential technologies for usage from all citizens and health providers in a regional environment, in all aspects of everyday life. c) Presentation of a generic user model for reference when developing and assessing IT based health delivery solutions. METHODS: After defining the major questions to be addressed, an overview of tele-health and tele-medicine technologies and solutions currently available shall be presented. Further, a generic user model applied to the use of IT based regional health delivery solutions both for the daily life and home care, and for research and clinical routine purposes are presented. Enabling technologies for integration of different IT modules, medical data processing and management procedures and the wireless application protocol (WAP) technology is discussed. RESULTS: Different levels of user applications are presented such as mobile telephony driven health information monitoring and systems integrating electronic health care records with multimedia medical information management and processing modules. CONCLUSIONS: Although IT solutions are advanced and continue to evolve, still the user acceptance and user friendliness issues are unresolved. Mobile telecommunication solutions however may hold the key for wide scale implementation of IT solutions in regional health information networks and increased quality of health services.
OBJECTIVE: To explore the characteristic of normal voice in different age-bracket of Chinese adults and to formulate the normal reference value suited to our country at voice assessment. METHOD: We divided the adults into the youth, the middle-aged and the old groups, and analyzed normal voice samples with Dr. Speech software and computer multimedia technique and compared the following 5 parameters (Jitter, Shimmer, NNE, Fo and SDFo) of different groups divided according to one's age, sex and vowel. RESULT: There is difference among the group of age, sex and vowel in most acoustic parameters in the adults. CONCLUSION: To initiate taking multi-vowels samples and using different normal reference value and multi-parameters analysis according to the difference of age-bracket, sex and vowel in the adults.
With the use of computer image processing technology and microcirculational network analysis technology, we have developed a new system to analyze the outlook of retinal vessles quantitatively. A multimedia structure has been designed for patient's case history file, which includes the basic information of patients, the operating information during sampling and processing patient's retinal image and the result. The system includes image sampling, image displaying, image processing, parameters measuring and analyzing, reports printing and atlas management. Clinical application indicates that the system is useful to hypertension diagnosis.
Telemedicine, which began in the late 1950s, is the combination of modern technologies such as medicine, digital communications, computer and multimedia. The study of telemedicine in some developed countries has made great progress in 1990s. However it began somewhat late in our country. This article reviews the development of telemedicine and its application. The authors also point out some problems in telemedicine that need to be solved.
AIM: To observe the changes in Th2 cytokines in the liver and bone marrow of mice infected with schistosomiasis japonica. METHODS: ABC immunohistochemical staining technique and multimedia pathological picture analysis were used. Meanwhile, IL-4, IL-5 and IL-10 derived from livers and bone marrows of infected mice were observed at wk 8, 10 and 12 after infection. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: In the livers of infected mice, the levels of IL-4, IL-5 and IL-10 increased obviously with a prolongation of the infection duration, IL-4 being the highest. However, in the bone marrow of infected mice, IL-4 level increased slowly with the duration of the infection, being lower than those in the liver at wk 10 and 12 after infection. The level of IL-5 was higher than that in the liver within 12 wk. At wk 10 after infection IL-10 tended to increase, but decreased thereafter and was obviously lower than that in the liver. In mice infected with Schistosoma japonicum, the immune response occurred mainly in the liver. IL-5 in the bone marrow showed auto-secretion.
OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of pentoxifylline (PTX) on the content of hepatic TGF-beta 1, type I and type III collagen in schistosome-infected mice with liver fibrosis. METHODS: Forty mice with schistosomiasis were divided into four groups: one group as control without any treatment, other three were treated with praziquantel 500 mg/(kg.d) for 2 d, high dose PTX 360 mg/(kg.d) for 8 wk, and low dose PTX 180 mg/(kg.d) for 8 wk respectively. Immunohistochemical technique and multimedia color pathographic analysis system were applied to observe the content of hepatic TGF-beta 1, type I and type III collagen in mice infected with S. japonicum before and after treatment. RESULTS: The effect of PTX on the content of hepatic TGF-beta 1, type I and type III collagen in mice was related to the dosage of PTX. High dose PTX treatment significantly reduced the content of TGF-beta 1, type I and type III collagen compared to the control (P < 0.01), whereas no difference was found between the group of low dose PTX treatment and control (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: High dose PTX treatment could reduce the content of hepatic TGF-beta 1, type I and type III collagen significantly in schistosome-infected mice with liver fibrosis.
A practical PACS-based Endoscope Image Acquisition Workstation is here introduced. By a Multimedia Video Card, the endoscope video is digitized and captured dynamically or statically into computer. This workstation realizes a variety of functions such as the endoscope video's acquisition and display, as well as the editing, processing, managing, storage, printing, communication of related information. Together with other medical image workstation, it can make up the image sources of PACS for hospitals. In addition, it can also act as an independent endoscopy diagnostic system.
This paper introduces an endoscope workstation, which solved the weak points of multimedia endoscope database used by most hospitals. The endoscope workstation was built on pedal-switch and NTFS file system. This paper also Introduces how to make program optimal and quick inputting. The workstation has promoted the efficiency of the doctor's operation.
A general multimedia environmental fate model is presented that is capable of simulating the fate of up to four interconverting chemical species. It is an extension of the existing equilibrium criterion (EQC) fugacity model, which is limited to single-species assessments. It is suggested that multispecies chemical assessments are warranted when a degradation product of a released chemical is either more toxic or more persistent than the parent chemical or where there is cycling between species, as occurs with association, disassociation, or ionization. The model is illustratively applied to three chemicals, namely chlorpyrifos, pentachlorophenol, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, for which multispecies assessments are advisable. The model results compare favorably with field data for chlorpyrifos and pentachlorophenol, while the perfluorooctane sulfonate simulation is more speculative due to uncertainty in input parameters and the paucity of field data to validate the predictions. The model thus provides a tool for assessing the environmental fate and behavior of a group of chemicals that hitherto have not been addressed by evaluative models such as EQC.
Virtual reality, the use of computational methods to present users with a multimedia environment that simulates reality, is becoming a practical, affordable technology for the teaching and practice of clinical medicine. Although limited-fidelity virtual reality systems have been used in medical education for decades, modern, high-fidelity virtual reality systems have practical applications in areas ranging from psychiatry to surgical planning and telemedicine. Factors that limit widespread use of virtual reality in medicine include a lack of standards for the re-purposing and sharing of system components and the resultant low return on investment from custom systems. The standards issue is being addressed by economic incentives from organizations such as the U.S. military, which requires computer-based educational materials, including simulations, to be interoperable. Similarly, the low return on investment is becoming less of a factor in clinical scenarios in which virtual reality systems offer physicians and their patients experiences that are impossible or impractical to gain elsewhere.
Advances in the Internet and communication technologies have enabled many perfusion-related websites to provide detailed and reliable information to perfusionists. However, these websites are also faced with various member needs that require updating for fast, flexible responses. Despite the rapid increase in the number of these websites, little is known about the structure, performance, and effective utilization methods of such websites. This case report examines the www.perfusionkorea.org, a virtual organization that works across space and time with links strengthened by webs of communication technologies. In addition, website maintenance and resource management tasks, which are important factors for long-term survival, are discussed using the log analyzer and internet protocol tracing programs. Finally, using www.perfusionkorea.org, as a prototype of virtual organization activities, what we can expect to see more commonly in the near future, is discussed. Although we used a tremendous amount of multimedia techniques to attract members, we found that the significance of the perfusionists' website would come from active participation of members rather than a new, complicated technology or eye-catching graphics. This case report shows the synergistic effects that Korea's application of the Internet to the field of perfusion. It also suggests that new methodological strategies and approaches can be developed and tested to provide perfusionists with a direction for tomorrow's health care system.
The use of computers in the dental practice has been primarily restricted to the acquisition of billing data. Additional possibilities for use of PCs exist in diagnostic data acquisition and evaluation; clinical functional analysis seems a particularly suitable application. Such software is now available: CMDfact. Dentally, it is based on a previously developed and published examination and documentation system, the graphic user interface of which is used in the newly developed software. After the examination data have been acquired by mouse click or numerical entry, these are available for evaluation. A special function, the "Diagnosis pilot" is integrated to support the user. This helps in the assignment of the appropriate "Initial diagnoses", since it brings together the individually existing principal symptoms and suitable diagnoses for the initial diagnosis in question and also states which diagnoses "would be appropriate" for this, but are not available. With 3D animation, the software also helps the dentist to explain aspects of CMD to patients. The software also assists the dentist with a detailed multimedia help system, which provides context-sensitive help for every examination step. These help functions explain the sense of the relevant examinations, their performance and evaluation in the form of short texts and explanatory photographs and videos.
AIM: To determine the prevalence of selected health behaviours and protective factors in a representative population of New Zealand youth who attend secondary school. METHODS: The study sample comprised 12 934 Year 9 to 13 youth from 133 randomly selected secondary schools across New Zealand in 2001. A cross-sectional, anonymous, self-report survey was conducted, incorporating 523 questions in a multimedia computer assisted self-interview (M-CASI) format. RESULTS: The school response rate was 85.7% and the student response rate was 75.0%, resulting in an overall response rate of 64.3%. The final dataset comprised 9570 students (males 46.2%, females 53.8%) belonging to diverse ethnic groups (Maori 24.7%, NZ European 55.3%, Pacific 8.2%, and Asian 7.2%). Most students (males 94.2%, females 90.3%) rate their health as good or better, and 90% report the presence of a caring adult in their family or at school. More than one quarter of students (males 27.2%, females 27.6%) report riding in a car driven by a potentially intoxicated driver within the last four weeks. Students report high levels of suicidal thoughts (males 16.9%, females 29.2%), suicide attempts (males 4.7%, females 10.6%), and depressive symptoms (males 8.9%, females 18.3%). CONCLUSIONS: This survey finds that most school students are healthy, but there are areas of serious concern including driving behaviours and mental health. Students report a high prevalence of positive connections with family and school; these connections are known sources of resiliency in the lives of young people. Findings of the current study support the implementation of the New Zealand Government's newly released youth policies: the Youth Development Strategy Aotearoa and the Youth Health Action Plan.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the set-up and preliminary performance of a digital radiology conference system and its characteristics. METHODS: The imaging system included a dual-screen image-text workstation with a Matrox G450 demonstration dual-head card, two multimedia projectors, a large screen, and a line-pair and grey scale test card. Patient information on radiology information system (RIS) and images on picture archiving and communication system (PACS) were fetched with GE Radworks software based on Intranet and PACS. The fetching velocity and resolution and grey scale of the images were measured. RESULTS: Patient information in the form of texts and images were demonstrated successfully on two screens with Matrox G450 demonstration dual-head card and switched rapidly between text-image two-screen and image two-screen. The image fetching velocity was fast, the resolution was high, and the grey scale was good. CONCLUSION: The digital conference radiology system is good, and should be popularized.
AIM: To design the program of computer multimedia case history (MCH) for collection, storage and analysis of information about the patient including diagnostic images; to test MCH for application in telemedical consulting and control over valid conduction of the treatment protocol. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Brief representation of information is reached by integrated multilevel placement of the data on common time axis. Dynamics of the selected parameters is represented as normalized diagrams in the same system axes. Electron tables are filled either by hand or import of the data from individual electron file of all the information about the patient. Diagnostic images and conclusions are obtained from local computer bases of the diagnostic units. Inexpensive commonly used computers allows one to input digital micro- and macrophotos, x-ray images, etc. Monitor information is available from the universal computer net directly from the monitors Geolink-M. RESULTS: MCH was tested in the Hematological Research Center of RAMS. In cooperation with Bryansk diagnostic center N 1 telemedical consulting and some data bases were perfected. The MCH system joints routine activity of the clinic without any problems raising quality of the patients management, facilitating the access to therapeutic and diagnostic information and its analysis. On-line breaking the limits of the controlled parameters and protocols is detected automatically. These events are emphasized by "blocking questions" which must be worked out by the user. The information on the patient can be fully stored on CD-ROM in line with the MCH program providing organization of the data. CONCLUSION: The system is introduced which collects medical information from various sourses and builds up comprehensive representation of the data on the same time axis. The system provides control over implimintation of the protocols of the patients' management, gives a convenient access to medical information, ensures its reliable storage and availability in case of the patients transfer to other medical institutions, facilitates analysis of clinical cases, conduction of medical consulting.
A multimedia communication campaign was conducted between 1988 and 1989 to promote family planning among men in Zimbabwe. The campaign consisted of a 52-episode semiweekly radio soap opera, about 60 motivational talks, and two pamphlets about contraceptive methods. Changes over time were measured by comparing a subset of a follow-up survey conducted from October to December 1989 to a baseline survey conducted from April to June 1988. Men exposed to the campaign were also compared to men who were not exposed. The follow-up survey revealed that the campaign reached 52 percent of men aged 18 to 55. Among married Shona-speaking men, use of modern contraceptive methods increased from about 56 percent to 59 percent during the campaign. Condom use increased from about 5 percent to 10 percent. Awareness and current use of modern contraceptives was also higher among men exposed to the campaign, primarily because of their greater awareness of condoms. Men exposed to the campaign were significantly more likely than other men to make the decision to use family planning and to say that both spouses should decide how many children to have.