The increasing ageing global population is causing an upsurge in ailments related to old age, primarily dementia and Alzheimer's disease, frailty, Parkinson's, and cardiovascular disease, but also a ...general need for general eldercare as well as active and healthy ageing. In turn, there is a need for constant monitoring and assistance, intervention, and support, causing a considerable financial and human burden on individuals and their caregivers. Interconnected sensing technology, such as IoT wearables and devices, present a promising solution for objective, reliable, and remote monitoring, assessment, and support through ambient assisted living. This paper presents a review of such solutions including both earlier review studies and individual case studies, rapidly evolving in the last decade. In doing so, it examines and categorizes them according to common aspects of interest such as health focus, from specific ailments to general eldercare; IoT technologies, from wearables to smart home sensors; aims, from assessment to fall detection and indoor positioning to intervention; and experimental evaluation participants duration and outcome measures, from acceptability to accuracy. Statistics drawn from this categorization aim to outline the current state-of-the-art, as well as trends and effective practices for the future of effective, accessible, and acceptable eldercare with technology.
The primary objective of this work was the examination of modified activated carbons with tailored adsorption capacity properties. Production of activated carbons with desired properties was ...accomplished by modification of surface functional groups and introduction of acidic/basic properties. Modification of an activated carbon was performed using partial oxygen gasification, nitric acid treatment, urea impregnation followed by pyrolysis and pyrolysis in a urea saturated stream. The surface properties of the produced samples were estimated by the multibasic titration method of Boehm and by the CO/CO
2 gas evolution profiles, while pore structure development was measured by the N
2 and CO
2 gas adsorption isotherms. Oxygen gasification resulted in samples with surface area slightly lower that the raw activated carbon; the introduction of surface functional groups depended upon the severity of the treatment: carbonylic and phenolic type groups were introduced in all partially gasified samples, while low temperatures and short reaction times enhanced the basic character of the carbon. However, nitric acid treatment resulted in the introduction of high nitrogen amounts in the samples, the reduction of surface area and the development of a surface containing carboxylic, lactonic, phenolic and carbonylic groups with negligible HCl neutralization capacity. Treatment of activated carbon by urea supported the formation of basic groups and carbonyls. The presence of surface functional groups affected the adsorption capacity of the produced samples for the removal of specific pollutants such as phenols. Urea treated samples with a basic character and high nitrogen content presented the highest phenol uptake capacity; nitric acid treated carbons and oxygen gasified samples presented an acidic surface functionality and a low phenol adsorption capacity. The beneficial role of nitrogen on phenol adsorption was attributed to adsorbate–adsorbent interactions.
Taking under consideration the environmental boundaries but also the minimization of operating cost, End of Life Tyres (ELTs) depolymerization technology, via pyrolysis, can be characterized viable, ...under the condition of the effective valorization of every produced stream. This study aims to investigate which factors determine the path to activated carbon production from tyre-derived char, assuring that the received product will be of accepted quality, thus setting it as a commercially competitive product. To obtain current information on char activation, a comprehensive literature review was undertaken. An assessment based on process parameters, economic aspects and proposed uses of the produced activated carbons, was also presented. The proper selection of activation conditions (time, temperature, activating agent) results to a carbon adsorbent with prescript physical and chemical properties, suitable for specific applications. Towards energy self-sufficiency of the whole plant, a number of recommendations were made for the dual pyrolysis-activation scheme. Eventually, this would be an extra asset for the proposed valorization route of ELTs, via pyrolysis process.
Olive-seed waste residue char was employed as the precursor for the production of activated carbons with KOH activation. The effects of activation time and activation temperature on porosity of the ...prepared carbons were studied. The products were characterized by N
2 adsorption at 77
K, using the BET,
α
s and Dubinin–Radushkevich methods while the adsorption capacity from liquid phase was demonstrated by the isotherms of methylene blue adsorption from aqueous solutions. In comparison with the commercial grade carbons, the activated carbons from olive-seed waste residue showed considerably higher surface areas and can be characterized as “super-activated carbons”. The pores of the produced carbons are composed of micropores at the early stages of activation and of both micropores and mesopores at the late stages. Surface area and the pore volume were found to increase with the degree of burn-off, i.e. the activation time and temperature. Methylene blue removal capacity appeared to be comparable to commercial products and even higher at high degrees of activation.
A detailed economic evaluation of activated carbons production process from various raw materials is undertaken using the conventional economic indices (ROI, POT, and NPV). The fundamental factors ...that affect production cost were taken into account. It is concluded that for an attractive investment in activated carbons production one should select the raw material with the highest product yield, adopt a chemical activation production scheme and should base product price on product-surface area (or more generally on product adsorption capacity for the adsorbate in consideration).
A raw material that well meets the above-mentioned criteria is petroleum coke but others are also promising (charcoals, and carbon black). Production cost then can be optimized by determining its minimum value of cost that results from the intercept between the curves of plant capacity and raw material cost – if any. Taking into account the complexity of such a techno-economic analysis, a useful suggestion could be to start the evaluations from a plant capacity corresponding to the break-even point, i. e. the capacity at which income equals production cost.
Stress is a common problem that affects most people with dementia and their caregivers. Stress symptoms for people with dementia are often measured by answering a checklist of questions by the ...clinical staff who work closely with the person with the dementia. This process requires a lot of effort with continuous observation of the person with dementia over the long term. This article investigates the effectiveness of using a straightforward method, based on a single wristband sensor to classify events of "Stressed" and "Not stressed" for people with dementia. The presented system calculates the stress level as an integer value from zero to five, providing clinical information of behavioral patterns to the clinical staff. Thirty staff members participated in this experiment, together with six residents suffering from dementia, from two nursing homes. The residents were equipped with the wristband sensor during the day, and the staff were writing observation notes during the experiment to serve as ground truth. Experimental evaluation showed relationships between staff observations and sensor analysis, while stress level thresholds adjusted to each individual can serve different scenarios.
Activities of daily living (ADLs) are fundamental routine tasks that the majority of physically and mentally healthy people can independently execute. In this paper, we present a semantic framework ...for detecting problems in ADLs execution, monitored through smart home sensors. In the context of this work, we conducted a pilot study, gathering raw data from various sensors and devices installed in a smart home environment. The proposed framework combines multiple Semantic Web technologies (i.e., ontology, RDF, triplestore) to handle and transform these raw data into meaningful representations, forming a knowledge graph. Subsequently, SPARQL queries are used to define and construct explicit rules to detect problematic behaviors in ADL execution, a procedure that leads to generating new implicit knowledge. Finally, all available results are visualized in a clinician dashboard. The proposed framework can monitor the deterioration of ADLs performance for people across the dementia spectrum by offering a comprehensive way for clinicians to describe problematic behaviors in the everyday life of an individual.
Respiratory diseases represent a significant global burden, necessitating efficient diagnostic methods for timely intervention. Digital biomarkers based on audio, acoustics, and sound from the upper ...and lower respiratory system, as well as the voice, have emerged as valuable indicators of respiratory functionality. Recent advancements in machine learning (ML) algorithms offer promising avenues for the identification and diagnosis of respiratory diseases through the analysis and processing of such audio-based biomarkers. An ever-increasing number of studies employ ML techniques to extract meaningful information from audio biomarkers. Beyond disease identification, these studies explore diverse aspects such as the recognition of cough sounds amidst environmental noise, the analysis of respiratory sounds to detect respiratory symptoms like wheezes and crackles, as well as the analysis of the voice/speech for the evaluation of human voice abnormalities. To provide a more in-depth analysis, this review examines 75 relevant audio analysis studies across three distinct areas of concern based on respiratory diseases' symptoms: (a) cough detection, (b) lower respiratory symptoms identification, and (c) diagnostics from the voice and speech. Furthermore, publicly available datasets commonly utilized in this domain are presented. It is observed that research trends are influenced by the pandemic, with a surge in studies on COVID-19 diagnosis, mobile data acquisition, and remote diagnosis systems.
In this study nanocomposites consisting of an epoxy resin and ceramic zinc ferrite nanoparticles have been successfully developed and investigated morphologically and structurally by means of ...scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra. The thermal properties of the nanocomposites were studied via differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The thermomechanical characterization of the fabricated nanocomposites was studied via dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and the magneto-dielectric response was assessed by means of a broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) and by employing a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer. Data analysis demonstrates that the incorporation of nanoinclusions into the matrix improves both the thermomechanical and the dielectric properties of the systems, as indicated by the increase of the storage modulus, the real part of dielectric permittivity and conductivity values with filler content, while at the same time induces magnetic properties into the matrix. Zinc ferrite nanoparticles and their respective nanocomposites exhibit superparamagnetic behavior at room temperature. Three relaxations were recorded in the dielectric spectra of all systems; originating from the filler and the polymer matrix, namely interfacial polarization, glass to rubber transition of the polymer matrix and the reorientation of small polar side groups of the polymer chain.
In this study, series of nanocomposites consisting of an epoxy matrix and different carbon nanoinclusions (Carbon Black, Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNT), Graphene nanoplatelets (GnP) and ...nanodiamonds) were developed, and their electrical response was examined in wide frequency and temperature ranges. Depending on the filler type and concentration, nanocomposites exhibited either insulator to conductor transitions or dielectric relaxation phenomena. Recorded relaxations were attributed to interfacial polarization, glass to rubber transition and motion of polar side groups. Nanocomposites integrating carbon black or MWCNTs exhibit an abrupt increase in permittivity and conductivity at a critical concentration (or percolation threshold). The insulator to conductor transition is described by means of percolation theory and critical concentration and exponent are determined. Conductance mechanisms are investigated in all sets of nanocomposites, by accounting the influence of temperature on conductivity and by applying the Variable Range Hopping model. Further, analysis reveals hopping conductivity as the main charge migration process below critical concentration, while hopping and metallic-like conduction coexist above it.
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