University of Macau

About: University of Macau is a education organization based out in Macao, Macau, China. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Control theory. The organization has 6636 authors who have published 18324 publications receiving 327384 citations. The organization is also known as: UM & UMAC.

Internet of Things for In-Home Health Monitoring Systems: Current Advances, Challenges and Future Directions

Abstract: Internet of Things has been one of the catalysts in revolutionizing conventional healthcare services. With the growing society, traditional healthcare systems reach their capacity in providing sufficient and high-quality services. The world is facing the aging population and the inherent need for assisted-living environments for senior citizens. There is also a commitment by national healthcare organizations to increase support for personalized, integrated care to prevent and manage chronic conditions. Many applications related to In-Home Health Monitoring have been introduced over the last few decades, thanks to the advances in mobile and Internet of Things technologies and services. Such advances include improvements in optimized network architecture, indoor networks coverage, increased device reliability and performance, ultra-low device cost, low device power consumption, and improved device and network security and privacy. Current studies of in-home health monitoring systems presented many benefits including improved safety, quality of life and reduction in hospitalization and cost. However, many challenges of such a paradigm shift still exist, that need to be addressed to support scale-up and wide uptake of such systems, including technology acceptance and adoption by patients, healthcare providers and policymakers. The aim of this paper is three folds: First, review of key factors that drove the adoption and growth of the IoT-based in-home remote monitoring; Second, present the latest advances of IoT based in-home remote monitoring system architecture and key building blocks; Third, discuss future outlook and our recommendations of the in-home remote monitoring applications going forward.

A Bi-Virus Competing Spreading Model with Generic Infection Rates

Abstract: Due to widespread applications, the multi-virus competing spreading dynamics has recently aroused considerable interests. To our knowledge, all previous competing spreading models assume infection rates that are each linear in the virus occupancy probabilities of the individuals in a population. As linear infection rates are overestimation of real infection rates, in some situations these models cannot accurately predict the spreading process of multiple competing viruses. This work takes the first step toward enhancing the accuracy of multi-virus competing spreading models. A continuous-time bilayer-network-based bi-virus competing spreading model with generic infection rates is proposed. Criteria for the extinction of both viruses and for the survival of only one virus are presented, respectively. Numerical examples show that (1) if the generic bi-virus spreading model with linear infection rates predicts that the fraction of nodes infected with some virus would approach zero, the prediction of the fraction is accurate, and (2) if the scenario-relevant generic infection rates could be estimated accurately, the resulting model would be able to accurately forecast the evolutionary process of a pair of competing viruses.

Saponins of Panax notoginseng: chemistry, cellular targets and therapeutic opportunities in cardiovascular diseases

Abstract: Introduction: Among the notable breakthroughs in the past two decades of research in natural drug discovery is the identification of saponins (saponins in Panax notoginseng, PNS) as the primary ingredient of Panax notoginseng, an iconic herbal medicine in East Asia. Increasing evidences suggest that PNS have versatile effects against a variety of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), leading to four clinical trials completed and/or underway. There is a timely need to summarize our current understanding of these natural compounds. Areas covered: In this review, the authors summarize and critically appraise the latest literature (mainly since 2008), which study PNS as potential therapeutic agents against CVDs. Furthermore, they introduce the structures of major PNS types, analyze their cellular targets and associated signaling pathways and discuss the emerging opportunities for their clinical applications. A major focus here is on how these compounds affect the cardiovascular system via diverse mechanisms of acti...