FAA beta testing B4UFLY smartphone app to keep drone pilots informed

 

The FAA is beta testing a smartphone app to inform drone pilots of any restrictions or requirements in effect at a location (Credit: Noel McKeegan/Gizmag.com) Image Gallery (5 images) Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have quickly gained popularity with the public. And as is so often the case with rapidly advancing technologies, it can be hard for the public to know legally what they can and can't do with the technology – or in the case of drones, where they can and can't fly. To help dispel confusion surrounding drone flights, the US FAA is beta testing its B4UFLY smartphone app, which tells users about any restrictions on unmanned aircraft they might want to fly in a particular area. B4UFLY was released on August 28 to about 1,000 beta users from the public, government, and industry for a 60-day trial. With drones recently caught interfering with rescue services at fires and security alerts prompted by a rash of UAV sightings by pilots at airports, the FAA says the aim of the app is to encourage voluntary compliance with aviation regulations by packaging real-time, publicly available information in a user-friendly format. Based on standing laws and regulations as well as Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR), the app provides red, orange, and, yellow status warnings regarding specific locations, the parameters of the warning, a Planner Mode for future flights and locations, and links to FAA information resources. "The FAA is responsible for ensuring the safety of the flying public and people and property on the ground," says the authority. "We believe a key way to help people fly unmanned aircraft safely is to provide situational awareness to let them know where it’s not a good idea to fly because there might be a conflict in the airspace they’re flying in. That’s exactly what B4UFLY is designed to do." The app is currently for iOS only and not yet available in the App Store, but the FAA says that a later app for general release will include both iOS and Android versions. Source: FAA

Study reports few errors when applied to patients with chronic kidney disease

 

It can be difficult for patients with complex chronic diseases to take medications appropriately, but a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) finds that tailored mobile health technologies can help ensure the safety of their care. To determine whether user-friendly mobile technologies might help keep patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on track with their medications, Clarissa Jonas Diamantidis, MD, MHS, of the Duke University School of Medicine, and her colleagues at the University of Maryland School of Medicine evaluated the home-based usability of a mobile health medication inquiry system (MIS) that they designed as a patient-centered medication safeguard. The MIS application responds to study medications with 3 potential responses: "not safe in chronic kidney disease," "use with caution, speak with your healthcare provider," and "safe in chronic kidney disease." The investigators randomized 20 patients with CKD to a text-based MIS platform or a personal digital assistant (PDA)-based MIS platform. Participants were then mailed 3 randomly selected sample prescription pill bottles and asked to input the medication into the MIS and record the system responses to determine their appropriateness in CKD. "General usability of the MIS application was high, regardless of platform type, with only a 5% error rate," said Dr. Diamantidis. Two errors occurred in the text-based group and 1 in the PDA-based group. "The majority of participants found the application easy to use and helpful in avoiding the use of harmful medications, and they would recommend the application to others." Despite general proficiency with the mobile health MIS application, the study uncovered variable electronic health literacy among patients. When participants were administered the eHealth Literacy Scale, which evaluates individuals' perceived abilities to effectively apply electronic health information to health problems, the majority of participants felt the Internet was a useful source of health information, but only about half felt they knew where to find helpful health resources on the Internet. Even fewer reported being able to tell high quality from low quality Internet-based health information. In an accompanying editorial, Bryan Becker, MD, of the University of Chicago, noted that harnessing mobile technology to better treat CKD is logical. "What Diamantidis and colleagues have done is extend that treatment platform beyond traditional care settings into the home," he wrote. "They have used a tool to create a small but very important first step in achieving patient engagement and patient satisfaction in self-care." Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by American Society of Nephrology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal References: Clarissa J. Diamantidis, Jennifer S. Ginsberg, Marni Yoffe, Lisa Lucas, Divya Prakash, Saurabh Aggarwal, Wanda Fink, Stefan Becker, and Jeffrey C. Fink. Remote Usability Testing and Satisfaction with a Mobile Health Medication Inquiry System in CKD. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, July 2015 DOI: 10.2215/CJN.12591214 Bryan N. Becker. Medication Safety Mobile Health = Patient Engagement in Chronic Kidney Disease. Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, July 2015 DOI: 10.2215/CJN.06970615

Detecting eye diseases using a Smartphone

 

Researchers at the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina developed software that detects eye diseases such as diabetic macular edema using a smartphone. The system is aimed at general physicians who could detect the condition and refer the patient to a specialist. The software was developed in collaboration with biomedical engineers from the ITESM and uses the camera of the phone to detect any abnormality in the thickness of the retina. "The idea is to detect and prevent diseases in general practice. We are not replacing the specialist, we want to know which patients have a disease and make an early detection," says Dr. Juan Carlos Altamirano Vallejo, medical director of the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina. He adds that the technology is designed for general physicians, "who support the health system in Mexico and, even without in-depth knowledge of ophthalmology, can, with this tool, detect certain abnormalities and send the patient to the specialist." Using the software will reduce costs and streamline the Mexican health system. With just having the app on the cell phone and focusing the camera on the eye, immediate results will be obtained. "We start off the fact that it is much cheaper to prevent than to cure blindness." The app also has utility in rural communities, where expertise areas such as ophthalmology have not arrive yet because equipment to detect these diseases are expensive and so far only the visiting specialist can do this kind of diagnosis. "It will help those that when they go to the eye doctor are already blind, we needed to go a step back, to know who is at risk and needs to go to a specialist. Not wait for a doctor," says Altamirano Vallejo. Software development has been satisfactory and is expected to soon be marketed and incorporated the basic health system. Altamirano Vallejo comments that the Medical and Surgical Center for Retina is a small company with just ten employees dedicated to ophthalmology and retina special medical care. It it also dedicated to biomedical and pharmaceutical research, to develop diagnostics and equipment, applicable to society. "We want to give back to our community everything it gives to us, trying to pay the mortgage we all have with Mexico." Story Source: The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Investigación y Desarrollo. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Smartphone app to cut risk of power outages

 

Fri, 11/14/2014 - 10:45am

Carl Blesch, Rutgers Univ.

 

Volunteers using smartphones equipped with the Rutgers-developed app combed the streets of Warren Township to document hazards to utility lines. Image: Janne LindqvistAn easy-to-use smartphone app developed by Rutgers Univ. engineers will help keep the lights on in a heavily wooded New Jersey suburb that suffered widespread power outages during Superstorm Sandy.

Officials in Warren Township, a country-like community nestled in Somerset County’s Watchung Mountains, knew they could cut the risk of future power outages if they documented vulnerable spots in the utility network, such as branches dangling perilously close to wires or poles cracking and leaning. But sending police and municipal workers to sniff out these trouble spots would be expensive and disruptive to municipal services.

Rutgers and the township committee agreed to a solution—crowdsource the task.

Crowdsourcing, an information-age technique that parcels out a large job to a community of unrelated experts—looked like a promising approach to Warren’s task. But it would work only if gathering the data and organizing it could be simplified.

Janne Lindqvist, assistant professor in the Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, was up to the task. He had just received National Science Foundation funding to research crowdsourcing in local communities, and Warren Township’s challenge proved an ideal match for his concepts.

“The idea is basically simple,” Lindqvist said. “You have a smartphone app that walks you through documenting the hazard. Users are prompted to take a photo of the problem, classify it and verify the location provided by the phone’s location-sensing capability.”

Hit “send,” and the hazard is catalogued in a server.

Warren Township’s utility advisory committee advertised for volunteers in the community, and some members of the committee even volunteered themselves. In September of 2013, a team of eight volunteers fanned out across the township using Android-based smart phones with the app Lindqvist and his students developed.

“They managed to cover the township in eight days and document 351 hazards along 317 miles of wire,” Lindqvist said.

The researchers’ more challenging task was developing server software to capture, classify and present the data. The information had to be easy to deliver to the utility companies that serve the township, so the researchers made it possible to classify common types of hazards, such as branches that were leaning on wires, and to collect all the hazards in a specific neighborhood.

By presenting the data in such an organized manner, the township’s two electric utilities were able to correct all of the problems before the beginning of the mercifully quiet 2014 hurricane season.

Lindqvist considers his team’s work as more than a technical innovation.

“This is a public policy innovation as well,” he said. “When problems are clearly documented and presented to the utilities, they have to check the problems and deal with them. They can’t say after a disaster that they weren’t aware of them.”

By working with the township, the researchers learned that various community processes are candidates for crowdsourcing, and that a well-designed, task-specific app can have a substantial impact. They also learned that paying attention to the details—a straightforward visual interface, reducing the amount of interaction needed, and automatically loading as much information as possible—maximizes productivity.

Lindqvist continues to work with the township and is looking for opportunities to work with other communities.

Source: Rutgers Univ.

SightCompass uses Bluetooth beacons to inform visually impaired of their surroundings

 

World Beacon hopes to spread the SightCompass technology throughout schools, institutions and businesses around the globe

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With their GPS capabilities and navigation apps, smartphones have undoubtedly made it easier for us to find our way around. The good news is we are starting to see these benefits extended to the visually impaired. SightCompass is a system that harnesses these strengths of the smartphone and combines them with proximity beacons to inform blind people of their surroundings.

SightCompass uses an array of beacons that function as proximity sensors. These could be fixed to certain locations around a building. They can then be programmed to push information to a user's mobile device over Bluetooth LE as they come within a 300 ft radius (92 m).

The information may detail the layout of a TV remote control, where to find the fresh apples in the supermarket or how to locate the bathroom in a restaurant. While these instructions are first pushed to the mobile device in the form of the written word, a mobile screen reader would then be employed to translate them to audio information.

As for where this content actually comes from, the information can be customized and kept up to date by users through the SightCompass desktop and mobile app, with the beacons powered by a 3-volt lithium battery said to last two years.

World Beacon, the company behind SightCompass, is based in Phoenix, Arizona and says it already has arrangements in place with local organizations, such as the Foundation for Blind Children, the Phoenix Parks and Recreation department and the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Through a Kickstarter campaign, it is now looking to raise funds for further production and to increase awareness of the SightCompass system. It hopes to spread the technology throughout schools, institutions and businesses around the globe.

We have seen similar approaches before, most recently when the Royal London Society for Blind People used Bluetooth beacons to guide the blind through the London underground. Clearly there is still a ways to go before these solutions become widespread, but its not hard to see the massive potential for upside if they do.

An early pledge of US$129 will put you in line for a SightCompass beacon should the campaign reach its $100,000 goal and deliver on its promises. Shipping is slated for December 2014.

 

Source: World Beacon