Low-cost telemedicine in the developing world

2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 63-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
R Swinfen ◽  
P Swinfen
Keyword(s):  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Computer Viruses ◽  
Charitable Trust ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Medicolegal Issues

summary The Swinfen Charitable Trust uses digital cameras and email to provide specialist advice to doctors in developing countries. The first telemedicine link was set up in July 1999. By the end of a year there were three links to hospitals in Bangladesh, Nepal and the Solomon Islands. Initially the consultants, all of whom give their advice free of charge, were from the UK, but now are worldwide. At present there are 12 links in operation, including one on Tristan da Cunha, and two links approved and awaiting equipment. The advice given by the consultants has been found to be helpful to the referring doctors and to benefit their patients. Failures have been due to the use of obsolescent equipment, computer viruses, lack of communication with the referring hospital before setting up a link, and referring doctors not chasing up their own referrals. Problems yet to be solved include the unreliability of the Internet, certain medicolegal issues and assessing the quality of medical consultants. In future there will be the problem of managing a rapidly growing telemedicine network.

Experience with a Low-Cost Telemedicine System in Three Developing Countries

2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
D J Vassallo ◽  
P Swinfen ◽  
R Swinfen ◽  
R Wootton
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
First Year ◽  
Digital Cameras ◽  
Telemedicine System ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Charitable Trust ◽  
E Mail

The Swinfen Charitable Trust was established in 1998 with the aim of helping the poor, sick and disabled in the developing world. It does this by setting up simple telemedicine links based on e-mail to support doctors in isolated hospitals. The first telemedicine link was established to support the lone orthopaedic surgeon at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) in Savar, near Dhaka in Bangladesh in July 1999. An evaluation of the 27 referrals made during the first year of operation showed that the telemedical advice had been useful and cost effective. Based on the success of the Bangladesh project, the Swinfen Charitable Trust supplied digital cameras and tripods to more hospitals in other developing countries. These are Patan Hospital in Nepal (March 2000), Gizo Hospital in the Solomon Islands (March 2000), Helena Goldie Hospital on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands (September 2000), and LAMB Hospital in Bangladesh (September 2000).

scholarly journals Pop-Science on the Internet: How ULISSE Makes the Ends Meet

10.28945/2459 ◽  
2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Cerrato
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
General Public ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
High Technology ◽  
The Internet ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Set Up

There is an increasing demand for what we can call pop-science that is pertinent scientific information dedicated to the non-specialists. This demand comes both from professional categories and the general public. Simultaneously in the scientific community there is an increasing consciousness that diffusion of the scientific information is an asset the scientific community cannot afford to overlook. The Internet is a perfect tool to meet this demand. It reaches a large and ever-increasing number of people and permits an interactive and detailed exchange of information. As an experiment of how to combine high quality services and the information technology, we have set up Ulisse - In the net of science (http://ulisse.sissa.it), an innovative Italian project for the popularisation of science via the Internet. Its main purpose is to establish a connection between scientists and the general public. Ulisse is based on three major characteristics: a) high technology to create an efficient and friendly system, b) customisation of the services, c) a network of scientists, which guaranteed the quality of the materials.

scholarly journals Preferential Purchase of E-commerce Model in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Ming Du
Keyword(s):  
Sharp Increase ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Customer Acquisition ◽  
Illegal Behavior ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Acquisition Costs ◽  
Quality Of Products

The popularization of the Internet has promoted the leap-forward development of e-commerce. In recent years, the increasing number of e-commerce platforms and merchants has led to a sharp increase in customer acquisition costs. Low-cost access to customers has become the main goal pursued by e-commerce merchants. The e-commerce Preferential Purchase model relies on the mainstream e-commerce platform to serve as a shopping guide for merchants of various e-commerce platforms. It provides multi-channel promotion and promotion of e-commerce products to increase customer traffic by saving money, rebates and making money. However, the credibility of the Preferential Purchase platform, the poor quality of products brought by low prices, the preferential procedures and the illegal behavior of the hierarchical agents have also become the bottleneck for the development of the Preferential Purchase model.

scholarly journals A Computer Mouse Using Blowing Sensors Intended for People with Disabilities

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (21) ◽  
pp. 4638
Author(s):  
Hsin-Chuan Chen ◽  
Chiou-Jye Huang ◽  
Wei-Ru Tsai ◽  
Che-Lin Hsieh
Keyword(s):  
Pulse Width ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Life Quality ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Assistive Technologies ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Identification Rate ◽  
Computer Mouse

The computer is an important medium that allows people to connect to the internet. However, people with disabilities are unable to use a computer mouse and thus cannot enjoy internet benefits. Nowadays, there are various types of assistive technologies for controlling a computer mouse, but they all have some operational inconveniences. In this paper, we propose an innovative blowing-controlled mouse assistive tool to replace the conventional hand-controlled mouse. Its main contribution is that it uses microphones to induce small signals through the principle of airflow vibration, and it then converts the received signal into the corresponding pulse width. The co-design of software programming enables various mouse functions to be implemented by the identification of the blowing pulse width of multiple microphones. The proposed tool is evaluated experimentally, and the experimental results show that the average identification rate of the proposed mouse is over 85%. Additionally, compared with the other mouse assistive tools, the proposed mouse has the benefits of low cost and humanized operation. Therefore, the proposed blowing control method can not only improve the life quality of people with disabilities but also overcome the disadvantages of existing assistive tools.

Challenges and Trends in Home Automation

2019 ◽  
pp. 148-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Portalés ◽  
Sergio Casas ◽  
Kai Kreuzer
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Energy Management ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Home Automation ◽  
Economic Costs ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Market Fragmentation

Home automation (HA) systems can be considered as an implementation of the internet of everything (IoE) where many devices are linked by intelligent connections in order to improve the quality of life at home. This chapter is dedicated to analyzing current trends and challenges in HA. Energy management, safer homes, and improved control over the house are some of the benefits of HA. However, privacy, security, social disruption, installation/maintenance issues, economic costs, market fragmentation, and low interoperability represent real problems of these IoE solutions. In this regard, the latest proposals in HA try to answer some of these needs with low-cost DIY solutions, wireless solutions, and IP-based HA systems. This chapter proposes a way to deal with the interoperability problem by means of the open-source platform openHAB. It is based on the concept of a home automation bus, an idea that enables the separation of the physical and the functional view of any device, allowing to create a technology-agnostic environment, which is perfect for addressing the interoperability problem.

Educating Students for E-Entrepreneurship in the UK, the USA and China

2009 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Millman ◽  
Wang-Chan Wong ◽  
Zhengwei Li ◽  
Harry Matlay
Keyword(s):  
Entrepreneurship Education ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Rigorous Research ◽  
Growing Body ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Political Conditions ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

A growing body of research evaluates various aspects of entrepreneurship education (such as curriculum, delivery and assessment) and links it to outcomes in terms of both the number and quality of entrepreneurs entering an economy. There is, however, a marked paucity of empirically rigorous research appraising the impact of entrepreneurship education on graduates' intentions and perceived ability to set up Internet-based e-enterprises that can operate across temporal and geographical boundaries. This paper provides a comparative overview of entrepreneurship education in the UK, the USA and China with a focus on IT and non-IT students' e-entrepreneurship intentions, perceptions and outcomes. The research on which the paper is based was carried out in two distinct phases: first, focus groups were used to design, pilot and develop a comprehensive research questionnaire for use in a wider, multi-country survey; second, questionnaires were then distributed to students in IT and non-IT related disciplines in the UK, the USA and China. The preliminary results show that most respondents were slow to conceptualize and contextualize e-entrepreneurship in the prevailing socio-economic and political conditions of their countries of origin. There were no significant differences between students of IT and non-IT disciplines in their perceptions of the viability and practicality of engaging in e-entrepreneurship. Generic support initiatives appear to neglect the vast portfolio of skills needs for graduates engaging in Internet trading. The authors recommend that entrepreneurship education providers should engage with emergent models of e-entrepreneurship and that policy makers should provide innovative initiatives to cater for the specific needs of e-entrepreneurs.

scholarly journals Infertility information on the World Wide Web: a cross-sectional survey of quality of infertility information on the internet in the UK

2008 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 1520-1525 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. V. Marriott ◽  
P. Stec ◽  
T. El-Toukhy ◽  
Y. Khalaf ◽  
P. Braude ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
The World ◽  
The Uk

scholarly journals Astronomy Research via the Internet

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-290
Author(s):  
Kavan U. Ratnatunga
Keyword(s):  
Low Cost ◽  
Recent Preprints ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
On Line ◽  
Astronomical Research ◽  
Set Up ◽  
E Mail

AbstractSmall developing countries may not have a dark site with good seeing for an astronomical observatory or be able to afford the financial commitment to set up and support such a facility. Much of astronomical research today is however done with remote observations, such as from telescopes in space, or obtained by service observing at large facilities on the ground. Cutting-edge astronomical research can now be done with low-cost computers, with a good Internet connection to get on-line access to astronomical observations, journals and most recent preprints. E-mail allows fast easy collaboration between research scientists around the world. An international program with some short-term collaborative visits, could mine data and publish results from available astronomical observations for a fraction of the investment and cost of running even a small local observatory. Students who have been trained in the use of computers and software by such a program would also be more employable in the current job market. The Internet can reach you wherever you like to be and give you direct access to whatever you need for astronomical research.

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