Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970258
Grace Warkulwiz, L. Paul, Khanjan Mehta
In the developing world, noncommunicable diseases are on the rise, contributing greatly to the double disease burden of infectious and noncommunicable diseases. However, as trusted health knowledge bearers, Community Health Workers (CHWs) have stepped in to help, serving as a modern resource to address these growing healthcare challenges. CHWs venture out into their towns, providing short health consultations to their community members in order to offer basic health education, screenings, and advice. In a world where it is constantly evolving, technology has attempted to enter its way into CHW programs. However, CHWs in the developing world, such as Kenya, face many technological challenges and have resorted to low cost and simple methodologies to educate their local communities on basic health information. This article takes a closer look at the short consultations of a CHW in low context settings, as well as the type of actionable knowledge retained once the CHW leaves the meeting site. Through this assessment of the knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) between CHWs and community members, the valuable role of CHWs in the developing world shines through and offers insight into how CHWs can leave the greatest impact on their communities while leveraging practical and appropriate technologies.
{"title":"Efficacy of knowledge transfer and exchange between CHWs and community members in low resource settings","authors":"Grace Warkulwiz, L. Paul, Khanjan Mehta","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970258","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970258","url":null,"abstract":"In the developing world, noncommunicable diseases are on the rise, contributing greatly to the double disease burden of infectious and noncommunicable diseases. However, as trusted health knowledge bearers, Community Health Workers (CHWs) have stepped in to help, serving as a modern resource to address these growing healthcare challenges. CHWs venture out into their towns, providing short health consultations to their community members in order to offer basic health education, screenings, and advice. In a world where it is constantly evolving, technology has attempted to enter its way into CHW programs. However, CHWs in the developing world, such as Kenya, face many technological challenges and have resorted to low cost and simple methodologies to educate their local communities on basic health information. This article takes a closer look at the short consultations of a CHW in low context settings, as well as the type of actionable knowledge retained once the CHW leaves the meeting site. Through this assessment of the knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) between CHWs and community members, the valuable role of CHWs in the developing world shines through and offers insight into how CHWs can leave the greatest impact on their communities while leveraging practical and appropriate technologies.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133487728","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970357
Jonathan Callan, Phillip Sundin, S. Suffian, Khanjan Mehta
Developing countries around the world have implemented Community Health Worker (CHW) programs to improve community health through education, advocacy and direct assistance. CHWs have repeatedly proven their ability to mitigate the growing double disease burden of infectious and chronic illnesses. At the same time, a lack of tangible incentives for CHWs leads to high attrition rates, poor efficiency and lack of coordination and accountability. In the quest for transforming CHWs from volunteers to entrepreneurs, a typology of eight business models where CHWs function as the channels and champions for global health projects has been articulated. In parallel, the literature on the failure modes of telemedicine, eHealth and mHealth ventures is gradually growing and providing new insights and practical design lessons. This article synthesizes the business models and failure modes, i.e. it discusses the primary failure modes for each of the eight business models for sustainable CHW projects and programs. This knowledge is pivotal for innovators and entrepreneurs seeking to engage local entrepreneurs and CHWs to operationalize interventions that tackle last mile health care challenges while creating jobs or providing frameworks for income generation and entrepreneurship.
{"title":"Designing sustainable revenue models for CHW-centric entrepreneurial ventures","authors":"Jonathan Callan, Phillip Sundin, S. Suffian, Khanjan Mehta","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970357","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970357","url":null,"abstract":"Developing countries around the world have implemented Community Health Worker (CHW) programs to improve community health through education, advocacy and direct assistance. CHWs have repeatedly proven their ability to mitigate the growing double disease burden of infectious and chronic illnesses. At the same time, a lack of tangible incentives for CHWs leads to high attrition rates, poor efficiency and lack of coordination and accountability. In the quest for transforming CHWs from volunteers to entrepreneurs, a typology of eight business models where CHWs function as the channels and champions for global health projects has been articulated. In parallel, the literature on the failure modes of telemedicine, eHealth and mHealth ventures is gradually growing and providing new insights and practical design lessons. This article synthesizes the business models and failure modes, i.e. it discusses the primary failure modes for each of the eight business models for sustainable CHW projects and programs. This knowledge is pivotal for innovators and entrepreneurs seeking to engage local entrepreneurs and CHWs to operationalize interventions that tackle last mile health care challenges while creating jobs or providing frameworks for income generation and entrepreneurship.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"13 6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134333911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970257
Vishnu S. Pendyala, Yi Fang, J. Holliday, A. Zalzala
There is a tremendous amount of attention being focused on improving human health these days. The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show that disease and mortality rate greatly depend on access to proper healthcare, which is not available to a vast majority of the global population. This technical paper presents our vision of automating some of the healthcare functions such as monitoring and diagnosis for mass deployment. We explain our ideas on how machines can help in this essential life supporting activity. Diagnosis part of the problem has been researched for long, so we set out working on this first, while the remaining is still in idea stage. We give insights into our work on automating medical diagnosis using text mining techniques and include some initial results.
{"title":"A text mining approach to automated healthcare for the masses","authors":"Vishnu S. Pendyala, Yi Fang, J. Holliday, A. Zalzala","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970257","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970257","url":null,"abstract":"There is a tremendous amount of attention being focused on improving human health these days. The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics show that disease and mortality rate greatly depend on access to proper healthcare, which is not available to a vast majority of the global population. This technical paper presents our vision of automating some of the healthcare functions such as monitoring and diagnosis for mass deployment. We explain our ideas on how machines can help in this essential life supporting activity. Diagnosis part of the problem has been researched for long, so we set out working on this first, while the remaining is still in idea stage. We give insights into our work on automating medical diagnosis using text mining techniques and include some initial results.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"115 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124826313","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970323
Christie Ritter, M. Cottingham, J. Leventhal, A. Mickelson
Monitoring water quality in rivers and treated surface water is crucial to the health and welfare of rural populations. The present research discusses work on the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. Several challenges surrounding consistent water quality monitoring exist worldwide. These include resources that must be expended to manually measure water quality, as well as similar resource barriers to retrieve data in remote sensing devices. In this work, we will present a low cost, delay tolerant system that can monitor the quality of the water entering and exiting a water treatment plant. The system is based upon a microcontroller board that can be attached to a multitude of sensors as well to a wireless transmission system that will download water quality data from a multi-gigabyte storage card to a computational device (laptop, smart phone, Ipad) on demand. Readout can occur continuously or at intervals that can be as long as several months, depending on the capacity of the digital camera compatible storage card. Measurement parameters can include, but are not limited to; pH, dissolved oxygen content, electrical conductivity, and temperature. Findings from the development and preliminary testing of this device, as well as reasoning for its use are presented.
{"title":"Remote delay tolerant water quality montoring","authors":"Christie Ritter, M. Cottingham, J. Leventhal, A. Mickelson","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970323","url":null,"abstract":"Monitoring water quality in rivers and treated surface water is crucial to the health and welfare of rural populations. The present research discusses work on the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. Several challenges surrounding consistent water quality monitoring exist worldwide. These include resources that must be expended to manually measure water quality, as well as similar resource barriers to retrieve data in remote sensing devices. In this work, we will present a low cost, delay tolerant system that can monitor the quality of the water entering and exiting a water treatment plant. The system is based upon a microcontroller board that can be attached to a multitude of sensors as well to a wireless transmission system that will download water quality data from a multi-gigabyte storage card to a computational device (laptop, smart phone, Ipad) on demand. Readout can occur continuously or at intervals that can be as long as several months, depending on the capacity of the digital camera compatible storage card. Measurement parameters can include, but are not limited to; pH, dissolved oxygen content, electrical conductivity, and temperature. Findings from the development and preliminary testing of this device, as well as reasoning for its use are presented.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124848235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970312
J. Muñoz, Ricardo Chavarriaga, J. F. Villada, David SebastianLopez
This paper presents a cost-effective rehabilitation system based on videogames and multimodal recordings of physiological signals. The system targets patients with sensory-motor impairments resulting from lesions of the central nervous system (e.g., due to stroke or traumatic injuries). It relies on a wireless low-cost hybrid interface combining a consumer-level electroencephalographic (EEG) device and the Kinect sensor to record the motion capture information. Thus providing quantitative physiological measures to support medical evaluations and improve the personalization of health service. Furthermore, through the design of specialized videogames for rehabilitation, this approach aim at increasing the patient's motivation, potentially improving the service quality and the recovery process. The system is currently being used in a rehabilitation center in Colombia by patients with upper limb paralysis and balance disorders after stroke or traumaticuries. Initial results show significant improvements in the mobility of affected joints, improved adherence to treatments by patients, and high acceptability by therapists and end-users.
{"title":"BCI and motion capture technologies for rehabilitation based on videogames","authors":"J. Muñoz, Ricardo Chavarriaga, J. F. Villada, David SebastianLopez","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970312","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a cost-effective rehabilitation system based on videogames and multimodal recordings of physiological signals. The system targets patients with sensory-motor impairments resulting from lesions of the central nervous system (e.g., due to stroke or traumatic injuries). It relies on a wireless low-cost hybrid interface combining a consumer-level electroencephalographic (EEG) device and the Kinect sensor to record the motion capture information. Thus providing quantitative physiological measures to support medical evaluations and improve the personalization of health service. Furthermore, through the design of specialized videogames for rehabilitation, this approach aim at increasing the patient's motivation, potentially improving the service quality and the recovery process. The system is currently being used in a rehabilitation center in Colombia by patients with upper limb paralysis and balance disorders after stroke or traumaticuries. Initial results show significant improvements in the mobility of affected joints, improved adherence to treatments by patients, and high acceptability by therapists and end-users.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"52 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124221240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970284
Richard J. Anderson, Trevor Perrier, Fahad Pervaiz, Norasingh Sisouveth, B. Kumar, Sompasong Phongphila, Ataur Rahman, Ranjit Dhiman, S. Newland
Immunization is recognized as one of the most successful public health interventions ever devised. A critical component of immunization programs is the vaccine cold chain - the cold storage to keep vaccines safe from manufacture to eventual delivery to the child. Countries need to manage their vaccine cold chains and logistics systems to ensure sufficient storage capacity, distribution of adequate supplies of vaccines, and functional cold storage equipment. There are particular challenges for remote facilities where transportation costs are high, power infrastructure is lacking, and communication is limited. Accurate information about the cold chain is essential to address these challenges and to evaluate the impact of different interventions. A Cold Chain Information System (CCIS), which tracks health facility information and the country's cold chain equipment can help address these challenges at both the strategic (planning) and tactical (management) levels. This paper describes our efforts to develop a CCIS for Laos, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Lao Ministry of Health. The work builds on experience with deploying CCIS's in multiple countries along with developing analysis tools and data standards. The CCIS in Laos uses DHIS2, a widely used web based health indicator system as the back end, which is integrated with SMS reporting from the district and health center level where internet is not guaranteed to be available. A central goal of the system is to allow regular reporting of vaccine stock levels and vaccine refrigerator status (measured by logging devices recording high and low temperature alarms). The system is designed with notifications to promote action by technicians or managers. The technical contributions of this work include the development of a new data model for DHIS2 and a text message system using an Android gateway to RapidSMS with a custom notification engine interfacing to DHIS2.
{"title":"Supporting immunization programs with improved vaccine cold chain information systems","authors":"Richard J. Anderson, Trevor Perrier, Fahad Pervaiz, Norasingh Sisouveth, B. Kumar, Sompasong Phongphila, Ataur Rahman, Ranjit Dhiman, S. Newland","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970284","url":null,"abstract":"Immunization is recognized as one of the most successful public health interventions ever devised. A critical component of immunization programs is the vaccine cold chain - the cold storage to keep vaccines safe from manufacture to eventual delivery to the child. Countries need to manage their vaccine cold chains and logistics systems to ensure sufficient storage capacity, distribution of adequate supplies of vaccines, and functional cold storage equipment. There are particular challenges for remote facilities where transportation costs are high, power infrastructure is lacking, and communication is limited. Accurate information about the cold chain is essential to address these challenges and to evaluate the impact of different interventions. A Cold Chain Information System (CCIS), which tracks health facility information and the country's cold chain equipment can help address these challenges at both the strategic (planning) and tactical (management) levels. This paper describes our efforts to develop a CCIS for Laos, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Lao Ministry of Health. The work builds on experience with deploying CCIS's in multiple countries along with developing analysis tools and data standards. The CCIS in Laos uses DHIS2, a widely used web based health indicator system as the back end, which is integrated with SMS reporting from the district and health center level where internet is not guaranteed to be available. A central goal of the system is to allow regular reporting of vaccine stock levels and vaccine refrigerator status (measured by logging devices recording high and low temperature alarms). The system is designed with notifications to promote action by technicians or managers. The technical contributions of this work include the development of a new data model for DHIS2 and a text message system using an Android gateway to RapidSMS with a custom notification engine interfacing to DHIS2.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125126698","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970262
Joan Ventura-Jaume, L. Franck, L. Girardeau
Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) systems provide voice and data services to first responders. Next generation PMR solutions are likely to converge with public land mobile networks such as LTE. During catastrophic events, the supporting infrastructure networks could be destroyed, saturated or absent. Therefore, it is helpful to deploy temporary networks on the isolated areas and backhaul them by means of geostationary satellites to connect to the core backbone.
{"title":"A distributed floor control protocol for next generation PMR based on hybrid LTE and satellite networks","authors":"Joan Ventura-Jaume, L. Franck, L. Girardeau","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970262","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970262","url":null,"abstract":"Professional Mobile Radio (PMR) systems provide voice and data services to first responders. Next generation PMR solutions are likely to converge with public land mobile networks such as LTE. During catastrophic events, the supporting infrastructure networks could be destroyed, saturated or absent. Therefore, it is helpful to deploy temporary networks on the isolated areas and backhaul them by means of geostationary satellites to connect to the core backbone.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"232 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129742900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970276
Abel Rodriguez de la Concepcion, R. Stefanelli, D. Trinchero
The paper illustrates an efficient wireless sensor network platform, suitable for application to assisted agriculture in (but not only in) developing Countries and remote regions. The platform has been conceived in order to minimize power consumption, during all the phases of data acquisition, sampling, and compression, with an efficient and performing communication protocol, with extended transmission range and radio coverage optimization. Sensor nodes have been provided with energy harvesting facilities, to avoid any need for direct power supply or battery replacement. The resulting nodes are consequently autonomous, easy to locate and relocate, and scalable. A further work has been done to minimize dimensions and costs, in order to deploy capillary installations. Furthermore, thanks to the work done from the side of the channel optimization, it has been possible to acquire not only standard environmental parameters, but also high definition pictures. Images of plants, trees, as well as fruits and leaves are taken every hour, and forwarded to a central gateway, interfaced with the Internet. A team of agronomists and biologists checks the state of the cultivation from remote, providing the farmer with continuous assistance at a reasonable cost. This is extremely important in Developing Countries, taking into account that in those locations experts cannot reach the fields and cannot provide the farmer with specialized, continuous consultancy, both for economical and logistic reasons. In a global scenario, where new diseases arise rapidly and continuously, the remote assistance provided by an expert can minimize farmer's risks to loose his harvest and reduce his revenues. The set of environmental parameters, together with the visual collection of cultivation conditions, is useful also to generate a culture database, particularly useful in developing regions, where there is almost never historical recorded trace, in particular about possible associated diseases and infections. Last but not least, the platform allows a significant improvement of the sustainability. Thanks to the assistance of the agronomist, the farmer can minimize the use of pesticides and chemicals, as well as reducing the number of additional treatments, resulting in significant advantages, in terms of production costs and organic quality.
{"title":"A wireless sensor network platform optimized for assisted sustainable agriculture","authors":"Abel Rodriguez de la Concepcion, R. Stefanelli, D. Trinchero","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970276","url":null,"abstract":"The paper illustrates an efficient wireless sensor network platform, suitable for application to assisted agriculture in (but not only in) developing Countries and remote regions. The platform has been conceived in order to minimize power consumption, during all the phases of data acquisition, sampling, and compression, with an efficient and performing communication protocol, with extended transmission range and radio coverage optimization. Sensor nodes have been provided with energy harvesting facilities, to avoid any need for direct power supply or battery replacement. The resulting nodes are consequently autonomous, easy to locate and relocate, and scalable. A further work has been done to minimize dimensions and costs, in order to deploy capillary installations. Furthermore, thanks to the work done from the side of the channel optimization, it has been possible to acquire not only standard environmental parameters, but also high definition pictures. Images of plants, trees, as well as fruits and leaves are taken every hour, and forwarded to a central gateway, interfaced with the Internet. A team of agronomists and biologists checks the state of the cultivation from remote, providing the farmer with continuous assistance at a reasonable cost. This is extremely important in Developing Countries, taking into account that in those locations experts cannot reach the fields and cannot provide the farmer with specialized, continuous consultancy, both for economical and logistic reasons. In a global scenario, where new diseases arise rapidly and continuously, the remote assistance provided by an expert can minimize farmer's risks to loose his harvest and reduce his revenues. The set of environmental parameters, together with the visual collection of cultivation conditions, is useful also to generate a culture database, particularly useful in developing regions, where there is almost never historical recorded trace, in particular about possible associated diseases and infections. Last but not least, the platform allows a significant improvement of the sustainability. Thanks to the assistance of the agronomist, the farmer can minimize the use of pesticides and chemicals, as well as reducing the number of additional treatments, resulting in significant advantages, in terms of production costs and organic quality.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"207 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124641424","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970282
Mitch Lee, G. C. Shaw, V. Modi
In many low-income settings and geographies it's not immediately feasible to deploy central power generation with electric grids. In this context, off-grid approaches like solar home systems (SHS) are gaining wide acceptance. Since battery storage costs are the dominant costs, the value proposition of using a novel mini-grid with shared generation/ storage as opposed to SHS is examined. The relative merits are evaluated using time-resolved demand data from a cluster of small rural consumers. During the two-year operation of 9 SharedSolar systems in Uganda, nearly all the electrical demands were met as the systems were oversized for initial demand. This allowed us understand the actual demand (under commercial tariff payments) and estimate supply reliability for smaller optimal storage sizes post facto. Using real time data, storage characteristics and HOMER simulations, optimal sizing for both approaches were established. The analysis reveals that customer diversity leads to considerable savings in storage requirements for same reliability when a shared approach is utilized. The study informs helps informs the economics of providing off-grid access to electricity.
{"title":"Battery storage: Comparing shared to individually owned storage given rural demand profiles of a cluster of customers","authors":"Mitch Lee, G. C. Shaw, V. Modi","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970282","url":null,"abstract":"In many low-income settings and geographies it's not immediately feasible to deploy central power generation with electric grids. In this context, off-grid approaches like solar home systems (SHS) are gaining wide acceptance. Since battery storage costs are the dominant costs, the value proposition of using a novel mini-grid with shared generation/ storage as opposed to SHS is examined. The relative merits are evaluated using time-resolved demand data from a cluster of small rural consumers. During the two-year operation of 9 SharedSolar systems in Uganda, nearly all the electrical demands were met as the systems were oversized for initial demand. This allowed us understand the actual demand (under commercial tariff payments) and estimate supply reliability for smaller optimal storage sizes post facto. Using real time data, storage characteristics and HOMER simulations, optimal sizing for both approaches were established. The analysis reveals that customer diversity leads to considerable savings in storage requirements for same reliability when a shared approach is utilized. The study informs helps informs the economics of providing off-grid access to electricity.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116800793","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2014-12-04DOI: 10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970288
M. Eckman, Christopher Gigliotti, S. Sutermaster, Khanjan Mehta
An individual's handgrip strength (HGS), measured by a hand dynamometer, has shown significant correlations with clinical conditions such as malnutrition, type 2 diabetes, functional disability, and overall quality of life. Existing studies have indicated that HGS testing is a promising tool to screen for disease. This is of interest to resource-constrained areas because barriers to healthcare have created a large need for simple and effective medical screening devices. Inexpensive, ruggedized dynamometers to measure HGS already exist on the market. Despite these opportunities to use HGS as a screening tool, the literature on HGS is incomplete and not cohesive. This article provides a synthesis of the recognized relationships and correlations between HGS and diverse clinical conditions. Established statistically sound associations as well as compelling gaps in the knowledge base are discussed. Pathways to integrate HGS devices into the emerging Community Health Worker (CHW) infrastructure as a health screening and income-generating tool in developing countries are described. The goal of this article is to inform research and entrepreneurial initiatives that can collectively leverage handgrip dynamometers as effective and efficient health screening tools in low-resource contexts.
{"title":"Get a grip! Handgrip strength as a health screening tool","authors":"M. Eckman, Christopher Gigliotti, S. Sutermaster, Khanjan Mehta","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2014.6970288","url":null,"abstract":"An individual's handgrip strength (HGS), measured by a hand dynamometer, has shown significant correlations with clinical conditions such as malnutrition, type 2 diabetes, functional disability, and overall quality of life. Existing studies have indicated that HGS testing is a promising tool to screen for disease. This is of interest to resource-constrained areas because barriers to healthcare have created a large need for simple and effective medical screening devices. Inexpensive, ruggedized dynamometers to measure HGS already exist on the market. Despite these opportunities to use HGS as a screening tool, the literature on HGS is incomplete and not cohesive. This article provides a synthesis of the recognized relationships and correlations between HGS and diverse clinical conditions. Established statistically sound associations as well as compelling gaps in the knowledge base are discussed. Pathways to integrate HGS devices into the emerging Community Health Worker (CHW) infrastructure as a health screening and income-generating tool in developing countries are described. The goal of this article is to inform research and entrepreneurial initiatives that can collectively leverage handgrip dynamometers as effective and efficient health screening tools in low-resource contexts.","PeriodicalId":310396,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128440437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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