Objectives: Atmospheric pressure is the most objective weather factor because regardless of if outdoors or indoors it affects all objects in the same way. The majority of previous studies have used the average daily values of atmospheric pressure in a bioclimatic analysis and have found no...

Recent achievements in the field of miniaturization of electronics have led to a significant interest in its application into the protective clothing for firefighters in order to improve their safety and health. However, up to now there are not any requirements and standardized test methods enabling confirmation of safety of use and functionality of these systems in work environment. In the paper, an importance of evaluation of such smart wearable system in predicted utility conditions is highlighted. Three variants of the specially developed personal warning systems (PWSs) for integration with either health status or environmental sensors to be used in smart protective clothing for firefighters are presented, i.e., with LCD display, LED diodes and vibrating element. For the purpose of evaluation a new testing methodology was developed. The PWSs were evaluated on a basis of perception of warning signals by firefighters in simulated utility conditions including temperature, light, noise, fog and performed activities. In the case of marching, even 75% of signals generated by PWS with LCD display were not received. Physical activity did not influence on functionality of PWS with vibrating element. For the PWS with LED diodes, the signal was received statistically significantly quicker than in the case of other PWS and the mean value of voice response time was below 3 s.

This paper presents a fall risk assessment approach based on a fast mobility test, automatically evaluated using a low-cost, scalable system for the recording and analysis of body movement. This mobility test has never before been investigated as a sole source of data for fall risk assessment. It can be performed in a very limited space and needs only minimal additional equipment, yet provides large amounts of information, as the presented system can obtain much more data than traditional observation by capturing minute details regarding body movement. The readings are provided wirelessly by one to seven low-cost micro-electro-mechanical inertial measurement units attached to the subject’s body segments. Combined with a body model, these allow segment rotations and translations to be computed and for body movements to be recreated in software. The subject can then be automatically classified by an artificial neural network based on selected values in the test, and those with an elevated risk of falls can be identified. Results obtained from a group of 40 subjects of various ages, both healthy volunteers and patients with vestibular system impairment, are presented to demonstrate the combined capabilities of the test and system. Labelling of subjects as fallers and non-fallers was performed using an objective and precise sensory organization test; it is an important novelty as this approach to subject labelling has never before been used in the design and evaluation of fall risk assessment systems. The findings show a true-positive ratio of 85% and true-negative ratio of 63% for classifying subjects as fallers or non-fallers using the introduced fast mobility test, which are noticeably better than those obtained for the long-established Timed Up and Go test.

The endothelium and sympathetic nervous system play an important role in the pathogenesis of acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The aim of our study was to evaluate correlations between noninvasive markers of the endothelial function and the sympathetic nervous system in patients with a recent ACS. The study included 52 patients who experienced an ACS within the previous 3 to 6 months. Endothelial function was expressed as the reactive hyperemia index (RHI), and the activity of the sympathetic nervous system--as latency and amplitude of sympathetic skin response (SSR) potentials from the 4 limbs. Linear and partial correlations between the RHI and SSR were calculated. There were significant correlations between the RHI and the latency of the SSR in the upper limbs (r = 0.34, P = 0.02 for the right limb; and r = 0.34, P = 0.01 for the left limb). After eliminating the effects of age, sex, weight, and glomerular filtration rate, the partial correlation between the RHI and the latency of the SSR in the upper limbs remained statistically significant (r = 0.41, P = 0.004 for the right limb, and r = 0.42, P = 0.004 for the left limb). There was no correlation between the RHI and latency of the SSR during the stimulation of the lower limbs. Our study confirmed the correlations between the sympathetic autonomic nervous system and endothelium in patients with ACS. The correlation of the RHI with the latency of the SSR was observed only in the upper limbs.