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One of the most popular types of personal health device is the activity monitor, which is attached to the user’s wrist or waist in order to measure physical activity data such as exercise time/duration and calorie consumption. However, for the purpose of checking the physical conditions, medical staffs may want to check remotely the movement of a patient’s body parts. Given that it has an activity sensor to measure the speed of a user’s movement, an activity monitor can also be used to track the movement of a user’s body part. In this paper, a multipurpose smart activity monitoring system for personalized health services is proposed. The purpose of the system is twofold. The first purpose is to perform easily smart monitoring of a user’s physical activity. The system proposed in this paper is referred to as “smart” because the personal activity monitor can be managed remotely through the management commands issued by the monitoring server. The personal data, device data or programs installed in the personal activity monitor can be updated remotely by the monitoring server or medical staffs, and error reports can be delivered to the server or the medical staffs for personalized health services. To do this, the ISO/IEEE 11073 and OMA DM communication protocols are extended and the protocol transformation between two protocols is performed. The second purpose is to perform convenient motion tracking of a user’s body part in order to monitor the speed of the body part, as well as its tracking path. The system is also referred as “multipurpose” since the activity monitor can be used in motion tracking as well as in activity monitoring. The objects in motion to be tracked remotely by medical staffs can be a human body part. To do this, in addition to the acceleration sensor, a gyro sensor is installed in the personal activity monitor and the movement data captured by the activity monitor is analyzed to show 2-way views of the movement of the body part on which the activity monitor is attached. Then medical staffs can check remotely the physical conditions of the body part in various ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many studies in biomedical fields are carried out using diagnoses reported by different raters to evaluate the agreement of multiple ratings. The most popular indices of agreement are kappa measures including Cohen’s kappa and weighted kappa for binary and ordinal outcomes, respectively. However, when raters assess the same observation on two or more occasions, these ratings are dependent and so the correlation between kappa estimates must be considered when making inferences. In this paper, we focus on testing the equality of correlated kappa coefficients using the generalized estimating equation (GEE) approach and applying quasi-likelihood under the independence model criterion (QIC) measures for model selection. Simulation studies are conducted to compare the performance between GEE with and without QIC measures, weighted least squares (WLS) and independence approaches for binary and ordinal data. Two applications are illustrated: a comparison of two methods for assessing cervical ectopy, and similarity in myopic status for monozygous twins and dizygous twins. We conclude that when performing the QIC model-selection procedure in GEE models and taking into account the correlation between kappa measures, it leads to nominal type I errors and larger powers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article informs that the first rough pencil sketch of a DNA molecule by the late Francis Crick was made available online for the first time on Monday. The scribble, along with an archive of his work, will give a unique insight into the discovery of the legendary double helix. The 1953 breakthrough heralded a new era of genetic science and earned Crick and James Watson a share of the 1962 Nobel prize for medicine. Crick's doodle is one of 350 documents and images posted online by the Wellcome Trust, some from Crick's personal archive, including his original research papers on DNA and genetic codes. The hope is that the finished archive compiled with the help of U.S. National Library of Medicine will contain 11,000 items.

This article reports about top medical journals have devised a plan to prevent drug firms from suppressing negative results of their clinical trials. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors says its members will refuse to publish papers on clinical trial results if the trial was not recorded publicly at its outset. The journals involved include The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The register — to be set up over the next 12 months — would record the size, design and purpose of each trial. This should prevent companies from selectively reporting positive results or spinning data to suppress inconclusive or unflattering conclusions, says Catherine De Angelis, editor-in-chief of JAMA.

Focuses on the American Medical Association's dismissal of Dr. George Lundberg, editor of the `Journal of the American Medical Association.' Lundberg's publication of a paper on whether college students think oral sex is actually having sex; Allegation that he was trying to influence the impeachment trial of United States President Bill Clinton.

The article focuses on a biological computer that diagnoses and treats cancer. In 1999, Ehud Shapiro, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, suggested a design for a computer built out of carefully engineered biological molecules. Two years later Shapiro, together with a team of other scientists from the Weizmann Institute, built it. It was made of DNA. Now, Shapiro and his colleagues have taken their research one step further by showing how such work might be useful. This week they claim, in an online paper in "Nature," that they have programmed a biological computer to diagnose and treat cancer. What the team have built is known as a Turing machine, a notional type of computer first proposed in 1936 by Alan Turing. This British mathematician imagined a general-purpose computer that worked by manipulating a paper tape divided into cells. Shapiro's computer diagnoses an imbalance that indicates the presence of prostate cancer. After diagnosis it releases short strands of DNA designed to kill these cancer cells. Shapiro's team is interested in applications where direct processing of biological information is needed--such as medicine.

The article announces the winners of the 2004 Nobel prizes in physiology or medicine, physics, and chemistry. In recognition of more than a decade of pioneering exploration of the sense of smell, two Americans received the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The researchers, Richard Axel of Columbia University and Linda Buck of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, will share the nearly $1.4 million prize. The award largely honors the pair's close collaboration on a paper published in Cell in 1991 and their continuing independent efforts. Before the paper appeared, scientists knew little about the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the olfactory system, which transmits information on odorant molecules from the nose to the brain. Three physicists who developed a theory to explain the strong interaction that holds together atomic nuclei--one of the four basic forces in the universe-have won the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics. David J. Gross of the University of California, Santa Barbara, H. David Politzer of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will share the $1.36 million prize. This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to three scientists for their discovery in the early 1980s of how cells mark proteins for destruction. The key turned out to be the molecular tag called ubiquitin. Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and Irwin Rose of the University of California, Irvine will share the prize.

The article presents information about China's research and treatments with stem cells. A study by Halla Thorsteinsdottir of the McLaughlin Rotman Centre for global Health has found that China is the fifth largest source of stem cell research papers in the world. The study also found that, even though there are many fraudulent practices in this field in China, there are also many properly conducted clinical trials using stem cells for heart-muscle damage, liver disease, and other conditions.

Presents several news briefs related to advancements in medicine. An anticancer vaccine which has increased the survival of high-risk melanoma patients; A paper test that has been developed to detect gum disease earlier than traditional tests; Research which shows that cancer patients often receive improper care unless they get a second opinion; Others.

Discusses the quality of medical information that is available on the World Wide Web. Effect of poor information gathered from the Web; Value of scientific papers; Clarity of information as a virtue; Compounding of doctor-patient relationship through information revolution.

Marissa Mayer ignited a firestorm when she banned telecommuting throughout Yahoo. But there?s little hard data about the value of working at an office versus at home. One researcher who has studied the problem is Jason Owen-Smith, an associate professor of sociology and organizational studies at the University of Michigan, and one of the four coauthors of a paper titled "Zone Overlap and Collaboration in Academic Biomedicine." He talked with Steven Cherry about it for IEEE Spectrum?s podcast series, "Techwise Conversations." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports that BioMedNet has added Evaluated MEDLINE to its MEDLINE database of 8.5 million records. The evaluated MEDLINE as unique because leading experts evaluate the papers; BioMedNet's new Meeting Rooms facility for members; Contact point.