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Publication

Digital Twins-Based Data Fabric Architecture to Enhance Data Management in Intelligent Healthcare Ecosystems

(Springer, 2022) Macias Ojeda, Aurora; Muñoz, David; Navarro Martínez, Elena María; González López, Pascual

Different kind of smart healthcare ecosystems have been adopted in the last few years usually based on the continuous monitoring of people as well as other physical entities such as buildings or devices. The diverse nature and origins of the great amount of data that those novel smart healthcare ecosystems must process poses additional data management issues that restrict and difficult their design and construction. In order to improve data management in smart healthcare ecosystems, a data fabric architecture-like process for data lifecycle management has been obtained from the analysis of different architectural proposals intended for being used for different types of systems and contexts. This process integrates aspects of Digital Twins (DT) to tackle with the data contextualization problems that characterizes data fabric architectures. Based on the proposed approach, a prototype of a novel smart healthcare Internet of Things (IoT)-based ecosystem to prevent the spreading of the virus in a real Spanish nursing home has been developed. The evaluation of the prototype has been carried out following a specific novel IoT-based systems evaluation methodology combined with ISO software quality standards that determined that the system is reliable and efficient in performance.

Publication

Architecting Digital Twins Using a Domain-Driven Design-Based Approach

(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023) Macias Ojeda, Aurora; Cuesta Quintero, Carlos E.; Zdun, Uwe; Navarro Martínez, Elena María

The Digital Twin (DT) concept has overcome its initial definition based on a purely descriptive approach focusing on modelling physical objects, often using CAD. Today DT often describes a behavioural approach that can simulate an object’s dynamics, monitor its state, and control or predict its behaviour. Although DTs are attracting significant attention and offer many advantages in the design of especially cyber-physical systems, most proposals have focused on developing DTs for a specific use case or need without providing a more holistic approach to its design. We aim to propose a domain-agnostic approach for architecting DTs. Here, DTs are directly supported by Domain-Driven Design’s notion of Bounded Contexts (BCs), hiding all the domain-inherent specifications behind BC boundaries. These BCs are also the central abstraction in many microservice architectures and can be used to describe DTs. A Wind Turbine DT architecture is used as a running example to describe how every relevant DT property can be satisfied following our proposal for architecting digital twins. A qualitative evaluation of this case by five external practitioners shows that our DDD-based proposal consistently outperforms the 5-dimension model used as the reference approach.

Publication

Procesos de despoblación en el sur de España: el caso de la Comarca de la Sierra del Segura (Albacete)

(Centro de Estudios sobre Despoblación y Desarrollo en Áreas Rurales (CEDDAR), 2024) Giménez García, Rubén; García Marín, Ramón; Cebrián Abellán, Francisco

Resumen: Desde mediados del pasado siglo, la mayor parte de áreas rurales de España se han visto sometidas a un importante proceso de despoblación. La Comarca Sierra del Segura (Albacete) constituye uno de los espacios rurales más afectado por la despoblación. Se trata de un área cuyo análisis presenta unelevado interés, al registrar una de las densidades poblacionales más bajas de Europa y, a su vez, emplazarse a menos de un centenar de kilómetros de una de las zonas más pobladas de este continente (la costa mediterránea española). Este territorio ha sido poco estudiado, hecho que motiva el desarrollo de esta investigación, con el objetivo de analizar la intensa despoblación experimentada por este espacio rural, las causas que la han generado y las perspectivas que presenta en el futuro. Para ello, se evalúa el comportamiento de diferentes indicadores demográficos, sociales y territoriales y se discuten posibles iniciativas de actuación. Los resultados obtenidos de las variables analizadas muestran similitudes con los procesos acontecidos en las áreas más despobladas de España. El desarrollo de la digitalización y del turismo rural impulsadas por la aparición de la Covid-19 podrían ejercer como punto de partida que dinamice socioeconómicamente esta área, generando atracción y fijación de la población en el territorio. No obstante, pese al impulso de estas actividades, no parece intuirse un porvenir halagüeño para las localidades que conforman esta comarca.

Publication

Despoblación del nodo interprovincial del Sureste de la Península Ibérica ¿hacia el abismo demográfico?

(BAGE, 2023) Giménez García, Rubén; García Marín, Ramón; Cebrián Abellán, Francisco

Since the mid-20th century, a large part of Spain's rural areas have experienced an unprecedented demographic exodus. Although this is a phenomenon that is mainly seen in the northern half of the country, there are territories located on the southern slopes where the intensity of depopulation makes them particularly special. Among these, the regions that make up the interprovincial node of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula stand out. The main objective of this work is to examine both the notable depopulation suffered by these territories and the causes that have driven this process. The methodology used to cover this question is based on the analysis of the demographic dynamics experienced since 1900 and the evaluation of the data obtained from indicators such as vegetative and migratory growth or economic income, among others. Together with this main objective, the aim is to ascertain the effects that Covid-19 may have had on the demographic dynamics and the future prospects they present. In this respect, different variables relating to ageing, birth and death rates and the weight of the foreign population are studied. The results obtained show both the seriousness acquired by depopulation since 1950 and the poor forecasts for the future

Publication

Surface electrical stimulation of the auditory cortex preserves efferent medial olivocochlear neurons and reduces cochlear traits of age-related hearing loss.

(Published by Elsevier B.V, 2024) Benítez Maican, Zaskya Chiquinquira; Fernández del Campo, Inés; Merchán, Miguel; Fuentes Santamaría, Verónica; Alvarado Romero, Juan Carlos; Gabaldón Ull, María Cruz; Juiz Gómez, José Manuel

The auditory cortex is the source of descending connections providing contextual feedback for auditory signal processing at almost all levels of the lemniscal auditory pathway. Such feedback is essential for cognitive processing. It is likely that corticofugal pathways are degraded with aging, becoming important players in age-related hearing loss and, by extension, in cognitive decline. We are testing the hypothesis that surface, epidural stimulation of the auditory cortex during aging may regulate the activity of corticofugal pathways, resulting in modulation of central and peripheral traits of auditory aging. Increased auditory thresholds during ongoing age-related hearing loss in the rat are attenuated after two weeks of epidural stimulation with direct current applied to the surface of the auditory cortex for two weeks in alternate days (Fernández del Campo et al., 2024). Here we report that the same cortical electrical stimulation protocol induces structural and cytochemical changes in the aging cochlea and auditory brainstem, which may underlie recovery of age-degraded auditory sensitivity. Specifically, we found that in 18 month-old rats after two weeks of cortical electrical stimulation there is, relative to age-matched non-stimulated rats: a) a larger number of choline acetyltransferase immunoreactive neuronal cell body profiles in the ventral nucleus of the trapezoid body, originating the medial olivocochlear system.; b) a reduction of age-related dystrophic changes in the stria vascularis; c) diminished immunoreactivity for the proinflammatory cytokine TNF??in the stria vascularis and spiral ligament. d) diminished immunoreactivity for Iba1 and changes in the morphology of Iba1 immunoreactive cells in the lateral wall, suggesting reduced activation of macrophage/microglia; d) Increased immunoreactivity levels for calretinin in spiral ganglion neurons, suggesting excitability modulation by corticofugal stimulation. Altogether, these findings support that non-invasive neuromodulation of the auditory cortex during aging preserves the cochlear efferent system and ameliorates cochlear aging traits, including stria vascularis dystrophy, dysregulated inflammation and altered excitability in primary auditory neurons.