The world's population is aging, which is reflected in the increased proportion of older adults, both in developed and developing countries. In 2019, 1 in 11 people exceeded 65 years old; and it is projected that by 2050, this proportion will be 1 in 6 people. Among the most common problems older adults face are those linked to physical, auditory, and visual impairment and, affect, the way they communicate and interact with others. While the usual way of communication is through speech, 1.3% do not depend on verbal language,\nand as a result, their communication needs are not met. Therefore, it is necessary to search for other modes of communication (apart from speech), which are used to express thoughts, needs, desires, and ideas. An option is Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), which presents methods and technology to help people develop or regain communication ability. Thus, this document presents a method called UIAAC, which aims to facilitate the design of graphical user interfaces for AAC systems oriented to older adults and incorporate pictograms as a means of communication. The presented method is aligned with usability standards and considerations of experts in AAC, gerontology, software quality engineers, and user-centered design. To assess the feasibility of the method, the design of a prototype interface and a case study that\nassesses the perception of the prototype's use is presented. The evaluation was developed from the point of view of the psychological area and the end-user (older adult)

Shear wave speed can be used to assess tissue elasticity, which is associated with tissue health. Ultrasound shear wave elastography techniques based on measuring the propagation speed of the shear waves induced by acoustic radiation force are becoming promising alternatives to biopsy in liver fibrosis staging. However, shear waves generated by such methods are typically very weak. Therefore, the penetration may become problematic, especially for overweight or obese patients. In this study, we developed a new method called external vibration multi-directional ultrasound shearwave elastography (EVMUSE), in which external vibration from a loudspeaker was used to generate a multi-directional shear wave field. A directional filter was then applied to separate the complex shear wave field into several shear wave fields propagating in different directions. A 2-D shear wave speed map was reconstructed from each individual shear wave field, and a final 2-D shear wave speed map was constructed by compounding these individual wave speed maps. The method was validated using two homogeneous phantoms and one multi-purpose tissue-mimicking phantom. Ten patients undergoing liver magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) were also studied with EVMUSE to compare results between the two methods. Phantom results showed EVMUSE was able to quantify tissue elasticity accurately with good penetration. In vivo EVMUSE results were well correlated with MRE results, indicating the promise of using EVMUSE for liver fibrosis staging.

MOTIVATION: The complexity of cancer is prompting researchers to find new ways to synthesize information from diverse data sources and to carry out coordinated research efforts that span multiple institutions. There is a need for standard applications, common data models, and software infrastructure to enable more efficient access to and sharing of distributed computational resources in cancer research. To address this need the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has initiated a national-scale effort, called the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIGtrade mark), to develop a federation of interoperable research information systems. RESULTS: At the heart of the caBIG approach to federated interoperability effort is a Grid middleware infrastructure, called caGrid. In this paper we describe the caGrid framework and its current implementation, caGrid version 0.5. caGrid is a model-driven and service-oriented architecture that synthesizes and extends a number of technologies to provide a standardized framework for the advertising, discovery, and invocation of data and analytical resources. We expect caGrid to greatly facilitate the launch and ongoing management of coordinated cancer research studies involving multiple institutions, to provide the ability to manage and securely share information and analytic resources, and to spur a new generation of research applications that empower researchers to take a more integrative, trans-domain approach to data mining and analysis. AVAILABILITY: The caGrid version 0.5 release can be downloaded from https://cabig.nci.nih.gov/workspaces/Architecture/caGrid/. The operational test bed Grid can be accessed through the client included in the release, or through the caGrid-browser web application http://cagrid-browser.nci.nih.gov.