RESUMEN
The use of wireless signals for the purposes of localization enables a host of applications relating to the determination and verification of the positions of network participants ranging from radar to satellite navigation. Consequently, this has been a longstanding interest of theoretical and practical research in mobile networks and many solutions have been proposed in the scientific literature. However, it is hard to assess the performance of these in the real world and, more importantly, to compare their advantages and disadvantages in a controlled scientific manner. With this work, we attempt to improve the current state of art methodology in localization research and to place it on a solid scientific grounding for future investigations. Concretely, we developed LocaRDS, an open reference data set of real-world crowdsourced flight data featuring more than 222 million measurements from over 50 million transmissions recorded by 323 sensors. We demonstrate how we can verify the quality of LocaRDS measurements so that it can be used to test, analyze and directly compare different localization methods. Finally, we provide an example implementation for the aircraft localization problem and a discussion of possible metrics for use with LocaRDS.
Asunto(s)
Aeronaves , Radar , HumanosRESUMEN
BACKGROUND: Muscle relaxants are widely used to treat low back pain (LBP), one of the most frequent health problems in industrialized countries. For this indication, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently had imposed restrictions for some muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatories and analgesics; Tetrazepam even had to be withdrawn from the market. Therefore methocarbamol remains the only approved muscle relaxant. Methocarbamol is well-established for the treatment of LBP associated with myofascial components, although more recent clinical studies have not been published. Therefore this publication summarizes and revaluates post-hoc data of an efficiency study of methocarbamol, that was performed in 2002, but had not been published yet. METHOD: This was a randomized, placebo controlled multi-centre study. Inclusion criteria were acute low back pain for at least 24 h associated with spasms in the pelvic/lumbar region and restriction of mobility. Patients were randomly assigned to a group treated with orally administered Ortoton® (n = 98) or placebo (n = 104). Drugs were administered for up to 8 days, but treatment of individual patients was discontinued as soon as a pain-free state was achieved. Individual pain perception was quantified by means of a visual analog scale (VAS). The fingertip-to-floor distance was measured as an indicator of lumbar flexion. Mobility restrictions were also assessed by a modified Schober's test. In addition, a questionnaire was used by patients and physicians to rate the efficacy of treatment. RESULTS: In the methocarbamol group 44% of the patients pre-terminated due to complete pain relief (placebo: 18%) and 19% discontinued because the treatment was considered ineffective (placebo 52%, p < 0,0001). Measures of mobility (fingertip-to-floor distance, Schober's test) and improvement of mobility as perceived by physician and patient at the individual end of study all were clearly in favor of the patients treated with methocarbamol. At the final visit, 67% of the patients who had received Ortoton® (35% of placebo patients) and 70% of their physicians (control group: 36%) considered the treatment to be effective. No severe adverse effects were observed during the study (7 symptoms in 5 patients). CONCLUSION: This study showed that methocarbamol, orally administered, is an efficient and well-tolerated therapeutic option for patients suffering from acute LBP and the typically associated restrictions of mobility.