Adam Pawlak

Security Frameworks for Virtual Organizations

This chapter addresses security framework in virtual organisations. It identifies essential sources of threats to VOs security and presents technologies such as: confidentiality and integrity of data for secure communication, authentication, authorisation and access control to resources, to assure this security. The need for appropriate management of security measures deployed in a particular VO has been stressed. Security instruments developed and demonstrated by the IST projects E-COLLEG, EXTERNAL, PRODNET, and TeleCAREe follow. Finally, open R&D questions, related to VOs security framework, are addressed.

Selected design issues of the medical cyber-physical system for telemonitoring pregnancy at home

The telemonitoring problem of high-risk pregnancies at home is introduced, and some design issues of the monitoring system are identified. A Medical Cyber-Physical System (MCPS) approach has been taken. Various MCPS design issues and requirements, like: interaction of caregivers and a patient with the MCPS system, Plug-and-Play architecture, maintenance support for caregivers, interoperability of medical devices, medical workflows automation, dependability of the system, smart alerting, and intelligent acquisition of biosignals, have been addressed. The telecare system consists of the Body Area Network (BAN) of advanced sensors that are interconnected on a body of a pregnant woman, the Personal Area Network (PAN) that is responsible for embedded processing of physical signals, smart alerting, an intelligent human-machine-interface, and a reliable transmission channel to the Surveillance Centre located in a hospital or a local medical centre. The system integrates the new strategy for abdominal signal acquisition and analysis based on the smart selection of algorithms realized in the mobile instrumentation of PAN. Dependable telemedical systems, when broadly deployed, will provide a high societal value to high-risk pregnant women, especially those in dispersed rural areas.

Distributed Collaborative Design of a Mixed-Signal IP Component

A novel approach for enabling distributed design of heterogeneous systems and components is introduced in the paper. It integrates concepts of visual knowledge modeling, engineering workflows, collaborative workspaces, design task patterns, and remote tool invocation. These concepts are supported by a collaboration platform - a result of the EU FP6 project MAPPER. The design approach and the supporting collaboration platform have been applied in the USB2 OTG PHY IP core design that required collaboration among two dispersed SMEs. Mixed-signal USB design challenges, distributed design flow, requirements for enhanced EDA support, and selected design tasks enabled by the collaboration platform have been discussed. Finally, advantages and constraints of the design approach have been pointed to.

Web Services-Based Collaborative System for Distributed Engineering

• Collaborative engineering for distributed product development • Challenges in collaborative design• MAPPER project objectives and approach• MAPPER collaborative infrastructure• Requirements for distributed tool integration• TRMS - Tool Registration and Management Services• New TRMS architecture• Deployment of TRMS• Conclusions

Distributed collaborative design of IP components in the TRMS environment

A methodology, an application scenario and a new system enabling collaborative distributed design have been presented. The system based on Tool Registration and Management Services (TRMS) constitutes the core of the engineering collaborative infrastructure that has been deployed in the distributed design of intellectual property (IP) components. The system assures information security (including user authorization, data and transfer encrypting), communication through firewalls, remote administration of users and tools, and some support for distributed inter-organization workflows.

Collaborative Infrastructure for Distance-Spanning Concurrent Engineering

Design of complex Systems-on-a-Chip requires often integration of large teams of engineers who work in remote locations. Seamless and secure integration of distant tools across different organization over the Internet is still one of major challenges that obstacles efficient engineering collaboration. The paper explains the main element of the advanced collaborative infrastructure that supports integration of distributed engineering tools. It constitutes TRMS (Tool Registration and Management Services) which are scalable, easily accessible, secure, and available on different platforms due to their implementation in Java. Requirements on TRMS, its architecture and functionality, as well as conclusions stemming from first deployments are presented.

MAPPER Collaboration Platform for Knowledge-Intensive Engineering Processes

The paper presents a collaboration platform with model-based configurable services. It is a part of a more general approach developed by the EU project MAPPER that enables distributed collaboration over adaptive knowledge-intensive engineering processes. In a model-configured infrastructure, active knowledge models (AKMs) of products and processes become the basis for user-composed services, tools and methodologies available to users in customisable workplaces. A multi-layered architecture that offers a powerful means for configuration of services for particular application areas has been described. The presented approach and the collaboration platform have been experimented with in a collaborative engineering use case in electronic industry that integrated two dispersed SMEs. Experiences learned are summarized.

Design and interfacing aspects of the medical instrumentation for modern hospital system for pregnancy and labour monitoring

In this paper we present selected aspects of design and development of the fetal monitoring system which provides high quality of patients care in obstetrical environment. We focus on interfacing problems of the fetal monitors, taking into account a lack of any standards for communication and data content, as well as measurement limitations of this type of medical devices. Smart interface unit is described with built-in functions. They enable to reconstruct the original information on the object being monitored and to verify the recorded signals by additional information acquired from cooperating interface units thanks to an interoperability feature.

Special Section on Advanced Systems for Health, Wellness and Personal Assistance

t w t v e r This is a special issue of MICPRO entirely dedicated to the special session on Advanced Systems for Health, Wellness and Personal Assistance organized within the 2015 edition of the Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design held in Madeira, Portugal, and to the special session on Medical Cyber-Physical Systems for Home Telemonitoring organized within the 2015 edition of the IFAC Conference on Programmable Devices and Embedded Systems, held in Krakow, Poland. Both the sessions aim at discussing recent advances in development of embedded and cyberphysical systems for health care, wellness monitoring and personal assistance for any kind of persons, either suffering from a disease or not. The recent progress in (intelligent) miniaturized sensors and actuators, powerful embedded processors, wireless communications and energy efficient design made feasible and economically justified numerous new systems that are able to not only acquire bio-medical signals, but also to perform complex processing and classifications of bio-medical information, and related decision making, often allowing a remote monitoring or interaction with medical personnel. The DSD Special Session was focused both on the design and implementation methodologies and technologies, as well as, the advanced applications and holistic development of systems from the concept to its actual realisation and validation. This enables new or better systems not only in the traditional fields like medicine and surgery, but also in those related to ageing population or to personal well-being. On the other hand Telemonitoring as a part of telemedicine is of rising importance, diversity and scale of medical services. It enables an early recognition of threatening symptoms, long-term monitoring and care in the comfort of patients’ homes, using information transfer instead of costly transport of patients or physicians. New medical cyber physical systems by presenting a new level of integrated network intelligence offer possibilities for radically new telemedical services. The PDES Special Session offered an overview about the most recent trends in this important research field. The best papers were selected and invited to submit extended versions that were subject to a new evaluation process before being accepted to be included in this Special Issue.

Telemonitoring of pregnant women at home — Biosignals acquisition and measurement

The Medical Cyber-Physical System (MCPS) for telemonitoring of pregnant women at home is introduced in the paper. The system comprises the Body Area Network (BAN) of advanced sensors that are interconnected on a body of a pregnant woman and the Personal Area Network (PAN) which is responsible for embedded processing of physical signals, smart alerts, and human-machine-interface. A reliable transmission channel assures communication with the Central Surveillance Centre located in a hospital. The paper focuses on the problem of biosignals acquisition and measurement that is solved using the smart selection of algorithms for abdominal signal analysis in the mobile instrumentation of PAN.