Dusanka Boskovic

Medical devices in legal metrology

In addition to knowledge and experience of medical doctors, correct diagnosis and appropriate patient treatment largely depend on accuracy and functionality of medical devices. In a large number of serious medical situations proper functionality of medical devices is crucial for patients. Therefore it is necessary to carry out as strict and independent testing of functionalities of medical devices as possible and to obtain the most accurate and reliable diagnosis and patient treatment. This paper presents the results of study conducted by the Institute of Metrology of Bosnia and Herzegovina (IMBIH) that highlight the necessity of introducing metrology into medicine and defining standard regulations for inspections of medical devices. As it has been previously done for other kinds of devices that are under jurisdiction of the Institute of Metrology of BH, this research provides a foundation for the introduction of medical devices into the legal metrology system with precisely defined units of measurement, their ranges and errors. The study was based upon data collected through three clinical centers, 25 hospitals, 63 health centers and 320 private health institutions in BH over the course of one year. As a result of this study, the medical devices that have been introduced into the legal metrology system in BH include ECG devices, defibrillators, patient monitors, respirators, anesthesia machines, dialysis machines, pediatric and neonatal incubators, therapeutic ultrasounds, infusion pumps and perfusors. Furthermore, standard inspection regulations for the aforementioned medical devices are also defined. Additionally, a national laboratory for the inspection of medical devices was established and it currently operates under the ISO 17020 standard. With the introduction of medical devices into the legal metrology system and with the establishment of a fully operational national laboratory for inspection of medical devices, we expect that the reliability of medical devices in diagnosis and patient care will increase and that the costs of the health care system in BH will be reduced.

Diagnosis of Epilepsy from EEG Signals Using Global Wavelet Power Spectrum

Epilepsy diagnosis using EEG signals represents important segment in general clinical practice. However, EEG signal features such as amplitude, are not helpful in order to visually distinguish between healthy and epileptic patients; and therefore additional signal processing and results analysis is needed. In this paper, the analyses and the results of the properties of EEG signals of healthy subjects and patients with an epileptic syndrome without seizure, using global wavelet power spectrum (GWS) are presented. The results of the analysis of the 200 EEG signals confirm that this approach can enable a simple recognition of epileptic EEG signals in a standard clinical practice. The results indicate that the magnitudes of the EEG signal components for the patients with an epileptic syndrome are considerably different to the EEG signal components of the healthy subjects. Also, the GWS dominant values for selected signals of patients with an epileptic syndrome are found in the delta and theta frequency bands.

Soft sensors in wireless networking as enablers for SDN based management of content delivery

In this paper we present an approach for establishing soft/virtual sensors across wireless network components (access points, connected devices and routers) and a cloud based software defined networking (SDN) controller. These soft sensors provide the contextual insight necessary for efficient management of available storage and networking resources, all the while ensuring necessary QoS levels in content delivery services (i.e. video delivery). The approach presented converts wireless network infrastructure into an edge computing platform which provides real time decision making based on results received from established soft sensors. This provides the level of reactivity necessary for fast changing conditions in IoT era wireless networks. The cloud based SDN controller oversees the content delivery system and performs strategic/proactive decision making and guides edge computing processes and decisions in line with defined policies. In this paper we show the impact of SDN based resource management, supported by soft sensors and edge computing across wireless networking infrastructure, on resource utilization efficiency and QoS in content delivery.

SDN based service provisioning management in smart buildings

Foundation of every smart building is local area network connecting devices and systems for enabling provisioning of in-building and Internet based services. In the Internet of Things era, in-building local area networks are becoming more complex with support for plethora of access technologies, support for edge processing, interconnecting IoT gateways and supporting different mission critical services depending on low latency and high reliability all while supporting internal company business processes and high QoS for Internet based services like web browsing, content delivery and video streaming. It is evident that smart building local area networks require proper solution for context and service aware resource management. In this paper we introduce SDN-based approach and controller for context aware service provisioning management. We focus on mission critical services of building management system, VoIP for inbuilding voice communication and content delivery. We will show that our SDN controller enables context and service aware utilization of edge processing and storage capacities of the in-building IP infrastructure to ensure required QoS levels for these different classes of in-building and Internet based services.

Software for acid-base status disorders management

Normal acid-base status represents the value of hydrogen ions in extracellular fluid is within pH range of 7.36 (44 nmol/L) and 7.44 (36 nmol/L). Acid-base balance disorders may be a result of enhancement or reduction in amount of hydrogen ions, and include four basic disorders: metabolic and respiratory acidosis, metabolic and respiratory alkalosis. First step implies diagnosing the type of acid-base status disorder. The application input consists of blood analysis data and body weight info. Next step is determining the significance of the disorder and finally recommending future treatment. Software offers the optional functionality of entering mineral level values to improve treatment recommendations. Following the latest trends, along with the aim of increasing availability and mobility of the system, the software is developed for the Android platform using the Java programming language.

Guidelines for interactive digital storytelling presentations of cultural heritage

Interactive digital storytelling becomes a form of information presentation in many fields. Its application spans from media industry through digital cultural heritage, serious games, information visualization to contemporary theater and visual arts. In order to develop a new digital storytelling methodology hyper-storytelling, we engaged a team of multidisciplinary experts from computer science, visual arts, literature, film directing, psychology, communicology and human computer interaction. In this paper we present the first findings of this team in form of guidelines for interactive digital storytelling presentations of cultural heritage.

A serious game for understanding ancient seafaring in the Mediterranean sea

Commercial sea routes joining Europe with other cultures are vivid examples of cultural interaction. In this work, we present a serious game which aims to provide better insight and understanding of seaborne trade mechanisms and seafaring practices in the eastern Mediterranean during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. The game incorporates probabilistic geospatial analysis of possible ship routes through the re-use and spatial analysis from open GIS maritime, ocean, and weather data. These routes, along with naval engineering and sailing techniques from the period, are used as underlying information for the seafaring game. This work is part of the EU-funded project iMareCulture whose purpose is in raising the European identity awareness using maritime and underwater cultural interaction and exchange in the Mediterranean sea.

Heuristic based evaluation of Mobile Services web portal usability

The paper presents heuristic based evaluation of mobile services web portal. Development context for the BH Telecom Mobile Services web portal is described, including the evaluation team organization and training. Usability evaluation is integrated with redesign proposals, and Heuristic Evaluation Report is established to support the process. The evaluation results are presented and discussed, highlighting several procedural and product improvements.

Track layout design using modified genetic algorithm

Track or road layout in a given geographical area to plan new or improve existing public and/or private transportation systems is a complex problem. Especially today, many parameters have to be considered, and some of them are not obvious. For example, in face of an imminent energy crisis, the energy consumption of a transportation system should be minimized. In general, the resulting layout has to be an adequate compromise of many parameters. This means that there are many possible ways to solve the problem, which quality differs. Consequently, this type of problem implies an explosion of search-space states with raising number of midpoints and/or resolution. In these cases, heuristic search methods have their major advances compared to non-heuristic search methods, which would need time and memory proportional to the search-space size to find the best solution. We explored, in particular, the use of a genetic algorithm, as a representative of the class of evolutionary algorithms. It searches the search-space selectively by focusing on interesting regions, constantly trying to find even better regions while having significantly less memory requirements. The importance of its main parameters, their impact on the performance and the precision of the genetic algorithm are presented in this paper. Guidelines for a good set-up of the genetic algorithm are given in order to gain high efficiency and effectiveness; the encoding of parameters, the build-up of the fitness function, evaluation and reproduction of chromosomes, elitism and convergence affinity as the main engine of genetic algorithms is discussed in detail as are the limits of this approach. The modified and improved simple genetic algorithm to solve the mentioned track-layout problem forms another core part of the paper.

Plantar Pressure Measurement Transformation Framework

Pedobarography measurements of pressure distribution across the plantar surface can be a source of valuable information for gait analysis in context of injury prevention, improvement in balance control, diagnosing disease, and gait analysis. Different applications demand different measurement types: platforms in the gait labs or in-shoe smart soles, and subsequent analysis methods vary with the application domain. Although the pedobarography is considered experimental, technology advancements in the field of IoT, and popularity of collecting different data linked to human activities and behavior, are contributing to increase in pedobarography research. Comprehensive analysis of research results is impeded since the data collecting is not standardized, and differ in volume and structure, thus not facilitating comparative analyses, as it is a case with other biomedical signals as ECG or EEG. In our research we have implemented software framework in Python language with objective to extract relevant pedobarography information using foot segmentation and data aggregation algorithms. In order to validate our solution we processed data from public plantar pressure data set and transformed it in data sets comprising pressure signals covering selected number of foot segments, down to one sensor signal. The proposed data transformation application can help in data sharing and comparison of different approaches in pedobarography.