Efrosini Sourla

Health Internet of Things: Metrics and methods for efficient data transfer

Abstract The rapid development of modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in recent years and their introduction into people’s daily lives worldwide, has led to new circumstances at all levels of the social environment. In health care in particular, sensors and data links offer potential for constant monitoring of patient’s symptoms and needs, in real time, enabling physicians to diagnose and monitor health problems wherever the patient is, either at home or outdoors. However, the use of Internet of Things concepts in the health domain does not come without extra data and therefore a data transfer cost overheads. To deal with these overheads, novel metrics, and methods are introduced in an attempt to maximize the capabilities and widen acceptance/usage provided by the Internet of Things. Without losing its generality, the method discussed is experimentally evaluated in the paradigm of the Health domain. The focus is on the need for an overview of available data formats and transmission methods and selection of the optimal combination, which can result to reduction/minimization of costs. An analytic methodology is presented backed with theoretical metrics and evaluated experimentally.

Care@HOME: A Mobile Monitoring System for Patient Treatment and Blood Pressure Tracking

In this paper, we propose an integrated system for mobile monitoring of patient treatment and blood pressure tracking. Care@Home delivers functionality to the patient’s smartphone using an intelligent mobile App. It consists of desktop applications and loosely coupled Web Services that allow patient and doctors to interact through either a common Web database or directly through SMS text message mobile notifications. Key features of the proposed solution are (a) the dynamic character of the smartphone App (it is not a static App!), which is possible to receive treatment updates from the doctor remotely and (b) the careful design to deliver alerting on treatment and blood pressure tracking in terms of measurement and instant doctor notification in case of warning levels detection. Care@HOME App stores locally in a smartphone database all measurements taken, beside online Web database storage. In this way, it is possible to minimize data access costs and deliver the measurements during the next doctor visit and only warning level may be transmitted using SMS text messages. Initial evaluation of the prototype has already shown encouraging results.

Exposing click-fraud using a burst detection algorithm

The explosive growth in the size and use of the World Wide Web continuously creates new great challenges and needs. One such need is dealing with click fraud, which aims at increasing clicks on certain ads and thus the profit of the websites which display them. In this work, we extend the concept of click fraud and redefine it as any pattern of clicks whose goal is to alternate the normal operation of a website in order to produce specific results. An indication of a click fraud may be a burst of clicks that can be simulated by an automated program or script. We deal with the problem of efficient real-time Click Fraud detection utilizing advanced data structures and exploiting their advantages concerning space and time required.

A Web and Smart Phone System for Tibia Open Fractures

This paper presents an integrated System for Tibia Open Fractures (STOF), based on web and mobile phone applications. A rapid prototyping method was followed based on Adobe Fireworks CS3. The database is developed in SQL Server 2008. The application is created in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, using ASP.NET programming language. A system that includes an online database and a smart phone application for recording, monitoring and studying patients with tibia open fractures is developed. STOF is designed to be doctors-friendly using classifications and knowledge grouping specialized for tibia open fractures.

MobiQ: Mobile Based Processes for Efficient Customer Flow Management

Queues are still a part of the everyday life, though Internet and mobile technologies are already available. Queues are formed whenever a bottleneck of customer demand for a service appears. There are workarounds for customer flow management or queue management in order to provide a level of freedom to the customers such as queue ticket numbers. However, there can be many more things that can be done to free additional time for the customer until his/her turn comes to be services. In this work, we propose an solution framework for servicing customer flow with live feedback. Our goal is to improve customers’ experience and Quality of Services (QoS), by integrating mobile access with Short Message Service (SMS) to improve customer flow in popular crowded services, where long queues are created. A fully functioning real life prototype is presented, demonstrating the feasibility and effectiveness in terms of time and effort.

Interoperability and Design Issues of Spatial Data and Geographic Information Systems in Greece

The heterogeneity of spatial planning data is a well known problem that admittedly limits its use and provokes numerous difficulties to planners, investors as well as decision makers. Spatial planning is confronted with a huge problem concerning the diversity in data collection, storing, processing and provision. These challenges constitute the main concern of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community Directive (INSPIRE). Spatial infrastructure processes can be supported by increasing transparency and developing shared methodologies. This on-going research presents the current situation in Greece and the EU Initiative on spatial data interoperability and its design effects on GIS. It identifies the problems that need to be encountered and recommends information and communication (ICT) approaches and tools suitable to overcome them.

D3-Tree: A Dynamic Deterministic Decentralized Structure

We present D3-Tree, a dynamic deterministic structure for data management in decentralized networks, by engineering and further extending an existing decentralized structure. D3-Tree achieves O(logN) worst-case search cost (N is the number of nodes in the network), O(logN) amortized load-balancing cost, and it is highly fault-tolerant. A particular strength of D3-Tree is that it achieves O(logN) amortized search cost under massive node failures. We conduct an extensive experimental study verifying that D3-Tree outperforms other well-known structures and that it achieves a significant success rate in element queries in case of massive node failures.

Proposing a Novel Monitoring and Early Notification System for Heart Diseases

The spectacular penetration of Smartphones has introduced a new field of software applications’ development. The constantly growing use of mobile applications for medicine, enables complete and systematic monitoring of chronic diseases for both health professionals and patients. In this work, an integrated system is presented for lifelong cardiologic patient monitoring, early detection and optimal management of emergency cases. The key features of the proposed system are: (a) management of emergency cases where the patient sends a chief complaint and the cardiologist evaluates the situation and proceeds to a series of actions, (b) management of patients’ EMRs, (c) recording of patients’ measurements of vital signs performed at home in regular basis and (d) interconnection to Microsoft HealthVault platform. Our system’s contribution lies in: (a) optimal patient monitoring at home and early response in cases of emergency, (b) enhanced communication between collaborating parties and (c) maintenance of detailed medical data repositories, in common format, for scientific research.

Exploiting Fuzzy Expert Systems in Cardiology

This paper presents a Sugeno-type Fuzzy Expert System (FES) designed to help mostly Cardiologists and General Practitioners in taking decisions on the most common cardiological clinical dilemmas. FES is separated in five sub-systems; Coronary Disease, Hypertension, Atrial Fibrillation, Heart Failure and Diabetes, covering a wide range of Cardiology. The Fuzzy Rules of the sub-systems start counting from 30 till 300. FES is verified and validated from three different Medical Doctors User Groups (A, B & C) for three basic criteria, which are Medical Reliability, Assistance in Work and Usability. In addition, FES proved to be a valuable educative tool for Cardiology Medical Residents and Medical Students.

Mobile Data Fusion for Maritime Surveillance

Maritime surveillance operations are needed worldwide to monitor and reassure safety and security across the seas. Numerous devices are employed in order to provide situational awareness of the vast sea. Lots of different technologies are involved to provide multiple views and clarify maritime conditions at a given time and place, however making interoperability a real challenge. The task is even more tedious as there is a key request to provide a single window view for multiple even all possible inputs. In this work we present an integrated mobile fusion solution for multiple tracking and monitoring sensors (e.g. low weight/high performance radar, position transmission mechanisms and electro-optic/systems and hyper-spectral sensors) to assist the detection and early identification and tracking of moving targets (e.g. with moving target indication and data fusion/correlation capabilities), as well as methods for obstacle detection and maritime surveillance. This innovative single window mobile platform presents high efficiency, low operational costs profiles and contributes to standardization in construction as it utilizes typical tracking infrastructure and standard smartphones and tablets.