Mabel Vazquez-Briseno

Using RFID/NFC and QR-Code in Mobile Phones to Link the Physical and the Digital World

Today it is clear that the most widely used device in the world is the mobile phone. Phones are mostly voice-centric devices, but a wide range of mobile devices now exist on the market offering multiple services and functions. The term smartphone is now used to characterize a mobile phone with special computer-enabled features. Despite the mobile phone evolution, one of the main disadvantages of these devices is that they still have insufficient input capabilities, providing tiny keyboards to do manual entries. Fortunately most smartphones are now equipped with several sensors that can be used to enhance and create new users interfaces. This is the case for integrated cameras that can be used to read visual codes, like Quick Response (QR) Code as well as other sensing technologies such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and the associated Near Field Communications (NFC). The use of these technologies does not only facilitate entering information, but it also allows using mobile phones for interactions with people, places and things, enhancing the usability and usefulness of these devices. The use of QR Codes and RFID tags has significantly evolve in the last decades, they were first used to track products in the industry, but now they have contributed to develop several new concepts that integrate the physical world with the virtual one.

A proposal for using the internet of things concept to increase children's health awareness

Childhood obesity has become a major problem around the world. In many cases children develop unhealthy eating patterns, resulting in excess energy intake, because they eat alone without their parents or teachers advice. In this paper we propose a mobile health (mhealth) platform intended to increase childrens health awareness by tracking their food intake and sending proper notifications and messages based on their food choices. The platform is based on the Internet of Things concept in order to facilitate capturing food information using intelligent tags instead of doing manual entries.

Designing a gateway IEEE1451-HL7 for E-health telemonitoring services

The development of devices to interconnect different technologies paves the way to achieve interoperability. Although E-health telemonitoring services have additional challenges to overcome, one of them is the semantic interoperability. The aim of this work is to shed light on that issue by proposing the design of a digital device handling the data of the sensors and sending it to the cloud. The device uses the connectivity standards IEEE802.15.4 and IEEE802.15.1 on the perception sub-layer and IEEE802.11 and IEEE802.3 for sending data to the cloud. Besides, the device will complaint the standards IEEE1451.0, IEEE1451.1, IEEE1451.5 and Health Level 7 (HL7) on the application layer. A block diagram description, block interrelationship, and circuit specifications is given. In addition, we include our customized hardware initial proposal with the tower K60F120, a Freescale developing board for embedded solutions. The conclusions include challenges and new directions about hardware options.

Study on MID-IR Spectroscopy on Whole Blood Samples for Human Glucose Quanitification Applications

The importance of a constant blood glucose concentration monitoring in order to keep a regular control for diabetic patients, had been established from the medical approach. Several studies accept the necessity of exploring alternatives for the traditional digital glucometer, given the pain and discomfort related to this technique, which can lead to a compromised control of the disease. Numerous efforts based on the application of IR spectroscopy for non-invasive glucose quantification had been done with favorable, yet not conclusive results, given in part from the research protocols defined, which had not considered the compounds involved in the glucose regulation mechanism, it’s known that this substances have an important role from both the biochemical and optical perspective. Therefore it’s necessary to apply an interdisciplinary study based on the properties of the glucose in the human body, to understand the interaction between this substance, its surroundings and light from the mid-IR region. From our results, the window of interest for blood glucose is in the spectral range of 1150-950cm-1. This study proposes a comprehensive approach of glucose quantification by means of mid-IR absorption spectroscopy, considering important biochemical, physiological and optical properties, we also propose the use of chemometric tools for the analysis of the bio-optical signals. The results of this work would help to define the right parameters aiming to obtain an optical glucose quantification system and protocol.

Using sensor fusion in a serious game for children nutrition education

During the last ten years, the serious game industry has seen an amazing growth as well as an academic spotlight. This growth creates opportunity to experiment with different technologies, furthermore to improve new serious games aesthetics, as well as their inner mechanics. This work presents the design of a serious game as a tool to support childrens nutrition education. The game interaction is based on movement, and its motion detection is aided by sensor fusion techniques.

Proposal for study on IR light and glucose phantom interaction for human glucose quantification applications

It has been established the importance of a constant glucose monitoring in order to keep a regular control for diabetes patients. Several medical studies accept the necessity of exploring alternatives for the traditional digital glucometer, given the pain and discomfort related to this technique, which can lead to a compromised control of the disease. Several efforts based on the application of IR spectroscopy had been done with favorable, yet not conclusive results. Therefore it’s necessary to apply a comprehensive and interdisciplinary study based on the biochemical and optical properties of the glucose in the human body, in order to understand the interaction between this substance, its surroundings and IR light. These study propose a comprehensive approach of the glucose and IR light interaction, considering and combining important biochemical, physiological and optical properties, as well as some machine learning techniques for the data analysis. The results of this work would help to define the right parameters aiming to obtain an optical glucose quantification system and protocol.

MNH-WSN (Mobile Node Based Handoff for Wireless Sensor Network)

in this paper we analyze and implement a MAC layer handoff mechanism for WSN by introduce best algorithm for reducing handoff time. More we introduce the best mechanisms to manage handoff from Mobile node (MN) side. At the end of the paper we will show how, with our approach, it is possible to reduce the mobile node handoff delay effectively. Every result shown in the analysis is done both in simulation and real-time implementation of our algorithm. As our result shows that, the total handoff delay time we have is the best time duration achieved in handoff handling of mobile sensors. Physical environment test is done for sensor applications working in hospital, considering that sensors in such environment are used for very sensitive data communication, that’s why it’s very important to analyze our algorithm both in real environment and simulation. That’s what we did.

MMIG: A middleware for communicating a WSN to a Web site for monitoring vital signs

This paper presents the development of MMIM (Middleware for Monitoring and Information Management): a collection of software that communicates a wireless sensor network (WSN) based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard with a web site. The WSN collects vital signs of patients and sends them to a database located in a web server. On the other end, people who care for the health of these patients, monitor the web site using the collected data and set parameters that control the behavior of the devices (sensors of the WSN) in terms of time intervals for checking samples and alerts.