Mirjana Maksimović

A custom Internet of Things healthcare system

Health is the fundamental capability humans require to perceive, feel, and act effectively, and as such, it represents a primary element in the development of the individual, but also of the environment humans belongs to. That is why it is necessary to provide adequate ways and means to ensure the appropriate healthcare delivery based on parameters monitoring and direct providing of the medical assistance. The new technologies development and implementation, especially the Internet and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) commonly known as the Internet of Things (IoT), enable global approach to the health care system infrastructure development. This leads to e-health system that, in real time manner, supplies a valuable set of information relevant to all of the stakeholders (patients, medical and paramedical stuff, and health insurance) regardless their current location. Commercial systems in this area usually do not meet the general patient needs, and those that do are usually economically unacceptable due to the high operational and development costs. In this paper, based on well-known low-cost technologies, there is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solution for a sustainable and adaptable patient oriented infrastructure development, presented.

Internet of Things Based E-health Systems: Ideas, Expectations and Concerns

Even the interaction between technology and healthcare has a long history, the embracing of e-health is slow because of limited infrastructural arrangements, capacity and political willingness. Internet of Things (IoT) is expected to usher in the biggest and fastest spread of technology in history, therefore together with e-health will completely modify person-to-person, human-to-machine and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications for the benefit of society in general. It is anticipated that the IoT-based e-health solutions will revolutionize the healthcare industry like nothing else before it. The rapid growth of IoT, Cloud computing and Big data, as well as the proliferation and widespread adoption of new technologies and miniature sensing device, have brought forth new opportunities to change the way patients and their healthcare providers manage health conditions, thus improving human health and well-being. The integration of IoT into the healthcare system brings numerous advantages, such as the availability and accessibility, the ability to provide a more “personalized” system, and high-quality cost-effective healthcare delivery. Still, the success of the IoT-based e-health systems will depend on barriers needed to overcome in order to achieve large-scale adoption of e-health applications. A large number of significant technological improvements in both hardware and software components are required to develop consistent, safe, effective, timely, flexible, patient-centered, power-efficient and ubiquitous healthcare systems. However, trust, privacy and security concerns, as well as regulation issues, identification, and semantic interoperability are pivotal in the widespread adoption of IoT and e-health together. Therefore, developing a climate of trust is one of the most important tasks that must be accomplished for successful e-health implementations. This chapter analyzes the ideas and impacts of IoT on the design of new e-health solutions and identifies the majority of challenges that determine successful IoT-based e-health system adoption.

A Graphical Editor for RESTful Sensor Web networks modeling

Effectiveness of communication is measured by speed, ease, and accuracy in which the information can be understood. From the cognitive aspect graphical presentations are usually more effective than textual ones, especially when communication between end-users and/or domain practitioners is concerned. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) graphical tools have become extremely popular concerning the development of applications for a large number of domains. In this paper the emphasis is put on the design and implementation of Graphical Editor for RESTful Sensor Web Network in order to equip designers, with no expert knowledge in specific solution-domain, with a tool that would enable them to easily define tasks, specify network architecture and implement RESTful services. Based on the pilot sensor network design model, the verification, validation and proper functionality of proposed Graphical Editor are performed.

Fuzzy logic and Wireless Sensor Networks – A survey

This paper presents a survey of applications of fuzzy logic in real Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The use of fuzzy logic in WSNs is shown to be a promising technique since it allows combining and evaluating diverse parameters in an efficient manner. Fuzzy logic is a good approach due to the execution requirements can be easily supported by sensor nodes, while it is able to improve the overall network performance. The potential of fuzzy logic goes beyond traditional systems and can be used in many research fields (statistics, quality control, optimization techniques . . . ), allowing multidisciplinary approaches and performance improvements. In WSNs, fuzzy logic has been used to improve decision-making, reduce resource consumption, and generally increase performance through efficient deployment, localization, clustering and cluster head election, routing, data aggregation, security, etc.

A proposition of low cost Sensor Web implementation based on GSM/GPRS services

In past few years, automatic remote systems for monitoring a wide range of environment or process parameters have exposed a rapid growth concerning the technology issues. Entering the era of Internet of Things (IoTs), a highly dynamic and radically distributed networked system, usage of small, cheap, flexible and end-user programmable computer hardware becomes apparent. These objects, deployed in various environments, are able to communicate and to interact among themselves, with end-users or other entities in the network. Using such objects, tasks like monitoring, control or data processing can be easily done. But, in some case, the target environments are often too dangerous, hazardous, unwired, or difficult to access. In such unfriendly environments there are many challenges for monitoring systems (wireless sensor networks) deployment and maintenance. As the possible solution, in this paper we have suggested the creation of an economical remote monitoring system, based on cheap computer board (Raspberry Pi), wireless sensors and GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile Communications/General packet radio service). In other words, the Raspberry Pi platform is utilized as central processing unit which provides a set of services for accessing sensor data, and communicates with end users, while different types of sensors (depending of target parameters) can constitute the detection module. 3G/4G USB Modem or GSM/GPRS shields can be used as GSM/GPRS communication module in order to ensure Internet connection. A whole system presents an IoT solution, precisely a Sensor Web node, which can be accessed all over the world, and provide information from a monitored environment. Performed research shows a possibility of setting up this system for a remote communication, control function and monitoring in unfriendly environments. The usage of low cost pieces of hardware verifies that the Raspberry Pi is highly suitable for numerous IoT concept applications and especially in the unfriendly environments.

Comparative Analysis of Data Mining Techniques Applied to Wireless Sensor Network Data for Fire Detection

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are a rapidly growing area for research and commercial development with very wide range of applications. Using WSNs many critical events like fire can be detected earlier to prevent loosing human lives and heavy structural damages. Integration of soft computing techniques on sensor nodes, like fuzzy logic, neural networks and data mining, can significantly lead to improvements of critical events detection possibility. Using data mining techniques in process of patterns discovery in large data sets it’s not often so easy. A several algorithms must be applied to application before a suitable algorithm for selected data types can be found. Therefore, the selection of a correct data mining algorithm depends on not only the goal of an application, but also on the compatibility of the data set. This paper focuses on comparative analysis of various data mining techniques and algorithms and in that purpose three different experiments on WSN fire detection data are proposed and performed. The primary goal was to see which of them has the best classification accuracy of fuzzy logic generated data and is the most appropriate for a particular application of fire detection.

A telehealth system for automated diagnosis of asthma and chronical obstructive pulmonary disease

This paper presents the development and real-time testing of an automated expert diagnostic telehealth system for the diagnosis of 2 respiratory diseases, asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The system utilizes Android, Java, MATLAB, and PHP technologies and consists of a spirometer, mobile application, and expert diagnostic system. To evaluate the effectiveness of the system, a prospective study was carried out in 3 remote primary healthcare institutions, and one hospital in Bosnia and Herzegovina healthcare system. During 6 months, 780 patients were assessed and diagnosed with an accuracy of 97.32%. The presented approach is simple to use and offers specialized consultations for patients in remote, rural, and isolated communities, as well as old and less physically mobile patients. While improving the quality of care delivered to patients, it was also found to be very beneficial in terms of healthcare.

E-health in Bosnia and Herzegovina: exploring the challenges of widespreadadoption

The rapid advancements in Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the increasing number of smart things (portable devices and sensors) enable the transfer of health resources and healthcare by electronic means. This is known as e-health, and today is closely related to the Internet, which provides a new medium for dissemination of healthcare-related information and for interaction and collaboration among institutions, health professionals, health providers and the public. Increased efficiency in healthcare, improved quality of care, availability, responsibility and satisfaction of patients and consumers are the main benefits e-health offers. Unfortunately, there are many challenges associated with e-health adoption, especially in developing countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina. To understand and address the challenges of implementing and adopting e-health in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this paper presents a review which identifies the main political, economic and technological challenges for widespread e-health adoption.

Fuzzy rule reduction influence on system's accuracy

Considering that some systems have limitation in memory and processing power, storing a full fuzzy rule base might be a drawback. Large rule base might considerably slow down the whole system and significantly affect performance. Thus, the purpose of rule reduction method implementation is simplifying the decision process and making the rule base traversal faster. In this paper several methods for rule reduction are presented and one of them - FURIA is applied to system for fire possibility determining. Applying FURIA, rule base is significantly reduced and tested by simulation of temperature rises in a several cases for high and low temperatures. A data analysis for this measurement shows that decreased rule base has slightly lower accuracy in contrast to a system with full rule base, which means that, by reducing a number of rules, systems energy and memory consumption can be decreased, transmission costs can be reduced and critical event detection made faster.

Towards green nanotechnology: maximizing benefits and minimizing harm

The ultimate goal of any economic, technological and social development is to improve human health and well-being. Thus, the society brings new requirements to new technologies, moving towards clean and green technology development. Green nanotechnology, as a branch of green technology, significantly contributes to environmental sustainability by producing nanomaterials and nanoproducts without harming human health and the environment, and by producing nanoproducts that provide solutions to environmental problems as well. Green nanotechnology is based on the existing principles of green chemistry and green engineering – it uses less materials and renewable inputs wherever possible, and thereby saving energy and fuel. The main benefits of green nanotechnology are: increased energy efficiency, reduced waste and greenhouse gas emissions, and minimized the consumption of non-renewable raw materials.