It is internationally recognized that future healthcare systems will be supported by pervasive healthcare systems in order to target the upcoming societal health challenges. Pervasive Health and Technology (PHT) Journal is a cross-disciplinary journal focusing on issues related to development, delivery and management of pervasive healthcare and the impact of technology within future healthcare systems.

The journal aims to become an information source and to create a community of shared interests between health professionals, technologists, patients and other professionals related to pervasive healthcare.

The journal will present and discuss issues pertaining to personal electronic health assistants, health crowdsourcing, data mining and knowledge management, IT applications to needs of patients, disease prevention and awareness, electronic and mobile health platforms including design, implementation and evaluation of supporting hardware and software in ambulant and hospital workflows, needs of physicians, nurses and other healthcare staff.

Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

Physiological models for interpreting medical sensor data
Sensing/Actuating Technologies and Pervasive Computing
Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health Professions
Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Hardware and Software Infrastructures
Activity recognition and fall detection
User modelling and personalization
Modelling of Pervasive Healthcare environments
Sensor-based decision support systems
Design and evaluation of patient and ambient-related sensors
Wearable and implantable sensor integration
Data fusion in pervasive healthcare environments
Data mining of medical patient records
Software architectures
Electronic Health Records

Understanding Users

Identifying and addressing stakeholder needs
Usability and acceptability
Barriers and enablers to adoption
Social implications of pervasive health technology, and social inclusion
Coverage and delivery of pervasive healthcare services
Patient and caregiver empowerment
Diversity: population and condition-specific requirements
Inclusive research and design: engaging underrepresented populations
Digital interventions and health behavior change

Applications

Autonomous systems to support independent living
Clinical applications, validation and evaluation studies
Telemedicine and mHealth solutions
Chronic disease and health risk management applications
Health/Wellbeing promotion and disease prevention
Home based health and wellness measurement and monitoring
Continuous vs event-driven monitoring of patients
Smart homes and hospitals
Using mobile devices in the storage, update, and transmission of patient data
Wellbeing and lifestyle support
Systems to support individuals with auditory, cognitive, or vision impairments
Systems to support caregivers

Pervasive Healthcare Management

Challenges surrounding data quality
Standards and interoperability in pervasive healthcare
Business cases and cost issues
Security and privacy issues
Training of healthcare professional for pervasive healthcare
Legal and regulatory issues
Staffing and resource management

Call for Papers: Special issue on: Pervasive health, chronic diseases and new paradigms in health care (Manuscript submission deadline: 2020-03-27; Notification of acceptance: 2020-04-30; Submission of final revised paper: 2020-05-29; Publication of special issue (tentative): 2020-06-12)

Guest editors: Prof. Roman Rodriguez-Aguilar (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico)

Prof. Felix Martinez-Rios (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico)

Prof. Jose Antonio Marmolejo-Saucedo (Universidad Panamericana, Mexico)

Call for Papers: Special issue on: Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Healthcare Analytics (Manuscript submission deadline: 2020-05-20; Notification of acceptance: 2020-06-22; Submission of final revised paper: 2020-07-31; Publication of special issue (tentative): 2020-08-14)

Guest editors: Prof. Saikishor Jangiti (SASTRA Deemed University, India)

Guest editors: Dr. Kulvinder Singh (Kurukshetra University, India)

Guest editors: Dr. Rohit Tanwar (School of Computer Sciences, UPES, Dehradun, India)

Call for Papers: Special issue on: Using Information and Communication Technologies in Health Teaching and Learning (Manuscript submission deadline: 2020-09-19; Notification of acceptance: 2020-10-30; Submission of final revised paper: 2020-11-30; Publication of special issue (tentative): 2020-12-18)

Guest editors: Sonia Oliveira (University of Aveiro, Portugal)

Liliana Vale Costa (DIGIMEDIA Research Centre, University of Aveiro)

Anind Dey (University of Washington)
Ansar-Ul-Haque Yasar (Hasselt University, Belgium)
Alejandro Dominguez Rodriguez (Autonomous University of Baja California)
Alexandros Tzallas (Technological Educational Institute of Epirus)
Asimina Kiourti (The Ohio State University)
AtaUllah Ghafoor (National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.)
Arijit Ukil (Tata Consultancy Services)
Bert Arnrich (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey)
Daojing He (South China University of Technology, China)
Emilija Stojmenova (Duh University of Ljubljana)
Frank Wallhoff (Jade University of Applied Sciences)
Heiko Mueller (OFFIS, Germany)
Honggang Wang (UMASS. USA)
Kashif Saleem (King Saud University)
Laszlo Bokor (BME, Hungary)
Marcela Deyanira Rodriguez Urrea (Autonomous University of Baja California)
Mauro Femminella (University of Perugia, Italy)
Melina Frenken (Jade University of Applied Sciences)
Mohammad Upal Mahfuz (University of Wisconsin-Green Bay)
Mosabber Uddin Ahmed (University of Dhaka)
Mojtaba Taherisadr (University of Michigan)
Nadeem Javaid (COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan)
Pietro Cipresso (Istituto Auxologico, Milan, Italy)
Razan Hamed (New York Institute of Technology, NY, USA)
Silvia Serino (Catholic University of Milan, Italy)
Stefan Rahr Wagner (Aarhus University)
Tanvir Zia (School of Computing & Mathematics, Charles Sturt University, Australia)
Venet Osmani (CREATE-NET, Trento, Italy)
Wilko Heuten (OFFIS, Germany)
Tessa Dekkers (Delft University, The Netherlands)
Saikishor Jangiti (SASTRA Deemed University, India)

Natalia Romero¹

Natalia Romero Herrera. Dr. Romero Herrera works as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology, in The Netherlands. After obtaining a Computer Engineer title from University of Chile, Dr. Romero Herrera joint a 2 years post-graduate program and conducted her PhD research within the disciplines of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and User-Centred Design at Eindhoven University of Technology, in The Netherlands. Currently she has more than 10 years of experience as a design researcher in the area of personal informatics, exploring data-centric interactions that are adopted by people in their daily life. Involved in a dozen of National and European multidisciplinary research projects, Dr. Romero Herrera’s research has contributed to the design and development of in-situ data-centric design methods with the aim to contextualise knowledge and in that way contribute to the design of user-centric innovations. Her design methodology has contributed to the field of Sustainability and Healthcare Living labs. In addition, her research developments has contributed to data-enabled design concepts that aim to empower people in making informed decisions that positively impact quality of life and environmental impact. Her design concepts has contributed to applications areas such as independent living, e- Health and self-management. Dr. Romero Herrera has served as reviewer of a wide number of HCI and design journals, for example TOCHI, JAISE, ACM Transactions, Pervasive Health and Technologies, Behaviour and Technologies, Design studies. She has also participated actively as associate chair as well in the review committee of a range of technology and design conferences. She has recently obtained a national grant to generate contextual knowledge on food behaviour for the creative industry to design innovations in the prevention of overweight, and a European grant to demonstrate the impact of an in-situ data-centric platform as a low-cost energy strategy to stimulate secondary schools across Europe in the reduction of greenhouse emissions and the increase of wellbeing in schools.

Manik Sharma²

Dr. Manik Sharma is an MCA, UGC-NET qualified and has received his Ph.D. degree in “Distributed Query Optimization”. He has more than 12 years of teaching experience. He is working in the area of Data Mining, Machine Learning and Soft Computing with specialization in the diagnosis of diseases and modeling of DSS query optimizer. The thrust area is to improve the predictive accuracy in early diagnosis of several fatal human disorders. He has published 3 books related to Computer Network, Internet Applications, Management Information System and Database Theory. In addition, he has also published more than 25 research papers in various journals of International repute including Scopus and Thomson Reuters. He has also presented more than ten research articles in various national and international UGC and IEEE conferences. Moreover, he is an active member of International Program Committees, Technical Program Committees, and Advisory Committees of several academics conferences (United Kingdom, Singapore, Mauritius, Thailand, Vietnam, USA, Hong Kong, Canada, UAE, and India).

1: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
2: DAV University, India

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Cloud-based Secure TeleMedicine Information System using Crypto-Biometric Techniques
Appears in:
phat 18: e3

Authors:
Dindayal Mahto, Dilip Kumar Yadav

Published:
23rd Mar 2020

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: TeleMedicine Information System (TMIS) uses information and communication technology (ICT) for providing remote medical consultations. Taking the benefits of ICT, a sick person may distantly get regular telecare medical consultations with his/her remote medico. The backbone of ICT is…INTRODUCTION: TeleMedicine Information System (TMIS) uses information and communication
technology (ICT) for providing remote medical consultations. Taking the benefits of ICT, a sick person may distantly get regular telecare medical consultations with his/her remote medico. The backbone of ICT is the
Internet, which is open-standard architecture. Due to the openness of the architecture, there are many security vulnerabilities to the TMIS.

OBJECTIVES: To provide secured telemedicine consultation between a sick person and a medico and, to maintain the privacy of the sick person information.

METHODS: This paper proposes a security enhancement to the TMIS using crypto-biometrics fusion, which consists of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) algorithm and iris biometrics. The paper also compares the efficiency of ECC with the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) algorithm.

RESULTS: The result of the simulation proves that the offered model provides a high level and robust security
than RSA based model.

CONCLUSION: This paper provides robust user authentication and achieves the data confidentiality of the TMIS, which uses a cloud computing system for its smooth functioning and wider scope.
more »
A Survey on Secure Cloud-Based E-Health Systems
Appears in:
phat 18: e2

Authors:
Dilip Kumar Yadav, Sephali Behera

Published:
26th Feb 2020

Abstract:
Cloud computing is being used in many applications and several aspects for storing and easy sharing of data. Among various trending uses of this technology, the e-health (electronic health) system is one. The health data records are kept in a semi-trusted third-party supplier (i.e., cloud). There…Cloud computing is being used in many applications and several aspects for storing and easy sharing of data. Among
various trending uses of this technology, the e-health (electronic health) system is one. The health data records are kept in
a semi-trusted third-party supplier (i.e., cloud). Therefore, its security has become the main concern. The e-health data on
the cloud should be available only to the data owner. This work presents a literature survey on secure cloud-based e-health
systems. Seventy-seven research papers related to secure cloud-based e-health systems are collected from different sources
till 2019. These papers are divided into three categories (i.e., crypto, non-crypto, and biometric-based). The security
mechanism, advantages, and limitations of research papers are presented for all categories which will be helpful to do
further researches in this research area.
more »
Biometric based Multi-Authority Inner Product Encryption for Electronic Health Record
Appears in:
phat 18: e1

Authors:
C. Eben Exceline, Jasmine Norman

Published:
13th Feb 2020

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Attribute-based encryption enhances the security of electronic health records outsourced to the cloud. At the same time, single authority attribute based encryption leads to user privacy breech and attribute management complexity. Multi authority attribute-based encryption enhances …INTRODUCTION: Attribute-based encryption enhances the security of electronic health records outsourced to the cloud. At the
same time, single authority attribute based encryption leads to user privacy breech and attribute management complexity.
Multi authority attribute-based encryption enhances user privacy and attribute management, but lacks privacy and integrity
of data. Therefore, biometric-based multi-authority inner product encryption is proposed to improve data integrity, data
privacy, and user privacy.

OBJECTIVES: The proposed scheme aims to enhance data integrity, data privacy, and user privacy in cloud-based Electronic
Health Record.

METHODS: An exhaustive literature review has been made related to securing electronic health record outsourced to the
cloud and found that data integrity is lacking in existing schemes. So an efficient encryption scheme has been proposed
which adopts elliptic curve cryptography to enhance data integrity. The security analysis and computational complexity of
the proposed scheme is done and compared with existing schemes.

RESULTS: The proposed scheme guarantees data integrity and privacy of the sensitive information stored in the electronic
health records. The scheme also satisfied the security requirements user privacy, fine-grained access control, and
scalability needed for electronic health record outsourced to the cloud. The computational complexity of the proposed
scheme is compared with the existing schemes. The result shows that user access rejection complexity and key generation
complexity are comparatively low.

CONCLUSION: Biometric, as a global identifier of the user, could improve data integrity for the electronic health records
outsourced to the cloud. Multi-authority Inner Product Encryption hides the access structure, along with the data, could
improve data privacy and user privacy. Employing NOT gate in the access structure reduces user access rejection
complexity.
more »

Prototypical System to Detect Anxiety Manifestations by Acoustic Patterns in Patients with Dementia
Appears in:
phat 19(19): e5

Authors:
Netzahualcoyotl Hernandez, Matias Garcia-Constantino, Jessica Beltran, Pascal Hecker, Jesus Favela, Joseph Rafferty, Ian Cleland, Hussein Lopez, Bert Arnrich, Ian McChesney

Published:
10th Feb 2020

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Dementia is a syndrome characterised by a decline in memory, language, and problem-solving that affects the ability of patients to perform everyday activities. Patients with dementia tend to experience episodes of anxiety and remain for extended periods, which affects their quality …INTRODUCTION: Dementia is a syndrome characterised by a decline in memory, language, and problem-solving that
affects the ability of patients to perform everyday activities. Patients with dementia tend to experience episodes of anxiety
and remain for extended periods, which affects their quality of life.

OBJECTIVES: To design AnxiDetector, a system capable of detecting patterns of sounds associated before and during the
manifestation of anxiety in patients with dementia.

METHODS: We conducted a non-participatory observation of 70 diagnosed patients in-situ, and conducted semi-structured
interviews with four caregivers at a residential centre. Using the findings from our observation and caregiver interviews, we
developed the AnxiDetector prototype and tested this in an experimental setting where we defined nine classes of audio to
represent two groups of sounds: (i) Disturbance which includes audio files that characterise sounds that trigger anxiety in
patients with dementia, and (ii) Expression which includes audio files that characterise sounds expressed by the patients
during episodes of anxiety. We conducted two experimental classifications of sounds using (i) a Neural Network model
trained and (ii) a Support Vector Machine model. The first evaluation consists of a binary discriminating between the two
groups of sounds; the second evaluation discriminates the nine classes of audio. The audio resources were retrieved from
publicly available datasets.

RESULTS: The qualitative results present the views of the caregivers on the adoption of AnxiDetector. The quantitative
results from our binary discrimination show a classification accuracy of 98.1% and 99.2% for the Deep Neural Network and
Support Vector Machine models, respectively. When classifying the nine classes of sound, our model shows a classification
accuracy of 92.2%. Whereas, the Support Vector Machine model yielded an overall classification accuracy of 93.0%.

CONCLUSION: In this paper, we presented the outcomes from an observational study in-site at a residential care centre,
qualitative findings from interviews with caregivers, the design of AnxiDetector, and preliminary qualitative results of a
methodology devised to detect relevant acoustic events associated with anxiety in patients with dementia. We conclude by
signalling future plans to conduct in-situ validation of the effectiveness of AnxiDetector for anxiety detection.
more »
Experimental Analysis of Ant System on Travelling Salesman Problem Dataset TSPLIB
Appears in:
phat 19(19): e4

Authors:
Kalaipriyan Thirugnanasambandam, Raghav. R.S, Saravanan. D, Prabu. U, Rajeswari. M

Published:
6th Feb 2020

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is one of the vast research areas and has been considered as sub problems in many fields apart from computer science and also in the field of computer science. OBJECTIVES: This paper deals with the comparison of Ant System Ant System (AS) which is …INTRODUCTION: Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) is one of the vast research areas and has been considered as sub
problems in many fields apart from computer science and also in the field of computer science.

OBJECTIVES: This paper deals with the comparison of Ant System Ant System (AS) which is a variant of Ant Colony
Optimization.

METHODS: The performance of the Ant System is analysed by applying it on the Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP).
The optimal results found on TSP using AS has been analysed with the elapsed time taken to find the optimal results, its
mean, median, variance and the standard deviation.

RESULTS: And also, the quality of solutions has been made by calculating the percentage of the optimality and the
deviation of the solutions from the TSPLIB provides best known solutions. For instances, TSPLIB data sets have been
used.

CONCLUSION: Totally, 7 instances have been executed with three different set of parameters for AS and the results are
analysed in terms of different parameter settings and performance metrics on each of it. The role of parameters has also
been discussed along with the experimental results.
more »
Voice-Based Detection of Parkinson’s Disease through Ensemble Machine Learning Approach: A Performance Study
Appears in:
phat 19(19): e2

Authors:
Iqra Nissar, Danish Raza Rizvi, Sarfaraz Masood, Aqib Nazir Mir

Published:
24th Jan 2020

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Parkinson's disease (PD) occurs due to the deficiency of dopamine that regulates various activities of the human body. Researchers have identified that voice is an underlying symptom of PD. Recently, Machine learning (ML) has helped in solving problems of computer vision, natural la…INTRODUCTION: Parkinson's disease (PD) occurs due to the deficiency of dopamine that regulates various activities of
the human body. Researchers have identified that voice is an underlying symptom of PD. Recently, Machine learning
(ML) has helped in solving problems of computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition etc.

OBJECTIVES: This paper aims to analyse the effect of feature type selection i.e. MFCC and TQWT on the efficiency of
voice based PD detection system along with the use an ensemble learning based classifier for this task.

METHODS: Hence, in this work, various machine learning models, including Logistic Regression, Naive Bayes, KNN,
Random Forest, Decision Tree, SVM, MLP, and XGBoost, have been employed and explored for PD detection purpose.
The task of Feature selection was also done using minimum-Redundancy and Maximum-Relevance (mRMR) and
Recursive Feature Elimination (RFE) techniques.

RESULTS: The results of the XGBoost with mRMR feature selection, outperformed all other models with a high accuracy
of 95.39% and precision, recall and F1-score of 0.95 each, when both MFCC and TQWT features were selected.

CONCLUSION: The results obtained strongly support the use of XGBoost model for the voice sample based detection of
PD along with mRMR feature selection technique.
more »
Adoption of the activation function fusion approach to identify human activity recognition in a semi-supervised neural network
Appears in:
phat 19(17): e3

Authors:
Netzahualcoyotl Hernandez, Chris Nugent, Ian McChesney, Shuai Zhang, Jesus Favela

Published:
19th Nov 2019

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Neural networks are a popular type of algorithm for human activity monitoring which can build intelligent systems from labelled data in an automated fashion. Obtaining accurately labelled data is costly; it requires time and effort, which can be cumbersome because it interrupts the u…INTRODUCTION: Neural networks are a popular type of algorithm for human activity monitoring which can
build intelligent systems from labelled data in an automated fashion. Obtaining accurately labelled data is costly; it requires time and effort, which can be cumbersome because it interrupts the user activity stream. In conjunction with the ubiquitous presence of embedded technology, neural networks present new research opportunities for human activity monitoring in smart home environments.

OBJECTIVES: We propose a human activity classification method that requires a limited amount of
labelled data, which consists of a concatenation method for classifying human activities built upon the fusion of neural network activation functions.

METHODS: Our methodology builds a neural network model that receives the sensor data through the input
layer to then distribute it among the different vertical hidden layers, which implement different activation
functions simultaneously. Next a hidden layer combines activation functions by utilising a concatenation
method. Finally, the neural network provides classes to the unlabelled sensing data. We conducted an
evaluation utilising an open-access dataset. We compared the activity recognition accuracy of our approach utilising 25%, 50%, and 75% of labelled data against a conventional shallow neural network trained with the 100% of labelled data available.

RESULTS: Results show an improvement in the accuracy of the activity classification regardless of the portion of labelled data available. It was observed that the highest achieved accuracy when using 25% of activation function fusion data outperformed results compared to when using 100% of labelled data in a conventional shallow network (i.e., increase in accuracy of 2.7%, 3.7%, 4.8%, and 0.9% across the activity recognition of four subjects).

CONCLUSION: The approach proposed showed an improvement in the accuracy of classifying human
activity when a limited amount of labelled data is available.
more »
Towards early and automatic detection of Urinary Infection during pregnancy
Appears in:
phat 19(19): e3

Authors:
Lizbeth Escobedo, Adán Hirales-Carbajal

Published:
23rd Aug 2019

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Worldwide Fetal-Maternal morbidity and mortality is frightfully high. Most of these diseases occur in developing countries. One of the main reasons for this problem, after gestational hypertension and complications in childbirth, is infections. Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) during …INTRODUCTION: Worldwide Fetal-Maternal morbidity and mortality is frightfully high. Most of these
diseases occur in developing countries. One of the main reasons for this problem, after gestational
hypertension and complications in childbirth, is infections. Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) during pregnancy is
one of the main causes for fetal-maternal morbidity and mortality in Mexico. Among others, the pervasiveness
and heterogeneity of data in Electronic Medical Records (EMR) complicates early diagnosis and treatment of
UTI.

OBJECTIVES: Our goal is extract empirical knowledge, in the form of association rules, that generalize
symptomatology and treatment of UTI patients with positive and nagative diagnosis.

METHODS: In this study, we developed a criterion to extract words and expressions that uniquely characterize
each patient class. We extracted association rules from EMRs and evaluated its level of correspondence
between the rules and the extracted word sets.

RESULTS: By defining a bound on word frequency usage and evaluating the positive to negative word ratio we
were able to identify word sets that uniquely characterize each patient class. A bound of 47 enabled extraction
of 25 unique words and expressions for each patient class. Further, approximately 17% and 27% of association
rules drew terms from each word set correspondingly.

CONCLUSION: This work seeks to promote the creation of more effective criterions to extract features, from
EMRs, that improve characterization of patients and that ultimately lead to a more accurate diagnosis of UTIs.
more »
IoT Based Hybrid System for Patient Monitoring and Medication
Appears in:
phat 19(19): e1

Authors:
Naveen Kumar, Surya Narayan Panda, Preethi Pradhan, Rajesh Kumar Kaushal

Published:
23rd Aug 2019

Abstract:
BACKGROUND: In recent years, a lot of research work has been done to transmit vital parameters of the patient using IOT (Internet of Things). The information related to Patient is sent by means of WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network) and sensors to the healthcare database. This has been shown a grea…BACKGROUND: In recent years, a lot of research work has been done to transmit vital parameters of the patient using
IOT (Internet of Things). The information related to Patient is sent by means of WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network)
and sensors to the healthcare database. This has been shown a great potential to transmit vital parameter of the patient at a
remote location. Remote monitoring of patient(s), including vital signs, sound and video is to be transmitted, particularly
when a patient is in transit. By transmitting the imperative parameters of the patient to a specialist diminishes, the ideal
opportunity for starting treatment and permits the emergency crew to be better prepared. This will facilitate a doctor to
make a diagnostic conclusion.

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to develop an advance system to transmit the vital parameters of the patient to the smart
phone of the doctor at a remote location. After seeing essential parameters of the patient, the specialist can convey/endorse
the medication from the remote area.

METHODS: To monitor patient’s data in real-time an android application is developed which helps the medical staff to
monitor the patient from remote location. All the patient related information is stored in Real Time Clinical Database.

RESULTS: The proposed model will allow the doctors to monitor physiological parameters (HR, NIBP, Temp, ECG,
SPO2) of the patient, as well as endorse medication from the remote location. This system will be helpful to provide
virtual presence of the doctor inside the ambulance and to provide lifesaving drugs to the patient while the patient is in
transit.

CONCLUSION: The present invention provides a fully integrated system for the doctor to view the vital signs of the
patient from the remote location in real-time.
more »
Indoor Localization Services for Hearing Aids using Bluetooth Low Energy
Appears in:
phat 19(18): e5

Authors:
Michał Kapiczynski, Sergi Rotger-Griful, Stefan Wagner

Published:
15th May 2019

Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Hearing loss is a common disorder which is usually treated with hearing aids. The context of use, whether being outside, inside of large or small rooms, in a quiet or noisy environment, or talking with someone near or at a distance, often requires the hearing aid user to adjust the sett…BACKGROUND: Hearing loss is a common disorder which is usually treated with hearing aids. The context of use, whether being outside, inside of large or small rooms, in a quiet or noisy environment, or talking with someone near or at a distance, often requires the hearing aid user to adjust the settings of the hearing aids manually in order to reach an optimal or even acceptable hearing experience. Knowing the context of a hearing aid user in the home setting, including the position within the home, could likely automate and optimize relevant hearing aid settings as needed. Several modern hearing aids are already equipped with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) antennas enabling their connectivity with smartphones and other compatible devices. This allows for the development of positioning and localization services using BLE.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the potential of using the BLE radio signal of hearing
aids to provide indoor localization and positioning support when used in combination with fixed radio access points in a home setting.

METHODS: A research platform based on a single Oticon hearing aid and three embedded Raspberry Pi
computers placed at three strategic locations in a home setting was developed. The Raspberry Pis used the two statistical learning methods K-Nearest Neighbors and Decision Trees for non-obtrusive detection, classification, and determination of the location of the hearing aid. The efficacy of the research platform was evaluated during two hearing experience relevant efficacy studies: 1) room classification and 2) proximity detection of hearing aid users to their conversation
partners. RESULTS: Room classification results provided an accuracy of 88.79% and it was found feasible and reliable to differentiate whether the hearing aid user was within a comfortable conversation distance or not.

CONCLUSION: These
results open up for a wide range of audiological applications in indoor environments for supporting new context-aware services for improving the hearing experience of the users.
more »
Privacy Preserving Fingerprint Authentication at the Cloud Server for eHealth Services
Appears in:
phat 19(18): e4

Authors:
S Rajarajan, R Venkata Kausik, M Sree Charan, PLK. Priyadarsini

Published:
15th May 2019

Abstract:
BACKGROUND: Restricting entry and access to highly sensitive systems like e-Health services is vital to protect the privacy and confidentiality of customers. User authentication is implemented predominantly done using Bio-metric schemes. But there is a challenge in securely storing the fingerprint …BACKGROUND: Restricting entry and access to highly sensitive systems like e-Health services is vital to protect the privacy and confidentiality of customers. User authentication is implemented predominantly done using Bio-metric schemes. But there is a challenge in securely storing the fingerprint templates. Since fingerprints are permanent, fingerprints getting
stolen will be a serious issue.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this paper is to design a scheme to carry out the fingerprint match at the cloud server that will not compromise the fingerprints.

METHODS: When users input their fingerprint, a unique key is generated and it is sent to the server for verification.

RESULTS: We evaluated our proposed scheme and ascertained that it generates unique Fingerprint Identification Number for different fingerprints and the false rejection rate of our proposed scheme is within acceptable limit.

CONCLUSION: The proposed scheme overcomes the security threats to the stored fingerprints of users.
more »
A Novel Method to Detect Public Health in Online Social Network Using Graph-based Algorithm
Appears in:
phat 19(18): e3

Authors:
R. Devika, S. Sinduja, V. Subramaniyaswamy

Published:
15th May 2019

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: Twitter has played an important role in the social life of people. The health-related tweets are extracted and find the spread of epidemic disease on network. It can provide as a starting place of individual data to learn the physical condition of users. OBJECTIVES: Key objective i…INTRODUCTION: Twitter has played an important role in the social life of people. The health-related tweets are extracted and find the spread of epidemic disease on network. It can provide as a starting place of individual data to learn the physical condition of users.

OBJECTIVES: Key objective is to develop graph-based algorithm to detect public health in online social network.

METHODS: The proposed method collect the tweets relating to general health in twitter using the min-cut algorithm. The algorithm finds the minimum cut off an undirected edge-weighted graph. The runtime of the algorithm seems to be faster than other graph algorithms. Min-cut is reliable and good in network optimization and prevents redundancy.

RESULTS: To evaluate the performance, we utilize the health dataset on the detection of epidemic disease. The proposed method using a graph-based algorithm is the best in terms of accuracy, precision, and recall. With respect to the confusion matrix, Min-cut provides the highest true positive when compared to Text rank and K-Means algorithm.

CONCLUSION: Proposed health detection method using graph-based algorithm is better than Text Rank and K-Means in all aspects.
more »
An Effective and Reliable Computer Automated Technique for Bone Fracture Detection
Appears in:
phat 19(15): e2

Authors:
CMAK Zeelan Basha, T. Maruthi Padmaja, G. N. Balaji

Published:
15th May 2019

Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: In the year 1895 the X-ray images were discovered. Since then the medical imaging has got advanced tremendously. Anyhow the methods of interpretation have started progressing only by the evolution of Computer aided Diagnosis(CAD). OBJECTIVES: To develop a Computer Aided Diagnosis…INTRODUCTION: In the year 1895 the X-ray images were discovered. Since then the medical imaging has
got advanced tremendously. Anyhow the methods of interpretation have started progressing only by the
evolution of Computer aided Diagnosis(CAD).

OBJECTIVES: To develop a Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system to detect the bone fracture which
helps the radiologists (or) the Orthopaedics by interpreting the medical images in short duration.

METHODS: In this paper, an effective automated bone fracture detection is proposed using enhanced Haar
Wavelet Transform, Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) and back propagation neural network. The
former two techniques are used for feature extraction and the latter one is used for classification of fracture
images. Simultaneously, the usage of enhanced Haar Wavelet Transforms and SIFT are phenomenally improves the quality of the X-ray image. Further in this work, k-means clustering based ‘Bag of Words’ methods are used to extract enhanced features extracted from SIFT. The classification phase of this proposed technique uses the classical back propagation neural network that contains 1024 neurons in 3-layers.

RESULTS: The experimental validation of this proposed scheme performed using nearly 300 different
bone fractures x-ray images confirmed a better classification rate of 93.4%.

CONCLUSIONS: The experimental results of the proposed computer aided technique are proven to be
better than the detection technique facilitated with the traditional SIFT technique.
more »

Future Prospective of Soft Computing Techniques in Psychiatric Disorder Diagnosis
Appears in:
phat 18(15): e1

Authors:
Manik Sharma, Natalia Romero

Downloads:
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Abstract:
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Ear-Lead Multiple Smart Bio Sensor System in M-health
Appears in:
phat 16(6): e5

Authors:
Numan Celik, Wamadeva Balachandran, Nadarajah Manivannan

Downloads:
1375

Abstract:
In this paper, we present a multi-parameter wearable sensor system in conjunction with a smartphone to enable a real-time unobtrusive monitoring of core body temperature, electrocardiogram (ear-lead ECG), and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) on ambulatory patients. Clinical research illustrating that…In this paper, we present a multi-parameter wearable sensor system in conjunction with a smartphone to enable a real-time unobtrusive monitoring of core body temperature, electrocardiogram (ear-lead ECG), and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) on ambulatory patients. Clinical research illustrating that continuing accurate measurements of core body temperature (CBT) are crucial to investigate human thermoregulation in ambulatory environment and during activity. On the other hand, ECG remains the mainstay test for primary diagnosis and survival analysis of heart diseases. We implement a wireless multisensory system that measures both the tympanic temperature inside the ear and ECG data from an ear and an arm. The behind-the-Ear device makes desirable to measure ECG data without any chest belt and allow the patient to move around freely. The proposed Bluetooth device has similarity of a hearing aid and is wirelessly connected to a smartphone for data transmission and displaying. This device not only gives access to the core temperature and ECG data in real time, but also the device can be controlled – removed and reapplied – by the patient at any time, thus increasing the performance of personal health applications.
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A Guide to Using Asynchronous Remote Communities (ARC) for Researching Distributed Populations
Appears in:
phat 17(11): e4

Authors:
Haley MacLeod, Ben Jelen, Annu Prabhakar, Lora Oehlberg, Katie Siek, Kay Connelly

Downloads:
1317

Abstract:
Existing research methods are largely intended to be conducted co-located and synchronously with a study population, but this approach is not feasible with remote or distributed populations. We describe a needs assessment study we conducted on Facebook. We report on our use of adapted versions of c…Existing research methods are largely intended to be conducted co-located and synchronously with a study population, but this approach is not feasible with remote or distributed populations. We describe a needs assessment study we conducted on Facebook. We report on our use of adapted versions of commonly used HCI research methods and lessons learned from this approach.
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Low-threshold CMOS Rectifier Design for Energy Harvesting in Biomedical Sensors
Appears in:
phat 16(6): e4

Authors:
Mehmet Yuce, Ali Mohammadi, Jean-Michel Redoute

Downloads:
1301

Abstract:
The power transfer efficiency of energy harvesting systems is strongly dependent on the power conditioning circuits, especially rectifiers. The voltage drop across rectifier and its leakage current can drastically influence the efficiency. The hybrid energy harvesters impose even more severe co…The power transfer efficiency of energy harvesting systems
is strongly dependent on the power conditioning circuits,
especially rectifiers. The voltage drop across rectifier and
its leakage current can drastically influence the efficiency.
The hybrid energy harvesters impose even more severe constraints on the rectifier. The low Vth transistors and bulk
regulation technique are used in this work to mitigated the
voltage drop and leakage current, respectively. It has been
shown that the bulk regulation stops the current leakage
through body of PMOS transistor. A near zero threshold
cross connected CMOS rectifier is presented in this work using the standard 180nm UMC technology and experimental
analysis are carried out to evaluate the circuit performance.
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SysML based Design for Variability enabling the Reusability of Legacy Systems towards the support of Diverse Standard Compliant Implementations or Standard Updates: The Case of IEEE-802.15.6 Standard for e-Health Applications
Appears in:
phat 16(5): e1

Authors:
Sofia Meacham, Fotios Gioulekas, Keith Phalp

Downloads:
916

Abstract:
The aim of this paper is to provide a consistent development path enabling the re-usability of in house legacy systems or architectures towards their re-design, in order to ensure compliance with evolving standards, by using the new features of SysML for modelling variants. Modern standards evolve …The aim of this paper is to provide a consistent development path enabling the re-usability of in house legacy systems or architectures towards their re-design, in order to ensure compliance with evolving standards, by using the new features of SysML for modelling variants. Modern standards evolve quickly, include advanced functionalities and operations and support diverse implementations. System industries need to cope with such standards changes by modifying their current technologies. This paper shows how a novel engineering process (SysML modelling) could be employed to define consistently the specification and the migration procedure of legacy systems to their variants. Within this work SysML characteristics such as package and block diagrams, are employed, with an emphasis on variability modelling, as a basis for standard compliant architecture implementation, thus providing design flexibility and reusability at several abstraction levels. As an illustration of our proposed method we present models of two variant Physical Layer structures for IEEE-802.15.6 Standard for e-Health Applications. The advanced SysML features are used to target the re-usability of a legacy Narrow-Band (NB) physical layer subsystem for the Wireless Body Area Network standard and to implement the alternative Ultra-Wide Band (UWB). Therefore, we contend that such methods bring potential benefits to those needing to ensure compliance when producing product variants.
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Body-IMU autocalibration for inertial hip and knee joint tracking
Appears in:
phat 16(5): e3

Authors:
Sarvenaz Salehi, Gabriele Bleser, Attila Reiss, Didier Stricker

Downloads:
911

Abstract:
Sensor to body calibration is a key requirement for capturing accurate body movements in applications based on wearable systems. In this paper, we consider the specific problem of estimating the positions of multiple inertial measurement units (IMUs) relative to the adjacent body joints. To deriv…Sensor to body calibration is a key requirement for capturing accurate body movements in applications based on wearable systems.
In this paper, we consider the specific problem of estimating the positions of multiple inertial measurement units (IMUs) relative to
the adjacent body joints. To derive an efficient, robust and precise method based on a practical procedure is a crucial as well as
challenging task when developing a wearable system with multiple
embedded IMUs. In this work, first, we perform a theoretical analysis of an existing position calibration method, showing its limited
applicability for the hip and knee joint. Based on this, we propose a method for simultaneously estimating the positions of three IMUs
(mounted on pelvis, upper leg, lower leg) relative to these joints.
The latter are here considered as an ensemble. Finally, we perform
an experimental evaluation based on simulated and real data, showing the improvements of our calibration method as well as lines of future work.
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Security and Privacy Issues with IoT in Healthcare
Appears in:
phat 18(14): e2

Authors:
Anil Chacko, Thaier Hayajneh

Downloads:
895

Abstract:
In healthcare, the Internet of Things (IoT) oﬀers many beneﬁts, including being able to monitor patients more closely and using data for analytics. When it comes to IoT for medical device integration, the focus is shifted towards the consumer end, such as glucose meters, blood pressure cuﬀs, and ot…In healthcare, the Internet of Things (IoT) oﬀers many beneﬁts, including being able to monitor patients more closely and using data for analytics. When it comes to IoT for medical device integration, the focus is shifted towards the consumer end, such as glucose meters, blood pressure cuﬀs, and other devices designed to record data on patient vital signs. This enables healthcare providers to automatically collect information and apply decision support rules to allow for earlier intervention in the treatment process. Unfortunately, medical companies often do not consider the security risks of connecting these devices to the internet. There is a possibility that a zero-day exploit in a medical device can be used to injure or even kill someone without being detected. The rise in hackable medical devices has forced the FDA to issue formal guidance on how medical device makers should handle reports about cyber vulnerabilities. This paper aims to explore the role of IoT in healthcare, vulnerabilities, attacks, and security issues and solutions.
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Reducing alarm fatigue: exploring decision structures, risks, and design
Appears in:
phat 17(10): e2

Authors:
Mustafa Hussain, James Dewey, Nadir Weibel

Downloads:
841

Abstract:
Automated patient monitoring systems suer from several design problems. Among them, alarm fatigue is one of the most critical issues, as evidenced by the Sentinel Event Alert that The Joint Commission – the U.S. hospital-accrediting body – recently issued. In this study, we explore fast-and-frugal…Automated patient monitoring systems suer from several design problems. Among them, alarm fatigue is one of the most critical issues, as evidenced by the Sentinel Event Alert that The Joint Commission – the U.S. hospital-accrediting body – recently issued. In this study, we explore fast-and-frugal heuristics that may be used to prioritize patient alarms, while continuing to monitor patient physiological state. By using a combination of human factors methodologies and the theory of Distributed Cognition (DCog), we studied alarm fatigue and its relationship to the underlying hospital systems. We identified three specific factors that we envision to be helpful for clinical personnel: ventilator presence, number of intravenous drips, and number of medications. We discuss their application in daily hospital operation. We also address cost-benefit considerations and possible monitor designs.
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A smart phone based gait monitor system
Appears in:
phat 16(7): e1

Authors:
Dong Qin, Ming-Chun Huang

Downloads:
771

Abstract:
Gait is a person’s manner of walking. Analysis of gait can be used in many areas like healthcare, therapy, sports training and characteristic recognition. The goal of this paper is to present a smart phone based system to collect and calculate gait parameters. These parameters which consists of ste…Gait is a person’s manner of walking. Analysis of gait can be used in many areas like healthcare, therapy, sports training and characteristic recognition. The goal of this paper is to present a smart phone based system to collect and calculate gait parameters. These parameters which consists of steps, step length, velocity, cadence, motion intensity and walking regularity were collected by the inertial sensor in the smartphone. A prototype of gait parameter collection and visualization system has been built to collect accelerometer data from the smartphone, providing a reliable algorithm to calculate several gait parameters closely related to walking activity. The system also contains a fall detection function. Once the user suffers from fall, an alarm message will be send to another. Experiment has been done on 4 subjects for testing the stability and accuracy of the system. The experiment result has been compared with the real data. It shows a high accuracy and reliability for counting steps (error<5.47%) and walking duration (error<4.55%). Based on the gait monitor system, an anomaly data detection method is presented. Four independent gait parameters (cadence and motion intensity in three axis) are chosen from previous results during normal activity and their mean and standard deviation are calculated individually. If the latest data deviate from the normal activity model too far, this data is defined as an abnormal event.
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Mining Minds: an innovative framework for personalized health and wellness support
Appears in:
phat 15(2): e5

Authors:
Oresti Banos, Muhammad Amin, Wahajat Khan, Taqdir Ali, Muhammad Afzal, Byeong Kang, Sungyoung Lee

Downloads:
754

Abstract:
The world is witnessing a spectacular shift in the delivery of health and wellness care. The key ingredient of this transformation consists in the use of revolutionary digital technologies to empower people in their self-management as well as to enhance traditional care procedures. While substantia…The world is witnessing a spectacular shift in the delivery of health and wellness care. The key ingredient of this transformation consists in the use of revolutionary digital technologies to empower people in their self-management as well as to enhance traditional care procedures. While substantial domain-specific contributions have been provided to that end in the recent years, there is a clear lack of platforms that may orchestrate, and intelligently leverage, all the data, information and knowledge generated through these technologies. This work presents Mining Minds, an innovative framework that builds on the core ideas of the digital health and wellness paradigms to enable the provision of personalized healthcare and wellness support. Mining Minds embraces some of the currently most prominent digital technologies, ranging from Big Data and Cloud Computing to Wearables and Internet of Things, and state-of-the-art concepts and methods, such as Context-Awareness, Knowledge Bases or Analytics, among others. This paper aims at thoroughly describing the efficient and rational combination and interoperation of these modern technologies and methods through Mining Minds, while meeting the essential requirements posed by a framework for personalized health and wellness support.
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Publisher: EAI
ISSN: 2411-7145
Number of Volumes: 5

Last Published: 23rd Aug 2019

EAI Endorsed Transactions on Pervasive Health and Technology

Natalia Romero1

Manik Sharma2

Natalia Romero¹

Manik Sharma²