SmartMedDev 2015 Abstracts

Full Papers Short Papers
Full Papers
Paper Nr: 2
Title:

Research and Engineering Roadmap for Development and Deployment of Smart Medical Devices
Authors:

Jan Sliwa and Emmanuel Benoist
Abstract: The actual clinical use of smart wireless, software-based, mobile medical devices does not meet the recently raised expectations. First, current low level of interoperability calls for setting and enforcing open standards from the device level to the national/global collaboration structure. Second, heterogeneous and frequently changing devices, operating in various natural, technical and human environments, do not match the classical approval model. In addition to a time-limited set of clinical trials, they need a system of continuous quality monitoring. Third, ad-hoc deployment, without dedicated staff with well defined, novel skill sets is not scalable. A proper organizational structure is necessary. In this paper we present a modular software structure and a framework of a system supporting both the direct health care and the continuous quality evaluation. We expose the location of interfaces crucial for assuring multivendor interoperability. We then define a roadmap giving structure to the necessary development effort. The structure we propose should permit to coordinate the actions of independent teams tackling the immense number of multifaceted and interrelated tasks.
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Paper Nr: 3
Title:

An Adaptive, Structural and Content Gamification Concept for Regulated Daily Routines
Authors:

Martin Franke, Bianca Zimmer and Thomas Schlegel
Abstract: In this work, we introduce our concept for regulating daily routines in assisted living environments by the use of gamification elements. Nowadays mobile devices and sensors are ubiquitous, so they are suitable for assisting users on reaching their personal goals. One of the most pressing challenges in this regard is the preservation of long-term user motivation. In this paper we propose a gamification concept for a mobile application that support the achievement of regulated daily routines. With our assistive knowledge- and modelbased approach SeMiWa, the system detects irregularities and their potential cause. These obtained insights are used to adapt the content of the application in a gamified way. A prototypical implementation substantiates our approach and introduces our forthcoming user study.
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Paper Nr: 4
Title:

Non-Invasive Estimation of Blood Pressure through Genetic Programming - Preliminary Results
Authors:

Giovanna Sannino, Ivanoe De Falco and Giuseppe De Pietro
Abstract: The hypothesis underlying this paper is that a nonlinear relationship exists between Electrocardiography (ECG) and Heart Related Variability (HRV) parameters, plethysmography (PPG), and blood pressure (BP) values. If this hypothesis is true, rather than continuously measuring the patient’s BP, a wearable wireless PPG sensor can be applied to patient’s finger, an ECG sensor to his/her chest, HRV parameter values can be computed and, through regression, both systolic and diastolic BP values can be indirectly measured. Genetic Programming (GP) automatically both evolves the structure of the mathematical model and finds the most important parameters in it. Therefore, it is perfectly suited to perform regression task. As far as it can be found in the scientific literature of this field, until now nobody has ever investigated the use of GP to relate parameters derived from HRV analysis and PPG to BP values. Therefore, in this paper we have carried out preliminary experiments on the use of GP in facing this regression task. GP has been able to find a mathematical model expressing a nonlinear relationship between heart activity, and thus ECG and HRV parameters, PPG and BP values. The approximation error involved by the use of this method is lower than 2 mmHg for both systolic and diastolic BP values.
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Paper Nr: 5
Title:

An Integrated Sensing Platform for Remote Fetus Continuous Monitoring
Authors:

João Andrade, Artur Arsenio and Andreia Duarte
Abstract: Technological developments on health sensing devices, associated with the growing computational capabilities of mobile devices, enable the creation of solutions that address mobility concerns of patients, especially those located on remote locations or facing mobility constraints. This paper proposes an integrated sensing platform, which works transparently with new sensing, portable equipment sensors, but maintaining as well compatibility with currently deployed commercial tools. This platform targets fetus health monitoring in pregnant women, presenting a new non-invasive portable alternative system that allows long-term pregnancy surveillance. Additionally, it can be applied to other users’ communities, such as remote elderly monitoring at home. We address technology adoption problems related to non-invasive, portable sensing technologies, data security and equipment heterogeneity.
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Paper Nr: 9
Title:

Multiple Biopotentials Acquisition System for Wearable Applications
Authors:

Simone Benatti, B. Milosevic, Marco Tomasini, E. Farella, P. Schoenle, P. Bunjaku, G. Rovere, S. Fateh, Q. Huang and L. Benini
Abstract: Wearable devices for monitoring vital signs such as heart-rate, respiratory rate and blood pressure are demonstrating to have an increasing role in improving quality of life and in allowing prevention for chronic cardiac diseases. However, the design of a wearable system without reference to ground potential requires multi-level strategies to remove noise caused from power lines. This paper describes a bio-potential acquisition embedded system designed with an innovative analog front-end, showing the performance in EEG and ECG applications and the comparison between different noise reduction algorithms. We demonstrate that the proposed system is able to acquire bio-potentials with a signal quality equivalent to state-of-the-art bench-top biomedical devices and can be therefore used for monitoring purpose, with the advantages of a low-cost low-power wearable devices.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

Wound Area Assessment using Mobile Application
Authors:

Ivan Miguel Pires and Nuno M. Garcia
Abstract: This research aims to discover methods for the detection of the area of a wound using mobile devices. These devices have low memory and low processing capacity and they need the use of low complexity operations to identify a wound. The calculation of the wounded area consists of three phases, there are: image acquisition, image processing, surface reconstruction and calculations. This research is related to the use a mobile device to identify wound contours and area in a captured image. This image can be captured with a camera in a smartphone and the wound area is calculated based on the distance of the surface area and the resolution of the image captured. The main study in this research is the image processing in a mobile device, due to the limitations of these devices. However, the application developed during this research was developed for desktop, using the OpenCV library that is compatible with the Android platform and Java desktop technologies. During this research, the developed code written in Java will be easily adapted to the Android platform. The desktop application developed is available in a free repository for testing.
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Paper Nr: 6
Title:

Standardization and Innovation for Smart e-Health Monitoring Devices
Authors:

Albena Mihovska, Sofoklis A. Kyriazakos, Mihail Mihaylov and Ramjee Prasad
Abstract: The challenges faced by standardization in relation to the potential of wireless communication technologies to deliver lower cost, higher efficiency, enhanced quality of experience and diversified smart e-Health services, are multi-fold and determined by the complexity of the myriad of emerging user and usage scenarios. In addition, there is the challenge of protection of privacy and the maintenance of trust. This paper aims to show the evidence of the correlation between standardization and innovation in the area of ehealth technology. It describes a capability framework proposed for the delivery of e-Health services in support of independent living. The proposed framework incorporates innovative research and standardized solutions. The paper addresses the correlation between standardization and innovation, in particular for the area of e-Health. It analyzes the potential of research to advance and harmonize the standardization efforts towards sustainable e-Health solutions, and outlines some critical points for the future standardization work in the related area.
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