Design for energy-efficient and reliable fog-assisted healthcare IoT systems

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are two of the most dangerous diseases as they are the leading causes of death in all ages. Unfortunately, they cannot be completely cured with the current knowledge and existing technologies. However, they can be effectively managed by applying methods of continuous health monitoring. Nonetheless, it is difficult to achieve a high quality of healthcare with the current health monitoring systems which often have several limitations such as non-mobility support, energy inefficiency, and an insufficiency of advanced services. Therefore, this thesis presents a Fog computing approach focusing on four main tracks, and proposes it as a solution to the existing limitations. In the first track, the main goal is to introduce Fog computing and Fog services into remote health monitoring systems in order to enhance the quality of healthcare. In the second track, a Fog approach providing mobility support in a real-time health monitoring IoT system is proposed. The handover mechanism run by Fog-assisted smart gateways helps to maintain the connection between sensor nodes and the gateways with a minimized latency. Results show that the handover latency of the proposed Fog approach is 10%-50% less than other state-of-the-art mobility support approaches. In the third track, the designs of four energy-efficient health monitoring IoT systems are discussed and developed. Each energy-efficient system and its sensor nodes are designed to serve a specific purpose such as glucose monitoring, ECG monitoring, or fall detection; with the exception of the fourth system which is an advanced and combined system for simultaneously monitoring many diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Results show that these sensor nodes can continuously work, depending on the application, up to 70-155 hours when using a 1000 mAh lithium battery. The fourth track mentioned above, provides a Fog-assisted remote health monitoring IoT system for diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease. Via several proposed algorithms such as QT interval extraction, activity status categorization, and fall detection algorithms, the system can process data and detect abnormalities in real-time. Results show that the proposed system using Fog services is a promising approach for improving the treatment of diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease

Advances in Intelligent Robotics and Collaborative Automation

This book provides an overview of a series of advanced research lines in robotics as well as of design and development methodologies for intelligent robots and their intelligent components. It represents a selection of extended versions of the best papers presented at the Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2013 that were related to these topics. Its contents integrate state of the art computational intelligence based techniques for automatic robot control to novel distributed sensing and data integration methodologies that can be applied to intelligent robotics and automation systems. The objective of the text was to provide an overview of some of the problems in the field of robotic systems and intelligent automation and the approaches and techniques that relevant research groups within this area are employing to try to solve them.The contributions of the different authors have been grouped into four main sections:• Robots• Control and Intelligence• Sensing• Collaborative automationThe chapters have been structured to provide an easy to follow introduction to the topics that are addressed, including the most relevant references, so that anyone interested in this field can get started in the area

Neural architecture for echo suppression during sound source localization based on spiking neural cell models

Zusammenfassung Diese Arbeit untersucht die biologischen Ursachen des psycho-akustischen Präzedenz Effektes, der Menschen in die Lage versetzt, akustische Echos während der Lokalisation von Schallquellen zu unterdrücken. Sie enthält ein Modell zur Echo-Unterdrückung während der Schallquellenlokalisation, welches in technischen Systemen zur Mensch-Maschine Interaktion eingesetzt werden kann. Die Grundlagen dieses Modells wurden aus eigenen elektrophysiologischen Experimenten an der Mongolischen Wüstenrennmaus gewonnen. Die dabei erstmalig an der Wüstenrennmaus erzielten Ergebnisse, zeigen ein besonderes Verhalten spezifischer Zellen im Dorsalen Kern des Lateral Lemniscus, einer dedizierten Region des auditorischen Hirnstammes. Die dort sichtbare Langzeithemmung scheint die Grundlage für die Echounterdrückung in höheren auditorischen Zentren zu sein. Das entwickelte Model war in der Lage dieses Verhalten nachzubilden, und legt die Vermutung nahe, dass eine starke und zeitlich präzise Hyperpolarisation der zugrundeliegende physiologische Mechanismus dieses Verhaltens ist. Die entwickelte Neuronale Modellarchitektur modelliert das Innenohr und fünf wesentliche Kerne des auditorischen Hirnstammes in ihrer Verbindungsstruktur und internen Dynamik. Sie stellt einen neuen Typus neuronaler Modellierung dar, der als Spike-Interaktionsmodell (SIM) bezeichnet wird. SIM nutzen die präzise räumlich-zeitliche Interaktion einzelner Aktionspotentiale (Spikes) für die Kodierung und Verarbeitung neuronaler Informationen. Die Basis dafür bilden Integrate-and-Fire Neuronenmodelle sowie Hebb'sche Synapsen, welche um speziell entwickelte dynamische Kernfunktionen erweitert wurden. Das Modell ist in der Lage, Zeitdifferenzen von 10 mykrosekunden zu detektieren und basiert auf den Prinzipien der zeitlichen und räumlichen Koinzidenz sowie der präzisen lokalen Inhibition. Es besteht ausschließlich aus Elementen einer eigens entwickelten Neuronalen Basisbibliothek (NBL) die speziell für die Modellierung verschiedenster Spike- Interaktionsmodelle entworfen wurde. Diese Bibliothek erweitert die kommerziell verfügbare dynamische Simulationsumgebung von MATLAB/SIMULINK um verschiedene Modelle von Neuronen und Synapsen, welche die intrinsischen dynamischen Eigenschaften von Nervenzellen nachbilden. Die Nutzung dieser Bibliothek versetzt sowohl den Ingenieur als auch den Biologen in die Lage, eigene, biologisch plausible, Modelle der neuronalen Informationsverarbeitung ohne detaillierte Programmierkenntnisse zu entwickeln. Die grafische Oberfläche ermöglicht strukturelle sowie parametrische Modifikationen und ist in der Lage, den Zeitverlauf mikroskopischer Zellpotentiale aber auch makroskopischer Spikemuster während und nach der Simulation darzustellen. Zwei grundlegende Elemente der Neuronalen Basisbibliothek wurden zur Implementierung als spezielle analog-digitale Schaltungen vorbereitet. Erste Silizium Implementierungen durch das Team des DFG Graduiertenkollegs GRK 164 konnten die Möglichkeit einer vollparallelen on line Verarbeitung von Schallsignalen nachweisen. Durch Zuhilfenahme des im GRK entwickelten automatisierten Layout Generators wird es möglich, spezielle Prozessoren zur Anwendung biologischer Verarbeitungsprinzipien in technischen Systemen zu entwickeln. Diese Prozessoren unterscheiden sich grundlegend von den klassischen von Neumann Prozessoren indem sie räumlich und zeitlich verteilte Spikemuster, anstatt sequentieller binärer Werte zur Informationsrepräsentation nutzen. Sie erweitern das digitale Kodierungsprinzip durch die Dimensionen des Raumes (2 dimensionale Nachbarschaft) der Zeit (Frequenz, Phase und Amplitude) sowie der zeitlichen Dynamik analoger Potentialverläufe. Diese Dissertation besteht aus sieben Kapiteln, welche den verschiedenen Bereichen der Computational Neuroscience gewidmet sind. Kapitel 1 beschreibt die Motivation dieser Arbeit welche aus der Absicht rühren, biologische Prinzipien der Schallverarbeitung zu erforschen und für technische Systeme während der Interaktion mit dem Menschen nutzbar zu machen. Zusätzlich werden fünf Gründe für die Nutzung von Spike-Interaktionsmodellen angeführt sowie deren neuartiger Charakter beschrieben. Kapitel 2 führt die biologischen Prinzipien der Schallquellenlokalisation und den psychoakustischen Präzedenz Effekt ein. Aktuelle Hypothesen zur Entstehung dieses Effektes werden anhand ausgewählter experimenteller Ergebnisse verschiedener Forschungsgruppen diskutiert. Kapitel 3 beschreibt die entwickelte Neuronale Basisbibliothek und führt die einzelnen neuronalen Simulationselemente ein. Es erklärt die zugrundeliegenden mathematischen Funktionen der dynamischen Komponenten und beschreibt deren generelle Einsetzbarkeit zur dynamischen Simulation spikebasierter Neuronaler Netzwerke. Kapitel 4 enthält ein speziell entworfenes Modell des auditorischen Hirnstammes beginnend mit den Filterkaskaden zur Simulation des Innenohres, sich fortsetzend über mehr als 200 Zellen und 400 Synapsen in 5 auditorischen Kernen bis zum Richtungssensor im Bereich des auditorischen Mittelhirns. Es stellt die verwendeten Strukturen und Parameter vor und enthält grundlegende Hinweise zur Nutzung der Simulationsumgebung. Kapitel 5 besteht aus drei Abschnitten, wobei der erste Abschnitt die Experimentalbedingungen und Ergebnisse der eigens durchgeführten Tierversuche beschreibt. Der zweite Abschnitt stellt die Ergebnisse von 104 Modellversuchen zur Simulationen psycho-akustischer Effekte dar, welche u.a. die Fähigkeit des Modells zur Nachbildung des Präzedenz Effektes testen. Schließlich beschreibt der letzte Abschnitt die Ergebnisse der 54 unter realen Umweltbedingungen durchgeführten Experimente. Dabei kamen Signale zur Anwendung, welche in normalen sowie besonders stark verhallten Räumen aufgezeichnet wurden. Kapitel 6 vergleicht diese Ergebnisse mit anderen biologisch motivierten und technischen Verfahren zur Echounterdrückung und Schallquellenlokalisation und führt den aktuellen Status der Hardwareimplementierung ein. Kapitel 7 enthält schließlich eine kurze Zusammenfassung und einen Ausblick auf weitere Forschungsobjekte und geplante Aktivitäten. Diese Arbeit möchte zur Entwicklung der Computational Neuroscience beitragen, indem sie versucht, in einem speziellen Anwendungsfeld die Lücke zwischen biologischen Erkenntnissen, rechentechnischen Modellen und Hardware Engineering zu schließen. Sie empfiehlt ein neues räumlich-zeitliches Paradigma der dynamischen Informationsverarbeitung zur Erschließung biologischer Prinzipien der Informationsverarbeitung für technische Anwendungen.This thesis investigates the biological background of the psycho-acoustical precedence effect, enabling humans to suppress echoes during the localization of sound sources. It provides a technically feasible and biologically plausible model for sound source localization under echoic conditions, ready to be used by technical systems during man-machine interactions. The model is based upon own electro-physiological experiments in the mongolian gerbil. The first time in gerbils obtained results reveal a special behavior of specific cells of the dorsal nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (DNLL) - a distinct region in the auditory brainstem. The explored persistent inhibition effect of these cells seems to account for the base of echo suppression at higher auditory centers. The developed model proved capable to duplicate this behavior and suggests, that a strong and timely precise hyperpolarization is the basic mechanism behind this cell behavior. The developed neural architecture models the inner ear as well as five major nuclei of the auditory brainstem in their connectivity and intrinsic dynamics. It represents a new type of neural modeling described as Spike Interaction Models (SIM). SIM use the precise spatio-temporal interaction of single spike events for coding and processing of neural information. Their basic elements are Integrate-and-Fire Neurons and Hebbian synapses, which have been extended by specially designed dynamic transfer functions. The model is capable to detect time differences as small as 10 mircrosecondes and employs the principles of coincidence detection and precise local inhibition for auditory processing. It consists exclusively of elements of a specifically designed Neural Base Library (NBL), which has been developed for multi purpose modeling of Spike Interaction Models. This library extends the commercially available dynamic simulation environment of MATLAB/SIMULINK by different models of neurons and synapses simulating the intrinsic dynamic properties of neural cells. The usage of this library enables engineers as well as biologists to design their own, biologically plausible models of neural information processing without the need for detailed programming skills. Its graphical interface provides access to structural as well as parametric changes and is capable to display the time course of microscopic cell parameters as well as macroscopic firing pattern during simulations and thereafter. Two basic elements of the Neural Base Library have been prepared for implementation by specialized mixed analog-digital circuitry. First silicon implementations were realized by the team of the DFG Graduiertenkolleg GRK 164 and proved the possibility of fully parallel on line processing of sounds. By using the automated layout processor under development in the Graduiertenkolleg, it will be possible to design specific processors in order to apply theprinciples of distributed biological information processing to technical systems. These processors differ from classical von Neumann processors by the use of spatio temporal spike pattern instead of sequential binary values. They will extend the digital coding principle by the dimensions of space (spatial neighborhood), time (frequency, phase and amplitude) as well as the dynamics of analog potentials and introduce a new type of information processing. This thesis consists of seven chapters, dedicated to the different areas of computational neuroscience. Chapter 1: provides the motivation of this study arising from the attempt to investigate the biological principles of sound processing and make them available to technical systems interacting with humans under real world conditions. Furthermore, five reasons to use spike interaction models are given and their novel characteristics are discussed. Chapter 2: introduces the biological principles of sound source localization and the precedence effect. Current hypothesis on echo suppression and the underlying principles of the precedence effect are discussed by reference to a small selection of physiological and psycho-acoustical experiments. Chapter 3: describes the developed neural base library and introduces each of the designed neural simulation elements. It also explains the developed mathematical functions of the dynamic compartments and describes their general usage for dynamic simulation of spiking neural networks. Chapter 4: introduces the developed specific model of the auditory brainstem, starting from the filtering cascade in the inner ear via more than 200 cells and 400 synapses in five auditory regions up to the directional sensor at the level of the auditory midbrain. It displays the employed parameter sets and contains basic hints for the set up and configuration of the simulation environment. Chapter 5: consists of three sections, whereas the first one describes the set up and results of the own electro-physiological experiments. The second describes the results of 104 model simulations, performed to test the models ability to duplicate psycho-acoustical effects like the precedence effect. Finally, the last section of this chapter contains the results of 54 real world experiments using natural sound signals, recorded under normal as well as highly reverberating conditions. Chapter 6: compares the achieved results to other biologically motivated and technical models for echo suppression and sound source localization and introduces the current status of silicon implementation. Chapter 7: finally provides a short summary and an outlook toward future research subjects and areas of investigation. This thesis aims to contribute to the field of computational neuroscience by bridging the gap between biological investigation, computational modeling and silicon engineering in a specific field of application. It suggests a new spatio-temporal paradigm of information processing in order to access the capabilities of biological systems for technical applications

First Annual Workshop on Space Operations Automation and Robotics (SOAR 87)

Several topics relative to automation and robotics technology are discussed. Automation of checkout, ground support, and logistics; automated software development; man-machine interfaces; neural networks; systems engineering and distributed/parallel processing architectures; and artificial intelligence/expert systems are among the topics covered

Advances in Intelligent Robotics and Collaborative Automation

This book provides an overview of a series of advanced research lines in robotics as well as of design and development methodologies for intelligent robots and their intelligent components. It represents a selection of extended versions of the best papers presented at the Seventh IEEE International Workshop on Intelligent Data Acquisition and Advanced Computing Systems: Technology and Applications IDAACS 2013 that were related to these topics. Its contents integrate state of the art computational intelligence based techniques for automatic robot control to novel distributed sensing and data integration methodologies that can be applied to intelligent robotics and automation systems. The objective of the text was to provide an overview of some of the problems in the field of robotic systems and intelligent automation and the approaches and techniques that relevant research groups within this area are employing to try to solve them.The contributions of the different authors have been grouped into four main sections:• Robots• Control and Intelligence• Sensing• Collaborative automationThe chapters have been structured to provide an easy to follow introduction to the topics that are addressed, including the most relevant references, so that anyone interested in this field can get started in the area

Physiological Sensing for Affective Computing

This thesis addresses two aspects related to enabling systems to recognize the affective state of people and respond sensibly to it. First, the issue of representing affective states and unambiguously assigning physiological measurements to those is addressed by suggesting a new approach based on the dimensional emotion model of valence and arousal. Second, the issue of sensing affect-related physiological data is addressed by suggesting a concept for physiological sensor systems that live up to the requirements of adaptive, user-centred systems.In dieser Arbeit wird ein Konzept zur eindeutigen Zuordnung physiologischer Messdaten zu Emotionszuständen erarbeitet, wobei Probleme klassischer Ansätze hierzu vermieden werden. Des Weiteren widmet sich die Arbeit der Erfassung emotionsbezogener physiologischer Parameter. Es wird ein Konzept für Sensorsysteme vorgestellt, welches die zuverlässige Erfassung relevanter physiologischer Parameter erlaubt, ohne jedoch den Nutzer stark zu beeinträchtigen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt hierbei auf der alltagstauglichen Gestaltung des Systems

Smart Wireless Sensor Networks

The recent development of communication and sensor technology results in the growth of a new attractive and challenging area - wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A wireless sensor network which consists of a large number of sensor nodes is deployed in environmental fields to serve various applications. Facilitated with the ability of wireless communication and intelligent computation, these nodes become smart sensors which do not only perceive ambient physical parameters but also be able to process information, cooperate with each other and self-organize into the network. These new features assist the sensor nodes as well as the network to operate more efficiently in terms of both data acquisition and energy consumption. Special purposes of the applications require design and operation of WSNs different from conventional networks such as the internet. The network design must take into account of the objectives of specific applications. The nature of deployed environment must be considered. The limited of sensor nodes� resources such as memory, computational ability, communication bandwidth and energy source are the challenges in network design. A smart wireless sensor network must be able to deal with these constraints as well as to guarantee the connectivity, coverage, reliability and security of network's operation for a maximized lifetime. This book discusses various aspects of designing such smart wireless sensor networks. Main topics includes: design methodologies, network protocols and algorithms, quality of service management, coverage optimization, time synchronization and security techniques for sensor networks

The 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies

This publication comprises the papers presented at the 1995 Goddard Conference on Space Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Information Technologies held at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, on May 9-11, 1995. The purpose of this annual conference is to provide a forum in which current research and development directed at space applications of artificial intelligence can be presented and discussed

Computer Science & Technology Series : XXI Argentine Congress of Computer Science. Selected papers

CACIC’15 was the 21thCongress in the CACIC series. It was organized by the School of Technology at the UNNOBA (North-West of Buenos Aires National University) in Junín, Buenos Aires. The Congress included 13 Workshops with 131 accepted papers, 4 Conferences, 2 invited tutorials, different meetings related with Computer Science Education (Professors, PhD students, Curricula) and an International School with 6 courses. CACIC 2015 was organized following the traditional Congress format, with 13 Workshops covering a diversity of dimensions of Computer Science Research. Each topic was supervised by a committee of 3-5 chairs of different Universities. The call for papers attracted a total of 202 submissions. An average of 2.5 review reports werecollected for each paper, for a grand total of 495 review reports that involved about 191 different reviewers. A total of 131 full papers, involving 404 authors and 75 Universities, were accepted and 24 of them were selected for this book.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Computer Science & Technology Series : XXI Argentine Congress of Computer Science. Selected papers

CACIC’15 was the 21thCongress in the CACIC series. It was organized by the School of Technology at the UNNOBA (North-West of Buenos Aires National University) in Junín, Buenos Aires. The Congress included 13 Workshops with 131 accepted papers, 4 Conferences, 2 invited tutorials, different meetings related with Computer Science Education (Professors, PhD students, Curricula) and an International School with 6 courses. CACIC 2015 was organized following the traditional Congress format, with 13 Workshops covering a diversity of dimensions of Computer Science Research. Each topic was supervised by a committee of 3-5 chairs of different Universities. The call for papers attracted a total of 202 submissions. An average of 2.5 review reports werecollected for each paper, for a grand total of 495 review reports that involved about 191 different reviewers. A total of 131 full papers, involving 404 authors and 75 Universities, were accepted and 24 of them were selected for this book.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI