Employing Information and Communications Technologies in Homes and Cities for the Health and Well-Being of Older People

YesHe X and Sheriff RE (Eds.) Employing ICT in Homes and Cities for the Health and Well-Being of Older People. Workshop Proceedings of ICT4HOP’16. 15-17 Aug 2016. Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.British Council, Researcher Links, Newton Fund, NSF

Design and development of an ultra-low-cost electro - resistive band based myo activated prosthetic upper limb

In developing countries, many amputees have no access to the prosthesis. This is due to the challenges of the environment they are living in and to the prohibitive costs of available prostheses. To reduce this gap, a new concept design for an extremely low cost but highly functional upper limb prosthesis is presented. This goal is attained using a low-cost embedded platform (Arduino) and a wearable stretch-sensor adapted from Electro resistive bands (ERBs). In the proposed design, a sensor based on ERB is used to detect residual muscle contraction which detects the volumetric shifts of contraction instead of electromyography signals. The signals received via this sensor is then processed via an Arduino micro-controller to drive a single DC servo motor. The DC servo motor is directly geared onto a claw-style two-fingered prosthesis which is printed in-house from PLA plastic using a standard 3-D printer. The amount of closure of the prosthesis is fed-back to the user via a second ERB sensor directly connected to the claw in the form of haptic feedback. To make the design easier to maintain, the gears and mechanical parts are made so simple that can be crafted even from recovered materials. The entire design of prosthesis is presented in this thesis. The overall cost for the proposed prosthesis is estimated to be AUD 29. The proposed design can be easily scaled up to accommodate more complex designs such as having multiple individual fingers or wrist rotation

Internet of medical things – integrated, ultrasound-based respiration monitoring system for incubators

The study's aim was to develop a non-contact, ultrasound (US) based respiration rate and respiratory signal monitor suitable for babies in incubators. Respiration rate indicates average number of breaths per minute and is higher in young children than adults. It is an important indicator of health deterioration in critically ill patients. The current incubators do not have an integrated respiration monitor due to complexities in its adaptation. Monitoring respiratory signal assists in diagnosing respiration rated problems such as central Apnoea that can affect infants. US sensors are suitable for integration into incubators as US is a harmless and cost-effective technology. US beam is focused on the chest or abdomen. Chest or abdomen movements, caused by respiration process, result in variations in their distance to the US transceiver located at a distance of about 0.5 m. These variations are recorded by measuring the time of flight from transmitting the signal and its reflection from the monitored surface. Measurement of this delay over a time interval enables a respiration signal to be produced from which respiration rate and pauses in breathing are determined. To assess the accuracy of the developed device, a platform with a moving surface was devised. The magnitude and frequency of its surface movement were accurately controlled by its signal generator. The US sensor was mounted above this surface at a distance of 0.5 m. This US signal was wirelessly transmitted to a microprocessor board to digitise. The recorded signal that simulated a respiratory signal was subsequently stored and displayed on a computer or an LCD screen. The results showed that US could be used to measure respiration rate accurately. To cater for possible movement of the infant in the incubator, four US sensors were adapted. These monitored the movements from different angles. An algorithm to interpret the output from the four US sensors was devised and evaluated. The algorithm interpreted which US sensor best detected the chest movements. An IoMT system was devised that incorporated NodeMcu to capture signals from the US sensor. The detected data were transmitted to the ThingSpeak channel and processed in real-time by ThingSpeak’s add-on Matlab© feature. The data were processed on the cloud and then the results were displayed in real-time on a computer screen. The respiration rate and respiration signal could be observed remotely on portable devices e.g. mobile phones and tablets. These features allow caretakers to have access to the data at any time and be alerted to respiratory complications. A method to interpret the recorded US signals to determine respiration patterns, e.g. intermittent pauses, were implemented by utilising Matlab© and ThingSpeak Server. The method successfully detected respiratory pauses by identifying lack of chest movements. The approach can be useful in diagnosing central apnoea. In central apnoea, respiratory pauses are accompanied by cessation of chest or abdominal movements. The devised system will require clinical trials and integration into an incubator by conforming to the medical devices directives. The study demonstrated the integration of IoMT-US for measuring respiration rate and respiratory signal. The US produced respiration rate readings compared well with the actual signal generator's settings of the platform that simulated chest movements

A Novel Power-Efficient Wireless Multi-channel Recording System for the Telemonitoring of Electroencephalography (EEG)

This research introduces the development of a novel EEG recording system that is modular, batteryless, and wireless (untethered) with the supporting theoretical foundation in wireless communications and related design elements and circuitry. Its modular construct overcomes the EEG scaling problem and makes it easier for reconfiguring the hardware design in terms of the number and placement of electrodes and type of standard EEG system contemplated for use. In this development, portability, lightweight, and applicability to other clinical applications that rely on EEG data are sought. Due to printer tolerance, the 3D printed cap consists of 61 electrode placements. This recording capacity can however extend from 21 (as in the international 10-20 systems) up to 61 EEG channels at sample rates ranging from 250 to 1000 Hz and the transfer of the raw EEG signal using a standard allocated frequency as a data carrier. The main objectives of this dissertation are to (1) eliminate the need for heavy mounted batteries, (2) overcome the requirement for bulky power systems, and (3) avoid the use of data cables to untether the EEG system from the subject for a more practical and less restrictive setting. Unpredictability and temporal variations of the EEG input make developing a battery-free and cable-free EEG reading device challenging. Professional high-quality and high-resolution analog front ends are required to capture non-stationary EEG signals at microvolt levels. The primary components of the proposed setup are the wireless power transmission unit, which consists of a power amplifier, highly efficient resonant-inductive link, rectification, regulation, and power management units, as well as the analog front end, which consists of an analog to digital converter, pre-amplification unit, filtering unit, host microprocessor, and the wireless communication unit. These must all be compatible with the rest of the system and must use the least amount of power possible while minimizing the presence of noise and the attenuation of the recorded signal A highly efficient resonant-inductive coupling link is developed to decrease power transmission dissipation. Magnetized materials were utilized to steer electromagnetic flux and decrease route and medium loss while transmitting the required energy with low dissipation. Signal pre-amplification is handled by the front-end active electrodes. Standard bio-amplifier design approaches are combined to accomplish this purpose, and a thorough investigation of the optimum ADC, microcontroller, and transceiver units has been carried out. We can minimize overall system weight and power consumption by employing battery-less and cable-free EEG readout system designs, consequently giving patients more comfort and freedom of movement. Similarly, the solutions are designed to match the performance of medical-grade equipment. The captured electrical impulses using the proposed setup can be stored for various uses, including classification, prediction, 3D source localization, and for monitoring and diagnosing different brain disorders. All the proposed designs and supporting mathematical derivations were validated through empirical and software-simulated experiments. Many of the proposed designs, including the 3D head cap, the wireless power transmission unit, and the pre-amplification unit, are already fabricated, and the schematic circuits and simulation results were based on Spice, Altium, and high-frequency structure simulator (HFSS) software. The fully integrated head cap to be fabricated would require embedding the active electrodes into the 3D headset and applying current technological advances to miniaturize some of the design elements developed in this dissertation

Embracing interference in wireless systems

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, February 2013."February 2013." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-183).The wireless medium is a shared resource. If nearby devices transmit at the same time, their signals interfere, resulting in a collision. In traditional networks, collisions cause the loss of the transmitted information. For this reason, wireless networks have been designed with the assumption that interference is intrinsically harmful and must be avoided. This dissertation takes an alternate approach: Instead of viewing interference as an inherently counterproductive phenomenon that should to be avoided, we design practical systems that transform interference into a harmless, and even a beneficial phenomenon. To achieve this goal, we consider how wireless signals interact when they interfere, and use this understanding in our system designs. Specifically, when interference occurs, the signals get mixed on the wireless medium. By understanding the parameters of this mixing, we can invert the mixing and decode the interfered packets; thus, making interference harmless. Furthermore, we can control this mixing process to create strategic interference that allow decodability at a particular receiver of interest, but prevent decodability at unintended receivers and adversaries. Hence, we can transform interference into a beneficial phenomenon that provides security. Building on this approach, we make four main contributions: We present the first WiFi receiver that can successfully reconstruct the transmitted information in the presence of packet collisions. Next, we introduce a WiFi receiver design that can decode in the presence of high-power cross-technology interference from devices like baby monitors, cordless phones, microwave ovens, or even unknown technologies. We then show how we can harness interference to improve security. In particular, we develop the first system that secures an insecure medical implant without any modification to the implant itself. Finally, we present a solution that establishes secure connections between any two WiFi devices, without having users enter passwords or use pre-shared secret keys.by Shyamnath Gollakota.Ph.D

A framework for automated heart and lung sound analysis using a mobile telemedicine platform

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 246-261).Many resource-poor communities across the globe lack access to quality healthcare,due to shortages in medical expertise and poor availability of medical diagnostic devices. In recent years, mobile phones have become increasingly complex and ubiquitous. These devices present a tremendous opportunity to provide low-cost diagnostics to under-served populations and to connect non-experts with experts. This thesis explores the capture of cardiac and respiratory sounds on a mobile phone for analysis, with the long-term aim of developing intelligent algorithms for the detection of heart and respiratory-related problems. Using standard labeled databases, existing and novel algorithms are developed to analyze cardiac and respiratory audio data. In order to assess the algorithms' performance under field conditions, a low-cost stethoscope attachment is constructed and data is collected using a mobile phone. Finally, a telemedicine infrastructure and work-flow is described, in which these algorithms can be deployed and trained in a large-scale deployment.by Katherine L. Kuan.M.Eng

Applications of MATLAB in Science and Engineering

The book consists of 24 chapters illustrating a wide range of areas where MATLAB tools are applied. These areas include mathematics, physics, chemistry and chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, biological (molecular biology) and medical sciences, communication and control systems, digital signal, image and video processing, system modeling and simulation. Many interesting problems have been included throughout the book, and its contents will be beneficial for students and professionals in wide areas of interest

Hidden Markov Models

Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), although known for decades, have made a big career nowadays and are still in state of development. This book presents theoretical issues and a variety of HMMs applications in speech recognition and synthesis, medicine, neurosciences, computational biology, bioinformatics, seismology, environment protection and engineering. I hope that the reader will find this book useful and helpful for their own research