Mobile Computing in Digital Ecosystems: Design Issues and Challenges

In this paper we argue that the set of wireless, mobile devices (e.g., portable telephones, tablet PCs, GPS navigators, media players) commonly used by human users enables the construction of what we term a digital ecosystem, i.e., an ecosystem constructed out of so-called digital organisms (see below), that can foster the development of novel distributed services. In this context, a human user equipped with his/her own mobile devices, can be though of as a digital organism (DO), a subsystem characterized by a set of peculiar features and resources it can offer to the rest of the ecosystem for use from its peer DOs. The internal organization of the DO must address issues of management of its own resources, including power consumption. Inside the DO and among DOs, peer-to-peer interaction mechanisms can be conveniently deployed to favor resource sharing and data dissemination. Throughout this paper, we show that most of the solutions and technologies needed to construct a digital ecosystem are already available. What is still missing is a framework (i.e., mechanisms, protocols, services) that can support effectively the integration and cooperation of these technologies. In addition, in the following we show that that framework can be implemented as a middleware subsystem that enables novel and ubiquitous forms of computation and communication. Finally, in order to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach, we introduce some experimental results we have obtained from preliminary implementations of (parts of) that subsystem.Comment: Proceedings of the 7th International wireless Communications and Mobile Computing conference (IWCMC-2011), Emergency Management: Communication and Computing Platforms Worksho

Virtual Communication Stack: Towards Building Integrated Simulator of Mobile Ad Hoc Network-based Infrastructure for Disaster Response Scenarios

Responses to disastrous events are a challenging problem, because of possible damages on communication infrastructures. For instance, after a natural disaster, infrastructures might be entirely destroyed. Different network paradigms were proposed in the literature in order to deploy adhoc network, and allow dealing with the lack of communications. However, all these solutions focus only on the performance of the network itself, without taking into account the specificities and heterogeneity of the components which use it. This comes from the difficulty to integrate models with different levels of abstraction. Consequently, verification and validation of adhoc protocols cannot guarantee that the different systems will work as expected in operational conditions. However, the DEVS theory provides some mechanisms to allow integration of models with different natures. This paper proposes an integrated simulation architecture based on DEVS which improves the accuracy of ad hoc infrastructure simulators in the case of disaster response scenarios.Comment: Preprint. Unpublishe

Healthcare PANs: Personal Area Networks for trauma care and home care

The first hour following the trauma is of crucial importance in trauma care. The sooner treatment begins, the better the ultimate outcome for the patient. Generally the initial treatment is handled by paramedical personnel arriving at the site of the accident with an ambulance. There is evidence to show that if the expertise of the on-site paramedic team can be supported by immediate and continuous access to and communication with the expert medical team at the hospital, patient outcomes can be improved. After care also influences the ultimate recovery of the patient. After-treatment follow up often occurs in-hospital in spite of the fact that care at home can offer more advantages and can accelerate recovery. Based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies, in a previous paper [1] we presented an initial vision of two future healthcare settings, supported by applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. The Virtual Trauma Team application involves high quality wireless multimedia communications between ambulance paramedics and the hospital facilitated by paramedic Body Area Networks (BANs) [2] and an ambulance-based Vehicle Area Network (VAN). The VAN supports bi-directional streaming audio and video communication between the ambulance and the hospital even when moving at speed. The clinical motivation for Virtual Trauma Team is to increase survival rates in trauma care. The Virtual Homecare Team application enables homecare coordinated by home nursing services and supported by the patient's PAN which consists of a patient BAN in combination with an ambient intelligent home environment. The homecare PAN provides intelligent monitoring and support functions and the possibility to ad hoc network to the visiting health professionals’ own BANs as well as high quality multimedia communication links to remote members of the virtual team. The motivation for Virtual Homecare Team is to improve quality of life and independence for patients by supporting care at home; the economic motivation is to replace expensive hospital-based care with homecare by virtual teams using wireless technology to support the patient and the carers. In this paper we develop the vision further and focus in particular on the concepts of personal and body area networks