CloudMed: plataforma de comunicações para medicina

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaOs recentes avanços das tecnologias de informação e comunicação têm criado novos cenários aplicacionais na área da telemedicina, nomeadamente na forma como integramos diferentes fontes de dados, como acedemos e partilhamos estes recursos em ambientes moveis e como integramos ferramentas cooperativas inspiradas no paradigma das redes sociais. Temos verificado nos últimos anos a terciarização de recursos computacionais, processo conhecido como Cloud Computing. Esta realidade cria novas oportunidades de exploração destes recursos para facilitar o acesso, partilha e integração de informação médica, em qualquer local e a qualquer hora. Mais ainda, a escalabilidade e fiabilidade oferecida por estas plataformas satisfazem os requisitos de serviço impostos a soluções telemáticas na área da saúde. Esta dissertação teve como objetivo estudar o paradigma de software como serviço, suportado por uma estrutura em Cloud, tendo em mente a sua utilização em cenários de telemedicina e tele-trabalho. Muito concretamente, desenvolveu-se uma plataforma Web de serviços orientada ás redes de imagem médica. Esta solução disponibiliza um ambiente cooperativo inovador onde os clínicos podem recolher dados, partilhar informação e aceder remotamente a recursos imagiológicos. Aspetos de segurança e interoperabilidade com os atuais sistemas e normas foram alvo de particular atenção.The recent technological developments in information and communications technologies are promoting new studies and research in telemedicine area, revolutionizing the access, integration and sharing of medical information. For instance, many systems have been focusing on ubiquity through the use of mobile computing and on enhance users cooperation through usage of social networking paradigms. In this regard, the rise of new model of outsourcing computing resources, which is known as Cloud computing, creates new possibilities to explore their bene_ts to facilitate the sharing and remote access to medical information, anywhere and anytime. Moreover, the scalability and reliability o_ered by Cloud platforms _t well to the medical area requirements. This dissertation aimed to analyze the current state of the art of Cloud Computing, namely studying their viability to support telemedicine and teleworking scenarios. The proposal was focused in the medical imaging _eld. The work resulted in a Cloud computing solution, following the software as a service model, to support cooperative tele-imagiology networks. It is a solution that allows users to setup collaborative environments in the _eld of imagiology, targeting the acceleration and improvement of decision-making processes. The proposal contemplates also other important issues like, for instance, security and interoperability with actual medical imaging systems

IoT on Shared Vehicles

Nowadays the need of people to have the power to control everything is increasing. Due to the technological evolution together with the Internet of things, this is already possible. In this context, the shared vehicles are a good example. With just one click people can use a vehicle from a vehicle sharing eet anywhere, anytime. During the realization of this project the uMDC was developed. It is a small device capable of managing and controlling di erent types of vehicles, with the main focus being the electric bicycles. As a nal conclusion of the project, the results obtained with the uMDC have proved very attractive. During its integration in the electric bicycles, the system was capable of controlling the bicycle's di erent components, as required for the rst prototype.Hoje em dia, a necessidade das pessoas terem controlo sobre tudo está a aumentar. Devido á evolução tecnológica juntamente com a Internet das coisas, isso já é possível. Neste contexto, os veículos partilhados são um bom exemplo disso. Com um simples clique, as pessoas podem usufruir e uma viatura de uma frota de veículos partilhados em qualquer lugar, a qualquer hora. Durante a realização deste projeto, foi desenvolvido o uMDC. Um pequeno ispositivo capaz de gerir e controlar diferentes tipos de veículos, sendo o foco principal as bicicletas elétricas. No nal deste projeto, os resultados obtidos com o uMDC foram bastante satisfatórios. Durante a sua integração nas bicicletas elétricas, o sistema foi capaz de controlar diferentes componentes das mesmas, como requerido para primeiro protótipo

Web application user interface technologies

The World Wide Web has expanded from a huge information storage repository into a worldwide application platform. Web applications have several benefits compared to desktop applications. An application can be used anywhere from any system and device, which means that only one version is needed, they do not need to be installed and developers can modify running applications. Despite all the benefits of the Web, web applications are suffering because they are developed using the same technologies as the static documents on the Web. Some of these web technologies are outdated and were not originally designed for the complex use cases of the modern applications to which they are now applied. For instance, HTML forms comprise the main interaction of an application, despite not having been designed to describe complex and interactive UIs. Another example is HTTP communication on the Web, which always requires client initiative and is too restrictive for dynamic web applications. Additionally, new usage contexts have brought with them new requirements for web applications, which are no longer used only via Graphical User Interfaces. Recently, several parties have developed specialized technologies for web application development. These solutions are not only minor additions to the existing technologies, but also new technologies. The goal of this thesis is to analyze the advanced web technologies and propose improvements to the technologies and architecture where applicable. The technologies are evaluated against a large set of requirements. The aim of the evaluation is two-fold. The first part is to select a technology on which to base the further improvements, and the second is to identify the deficiencies of the current solutions. The improvements focus on the developers' point-of-view. Based on the evaluation, this thesis proposes certain improvements related to multimodal interaction, server push, and remote UI updates. It also discusses software that supports the improvements and XML-based web technologies. Finally, the improvements are evaluated against the requirements and compared to other solutions

UbiQloud: Palvelualusta esineiden web-sovelluksille

Over the years, the World Wide Web (Web) has evolved from a simple system for sharing static documents to a social and dynamic application platform. In addition, the range of devices and input methods used to interact with Web applications has increased. This evolution has opened up new possibilities for application development as data from other applications and physical devices is now available for mashups through open APIs. At the same time, however, the complexity of application development has increased and the technologies at the foundation of the Web fail to meet the requirements for modern Web applications. The main objective of this Thesis was to study how the development of modern Web applications can be facilitated leveraging third-party services and modern technologies. Furthermore, the study focused on designing and implementing a modern cloud-based platform, UbiQloud, offering a wide range of essential services needed to develop social and location-aware Web of Things applications with real-time communication capabilities. The platform was validated by developing two sample applications on top of it as well as by conducting a series of performance and stress tests. The results show that it is possible to implement a scalable, high performance cloud-based platform that offers a wide range of services essential for modern Web application development and can be used with real applications in real world settings.Vuosien saatossa World Wide Web (Web) on kehittynyt pöytäkoneilla käytettävästä yksinkertaisesta dokumenttien jakojärjestelmästä sosiaaliseksi ja dynaamiseksi ohjelmistoalustaksi, jota käytetään monenlaisilla päätelaitteilla eri yhteyksissä. Webin kehitys on luonut sovelluskehittäjille mahdollisuuden uudenlaisten sovellusten kehittämiselle, joissa hyötykäytetään tietoa muista sovelluksista ja fyysisistä laitteista avointen rajapintojen kautta. Samanaikaisesti sovelluskehitys on muodostunut entistä haastavammaksi, koska Webin perustana toimivat teknologiat eivät enää pysty vastaamaan nykyaikaisten sovellusten vaatimuksiin. Tämän diplomityön tarkoituksena oli selvittää, kuinka nykyaikaisten Web -sovellusten kehittämistä voitaisiin helpottaa kolmannen osapuolen palveluiden ja uusien teknologioiden avulla. Lisäksi diplomityöhön sisältyi nykyaikaisen pilvipohjaisen alustan, UbiQloudin, suunnittelu ja toteutus. Alustan tarkoituksena on tarjota sovelluskehittäjille yhdestä paikasta suuri määrä palveluita, joita tarvitaan reaaliaikaisten, sosiaalisten ja paikkatietoisten Web of Things -sovellusten kehittämiseksi. Alusta validoitiin kahden esimerkkisovelluksen avulla sekä suorittamalla joukko testejä alustan suorituskyvyn mittaamiseksi. Tuloksien pohjalta voidaan sanoa, että on mahdollista toteuttaa skaalautuva ja suorituskykyinen pilvipohjainen alusta, joka tarjoaa suuren määrän nykyaikaisille Web-sovelluksille tärkeitä palveluita. Lisäksi esimerkkisovellukset todistavat, että alusta soveltuu käytettäväksi oikeiden sovellusten kanssa oikeassa ympäristössä

Μελέτη Σύγχρονων Τεχνολογιών Επικοινωνίας Πελάτη-Εξυπηρέτη

Η διπλωματική αυτή εργασία έχει ως στόχο τη μελέτη των διαφόρων τεχνολογιών επικοινωνίας που έχουν αναπτυχθεί για το μοντέλο πελάτη-εξυπηρέτη. Στο αρχικό μοντέλο την επικοινωνία ξεκινούσε ο πελάτης κάνοντας ρητές αιτήσεις και ο εξυπηρέτης έστελνε, εν συνεχεία, τις απαντήσεις του. Αυτός ο τρόπος επικοινωνίας είναι ξεκάθαρος και στο HTTP πρωτόκολλο το οποίο αποτελεί μέχρι και σήμερα το βασικό τρόπο επικοινωνίας ανάμεσα σε πελάτη και εξυπηρέτη. Η ανάγκη για πιο δυναμικές ιστοσελίδες, οι οποίες θα ενημερώνονταν σε πραγματικό χρόνο, έδωσε ώθηση σε νέες τεχνολογίες και πρωτόκολλα, τα οποία δουλεύουν πάνω από το HTTP ή το αναβαθμίζουν. Κατ’ αρχήν, μια πολύ σημαντική εξέλιξη ήταν η ανάπτυξη του AJAX. Η προσέγγιση αυτή αν και δεν άλλαξε την κατεύθυνση της επικοινωνίας πελάτη-εξυπηρέτη, βελτίωσε πολύ τον τρόπο που παρουσιάζονται οι σελίδες στο χρήστη - πλέον τα δεδομένα μοιάζουν να είναι πραγματικού χρόνου. Οι εφαρμογές, όμως, καθώς και η ανάγκη υποστήριξης πολλών ταυτόχρονων χρηστών, απαιτούσαν κάτι περισσότερο, μια τεχνολογία η οποία θα κάνει αυτόματη προώθηση των δεδομένων από τον εξυπηρέτη στον πελάτη. Οι δύο βασικότεροι πρωταγωνιστές σήμερα σε αυτή την προσπάθεια είναι η προσέγγιση COMET και τα API Server Sent Events και WebSocket της HTML5. Στην παρούσα εργασία γίνεται μια επισκόπηση των σημαντικότερων τεχνολογιών όπως αυτές προτάθηκαν στο πέρασμα του χρόνου. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, ελέγχεται τι υποστήριξη υπάρχει στην πλευρά του πελάτη-φυλλομετρητή, ποια είναι τα πλεονεκτήματα και τα μειονεκτήματα της κάθε τεχνολογίας και πώς υποστηρίζονται από τους διάφορους εξυπηρέτες εφαρμογών. Στην πλευρά του εξυπηρέτη έγινε ένα πείραμα ελέγχου φόρτου το οποίο επιβεβαιώνει το γεγονός ότι το πιο σύγχρονο API, το WebSocket, έχει χαμηλότερη καθυστέρηση και κλιμακώνεται πολύ καλύτερα από το COMET.This diploma thesis aims at studying the various communication technologies that have been developed to support the client-server model. In the original model, the communication was initiated explicitly by a client request, and the server responded with an answer. This way of communication is clear in the HTTP protocol, which remains the main way of communication between a client and a webserver until today. The need for more dynamic websites, which will be updated in real time, gave impetus to new technologies and protocols, which work over HTTP or upgrade it. Firstly, a very important step was the development of AJAX. This approach, although it did not change the direction of the client-server communication, it greatly improved the way webpages are presented to the user - data seem to be real time. Current applications, however, and the need to support multiple concurrent users, required something more, a technology that will automatically forward data from the server to the client. The two main protagonists today in this effort are the COMET approach and two APIs introduced in HTML5, Server Sent Events and WebSocket API. This thesis presents an overview of the major technologies presented through the years to support the client-server communication. More specifically, it studies the support given on the client-side (browser), the advantages and disadvantages of each technology, and how they it is implemented by different servers, application and dedicated ones. On the server side, a load test experiment was conducted which confirms the fact that the latest API, the WebSocket, has lower delay and scales much better than the COMET, which makes it the most promising technology for RIA

Middleware for Large-scale Distributed Systems

Nos últimos anos o aumento exponencial da utilização de dispositivos móveis e serviços disponibilizados na “Cloud” levou a que a forma como os sistemas são desenhados e implementados mudasse, numa perspectiva de tentar alcançar requisitos que até então não eram essenciais. Analisando esta evolução, com o enorme aumento dos dispositivos móveis, como os “smartphones” e “tablets” fez com que o desenho e implementação de sistemas distribuidos fossem ainda mais importantes nesta área, na tentativa de promover sistemas e aplicações que fossem mais flexíveis, robutos, escaláveis e acima de tudo interoperáveis. A menor capacidade de processamento ou armazenamento destes dispositivos tornou essencial o aparecimento e crescimento de tecnologias que prometem solucionar muitos dos problemas identificados. O aparecimento do conceito de Middleware visa solucionar estas lacunas nos sistemas distribuidos mais evoluídos, promovendo uma solução a nível de organização e desenho da arquitetura dos sistemas, ao memo tempo que fornece comunicações extremamente rápidas, seguras e de confiança. Uma arquitetura baseada em Middleware visa dotar os sistemas de um canal de comunicação que fornece uma forte interoperabilidade, escalabilidade, e segurança na troca de mensagens, entre outras vantagens. Nesta tese vários tipos e exemplos de sistemas distribuídos e são descritos e analisados, assim como uma descrição em detalhe de três protocolos (XMPP, AMQP e DDS) de comunicação, sendo dois deles (XMPP e AMQP) utilzados em projecto reais que serão descritos ao longo desta tese. O principal objetivo da escrita desta tese é demonstrar o estudo e o levantamento do estado da arte relativamente ao conceito de Middleware aplicado a sistemas distribuídos de larga escala, provando que a utilização de um Middleware pode facilitar e agilizar o desenho e desenvolvimento de um sistema distribuído e traz enormes vantagens num futuro próximo.Over the last few years the designing and implementation of applications have evolved to a new breed of applications that are used by a huge number of users at the same time and are capable of being executed in up to thousands of machines physically distributed, even geographically, such as the cloud computing systems, the new concept of “big data” and smart cities. The existence of several components of these systems, distributed in independent machines, brings inevitable issues in terms of designing and implementation of those systems in order to achieve flexible, scalable, robust, reliable and interoperable systems. It is extremely important to design and implement systems that can be capable of providing a communication and coordination among all the components of the system. The concept of implementing a Middleware seems to be a great option to solve most of these issues, allowing a system to communicate with other systems in a really fast, robust and secure way. This thesis pretends to demonstrate that the usage of Middleware technologies to ensure the communication in distributed systems brings a huge number of advantages, such as interoperability between systems, robustness regarding the communication layer, scalability and high speed communications

A novel multi-level and community-based agent ecosystem to support customers dynamic decision-making in smart grids

Electrical systems have evolved at a fast pace over the past years, particularly in response to the current environmental and climate challenges. Consequently, the European Union and the United Nations have encouraged the development of a more sustainable energy strategy. This strategy triggered a paradigm shift in energy consumption and production, which becoming increasingly distributed, resulted in the development and emergence of smart energy grids. Multi-agent systems are one of the most widely used artificial intelligence concepts in smart grids. Both multi-agent systems and smart grids are distributed, so there is correspondence between the used technology and the network's complex reality. Due to the wide variety of multi-agent systems applied to smart grids, which typically have very specific goals, the ability to model the network as a whole may be compromised, as communication between systems is typically non-existent. This dissertation, therefore, proposes an agent-based ecosystem to model smart grids in which different agent-based systems can coexist. This dissertation aims to conceive, implement, test, and validate a new agent-based ecosystem, entitled A4SG (agent-based ecosystem for smart grids modelling), which combines the concepts of multi-agent systems and agent communities to enable the modelling and representation of smart grids and the entities that compose them. The proposed ecosystem employs an innovative methodology for managing static or dynamic interactions present in smart grids. The creation of a solution that allows the integration of existing systems into an ecosystem, enables the representation of smart grids in a realistic and comprehensive manner. A4SG integrates several functionalities that support the ecosystem's management, also conceived, implemented, tested, and validated in this dissertation. Two mobility functionalities are proposed: one that allows agents to move between physical machines and another that allows "virtual" mobility, where agents move between agent communities to improve the context for the achievement of their objectives. In order to prevent an agent from becoming overloaded, a novel functionality is proposed to enable the creation of agents that function as extensions of the main agent (i.e., branch agents), allowing the distribution of objectives among the various extensions of the main agent. Several case studies, which test the proposed services and functionalities individually and the ecosystem as a whole, were used to test and validate the proposed solution. These case studies were conducted in realistic contexts using data from multiple sources, including energy communities. The results indicate that the used methodologies can increase participation in demand response events, increasing the fitting between consumers and aggregators from 12 % to 69 %, and improve the strategies used in energy transaction markets, allowing an energy community of 50 customers to save 77.0 EUR per week.Os últimos anos têm sido de mudança nos sistemas elétricos, especialmente devido aos atuais desafios ambientais e climáticos. A procura por uma estratégia mais sustentável para o domínio da energia tem sido promovida pela União Europeia e pela Organização das Nações Unidas. A mudança de paradigma no que toca ao consumo e produção de energia, que acontece, cada vez mais, de forma distribuída, tem levado à emergência das redes elétricas inteligentes. Os sistemas multi-agente são um dos conceitos, no domínio da inteligência artificial, mais aplicados em redes inteligentes. Tanto os sistemas multi-agente como as redes inteligentes têm uma natureza distribuída, existindo por isso um alinhamento entre a tecnologia usada e a realidade complexa da rede. Devido a existir uma vasta oferta de sistemas multi-agente aplicados a redes inteligentes, normalmente com objetivos bastante específicos, a capacidade de modelar a rede como um todo pode ficar comprometida, porque a comunicação entre sistemas é, geralmente, inexistente. Por isso, esta dissertação propõe um ecossistema baseado em agentes para modelar as redes inteligentes, onde vários sistemas de agentes coexistem. Esta dissertação pretende conceber, implementar, testar, e validar um novo ecossistema multiagente, intitulado A4SG (agent-based ecosystem for smart grids modelling), que combina os conceitos de sistemas multi-agente e comunidades de agentes, permitindo a modelação e representação de redes inteligentes e das suas entidades. O ecossistema proposto utiliza uma metodologia inovadora para gerir as interações presentes nas redes inteligentes, sejam elas estáticas ou dinâmicas. A criação de um ecossistema que permite a integração de sistemas já existentes, cria a possibilidade de uma representação realista e detalhada das redes de energia. O A4SG integra diversas funcionalidades, também estas concebidas, implementadas, testadas, e validadas nesta dissertação, que suportam a gestão do próprio ecossistema. São propostas duas funcionalidades de mobilidade, uma que permite aos agentes mover-se entre máquinas físicas, e uma que permite uma mobilidade “virtual”, onde os agentes se movem entre comunidades de agentes, de forma a melhorar o contexto para a execução dos seus objetivos. É também proposta uma nova funcionalidade que permite a criação de agentes que funcionam como uma extensão de um agente principal, com o objetivo de evitar a sobrecarga de um agente, permitindo a distribuição de objetivos entre as várias extensões do agente principal. A solução proposta foi testada e validada por vários casos de estudo, que testam os serviços e funcionalidades propostas individualmente, e o ecossistema como um todo. Estes casos de estudo foram executados em contextos realistas, usando dados provenientes de diversas fontes, tais como comunidades de energia. Os resultados demonstram que as metodologias utilizadas podem melhorar a participação em eventos de demand response, subindo a adequação entre consumidores e agregadores de 12 % para 69 %, e melhorar as estratégias utilizadas em mercados de transações de energia, permitindo a uma comunidade de energia com 50 consumidores poupar 77,0 EUR por semana

Control plane extension - Status of the SFA deployment

FP7 OpenLab project deliverable D1.2This document describes the progress made within Work Package 1 "Control Plane Extensions" over the second year of the OpenLab project

Sistemas interativos e distribuídos para telemedicina

doutoramento Ciências da ComputaçãoDurante as últimas décadas, as organizações de saúde têm vindo a adotar continuadamente as tecnologias de informação para melhorar o funcionamento dos seus serviços. Recentemente, em parte devido à crise financeira, algumas reformas no sector de saúde incentivaram o aparecimento de novas soluções de telemedicina para otimizar a utilização de recursos humanos e de equipamentos. Algumas tecnologias como a computação em nuvem, a computação móvel e os sistemas Web, têm sido importantes para o sucesso destas novas aplicações de telemedicina. As funcionalidades emergentes de computação distribuída facilitam a ligação de comunidades médicas, promovem serviços de telemedicina e a colaboração em tempo real. Também são evidentes algumas vantagens que os dispositivos móveis podem introduzir, tais como facilitar o trabalho remoto a qualquer hora e em qualquer lugar. Por outro lado, muitas funcionalidades que se tornaram comuns nas redes sociais, tais como a partilha de dados, a troca de mensagens, os fóruns de discussão e a videoconferência, têm o potencial para promover a colaboração no sector da saúde. Esta tese teve como objetivo principal investigar soluções computacionais mais ágeis que permitam promover a partilha de dados clínicos e facilitar a criação de fluxos de trabalho colaborativos em radiologia. Através da exploração das atuais tecnologias Web e de computação móvel, concebemos uma solução ubíqua para a visualização de imagens médicas e desenvolvemos um sistema colaborativo para a área de radiologia, baseado na tecnologia da computação em nuvem. Neste percurso, foram investigadas metodologias de mineração de texto, de representação semântica e de recuperação de informação baseada no conteúdo da imagem. Para garantir a privacidade dos pacientes e agilizar o processo de partilha de dados em ambientes colaborativos, propomos ainda uma metodologia que usa aprendizagem automática para anonimizar as imagens médicasDuring the last decades, healthcare organizations have been increasingly relying on information technologies to improve their services. At the same time, the optimization of resources, both professionals and equipment, have promoted the emergence of telemedicine solutions. Some technologies including cloud computing, mobile computing, web systems and distributed computing can be used to facilitate the creation of medical communities, and the promotion of telemedicine services and real-time collaboration. On the other hand, many features that have become commonplace in social networks, such as data sharing, message exchange, discussion forums, and a videoconference, have also the potential to foster collaboration in the health sector. The main objective of this research work was to investigate computational solutions that allow us to promote the sharing of clinical data and to facilitate the creation of collaborative workflows in radiology. By exploring computing and mobile computing technologies, we have designed a solution for medical imaging visualization, and developed a collaborative system for radiology, based on cloud computing technology. To extract more information from data, we investigated several methodologies such as text mining, semantic representation, content-based information retrieval. Finally, to ensure patient privacy and to streamline the data sharing in collaborative environments, we propose a machine learning methodology to anonymize medical images