Using the eSana Framework in Dermatology to improve the Information Flow between Patients and Doctors

Mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous in every day\u27s life; their time and place independence are reasons for using them in different areas. One such area is electronic health, where patients can install small applications on their mobile devices that help or guide them in the management of their disease. The eSana framework offers a set of tools and approaches that allow the transmission of discrete physiological values electronically in order to evaluate them by medical experts. This paper presents an application scenario in the field of dermatology. It illustrates the information flow between patient and dermatologist including all transformation services. One speciality is the combination of binary image data and structured information about a given condition sent over a mobile network. The main goal is to show a set of necessary components in order to support the relationship between patients and their dermatologists by using medical standards

Ηλεκτρονική υγεία (eHeath) και παρουσίαση του πλαισίου ανάπτυξης υπηρεσιών ηλεκτρονικής υγείας eSana

Στα πλαίσια της παρούσας πτυχιακής εργασίας μελετάται ο κλάδος της Πληροφορικής που ασχολείται με τις υπηρεσίες και τα συστήματα που αφορούν τον κλάδο της Υγείας. Συγκεκριμένα, παρουσιάζεται η ηλεκτρονική υγεία (eHealth) και ιδιαίτερα οι υπηρεσίες υγείας που παρέχονται μέσω κινητών συσκευών(mHeath). Γίνεται μια παρουσίαση υλοποιημένων τέτοιων συστημάτων καθώς και μια εκτεταμένη παρουσίαση ενός πλαισίου ανάπτυξης ιατρικών εφαρμογών με χρήση κινητών συσκευών βασισμένη στο μοντέλο Εξυπηρετητή – Πελάτη (server -client).Στην συνέχεια, γίνεται αναφορά σε εν λόγω εφαρμογές που έχουν αναπτυχθεί στην Ελλάδα στα πλαίσια Ευρωπαϊκών Ερευνητικών Προγραμμάτων. Εν κατακλείδι, ανατρέχουμε στα πλεονεκτήματα και μειονεκτήματα της χρήσης τέτοιων τεχνολογιών και στο κατά πόσο επηρεάζουν θετικά ή αρνητικά τους επαγγελματίες του κλάδου της Υγείας στην καθημερινή τους ενασχόληση τόσο στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση όσο και στην Ελλάδα.eHealth and presentation of the eSana framewor

From MCom Visions to Mobile Value Services

The first papers on mobile commerce were offered to the Bled conference commencing in 2000. Initially, they were not received with enthusiasm; the reviewers were rather sceptical as to the research methods used and the visions of a global m-commerce offered. Nevertheless, the first panel sessions were overcrowded and the eBled organizers quickly recognized a new and exciting movement taking shape. The rest is – as the saying goes – history. There are around 6 billion mobile phone users in the world but the mobile services in actual use are – besides voice calls and SMS – rather few (at least in comparison to the hype around smart phones). Based on our experience from annual series of consumer studies we argue that there are fundamental misunderstandings in relation to both the mobile service concept and the basis for building user value. By following the development of mobile technology over a 10 year interval we have found out – much to our surprise - that not much has changed in the actual use of mobile services despite the fact that we have had about three generations of mobile phones during these 10 years. We have summarized insight from panels run at the eBled conferences and from a number of papers presented at the conference and worked out a description of the development of mobile commerce and mobile services

Virtual divide, Bologna education model and geographic information technologies

RESUMEN. El presente artículo reflexiona acerca del impacto que el desarrollo tecnológico tiene en nuestras sociedades. A lo largo del primer apartado se señala la importancia que la segregación digital tiene en la actual sociedad de la información, confirmándose posteriormente el hecho de que la formación es la única respuesta válida para evitarla. En ese sentido, se enfatiza la oportunidad histórica que la Unión Europea tiene de cara a integrar en su nuevo Espacio de Educación Superior (EEES) soluciones que minimicen este impacto. Las tecnologías de la información geográfica (TIG) son presentadas como un ejemplo de tecnologías que puede generar este tipo de segregación en el futuro próximo, planteándose la necesidad de una reflexión seria acerca del modo en que deben de ser diseñados los programas de futuros cursos postgrado relativos a las TIG.ABSTRACT. The following report deals with the concept of digital divide. It is pointed out the importance of this type of segregation in the information society we live and it is showed how education and training has been considered the unique way to avoid it. In this sense, it is also emphasized the chance that the European Union has to face this coming trouble at this particular time. The definition of a new education system at the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on lifelong learning philosophy and the Bologna principles give us a new educative context. Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) are presented as an example of expertise that can generate digital segregation in the nearest future making a final point about how the new postgraduate courses related to GIT should be define at the European universities

Precise positioning in real-time using GPS-RTK signal for visually impaired people navigation system

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 24/9/2010.This thesis presents the research carried out to investigate and achieve highly reliable and accurate navigation system of guidance for visually impaired pedestrians. The main aim with this PhD project has been to identify the limits and insufficiencies in utilising Network Real-Time Kinematic Global Navigation Satellite Systems (NRTK GNSS) and its augmentation techniques within the frame of pedestrian applications in a variety of environments and circumstances. Moreover, the system can be used in many other applications, including unmanned vehicles, military applications, police, etc. NRTK GNSS positioning is considered to be a superior solution in comparison to the conventional standalone Global Positioning System (GPS) technique whose accuracy is highly affected by the distance dependent errors such as satellite orbital and atmospheric biases. Nevertheless, NRTK GNSS positioning is particularly constrained by wireless data link coverage, delays of correction and transmission and completeness, GPS and GLONASS signal availability, etc., which could downgrade the positioning quality of the NRTK results. This research is based on the dual frequency NRTK GNSS (GPS and GLONASS). Additionally, it is incorporated into several positioning and communication methods responsible for data correction while providing the position solutions, in which all identified contextual factors and application requirements are accounted. The positioning model operates through client-server based architecture consisted of a Navigation Service Centre (NSC) and a Mobile Navigation Unit (MNU). Hybrid functional approaches were consisting of several processing procedures allowing the positioning model to operate in position determination modes. NRTK GNSS and augmentation service is used if enough navigation information was available at the MNU using its local positioning device (GPS/GLONASS receiver).The positioning model at MNU was experimentally evaluated and centimetric accuracy was generally attained during both static and kinematic tests in various environments (urban, suburban and rural). This high accuracy was merely affected by some level of unavailability mainly caused by GPS and GLONASS signal blockage. Additionally, the influence of the number of satellites in view, dilution of precision (DOP) and age corrections (AoC) over the accuracy and stability of the NRTK GNSS solution was also investigated during this research and presented in the thesis. This positioning performance has outperformed the existing GPS service. In addition, utilising a simulation evaluation facility the positioning model at MNU performance was quantified with reference to a hybrid positioning service that will be offered by future Galileo Open Service (OS) along with GPS. However, a significant difference in terms of the service availability for the advantage of the hybrid system was experienced in all remaining scenarios and environments more especially the urban areas due to surrounding obstacles and conditions. As an outcome of this research a new and precise positioning model was proposed. The adaptive framework is understood as approaching an integration of the available positioning technology into the context of surrounding wireless communication for a maintainable performance. The positioning model has the capability of delivering indeed accurate, precise and consistent position solutions, and thus is fulfilling the requirements of visually impaired people navigation application, as identified in the adaptive framework

INDOOR LOCALIZATION AND TRACKING: METHODS, TECHNOLOGIES AND RESEARCH CHALLENGES

The paper presents a comprehensive survey of contemporary methods, technologies and systems for localization and tracking of moving objects in indoor environment and gives their comparison according to various criteria, such as accuracy, privacy, scalability and type of location data. Some representative examples of indoor LBS applications available on the market are presented that are based on reviewed localization technologies. The prominent research directions in this domain are categorized and discussed

Adaptive, reliable, and accurate positioning model for location-based services

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis presents a new strategy in achieving highly reliable and accurate position solutions fulfilling the requirements of Location-Based Services (LBS) pedestrians’ applications. The new strategy is divided into two main parts. The first part integrates the available positioning technology within the surrounding LBS application context by introducing an adaptive LBS framework. The context can be described as a group of factors affecting the application behaviour; this includes environmental states, available resources and user preferences. The proposed adaptive framework consists of several stages, such as defining the contextual factors that have a direct effect on the positioning performance, identifying preliminary positioning performance requirements associated with different LBS application groups, and introducing an intelligent positioning services selection function. The second part of this work involves the design and development of a novel positioning model that is responsible for delivering highly reliable, accurate and precise position solutions to LBS users. This new model is based on the single frequency GPS Standard Positioning Service (SPS). Additionally, it is incorporated within the adaptive LBS framework while providing the position solutions, in which all identified contextual factors and application requirements are accounted. The positioning model operates over a client-server architecture including two main components, described as the Localisation Server (LS) and the Mobile Unit (MU). Hybrid functional approaches were developed at both components consisting of several processing procedures allowing the positioning model to operate in two position determination modes. Stand-alone mode is used if enough navigation information was available at the MU using its local positioning device (GPS/EGNOS receiver). Otherwise, server-based mode is utilised, in which the LS intervenes and starts providing the required position solutions. At the LS, multiple sources of GPS augmentation services were received using the Internet as the sole augmentation data transportation medium. The augmentation data was then processed and integrated for the purpose of guaranteeing the availability of valid and reliable information required for the provision of accurate and precise position solutions. Two main advanced position computation methods were developed at the LS, described as coordinate domain and raw domain. The positioning model was experimentally evaluated. According to the reported results, the LS through the developed position computation methods, was able to provide position samples with an accuracy of less than 2 meters, with high precision at 95% confidence level; this was achieved in urban, rural, and open space (clear satellite view) navigation environments. Additionally, the integrity of the position solutions was guaranteed in such environments during more than 90% of the navigation time, taking into consideration the identified integrity thresholds (Horizontal Alert Limits (HAL)=11 m). This positioning performance has outperformed the existing GPS/EGNOS service which was implemented at the MU in all scenarios and environments. In addition, utilising a simulation evaluation facility the developed positioning model performance was quantified with reference to a hybrid positioning service that will be offered by future Galileo Open Service (OS) along with GPS/EGNOS. Using the statistical t-test, it was concluded that there is no significant difference in terms of the position samples’ accuracy achieved from the developed positioning model and the hybrid system at a particular navigation environment described as rural area. The p-value was 0.08 and the level of significance used was 0.05. However, a significant difference in terms of the service integrity for the advantage of the hybrid system was experienced in all remaining scenarios and environments more especially the urban areas due to surrounding obstacles and conditions

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Sensor Fusion for Location Estimation Technologies

Location estimation performance is not always satisfactory and improving it can be expensive. The performance of location estimation technology can be increased by refining the existing location estimation technologies. A better way of increasing performance is to use multiple technologies and combine the available data provided by them in order to obtain better results. Also, maintaining one's location privacy while using location estimation technology is a challenge. How can this problem be solved? In order to make it easier to perform sensor fusion on the available data and to speed up development, a flexible framework centered around a component-based architecture was designed. In order to test the performance of location estimation using the proposed sensor fusion framework, the framework and all the necessary components were implemented and tested. In order to solve the location estimation privacy issues, a comprehensive design that considers all aspects of the problem, from the physical aspects of using radio transmissions to communicating and using location data, is proposed. The experimental results of testing the location estimation sensor fusion framework show that by using sensor fusion, the availability of location estimation is always increased and the accuracy is always increased on average. The experimental results also allow the profiling of the sensor fusion framework's time and energy consumption. In the case of time consumption, there is a 0.32% - 17.06% - 5.05% - 77.58% split between results overhead, engine overhead, component communication time and component execution time on an average. The more measurements are gathered by the data gathering components, the more the component execution time increases relative to all the other execution times because component execution time is the only one that increases while the others remain constant

Storytelling: global perspectives on narrative

This book is a collection of papers from an international inter-disciplinary conference focusing on storytelling and human life. The chapters in this volume provide unique accounts of how stories shape the narratives and discourses of people’s lives and work; and those of their families and broader social networks. From making sense of history; to documenting biographies and current pedagogical approaches; to exploring current and emerging spatial and media trends; this book explores the possibilities of narrative approaches as a theoretical scaffold across numerous disciplines and in diverse contexts. Central to all the chapters is the idea of stories being a creative and reflexive means to make sense of people’s past, current realities and future possibilities