Complementing human behavior assessment by leveraging personal ubiquitous devices and social links:An evaluation of the peer-ceived momentary assessment method

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) enables individuals to self-report their subjective momentary physical and emotional states. However, certain conditions, including routine observable behaviors (e.g., moods, medication adherence) as well as behaviors that may suggest declines in physical or mental health (e.g., memory losses, compulsive disorders) cannot be easily and reliably measured via self-reports. Objective: This study aims to examine a method complementary to EMA, denoted as peer-ceived momentary assessment (PeerMA), which enables the involvement of peers (e.g., family members, friends) to report their perception of the individual's subjective physical and emotional states. In this paper, we aim to report the feasibility results and identified human factors influencing the acceptance and reliability of the PeerMA. Methods: We conducted two studies of 4 weeks each, collecting self-reports from 20 participants about their stress, fatigue, anxiety, and well-being, in addition to collecting peer-reported perceptions from 27 of their peers. Results: Preliminary results showed that some of the peers reported daily assessments for stress, fatigue, anxiety, and well-being statistically equal to those reported by the participant. We also showed how pairing assessments of participants and peers in time enables a qualitative and quantitative exploration of unique research questions not possible with EMA-only based assessments. We reported on the usability and implementation aspects based on the participants' experience to guide the use of the PeerMA to complement the information obtained via self-reports for observable behaviors and physical and emotional states among healthy individuals. Conclusions: It is possible to leverage the PeerMA method as a complement to EMA to assess constructs that fall in the realm of observable behaviors and states in healthy individuals

Sigfox based Internet of Things: Technology, Measurements and Development

Nowadays, Internet of Things (IoT) has emerged as a powerful platform for solving everyday problems. In order to make our life easier and more efficient, the physical objects which surround us have to become smarter. Also, due to saving of valuable economic and human resources when IoT is used, it becomes important for both household and industrial sectors to incorporate IoT products one way or another in their applications. In the new global economy, IoT is expected to save billions of dollars in the near future. The concept of IoT was developed to connect billions of low power devices over a large area commonly referred as low power wide area network (LPWAN). Because of its scalability, low cost, and high security, IoT is becoming a highly popular technology nowadays. LPWAN has various technologies, and the most leading ones are: Sigfox, NB-IoT, and LoRa. Sigfox was first developed as a proprietary standard IoT protocol in Toulouse, France in the year 2009. The first part of the thesis addresses the concept of IoT and why is it so important in the present world. In addition, the first part encompasses the most common IoT protocols and their features. Furthermore, first part describes some IoT applications and its impact on global economy. The second part of the thesis concentrates in depth on Sigfox-based IoT protocol. Also, the second part comprises technical details of Sigfox protocol, systems architecture, and most importantly issues related to Sigfox radio network planning and implementation. The third part of the thesis describes the Thinxtra Xkit device which is a prototyping platform for Sigfox network. In the third part, the Xkit device was used to evaluate Sigfox network performance in Tampere University (TAU), Hervanta campus area. All measurements presented in the third part were evaluated with the help of MATLAB, also they were illustrated through heat maps for further performance analysis. Finally, this thesis proposes a way to integrate Sigfox network with other similar network technologies. Also, the final part suggests some possible ways to develop Sigfox network in terms of Quality of Service (QoS). Keywords: IoT, Low Power Wide Area Networks, Sigfox

A Dual-Mode Adaptive MAC Protocol for Process Control in Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks

Doktorgradsavhandling ved Fakultet for teknologi og realfag, Universitetet i Agder, 2017Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of sensors and actuators operating together to provide monitoring and control services. These services are used in versatile applications ranging from environmental monitoring t oindustrial automation applications. Industrial Wireless Sensor Network (IWSN) is a sub domain of the WSN domain, focussing the industrial monitoring and automation applications. The IWSN domain differs from the generic WSN domains in terms of its requirements. General IWSN requirements include: energy efficiency and quality of service, and strict requirements are imposed on the quality of service expected by IWSN applications. Quality of service in particular relates to reliability, robustness, and predictability. Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols in an IWSN solution are responsible for managing radio communications, the main consumer of power in every IWSN element. With proper measures, MAC protocols can provide energy efficient solutions along with required quality of service for process control applications. The first goal of the thesis was to assess the possibility of creating a MAC protocol exploiting properties of the application domain, the process control domain. This resulted in the creation of the Dual-Mode Adaptive Medium Access Control Protocol (DMAMAC) which constitutes the main contribution of this thesis. The DMAMAC protocol is energy efficient,while preserving real-time requirements, and is robust to packet failure. This has been guaranteed by the thorough evaluation of the protocol via simulation, verification, and implementation with deployment testing. In parallel, we also investigated the possibility of using an alternative development approach for MAC protocols. Specifically, we have proposed a development approach based on MAC protocol model in CPN tools. The development approach consists of automatic code generation for the MiXiM simulation tool and the TinyOS platform. We used the related GinMAC protocol as a running example for the development approach. The generated code for MiXiM simulation platform and the TinyOS implementation platform are evaluated via simulation and deployment respectively. This results in a faster design to implementation time, and closely related protocol artifacts, improving on the traditional approach