Disease diagnosis in smart healthcare: Innovation, technologies and applications

To promote sustainable development, the smart city implies a global vision that merges artificial intelligence, big data, decision making, information and communication technology (ICT), and the internet-of-things (IoT). The ageing issue is an aspect that researchers, companies and government should devote efforts in developing smart healthcare innovative technology and applications. In this paper, the topic of disease diagnosis in smart healthcare is reviewed. Typical emerging optimization algorithms and machine learning algorithms are summarized. Evolutionary optimization, stochastic optimization and combinatorial optimization are covered. Owning to the fact that there are plenty of applications in healthcare, four applications in the field of diseases diagnosis (which also list in the top 10 causes of global death in 2015), namely cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, and tuberculosis, are considered. In addition, challenges in the deployment of disease diagnosis in healthcare have been discussed

Overcoming Healthcare Transportation Barriers: A Case Study

Transportation remains a major barrier in receiving cancer treatment in Canada. The situation is especially alarming for those living in rural areas and in the light of COVID pandemic, poses another risk in the long list of health challenges to patients with pre-existing conditions. In this dissertation we set out find a solution to this problem by providing a framework for a personalized healthcare transportation system tailored to the needs of this population. A three-step approach is proposed. First, a review of literature and initiatives employed by global transportation providers is conducted to identify major methods used for healthcare industry. Second, a transportation strategy is proposed, and key performance indicators identified through analysis of data and interviews with industry best practices in order to determine key aspects of such operations having the most impact on the overall service level. Finally, a discrete event simulation is provided and tested through various scenarios to understand how such operations would behave in real life and how they react as the environment evolves through time. A case study of a major nonprofit organization for whom this strategy was originally outlined is provided for further context. In the end, the key findings from this research are formulated as a decision-making tool for future guidelines in managing similar operations. Keywords: Transportation; Strategy; Simulation; Healthcare; Ride Sharing; Breast Cance

An automatic wearable multi-sensor based gait analysis system for older adults.

Gait abnormalities in older adults are very common in clinical practice. They lead to serious adverse consequences such as falls and injury resulting in increased care cost. There is therefore a national imperative to address this challenge. Currently gait assessment is done using standardized clinical tools dependent on subjective evaluation. More objective gold standard methods (motion capture systems such as Qualisys and Vicon) to analyse gait rely on access to expensive complex equipment based in gait laboratories. These are not widely available for several reasons including a scarcity of equipment, need for technical staff, need for patients to attend in person, complicated time consuming procedures and overall expense. To broaden the use of accurate quantitative gait monitoring and assessment, the major goal of this thesis is to develop an affordable automatic gait analysis system that will provide comprehensive gait information and allow use in clinic or at home. It will also be able to quantify and visualize gait parameters, identify gait variables and changes, monitor abnormal gait patterns of older people in order to reduce the potential for falling and support falls risk management. A research program based on conducting experiments on volunteers is developed in collaboration with other researchers in Bournemouth University, The Royal Bournemouth Hospital and care homes. This thesis consists of five different studies toward addressing our major goal. Firstly, a study on the effects on sensor output from an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) attached to different anatomical foot locations. Placing an IMU over the bony prominence of the first cuboid bone is the best place as it delivers the most accurate data. Secondly, an automatic gait feature extraction method for analysing spatiotemporal gait features which shows that it is possible to extract gait features automatically outside of a gait laboratory. Thirdly, user friendly and easy to interpret visualization approaches are proposed to demonstrate real time spatiotemporal gait information. Four proposed approaches have the potential of helping professionals detect and interpret gait asymmetry. Fourthly, a validation study of spatiotemporal IMU extracted features compared with gold standard Motion Capture System and Treadmill measurements in young and older adults is conducted. The results obtained from three experimental conditions demonstrate that our IMU gait extracted features are highly valid for spatiotemporal gait variables in young and older adults. In the last study, an evaluation system using Procrustes and Euclidean distance matrix analysis is proposed to provide a comprehensive interpretation of shape and form differences between individual gaits. The results show that older gaits are distinguishable from young gaits. A pictorial and numerical system is proposed which indicates whether the assessed gait is normal or abnormal depending on their total feature values. This offers several advantages: 1) it is user friendly and is easy to set up and implement; 2) it does not require complex equipment with segmentation of body parts; 3) it is relatively inexpensive and therefore increases its affordability decreasing health inequality; and 4) its versatility increases its usability at home supporting inclusivity of patients who are home bound. A digital transformation strategy framework is proposed where stakeholders such as patients, health care professionals and industry partners can collaborate through development of new technologies, value creation, structural change, affordability and sustainability to improve the diagnosis and treatment of gait abnormalities

Sustainable Smart Cities and Smart Villages Research

ca. 200 words; this text will present the book in all promotional forms (e.g. flyers). Please describe the book in straightforward and consumer-friendly terms. [There is ever more research on smart cities and new interdisciplinary approaches proposed on the study of smart cities. At the same time, problems pertinent to communities inhabiting rural areas are being addressed, as part of discussions in contigious fields of research, be it environmental studies, sociology, or agriculture. Even if rural areas and countryside communities have previously been a subject of concern for robust policy frameworks, such as the European Union’s Cohesion Policy and Common Agricultural Policy Arguably, the concept of ‘the village’ has been largely absent in the debate. As a result, when advances in sophisticated information and communication technology (ICT) led to the emergence of a rich body of research on smart cities, the application and usability of ICT in the context of a village has remained underdiscussed in the literature. Against this backdrop, this volume delivers on four objectives. It delineates the conceptual boundaries of the concept of ‘smart village’. It highlights in which ways ‘smart village’ is distinct from ‘smart city’. It examines in which ways smart cities research can enrich smart villages research. It sheds light on the smart village research agenda as it unfolds in European and global contexts.