Inverted GUI Development for IoT with Applications in E-Health

In the context of Internet of Things (IoT), the research of this dissertation is concerned with the development of applications for end-user devices, i.e. devices through which the end-user directly interacts with systems. The complexity of such applications is partly due to network intricacies, and partly because GUI (Graphical User Interface) development is generally complicated and time consuming. We employ a middleware framework called PalCom to manage the former, and focus our research on the problems of the latter, by expanding the scope of PalCom to also enable GUI development. In particular, the research goal is a more efficient GUI development approach that does not require program code to be written.To enable end-users with little or no programming experience to participate in the GUI development process, we eliminate the need for programming by introducing a new development approach. We view this approach as “inverted” in that the development focus is on presenting functionality from an application model as graphical components in a GUI, rather than on retroactively attaching functionality to manually added graphical components. The inverted GUI development approach is supported in two steps. First, we design a language for describing GUIs, and implement interpreters that communicate with remotely hosted application models and render GUI descriptions as fully functional GUIs. Second, we implement a graphical editor for developing GUIs in order to make the language more accessible.The presented solution is evaluated by its application in a number of research projects in the domain of e-health. From the GUIs developed in those projects, we conclude that the GUI language is practically viable for building full-blown, professional grade GUIs. Furthermore, the presented graphical editor is evaluated by direct comparison to a market leading product in a controlled experiment. From this, we conclude that the editor is accessible to new users, and that it can be more efficient to use than the commercial alternative

Developing Mobile Systems using PalCom -- A Data Collection Example

We developed a mobile system for collecting and communicating heart rate data in real-time using low cost, commonly available equipment. This system could be used to monitor patients with cardiac arrhythmia over long periods of time, hopefully increasing the chance of capturing and recording an actual fibrillation, which rarely is the case today. Such recordings are useful for physicians to find the right diagnosis. We have developed the system using the PalCom middleware and report on its usefulness for providing support for this kind of applications

End-User Composition of Graphical User Interfaces for PalCom Systems

AbstractIn ubiquitous computing, end-user composition allows users to combine multiple single-purpose devices into new, interesting constellations. In PalCom – a ubiquitous middleware – this is achieved without the need to write program code. In this paper we present a solution that in the same way allows users to create Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) for such systems without coding. The approach is to focus on presenting functionality in a GUI rather than attaching functionality to manually added components. We see this as an inverted way of working with GUI development. The solution was realized in the form of a graphical editor for a PalCom specific User Interface Description Language. The tool produces platform independent GUI descriptions that can be interpreted on any platform. When compared to another common tool, the presented editor exhibited roughly 10x shorter development times. The learning time for new users was also evaluated with positive outcome, and a scalability evaluation showed that the solution can be used to create professional grade GUIs

Cardiorespiratory effects of venous lipid micro embolization in an experimental model of mediastinal shed blood reinfusion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Retransfusion of the patient's own blood during surgery is used to reduce the need for allogenic blood transfusion. It has however been found that this blood contains lipid particles, which form emboli in different organs if the blood is retransfused on the arterial side. In this study, we tested whether retransfusion of blood containing lipid micro-particles on the venous side in a porcine model will give hemodynamic effects.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Seven adult pigs were used. A shed blood surrogate containing 400 ml diluted blood and 5 ml radioactive triolein was produced to generate a lipid embolic load. The shed blood surrogate was rapidly (<2 minutes) retransfused from a transfusion bag to the right atrium under general anesthesia. The animals' arterial, pulmonary, right and left atrial pressure were monitored, together with cardiac output and deadspace. At the end of the experiment, an increase in cardiac output and pulmonary pressure was pharmacologically induced to try to flush out lipid particles from the lungs.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A more than 30-fold increase in pulmonary vascular resistance was observed, with subsequent increase in pulmonary artery pressure, and decrease in cardiac output and arterial pressure. This response was transient, but was followed by a smaller, persistent increase in pulmonary vascular resistance. Only a small portion of the infused triolein passed the lungs, and only a small fraction could be recirculated by increasing cardiac output and pulmonary pressure.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Infusion of blood containing lipid micro-emboli on the venous side leads to acute, severe hemodynamic responses that can be life threatening. Lipid particles will be trapped in the lungs, leading to persistent effects on the pulmonary vascular resistance.</p

Identification of multiple risk loci and regulatory mechanisms influencing susceptibility to multiple myeloma

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have transformed our understanding of susceptibility to multiple myeloma (MM), but much of the heritability remains unexplained. We report a new GWAS, a meta-analysis with previous GWAS and a replication series, totalling 9974 MM cases and 247,556 controls of European ancestry. Collectively, these data provide evidence for six new MM risk loci, bringing the total number to 23. Integration of information from gene expression, epigenetic profiling and in situ Hi-C data for the 23 risk loci implicate disruption of developmental transcriptional regulators as a basis of MM susceptibility, compatible with altered B-cell differentiation as a key mechanism. Dysregulation of autophagy/apoptosis and cell cycle signalling feature as recurrently perturbed pathways. Our findings provide further insight

PalCom Meets the End-User: Enabling Interaction with PalCom-based Systems

When developing applications for end-user nodes in distributed systems, it is not unusual to find that the business logic part of the solution is relatively inexpensive to develop. The resource intense parts of the solution are more likely to be those of presenting the functionality provided by the node to the end-user, and of connecting the node with the rest of the system. By considering systems that connect nodes using the PalCom middleware, this thesis presents work on a new technology to create graphical solutions for the end-user nodes of such systems. The criteria for the technology were formulated as a long-term aspiration of introducing a graphical editor for a PalCom specific User Interface Description Language (UIDL). Technically inexperienced PalCom users were introduced as the main target audience for the new technology, meaning no programming should be required for creating graphical solutions. To allow for this, a novel approach of turning the conventional way of specifying functionality 180° was introduced. The primary contribution of this work, serving as a first step towards the long-term aspirations, is the PalCom specific UIDL entitled PML – PalCom User Interface Markup Language. This language contains constructs that realize the ambition of inverted functionality specification, and will lie as a basis for the graphical editor that is to be developed in future work. The language was evaluated in a small scale user case study. The results were indicative of the high efficiency of PML, showing shorter developments time than the alternatives by a factor of 10. It was also evaluated in the real-world context of the itACiH project, showing the scalability potential of the language and its usability in the real world. For PalCom-based systems, PML has already been proved a competent option for creating graphical solutions, and will only grow more efficient with future research

Adaptable Android Applications for PalCom Based Systems

The aim of this thesis is to make it simple and efficient to produce applications for smartphones. The main area of application is within the health care sector, where alarm receiving devices are needed to inform personnel of pending situations. Most medical alarm systems are unique and hence require a unique GUI (Graphical User Interface). However, at the core, the main functionality is to communicate with the medical equipment, and therefore the needed smartphone applications would at the core be very similar.To address this issue, this thesis establishes the similarity between the different alarm systems by assuming that they are based on a service based system called PalCom. This ensures that the communication between the smartphone application and the system, as well as other basic functionality, is done in the same way for all applications. With a common core that can be reused for all applications for PalCom based systems, the issue of creating the context unique GUIs remained. This was resolved by developing a GUI language specialized for PalCom systems. The generic nature of the language ensures simplicity and the possibility of ports for multiple platforms.By combining the concept of service based systems with a platform generic GUI language, this thesis resulted in an Android application with a context adaptable GUI. The GUIs are defined in files using the developed language, and by using these as input, an application with a GUI customized for a specific scenario is obtained without the need to rebuild from scratch every time