Mobile QoE prediction in the field

Quality of experience (QoE) models quantify the relationship between user experience and network quality of service. With the exception of a few studies, most research on QoE has been conducted in laboratory conditions. Therefore, in order to validate and develop QoE models for the wild, researchers should carry out large scale field studies. This paper contributes data and observations from such a large-scale field study on mobile devices carried out in Finland with 292 users and 64,036 experience ratings. 74% of the ratings are associated with Wifi or LTE networks. We report descriptive statistics and classification results predicting normal vs. bad QoE in in-the-wild measurements. Our results illustrate a 20% improvement over baselines for standard classification metrics (G-Mean). Furthermore, both network features (such as delay) and non-network features (such as device memory) show importance in the models. The models’ performance suggests that mobile QoE prediction remains a difficult problem in field conditions. Our results help inform future modeling efforts and provide a baseline for such real-world mobile QoE prediction.Peer reviewe

A telemedicine support for diabetes management: the T-IDDM project

In the context of the EU funded Telematic Management of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (T-IDDM) project, we have designed, developed and evaluated a telemedicine system for insulin dependent diabetic patients management. The system relies on the integration of two modules, a Patient Unit (PU) and a Medical Unit (MU), able to communicate over the Internet and the Public Switched Telephone Network. Using the PU, patients are allowed to automatically download their monitoring data from the blood glucose monitoring device, and to send them to the hospital data-base; moreover, they are supported in their every day self monitoring activity. The MU provides physicians with a set of tools for data visualization, data analysis and decision support, and allows them to send messages and/or therapeutic advice to the patients. The T-IDDM service has been evaluated through the application of a formal methodology, and has been used by European patients and physicians for about 18 months. The results obtained during the project demonstration, even if obtained on a pilot study of 12 subjects, show the feasibility of the T-IDDM telemedicine service, and seem to substantiate the hypothesis that the use of the system could present an advantage in the management of insulin dependent diabetic patients, by improving communications and, potentially, clinical outcome