MobiHealth-Innovative 2.5/3G mobile services and applications for health care

MobiHealth aims at introducing new mobile value added services in the area of healthcare, based on 2.5 (GPRS) and 3G (UMTS) technologies, thus promoting the use and deployment of GPRS and UMTS. This will be achieved by the integration of sensors and actuators to a Wireless Body Area Network (BAN). These sensors and actuators will continuously measure and transmit vital constants along with audio and video to health service providers and brokers, improving on one side the life of patients and allowing on the other side the introduction of new value-added services in the areas of disease prevention and diagnostic, remote assistance, para-health services, physical state monitoring (sports) and even clinical research. Furthermore, the MobiHealth BAN system will support the fast and reliable application of remote assistance in case of accidents by allowing the paramedics to send reliable vital constants data as well as audio and video directly from the accident site

Towards business model and technical platform for the service oriented context-aware mobile virtual communities

The focus of existing virtual communities is centered on a particular product or social interaction and the role of mobile devices is restricted to exchange a limited amount of contents. Herewith we envisage that the upcoming virtual communities will exploit the potential of social interaction and context information to offer personalized services to its members and mobile devices will play a significant role in this process. As a step towards this direction, in this paper we propose a business model for the mobile virtual communities in which the mobile device takes on the role of a content producer and content consumer. Though there are a number of research issues which need to be addressed to realize such virtual communities, in this paper we focus on the service requirements, architecture and open source software implementation of a technical platform for the content producer and consumer mobile devices

Universality of Fluctuation-Dissipation Ratios: The Ferromagnetic Model

We calculate analytically the fluctuation-dissipation ratio (FDR) for Ising ferromagnets quenched to criticality, both for the long-range model and its short-range analogue in the limit of large dimension. Our exact solution shows that, for both models, $X^\infty=1/2$ if the system is unmagnetized while $X^\infty=4/5$ if the initial magnetization is non-zero. This indicates that two different classes of critical coarsening dynamics need to be distinguished depending on the initial conditions, each with its own nontrivial FDR. We also analyze the dependence of the FDR on whether local and global observables are used. These results clarify how a proper local FDR (and the corresponding effective temperature) should be defined in long-range models in order to avoid spurious inconsistencies and maintain the expected correspondence between local and global results; global observables turn out to be far more robust tools for detecting non-equilibrium FDRs.Comment: 14 pages, revtex4, published version. Changes from v1: added discussion of refs [16,36,37], other observables and local correlation/response in short-range mode

Mobile Health Care over 3G Networks: the MobiHealth Pilot System and Service

Health care is one of the most prominent areas for the application of wireless technologies. New services and applications are today under research and development targeting different areas of health care, from high risk and chronic patients’ remote monitoring to mobility tools for the medical personnel. In this direction the MobiHealth project developed and trailed a system and a service that is using UMTS for the continuous monitoring and transmission of vital signals, like Pulse Oximeter sensor , temperature, Marker, Respiratory band, motion/activity detector etc., to the hospital. The system, based on the concept of the Body Area Network, is highly customisable, allowing sensors to be seamlessly connected and transmit the monitored vital signal measurements. The system and service was trialed in 4 European countries and it is presently under market validation

An application of augmented MDA for the extended healthcare enterprise

Mobile health systems extend the enterprise computing system of the healthcare provider by bringing services to the patient any time and anywhere. We propose a methodology for the development of such extended enterprise computing systems which applies a model-driven design and development approach augmented with formal validation and verification to address quality and correctness and to support model transformation. At the University of Twente we develop context aware m-health systems based on Body Area Networks (BANs). A set of deployed BANs are supported by a server. We refer to this distributed system as a BAN System. Development of such distributed m-health systems requires a sound software engineering approach and this is what we target with the proposed methodology. The methodology is illustrated with reference to modelling activities targeted at real implementations. BAN implementations are being trialled in a number of clinical settings including epilepsy management and management of chronic pain

A Supplier Selection Model Using Alternative Ranking Process by Alternatives’ Stability Scores and the Grey Equilibrium Product

open access articleSupply chain management begins with supplier evaluation and selection. The supplier selection deals with various criteria with different contexts which makes it a complex multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method. In this paper, a novel MCDM method, called the alternative ranking process by alternatives’ stability scores (ARPASS), is proposed to solve supplier selection problems. ARPASS considers each alternative as a system that is constructed on integrated components. To perform properly, a system requires high integrity and stability. ARPASS utilizes the stability of alternatives as an effective element for ranking the alternatives. The ARPASS is developed in two forms, ARPASS and ARPASS*. The new method utilizes standard deviations and Shannon’s entropy to compute the alternatives’ stabilities. In this paper, in addition to the new MCDM methods, a new method called the grey equilibrium product (GEP) is introduced to convert grey linguistic variables into crisp values, using decision makers’ subjective perceptions and judgments. To highlight and validate the novel methods’ performance, they are applied to two sustainable supplier selection problems. For evaluation of the reliability of ARPASS and ARPASS*, their results were compared with the results of the popular MCDM methods. We compared the methods in terms of calculation time, simplicity, transparency, and information type

Introducing alternatives ranking with elected nominee (ARWEN) method: a case study of supplier selection

Supply chain management (SCM) has gradually evolved beyond the straightforward logic of benefits and economic viewpoints. Supplier selection and performance evaluation are the crucial strategic components of any SCM system with a substantial economic impact and risk reduction. Several conflicting factors make supplier selection a challenging multi-criteria decision-making problem. This paper introduces a method called alternative ranking with the elected nominee (ARWEN) to select suppliers in Iran’s dairy product chain store. The primary principle of ARWEN is to choose the best alternative based on the lowest change rate rather than the elected nominee. Four extensions of the ARWEN method are proposed depending upon the nature and level of information available to the decision-makers. A fifth extended version termed E-ARWEN is also recommended to consider the negative form of the elected nominee. Two novel statistical tools, the ranking performance index and the Zakeri-Konstantas distance product correlation coefficient, are also put forth to validate the ARWEN extensions’ outcomes. The results and verification of this new method are carried out through two supplier selection case examples. Comprehensive comparisons were carried out to explore the new methods’ behaviors, indicating ARWEN III and E-ARWEN have similar behavior to VIKOR, SAW, and EDAS in generating rankings

MUTRISS: A new method for material selection problems using MUltiple-TRIangles scenarios

open access articleThis paper proposes a new Multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method called MUltiple-TRIangles ScenarioS (MUTRISS) with two scenarios respecting different levels of access to complete information for material selection problems. MUTRISS calculates the areas occupied by alternatives in n-dimensional space, employing analytic geometry and converting each alternative into n-edges forms. The paper applies MUTRISS to three material selection case studies, with Ti-6Al-4V, Material 4, and AISI 4140 Steel- UNS G41400 emerging as the best materials for the three examples with the highest overall scores of 0.036, 4.540 and 0.427 respectively. The results are compared with various MCDM methods through four statistical measures, including relative closeness ratio, robustness analysis, compromise ranking coefficient, and similarity degree. The measures focus on different aspects of MCDM methods in solving problems and their results. The paper concludes that MUTRISS offers a more robust and reliable approach for material selection problems compared to other MCDM methods, with the first scenario of MUTRISS being more reliable than the second scenario. The paper also emphasizes the importance of validating results in material selection problems due to the potential irreversible consequences of selecting the wrong material

Playmancer project: a serious videogame as an additional therapy tool for eating and impulse control disorders

Reviews and few non-controlled studies showed the effectiveness of several specific designed computer video-games as an additional form of treatment in several areas. However, there is a lack in the literature of specially designed serious-games for treating mental disorders. Playmancer (ICT European initiative) aims to develop and assess a serious videogame that may help to treat underlying processes (e.g. lack of self-control strategies) in Eating and Impulse control disorders. Preliminary data will be shown