A Mobile-Health Information Access System

Patients using the Mobile-Health Information System can send SMS requests to a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) web server with the expectation of receiving an appropriate feedback on issues that relate to their health. The accuracy of such feedback is paramount to the mobile search user. However, automating SMS-based information search and retrieval poses significant challenges because of the inherent noise in SMS communication. First, in this paper an architecture is proposed for the implementation of the retrieval process, and second, an algorithm is developed for the best-ranked question-answer pair retrieval. We present an algorithm that assists in the selection of the best FAQ-query after the ranking of the query-answer pair. Results are generated based on the ranking of the FAQ-query. Our algorithm gives a better result in terms of average precision and recall when compared with the naıve retrieval algorithm.Southern Africa Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (SATNAC)Department of HE and Training approved lis

Detection of Structural Change in Geographic Regions of Interest by Self Organized Mapping: Las Vegas City and Lake Mead across the Years

Time-series of satellite images may reveal important data about changes in environmental conditions and natural or urban landscape structures that are of potential interest to citizens, historians, or policymakers. We applied a fast method of image analysis using Self Organized Maps (SOM) and, more specifically, the quantization error (QE), for the visualization of critical changes in satellite images of Las Vegas, generated across the years 1984-2008, a period of major restructuration of the urban landscape. As shown in our previous work, the QE from the SOM output is a reliable measure of variability in local image contents. In the present work, we use statistical trend analysis to show how the QE from SOM run on specific geographic regions of interest extracted from satellite images can be exploited to detect both the magnitude and the direction of structural change across time at a glance. Significantly correlated demographic data for the same reference time period are highlighted. The approach is fast and reliable, and can be implemented for the rapid detection of potentially critical changes in time series of large bodies of image data

Digital watermarking: a state-of-the-art review

Digital watermarking is the art of embedding data, called a watermark, into a multimedia object such that the watermark can be detected or extracted later without impairing the object. Concealment of secret messages inside a natural language, known as steganography, has been in existence as early as the 16th century. However, the increase in electronic/digital information transmission and distribution has resulted in the spread of watermarking from ordinary text to multimedia transmission. In this paper, we review various approaches and methods that have been used to conceal and preserve messages. Examples of real-world applications are also discussed.SANPAD, Telkom, Cisco, Aria Technologies, THRIPDepartment of HE and Training approved lis

Text Messaging a tool in e-Health services

HIV/AIDS continues to be a menace to the global community, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa is not an exception. The infection rate is continues to grow, in particular, among the young adults. Cell phones have been identified as one of the tools that can be used to overcome the challenge of information dissemination regarding HIV/AIDS among young adults because of its acceptability within this age group. Access to appropriate information can be a powerful for prevention and management of many chronic illnesses, including hypertension, diabetes and HIV/AIDS. Within the young adults age group information access by use of Short Messaging Services (SMS) becomes particularly appealing. In this regard, it is proposed to provide access to carefully screened information on HIV/AIDS within the context of frequently asked questions (FAQ) system. However, automating SMS-based information search and retrieval poses significant challenges because of the inherent noise in SMS communications. In the paper, a special corpus of SMS messages was collected based on a standardised question-answer collection. The SMS messages were then analysed, transcribed and classified, with the aim of building a dictionary of SMS-speak to English translations, with reference to HIV/AIDS

A novel approach integrating ranking functions discovery, optimization and infernce to improve retrieval performance

The significant roles play by ranking function in the performance and success of Information Retrieval (IR) systems and search engines cannot be underestimated. Diverse ranking functions are available in IR literature. However, empirical studies show that ranking functions do not perform constantly well across different contexts (queries, collections, users). In this study, a novel three-stage integrated ranking framework is proposed for implementing discovering, optimizing and inference rankings used in IR systems. The first phase, discovery process is based on Genetic Programming (GP) approach which smartly combines structural and contents features in the documents while the second phase, optimization process is based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) which combines document retrieval scores of various well-known ranking functions. In the 3rd phase, Fuzzy inference proves as soft search constraints to be applied on documents. We demonstrate how these two features are combined to bring new tasks and processes within the three concept stages of integrated framework for effective IR

Text messaging and retrieval techniques for a mobile health information system

Mobile phones have been identified as one of the technologies that can be used to overcome the challenges of information dissemination regarding serious diseases. Short message services, a much used function of cell phones, for example, can be turned into a major tool for accessing databases. This paper focuses on the design and development of a short message services-based information access algorithm to carefully screen information on human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome within the context of a frequently asked questions system. However, automating the short message services-based information search and retrieval poses significant challenges because of the inherent noise in its communications. The developed algorithm was used to retrieve the best-ranked question–answer pair. Results were evaluated using three metrics: average precision, recall and computational time. The retrieval efficacy was measured and it was confirmed that there was a significant improvement in the results of the proposed algorithm when compared with similar retrieval algorithms

Using wearable sensors for remote healthcare monitoring system

Recent technological advances in wireless communications and wireless sensor networks have enabled the design of low-cost, intelligent, tiny, and lightweight medical sensor nodes that can be strategically placed on human body, create a wireless body area network (WBAN) to monitor various physiological vital signs for a long period of time and providing real-time feedback to the user and medical staff. WBANs promise to re-volutionize health monitoring. In this paper, medical sensors were used to collect physiological data from patients and transmit it to Intelligent Personal digital Assistant (IPDA) using ZigBee/IEEE802.15.4 standard and to medical server using 3G communications. We introduced priority scheduling and data compression into the system to increase transmission rate of physiological critical signals which improve the bandwidth utilization. It also extends the life time of hand-held personal server by reducing power consumption during transmission

Ensuring the security and privacy of information in mobile health-care communication systems

The sensitivity of health-care information and its accessibility via the Internet and mobile technology systems is a cause for concern in these modern times. The privacy, integrity and confidentiality of a patient’s data are key factors to be considered in the transmission of medical information for use by authorised health-care personnel. Mobile communication has enabled medical consultancy, treatment, drug administration and the provision of laboratory results to take place outside the hospital. With the implementation of electronic patient records and the Internet and Intranets, medical information sharing amongst relevant health-care providers was made possible. But the vital issue in this method of information sharing is security: the patient’s privacy, as well as the confidentiality and integrity of the health-care information system, should not be compromised. We examine various ways of ensuring the security and privacy of a patient’s electronic medical information in order to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of the information

Techniques for evaluation and selection of partners for construction projects

The conference aimed at supporting and stimulating active productive research set to strengthen the technical foundations of engineers and scientists in the continent, through developing strong technical foundations and skills, leading to new small to medium enterprises within the African sub-continent. It also seeked to encourage the emergence of functionally skilled technocrats within the continent.Inter-enterprise collaborations require careful evaluations of partner enterprises and their attributes. Evaluation of partners for a project is a multi-criteria decision making process. The project initiator defines multiple criteria to be used in the selection of suitable partners. This study compares three different multicriteria decision making techniques. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) uses pairwise comparisons of crisp numerical values to derive weights of importance of partners. Fuzzy AHP (FAHP) uses pairwise comparisons of fuzzy values to derive weights of importance. Reduced Group Fuzzy AHP (RGFAHP) computes geometric mean of lower and upper bound fuzzy values to derive weights of importance. Eighty persons evaluated five companies to do structural engineering works for a large building. Their evaluation values were subjected to these algorithms. Total mean relative weights of partners were 0.9936, 0.9968 and 0.9866 with errors of 0.0064, 0.0032 and 0.0134 with time complexities of n(n+6), n(n-1)/2 and n(n-1) for AHP, FAHP and RGFAHP respectively. AHP is effective when dealing with crisp evaluation values while FAHP is effective for fuzzy evaluation values. RGFAHP combines fuzzy approximate reasoning with conventional AHP, reduces the number of comparisons when a large number of attributes are used and deals with imprecise evaluators' judgement.Strathmore University; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE

Evaluation of Pneumococcal Load in Blood by Polymerase Chain Reaction for the Diagnosis of Pneumococcal Pneumonia in Young Children in the PERCH Study.

BACKGROUND.: Detection of pneumococcus by lytA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in blood had poor diagnostic accuracy for diagnosing pneumococcal pneumonia in children in 9 African and Asian sites. We assessed the value of blood lytA quantification in diagnosing pneumococcal pneumonia. METHODS.: The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) case-control study tested whole blood by PCR for pneumococcus in children aged 1-59 months hospitalized with signs of pneumonia and in age-frequency matched community controls. The distribution of load among PCR-positive participants was compared between microbiologically confirmed pneumococcal pneumonia (MCPP) cases, cases confirmed for nonpneumococcal pathogens, nonconfirmed cases, and controls. Receiver operating characteristic analyses determined the "optimal threshold" that distinguished MCPP cases from controls. RESULTS.: Load was available for 290 of 291 cases with pneumococcal PCR detected in blood and 273 of 273 controls. Load was higher in MCPP cases than controls (median, 4.0 × 103 vs 0.19 × 103 copies/mL), but overlapped substantially (range, 0.16-989.9 × 103 copies/mL and 0.01-551.9 × 103 copies/mL, respectively). The proportion with high load (≥2.2 log10 copies/mL) was 62.5% among MCPP cases, 4.3% among nonconfirmed cases, 9.3% among cases confirmed for a nonpneumococcal pathogen, and 3.1% among controls. Pneumococcal load in blood was not associated with respiratory tract illness in controls (P = .32). High blood pneumococcal load was associated with alveolar consolidation on chest radiograph in nonconfirmed cases, and with high (>6.9 log10 copies/mL) nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal load and C-reactive protein ≥40 mg/L (both P < .01) in nonconfirmed cases but not controls. CONCLUSIONS.: Quantitative pneumococcal PCR in blood has limited diagnostic utility for identifying pneumococcal pneumonia in individual children, but may be informative in epidemiological studies