UBI-SERV Research Diary

Aalto University Workshop on Wireless Sensor Systems (WoWSS) 2010

2010-11-16T00:51:00.000-08:00

UBI-SERV is taking part in WoWSS 2010 workshop at Aalto University, November 19, 2010, with a presentation "Architecture Development for Mobile-phone-centric Ambient Intelligence Applications".

"Ultrasound is the new stethoscope"!

2010-11-12T05:05:00.000-08:00

.....That is a great quote from Dr Nahum Kovalski, CIO of TEREM Emergency Medical Services and CEO of E-DoctorWorld in the clip filmed at the Mobile World Congress 2010. The advances in mobile broadband communications means that real time streaming of ultrasound images from a remote area is opening up a whole range of possibilities for emergency telemedicine and delivery of care on rural under-served areas.

Doctors, Ultrasound and mobile. from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Of course we at the UBI-SERV project have always been excited by this challenge and it has been one of the central research themes in our project. The slides below summarize some of our proposals on the subject which has also been presented in various health and technology conferences.

Emergency Telemedicine in Indoor Multiple Dwelling Environments

View more presentations from Iiro Jantunen.

Joint Comnet/Aalto – CSE/Oulu – ARLES/INRIA Research Workshop

2010-11-12T04:34:00.000-08:00

Date: 03-04/11/2010

Place: Meeting Room D302

Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Automation (ETA), Aalto University School of Science and Technology, Otakaari 5, Espoo, Finland

Agenda
10:00 – 10:30 Introduction to the Radio Communications Research Group and ongoing research activities
Prof. Jyri Hämäläinen, Comnet/Aalto University

10:30 – 11:15 Presentation about ARLES Research Group and EU FP7 CONNECT project, Prof. Valérie Issarny, ARLES/INRIA

11:15 – 11:20 Break

11:20 – 12:05 iSpaces presentation and ongoing research
Prof. Jukka Riekki, CSE/Oulu University

12:05 – 13:40 Lunch

13:40 – 14:10 Integrating heterogeneous coordination models in SOA
Nikolaos Georgantas, ARLES/INRIA

14:10 – 14:40 Research overview and some results from MOTIVE UBI-SERV and Celtic HOMESNET projects
Edward Mutafungwa, Comnet/Aalto University

14:40 – 14:55 Break

14:55 – 15:40 Middleware Support for Mobile Social Ecosystems
Animesh Pathak, ARLES/INRIA

15:40 – 16:10 Overview and some results from Pervasive Service Computing (PSC) project
Oleg Davidyuk, CSE/Oulu University

Visiting researchers Fall 2010

2010-10-11T06:01:00.001-07:00

A professor visit and two researcher visits take place within UBI-SERV project during Fall 2010.

Prof. Jiao Bingli of PKU is visiting Aalto University Department of Communications and Networking (Comnet) during October 2010. In addition to Aalto-PKU research cooperation on wireless ECG systems, he will lecture the course Selected Topics in Mobile Communication: Case Wireless EGC.

Mika Husso of Aalto/Comnet is working as a visiting researcher at the Department of Signal and Communications Theory at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain) for a period of September 1, 2010 - February 28, 2011. His research during the visit focuses on femtocellular communications and techno-economic analysis. Moreover, the visit aims at initiating closer collaboration in the field of wireless communications between the two universities.

Iiro Jantunen of Aalto/Comnet is working as a visiting researcher at School of Computing at the University of Eastern Finland (Kuopio, Finland) for the period of September 7 to December 31, 2010. He concentrates on opening a cooperation with the Computational Intelligence research group and finalizing his doctoral thesis.

Research Methods for Social Media Seminar

2010-09-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

Research Methods for Social Media -seminar organized by the VISCI research project together with the SOMUS research group took place on the 31^st of August in the Aalto University campus in Otaniemi, Espoo. The seminar consisted of three keynote speeches, a discussion session and five parallel afternoon workshops.

Keynotes:

Lisbeth Klastrup, an associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen: ”Users are Useless – Some Reflections by a Social Media Researcher”

Lisbeth Klastrup hightlighted the need to acknowledge the scope of online audiences and avoid the bias towards active users in social media research. The non-interactive, more passive users seem to form the majority of online audiences but social media research doesn't yet really address this user group. There is also a need for a more nuanced vocabulary of user behaviours. ”Following” in social media is as important user activity as contributing is and one needs to note that not all user activity is public (e.g. exchanging private messages in Facebook's Inbox). In addition, social media can not be studied in isolation of its context and without considering the synergy it has with traditional media.

Jaakko Suominen, a professor of digital culture at the University of Turku: ”How do you do, Social Media? On triangulation matrixes and everyday research practices”

Jaakko Suominen brought up the need for triangulation of several different research methods in order to grasp the new research area since no special research methods yet exist for social media. He also presented three different roles of social media for research: 1) social media as the subject of the study 2) social media as a resource for data and material for the study3) social media as a tool for the researchers.

Minna Isomursu, a research professor at VTT: ”Social Media in User Research: Immersion, Privacy and Contribution”

Minna Isomursu presented example cases on how she has used social media in her research and her presentation brought up discussion especially on the ethics of social media research which seems to be lacking guidelines. Her research that included the study subjects rating their Facebook friends' status updates raised the question of informed consent: study participants had given their consent for the research but not their Facebook friends whose status updates were evaluated. Another interesting question was about the changing role of the study subjects when they become co-creaters and co-researchers: should their input be acknowledged for example in publications?

Visit the VISCI research blog for the presentation slides and online discussion logs as well as the descriptions and results of the workshops.

LTE = Femtocells Biggest Opportunity

2010-08-31T05:04:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

LTE = Femtocells Biggest Opportunity

View more presentations from Continuous Computing.

Well-being in Information Society (WIS 2010)

2010-08-18T00:35:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV participates in Well-being in Information Society (WIS 2010) - Navigating the Fragmented Innovation Landscape conference, 18-19.8.2010 in Turku, Finland, with a presentation User-centric Design of Ubiquitous Welfare Services and Technologies for China and Finland.

UBI-HEALTH'10 scientific program published

2010-05-18T02:17:00.000-07:00

The scientific program of UBI-HEALTH'10 has been published. The full program including conference venues and schedule can be found from the conference homepage.

Session 1A: Designing New eHealth Services

Chairing prof. Qin Gao, Tsinghua University. Tuesday June 1, 2010, 10:45–11:45.

Activity-Driven Information Analysis – Designing Personal Ubiquitous Health and Wellbeing Systems
M. Toivanen, J. Mykkänen, M. Korpela

Co-Ordination Support Through Transparency (COSTT): Real-Time Use of Sensor Data to Improve Workflow in the Perioperative Domain
A. Faxvaag, A. Seim, P. Toussaint

Developing Mobile ICT for Improved Health; Safety and Well-Being Together with Elderly People - Experiences From the Myhealth@age (2008-2010) Project
A. Melander-Wikman, B. Bergvall-Kåreborn, T. Ghaye, L. Lundin-Olsson

Development of User-Centred E-Health for Persons with Severe Mental Disorders
M. Välimäki, H. Hätönen, L. Kuosmanen, M. Koivunen, M. Anttila, A. Pitkänen

Session 1B: Health Sensors and Networks

Chairing Dr. Vesa Pakarinen, VTT. Tuesday June 1, 2010, 14:45–15:45.

Add-on 5 kHz Inductive Link for Mobile Phones Using Audio Port
I. Jantunen, S. Siikavirta, V. Nässi, T. Korhonen, J. Kaasinen

Design and Implementation of ECG detection method based on HHT
D. Ye, C. Qiao, B. L. Jiao, Y. P. Zhao

Development of a 12-Lead Electrocardiogram Interpretation System Via Zigbee
C. C. Kuo, H. Y. Liao

Cooperative Data Dissemination for Telecare Systems Via Wireless Pervasive Networking
X. H. Peng

Session 2A: Emergency Telemedicine and Pervasive Services

Chairing prof. Yuping Zhao, PKU. Wednesday June 2, 2010, 10:45–11:45.

UBIeCall: Automated Emergency Calling for Medical Emergencies Using Standard Ecall Solutions
E. Mutafungwa, T. Korhonen

Automatic Emergency Telemedicine System in Mobile Communication Network
S. Zhou, Y. P. Zhao, B. L. Jiao

Concept of a Communication Middleware for Ambient Assisted Living Environments
K. Renhak, M. Federspiel, J. Seitz, H.-P. Schade

State of the Art on Pervasive Service Computing
J. H. Zhou, J. Riekki, M. Ylianttila, J. Y. Zhou, F. L. Tang, M. Y. Guo

Session 2B: Healthcare Management

Chairing mr. Timo Itälä, Aalto SoberIT. Wednesday June 2, 2010, 14:45–15:45.

A Regional Model for Healthcare Information Sharing in China
J. C. Jiang, M. Korpela, J. Mykkänen

Studying the Applicability of Methods – Activity Driven Needs Analysis Applied to Maternity Pathway in Pudong; Shanghai
I. Luukkonen, M. Korpela, A. Mursu

Applying Dual Model for Achieving Better E-Health in China
Y. Han, T. Itälä, M. Hämäläinen

The Telehealth Models and Current Legal Issues in Taiwan
J.-Y. Chen

UBI Summit 2010

2010-05-18T02:14:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV participated in UBI Summit 2010, a side event to Pervasive 2010, in Helsinki, 17 May 2010.

Health International Day 2010 - New Business Models in Europe

2010-05-05T00:47:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV participated in Health International Day 2010 - New Business Models in Europe, 5 May 2010, organized by Finnish Healthcare Technology Association (FiHTA) and Finpro.

Workshop on ICT Environment, Safety and Security in Baltic Sea

2010-04-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

I attended the Workshop on "Information and Communication Technology Services for Environment, Safety and Security in the Baltic Sea" at Holiday Inn Helsinki on 12th April 2010. The Workshop was organized by TEKES, BONUS EEIG and ESA.

There were very interesting presentations on safety and security in a Maritime environment. It is notable that most solutions developed land based smart and intelligent environments are equally applicable for maritime environments.

In got to attend one of the afternoon parallel workshop sessions and proposed some potential research topics for safety networking on passenger ferries. A passenger ferry tends a home for the passengers for a few days or weeks depending on destination(s). There is plenty do in this area to bring them services and applications they are usually accustomed to whilst on dry land!

We are awaiting for concluding slides from TEKES based on input at this event.

1st ETICA Conference 13.4.2010

2010-04-07T02:48:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV will take part in 1st ETICA Conference, in April 13, 2010, with a paper "Applying Ethical Guidelines to Ubiquitous Health Care in China". Slides available.

Design control in practice

2010-03-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

Took part in a seminar, Tuotekehitysprojektin hallittu läpivienti - design control käytännössä at Turku University of Applied Sciences. The seminar covered the practicalities of product development projects in medical technology, e.g., regulatory needs of documentation, verification, validation, IPR, customer needs, and business planning.

Spring 2010 teaching activity

2010-02-11T03:47:00.001-08:00

UBI-SERV project is active Spring 2010 teaching at Aalto University School of Science and Technology on the following courses:

S-72.1010 Ihminen ja tietoliikennetekniikka (approx. translation "Human interaction with telecommunications technology")
S-72.2510 User-centric design of telecommunications services
T-110.5190 Seminar on internetworking
S-72.3510 Product development of telecommunications systems

MOTIVE Workshop on Ubiquitous Health and Public Safety Services

2010-01-18T00:42:00.000-08:00

A joint Academy of Finland MOTIVE program workshop organized by

UBI-SERV (User-centric Design of Ubiquitous Welfare and Safety Services and Supporting Technologies for China and Finland) and
THEWS (Trusted eHealth and eWelfare Information Space)

projects, and joined by PSC (Pervasive Service Computing).

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Iiro Jantunen, Timo Korhonen, Pekka Ruotsalainen

DATE

3rd February 2010

VENUE

TUAS Building, Aalto University, School of Science and Technology, Espoo, Finland.

SPEAKERS

UBI-SERV project
Timo Korhonen, Aalto University
User-centric design and culture
Maija Pekkola, Aalto University
Emergency telemedicine in indoor multiple dwelling environments
Edward Mutafungwa, Aalto University
THEWS - trusted eHealh and eWelfare space
Pekka Ruotsalainen, THL
Personal health records - basic concepts and models
Antto Seppälä, University of Tampere
Ontologies in eHealth
Pirkko Nykänen, University of Tampere
Pervasive service computing
Jiehan Zhou, University of Oulu
Ubiquitous public safety communications
Ole Arrhenius, EADS Secure Networks
Health and Well-being Cluster Programme
Frank Ryhänen, Culminatum

SCHEDULE

8:30 Reception, coffee

9:00 Morning session I - presentations

10:30 Coffee break

11:00 Morning session II - presentations continue

12:30 Lunch

13:30 Afternoon session I - group work

14:45 Coffee break

15:15 Afternoon session II - group work continues

16:30 Wrap-up of the workshop

17:00 Workshop ends

REGISTRATION

Preferably contact iiro.jantunen@tkk.fi by 29th January 2010 so that your presence can be taken into account in servings and group work planning.

Insurance companies vs. general-purpose devices used for health care

2009-09-16T00:34:00.001-07:00

The New York Times published today an interesting article about insurance companies opposing the use of general-purpose devices, e.g. mobile phones or mainstream PCs for health care applications. The article also covers some other insurance rules that hinder or prevent using modern technology to lower the cost of health care.

Medicare and private health insurers decline to cover cheap devices like iPhones and netbook PCs that can help the speech-impaired, despite their usefulness and lower cost.

Instead, public and private insurers insist that, if Ms. Lynn and others like her want insurance to pay, they must spend 10 to 20 times as much for dedicated, proprietary devices that can do far less.

The problem is that the insurance rules are made for tailor-made single-purpose devices to help the patients. If an general-purpose device would be used, it would be considerably cheaper, but also more difficult to manage. Not all patients are able, e.g., to install new software or update phone software themselves. There is also the question of liability if software or hardware fails in a critical moment. With single-purpose devices, the prices are, however, ridiculously high, a specially made PC with speech-recognition software and support functions costing 8000 USD.

These kind of policies, however, make it very difficult to create affordable home health care services. Many chronic diseases could be monitored with a simple sensor attached to a standard mobile phone containing just some special software. The software could send monitoring data to health care services, or call help if necessary. Of course this is not 100% safe as the battery can run low in a critical moment, but neither would it be 100% safe to be chronically ill at home with no monitoring except for routine visits at a physician.

Doctors must still bring a patient into their offices instead of, say, inspecting an e-mailed photo of a rash if they want most insurers to pay for the consultation.

This is somewhat understandable, as there is little to prevent insurance fraud in such a case. To modernize the health care system to cut costs, the need of the doctor to physically meet the patient should be cut to the really important cases, not for routine prescription of cortisone salve.

An update information about the chronic diseases in China

2009-08-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

A report from Chinese Health Ministry shows 260 million Chinese — or about 20 percent — suffer from chronic diseases, an increase of 4.9 percent compared to 2003. The figure has been increasing by an average of 10 million every year for the last decade.

Amount of heart disease and cancer cases had doubled, while cases of hypertension and diabetes had tripled.

Read more from this link:
China facing growing and costly burden from chronic diseases

UBI-HEALTH'10 conference

2009-08-04T05:48:00.000-07:00

Date: May 31 - June 2, 2010, Nordic Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

http://www.ubi-health10.org

IMPORTANT DATES

Paper Submission: March 22, 2010, 12:00 GMT (POSTPONED)
(500-1000 words abstract or full-length paper max 5 pages)

Acceptance Notification: April 30, 2010

Camera-ready: May 14, 2010

SCOPE

International Workshop on Ubiquitous Healthcare and Welfare Services and Supporting Technologies (UBI-HEALTH'10) provides international forum for the latest services, technologies and researches in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) assisted healthcare and well-being (H&W).

Participants include clinicians, hospital administrators, IT- professionals, researchers, educators, solutions vendors, device manufacturers, system designers, integrators and consultants. UBI-HEALTH'10 is also important international forum for e-Health associated cooperative bodies such as ITU, WHO and APEC, particularly for Ubiquitous Healthcare Initiative for Ageing Societies. In addition to the technical papers to be selected by the Technical Program Committee, the program will include distinguish keynote speakers focusing on burning topics of eHealth. The overviews of ongoing projects and future predictions are also of interests.

Authors are invited to submit papers presenting new research related to the theory or practice of remote and on-site H&W of the following main topics (not limited to):

remote and local -healthcare;
well-being;
health informatics;
bio-informatics;
public safety systems;
socio-economic studies;
techno-economic studies;
H&W sensors, circuits and systems;
fusion of traditional Chinese medicare to western medicare;
eHealth;
ageing related services and technologies;
pandemics and biosecurity;
services and technologies of developing countries;
global developments;
intelligent knowledge management;
associated Internet services (as web 2.0+) and technologies;
telecommunication solutions;
diagnosing tools;
H&W monitoring/alarm techniques;

In these areas your paper may focus for instance to the following themes:

user-centric design;
analytical and simulation techniques;
experimental systems and field operational testing;
information collection and dissemination;
activities and status of planned and ongoing projects;
deployment strategies and predictions;
standardization efforts and problems;

The workshop proceedings will be published in IEEE Xplore and indexed in relevant databases. Authors of selected outstanding papers will be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for consideration of publication in a Special Journal Issue.

PAPER SUBMISSION

All papers must be original work. Presenting authors of accepted papers will be required to register for the conference in order to secure that their paper is included in the conference proceedings. All papers will be peer reviewed by the Scientific Committee, which reserves the right to accept or reject abstracts for inclusion in the conference program. Each Corresponding Author (the author that submits the paper, will attend the congress to present the paper and is responsible for communicating with the Congress Organizers and the paper's co-authors) is limited to two submissions for the congress.

Authors are invited to submit full papers in English of not more than 8 pages (including figures, tables & references) or 500-1000 words abstract in IEEE double-column format. Submissions must present original work that has not been previously published, and is not under submission elsewhere. Submissions should use the general IEEE template with the minimum font size of 12 points. All papers must include a title, complete contact information for all authors, and keywords on the cover page. The corresponding author should be identified clearly. Please follow the following link for the detailed guidelines for manuscript preparation. http://www.icumt.org/subm.html

Create and format your manuscript(s) by following IEEE guidelines Template and Instructions on How to Create Your Paper (DOC, 92KB)

Conference papers follow IEEE PDF specification for compatibility. Therefore convert your file into PDF-format by using some free-of-charge or other utility. NOTE: Turn off all PDF security features. Your PDF-file must be editable and commentable.

Submit the manuscript via EDAS system in PDF format.

NOTE: Please be aware that at least one full registration per accepted paper is mandatory to include the paper in the proceedings of the conference. A paper without registered authors will be withdrawn.

Start-up Workshop 19th May 2009 at TKK

2009-05-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV START-UP WORKSHOP 19TH MAY 2009 AT TKK

Ubiquitous Services and Technologies for Healthcare, Wellbeing and Public Safety in China and Finland

http://www.ubi-serv.org

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

Iiro Jantunen, Mika Husso, Prof. Jyri Hämäläinen, Timo Korhonen, Edward Mutafungwa, Xirui Wang, Zhong Zheng.

VENUE

Lecture hall S4 (morning session), Internet Café (afternoon session). TKK Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Automation, Otakaari 5, Espoo.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Timo Itälä, senior researcher, SoberIT / TKK
Eija Kaasinen, research coordinator, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland
Vesa Pakarinen, senior research scientist, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland
Päivi Topo, academy research fellow, THL National Institute for Health and Welfare
Yuping Zhao, professor, PKU Peking University

SCHEDULE

Morning session 9:00 - 12:30 at S4

9:00 Reception, coffee

9:30 Welcome words and UBI-SERV project presented (slides), Timo Korhonen

9:55 PKU and UBI-SERV (slides), Yuping Zhao

10:20 Agile Citizen-centric Health (slides), Timo Itälä

10:45 Coffee break

11:00 Aging population, care services and needs for ambient technology (slides), Päivi Topo

11:25 Pervasive health care technologies, Continua Health Alliance, HL7 (slides), Vesa Pakarinen

11:50 MIMOSA-MINAmI, human-centered design, ethics (slides), Eija Kaasinen

Lunch 12:15 - 13:15

Afternoon session 13:15 - 16:30 at Internet Café

13:15 Briefing for the group sessions, Iiro Jantunen

13:30 Group sessions

14:30 Coffee break

14:45 Wrap-up of the group work, Group chairmen

15:00 Panel discussion, chair: Jyri Hämäläinen
Panelists: Eija Kaasinen, Timo Korhonen, Vesa Pakarinen, Yuping Zhao

16:00 Workshop conclusions

16:30 Workshop ends

REGISTRATION

Preferably contact iiro.jantunen@tkk.fi latest at 12:00 AM 18th May 2009 so that your presence can be taken into account in servings and group work planning.

Continua Health Alliance

2009-05-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

Continua Health Alliance provides a nice video of its vision of the future of health care. Very informative to watch. One must note that not only technological advances, but the user needs, user acceptance and ethical issues need to be taken into account.

Social networking software for research programmes?

2009-05-14T00:51:00.000-07:00

UBI-SERV project belongs to Academy of Finland research program MOTIVE, which had a start-up seminar in Helsinki this week.

This kind of seminars are very good for researcher networking, and also for project networking. I am arranging visits to two of our sibling projects within MOTIVE. I would be happy to link to them here, but not all the projects within MOTIVE have websites of their own. Web 2.0 type communications is embraced only by a minority of the projects. Of course, the project related to Web 2.0 development (Somus) does extensively use these technologies, e.g. blogging and microblogging. Also Web 2.0 type collaboration tools are used.

The type of Web 2.0 application not used in MOTIVE for research collaboration is Facebook-type online social networking. A research project could have a profile in such a service, with other related projects as "friend" projects. This would make it easier to keep up with the developments within related projects. Know any such service?

Highlights of Chinese Medical Reformation

2009-05-07T12:04:00.000-07:00

Date: 07-05-2009
Topic: Highlights of Chinese Medical Reformation
Keywords: 850 Billion RMB Cake - ICT Medical Market Opportunity

The official implementation of Chinese medical reform plan has been passed for one month. There are many new opportunities, changes and hopes, as well as questions and difficulties. The ultimate goal of this reformation is to provide a universal health care to whole 1.3 billion Chinese people, by the year of 2020.

There is one thing I want to highlight , which could probably affect our project. It is the 850 billion RMB (94.4 billion Euros) financing support from the central government and following province governments. This immense amount of funds will be allocated during next three years, to rural area patients, medicine industry, different levels of hospitals, community health centers, etc.

It is estimated that the total amount of fund dedicated to health care ICT sector reaches as high as 1.2 billion Euros, which brings huge market potential in this area. Last month, two important events have been hold, the 61st China International Medical Equipment Fair (CMEF) and 2009 China International Medical Electronics Assembly (CMET). These two events drawn the attentions of participant from more than 20 countries and regions, and around 2000 enterprises. IT giants such as Intel, Microsoft and IBM all shows the solutions towards e-health. Particularly for IBM, it demonstrated the radiology theatre solution based on Blue Spruce. The solution is essentially a common platform where enables medical personals to browse the relevant diagnostic data, such as CT scan, MRI, ECG, etc.

Without any doubt, the market of ICT health care in China will be the hop spot, especially during the economical recession time. However, there comes the question, who will finally get the share of this giant cake? And with what kind of applications or services? (These questions could be asked during the interview with Neusoft.)

Interesting Links:
1. http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2308160/
Medical Reform in China Indicates A Huge IT Market
2. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jNzxAN_S9OUeWa6mrLT7gcAfmZXA
China’s Poor Hope Reforms Fix Health Problem
3. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/ibm_announces_web-based_radiology_theatre.php
IBM’s web-based radiology theatre
4. http://bn.china-embassy.org/eng/zgxw/t556231.htm
Chronology of Chinese health reform