The Transmission Control Protocol.

Recent developments and technological advancements in wireless communication, MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and integrated circuits has enabled low-power, intelligent, miniaturized, invasive/non-invasive micro and nano-technology sensor nodes strategically placed in or around the human body to be used in various applications, such as personal health monitoring. This exciting new area of research is called Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) and leverages the emerging IEEE 802.15.6 and IEEE 802.15.4j standards, specifically standardized for medical WBANs. The aim of WBANs is to simplify and improve speed, accuracy, and reliability of communication of sensors/actuators within, on, and in the immediate proximity of a human body. The vast scope of challenges associated with WBANs has led to numerous publications. In this paper, we survey the current state-of-art of WBANs based on the latest standards and publications. Open issues and challenges within each area are also explored as a source of inspiration towards future developments in WBANs.

Wireless Body Area Networks: A Survey

In this Chapter, we imagine a decision maker (or a group of experts) trying to establish or examine fair procedures to combine opinions about alternatives related to different points of view.

Multiple criteria decision making

福祉関連職におけるMaslach Burnout Inventoryの因子構造の比較

The increasing use of wireless networks and the constant miniaturization of electrical devices has empowered the development of Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs). In these networks various sensors are attached on clothing or on the body or even implanted under the skin. The wireless nature of the network and the wide variety of sensors offer numerous new, practical and innovative applications to improve health care and the Quality of Life. The sensors of a WBAN measure for example the heartbeat, the body temperature or record a prolonged electrocardiogram. Using a WBAN, the patient experiences a greater physical mobility and is no longer compelled to stay in the hospital. This paper offers a survey of the concept of Wireless Body Area Networks. First, we focus on some applications with special interest in patient monitoring. Then the communication in a WBAN and its positioning between the different technologies is discussed. An overview of the current research on the physical layer, existing MAC and network protocols is given. Further, cross layer and quality of service is discussed. As WBANs are placed on the human body and often transport private data, security is also considered. An overview of current and past projects is given. Finally, the open research issues and challenges are pointed out.

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A survey on wireless body area networks

Smartphone as a Personal, Pervasive Health Informatics Services Platform: Literature Review -

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Smartphone as a Personal, Pervasive Health Informatics Services Platform: Literature Review

This paper presents a qualitative study conducted to explore perceptions, attitudes and expectations for a virtual assistive companion designed to supplement human caregiving and facilitate an improved quality of life and long-term health benefits for older adults. The study was conducted adopting a human-centred approach; employing focus groups and individual interviews with older adults, professional caregivers and psychologists specialized in the aging process. Results indicated that users were in favour of a virtual companion and highlighted its potential to assist the accomplishment of daily activities and make more efficient use of human care services. Humanlike communication and behaviour were desirable whereas mixed opinions were expressed about humanlike appearance. The ramifications of the study are discussed in the form of design implications for the development of a virtual assistive companion that possesses the appropriate "social skills" to establish and maintain comfortable and acceptable long-term interaction and offers "useful" support to older adults.

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Virtual assistive companions for older adults: qualitative field study and design implications

Advances in miniaturized computing, storage and communication resources for personal wearable electronics devices, as well as the availability of diverse sensors for state assessment enable the development of a wide variety of wearable body area network (BAN) systems for psychophysiological measurements. These systems pave the way for acquisition of quality data relevant for research studies, amongst others, on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation in emotion. We present a high-level overview of BAN and its features, and we review 173 publications that report research studies on emotion activation and particularly 15 BAN systems employed in these studies. We discuss each BAN in terms of its capacity for ambulatory, i.e., out of the laboratory, assessment of the ANS activation in emotion. Finally, we highlight the design challenges to be addressed to make BAN systems effective for a wide range of applications to support users wellbeing and overall Quality of Life improvement. This paper provides knowledge to those interested in (ambulatory) assessment of the ANS activation on the set of systems currently used in research, and it aims to highlight opportunities for scientists and practitioners in, amongst others, the affective computing domain, enabling them to reflect upon their BAN requirements and study designs.

Ambulatory Assessment of Affect: Survey of Sensor Systems for Monitoring of Autonomic Nervous Systems Activation in Emotion

To accommodate the requirements such as high usability and personalization of 4G (mobile) networks, conventional handheld single network-interface mobile devices are evolving into multi-homed devices. Moreover, owing to the recent advances in the mobile middleware technologies, hardware technologies and association with the human user, handheld mobile devices are evolving into data producers and in turn acting as Nomadic Mobile Service (NMS) providers. For these devices, a vertical handover support is essential for the improved and reliable NMS delivery. Also, the fulfillment of the required QoS by the NMS is bounded by the end-to-end QoS (e2eQoS) provided by the underlying heterogeneous networks. To deal with these aspects, we propose a context-aware middleware architecture supporting vertical handover for the NMSs hosted on the handheld mobile devices. We emphasize the following features of the proposed middleware: 1) Context-aware computing based approach which uses an extensive set of context information collected from the mobile device and a fixed network; 2) Provisioning of and interaction with the end-to-end QoS (e2eQoS) predictions context source in the fixed network to obtain near-accurate estimation of the e2eQoS at a certain geographic location and to reduce unnecessary power usage in searching for available networks.

Context-aware middleware architecture for vertical handover support to multi-homed nomadic mobile services

The forthcoming wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks combined with the evolution of performant body area networks will give rise to new mobile health care services. The MobiHealth , , project has developed and trialed a customisable vital signals’ monitoring system based on a Body Area Network (BAN) and an m-health service platform utilizing UMTS and GPRS networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signals over public wireless networks to healthcare providers. 
Nine trials with different healthcare cases and patient groups in four different European countries have been conducted to test and verify the system, the service and the network infrastructure for its suitability and the restrictions it imposes to mobile health care applications.

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Katarzyna Wac

Papers

Smartphone as a Personal, Pervasive Health Informatics Services Platform: Literature Review

Virtual assistive companions for older adults: qualitative field study and design implications

Ambulatory Assessment of Affect: Survey of Sensor Systems for Monitoring of Autonomic Nervous Systems Activation in Emotion

Context-aware middleware architecture for vertical handover support to multi-homed nomadic mobile services

Body Area Networks for Ambulant Patient Monitoring Over Next Generation Public Wireless Networks