Browsing by Author "Alexandru, Adriana"

Usability is an important aspect of IT applications being a priority requirement in online public services. This paper presents the evaluation of the usability of the national house of public pensions portal. The portal evaluation involved four experts who tested the portal based on the usability inspection method. The results of the evaluation highlighted some important usability problems that need to be fixed in order to ease the use of the portal by older people.

Evaluation and analysis in health care is a complex task that may involve handling uncertainties and trade-offs between multiple, often conflicting criteria. In the present paper, a multi-criteria weighting approach is proposed for evaluation and analysis of Quality of Life (QoL) criteria. Based on the evaluations of a group of experts and using a Rough Analytical Hierarchy Process (RAHP) weighting method, the QoL criteria weights are determined. The expert evaluation’s uncertainty is modeled with the rough sets theory. The proposed approach is validated by a case study that performs an analysis of WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire criteria. In the case study, weights are calculated for physical health, psychological, social relations and environment criteria. A comparison between the RAHP weights obtained and the AHP weights is achieved. The result of the analysis shows that the order of importance of criteria from the most important to the least important is the following: physical health, psychological, social relations and environment.

Managers need to make informed choices about what to buy in order to meet priority needs and to avoid wasting limited resources. The procurement decision is a very difficult task since there exists a great variety of brands, vendors and equipment performances. In the present paper, we have developed a decision process for equipment procurement in which are used, in combination, a Multi-Criteria subjective weighting method SWARA (Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis) for equipment evaluation weights, an adaptation of SAW (Simple Additive Weighting) for equipment performance and a new Multi-Objective optimization model for equipment procurement. TheMulti-Objective model considers several types of equipment, their costs and their performances. The model aims to be an aiding in the decision process of equipment procurement. Managers of health care systems need to find in their choices a compromise between the cost of procurement, brands' reputation, vendors' reputation and equipment performance. A numerical example for medical equipment procurement, based on sensors, is studied.

Physical therapy helps patients during their rehabilitation programme after orthopaedic post-operative interventions or in case of musculoskeletal injuries. For a full recovery and a minimisation of the risk of complications, the prescribed in-clinical therapy sessions must be supplemented by independent home training. The purpose of this paper is to present the emerging technologies used for monitoring ortophedic movements and to introduce an innovative telerehabilitation-as-aservice solution, called re.flex, which consists of two IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) motion tracking sensors and a mobile application The therapist makes use of standardised digitised physical exercises that are carefully chosen so as to create, by selection, a custom designed training program that will meet the needs of each patient. The feedback provided by the sensors enables the therapist to a) monitor the patients’ compliance with the training program in a transparent manner, b) keep track of the documentation related to the recovery progress through data-collection during in-clinical and in-home exercise-based rehabilitation c) customize the training program. The real-time 3D smartphone animations and the direct visual, audio and haptic feedback from the sensors assist patients in performing the rehabilitation exercises assigned to them. The abovementioned application allows the patients to visualise their injured limb on their smartphone or tablet in an innovative 3D – 360° manner, thereby reducing their fear of making mistakes during the recovery process and offering them constant security. The study evaluates the effects of this kind of approach for a group of 30 participants and the results recorded are in favour of the patients recovering with re.flex.

Accepting ICT-based online public services is an important topic of research. The paper addresses models of adoption and acceptance of new technologies with reference to the seniors. These models are compared in terms of acceptability factors. An analysis of the challenges and obstacles regarding the acceptance of technologies by elderly people is presented. In addition, as a case study on the technologies, the acceptance of the mobile phone by the older people and the Senior Technology Acceptance and Adoption Model are presented. Finally, a group of determinants related to the acceptance by elderly people of mobile phone is extracted.

The global population is ageing at a sharp pace. Elderly is particularly associated with an increased need for social and medical assistance, home care and nursing houses. The existence of complete and correct information is critical to assessing the health condition of seniors, improving well-being and health-related quality of life. Health monitoring systems in smart environments become a viable alternative to traditional healthcare solutions. This paper aims to highlight the opportunities brought by an Internet of Things-enabled smart environment, cloud computing and virtual machines for a proper management of healthcare data. The ongoing project RO-SmartAgeing is presented as a case study for how these technologies can be rightsized in order to increase efficiency and the response time in the remote monitoring of a senior.

Globally, the population is ageing and the number of older people is increasing dramatically. These are challenges for healthcare systems because an increased need for medical assistance is related to ageing. The availability of health-related data and information is a main issue for assessing the health status of seniors, having an important impact on their quality of life. Due to Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, smart environment, and virtual machines, the traditional healthcare approaches are replaced by up-to-date (remote) health monitoring systems in smart environments. The paper presents the opportunities provided by such solutions for an appropriate management of older people health related information. RO-SmartAgeing, a remote health monitoring system based on IoT, is presented as a case study with the intention of revealing the rise of the efficiency and the decease of the response time in seniors remote monitoring systems.

The paper gives an overview of time series modeling and forecasting, using multiplicative SARIM Amodels, with application in assessing and forecasting of epidemiological data. After general view of the mainmodels and the methodological issues used in Box-Jenkins approach, the paper presents a case study having assubject the modeling and forecasting of a time series representing the measles infections, in Great Britain, 1971-1994, quarterly recorded, and an example of intervention analysis, using as exogenous data the measles infections,and as endogenous variable the number of vaccinated persons, in the same time period. The intervention analysisproved to be a useful approach to model interrupted time series, when the time series is affected by the effect ofpopulation vaccination.

The paper gives an overview of time series modeling and forecasting, using multiplicative SARIM Amodels, with application in assessing and forecasting of epidemiological data. After general view of the mainmodels and the methodological issues used in Box-Jenkins approach, the paper presents a case study having assubject the modeling and forecasting of a time series representing the measles infections, in Great Britain, 1971-1994, quarterly recorded, and an example of intervention analysis, using as exogenous data the measles infections,and as endogenous variable the number of vaccinated persons, in the same time period. The intervention analysisproved to be a useful approach to model interrupted time series, when the time series is affected by the effect ofpopulation vaccination.

In the present, in European countries, the elderly population is growing and elderly health has attracted more and more attention. An elderly person can be seen from a perspective that includes continuous and personalized, active and preventive care, supported by healthcare professionals and digital technologies. The monitoring and evaluation of elderly health status can be performed with the help of the Internet of Things (IoT), clinical health indicators and quality of life questionnaires. In this paper, an elderly monitoring, evaluation and analysis framework is proposed based on an IoT monitoring system, medical investigations and quality of life questionnaires. In this framework, an elderly health parameters analysis model is presented. We define, in the model, a new elderly overall health index used for analysis. In order to obtain this index, a multi-criteria method is used. Then for every pair of parameters considered in the framework, the Spearman correlation coefficient is calculated. Correlation coefficients are used to assess the strength and direction of the linear relationships between pairs of parameters. A comparison between Spearman, Pearson and Kendall correlation coefficients is realized. For model validation, a case study is presented.

Internet of Health Things (IoHT) has already proved to be a persuasive means to support a proper assessment of the living conditions by collecting a huge variety of data. For a customized health management of a senior patient, IoHT provides the capacity to build a dynamic solution for sustaining the shift inside the patientphysician relationship by allowing a real-time and continuous remote monitoring of the health status, well-being, safety and activities of the senior, especially in a non-clinical environment. Thus, is created a win-win solution in which both the patient and the physician enhance their involvement and shared decision-making, with significant outcomes. Health monitoring systems in smart environments are becoming a viable alternative to traditional healthcare solutions. The ongoing “Non-invasive monitoring and health assessment of the elderly in a smart environment (RO-SmartAgeing)” project aims to demonstrate that the existence of complete and accurate information is critical for assessing the health condition of the seniors, improving wellbeing and quality of life in relation to health. The researches performed inside the project aim to highlight how the management of IoHT devices connected to the RO-SmartAgeing platform in a secure way by using a role-based access control system, can allow the physicians to provide health services at a high level of efficiency and accessibility, which were previously only available in hospitals. The project aims to identify deficient aspects in the provision of health services tailored to a senior patient’s specificity and to offer a more comprehensive perspective of proactive and preventive medical acts.

Internet of Health Things (IoHT) has already proved to be a persuasive means to support a proper assessment of the living conditions by collecting a huge variety of data. For a customized health management of a senior patient, IoHT provides the capacity to build a dynamic solution for sustaining the shift inside the patientphysician relationship by allowing a real-time and continuous remote monitoring of the health status, well-being, safety and activities of the senior, especially in a non-clinical environment. Thus, is created a win-win solution in which both the patient and the physician enhance their involvement and shared decision-making, with significant outcomes. Health monitoring systems in smart environments are becoming a viable alternative to traditional healthcare solutions. The ongoing “Non-invasive monitoring and health assessment of the elderly in a smart environment (RO-SmartAgeing)” project aims to demonstrate that the existence of complete and accurate information is critical for assessing the health condition of the seniors, improving wellbeing and quality of life in relation to health. The researches performed inside the project aim to highlight how the management of IoHT devices connected to the RO-SmartAgeing platform in a secure way by using a role-based access control system, can allow the physicians to provide health services at a high level of efficiency and accessibility, which were previously only available in hospitals. The project aims to identify deficient aspects in the provision of health services tailored to a senior patient’s specificity and to offer a more comprehensive perspective of proactive and preventive medical acts.

The global ageing population puts a burden on healthcare systems not only from the point of view of cost-related aspects, but also from the senior patients' point of view who tend to be predominately empowered regarding their own health management, digitally-skilled and demanding for personalized health protocols and solutions. Silver Digital Patients can be defined as seniors that master improved abilities of using digital technology in their daily activities, including in monitoring their health, who prove increased interest in having access to the best healthcare to preserve as much as possible their independence and health. An active, decent and safe life for seniors is at its best in their own homes; therefore, a remote health monitoring represents the most appropriate way to smooth the disruptive degenerative age-related factors, together with the important benefit of relieving the expenditures for senior institutionalizations. In this respect, emerging senior-centered technologies have the potential to provide a reliable support for building the most appropriate healthcare provision and environment. Internet of Health Things (IoHT) is a concept for a great variety of devices connected to the Internet that are able to gather a huge amount of diverse data - like health or environmental parameters - in order to keep a close remote watch on the patient, to improve the diagnose of his/her health status and to establish a better preventative healthcare. Edge computing brings the potential of improving the performance and responsiveness of IoHT by allowing the real-time collected data to be pre-processed closer to the source, which can be extremely important for time-sensitive health data in order to identify and trigger anticipatory or reactive health actions. This paper presents a case study -" Non-invasive monitoring and health assessment of the elderly in a smart environment (RO-SmartAgeing)" project - that evaluates the opportunities brought by IoHT and edge computing for a monitoring application. The general objective of this project is to demonstrate the potential of some emerging technology for the positive transformation of how healthcare services are provided to the seniors and to healthcare provider. According to its current development state, a proposed IoHT-based architecture of the monitoring application and a data analytics demo for a health parameter is presented.

In the context of a fast aging population and of its increasing need for healthcare and assistance, ubiquitous usage of Internet of Things (IoT)-based smart applications can mitigate the consequential social burden. Connected sensors and devices inside the seniors' home produce a significant amount of data about them and their daily activities. IoT and Big Data Analytics (BDA) are an important mean to derive knowledge and support for improving the life conditions for the older adults by increasing the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for accomplish this goal. IoT analytics can aid in personalizing applications that benefit both elderly people and the ever-growing industries that need adapt their offer to the consumer's profiles. This paper presents a new platform that enables innovative analytics on IoT captured data from smart residences of elderly people. A solution based on the use of fog nodes and cloud system is suggested in order to afford data-driven services and to manage the complexity and provision of the necessary resources for online and offline data processing, storage, and analysis. The requirements and the design of the platform architecture are underlined. We propose an architecture of a platform based on fog computing nodes coupled with cloud computing that offers an efficient near real time processing of the big data resulted from IoT system that provides insights and data processing and analysis facilities into cloud. This integrated design has an important impact on time sensitive applications by addressing the latency issues of cloud.

There has never been such a rich offer in terms of ERP solutions that customers can choose from because the problem of knowledge has never been emphasized in the past. An ERP system in line with the company's business is metamorphosed into a knowledge management tool that improves information transfer and generates "knowledge". On the other hand, major decisions are rarely simple, and the best alternative can befall only after careful deliberation. In the present research we endeavor to provide a model of multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) in the selection of ERP applications. We illustrate and apply a MCDM technique, namely analytical hierarchy process (AHP) to assist SMEs to select the most appropriate ERP. We formulate an AHP decision model and apply it to a hypothetical case study to demonstrate the feasibility of the choice to select the most appropriate ERP software for a specific SME. We believe that our work could become a didactic source of inspiration for teaching decision making techniques to young people and students. The application of the proposed model indicates that it can be applied to improve decision-making processes and condense the time interval needed for ERP selection. Our model can be considered good practice and identified with the know-what and know-who component of a KM model.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) can occur while a person is getting old and it is associated with more serious cognitive deteriorations than the normal ageing-related ones. As it may involve a significant decrease in the quality of life, health status and independence of the elderly, the early diagnosis and a personalized assistance become crucial in this ageing worldwide context. Current and emerging technologies provide the needed support for implementing appropriate new models of healthcare delivery. This paper highlights how RO-SmartAgeing system, which aims to provide customized monitoring and assistance for an elderly in his home, is designed for addressing a particular health condition as MIC. The associated smart environment is presented, together with the data flow chart and architecture, with an emphasis on MIC approach.

Current and emerging approaches regarding the designing and development of eHealth applications prove increasingly their potential to sustain the improvement of healthcare service delivery. Internets of Things and microservices have become essential for enhancing the quality of a great variety of healthcare applications. The paper presents the architecture of the RO-SmartAgeing system devoted to non-invasive monitoring and health assessment of the elderly in a smart environment. The architecture is based on the integration of Internet of Healthcare Things (IoHT) and Cloud computing technologies and provides multilevel medical decision support. This architecture is expected to ensure to the future system the capability to answer to various implementation requirements, as it is illustrated by the envisaged use cases.

The digital transformation process of the healthcare sector has improved the citizens’ access to care and the efficiency and sustainability of the healthcare sector. The sensitive nature of healthcare data requires additional protection against the risks of unauthorized access. Data privacy is an essential concern. This paper presents the patient empowerment and underlines the importance of data empowerment in healthcare domain. In order to address the deployment of a suitable and efficient architecture for a remote healthcare monitoring system, several aspects of the monolithic architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture versus microservices architecture are discussed. A case study related to the RO-SmartAgeing software system used for an improved health data management is presented.

The link between national security and the protection of critical infrastructure is vital to the progress of any society and its proper social functioning. The term critical infrastructure was developed by the United States in the 1990s and it has evolved in time; nowadays, most of the current definitions include the security dimension in their content. Along with its many benefits, the technological advancement has brought with it the diversification of threats that could lead to the malfunctioning of critical infrastructures. The new weapons of the 21st century and the new asymmetric threats constitute real dangers to the good functioning of every critical infrastructure. Once they may be interrupted, the normal functioning of the whole society would be endangered because of the domino effects it causes. In this article we will look at how the link between critical infrastructure and national security is reflected in national regulations and crisis scenarios, highlighting the main strengths and the existing legislative gaps along with discussing their applicability.

The next generation of IoT is characterized by the usage of smart solutions with embedded intelligence at the edge that relies on high connectivity, processing capabilities for edge devices and real-time analysis of information. This evolution is based on the convergence of some key ICT technologies like hyperconnectivity and new network architectures, edge computing, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Considering the high expectations regarding the wide use in various domains of the new, interoperable IoT platforms built on these technologies, it is assumed that they will influence also the decision-making processes specific to these domains. The paper provides a short overview of these technologies with the aim to identify such potential influences. Then a case study in the field of health monitoring is presented, which consists in proposing a new version of a current pilot solution built around the sensing service offer integrator role. This new version is compliant with the RO-Smart Ageing architecture and will provide specific support for all three decision levels implemented in the medical unit practice, with special emphases on risk evaluation in real time monitoring regime.