CoNHealth-work packages

FP7 Project:

Cognitive-Networks-Enabled Transnational Proactive Healthcare (CoNHealth)

Home

Objectives

Work Packages

Partners

Events

Documents, Publications, and Reports

Useful Links

Work Packages

Work package	Work package title	*Beneficiary/Partner* organisation short name
1	Scenarios, Definitions, and Requirements	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, THU, SJTU, XMU
2	Cognitive Radio and Radar Networks for Optimizing Healthcare Delivery	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, THU, XMU
3	Cognitive Sensor Networks for Optimizing Healthcare Delivery	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, THU, SJTU, XMU
4	Privacy and Security Solutions for Cognitive Networks in Healthcare	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, SJTU
5	Integrated Cognitive Network Platform to Provide TPH	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, THU, SJTU, XMU
6	Management and Dissemination	UNEW, UFI, UOULU, MIT, YNU, THU, SJTU, XMU

WP1 Scenarios, Definitions, and Requirements

To provide a fundamental framework for the tasks to be carried out during the project period, considering various healthcare scenarios (e.g., monitoring in mass-casualty disasters, vital sign monitoring in hospitals, assistance with motor and sensory decline, in-field medical and behavioural studies) and medical information network architectures (e.g., body-centric networks incorporating portal, ambulatory, embedded, or implantable medical sensors), and requirements and specification for the proof of concepts in future clinical prototypes and trials (e.g., scalability, reliability, efficiency, resource scarcity, system trustworthiness) in a transnational context.
To identify specific technical challenges associated with proactive distributed diagnosis and home healthcare, which include different health monitoring services under investigation; wireless propagation and interference channels in home, occupational, and hospital environments; and interception, protection, and identity-based attack for privacy and security concerns in CoNHealth.
To provide exhaustive state-of-the-art review on the above mentioned topics and understand global challenges and local requirements for emerging healthcare applications.

WP2 Cognitive Radio and Radar Networks for Optimizing Healthcare Delivery

To provide a collective view on cognitive radio (CR-o) and cognitive radar (CR-r) networks for optimizing healthcare delivery in the context of CoNHealth through channel modelling of typical healthcare environments and characterization of intentional or unintentional electromagnetic interference (EMI) from unauthorized/unrecognized users and medical devices.
To propose novel cross-layer solutions for joint data communications, spectrum-hole detection, radar sensing, and CR-o/CR-r network localization, which are capable of operating with fragmented temporal and spectral resources in multi-user heterogeneous coexistence scenarios with different service priorities, typically encountered in healthcare environments.
To investigate cooperative and opportunistic information acquisition about the channel quality and environmental conditions and to explore the performance of the cross-layer medical data communication protocols.
To develop the methods and algorithms for information, context, and environment acquisitions including channel sensing and prediction for adaptive physiological data communication and cognitive patient/medical asset positioning and tracking.
To develop metrics and cognitive approaches for decision making in the CR-o and CR-r adaptations for optimizing healthcare delivery and for the resource assignments in knowledge- based radio and radar scene detection, estimation, and identification.

WP3 Cognitive Sensor Networks for Optimizing Healthcare Delivery

The first objective of this WP is to contribute on fundamentals related to cognitive sensor (CS) networks in developing wireless healthcare delivery concept, specific medical sensors for case studies (e.g., portable blood pressure and blood glucose monitors, wearable heart rate monitors), distributed data mining at embedded computing platforms (e.g., smartphones, motes), etc. The target is to get rid of wires that connect different body area network (BAN) sensors to the access points and further to the database. The system is based on the collaboration among hospitals, patients, and healthcare services, and benefits from advantages of modern ICT technologies. CS networks can also adapt to environmental and behavioral changes of monitored objects and thus can help in preventing medical traumas.
The second objective is to provide viable solutions to solve efficiency, spectrum scarcity, and coexistence issues in CS networks by accounting for device and network abilities, service policies, and service priorities in a demand-oriented fashion. CS networks are the enabler for robust communications as they allow for both reactive and proactive actions to maintain reliable connectivity among sensors in a body-centric environment featured by its resource-consuming heterogeneous coexistence scenarios. In addition, cognitive sensing provides the networks spectrum access to alternative frequency bands on a secondary basis. This will release spectrum from, e.g., fully loaded ISM bands. The integration of CS paradigm into CR-o and CR-r networks studied in WP2 will be explored as well.

WP4 Privacy and Security Solutions for Cognitive Networks in Healthcare

The general requirements of pervasive healthcare include both high level of security by mitigating threats to healthcare data and abuse of benefits, encryption, authentication, and access control, and high level of privacy in pervasive healthcare systems, which may become more aware of patient’s behavior, habits, and movements, and supporting patient-selectable level of anonymity in pervasive healthcare services. Furthermore, given the distributed nature of CoNHealth, there is a greater challenge in ensuring data security and integrity compared to the traditional healthcare system. Eavesdropping and skimming are potential risks when the sensor data are transmitted wirelessly. Data access, storage, and integrity are key challenges when implementing CoNHealth by means of wireless cognitive networks. The main objectives of this WP thus include:

To study the old and new threats that a cognitive network platform integrating CR-o, CR-r, and CS networks investigated in WP2 and WP3 have to deal with for CoNHealth applications.
To propose novel (layered) security solutions for CoNHealth.
To develop data encryption as well as robust and secure routing and scheduling strategies for CoNHealth.

WP5 Integrated Cognitive Network Platform to Provide TPH

To design and develop a proof-of-concept (PoC) cognitive network platform integrating CR-o, CR- r, and CS networks in WP2 to WP4 and evaluate its efficacy in some of the healthcare applications identified in WP1 (e.g., low-power wireless platforms for physiological and motion monitoring, high-resolution monitoring of movement and activity levels, population-scale physiological and behavioural studies), based on large-scale simulations.
To implement a lab-based preclinical prototype of the proposed integrated platform. This would provide critical insight into future clinical trials for demonstration of CoNHealth.
To highlight the project outcomes and the generated benefits in a concrete manner to facilitate ready adoption or further research activities by any interested parties in healthcare sectors.

WP6 Management and Dissemination

To establish a management team whose duty will be to monitor project progress and provide further opportunities including organization of workshops and implementation of IPR strategies.
To organize project meetings, workshops, etc.
To set up web-based portals for both internal and external use for the dissemination of information among partners and to external audience.
To write research papers and submit them to specialized journals for publication.
To prepare presentations at specialized conferences.