CDAPubMed: a browser extension to retrieve EHR-based biomedical literature

Over the last few decades, the ever-increasing output of scientific publications has led to new challenges to keep up to date with the literature. In the biomedical area, this growth has introduced new requirements for professionals, e.g., physicians, who have to locate the exact papers that they need for their clinical and research work amongst a huge number of publications. Against this backdrop, novel information retrieval methods are even more necessary. While web search engines are widespread in many areas, facilitating access to all kinds of information, additional tools are required to automatically link information retrieved from these engines to specific biomedical applications. In the case of clinical environments, this also means considering aspects such as patient data security and confidentiality or structured contents, e.g., electronic health records (EHRs). In this scenario, we have developed a new tool to facilitate query building to retrieve scientific literature related to EHRs. Results: We have developed CDAPubMed, an open-source web browser extension to integrate EHR features in biomedical literature retrieval approaches. Clinical users can use CDAPubMed to: (i) load patient clinical documents, i.e., EHRs based on the Health Level 7-Clinical Document Architecture Standard (HL7-CDA), (ii) identify relevant terms for scientific literature search in these documents, i.e., Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), automatically driven by the CDAPubMed configuration, which advanced users can optimize to adapt to each specific situation, and (iii) generate and launch literature search queries to a major search engine, i.e., PubMed, to retrieve citations related to the EHR under examination. Conclusions: CDAPubMed is a platform-independent tool designed to facilitate literature searching using keywords contained in specific EHRs. CDAPubMed is visually integrated, as an extension of a widespread web browser, within the standard PubMed interface. It has been tested on a public dataset of HL7-CDA documents, returning significantly fewer citations since queries are focused on characteristics identified within the EHR. For instance, compared with more than 200,000 citations retrieved by breast neoplasm, fewer than ten citations were retrieved when ten patient features were added using CDAPubMed. This is an open source tool that can be freely used for non-profit purposes and integrated with other existing systems.

Nanoinformatics: a new area of research in nanomedicine

Over a decade ago, nanotechnologists began research on applications of nanomaterials for medicine. This research has revealed a wide range of different challenges, as well as many opportunities. Some of these challenges are strongly related to informatics issues, dealing, for instance, with the management and integration of heterogeneous information, defining nomenclatures, taxonomies and classifications for various types of nanomaterials, and research on new modeling and simulation techniques for nanoparticles. Nanoinformatics has recently emerged in the USA and Europe to address these issues. In this paper, we present a review of nanoinformatics, describing its origins, the problems it addresses, areas of interest, and examples of current research initiatives and informatics resources. We suggest that nanoinformatics could accelerate research and development in nanomedicine, as has occurred in the past in other fields. For instance, biomedical informatics served as a fundamental catalyst for the Human Genome Project, and other genomic and ?omics projects, as well as the translational efforts that link resulting molecular-level research to clinical problems and findings.

Accessing advanced computational resources in Africa through Cloud Computing

Low resources in many African locations do not allow many African scientists and physicians to access the latest advances in technology. This deficiency hinders the daily life of African professionals that often cannot afford, for instance, the cost of internet fees or software licenses. The AFRICA BUILD project, funded by the European Commission and formed by four European and four African institutions, intends to provide advanced computational tools to African institutions in order to solve current technological limitations. In the context of AFRICA BUILD we have carried out, a series of experiments to test the feasibility of using Cloud Computing technologies in two different locations in Africa: Egypt and Burundi. The project aims to create a virtual platform to provide access to a wide range of biomedical informatics and learning resources to professionals and researchers in Africa.

Building sustainable capacity for health research in africa through cloud computing applications

Access to information and continuous education represent critical factors for physicians and researchers over the world. For African professionals, this situation is even more problematic due to the frequently difficult access to technological infrastructures and basic information. Both education and information technologies (e.g., including hardware, software or networking) are expensive and unaffordable for many African professionals. Thus, the use of e-learning and an open approach to information exchange and software use have been already proposed to improve medical informatics issues in Africa. In this context, the AFRICA BUILD project, supported by the European Commission, aims to develop a virtual platform to provide access to a wide range of biomedical informatics and learning resources to professionals and researchers in Africa. A consortium of four African and four European partners work together in this initiative. In this framework, we have developed a prototype of a cloud-computing infrastructure to demonstrate, as a proof of concept, the feasibility of this approach. We have conducted the experiment in two different locations in Africa: Burundi and Egypt. As shown in this paper, technologies such as cloud computing and the use of open source medical software for a large range of case present significant challenges and opportunities for developing countries, such as many in Africa.

Applying the experimental paradigm to software engineering

En este keynote, la Prof. Juristo describe el paradigma experimental y cómo podría aplicarse a la ingeniería del software, destacando los desafíos de su aplicación y los logros conseguidos hasta el momento.

UER technique: conceptualisation for agent oriented development

The problem of conceptualisation is the first step towards the identication of the functional requirements of a system. This article proposes two extensions of well-known object oriented techniques: UER (User-Environment-Responsibility) technique and enhanced CRC (Class-ResponsibilityCollaboration) cards. UER technique consists of (a) looking for the users of systems and describing the ways the system is used; (b) looking for the objects of the environment and describing the possible interactions; and (c) looking for the general requirements or goals of the system, the actions that it should carry out without explicit interaction. The enhanced CRC cards together with the internal use cases technique is used for dening collaborations between agents. These techniques can be easily integrated in UML (Unied Modelling Language) [2], dening the new notation symbols as stereotypes.

Agent Architecture Modelling at the Knowledge Level

The definition of an agent architecture at the knowledge level makes emphasis on the knowledge role played by the data interchanged between the agent components and makes explicit this data interchange this makes easier the reuse of these knowledge structures independently of the implementation This article defines a generic task model of an agent architecture and refines some of these tasks using the interference diagrams. Finally, a operationalisation of this conceptual model using the rule-oriented language Jess is shown. knowledge level,

Hybrid incremental modeling based on least squares and fuzzy K-NN for monitoring tool wear in turning processes

There is now an emerging need for an efficient modeling strategy to develop a new generation of monitoring systems. One method of approaching the modeling of complex processes is to obtain a global model. It should be able to capture the basic or general behavior of the system, by means of a linear or quadratic regression, and then superimpose a local model on it that can capture the localized nonlinearities of the system. In this paper, a novel method based on a hybrid incremental modeling approach is designed and applied for tool wear detection in turning processes. It involves a two-step iterative process that combines a global model with a local model to take advantage of their underlying, complementary capacities. Thus, the first step constructs a global model using a least squares regression. A local model using the fuzzy k-nearest-neighbors smoothing algorithm is obtained in the second step. A comparative study then demonstrates that the hybrid incremental model provides better error-based performance indices for detecting tool wear than a transductive neurofuzzy model and an inductive neurofuzzy model.

Estudio Acústico del Teatro Tomás y Valiente de Fuenlabrada

El objetivo de este Proyecto Fin de Carrera es realizar el estudio de las características acústicas del Teatro Tomás y Valiente de Fuenlabrada mediante medidas y con el apoyo de los resultados obtenidos mediante la simulación del campo sonoro. El recinto está destinado principalmente a representaciones teatrales, empleándose también como sala polivalente, de forma que se analizará su comportamiento acústico e idoneidad ante la variedad de usos a los que se destina. Para ello, se realizan medidas experimentales in situ de todos los parámetros representativos de un recinto acústico y la predicción de los mismos mediante la simulación de la sala a través del software de simulación acústica EASE, de forma que las características acústicas obtenidas mediante ambos procesos sean comparadas proponiéndose mejoras en el entorno para cumplimiento de parámetros acústicos óptimos exigibles a la sala. En primer lugar se exponen los principales conceptos teóricos a tener en cuenta en el ámbito de la acústica, detallando las diferentes teorías de estudio, los principios básicos de la psicoacústica. Además, se definen los criterios utilizados en el diseño de recintos acústicos y parámetros que definan la calidad según el uso al que se destine en función del estudio de la utilización habitual de la sala y valores óptimos de los parámetros acústicos correspondientes a salas de tamaño y uso similar. A continuación, se describe la metodología aplicada para la realización de las medidas in situ obteniendo resultados de los parámetros acústicos representativos del recinto para el análisis de sus características acústicas y posterior comparación con la predicción de los mismos mediante la simulación del modelo informático. También se muestra el proceso que se ha seguido para el diseño del modelo acústico a partir de los planos del teatro y medidas realizadas en el recinto, para la simulación de parámetros y características acústicas. Finalmente se exponen las conclusiones extraídas tras el estudio realizado y la propuesta de mejoras en el entorno para cumplimiento de parámetros acústicos óptimos que se puedan exigir a esta sala, incluyendo un presupuesto que muestre la viabilidad económica del proyecto. ABSTRACT. The goal of this final project, is to perform an acoustic study and simulation of the Tomás y Valiente theatre in Fuenlabrada. These premises are mainly used for stage plays, but also as a multipurpose space, therefore its acustic behaviour and suitability for the expected uses will be analyzed. To accomplish this task, experimental measures for all the representative parameters for an acoustic hall, will be taken on site. The prediction for those measurements will be simulated through EASE software, so the acoustic characteristics obtained using both methods will be compared, and improvements will be proposed in order to achieve the best acoustic parameters, the hall can have. First at all, the theoretical concepts definition involves exposing the main concepts to consider in the acoustics field, detailing the basic principles of the psychoacoustic. On top of the criteria used in the design of acoustic enclosures and parameters defining the quality according to the use the enclosure is intended for. Research on the most common usage for the space, and optimal values, comparing it with similar rooms in size and use. Experimental measures are made of the acoustic parameters representative of the enclosure for the analysis of its acoustic characteristics and its later comparison with the prediction of the parameters through informatics model simulation. Also the process which has been followed for the design of acoustic model of the theater are taken from on site measurements, experimental representative measures and acoustic parameters, for the acoustic characteristics analysis and post comparison with the software model simulation and prediction. Acoustic design of the theater taking as a base the building blueprints, and manual measures, for the parameters and acoustic characteristics simulation. Finally, the conclusions extracted after the performed research are shown and the propose of improvements in the environment for fulfillment of acoustic optimal parameters which can be required to this room, including a quote with shows the economical viability of the project.

A Coreference Service for Enterprise Application Integration using Linked Data

The use of semantic and Linked Data technologies for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is increasing in recent years. Linked Data and Semantic Web technologies such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) data model provide several key advantages over the current de-facto Web Service and XML based integration approaches. The flexibility provided by representing the data in a more versatile RDF model using ontologies enables avoiding complex schema transformations and makes data more accessible using Web standards, preventing the formation of data silos. These three benefits represent an edge for Linked Data-based EAI. However, work still has to be performed so that these technologies can cope with the particularities of the EAI scenarios in different terms, such as data control, ownership, consistency, or accuracy. The first part of the paper provides an introduction to Enterprise Application Integration using Linked Data and the requirements imposed by EAI to Linked Data technologies focusing on one of the problems that arise in this scenario, the coreference problem, and presents a coreference service that supports the use of Linked Data in EAI systems. The proposed solution introduces the use of a context that aggregates a set of related identities and mappings from the identities to different resources that reside in distinct applications and provide different views or aspects of the same entity. A detailed architecture of the Coreference Service is presented explaining how it can be used to manage the contexts, identities, resources, and applications which they relate to. The paper shows how the proposed service can be utilized in an EAI scenario using an example involving a dashboard that integrates data from different systems and the proposed workflow for registering and resolving identities. As most enterprise applications are driven by business processes and involve legacy data, the proposed approach can be easily incorporated into enterprise applications.

A Complexity Architecture for Information Technologies: a Three-Year Didactic Experiment

One medium-term strategy for helping in the management of complexity is the introduction of a conceptual complexity component in the very centre of university curricula. In very few areas is the growth of complexity as evident as in the information technologies (ITs), the focus of the work presented in the current paper. We have therefore developed an integrated way of tackling the specific field of information technologies by means of an approach,to complexity. The content of this paper describes the guidelines of our research effort, placing an emphasis on informatics. Concepts of complexity based on the system metaphor have been substantially drawn upon in this exercise and are thus presented in some detail. Also described is a didactic experiment conducted by the author and designed to provide a new and integrating approach to University curricula for future professionals. The students' "discovery" of complexity is the focal point of the experiment. The findings of this effort are encouraging and call for the continuation and expansion of this experiment.

Architectural guidelines for the Curricula: 3 Layers, 3 New Dimensions, 2 Basic Orientations, Different levels in the Topics

Today, designing informatics curricula is a major problem. As a technology, informatics is experiencing a dramatic evolution, with its rapidly expanding areas of application and everincreasing impact on society. At first glance, it seems that if we might need several different curricula for facing very different practical educational situations, and not just one or two curricula. The current deep discrepancies among some of our more prestigious computer scientists in relation to the focus of informatics education are in fact a form of recognition of this necessity and at the same time, proof we are at a turning point.

CloudRoom: una plataforma universitaria social, semántica y ubicua

Estamos viviendo la era de la Internetificación. A día de hoy, las conexiones a Internet se asumen presentes en nuestro entorno como una necesidad más. La Web, se ha convertido en un lugar de generación de contenido por los usuarios. Una información generada, que sobrepasa la idea con la que surgió esta, ya que en la mayoría de casos, su contenido no se ha diseñado más que para ser consumido por humanos, y no por máquinas. Esto supone un cambio de mentalidad en la forma en que diseñamos sistemas capaces de soportar una carga computacional y de almacenamiento que crece sin un fin aparente. Al mismo tiempo, vivimos un momento de crisis de la educación superior: los altos costes de una educación de calidad suponen una amenaza para el mundo académico. Mediante el uso de la tecnología, se puede lograr un incremento de la productividad, y una reducción en dichos costes en un campo, en el que apenas se ha avanzado desde el Renacimiento. En CloudRoom se ha diseñado una plataforma MOOC con una arquitectura ajustada a las últimas convenciones en Cloud Computing, que implica el uso de Servicios REST, bases de datos NoSQL, y que hace uso de las últimas recomendaciones del W3C en materia de desarrollo web y Linked Data. Para su construcción, se ha hecho uso de métodos ágiles de Ingeniería del Software, técnicas de Interacción Persona-Ordenador, y tecnologías de última generación como Neo4j, Redis, Node.js, AngularJS, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS3 o Amazon Web Services. Se ha realizado un trabajo integral de Ingeniería Informática, combinando prácticamente la totalidad de aquellas áreas de conocimiento fundamentales en Informática. En definitiva se han ideado las bases de un sistema distribuido robusto, mantenible, con características sociales y semánticas, que puede ser ejecutado en múltiples dispositivos, y que es capaz de responder ante millones de usuarios. We are living through an age of Internetification. Nowadays, Internet connections are a utility whose presence one can simply assume. The web has become a place of generation of content by users. The information generated surpasses the notion with which the World Wide Web emerged because, in most cases, this content has been designed to be consumed by humans and not by machines. This fact implies a change of mindset in the way that we design systems; these systems should be able to support a computational and storage capacity that apparently grows endlessly. At the same time, our education system is in a state of crisis: the high costs of high-quality education threaten the academic world. With the use of technology, we could achieve an increase of productivity and quality, and a reduction of these costs in this field, which has remained largely unchanged since the Renaissance. In CloudRoom, a MOOC platform has been designed with an architecture that satisfies the last conventions on Cloud Computing; which involves the use of REST services, NoSQL databases, and uses the last recommendations from W3C in terms of web development and Linked Data. For its building process, agile methods of Software Engineering, Human-Computer Interaction techniques, and state of the art technologies such as Neo4j, Redis, Node.js, AngularJS, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS3 or Amazon Web Services have been used. Furthermore, a comprehensive Informatics Engineering work has been performed, by combining virtually all of the areas of knowledge in Computer Science. Summarizing, the pillars of a robust, maintainable, and distributed system have been devised; a system with social and semantic capabilities, which runs in multiple devices, and scales to millions of users.

A model to develop a platform for personalised health applications

Antecedentes Europa vive una situación insostenible. Desde el 2008 se han reducido los recursos de los gobiernos a raíz de la crisis económica. El continente Europeo envejece con ritmo constante al punto que se prevé que en 2050 habrá sólo dos trabajadores por jubilado [54]. A esta situación se le añade el aumento de la incidencia de las enfermedades crónicas, relacionadas con el envejecimiento, cuyo coste puede alcanzar el 7% del PIB de un país [51]. Es necesario un cambio de paradigma. Una nueva manera de cuidar de la salud de las personas: sustentable, eficaz y preventiva más que curativa. Algunos estudios abogan por el cuidado personalizado de la salud (pHealth). En este modelo las prácticas médicas son adaptadas e individualizadas al paciente, desde la detección de los factores de riesgo hasta la personalización de los tratamientos basada en la respuesta del individuo [81]. El cuidado personalizado de la salud está asociado a menudo al uso de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación (TICs) que, con su desarrollo exponencial, ofrecen oportunidades interesantes para la mejora de la salud. El cambio de paradigma hacia el pHealth está lentamente ocurriendo, tanto en el ámbito de la investigación como en la industria, pero todavía no de manera significativa. Existen todavía muchas barreras relacionadas a la economía, a la política y la cultura. También existen barreras puramente tecnológicas, como la falta de sistemas de información interoperables [199]. A pesar de que los aspectos de interoperabilidad están evolucionando, todavía hace falta un diseño de referencia especialmente direccionado a la implementación y el despliegue en gran escala de sistemas basados en pHealth. La presente Tesis representa un intento de organizar la disciplina de la aplicación de las TICs al cuidado personalizado de la salud en un modelo de referencia, que permita la creación de plataformas de desarrollo de software para simplificar tareas comunes de desarrollo en este dominio. Preguntas de investigación RQ1 >Es posible definir un modelo, basado en técnicas de ingeniería del software, que represente el dominio del cuidado personalizado de la salud de una forma abstracta y representativa? RQ2 >Es posible construir una plataforma de desarrollo basada en este modelo? RQ3 >Esta plataforma ayuda a los desarrolladores a crear sistemas pHealth complejos e integrados? Métodos Para la descripción del modelo se adoptó el estándar ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010por ser lo suficientemente general y abstracto para el amplio enfoque de esta tesis [25]. El modelo está definido en varias partes: un modelo conceptual, expresado a través de mapas conceptuales que representan las partes interesadas (stakeholders), los artefactos y la información compartida; y escenarios y casos de uso para la descripción de sus funcionalidades. El modelo fue desarrollado de acuerdo a la información obtenida del análisis de la literatura, incluyendo 7 informes industriales y científicos, 9 estándares, 10 artículos en conferencias, 37 artículos en revistas, 25 páginas web y 5 libros. Basándose en el modelo se definieron los requisitos para la creación de la plataforma de desarrollo, enriquecidos por otros requisitos recolectados a través de una encuesta realizada a 11 ingenieros con experiencia en la rama. Para el desarrollo de la plataforma, se adoptó la metodología de integración continua [74] que permitió ejecutar tests automáticos en un servidor y también desplegar aplicaciones en una página web. En cuanto a la metodología utilizada para la validación se adoptó un marco para la formulación de teorías en la ingeniería del software [181]. Esto requiere el desarrollo de modelos y proposiciones que han de ser validados dentro de un ámbito de investigación definido, y que sirvan para guiar al investigador en la búsqueda de la evidencia necesaria para justificarla. La validación del modelo fue desarrollada mediante una encuesta online en tres rondas con un número creciente de invitados. El cuestionario fue enviado a 134 contactos y distribuido en algunos canales públicos como listas de correo y redes sociales. El objetivo era evaluar la legibilidad del modelo, su nivel de cobertura del dominio y su potencial utilidad en el diseño de sistemas derivados. El cuestionario incluía preguntas cuantitativas de tipo Likert y campos para recolección de comentarios. La plataforma de desarrollo fue validada en dos etapas. En la primera etapa se utilizó la plataforma en un experimento a pequeña escala, que consistió en una sesión de entrenamiento de 12 horas en la que 4 desarrolladores tuvieron que desarrollar algunos casos de uso y reunirse en un grupo focal para discutir su uso. La segunda etapa se realizó durante los tests de un proyecto en gran escala llamado HeartCycle [160]. En este proyecto un equipo de diseñadores y programadores desarrollaron tres aplicaciones en el campo de las enfermedades cardio-vasculares. Una de estas aplicaciones fue testeada en un ensayo clínico con pacientes reales. Al analizar el proyecto, el equipo de desarrollo se reunió en un grupo focal para identificar las ventajas y desventajas de la plataforma y su utilidad. Resultados Por lo que concierne el modelo que describe el dominio del pHealth, la parte conceptual incluye una descripción de los roles principales y las preocupaciones de los participantes, un modelo de los artefactos TIC que se usan comúnmente y un modelo para representar los datos típicos que son necesarios formalizar e intercambiar entre sistemas basados en pHealth. El modelo funcional incluye un conjunto de 18 escenarios, repartidos en: punto de vista de la persona asistida, punto de vista del cuidador, punto de vista del desarrollador, punto de vista de los proveedores de tecnologías y punto de vista de las autoridades; y un conjunto de 52 casos de uso repartidos en 6 categorías: actividades de la persona asistida, reacciones del sistema, actividades del cuidador, \engagement" del usuario, actividades del desarrollador y actividades de despliegue. Como resultado del cuestionario de validación del modelo, un total de 65 personas revisó el modelo proporcionando su nivel de acuerdo con las dimensiones evaluadas y un total de 248 comentarios sobre cómo mejorar el modelo. Los conocimientos de los participantes variaban desde la ingeniería del software (70%) hasta las especialidades médicas (15%), con declarado interés en eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), medicina personalizada (5%), sistemas basados en pHealth (15%), informática médica (10%) e ingeniería biomédica (8%) con una media de 7.25_4.99 años de experiencia en estas áreas. Los resultados de la encuesta muestran que los expertos contactados consideran el modelo fácil de leer (media de 1.89_0.79 siendo 1 el valor más favorable y 5 el peor), suficientemente abstracto (1.99_0.88) y formal (2.13_0.77), con una cobertura suficiente del dominio (2.26_0.95), útil para describir el dominio (2.02_0.7) y para generar sistemas más específicos (2_0.75). Los expertos también reportan un interés parcial en utilizar el modelo en su trabajo (2.48_0.91). Gracias a sus comentarios, el modelo fue mejorado y enriquecido con conceptos que faltaban, aunque no se pudo demonstrar su mejora en las dimensiones evaluadas, dada la composición diferente de personas en las tres rondas de evaluación. Desde el modelo, se generó una plataforma de desarrollo llamada \pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP)". La plataforma desarrollada incluye librerías, herramientas de programación y desarrollo, un tutorial y una aplicación de ejemplo. Se definieron cuatro módulos principales de la arquitectura: el Data Collection Engine, que permite abstraer las fuentes de datos como sensores o servicios externos, mapeando los datos a bases de datos u ontologías, y permitiendo interacción basada en eventos; el GUI Engine, que abstrae la interfaz de usuario en un modelo de interacción basado en mensajes; y el Rule Engine, que proporciona a los desarrolladores un medio simple para programar la lógica de la aplicación en forma de reglas \if-then". Después de que la plataforma pHPP fue utilizada durante 5 años en el proyecto HeartCycle, 5 desarrolladores fueron reunidos en un grupo de discusión para analizar y evaluar la plataforma. De estas evaluaciones se concluye que la plataforma fue diseñada para encajar las necesidades de los ingenieros que trabajan en la rama, permitiendo la separación de problemas entre las distintas especialidades, y simplificando algunas tareas de desarrollo como el manejo de datos y la interacción asíncrona. A pesar de ello, se encontraron algunos defectos a causa de la inmadurez de algunas tecnologías empleadas, y la ausencia de algunas herramientas específicas para el dominio como el procesado de datos o algunos protocolos de comunicación relacionados con la salud. Dentro del proyecto HeartCycle la plataforma fue utilizada para el desarrollo de la aplicación \Guided Exercise", un sistema TIC para la rehabilitación de pacientes que han sufrido un infarto del miocardio. El sistema fue testeado en un ensayo clínico randomizado en el cual a 55 pacientes se les dio el sistema para su uso por 21 semanas. De los resultados técnicos del ensayo se puede concluir que, a pesar de algunos errores menores prontamente corregidos durante el estudio, la plataforma es estable y fiable. Conclusiones La investigación llevada a cabo en esta Tesis y los resultados obtenidos proporcionan las respuestas a las tres preguntas de investigación que motivaron este trabajo: RQ1 Se ha desarrollado un modelo para representar el dominio de los sistemas personalizados de salud. La evaluación hecha por los expertos de la rama concluye que el modelo representa el dominio con precisión y con un balance apropiado entre abstracción y detalle. RQ2 Se ha desarrollado, con éxito, una plataforma de desarrollo basada en el modelo. RQ3 Se ha demostrado que la plataforma es capaz de ayudar a los desarrolladores en la creación de software pHealth complejos. Las ventajas de la plataforma han sido demostradas en el ámbito de un proyecto de gran escala, aunque el enfoque genérico adoptado indica que la plataforma podría ofrecer beneficios también en otros contextos. Los resultados de estas evaluaciones ofrecen indicios de que, ambos, el modelo y la plataforma serán buenos candidatos para poderse convertir en una referencia para futuros desarrollos de sistemas pHealth. ABSTRACT Background Europe is living in an unsustainable situation. The economic crisis has been reducing governments' economic resources since 2008 and threatening social and health systems, while the proportion of older people in the European population continues to increase so that it is foreseen that in 2050 there will be only two workers per retiree [54]. To this situation it should be added the rise, strongly related to age, of chronic diseases the burden of which has been estimated to be up to the 7% of a country's gross domestic product [51]. There is a need for a paradigm shift, the need for a new way of caring for people's health, shifting the focus from curing conditions that have arisen to a sustainable and effective approach with the emphasis on prevention. Some advocate the adoption of personalised health care (pHealth), a model where medical practices are tailored to the patient's unique life, from the detection of risk factors to the customization of treatments based on each individual's response [81]. Personalised health is often associated to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), that, with its exponential development, offers interesting opportunities for improving healthcare. The shift towards pHealth is slowly taking place, both in research and in industry, but the change is not significant yet. Many barriers still exist related to economy, politics and culture, while others are purely technological, like the lack of interoperable information systems [199]. Though interoperability aspects are evolving, there is still the need of a reference design, especially tackling implementation and large scale deployment of pHealth systems. This thesis contributes to organizing the subject of ICT systems for personalised health into a reference model that allows for the creation of software development platforms to ease common development issues in the domain. Research questions RQ1 Is it possible to define a model, based on software engineering techniques, for representing the personalised health domain in an abstract and representative way? RQ2 Is it possible to build a development platform based on this model? RQ3 Does the development platform help developers create complex integrated pHealth systems? Methods As method for describing the model, the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 framework [25] is adopted for its generality and high level of abstraction. The model is specified in different parts: a conceptual model, which makes use of concept maps, for representing stakeholders, artefacts and shared information, and in scenarios and use cases for the representation of the functionalities of pHealth systems. The model was derived from literature analysis, including 7 industrial and scientific reports, 9 electronic standards, 10 conference proceedings papers, 37 journal papers, 25 websites and 5 books. Based on the reference model, requirements were drawn for building the development platform enriched with a set of requirements gathered in a survey run among 11 experienced engineers. For developing the platform, the continuous integration methodology [74] was adopted which allowed to perform automatic tests on a server and also to deploy packaged releases on a web site. As a validation methodology, a theory building framework for SW engineering was adopted from [181]. The framework, chosen as a guide to find evidence for justifying the research questions, imposed the creation of theories based on models and propositions to be validated within a scope. The validation of the model was conducted as an on-line survey in three validation rounds, encompassing a growing number of participants. The survey was submitted to 134 experts of the field and on some public channels like relevant mailing lists and social networks. Its objective was to assess the model's readability, its level of coverage of the domain and its potential usefulness in the design of actual, derived systems. The questionnaires included quantitative Likert scale questions and free text inputs for comments. The development platform was validated in two scopes. As a small-scale experiment, the platform was used in a 12 hours training session where 4 developers had to perform an exercise consisting in developing a set of typical pHealth use cases At the end of the session, a focus group was held to identify benefits and drawbacks of the platform. The second validation was held as a test-case study in a large scale research project called HeartCycle the aim of which was to develop a closed-loop disease management system for heart failure and coronary heart disease patients [160]. During this project three applications were developed by a team of programmers and designers. One of these applications was tested in a clinical trial with actual patients. At the end of the project, the team was interviewed in a focus group to assess the role the platform had within the project. Results For what regards the model that describes the pHealth domain, its conceptual part includes a description of the main roles and concerns of pHealth stakeholders, a model of the ICT artefacts that are commonly adopted and a model representing the typical data that need to be formalized among pHealth systems. The functional model includes a set of 18 scenarios, divided into assisted person's view, caregiver's view, developer's view, technology and services providers' view and authority's view, and a set of 52 Use Cases grouped in 6 categories: assisted person's activities, system reactions, caregiver's activities, user engagement, developer's activities and deployer's activities. For what concerns the validation of the model, a total of 65 people participated in the online survey providing their level of agreement in all the assessed dimensions and a total of 248 comments on how to improve and complete the model. Participants' background spanned from engineering and software development (70%) to medical specialities (15%), with declared interest in the fields of eHealth (24%), mHealth (16%), Ambient Assisted Living (21%), Personalized Medicine (5%), Personal Health Systems (15%), Medical Informatics (10%) and Biomedical Engineering (8%) with an average of 7.25_4.99 years of experience in these fields. From the analysis of the answers it is possible to observe that the contacted experts considered the model easily readable (average of 1.89_0.79 being 1 the most favourable scoring and 5 the worst), sufficiently abstract (1.99_0.88) and formal (2.13_0.77) for its purpose, with a sufficient coverage of the domain (2.26_0.95), useful for describing the domain (2.02_0.7) and for generating more specific systems (2_0.75) and they reported a partial interest in using the model in their job (2.48_0.91). Thanks to their comments, the model was improved and enriched with concepts that were missing at the beginning, nonetheless it was not possible to prove an improvement among the iterations, due to the diversity of the participants in the three rounds. From the model, a development platform for the pHealth domain was generated called pHealth Patient Platform (pHPP). The platform includes a set of libraries, programming and deployment tools, a tutorial and a sample application. The main four modules of the architecture are: the Data Collection Engine, which allows abstracting sources of information like sensors or external services, mapping data to databases and ontologies, and allowing event-based interaction and filtering, the GUI Engine, which abstracts the user interface in a message-like interaction model, the Workow Engine, which allows programming the application's user interaction ows with graphical workows, and the Rule Engine, which gives developers a simple means for programming the application's logic in the form of \if-then" rules. After the 5 years experience of HeartCycle, partially programmed with pHPP, 5 developers were joined in a focus group to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the platform. The view that emerged from the training course and the focus group was that the platform is well-suited to the needs of the engineers working in the field, it allowed the separation of concerns among the different specialities and it simplified some common development tasks like data management and asynchronous interaction. Nevertheless, some deficiencies were pointed out in terms of a lack of maturity of some technological choices, and for the absence of some domain-specific tools, e.g. for data processing or for health-related communication protocols. Within HeartCycle, the platform was used to develop part of the Guided Exercise system, a composition of ICT tools for the physical rehabilitation of patients who suffered from myocardial infarction. The system developed using the platform was tested in a randomized controlled clinical trial, in which 55 patients used the system for 21 weeks. The technical results of this trial showed that the system was stable and reliable. Some minor bugs were detected, but these were promptly corrected using the platform. This shows that the platform, as well as facilitating the development task, can be successfully used to produce reliable software. Conclusions The research work carried out in developing this thesis provides responses to the three three research questions that were the motivation for the work. RQ1 A model was developed representing the domain of personalised health systems, and the assessment of experts in the field was that it represents the domain accurately, with an appropriate balance between abstraction and detail. RQ2 A development platform based on the model was successfully developed. RQ3 The platform has been shown to assist developers create complex pHealth software. This was demonstrated within the scope of one large-scale project, but the generic approach adopted provides indications that it would offer benefits more widely. The results of these evaluations provide indications that both the model and the platform are good candidates for being a reference for future pHealth developments.

Static analysis of WCET in a satellite software subsystem

This paper describes the authors? experience with static analysis of both WCET and stack usage of a satellite on-board software subsystem. The work is a continuation of a previous case study that used a dynamic WCET analysis tool on an earlier version of the same software system. In particular, the AbsInt aiT tool has been evaluated by analysing both C and Ada code generated by Simulink within the UPMSat-2 project. Some aspects of the aiT tool, specifically those dealing with SPARC register windows, are compared to another static analysis tool, Bound-T. The results of the analysis are discussed, and some conclusions on the use of static WCET analysis tools on the SPARC architecture are commented in the paper.