Recent developments in sensor technology, wearable computing, Internet of Things (IoT), and wireless communication have given rise to research in ubiquitous healthcare and remote monitoring of human’s health and activities. Health monitoring systems involve processing and analysis of data retrieved from smartphones, smart watches, smart bracelets, as well as various sensors and wearable devices. Such systems enable continuous monitoring of patients psychological and health conditions by sensing and transmitting measurements such as heart rate, electrocardiogram, body temperature, respiratory rate, chest sounds, or blood pressure. Pervasive healthcare, as a relevant application domain in this context, aims at revolutionizing the delivery of medical services through a medical assistive environment and facilitates the independent living of patients. In this chapter, we discuss (1) data collection, fusion, ownership and privacy issues; (2) models, technologies and solutions for medical data processing and analysis; (3) big medical data analytics for remote health monitoring; (4) research challenges and opportunities in medical data analytics; (5) examples of case studies and practical solutions.

Optimization Schemes For Wireless Sensor Network Localization: Many applications of wireless sensor networks (WSN) require information about the geographical location of each sensor node. Self-organization and localization capabilities are one of the most important requirements in sensor networks. This paper provides an overview of centralized distance-based algorithms for estimating the positions of nodes in a sensor network. We discuss and compare three approaches: semidefinite programming, simulated annealing and two-phase stochastic optimization—a hybrid scheme that we have proposed. We analyze the properties of all listed methods and report the results of numerical tests. Particular attention is paid to our technique—the two-phase method—that uses a combination of trilateration, and stochastic optimization for performing sensor localization. We describe its performance in the case of centralized and distributed implementations.

The aim of the study was to generate rules for the prediction of the chloride resistance of concrete modified with high calcium fly ash using machine learning methods. The rapid chloride permeability test, according to the Nordtest Method Build 492, was used for determining the chloride ions’ penetration in concrete containing high calcium fly ash (HCFA) for partial replacement of Portland cement. The results of the performed tests were used as the training set to generate rules describing the relation between material composition and the chloride resistance. Multiple methods for rule generation were applied and compared. The rules generated by algorithm J48 from the Weka workbench provided the means for adequate classification of plain concretes and concretes modified with high calcium fly ash as materials of good, acceptable or unacceptable resistance to chloride penetration.

The emergence of smart city initiatives in many areas of the world has led to rapid development and proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Successful deployments of IoT have resulted in the military looking at the impacts and benefits of IoT, both for directly leveraging IoT within the military environment as well as to interface with smart city environments for urban operations such as humanitarian assistance and disaster response. This article describes some of the outcomes of the NATO IST-147 Research Task Group that was established to explore the military applications of IoT. Within the NATO context, the concept of federated mission networks (FMNs) enables coalition partners to plan, prepare, establish, use, and terminate mission networks in support of federated operations. In this article, we propose an architecture and data model to enable interoperability between FMN and IoT networks in smart city environments. We review the various bottlenecks involved for such an environment and how a reference implementation can be set up to allow multiple partners to exchange data for sharing resources and provide better situational awareness. The concepts discussed reuse and improvise upon the existing NATO and commercial IoT standards for faster adoption. Finally, open research challenges are discussed as future research directions.

The major challenge in designing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to find tradeoff between the desired and contrary requirements for the lifetime, coverage or cost while coping with the computation, energy and communication constraints. This paper examines the optimal placement of nodes for a WSN. It is impossible to consider the deployment of the nodes separately from WSNs applications. We highlight the properties of WSNs applications that determine the placement problem. We identify and enumerate the various objectives that should be considered. The paper provides an overview and concentrates on multi-objective strategies, their assumptions, optimization problem formulation and results.