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A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 33616

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Javier Pereira

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Health Science, Universidade da Coruña (UDC), A Coruña, Spain
Interests: medical informatics; wearables and self-quantification; participatory medicine; telemedicine and tele-diagnostic; accessibility and assistive technologies for people with disabilities

Prof. Dr. Manuel Francisco González Penedo

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Guest Editor

CITIC Research Center, VARPA Group (University of La Coruña), Instituto de Investigación Biomédica (INIBIC), 15001 A Coruna, Spain
Interests: computer vision; medical image processing; artificial intelligence in health; learning systems; ophthalmological image; pattern recognition

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Thanks to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), we have progressed toward a society which has a bigger margin of possibilities and which has improved the quality of life for many. We are surrounded by new services and possibilities thanks to ICT development. Advances in medicine, population mobility, organization of society, agriculture, and in general quality of life are directly related to new developments in ICT.
In this Special Issue, we will be looking for papers that present significant advances in the field of ICT, projects with consolidated or incipient results that have a direct applicability to society. We are aiming to demonstrate how the advances in artificial intelligence, data science and engineering, or communications, influence areas such as robotics, e-learning, telework, telemedicine, industry 4.0, the digitalization of society, and any other fields regardING which outcomes will show a better, humane society.

Here are some topic examples we are looking for:

Application of IoT technology to improve the quality of life of people with chronic diseases or elderly people living in isolation;
New natural language processing algorithms to manage personal assistants by voice applied to the digital home;
Artificial intelligence models that improve the search for information on the Internet;
Robotics applied to work in situations of risk for human beings;
Artificial intelligence in eLearning platforms, etc.

Prof. Dr. Javier Pereira
Prof. Dr. Manuel Francisco González Penedo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence
Data Science And Engineering
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
Computer Vision
Population Monitoring
Big Data
5g Communication
Positive Technology

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 4657 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development of a MyData Platform Based on the Personal Health Record Data Sharing System in Korea

by Wona Choi, Ji-Won Chun, Seo-Joon Lee, Se-Hyun Chang, Dai-Jin Kim and In Young Choi

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(17), 8208; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11178208 - 03 Sep 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3554

Abstract

Objectives: recently, there has been a government-level movement to guarantee the rights of individual entities regarding the use of their personal data worldwide. This movement has been specifically named as ‘MyData’ in South Korea and has variants such as ‘Self data’, ‘Midata’, ‘MesInfos’, ‘Personal Information Management Services’, ‘Personal Data Economy’ and ‘Internet of Me’ in other countries. This research project aimed to establish and demonstrate a system called ‘HiMD’, which allows individuals to select data sharing institutions and control a range of data utilization parameters under the MyData ecosystem. Method: we developed the MyData Platform, a personal health record data sharing system. The HiMD included several user-empowerment functions such as self-determination for data sharing. Actual platform users were recruited from three university-level hospitals for system assessment. Result: females comprised the majority of users with 991 participants (78.1%). Additionally, data consensus results revealed a decrease in given user permissions (from 94.9% to 79.4%) as the range and depth of permissions increased. Most users agreed to open their medical data for commercial uses (n = 1007, 79.4%) and most of those users were interested in DNA analysis (n = 888, 81.2%). Finally, all results for the five questions presented positive answers. All average values on the five questions scored above three on the Likert scale. In other words, over 50% participants gave point 4 and point 5. Conclusion: the contribution of this study is that it developed and demonstrated a MyData system that reflects the right to data portability. It means that the users can proactively make decisions regarding sharing and transferring their own data. These results are expected to contribute to developing future personal health record (PHR) systems of user-oriented and utilization of personal health data. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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8 pages, 465 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Throughput and Packet Loss Probability Analysis of Long Range Wide Area Network

by Ji-Young Jung and Jung-Ryun Lee

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(17), 8091; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11178091 - 31 Aug 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1816

Abstract

Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is the one of the promising low power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies at present and is expected to grow in the foreseeable future as a tool to provide connectivity among small things. In this paper, we present a simple analytical model to compute the throughput and packet loss probability of Medium Access Control (MAC) for Class-A of LoRaWAN. This analysis results can be used as a reference for deploying the appropriate number of end-devices (EDs) that can be accepted in a gateway (GW) while maximizing network throughput or guaranteeing the packet loss rate of EDs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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16 pages, 2163 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Adaptive Model for Biofeedback Data Flows Management in the Design of Interactive Immersive Environments

by Paulo Veloso Gomes, António Marques, João Donga, Catarina Sá, António Correia and Javier Pereira

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 5067; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11115067 - 30 May 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3423

Abstract

The interactivity of an immersive environment comes up from the relationship that is established between the user and the system. This relationship results in a set of data exchanges between human and technological actors. The real-time biofeedback devices allow to collect in real time the biodata generated by the user during the exhibition. The analysis, processing and conversion of these biodata into multimodal data allows to relate the stimuli with the emotions they trigger. This work describes an adaptive model for biofeedback data flows management used in the design of interactive immersive systems. The use of an affective algorithm allows to identify the types of emotions felt by the user and the respective intensities. The mapping between stimuli and emotions creates a set of biodata that can be used as elements of interaction that will readjust the stimuli generated by the system. The real-time interaction generated by the evolution of the user’s emotional state and the stimuli generated by the system allows him to adapt attitudes and behaviors to the situations he faces. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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18 pages, 1504 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Eye State Identification Based on Discrete Wavelet Transforms

by Francisco Laport, Paula M. Castro, Adriana Dapena, Francisco J. Vazquez-Araujo and Oscar Fresnedo

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 5051; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11115051 - 29 May 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1964

Abstract

We present a prototype to identify eye states from electroencephalography signals captured from one or two channels. The hardware is based on the integration of low-cost components, while the signal processing algorithms combine discrete wavelet transform and linear discriminant analysis. We consider different parameters: nine different wavelets and two features extraction strategies. A set of experiments performed in real scenarios allows to compare the performance in order to determine a configuration with high accuracy and short response delay. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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28 pages, 5010 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Holonic Reengineering to Foster Sustainable Cyber-Physical Systems Design in Cognitive Manufacturing

by Alejandro Martín-Gómez, María Jesús Ávila-Gutiérrez and Francisco Aguayo-González

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(7), 2941; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11072941 - 25 Mar 2021

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 3562

Abstract

Value chain is identified as the generator of the metabolic rift between nature and society. However, the sustainable value chain can mitigate and reverse this rift. In this paper, firstly, a review of the main digital enablers of Industry 4.0 and the current state of cognitive manufacturing is carried out. Secondly, Cyber-Physical Systems are conceived from the holonic paradigm, as an organizational enabler for the whole of enablers. Thirdly, the bijective relationship between holonic paradigm and container-based technology is analyzed. This technology allows mapping the physical and virtual holon as an intelligent agent embodied at the edge, fog and cloud level, with physical and virtual part. Finally, the proposed holonic system based on the cyber-physical holon is developed through multi-agent systems based on container technology. The proposed system allows to model the metabolism of manufacturing systems, from a cell manufacturing to whole value chain, in order to develop, evolve and improve the sustainable value chain. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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17 pages, 12412 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Development of an Automatic Low-Cost Air Quality Control System: A Radon Application

by Alberto Alvarellos, Andrea Lopez Chao, Juan Ramón Rabuñal, María D. García-Vidaurrázaga and Alejandro Pazos

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(5), 2169; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11052169 - 01 Mar 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1854

Abstract

Air pollution is the fourth-largest overall risk factor for human health worldwide. Ambient air pollution (outdoors) and household air pollution (indoors) cause about 6.5 million premature deaths. The World Health Organization has established that between 3% and 14% of lung cancer cases are due to radon gas, making it the most important cause of lung cancer after smoking. This work presents a fully automated, low-cost indoor air quality control system that can monitor temperature, pressure, humidity, total volatile organic compounds (TOVC), and radon concentration. Using the radon concentration as an air quality measure, we created a prediction algorithm. The system uses those predictions to control a ventilation system automatically. We tested the algorithm for different prediction windows and compared the results with those without the ventilation system in a radon research room. In this room, the radon concentration is high 100% of the time, reaching a level eleven times higher than the recommended limit. The results show that the system can achieve an 86% reduction of the radon concentration, maintaining it low 90% of the time while having the ventilation system on during only 34% of the time. This work demonstrates that we can control air quality using low-cost resources, keeping a household or workplace safe but comfortable. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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10 pages, 909 KiB

Open AccessArticle

First Multiplatform Application for Pharmacies in Spain, Which Guides the Prescription of Probiotics According to Pathology

by Sara Alvarez-Gonzalez, Jose Rodriguez-Fernandez, Ana Belen Porto-Pazos, Alejandro Pazos and Francisco Cedron

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(4), 1572; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11041572 - 09 Feb 2021

Viewed by 1905

Abstract

The study of the intestinal microbiota is one of the biggest challenges in the current clinical environment. In this context, probiotics have been a focus of interest to achieve the stability of the intestinal microbiota, due to probiotics’ key role in its regulation. The development of an automated system that allows practitioners to easily search for the optimal probiotic is the main objective of this study. Although it is true that there have been previous attempts of applications with this purpose, only authorized probiotics available in the countries of origin, Canada and the USA, were included. This event was a limitation when looking for those endorsed in other countries such as Spain. Thus, a system has been developed from free and multiplatform technologies that allow its use without any cost, finding, in a simple way, those probiotics that would be ideal for each pathology, either from a browser or from a cell phone. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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17 pages, 393 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Energy Efficient Secure Communication Model against Cooperative Eavesdropper

by Akashkumar Rajaram, Dushnatha Nalin K. Jayakody, Rui Dinis and Marko Beko

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(4), 1563; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11041563 - 09 Feb 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1489

Abstract

In a wiretap channel system model, the jammer node adopts the energy-harvesting signal as artificial noise (jamming signal) against the cooperative eavesdroppers. There are two eavesdroppers in the wiretap channel: eavesdropper E1 is located near the transmitter and eavesdropper E2 is located near the jammer. The eavesdroppers are equipped with multiple antennas and employ the iterative block decision feedback equalization decoder to estimate the received signal, i.e., information signal at E1 and jamming signal at E2. It is assumed that E1 has the channel state information (CSI) of the channel between transmitter and E1, and similarly, E2 has the CSI of channel between jammer and E2. The eavesdroppers establish communication link between them and cooperate with each other to reduce the information signal interference at E2 and jamming signal interference at E1. The performance of decoders depends on the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) of the received signal. The power of information signal is fixed and the power of the jamming signal is adjusted to improve the SINR of the received signal. This research work is solely focused on optimizing the jamming signal power to degrade the performance of cooperative eavesdroppers. The jamming signal power is optimized for the given operating SINR with the support of simulated results. The jamming signal power optimization leads to better energy conservation and degrades the performance of eavesdroppers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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12 pages, 2158 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Utilization of a Mobile Application for Motor Skill Evaluation in Children

by David Moreno Naya, Francisco J. Vazquez-Araujo, Paula M. Castro, Jamile Vivas Costa, Adriana Dapena and Luz González Doniz

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(2), 663; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11020663 - 12 Jan 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2272

Abstract

The detection of needs in educational reinforcement must be done in the early stages of childhood during primary education to improve the acquisition of motor skills. An adequate early intervention can solve some detected difficulties, thus contributing to children’s motor progress and mitigating possible deficiencies such as weak motor coordination. In this work, we present a mobile application (app) that allows physiotherapists to design activities for the evaluation of motor skills. These activities can be adapted to the child’s progress and the corresponding reinforcement needs. We tested the app with children from ages 6 to 12, corresponding to the six primary school grades. The results show that these children did not have notable motor difficulties, although children in lower primary school years showed a higher level of error in movement precision. The results allow us to establish reference values for a future comparison with collectives with motor difficulties. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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23 pages, 6933 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Creating Collaborative Augmented Reality Experiences for Industry 4.0 Training and Assistance Applications: Performance Evaluation in the Shipyard of the Future

by Aida Vidal-Balea, Oscar Blanco-Novoa, Paula Fraga-Lamas, Miguel Vilar-Montesinos and Tiago M. Fernández-Caramés

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(24), 9073; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app10249073 - 18 Dec 2020

Cited by 42 | Viewed by 4905

Abstract

Industrial Augmented Reality (IAR) is one of the key technologies pointed out by the Industry 4.0 paradigm as a tool for improving industrial processes and for maximizing worker efficiency. Training and assistance are two of the most popular IAR-enabled applications, since they may significantly facilitate, support, and optimize production and assembly tasks in industrial environments. This article presents an IAR collaborative application developed jointly by Navantia, one of the biggest European shipbuilders, and the University of A Coruña (Spain). The analysis, design, and implementation of such an IAR application are described thoroughly so as to enable future developers to create similar IAR applications. The IAR application is based on the Microsoft HoloLens smart glasses and is able to assist and to guide shipyard operators during their training and in assembly tasks. The proposed IAR application embeds a novel collaborative protocol that allows operators to visualize and interact in a synchronized way with the same virtual content. Thus, all operators that share an IAR experience see each virtual object positioned at the same physical spot and in the same state. The collaborative application is first evaluated and optimized in terms of packet communications delay and anchor transmission latency, and then, its validation in a shipyard workshop by Navantia’s operators is presented. The performance results show fast response times for regular packets (less than 5 ms), low interference rates in the 5 GHz band, and an anchor transmission latency of up to 30 s. Regarding the validation tests, they allow for obtaining useful insights and feedback from the industrial operators, as well as clear guidelines that will help future developers to face the challenges that will arise when creating the next generation of IAR applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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21 pages, 3751 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Implementation and Performance Evaluation of the Frequency-Domain-Based Bit Flipping Controller for Stabilizing the Single-Bit High-Order Interpolative Sigma Delta Modulators

by Huishan Zhai and Bingo Wing-Kuen Ling

Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(17), 5785; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app10175785 - 21 Aug 2020

Viewed by 1265

Abstract

This paper is an extension of the existing works on the frequency-domain-based bit flipping control strategy for stabilizing the single-bit high-order interpolative sigma delta modulator. In particular, this paper proposes the implementation and performs the performance evaluation of the control strategy. For the implementation, a frequency detector is used to detect the resonance frequencies of the input sequence of the sigma delta modulator. Then, a neural-network-based controller is used for finding the solution of the integer programming problem. Finally, the buffers and the combinational logic gates as well as an inverter are used for implementing the proposed control strategy. For the performance evaluation, the stability region in terms of the input dynamical range is evaluated. It is found that the control strategy can significantly increase the input dynamical range from 0.24 to 0.58. Besides, the control strategy can be applied to a wider class of the input signals compared to the clipping method. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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Review

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20 pages, 506 KiB

Open AccessReview

Applicability of Clinical Decision Support in Management among Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery in Intensive Care Unit: A Systematic Review

by Miguel Pereira, Patricia Concheiro-Moscoso, Alexo López-Álvarez, Gerardo Baños, Alejandro Pazos and Javier Pereira

Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(6), 2880; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11062880 - 23 Mar 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2826

Abstract

The advances achieved in recent decades regarding cardiac surgery have led to a new risk that goes beyond surgeons’ dexterity; postoperative hours are crucial for cardiac surgery patients and are usually spent in intensive care units (ICUs), where the patients need to be continuously monitored to adjust their treatment. Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) have been developed to take this real-time information and provide clinical suggestions to physicians in order to reduce medical errors and to improve patient recovery. In this review, an initial total of 499 papers were considered after identification using PubMed, Web of Science, and CINAHL. Twenty-two studies were included after filtering, which included the deletion of duplications and the exclusion of titles or abstracts that were not of real interest. A review of these papers concluded the applicability and advances that CDSSs offer for both doctors and patients. Better prognosis and recovery rates are achieved by using this technology, which has also received high acceptance among most physicians. However, despite the evidence that well-designed CDSSs are effective, they still need to be refined to offer the best assistance possible, which may still take time, despite the promising models that have already been applied in real ICUs. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT))

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