WEBINAR

Sampling methods for physiological signals in Internet of Medical Things systems

April 21 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm CEST

Abstract:
Wearable measurement systems have been currently spreading as personal devices for monitoring physiological parameters. In last years, such systems are going to be integrated in Internet of Things (IoT) systems where several acquisition nodes are simultaneously connected and managed. The acquisition nodes must comply the size and energy consumption requirements of wearable devices, while allowing the streaming of sampled signals such as the Electrocardiogram and the respiration wave and providing enough accuracy to guarantee the biosignal integrity. This is even harder when the device is connected to Wide Area Network IoT systems, characterized by a lower bandwidth and a higher power consumption. To face these problems, efficient sampling strategies can be adopted aiming to reduce the data rate to be transmitted and as a consequence the energy consumption. The seminar will present the state of art of sampling methods for physiological signals and will in particular deal with methods based on compressed sensing. Compared with the others, such methods offer a lower computational load on the acquisition node, by moving it to the reception side, which in the case of IoT systems, is usually realized in the cloud.

Biography:
Luca De Vito received the master’s (cum laude) degree in software engineering and the Ph.D. degree in information engineering from the University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. In 2002 he joined the Laboratory of Signal Processing and Measurement Information, University of Sannio, where he was involved in research activities. In 2008, he joined the Department of Engineering, University of Sannio, as an Assistant Professor in electric and electronic measurement. He became Associate Professor in the same Department in Jan. 2020. In Aug. 2018 he received the National Academic Qualification as Full Professor. He is member of the IEEE since 2010, he is member of the IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society (IMS), of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic System Society, and of the IEEE Standards Association. He is Senior Member of the IEEE since 2012. He member of the Armed Force Communication and Electronics Association (AFCEA) and is Young President of the AFCEA Naples Chapter. He is editor of Measurement and Measurement:Sensors (Elsevier) and Chapter Chair Liaison of the IEEE IMS. He was Technical Program Co-chair of the IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA) in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
He published more than 140 papers on international journals and conference proceedings, mainly dealing with measurements for the telecommunications, data converter testing and biomedical instrumentation.

Laboratory sessions in the coronavirus times

G.Mazzilli, F.Picariello, S.Rapuano
Department of Engineering, University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy

The emergency due to the spread of coronavirus, with the consequent continuation of the suspension of teaching activities in Italian Universities, fostered the reawaken of the debate on distance learning. The spread of the epidemic pushed all Universities in Italy and many abroad to adopt extensive forms of distance teaching [1]. Any type of school currently adopts similar solutions in Italy, from the primary ones [2]. The solutions chosen are the most different: web-based platforms for streaming lessons (Webex, Microsoft Teams, etc.) [3], YouTube, dedicated apps and finally, in some schools, the students’ parents receive the tasks for their children through group chats on WhatsApp.

While on one hand lectures on distance are supported by the availability of e-learning platforms, laboratory activities involving the use of electronic measurement instrumentation have not yet seen the necessary diffusion in the remote education context. This is even more surprising considering that widely used paradigms, like the Internet of Things, have the same enabling technologies as those used for the creation of remote laboratories.

Laboratory activity is in itself an educational challenge, because practical knowledge is critical to complete training in technical-scientific disciplines and therefore to educate good professionals. In particular, in teaching electrical and electronic measurement, from academic courses to life-long learning in the field, students should gain practical experience working under realistic conditions and using real instrumentation. However, the electrical and electronic measurement laboratories, both public and private, are not widespread, mainly because of their costs, and this complicates the training of specialist technicians, especially in the fields of process control, quality control and test engineering.

Remote control of instrumentation for carrying out real experiments via Internet has been a topic of interest for many researchers [4-6]. In particular, the University of Sannio, in collaboration with several Italian and foreign Universities and the Association of Electrical and Electronic Measurements Group, built the Remote Didactic Laboratory - LA.DI.RE. "G. Savastano" in the early 2000s, http://lms.misureremote.unisannio.it/ funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research through some PON projects. The LA.DI.RE. is a measurement laboratory remotely accessible. The heart of the services provided is the integration of a learning content management system with measurement instrumentation remotely controlled via Internet.

Based on the experience gained with the LA.DI.RE. pilot laboratory, considering the situation created by the spread of the coronavirus epidemic, the researchers of the measurement group of the University of Sannio updated of the remote control functionalities to allow students enrolled in the measurement courses of the University of Sannio to carry out remote experimental activities. The same approach could be extended to other disciplines that require the use of instrumentation in the laboratory.

For example, at the link:
http://lms.misureremote.unisannio.it/file.php/205/multimetro/index.html
the students registered on the Misureremote web platform can perform an experiment that aims to assess the uncertainty associated with measuring the voltage output of a voltage divider. The uncertainty must be assessed by the student according to the JGCM 100:2008 - Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement. This experiment is part of the courses of Electronic Measurement and Measurement Fundamentals held by Prof. Pasquale Daponte and Prof. Francesco Lamonaca within the degree programs in Electronic Engineering for Automation and Telecommunications and Energy Engineering respectively.

In addition to having all the documentation and manuals necessary to conduct the experiment and evaluate the readings of the instrument, the student can follow both a video tutorial on the correct execution of the experiment and observe, via a webcam, the instrumentation and the circuit used.

The remote experiment is a very simplified example of the advantages that remote access to laboratory instrumentation can offer to distance learning. The challenges and opportunities that underlie distance learning applied to laboratory activities are however common to the contexts allowing smart working approaches (another theme widely discussed during the world health emergency), as well as to the topics related to Industry 4.0. Think of the possibility for a worker to control his equipment from home and at the needed time, or the possibility of conducting long measurement campaigns in hostile or inaccessible environments.

[1]    https://www.agi.it/estero/news/2020-03-10/coronavirus-universita-usa-lezioni-online-7423733/
[2]    https://www.istruzione.it/coronavirus/didattica-a-distanza.html
[3]    http://www.regione.campania.it/regione/it/news/primo-piano/coronavirus
[4]    G.Canfora, P.Daponte, S.Rapuano, “Remotely accessible laboratory for electronic measurement teaching”. Computer Standards & Interfaces, vol.26, 2004, pp. 489–499.
[5]    A.Baccigalupi, M.Borsic, P.Carbone, P.Daponte, C.De Capua, A.Ferrero, D.Grimaldi, A.Liccardo, N.Locci, D.Macii, C.Muscas, L.Peretto, D.Petri, S.Rapuano, M.Riccio, S.Salicone, F.Stefani: “Remote didactic laboratory “G. Savastano”: the Italian experience for the e-learning at the technical universities in the field of the electrical and electronic measurements: architecture and optimization of the communication performance based on thin client technology”. IEEE Trans. on Instrumentation and Measurement, vol.56, No.4, August 2007, pp.1124-1134.
[6]    A.Baccigalupi, M.Borsic, P.Carbone, P.Daponte, C.De Capua, A.Ferrero, D.Grimaldi, A.Liccardo, N.Locci, D.Macii, C.Muscas, L.Peretto, D.Petri, S.Rapuano, M.Riccio, S.Salicone, F.Stefani: “Remote Didactic Laboratory “G. Savastano”: the Italian experience for the e-learning at the technical universities in the field of the electrical and electronic measurements: overview on didactic experiments”. IEEE Trans. on Instrum. and Meas., vol.56, No.4, August 2007, pp.1135-1147.