PUBLICATIONS

Frailty Insights Detection System (FIDS) – A Comprehensive and Intuitive Dashboard Using Artificial Intelligence and Web Technologies

Authors: Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Gabriel-Vasilică Sasu, Nicolae Goga, Andrei Vasilățeanu, Iuliana Marin, Ionel-Bujorel Păvăloiu, Claudiu Teodor Ion Gligore
Journal: Applied Sciences, vol. 14, no. 16, pp. 1-23, 2024
Summary: Frailty, known as a syndrome affecting the elderly, have a direct impact on both social well-being and body’s ability to function properly. Specific to geriatric healthcare, the early detection of frailty helps the specialists to mitigate risks of severe health outcomes. This article presents the development process of a system used to determine frailty-specific parameters, focusing on easy-to-use, non-intrusive nature and reliance on objectively measured parameters. The multitude of methodologies and metrics involved in frailty assessment emphasize the multidimensional aspects of this process and the lack of a common and widely accepted methodology as being the gold standard. After the research phase, the frailty-specific parameters considered are physical activity, energy expenditure, unintentional weight loss, and exhaustion, along with additional parameters like daily sedentary time, steps history, heart rate, and body mass index. The system architecture, artificial intelligence models, feature selection, and final prototype results are presented. The last section addresses the challenges, limitations, and future work related to the Frailty Insights Detection System.

Advancing Medical Education through the cINnAMON Web Application

Authors: Iuliana Marin
Published: Proceedings of the 16th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation, 13-15 November 2023
Summary: The cINnAMON EUREKA Traditional project endeavors to revolutionize indoor lighting positioning and monitoring through the integration of intelligent devices and advanced sensor technologies. This article presents the prototypes developed for various project components and explores their potential application in medical education, particularly for aspiring healthcare professionals. The current variant of the intelligent bulb prototype offers a comparative analysis of the project’s bulb against commercially available smart bulbs, shedding light on its superior efficiency and capabilities. Furthermore, the initial smart bracelet prototype showcases its ability to collect and analyze data from an array of built-in sensors, empowering medical students to evaluate fragility levels based on accelerometer, gyroscope, orientation, and heart rate data. Leveraging trilateration and optimization algorithms, the intelligent location module enables precise monitoring of individuals’ positions within a building, enhancing medical students’ understanding of patient localization in healthcare settings. In addition, the recognition of human activity module harnesses data from the bracelet’s sensors to classify different activities, providing medical students with invaluable insights into patients’ daily routines and mobility patterns. The user’s personal profile module facilitates seamless user registration and access to the comprehensive services offered by the cINnAMON system, empowering medical students to collect patient data for analysis and aiding doctors in making informed healthcare decisions. With the telemonitoring system, medical students can remotely monitor patients by configuring sensors in their homes, thus enabling a deeper understanding of remote patient management. The cINnAMON web application serves as a powerful tool for medical students, presenting patient data in both tabular and graphical formats, allowing for comprehensive analysis and visualization. Moreover, medical students can set personalized thresholds for monitoring conditions, receiving timely notifications and alerts when patients’ health parameters deviate from normal ranges. Finally, the prototype testing phase ensures the fulfillment of functional requirements, meticulous defect identification, and proactive risk mitigation, reinforcing the reliability and efficacy of the cINnAMON EUREKA Traditional project. By integrating the cINnAMON web application into medical education, aspiring healthcare professionals can harness its multifaceted features to enhance their clinical skills, broaden their understanding of patient care, and embrace the potential of cutting-edge technology in the field of medicine.

Prototype Results of an Internet of Things System Using Wearables and Artificial Intelligence for the Detection of Frailty in Elderly People

Authors: Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Gabriel-Vasilică Sasu, Nicolae Goga, Andrei Vasilățeanu, Iuliana Marin, Maria Goga, Ramona Popovici, Gora Datta
Journal: Applied Sciences, MDPI
Topic: Smart applications and wearable devices

Summary: As society moves towards a preventative approach to healthcare, there is growing interest in scientific research involving technology that can monitor and prevent adverse health outcomes. The primary objective of this paper is to develop an Internet of Things (IoT) wearable system based on Fried’s phenotype that is capable of detecting frailty. To determine user requirements, the system’s architecture was designed based on the findings of a questionnaire administered to individuals confirmed to be frail. A functional prototype was successfully developed and tested under real-world conditions. This paper introduces the methodology that was used to analyze the data collected from the prototype. It proposes an interdisciplinary approach to interpret wearable sensor data, providing a comprehensive overview through both visual representations and computational analyses facilitated by machine learning models. The findings of these analyses offer insights into the ways in which different types of activities can be classified and quantified as part of an overall physical activity level, which is recognized as an important indicator of frailty. The results provide the foundations for a new generation of affordable and non-intrusive systems able to detect and assess early signs of frailty.

Architecture of a Non-Intrusive IoT System for Frailty Detection in Older People

Authors: Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Gabriel-Vasilică Sasu, Nicolae Goga, Andrei Vasilățeanu, Alexandru-Filip Popovici
Journal: Electronics, MDPI
Topic: Smart applications and wearable devices

Summary: Early detection of frailty is one of the main challenges in the world we live in. Being aware of physiologic and behavior changes can predict and prevent the onset of mental complications for older people. By using modern technologies, one can get insights, which may help detection of different pathologies. In this paper, preliminary results for a novel system to detect early signs of frailty are presented. A prototype was developed and tested in laboratory conditions after requirements and functional capabilities were defined. The main advantages of the proposed architecture are the usage of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components and custom mechanisms of security to assure a high level of confidentiality and integrity of user-specific data. Other original elements are its easy-to-use and non-intrusive characteristics.

A Quantitative Research for Determining the User Requirements for Developing a System to Detect Depression

Authors: Vasilică-Gabriel Sasu, Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Ramona Popovici, Alexandru-Filip Popovici, Nicolae Goga, Gora Datta
Published: 2021 International Conference on e-Health and Bioengineering (EHB)

Purpose: Smart apps and wearables devices are an increasingly used way in healthcare to monitor a range of functions associated with certain health conditions. Even if in the present there are some devices and applications developed, there is no sufficient evidence of the use of such wearables devices in the detection of some disorders such as depression. Thus, through this paper, we want to address this need and present a quantitative research to determine the user requirements for developing a smart device that can detect depression. Material and Methods: To determine the user requirements for developing a system to detect depression we developed a questionnaire which was applied to 205 participants. Results and conclusions: Such a system addressed to detect depression is of interest among the respondents. The most essential parameters to be monitored refer to sleep quality, level of stress, circadian rhythm, and heart rate. Also, the developed system should prioritize reliability, privacy, security, and ease of use.

A Quantitative Research for Determining the User Requirements for Developing a System to Assist People with Frailty

Authors: Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Vasilică-Gabriel Sasu, Andrei Vasilățeanu, Nicolae Goga, Ramona Dragomir, Alexandru-Filip Popovici
Published: 23rd International Conference on Control Systems and Computer Science (CSCS), 26-28 May 2021.

Frailty is a clinical syndrome prevalent among the older population, characterized by unintentional weight loss, exhaustion being associated with a decline in cognitive and physiological functions. Ambient Assisted Living can be used for coping through solutions based on smart devices that help older people to cope with frailty. In this paper, we present a quantitative research to determine the user requirements for developing a system to assist people with frailty.

Improved Secure Internet of Things System using Web Services and Low Power Single-board Computers

Authors: Bogdan-Iulian Ciubotaru, Vasilică-Gabriel Sasu, Dan Alexandru Mitrea, Nicolae Goga, Andrei Vasilățeanu
Published: International Conference on e-Health and Bioengineering (EHB), 29-30 October 2020.
Internet of Things (IoT) systems are becoming widely used, which makes them to be a high-value target for both hackers and crackers. From gaining access to sensitive information to using them as bots for complex attacks, the variety of advantages after exploiting different security vulnerabilities makes the security of IoT devices to be one of the most challenging desideratum for cyber security experts. In this paper, we will propose a new IoT system, designed to ensure five data principles: confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication and authorization. The innovative aspects are both the usage of a web-based communication and a custom dynamic data request structure.