A Grid Based Collaborative Distributed System for E-Learning Design and Production by Wip Edizioni Srl

This book has been realized under the Sfinge Project. Sfinge is Cofunded by the European Union, P.O. FESR Regione Puglia 2007-2013 – Asse I Linea 1.2 – Azione 1.2.4 Bando Aiuti a Sostegno dei Partenariati Regionali per l’Innovazione “Investiamo nel vostro futuro”

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Contents

Foreword – Giovanni Aloisio – University of Salento, Lecce, Italy �� IX Preface – Marcello Castellano – Polytechnic of Bari, Italy �� XI

Part 1 Introduction �� 3 Chapter 1 - A practical approach in e-learning design and production �� 5 Fanelli N. V., Cassa A., Carpano R. A. – Genesis Consulting srlu Chapter 2 - Virtual Organization and Portal Integration �� 25 Corriero N. – Dept. of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic of Bari Zhupa E. - University of Information Science and Technology, Ohrid, Macedonia Chapter 3 – A Workflow-based System for Collaborative e-learning Production �� 43 Tangaro M. A. – Dept. of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic of Bari Chapter 4 - A Grid based e-learning environment: Globus services development and web portal integration �� 59 Del Vino T., Zaccheo G. – Genesis Consulting srlu Castellano M. – Dept of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic of Bari Chapter 5 - Case study: the realization of the e-learning prototype �� 87 Castellano M., Corriero N., Tangaro M. A. – Dept. of Electrical and Information Engineering - Polytechnic of Bari Carpano R. A, Cassa A., Del Vino T., Zaccheo G. – Genesis Consulting srlu Chapter 6 - Cloud@ReCaS: resources for the SFINGE project �� 99 Maggi G. - INFN Bari / Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin”, Polytechnic of Bari Giannuzzi F., Tinelli E., Ventola F. - Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin”, University of Bari Antonacci M., Donvito G., Italiano A, Nicotri S, Valentini R. – INFN Bari

VII

Part 2 Chapter 7 - A General Purpose Framework for Grid Resource Exploitation ��109 Fella A., Tomassetti L. – Dept. of Mathematics and Computer Science/INFN Ferrara Chapter 8 - Recommender Systems in Distance Learning Environments ��139 Di Bitonto P., Pesare E., Roselli T., Rossano V. - Dept. of Computer Science, University of Bari Chapter 9 - Brain structural image analysis on a distributed infrastructure ��153 Amoroso N., Bellotti R. - INFN Bari / Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin”, University of Bari Maggi G. - INFN Bari / Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin”, Polytechnic of Bari Errico R., Tateo A. - Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica “M. Merlin”, University of Bari Antonacci M., Donvito G., Monaco A., Notarangelo P., Tangaro S. – INFN Bari Chapter 10 - Collaborative Models for Health Prevention Programs: an approach based on Knowledge Engineering and Precede-Proceed framework ��167 Pesare A., Stifini R. - Azienda Sanitaria Locale (ASL) di Taranto – Dipartimento di Prevenzione Chapter 11 - Pervasive Distributed Sensor Grid Approach for Personal Safety and Telemedicine ��197 Giorgio A. – Dept. of Electrical and Information Engineering, Polytechnic of Bari

VIII

Foreword

by Giovanni Aloisio* In the 1990s, the scientific community started working on the development of new computing infrastructures, based on distributed and heterogeneous resources, able to solve the computational requirements of grand challenging applications. These efforts allowed the consolidation of Grid Computing as a new paradigm to access computing on demand and to securely manage geographically spread resources. Both in US (within the US Grid Forum) and Europe (within the European Grid Forum), researchers were strongly involved on the development of grid middleware and its efficient and secure operation in several application contexts. Later on, in 1999, the US Grid Forum, the European Grid Forum and the Asia-Pacific Grid Forum merged into the Global Grid Forum (GGF), now Open Grid Forum (OGF). Several projects on Grid computing were funded by the national and international Agencies. At the European level, the EU/US joint workshop on “Large Scientific Databases” (Annapolis September 1999), which was supported by the US National Science Foundation and the European Commission, can be considered as the starting point of the huge investments on Grid computing projects made by the European Commission. The workshop results were indeed presented as white paper to the EU leaders and gave birth to the first European project on Grid computing (Datagrid). The research efforts made by the international scientific community on Grid computing paved the way for the development of technologies for resources virtualization leading to the Cloud computing paradigm, today extensively accepted and used by researchers, scientists and industries as the pay-per-use model to cheaply access remote hardware and storage resources. 25 years later, the Grid paradigm is still alive, as shown in this book where the results of the SFINGE (Solution Framework for Interoperable Network in Grid E-learning) project are reported, together with contributions from several experts on challenging topics related to grid and cloud computing for e-learning and more generally on collaborative and distributed systems.

* Giovanni Aloisio is Full professor of Information Processing Systems at the Dept. of Innovation Engineering of the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy, where he leads the HPC laboratory. Former director of the “Advanced Scientific Computing” (ASC) Division at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), he is now a member of the CMCC Strategic Council and Director of the CMCC Supercomputing Center. His expertise concerns high performance computing, grid & cloud computing and distributed data management. From 1986 to 1990 he contributed to the Caltech

Concurrent Computation Program (C3P) led by Geoffrey C. Fox at the California Institute of Technology, investigating the efficiency of the Hypercube architecture in Real-Time SAR data processing. From 1991 to 1994, he collaborated with the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) led by Paul Messina at the California Institute of Technology on High Performance Distributed Computing projects. He also collaborated with Carl Kesselman of the Information Sciences Institute on the use of Computational Grids for the management of large collections of scientific data. He has been a co-founder of the European Grid Forum (Egrid), which then merged into the Global Grid Forum (GGF), now Open Grid Forum (OGF). He has been involved into several EU grid projects such as GridLab, EGEE, IS-ENES1. He has been responsible for ENES (European Network for Earth System Modelling) in the EU-FP7 EESI (European Exascale Software Initiative) project, chairing the Working Group on Weather, Climate and solid Earth Sciences (WCES). He has also contributed to the IESP (International Exascale Software Project) exascale roadmap. He has been the chair of the European panel of experts on WCES that has contributed to the PRACE strategic document â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Scientific Case for HPC in Europe 2015-2020â&#x20AC;?. Presently, he is coordinating CMCC activities into several EU FP7 projects such as EUBrazilCC, IS-ENES2, CLIP-C and the G8 ExArch. As CMCC, he is also the coordinator of the OFIDIA (Operational FIre Danger preventIon plAtform) project, in the context of the European Territorial Cooperation Program Greece-Italy 2007-2013. He is responsible for the University of Salento (as PRACE Third Party) in the EU-FP7 EESI2 project, chairing the WCES Working Group. He is a member of the ENES HPC Task Force. He is the author of more than 100 papers in referred journals on high performance computing, grid & cloud computing and distributed data management.

Preface

by Marcello Castellano*

In this book the results of the Solution Framework for Interoperable Network in Grid e-learning project are presented, together with other relevant contributions on grid and cloud computing, e-learning and more generally on the collaborative and distributed systems. The main objective of the SFINGE project is the creation of an organized virtual workspace, which can support an aggregated and competitive production capability to face the increasing market challenges. This production capability is supported by a collaborative strategy between different organizations to create a virtual organization composed by distributed resources and common objectives. The costs decrease, while the efficiency increases. The solution is interesting if applied to small enterprises, which can find in the resource aggregation, with a coordinated development of the activities, a high quality and competitive proposal to establish themselves as actors in a complex marketplace. The chapters in the first part describe the architectural choices, technologies, concepts, developments and results of SFINGE, for the e-learning application. Particular emphasis is given to the Virtual Organization, web-portal, workflow, grid computing and to the demonstrator of the project using the Cloud@ReCaS infrastructure. The introduction of the book presents and summarizes the Part 1. Acknowledges the authors of the second part of the book, that with their contributions highlighted the worth of the project topics. Particular thanks to Roberto Bellotti, Giorgio Maggi, Teresa Roselli, Veronica Rossano and Luca Tomassetti. I thanks to the colleagues of the Department of Electrical and Information Engineering (DEI) – Polytechnic of Bari, with many of them I exchanged interesting ideas and solved many problems during the project. Many thanks to the administrative staff of the Polytechnic, ensuring the regularly our activities. A special thanks to Lucio Fanelli, Chief Executive of Genesis Consulting, lead partner of the project; in particular, to Graziana Zaccheo, Assunta Cassa, Tiziano Del Vino, Rosaria Carpano and to Marco Giannini and Angelo Roscino. Acknowledgment to Agostino Giorgio, Nicola Corriero and Marco Tangaro. I wish to express my gratitude to Giovanni Aloisio, University of Salento-Lecce. I like to think this is just a first step for a long and exciting journey with all the colleagues and young researchers of the project team, for our “little contribution” towards a better future. * Marcello Castellano is Assistant professor of Information Processing Systems at the Electrical and Information Engineering Dept., Polytechnic of Bari, Italy, where he coordinates the Distributed Systems laboratory. – www.marcellocastellano.it

Part 1

Introduction

Marcello Castellano Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Informazione

Distributed systems are responsible of the coordination of computing resources to achieve specific objectives, aiming to realize a collaboration between heterogeneous computing systems. There are different distributed systems, such as those oriented to support computing, information and pervasiveness. In this context the marketplace study has a critical role. In particular, the increasing request of competitiveness and flexibility, by Small and Medium Enterprises and more generally in the manufacturing system, is a strategic opportunity. Distributed system based approaches propose competitive advantages, improving processes and products. Information and Communication Technologies allow to exploit new types of organizations providing new standards of flexibility and efficiency. A collaborative network is a dynamical infrastructure able to rapidly react to changing conditions, providing good intuitive approaches to face the challenges of the society. A critical point is, however, how to guarantee the basic requirements to enable such collaboration, i.e. the formation of any collaborative structure depends on its members, common and compatible objectives, established common and interoperable infrastructures and common (business) practices and values. These are the unavoidable pre-requisites to achieve agility and integration in collaborative networks. The SFINGE Collaboration proposes a collaborative approach between different organizations for e-learning development, based on virtual organization, workflow and grid computing. In the chapter 1, entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;A practical approach in e-learning design and productionâ&#x20AC;?, a reference model for the e-learning production process is taken into account. It is described as workflow in terms of People, Process and Product

A grid-based collaborative distributed system for e-learning design and production

specialized by Rapid e-learning Authoring and Design model. The phases, roles, responsibility and actions have been defined. In the second chapter, “Virtual Organization Integration in e-learning Environment” the Virtual Organization (VO) definition in the SFINGE Collaboration is described. It is a coordinated group of individuals and/or institutions, collaborating for common interests and sharing, on the basis of common policies, a set of resources. Moreover, Liferay is described to develop the portal and the virtual space of the system. In chapter 3, “A Workflow-based System for Collaborative e-learning Production”, is shown as the workflow technology allows the management of different activities. The Kaleo Workflow Management System coordinate the human resources and the execution of the different parts of a business process, ensuring flexibility and efficiency. Examples of Kaleo programming using the xml markup language to describe different workflows for different e-learning phases are shown. In “A Grid based e-learning environment: Globus services development and web portal integration” (chapter 4) the grid architecture and the related services are presented. The grid support the virtual organization, in terms of security and resource sharing, to develop the SFINGE system. The case study is presented in the chapter 5 for the prototype realization. Finally, in the chapter 6, the research collaboration with the INFN Bari Computer Center of Science BC2S, to integrate the SFINGE system demonstrator on the ReCaS/PRISMA facility, is described.

Chapter 1

A practical approach in e-learning design and production

Fanelli N. V., Cassa A. and Carpano R. A. Genesis Consulting S.r.l.u. Via Amendola, 172/C c/o Executive Center -70126 -Bari fanelli@genesisconsulting.it, vge@genesisconsulting.it, rosycarpano@gmail.com

Introduction

Genesis Consulting, (S.M.L.L.C.)1, a leading company involved in the SFINGE (Solution Framework for Interoperable Network in Grid E-learning) project, has developed an experimental activity for design, production and management of an e-learning platform. The goal of the SFINGE project is focused on the construction of an innovative training platform based on e-learning support. Main improvements of the SFINGE project can be recognized in terms of technology transfer changing from focus on product/process of traditional training (in classroom) to teaching/training characterizing e-learning processes. The SFINGE system aims to organize in a collaborative way e-learning training activities and is addressed to create a network of companies operating in the production and diffusion of educational (training) content through information and communication technologies. Sharing of digital resources is essential (crucial) in such contest. Planning and management of the SFINGE design have been conducted in a controlled mode:  developing the basic steps to execute the project  providing information (data and basic requirements) to carry out design activities  identifying manger/supervisor in charge of different phases of the project 1

Single Member Limited Liability Company.

Chapter 2

Virtual Organization and Portal Integration Corriero N.1,Zhupa E.2 1Politecnico di Bari - Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrotecnica e dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Informazione nicolacorriero@gmail.com 2University of Information Science and Technology, Ohrid, Macedonia e.zhupa@gmail.com

1 Introduction In this chapter, we discuss the concepts behind the Virtual Organization and how they were used and implemented within a complex system such as the management of e-learning content. We explain the concept of virtual organization, the external interface of the system, the individual components and their interaction within the organization. Finally, we talk about details on the implementation of the Virtual Organization within the SFINGE project. 2 Virtual Organization The area of Virtual Organizations as a main component of the new discipline of Collaborative Networks has been particularly active in Europe where a large number of R&D projects have been funded. The fast evolution of the information and communication technologies and in particular the so-called Internet technologies, also represents an important motivator for the emergence of new forms of collaboration [1]. In general, Virtual Organizations (VO) can be defined as a coordinated group of individuals and/or institutions who collaborate for a common interest and share, on the basis of some policies, a set of resources (processors, instruments, data and services) [2]. The element that characterizes the participants of a VO is the common purpose or business goal. The participants of a VO share resources and establish sharing rules in order to obtain a common objective. Members of a VO can be geographically distributed and can access to the resources any time they are allowed. In order to implement a Virtual Organization, many problems must be resolved. In fact, the VO is a dynamic environment, in which resources and/or

Chapter 3

A Workflow-based System for Collaborative e-learning Production

Tangaro, M. A. Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Informazione Via Orabona,4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 70126 Bari, Italy ma.tangaro@gmail.com

Introduction

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) rule and automate the work execution facilitating the collaborative work. In particular, the workflow technology allows the operational implementation of a business process of an organization. At present many enterprises and institutions use the workflow technology to support their own business processes, making easier to monitor the progress of a case through the workflow and to revise the structure of the flow itself. The SFINGE project [1] (Solution Framework for Interoperable Network in Grid E-learning) aims to create a distributed environment for e-learning production, where different organizations share their own resources (hardware, software, learning materials, knowledge) to improve their own competitiveness and to achieve common objectives. The production of e-learning contents foresee a specific sequence of activities and a specific set of roles. In this context, the workflow technology allows the management of different activities for different roles, through task assignment, time control and team members synchronization improving and coordinating the collaborative work [2]. The paper is organized as follows. First the workflow technology and its basic concepts are introduced in Section 2 and 3, respectively. In Section 4 we discuss the key workflow elements for e-learning production. Preliminary results will be shown in Section 5.

Chapter 4

A Grid based e-learning environment: Globus services development and web portal integration Del Vino T.2, Zaccheo G.2 and Castellano M.1 1Politecnico di Bari - Via E. Orabona,4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Bari marcello.castellano@poliba.it 2Genesis Consulting s.r.l.u - Via G. Amendola 172/c - Bari tiziano.delvino@libero.it, graziana.zaccheo@libero.it

1 Introduction A computational grid offers a simple, dependable and pervasive access across wide area networks and offers to users an integrated global resource. The grid infrastructure consists of computers (PCs, workstations, clusters, supercomputers, notebooks, mobile devices, PDs, handhelds and peripherals), software, databases and special devices (e.g. sensors, telescopes, satellite imagery). Grid computing has the purpose of sharing all kinds of IT resources, presenting to a user a virtual metacomputer, which adapts to his changing needs. The user may be an individual, a business person or a researcher. Grid computing infrastructure discovers the available compute-resources at a particular time and maps the demands for compute-resources from users to the available resources. The main task in Grid domain is to create a middleware, which makes the use of compute-facilities, maintained by service providers, as user-friendly as the modern electric power grids or telephone networks are. A grid would follow the utility model, enabling a user to get what he wants, when he wants it, creating an infrastructure transparent to the user. Grid computing may enable better utilization of existing heterogeneous IT resources, provide access to higher computing power, improved support service and access levels, reduce costs of computer usage and increase responsiveness, thereby enhancing both profitability and competitiveness. The economic advantages of Grid computing may arise from economies of scale and cost savings, in the reduction/avoiding of resources and components

Chapter 5

Case study: the realization of the elearning prototype

Castellano M.1, Corriero N. 1, Tangaro M. A1, 1 Politecnico di Bari - Via E. Orabona,4 – Bari marcello.castellano@poliba.it, nicolacorriero@gmail.com, ma.tangaro@gmail.com Carpano R. A. 2, Cassa A.2, Del Vino T.2, Zaccheo G.2 2 Genesis Consulting s.r.l.u - Via G. Amendola 172/c - Bari rosycarpano@gmail.com, vge@genesisconsulting.it, tiziano.delvino@libero.it, graziana.zaccheo@libero.it

Introduction

The aim of the SFINGE project is the creation of an innovative training platform based on e-learning support. Main improvements of the project can be recognized in terms of technology transfer, changing from focus on product/process of traditional training to teaching/training characterizing e-learning processes. The SFINGE system organizes e-learning training activities in a collaborative way and creates a network of companies operating in the production and diffusion of training contents, through information and communication technologies. Sharing of digital resources is essential in such a contest. In the Figure 1, the implemented environment is presented, showing the main elements of the system and the tools utilized to develop them:  Liferay: design and production of the portal and management of the Virtual Organization (VO)  Moodle: production of the Learning Management System (LMS) linked in the portal  Globus Toolkit: implementation of the middleware of the Grid infrastructure.

Chapter 6

Cloud@ReCaS: resources for the SFINGE project

Antonacci, M.1, Nicotri, S.1, Donvito, G.1, Giannuzzi, F.1,., Italiano, A.1, Tinelli, E.2, Valentini, R.1, Ventola, F.2, Maggi, G.1,3 1INFN Sezione di Bari, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy 2 UniversitĂ degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy 3Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy marica.antonacc@ba.infn.it, giacinto.donvito@ba.infn.it, floriana.giannuzz@ba.infn.it, alessandro.italiano@ba.infn.it, giorgio.maggi@ba.infn.it, stefano.nicotri@ba.infn.it, roberto.valentini@ba.infn.it, eufemia.tinelli@uniba.it, fabrizio.ventola@uniba.it

Abstract In this paper, after an introduction of the general features of the Cloud@ReCaS infrastructure deployed at INFN - Sezione di Bari and Physics Department, University of Bari, the architecture of the resource pool provided to the SFINGE project in the cloud infrastructure Cloud@ReCaS, is presented. The resources are provided following the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) models. 1

The ReCaS data centre @INFN & UNIBA

Recently, a new data centre, the ReCaS datacenter has been jointly set-up by INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) Sezione di Bari [1] and University of Bari [2], in the framework of the two relevant PON projects, ReCaS [3] and PRISMA [4]. Part of the hardware resources of the data centre are offered as virtualized services through a modern Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud [5] platform,

Part 2

Chapter 7

A General Purpose Framework for Grid Resource Exploitation

A. Fella and L.Tomassetti UniversitĂ degli Studi di Ferrara, Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica andIstituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Sezione di Ferrara Polo Scientifico Tecnologico via G. Saragat, I-44122 FerraraItaly

Introduction

Many research activities from several fields, such as high energy, nuclear and atomic physics, biology, medicine, geophysics and environmental science, rely on data simulation, which are high CPU-consuming task. Sequential computation may require months or years of CPU time, so a loose-parallel distributed execution is expected to give benefits to these applications. In fact, the large number of storage and computation resources offered by a distributed computing environment allow to consistently reduce the amount of task completion time by splitting it in several parts and executing each part on a single node. The potential intensive use of distributed computing resources by a large variety of research communities is reduced by the difficulties that researchers can encounter in using the complex software infrastructure at the base of distributed computing itself. High energy physics experiments made a pioneer work [1-3] on this but their results are still hardly available to small and mid-size organizations that may have similar computational requirements, mostly due to the large amount of needed technical expertise. This document presents a prototype software-suite intended to be an interface to distributed computing resources such as LHC [4] Computing Grid LCG [5, 6] or Cloud [7] stacks. The lightweight and general-purpose framework built on standard functionality has been designed for organizations requiring an easy-touse interface to such resources, but cannot afford the costs of a specialized software environment in terms of expertise, development and maintenance. This work is the outcome of the collaboration of various institutions taking part of the High Energy Physics experiment SuperB [8]; it was born to be able to

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Chapter 8

Recommender Systems in Distance Learning Environments

Di Bitonto, P., Pesare, E., Roselli, T., Rossano, V. Department of Computer Science, University of Bari, Via Orabona, 4 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 70125 Bari â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Italy teresa.roselli@uniba.it, veronica.rossano@uniba.it,

Introduction

The Web 2.0 revolution has changed Internet users into prosumers [10] of resources: consumers and producers at the same time. This transformation over the last decade has, on one hand, triggered an explosion of resources available on the Web and, on the other, increased the information overload problem, i.e. the difficulty in selecting those resources best suited to the individual needs. In fact, in the jungle of available resources not all of them are suited to particular needs and preferences, and users run the risk of becoming disoriented and frustrated by their inability to find just what they were looking for [7]. This has stimulated a strong interest in those research fields and technologies that could help to manage this information overload: Information Retrieval and Information Filtering. Over the last years, the way of interpreting teaching and learning has changed the world of education, at any level, including the integration of the most modern and advanced technologies. The same trend is evident in professional training, where traditional systems, based on classroom lectures, were always considered expensive, both in terms of costs and lack of production [5]. Distance education provides significant advantages, such as, extreme flexibility in terms of time and space, better quality of educational content, more flexible management of teaching / learning processes and decreasing costs. The traditional management tools for distance learning like e-learning platforms, do not exploit the full potential of the technology and are often used only for the delivery of educational content. In fact, they do not allow the customization of learning processes on the real needs and capabilities of the user, 3

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Chapter 9

Brain structural image analysis on a distributed infrastructure

N. Amoroso1,2, M. Antonacci1, R. Bellotti1,2, G. Donvito1, R. Errico2, G. Maggi1,3, A. Monaco1, P. Notarangelo1, S. Tangaro1, A Tateo2 1 INFN Sezione di Bari, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy 2 UniversitĂ degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy 3 Politecnico di Bari, Dipartimento Interateneo di Fisica, Via Edoardo Orabona 4, 70126 Bari, Italy

Abstract The field of medical imaging has seen in recent years an enormous development. Moreover, the most recent developments in big data management and sharing technologies make compelling a cross-disciplinary approach to computational neuroscience from scientists and technologists with different skills and expertise. For these reasons, Grid/Cloud technology appears to fit the requirements of such applications. To simplify the access of these technologies we have implemented a lot of tools to interact with Web applications like Science portal and workflow manager systems. In particular we have implemented Loni Pipeline that is the most used tool to manage the medical image processing. We developed an automatic algorithm to analyze structural magnetic resonance image (MRI) to segment a particular brain structure such as hippocampus.

Introduction

Information Neuroscience is a quantitative method of analysis which involves a huge volume of data to define some fundamental medical problems. Such as the

153

Chapter 10

Collaborative Models for Health Prevention Programs: an approach based on Knowledge Engineering and PrecedeProceed framework A. Pesare, R. Stifini Azienda Sanitaria Locale (ASL) di Taranto â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dipartimento di Prevenzione raffaelestifini@libero.it, antpesare@libero.it

1 Introduction This chapter proposes a collaborative approach to the design and the implementation of preventive health programs, carried out by various health professionals, in order to train the population about health risks and to educate about healthy lifestyles. Health Prevention Systems are designed to address the needs related to people in the quest for improvements in health, life expectancy and reductions of growing health care costs. The most recent European guidelines recommend the use of the absolute risk profile as a tool to identify high-risk individuals, but also underline the need for interventions on the whole population. They also mentioned the concept of opportunistic screening for cardio and cerebrovascular risk factors (Marcella et All). From this point of view, the perception of citizens about the services offered itself raises important questions about their improvement. In line with the objectives of the WHO-Europe Action Plan 2012-2016 and in line with the previous PNP, with the aim reduce mortality and premature disability that the chronic non-communicable diseases involves, and to limit the inequalities caused by social and economic conditions that affect the health, you need an approach encompassing strategies of population (community) and strategies on the individual. The approach that is the basis of the strategic decisions to counter the epidemic of chronic generative diseases is based on the choice of intervening mainly through strategies aimed at spreading population and facilitate the choice of healthy lifestyles; if instead you were in the presence of subjects with already behavioral risk factors or intermediate, then the strategic choice is to spread the techniques of motivational counseling, addressing subjects related to offerings from community programs (eg. walking groups, groups for quitting smoking ...) or specific therapy (eg. physical activity prescription).

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Chapter 11

Pervasive Distributed Sensor Grid Approach for Personal Safety and Telemedicine1 Giorgio A. Politecnico di Bari - Via E. Orabona,4 – Bari agostino.giorgio@poliba.it

Introduction

Telemedicine is a term generally used to describe a type of patient care involving monitoring of a patient's condition by a healthcare worker located at a healthcare facility remote with respect to the location of the patient. Demand for electronic patient monitoring systems will appreciably grow in next years, bolstered by technological advances. Wireless multi-parameter monitors and stations will place gains in equipment sales. Although telemedicine systems have been implemented for many years, Ethernet has just begun to be implemented in the last decade. A much more cost-effective solution would be to take advantage of the already existing Internet. Moreover, the spread of wireless technology allows the development of more telemedicine devices with a low or no cost connections, at short or long distance, and also wearable and easily portable. Wireless transmission technologies are suitable to perform indoor and outdoor remote patient control, improving the patient’s safety, health diseases prevention and quality of life. New technologies allow new solutions for personal safety. Extended monitoring with low cost hardware to enable transmission of the medical signals and alarm status of a patient Therefore, telemedicine aims to provide expert-based healthcare to patients located away from the healthcare facility and allows a patient to be examined This chapter is a revised and summarized version of the author’s book chapter titled “Innovative Medical Devices for Telemedicine Applications”, published as chapter 25 in the book “Telemedicine Technique and Applications” edited by Georgi Graskew and Stephan Rakowsky, ISBN 978-953-307-354-5, publisher: InTech, June 2011

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