PAL : Personal and Social Communication Services for Lifestyle Monitoring

国家卫生服务体系在为老龄化人口提供护理方面面临越来越大的压力。与此同时，人们越来越熟悉和接受各种技术。现在是时候开发技术辅助的生活方式监测，特别是对于那些患有慢性疾病的人。PAL项目利用创新的传感器和通信技术，通过安全的、基于事件的中间件提供，以提供用户友好的、策略控制的监控。研究问题包括：数据采集和信息导出。我们将记录和处理与个人生活方式有关的信息;这必须以不侵入或不必要的繁重方式完成。可以感测的信息示例包括：心电图、心率、血糖水平、运动、饮食相关数据、GPS等。感测可以通过与用户的直接接触或来自环境。处理可能涉及多个数据源，并且可以远离用户完成。将通过将来自多个传感器的数据与其他用户活动数据相关联来获得进一步的知识。这将使我们能够确定行为模式，检测紧急情况（请注意，一个人的异常情况可能对另一个人来说是正常的，因此决策必须是针对个人的），并向用户提供解释（和更好的支持）。数据可以从白天使用的各种计算平台收集，如PC、笔记本电脑、移动的电话等，并可以深入了解是什么触发了某些用户行为，例如与压力有关的行为。通信：上述服务要求数据仅可靠安全地交付给适当的目的地和负责人，如家庭集线器、医院、医生的手术室或用户本身。这些信息可以是记录的数据、实时测量值，甚至是一个事件信号，表明该人需要紧急医疗援助。无论哪种方式，信息都不应该在通过网络传输时被损坏、丢失或非法查看。当用户在家中走动、外出或使用交通工具或进入其他建筑物时，底层网络应支持持续监控。信息治理将考虑收集和处理个人数据的法律的和道德框架。我们将在自动执行的政策中体现这些隐私要求和相关人员的授权。审计是这一制度的重要组成部分，涉及有关负责人的问责制。收集的一些信息应记录在患者的电子健康记录中，从而在需要治疗时可用。使用者、护理人员和技术人员将承担与安全、响应和尊重隐私有关的义务，这些义务必须具体说明并进行审计检查。让真实的用户参与设计阶段以及测试开发的解决方案是很重要的。因此，对功能或接口的任何关切都将尽早查明。我们的目标是构建易于理解和操作的日常使用的解决方案，需要最少的配置并采用适当的交互模式。由于大多数信息是私人的，用户必须适当地参与并了解所感知的内容和原因。他们必须控制自己的信息。总之，我们将使用户能够监测他们的健康和福祉，并在适当的时候将这种监测与专业的医疗保健服务相结合。为了实现这一目标，我们将在整个系统架构中利用最先进的传感器和通信技术。法律的和NHS要求将被表达为自动执行的政策。

The National Health Service is increasingly hard-pressed to provide care for an aging population. At the same time, people are becoming increasingly familiar with, and accepting of, a wide range of technologies. The time is right to develop technology-assisted lifestyle monitoring, particularly for those with chronic conditions. The PAL project exploits innovative sensor and communication technology, made available through secure, event-based middleware, to provide user-friendly, policy-controlled monitoring.Research issues include:Data acquisition and information derivation. We will record and process information related to a person's lifestyle; this must be done in a way that is not intrusive or unduly onerous. Examples of information that can be sensed are: ECG, heart-rate, glucose level, movement, diet-related data, GPS, etc. Sensing may be through direct contact with the user or from the environment. Processing may involve multiple data sources and may be done remotely from the user. Further knowledge will be derived by correlating data from multiple sensors and with other user activity data. This will enable us to determine behavioural patterns, detect emergency situations (note that unusual conditions for one person may be normal for another, so decisions must beperson-specific) and provide explanations (and better support) to the user. Data can be gathered from various computing platforms used during the day, such as PCs, laptops, mobile phones, etc. and can provide insight into what triggers certain user behaviours, e.g. stress-related.Communications: the above services require data to be reliably and securely delivered, only to the appropriate destination(s) and principals, such as a home hub, hospital, doctor's surgery or the users themselves. The information could be recorded data, real-time measurements or even an event signal to say that the person requires urgent medical assistance. Either way, the information should not be corrupted, lost or viewed illegally as it is transported across the network. The underlying networks should support continuous monitoring when users move about in their home, walk outside or use transport, or enter other buildings. Information governance will take into account the legal and ethical framework for gathering and processing personal data. We will embody these requirements for privacy, and authorisation by the person concerned, in automatically enforceable policy. Audit is an important part of such a system, addressing accountability of the principals involved. Some of the information gathered should be recorded in a patient's electronic health record, thus available when treatment becomes necessary. Users, carers and technical staff will have obligations relating to safety, responsiveness and respect for privacyand these must be specified and checked against audit. It is important to involve real users in the design phase as well as in testing the developed solutions. Thus, any concerns about the functionalities or interfaces will be identified as early as possible. Our goal is to build solutions for everyday use that are easy to understand and operate, require minimal configuration and employ appropriate interaction paradigms. As most of the information is private, users have to be properly involved and informed about what is sensed and why. They have to be in control of their information.In summary, we will enable users to monitor their wellbeing and health, integrating this monitoring with the professional healthcare services when appropriate. To achieve this, we will exploit the state-of-the art in sensor and communications technology within a whole-system architecture. Legal and NHS requirements will be expressed as automatically enforceable policy.