[pt] A área da saúde precisa lidar com diversos problemas relacionados a questões de infraestrutura, falta de pessoal qualificado e grande número de pacientes. Como solução para problemas desta natureza surgiu o u-Healthcare, uma aplicação dos conceitos de Computação Ubíqua (UbiComp) na área da assistência médica. u-Healthcare permite a supervisão da saúde a qualquer tempo e a qualquer lugar, a partir de dispositivos eletrônicos conectados à internet. Entretanto, a ampliação da supervisão da saúde para o entorno ubíquo não pode ser feita com protocolos e procedimentos clínicos atualmente utilizados, já que essa abordagem aumentaria drasticamente o consumo de tempo e recursos. Por esse motivo, a construção de aplicações para fornecimento de serviços se saúde pode apoiar-se em áreas de pesquisa de Sistemas Multi-Agente (SMA) e Trabalho Cooperativo Auxiliado por Computador (TCAC). Nesse sentido, SMA é utilizado para automatização de processos, através do uso das propriedades dos agentes de software. Em contrapartida, TCAC permite estabelecer um modelo de cooperação entre os participantes de uma determinada aplicação. Com base nestes aspectos, neste trabalho propõese a modelagem e desenvolvimento de um framework que auxilie a construção de aplicações voltadas para u-Healthcare, baseadas em conceitos de SMA e TCAC. Para ilustrar a utilização do framework, são apresentados dois cenários de uso. O primeiro cenário corresponde a um sistema de monitoramento fetal, que realiza a detecção precoce de anormalidades no feto. O segundo cenário, por sua vez, consiste em um assistente de administração de medicamentos, que permite ajudar ao médico no controle de medicamentos que usam seus pacientes. / [en] The health area needs to deal with various problems related to issues of infrastructure, lack of qualified personnel and a large number of patients. As a solution to problems of this nature, u-Healthcare was created as an application of the concepts of Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) in the area of health care. u- Healthcare allows health monitoring at any time and place from electronic devices connected to the Internet. However, the expansion of health monitoring for an ubiquitous environment cannot be performed with protocols and procedures currently used, since this approach would drastically increase the consumption of time and resources. For that reason, the development of tools to provide health services can be supported in research areas such as Multi-Agent System (MAS) and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). In that sense, MAS can be used to automate processes through the properties of software agents. On the other hand CSCW gives the possibility of establishing a model of cooperation among the participants on the application. Based on these aspects, this work proposes the modeling and development of a framework capable of providing support and help on the construction of dedicated u- Healthcare applications which should be based on the concepts of MAS and CSCW. To illustrate the use of the framework, there are presented two scenarios of use. The first scenario corresponds to a fetal monitoring system, which allows early detection of fetal abnormalities. The second scenario consists of a drug administration assistant, which allows the doctor to control drug use by his patients.

Abstract This dissertation aimed at developing a multi-modal sensing u-healthcare system (MSUS), which reflects the unique properties of a healthcare application in a wireless sensor network. Together with health parameters, such as ECG, SpO2 and blood pressure, the system also transfers context-aware data, including activity, position and tracking data, in a wireless sensor network environment at home or in a hospital. Since packet loss may have fatal consequences for patients, health-related data are more critical than most other types of monitoring data. Thus, compared to environmental, agricultural or industrial monitoring, healthcare monitoring in a wireless environment imposes different requirements and priorities. These include heavy data traffic with wavelike parameters in wireless sensor network and fatal data loss due to the traffic. To ensure reliable data transfer in a wireless sensor network, this research placed special emphasis on the optimization of sampling rate, packet length and transmission rate, and on the traffic reduction method. To improve the reliability and accuracy of diagnosis, the u-healthcare system also collects context-aware information on the user’s activity and location and provides real-time tracking. Waveform health parameters, such as ECG, are normally sampled in the 100 to 400 Hz range according to the monitoring purpose. This type of waveform data may incur a heavy burden in wireless communication. To reduce wireless traffic between the sensor nodes and the gateway node, the system utilizes on-site ECG analysis implemented on the sensor nodes as well as query architecture. A 3D VRML viewer was also developed for the realistic monitoring of the user’s moving path and location. Two communication methods, an 802.15.4-based wireless sensor network and a CDMA cellular network are used by sensors placed on the users’ bodies to gather medical data, which is then transmitted to a server PC at home or in the hospital, depending on whether the sensor is within or outside the range of the wireless sensor network.