Abstruct-Emerging applications require a substantially higher bandwidth than the one offered by current network. The technology necessary for providing high bandwidth on the optical fibers, by means of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM), is available. However, none of the network architectures proposed so far can efficiently tap this bandwidth in the wide area domain, due to the limitations imposed by the processing, buffering, and switching required in these solutions. In this paper we propose a novel architectural approach that meets the high bandwidth requirements by introducing a communication architecture based on lightpuths, optical transmission paths in the network. Since lightpaths form the building block of the proposed architecture, its performance hinges on their efficient establishment and management. We show that although the problem of optimally establishing lightpaths is NP-complete, simple heuristics provide near optimal solutions for several of the basic problems motivated by a lightpath based architecture.

SUMMARYIn this paper we introduce a scheduling algorithm and admission control policy for IEEE 802.16 broadband wireless access standard. The proposed solution which is practical and compatible to the IEEE 802.16 standard, provides QoS support to different traffic classes. To the best of our knowledge this is the first such algorithm. The simulation studies show that the proposed solution includes QoS support for all types of traffic classes as defined by the standard. We have shown the relationship between traffic characteristics and its QoS requirements and the network performance.

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mHealth (healthcare using mobile wireless technologies) has the potential to improve healthcare and the quality of life for elderly and chronic patients. Many studies from all over the world have addressed this issue in view of the aging population in many countries. However, there has been a lack of any consolidated evidence-based study to classify mHealth from the dual perspectives of healthcare and technology. This paper reports the results of an evidence-based study of mHealth solutions for chronic care amongst the elderly population and proposes a taxonomy of a broad range of mHealth solutions from the perspective of technological complexity. A systematic literature review was conducted over 10 online databases and the findings were classified into four categories of predominant mHealth solutions, that is, self-healthcare, assisted healthcare, supervised healthcare and continuous monitoring. The findings of the study have major implications for information management and policy development in the context of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to healthcare in the world.

This paper introduces a cost-effective portable teletrauma system that assists health-care centers in providing prehospital trauma care. Simultaneous transmission of a patient's video, medical images, and electrocardiogram signals, which is required throughout the prehospital procedure, is demonstrated over commercially available 3G wireless cellular data service. Moreover, the physician can remotely control the information sent from the patient side. Such a technology will allow a trauma specialist to be virtually present at the remote location and participate in prehospital care, which improves the quality of trauma care and can potentially reduce mortality and morbidity. To alleviate the limited and fluctuant bandwidth barriers of the wireless cellular link, the system adapts to network conditions through media transformations, data prioritization, and application-level congestion control methods. Experimental evaluation of the system prototype over real network conditions, transmitting different media types between the trauma patient and hospital unit, is encouraging. The teletrauma system reported in this paper is the first of its kind and it provides a basis for future enhancements.

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