Articles Read

Week 3
Blanca Polo

SAFECOM PSWC&I Statement of Requeriments

This article is the statement of requirements that homeland security proposes for different kinds of communications that can be used in the event of an emergency. Safecom also talks about the use of communications not just for health care but also for law enforcement. I just glanced over the voice and video communication since those are not my main focus. I focused in "Data communication interactive" which are actually text messages. A table shows detailed information about:

• Who communicates with whom. Example: Local and neighboring agencies using directed text messages to communicate patient medical telemetry to hospitals.
• What is the purpose of the communication. Example: To access current and archived computerized information about a patient. The article suggest voice recognition as a data entry mechanism to speed the process and allow emergency personnel to keep both hands for "better" use.
• which are special constraints for this.  Example: Much of this information needs to be secured to protect privacy concerns and chain-of-command for lifesaving procedures.

One thing that was mentioned here is image communication interactive which may be useful for location of children that may be lost. Given this I took notes:

• Images are used by various public safety officials in the field to access or store information into databases of archived photographs either of victims or suspects.
• Images can be used to identify patients. Pictures of injuries can be transmitted to doctors enabling them to recommend best medical "on the way" treatment.
• Constraints: Transmission must be fast (I say look for low resolution as long as it conveys the information) and may need to be secured.

Data communication non-interactive:

• Text messages used to monitor personnel's biometric status, traffic status monitors, traffic road devices, road conditions, hospital and health center status monitors, patient history etc.
• The purpose is also to access current and archived computerized info.
• Restrictions: Much of this information needs to be secured to protect privacy concerns and chain-of-command for lifesaving procedures. Communications must include the ability to access state public health information services as well as the centers for disease control and prevention among others.

http://www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/

Safecom describes the Wireless communications functional requirements

Services

• Voice
• Data

Required Features

• Mobility 
• security for voice and data
• call types
• scalability
• command and control, maintenance and operations
• COTS based products
• Standards-based designs
• Backwards compatibility
• Migration path for legacy systems
• Spectrum and network efficiency
• Ergonomic and environmental
• Extensibility
• Modularity

Performance

• Quality of Service
• Availability
• Reliability
• Survivability
• Restorability

The ones in bold and italics are the ones that I will use as the guide when checking that the product of this dissertation is useful and meets SAFECOM requirements (because those are the ones that apply at first sight). I'm still reading this.

Cell Phones could send real-time safety data
An artilcle from "The Daily Californian"

In UC Berkley are trying to get a cell phone to sniff out anything from carbon monoxide to dirty bombs for improved security and safety of cell phone owners. They are weighing the feasibility of adding this feature into cell phones given that cell phones are widely available and most of the technology needed is already inside the phone.

This article tells me that it looks like we are going to rely more and more on cell phones therefore is not a bad hardware to rely on.

Global Cell Phone

This article is about creating a software based cell phone that will allow people to connect to whatever network is available instead of connecting only to that network that the cell phone hardware was designed for. It makes it more versatile and usable.

SAFECOM General Session: Interoperability

I'm still trying to make sense of this because it is a presentation... TBD (to be discussed) next week :-)

Time spent:

• searching: 1.5 hours
• reading: 1.5 hours
• writing: 1 hour

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