Ubiquitous Life Care Research Center (uLCRC) of Kyung-Hee University aims to build a robust and low cost life care service for medical institutes as well as in home environment. "Based on Secured WSN-integrated Cloud Computing for u-Life Care (SC3), uLCRC is creating an environment where life care services can be offered to patients suffering from chronic diseases that mainly affects the life-style of patients, such as strokes," said Lee Sung-young (sylee@oslab.khu.ac.kr), director of the center and a professor at Kyung-Hee University.
"To this end, we are developing a 'Socially Interactive Privacy Aware Clinical Decision Support System,' a health care service to enhance the cure rate of patients with chronic diseases and at the same time protect their private life and disease information," he said. Lee explained, "This study is based on SC3, which is designed to overcome the problems of existing CDSSs, such as the absence of communication between doctors and patients, patient to patient communication, patient's experience sharing, difficulties in protecting patient's disease information, and collecting various medical information data."
"For the study, we are now seeking close cooperation with Oriental medicine doctors, doctors' at large hospitals and medical information companies possessing EMR and HER solutions. In particular, we are focusing our study on glucosuria, strokes and to offer relevant life care services," said Lee. The center's chief, said that uLCRC will strive to offer safe and reliable services, support for users' security, build a medical data base and secure original and standardized technology for grafting of IT technology and Oriental and Western medicines by offering life care services on the spot.
"Along with this, we will activate an international joint study and personnel exchanges with our counterparts in Japan, the U.S. and Europe, while developing the center-initiated international workshop on Sustainable Medical Collaboration in East & West (SMCEW) into a global-level conference," said Lee. "By actively participating in the East-West neo-medical health care-related international conferences and global standardization meetings, we will take great strides to possess global competitiveness in the East-West neo-medical technology," he said.
Major targets of uLCRC
The main purpose of uLCRC is to acquire East-West neo-medical u-life care-related core technology and standardization technology based on ubiquitous computing technology, and to use it for next-generation growth engine industries. "The mission of uLCRC is to create ubiquitous technology for human life care and enable humans to take care of themselves and their loved ones more proactively," he noted. "Presently, we are developing technology for the u-life care service, which are knowledge disposal technology based on Oriental and Western medical knowledge, service reasoning technology to offer specialized services to patients with glucosuria or strokes, IT technology-based service model and platform technology," he explained.
The center's research team includes computer engineers, biomedical engineers, electrical engineers, chemists, Western medical doctors, and Eastern medical doctors. uLCRC research goals include bio-MEMS and smart sensor technology, proactive computing technology and smart object and u-life care platform technology. "The center aims to bring future technology to life care for smart homes, smart offices, smart hospitals, smart cars, and smart environments by promoting a better life for humans," he said.
Asked about the center's achievements over the past four years after its establishment, Lee said, "Since its establishment in 2006, uLCRC has been concentrating its efforts on the construction of a platform to offer u-life care service to produce concrete results. During this period, the center registered 48 patents in the bio MEMS, bio sensor network, ubiquitous computing, security, behavior and situation recognition, and e-health fields both at home and abroad."
uLCRC was established in 2006 with funding from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, it is a unique Information Technology Research Center dedicated to developing human life care technology that is based on the principles of East-West neo-medicine. The center is an inter-disciplinarily research unit for technology development and education.
"At the same time, the center has attained KRW140 million worth of technology transfers and commercialization of five technologies, while producing 104 Masters and 34 Doctors," he commented. "In addition, we built SC3, the u-life care service-offering platform based on cloud computing, which can provide life care services through collection, sharing, and reasoning of information," he said.
Joint study with overseas research centers
"The core study field of the uLCRC is to analyze merits and demerits of various approaches of Western and Oriental medicines and develop technology for proper diagnosis and rehabilitation of specific diseases and symptoms," Lee said. "However, the maturity of our study grafting Oriental medicine on Western medicine is still insufficient. Accordingly, we are seeking close cooperation in the study with researchers and doctors of Kyung-Hee University, Kyung-Hee University Medical Center, and Seoul St. Mary's Hospital. Presently, we have powerful global competitiveness in the East-West medicine field," he said.
Lee went on to say that uLCRC has concluded a memorandum of understandings (MOUs) with some famous foreign research centers for joint study and enhancement of global competitiveness. "For instance, uLCRC and Harvard Medical School are engaging in a joint study to find out the effects of Oriental acupuncture on the brain through functional MRI. In cooperation with Fraumhofer IDMT Research Center of Germany, it is also making a profound study on recognizing users' actions and using it as basic information of u-life care service," he explained.
"Through such intensive studies and international cooperation, uLCRC is going all-out to help Korea take an initiative in research and development, standardization, and industrialization in the East-West u-health data and system sectors," Lee added.
