Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Sensors

Publication Date

7-1-2023

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of patients involves collecting and analyzing sensory data from a multitude of sources. To overcome communication overhead, ensure data privacy and security, reduce data loss, and maintain efficient resource usage, the processing and analytics are moved close to where the data are located (e.g., the edge). However, data quality (DQ) can be degraded because of imprecise or malfunctioning sensors, dynamic changes in the environment, transmission failures, or delays. Therefore, it is crucial to keep an eye on data quality and spot problems as quickly as possible, so that they do not mislead clinical judgments and lead to the wrong course of action. In this article, a novel approach called federated data quality profiling (FDQP) is proposed to assess the quality of the data at the edge. FDQP is inspired by federated learning (FL) and serves as a condensed document or a guide for node data quality assurance. The FDQP formal model is developed to capture the quality dimensions specified in the data quality profile (DQP). The proposed approach uses federated feature selection to improve classifier precision and rank features based on criteria such as feature value, outlier percentage, and missing data percentage. Extensive experimentation using a fetal dataset split into different edge nodes and a set of scenarios were carefully chosen to evaluate the proposed FDQP model. The results of the experiments demonstrated that the proposed FDQP approach positively improved the DQ, and thus, impacted the accuracy of the federated patient similarity network (FPSN)-based machine learning models. The proposed data-quality-aware federated PSN architecture leveraging FDQP model with data collected from edge nodes can effectively improve the data quality and accuracy of the federated patient similarity network (FPSN)-based machine learning models. Our profiling algorithm used lightweight profile exchange instead of full data processing at the edge, which resulted in optimal data quality achievement, thus improving efficiency. Overall, FDQP is an effective method for assessing data quality in the edge computing environment, and we believe that the proposed approach can be applied to other scenarios beyond patient monitoring.

ISSN

1424-8220

Publisher

MDPI AG

Volume

23

Issue

14

Disciplines

Computer Sciences | Medicine and Health Sciences

Keywords

data quality profiling, deep learning, edge computing, eHealth, federated learning, federated patient similarity network, federated profiling, patient similarity network

Scopus ID

85166002631

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series

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