I-Support: A robotic platform of an assistive bathing robot for the elderly population

In this paper we present a prototype integrated robotic system, the I-Support bathing robot, that aims at supporting new aspects of assisted daily-living activities on a real-life scenario. The paper focuses on describing and evaluating key novel technological features of the system, with the emphasis on cognitive human–robot interaction modules and their evaluation through a series of clinical validation studies. The I-Support project on its whole has envisioned the development of an innovative, modular, ICT-supported service robotic system that assists frail seniors to safely and independently complete an entire sequence of physically and cognitively demanding bathing tasks, such as properly washing their back and their lower limbs. A variety of innovative technologies have been researched and a set of advanced modules of sensing, cognition, actuation and control have been developed and seamlessly integrated to enable the system to adapt to the target population abilities. These technologies include: human activity monitoring and recognition, adaptation of a motorized chair for safe transfer of the elderly in and out the bathing cabin, a context awareness system that provides full environmental awareness, as well as a prototype soft robotic arm and a set of user-adaptive robot motion planning and control algorithms. This paper focuses in particular on the multimodal action recognition system, developed to monitor, analyze and predict user actions with a high level of accuracy and detail in real-time, which are then interpreted as robotic tasks. In the same framework, the analysis of human actions that have become available through the project’s multimodal audio–gestural dataset, has led to the successful modeling of Human–Robot Communication, achieving an effective and natural interaction between users and the assistive robotic platform. In order to evaluate the I-Support system, two multinational validation studies were conducted under realistic operating conditions in two clinical pilot sites. Some of the findings of these studies are presented and analyzed in the paper, showing good results in terms of: (i) high acceptability regarding the system usability by this particularly challenging target group, the elderly end-users, and (ii) overall task effectiveness of the system in different operating modes

The use of mHealth solutions in active and healthy ageing promotion: an explorative scoping review

The global population aged 60 years and over is expected to almost double between 2015 and 2050 from 12.0% to 22.0%, which will directly impact countries' labor market composition and increase the economic pressure on their healthcare systems. One way to address these challenges is to promote Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) using mobile Health (mHealth). This research aims to provide an initial overview of the width and the depth of contemporary preventive mHealth solutions that promote AHA among healthy, independent older adults (individuals aged 60 years and over). To do so, an explorative scoping review was applied to search online databases for recent studies (March 2015 - March 2020) addressing the promotion of mHealth solutions targeting healthy and independent older adults. We identified 31 publications that met the inclusion criteria. Most of them utilized either mobile (n=25) and/or wearable (n=11) devices. mHealth solutions mostly promoted AHA by targeting older adults’ active lifestyles or independence. Most of the studies (n=27) did not apply a theoretical framework on which the mHealth promotion was based. User-experience was positive (n=12) when the solution was easy to use but negative (n=11) when the participants were resistant or faced challenges using the device and/or technology. The review concludes that mHealth offers the opportunity to combat the issues faced by an unhealthy and dependent aging population by promoting AHA through focusing on older adults’ Lifestyle, Daily functioning, and Participation. Future research should use multidisciplinary integrated approaches and strong theoretical and methodological foundations to investigate mHealth solutions' impact on AHA behavioral change

Design Principles of Mobile Information Systems in the Digital Transformation of the Workplace - Utilization of Smartwatch-based Information Systems in the Corporate Context

During the last decades, smartwatches emerged as an innovative and promising technology and hit the consumer market due to the accessibility of affordable devices and predominant acceptance caused by the considerable similarity to common wristwatches. With the unique characteristics of permanent availability, unobtrusiveness, and hands-free operation, they can provide additional value in the corporate context. Thus, this thesis analyzes use cases for smartwatches in companies, elaborates on the design of smartwatch-based information systems, and covers the usability of smartwatch applications during the development of smartwatch-based information systems. It is composed of three research complexes. The first research complex focuses on the digital assistance of (mobile) employees who have to execute manual work and have been excluded so far from the benefits of the digitalization since they cannot operate hand-held devices. The objective is to design smartwatch-based information systems to support workflows in the corporate context, facilitate the daily work of numerous employees, and make processes more efficient for companies. During a design science research approach, smartwatch-based software artifacts are designed and evaluated in use cases of production, support, security service, as well as logistics, and a nascent design theory is proposed to complement theory according to mobile information system research. The evaluation shows that, on the one hand, smartwatches have enormous potential to assist employees with a fast and ubiquitous exchange of information, instant notifications, collaboration, and workflow guidance while they can be operated incidentally during manual work. On the other hand, the design of smartwatch-based information systems is a crucial factor for successful long-term deployment in companies, and especially limitations according to the small form-factor, general conditions, acceptance of the employees, and legal regulations have to be addressed appropriately. The second research complex addresses smartwatch-based information systems at the office workplace. This broadens and complements the view on the utilization of smartwatches in the corporate context in addition to the mobile context described in the first research complex. Though smartwatches are devices constructed for mobile use, the utilization in low mobile or stationary scenarios also has benefits due they exhibit the characteristic of a wearable computer and are directly connected to the employee’s body. Various sensors can perceive employee-, environment- and therefore context-related information and demand the employees’ attention with proactive notifications that are accompanied by a vibration. Thus, a smartwatch-based and gamified information system for health promotion at the office workplace is designed and evaluated. Research complex three provides a closer look at the topic of usability concerning applications running on smartwatches since it is a crucial factor during the development cycle. As a supporting element for the studies within the first and second research complex, a framework for the usability analysis of smartwatch applications is developed. For research, this thesis contributes a systemization of the state-of-the-art of smartwatch utilization in the corporate context, enabling and inhibiting influence factors of the smartwatch adoption in companies, and design principles as well as a nascent design theory for smartwatch-based information systems to support mobile employees executing manual work. For practice, this thesis contributes possible use cases for smartwatches in companies, assistance in decision-making for the introduction of smartwatch-based information systems in the corporate context with the Smartwatch Applicability Framework, situated implementations of a smartwatch-based information system for typical use cases, design recommendations for smartwatch-based information systems, an implementation of a smartwatch-based information system for the support of mobile employees executing manual work, and a usability-framework for smartwatches to automatically access usability of existing applications providing suggestions for usability improvement

Personal technology use amongst stroke patients : understanding the best platforms for the design of health interventions in treatment and rehabilitation

Europe's healthcare systems are under strain with an ageing population contributing to increased risk of strokes. Rapid technology adaption is needed to prevent, rehabilitate and manage symptoms. This paper identifies what technology platforms are most familiar and accessible to stroke patients to guide designers and engineers to develop future interventions. A survey was distributed to 100 inpatients at a stroke unit, identifying patients' accessibility and usage of personal technologies. Results showed that desktop/laptops and smartphones were most used as opposed to tablets and smartwatches. Different technologies were used for different tasks with a notable lack of devices used for personal health. The underlying reasons for this are discussed with recommendations made on what personal technology platforms should be implemented by designers and engineers in technology-based health interventions

Design Strategy for Integrated Personal Health Records: Improving the User Experience of Digital Healthcare and Wellbeing

This dissertation addresses the timely problem of designing Integrated Personal Health Records (PHR). The goal is to provide citizens with digital user experiences, sustainable and flexible enough, for gaining control over their personal health information in a seamless way. Most importantly, so that people are able to reflect and act upon their selfknowledge, towards the accomplishment of their good health and wellbeing. Towards this end, the Integrated PHR as an emerging model in the field of Health IT, was the framework that set this research forward on exploring how communication and collaboration between patients and providers can be improved, which naturally impacts the field of HCI. Acknowledging that today patients are the ones who own all that is recorded about their health data, this new model was object of a design strategy that shaped the results presented in this dissertation. These have showed how patients can have more control of their health over time, through a patient-centered, organic system, which has the ability of combining multiple sources of data both from patient and provider side. As this new type of PHR fosters the creation of integrated networks, this milestone was achieved in this research by interacting with cross-channel user experiences that took part of nationwide healthcare ecosystems. The work presented herein, has demonstrated through the analysis and development of two use cases in cooperation with organizations connected to the Portuguese Ministry of Health, how an Integrated PHR can be a powerful personal tool, to be used by the citizen with undeniable value to the demands of an aging society. The use cases structured the thesis into two parts. The first part in collaboration with the Portuguese National Patient Portal, combines an Integrated PHR and incorporates the Portuguese Data Sharing Platform (PDS), which can be used by any Portuguese citizen. This use case study led to a proposal of the portal by also creating a foundational model for designing Integrated PHRs. The second part in collaboration with the Portuguese National Senior Telehealth Program (Saúde 24 Sénior), led to another proposal for an Integrated PHR, applying the outcomes from Part 1 and the requirements that derived from the findings explored in this second use case study. The proposed solution, has the potential to be used by the Portuguese senior community in the scope of home assistive care. Both proposals applied a user experience design methodology and included the development of two prototypes. The engagement of the stakeholders during the two case studies was accomplished with participatory design methods and followed a multidisciplinary approach to create solutions that would meet the human, politics and behavior interdependencies that were inherent to the process of working with large healthcare organizations. The provided contributions from this thesis intent to be part of a transition process that is changing the behavior of the healthcare sector, which is increasingly moving towards the improvement of the patient-provider relationship, patient engagement, collaborative care and positive computing, where digital technologies play a key role

Indonesian smart schools: Their influence on the ability of information literacy on the biology field

Information literacy in the information society era is very important for every individual, especially for students to prevent misunderstandings and misconceptions. Digital-based learning can influence on students' information literacy abilities. The purpose of the study is to look at the effect of digital-based learning (Indonesian Smart Schools) on students' information literacy abilities. This research was conducted from February to June 2019, at SMA Negeri 2 Tasikmalaya. The research method was a true-experimental design with randomized pretest-posttest control group design. This study population was class X, amounting to 299 people, with cluster random sampling technique, the results were class X MIPA 1 (experimental) and X MIPA 5 (control). The information literacy research instrument uses a validated instrument from SAILS® (30 items). Based on the ANCOVA analysis at the significance level (α) = 0.05 and based on the comparison of the values gain, it can be concluded that there was an effect of digital-based learning on students' information literacy abilities on Animalia material. Indonesian Smart Schools can be alternative digital learning to hone the ability of information literacy on Animalia material. Indonesian Smart Schools can be an alternative to digital learning to hone the ability of information literacy.

Smart aging : utilisation of machine learning and the Internet of Things for independent living

Smart aging utilises innovative approaches and technology to improve older adults’ quality of life, increasing their prospects of living independently. One of the major concerns the older adults to live independently is “serious fall”, as almost a third of people aged over 65 having a fall each year. Dementia, affecting nearly 9% of the same age group, poses another significant issue that needs to be identified as early as possible. Existing fall detection systems from the wearable sensors generate many false alarms; hence, a more accurate and secure system is necessary. Furthermore, there is a considerable gap to identify the onset of cognitive impairment using remote monitoring for self-assisted seniors living in their residences. Applying biometric security improves older adults’ confidence in using IoT and makes it easier for them to benefit from smart aging. Several publicly available datasets are pre-processed to extract distinctive features to address fall detection shortcomings, identify the onset of dementia system, and enable biometric security to wearable sensors. These key features are used with novel machine learning algorithms to train models for the fall detection system, identifying the onset of dementia system, and biometric authentication system. Applying a quantitative approach, these models are tested and analysed from the test dataset. The fall detection approach proposed in this work, in multimodal mode, can achieve an accuracy of 99% to detect a fall. Additionally, using 13 selected features, a system for detecting early signs of dementia is developed. This system has achieved an accuracy rate of 93% to identify a cognitive decline in the older adult, using only some selected aspects of their daily activities. Furthermore, the ML-based biometric authentication system uses physiological signals, such as ECG and Photoplethysmogram, in a fusion mode to identify and authenticate a person, resulting in enhancement of their privacy and security in a smart aging environment. The benefits offered by the fall detection system, early detection and identifying the signs of dementia, and the biometric authentication system, can improve the quality of life for the seniors who prefer to live independently or by themselves

The Effect of Font Type and Font Size on the Legibility in Smart Watch Usage of the Elderly People

학위논문 (석사)-- 서울대학교 대학원 : 공과대학 산업공학과, 2018. 8. 윤명환.전 세계적으로 늘어나고 있는 고령 인구에 따라, 고령자의 건강 관리에 대한 요구와 비용 또한 늘어날 것으로 예상되고 있다. 그에 따라 고령자의 건강 상태를 연속적이고 경제적으로 모니터링할 수 있는 웨어러블 디바이스를 이용한 건강 관리 모니터링 시스템에 대한 연구가 활발하게 이루어지고 있다. 스마트 워치는 고령자의 건강 관리 모니터링 시스템에 적용되기에 적합한 웨어러블 디바이스 중 하나이다. 그러나 스마트 워치의 작은 디스플레이로 인한 낮은 가독성은 문제점으로 지적되고 있다. 가독성은 제품의 사용성 요인 중에 하나이며, 고령자의 기기 수용도에 영향을 미칠 수 있기 때문에, 제품의 가독성을 향상시키는 것은 매우 중요한 문제이다. 그러나 고령자를 대상으로 한 스마트 워치의 가독성 연구는 미비한 실정이다. 따라서, 본 연구에서는 고령자를 대상으로 소형 디스플레이에서 중요한 가독성 영향 요인으로 꼽히는 글자체와 글자 크기가 스마트 워치의 가독성에 미치는 영향을 알아보고자 하였다. 글자체의 경우 고딕체와 명조체를 대상으로 하였으며, 글자 크기의 경우 9 point, 10 point, 11 point, 12 point를 대상으로 하였다. 그 후 결과를 반응 시간, 오류 횟수, 주관적 만족도로 나누어 분석하였다. 실험 결과, 글자체에 따른 반응 시간, 오류 횟수, 주관적 만족도에 통계적으로 유의미한 차이는 나타나지 않았다. 그러나 종합 만족도에서는 명조체보다 고딕체가 더 높은 만족도를 보였다. 따라서 선호도가 중요한 인터페이스의 경우 고딕체를 사용할 것을 권장한다. 이와 달리 각 글자체에서 글자 크기의 변화에 따른 가독성의 차이는 다르게 나타났다. 고딕체의 경우 반응 시간의 차이는 없었지만 오류 횟수에서 10 point와 11 point가 9 point와 12 point보다 더 좋은 결과를 보였으며, 주관적 만족도에서도 정확도와 편안함에서 11 point까지는 글자 크기가 커질수록 만족도가 높아지다가 12 point에서는 더 낮아지는 경향을 보였다. 명조체의 경우, 반응 시간에서 9 point와 10 point보다 11 point와 12 point가 더 좋은 결과를 보였으며, 오류 횟수에서는 차이가 나타나지 않았다. 또한, 통계적으로 차이는 없었지만, 주관적 만족도에서도 정확도와 편안함에서 모두 글자 크기가 커질수록 만족도가 높아지는 경향을 보였다. 따라서, 고딕체를 사용할 경우에는 11 point, 명조체를 사용할 경우에는 12 point 사용을 권장한다. 본 연구는 고령자의 스마트 워치 사용에 있어 글자체와 글자 크기에 대한 가독성 지침을 제시하고자 하였다. 이는 고령자의 스마트 워치 사용에서 사용성을 높일 것으로 기대되며, 이로 인해 고령자의 스마트 워치 기기에 대한 수용도 또한 높일 수 있을 것으로 기대된다. 주요어 : 고령자, 스마트 워치, 가독성, 글자체, 글자 크기제 1 장 서론 1 1.1 연구 배경 및 목적 1 1.2 논문의 구성 3 제 2 장 배경 이론 5 2.1 고령자 5 2.1.1 고령자와 고령 사회 5 2.1.2 고령자의 특성 5 2.2 스마트 워치(Smart Watch) 7 2.2.1 스마트 워치의 정의와 기능 7 2.2.2 고령자와 스마트 워치 8 2.3 가독성 10 2.3.1 가독성의 정의 10 2.3.2 가독성에 영향을 미치는 요인 12 2.3.3 서체 14 2.3.4 가독성 측정 방법 16 2.3.5 고령자에 관한 가독성 연구 18 2.3.6 스마트 워치에 관한 가독성 연구 20 제 3 장 연구 방법 23 3.1 피실험자 23 3.2 실험 장비 23 3.3 실험 자극 25 3.4 독립 변인 26 3.5 종속 변인 26 3.6 실험 절차 27 3.7 실험 환경 28 제 4 장 실험 결과 30 4.1 연구 가설 30 4.2 반응 시간 31 4.2.1 정규성 검정 32 4.2.2 분산의 동질성 검정 33 4.2.3 분산 분석 33 4.3 오류 횟수 38 4.3.1 정규성 검정 39 4.3.2 Mann-Whitney U 검정 40 4.3.3 Kruskall-Wallis 검정 41 4.4 주관적 만족도 47 4.4.1 정확도 정규성 검정 47 4.4.2 정확도 Mann-Whitney U 검정 48 4.4.3 정확도 Kruskall-Wallis 검정 50 4.4.4 편안함 정규성 검정 55 4.4.5 편안함 Mann-Whitney U 검정 56 4.4.6 편안함 Kruskall-Wallis 검정 57 4.4.7 종합 만족도 62 제 5 장 논의 64 제 6 장 결론 67 6.1 결론 67 6.2 연구의 한계 68 6.3 향후 연구 과제 및 연구 의의 70 참고문헌 71 Abstract 82Maste