Strategic Intelligence Monitor on Personal Health Systems (SIMPHS): Structure of Available Data and New Measurement Framework with Selected Indicators

This policy brief provides findings from empirical research on market and innovation dynamics regarding Personal Health Systems (PHS) in Europe. Even the already most consolidated of all PHS segments (i.e. RMT) is found to be radically different than the initial assumptions. The research has revealed that the market is in a state far from being mature and as a result there is little standardised data available. RMT contributes only a tiny fraction of the eHealth market revenues. Pilots are still dominating the form of implemented cases. The market is fragmented also in terms of players without distinct segments. This policy brief recognise a huge potential in a modified approach towards evaluation and measurement of eHealth.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ

Humanitarian Protection in International Refugee Law, Sexism and Exclusion: Case for Human Rights Assessment

The overall purpose of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugee (Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol is to protect refugees fleeing persecution and threat to life. Established in the aftermath of World War II (WW II), Article 1. A(1) of the Refugee Convention centered the meaning and criteria for refugee protection on the circumstances of the War. Thus, the status of a refugee is framed from persecution feared or suffered “on account of” race, religion, nationality, political opinion, and membership in a particular social group. More than seven decades after WW II, the scope of the definition has subsisted, despite the changing paradigm in the circumstances and responses to involuntary migration. This is not without consequences. With compelling demands in forced migration, the international community has developed different approaches towards the refugee crisis, yet with minimal solutions. Despite the massive outcry to address the complex challenges of refugees, hostile attitudes to protection seekers remained daunting and overly pervasive in the international arena. Humanitarian protection of refugees is one of the most crucial yet mismanaged obligations of international law. With increasing demands for humanitarian protection, many destination countries perceive refugees as symbols of conflict, economic burden, and insecurity. This results in rejection, denials, pushback, detention, and refoulement, as well as a clash between political interests and international obligations to protect. Even where host states may exercise discretion to protect, such commitment is subject to the eligibility requirements of Article 1. A(1) and subject to excludability. Because the state functions as an operational instrument for international refugee law (IRL), the limitations of IRL are replicated in domestic laws with detrimental consequences on “unCovention” refugees. Women are the most disadvantaged given that sex is excluded from the status of refugees and grounds of protection. This gives cause to interrogate the nondiscriminatory principle of the Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, and conformity with the norms of international human rights law. This dissertation explores sexism in IRL and the exclusion of women’s experience from the framework of humanitarian protection. It traces the problems of nexus generated from the limitations of refugee inclusion and their intersectionality with gender exclusion and the framing of laws of excludability. The analysis of state practice stresses the interconnection between law, policy, and practice. Centering on the United States jurisprudence, the study investigates the irregularities in the construction of the refugee inclusion and exclusion laws and the associated interpretative barriers that affect the application. The findings are contextualized with lessons from other jurisdictions of selected common law countries—Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom (UK). Law and human needs are dynamic. Therefore, this study examined the effects of inflexibility and lack of diversity in a seventy-two-year Refugee Convention and the prospects of change for a sustainable inclusive refugee regime. In view of these, this study makes recommendations including re-conceptualizing the criteria of refugee eligibility that reflect human realities in contemporary society and taking cognizance of the human rights principles of IRL under the Convention Against Torture (CAT)

State of the art of audio- and video based solutions for AAL

Working Group 3. Audio- and Video-based AAL ApplicationsIt is a matter of fact that Europe is facing more and more crucial challenges regarding health and social care due to the demographic change and the current economic context. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has stressed this situation even further, thus highlighting the need for taking action. Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies come as a viable approach to help facing these challenges, thanks to the high potential they have in enabling remote care and support. Broadly speaking, AAL can be referred to as the use of innovative and advanced Information and Communication Technologies to create supportive, inclusive and empowering applications and environments that enable older, impaired or frail people to live independently and stay active longer in society. AAL capitalizes on the growing pervasiveness and effectiveness of sensing and computing facilities to supply the persons in need with smart assistance, by responding to their necessities of autonomy, independence, comfort, security and safety. The application scenarios addressed by AAL are complex, due to the inherent heterogeneity of the end-user population, their living arrangements, and their physical conditions or impairment. Despite aiming at diverse goals, AAL systems should share some common characteristics. They are designed to provide support in daily life in an invisible, unobtrusive and user-friendly manner. Moreover, they are conceived to be intelligent, to be able to learn and adapt to the requirements and requests of the assisted people, and to synchronise with their specific needs. Nevertheless, to ensure the uptake of AAL in society, potential users must be willing to use AAL applications and to integrate them in their daily environments and lives. In this respect, video- and audio-based AAL applications have several advantages, in terms of unobtrusiveness and information richness. Indeed, cameras and microphones are far less obtrusive with respect to the hindrance other wearable sensors may cause to one’s activities. In addition, a single camera placed in a room can record most of the activities performed in the room, thus replacing many other non-visual sensors. Currently, video-based applications are effective in recognising and monitoring the activities, the movements, and the overall conditions of the assisted individuals as well as to assess their vital parameters (e.g., heart rate, respiratory rate). Similarly, audio sensors have the potential to become one of the most important modalities for interaction with AAL systems, as they can have a large range of sensing, do not require physical presence at a particular location and are physically intangible. Moreover, relevant information about individuals’ activities and health status can derive from processing audio signals (e.g., speech recordings). Nevertheless, as the other side of the coin, cameras and microphones are often perceived as the most intrusive technologies from the viewpoint of the privacy of the monitored individuals. This is due to the richness of the information these technologies convey and the intimate setting where they may be deployed. Solutions able to ensure privacy preservation by context and by design, as well as to ensure high legal and ethical standards are in high demand. After the review of the current state of play and the discussion in GoodBrother, we may claim that the first solutions in this direction are starting to appear in the literature. A multidisciplinary 4 debate among experts and stakeholders is paving the way towards AAL ensuring ergonomics, usability, acceptance and privacy preservation. The DIANA, PAAL, and VisuAAL projects are examples of this fresh approach. This report provides the reader with a review of the most recent advances in audio- and video-based monitoring technologies for AAL. It has been drafted as a collective effort of WG3 to supply an introduction to AAL, its evolution over time and its main functional and technological underpinnings. In this respect, the report contributes to the field with the outline of a new generation of ethical-aware AAL technologies and a proposal for a novel comprehensive taxonomy of AAL systems and applications. Moreover, the report allows non-technical readers to gather an overview of the main components of an AAL system and how these function and interact with the end-users. The report illustrates the state of the art of the most successful AAL applications and functions based on audio and video data, namely (i) lifelogging and self-monitoring, (ii) remote monitoring of vital signs, (iii) emotional state recognition, (iv) food intake monitoring, activity and behaviour recognition, (v) activity and personal assistance, (vi) gesture recognition, (vii) fall detection and prevention, (viii) mobility assessment and frailty recognition, and (ix) cognitive and motor rehabilitation. For these application scenarios, the report illustrates the state of play in terms of scientific advances, available products and research project. The open challenges are also highlighted. The report ends with an overview of the challenges, the hindrances and the opportunities posed by the uptake in real world settings of AAL technologies. In this respect, the report illustrates the current procedural and technological approaches to cope with acceptability, usability and trust in the AAL technology, by surveying strategies and approaches to co-design, to privacy preservation in video and audio data, to transparency and explainability in data processing, and to data transmission and communication. User acceptance and ethical considerations are also debated. Finally, the potentials coming from the silver economy are overviewed.publishedVersio

Smart kitchen for Ambient Assisted Living

El envejecimiento de la población es una realidad en todos los países desarrollados. Las predicciones de crecimiento de esta población son alarmantes, planteando un reto para los servicios sociales y sanitarios. Las personas ancianas padecen diversas discapacidades que se van acentuando con la edad, siendo más propensas a sufrir accidentes domésticos, presentando problemas para realizar tareas cotidianas, etc. Esta situación conlleva a una pérdida paulatina de capacidades que en muchas ocasiones acaba con la vida autónoma de la persona. En este contexto, las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (TIC) aplicadas al entorno doméstico pueden jugar un papel importante, permitiendo que las personas ancianas vivan más tiempo, de forma independiente en su propio hogar, presentando, por tanto, una alternativa a la hospitalización o institucionalización de las mismas. Este trabajo da un paso más en este sentido, presentando el diseño y desarrollo de un Ambiente Inteligente en la cocina, que ayuda a las personas ancianas y/o con discapacidad a desempeñar sus actividades de la vida diaria de una forma más fácil y sencilla. Esta tesis realiza sus principales aportaciones en dos campos: El metodológico y el tecnológico. Por un lado se presenta una metodología sistemática para extraer necesidades de colectivos específicos a fin de mejorar la información disponible por el equipo de diseño del producto, servicio o sistema. Esta metodología se basa en el estudio de la interacción Hombre-Máquina en base a los paradigmas y modelos existentes y el modelado y descripción de las capacidades del usuario en la misma utilizado el lenguaje estandarizado propuesto en la Clasificación Internacional del Funcionamiento, de la Discapacidad y de la Salud (CIF). Adicionalmente, se plantea el problema de la evaluación tecnológica, diseñando la metodología de evaluación de la tecnología con la finalidad de conocer su accesibilidad, funcionalidad y usabilidad del sistema desarrollado y aplicándola a 61 usuarios y 31 profesionales de la gerontología. Desde un punto de vista técnico, se afronta el diseño de un ambiente asistido inteligente (Ambient Assisted Living, AAL) en la cocina, planteando y definiendo la arquitectura del sistema. Esta arquitectura, basada en OSGi (Open Services Gateway initiative), oferta un sistema modular, con altas capacidades de interoperabilidad y escalabilidad. Además, se diseña e implementa una red de sensores distribuida en el entorno con el fin de obtener la mayor información posible del contexto, presentando distintos algoritmos para obtener información de alto nivel: detección de caídas o localización. Todos los dispositivos presentes en el entorno han sido modelados utilizando la taxonomía propuesta en OSGi4AmI, extendiendo la misma a los electrodomésticos más habituales de la cocina. Finalmente, se presenta el diseño e implementación de la inteligencia del sistema, que en función de la información procedente del contexto y de las capacidades del usuario da soporte a las principales actividades de la vida diaria (AVD) en la cocina

The planning and creation of an e-learning and recreational platform for seniors

Europe is facing great demographic changes. It is predicted that seniors will represent almost 30% of the European population by the year 2050. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions may provide an answer to the challenges that these demographic changes bring. AAL as a concept is to interconnect Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with certain devices in order to create products and services to assist its users in all periods of life (e.g. difficulty in climbing stairs can be compensated for by a mechanical stair lift). One important area of AAL is lifelong learning which aims to allow continuous education during the course of a person's life. One way of enabling lifelong learning for seniors is by using electronic-learning platforms (E-Learning). These platforms enable their users to access learning content from almost any location. However, the level of complexity of these platforms may arise as an obstacle for seniors. The Ambient Assisted Living for All (AAL4ALL) project was launched to create a wide range of AAL-related products and services. One of the services which will be offered by this project is an E-Learning and recreational platform especially designed for seniors. The objective of this dissertation is to plan and create the prototype of such a platform. In order to develop a prototype of this nature, we required assistance from the senior population to carry out two different types of studies. First a requirements study was performed in order to gather feedback from our target group before moving on to the development phase. Once the development phase was complete, a usability study was performed to test how seniors interacted with the prototype.A Europa está a enfrentar grandes alterações demográficas. Está previsto que a população idosa representará quase 30% da população Europeia em 2050. O Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) pode oferecer soluções para responder aos desafios que resultam destas alterações demográficas. O AAL significa a ligação de Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC) com determinados dispositivos, visando a criação de produtos e serviços que permitem auxiliar os seus utilizadores ao longo das suas vidas (por exemplo: a dificuldade de subir escadas pode ser compensada pelo uso de um elevador de escadas mecânico). Uma área importante do AAL consiste na aprendizagem ao longo da vida, que permite uma educação contínua no percurso da vida de uma pessoa. Uma forma de possibilitar a aprendizagem ao longo da vida à população idosa é através do uso de plataformas de E-Learning, as quais permitem aos seus utilizadores acederem a conteúdos de aprendizagem de praticamente qualquer local. Contudo, o interface utilizado neste tipo de plataformas tende a ser muito complexo para esta faixa etária. Neste sentido, o projecto chamado Ambient Assisted Living for All (AAL4ALL) foi lançado para criar uma vasta gama de produtos e serviços do AAL. Um dos serviços que será disponibilizado por este projecto é uma plataforma E-Learning especialmente concebida para idosos. O objetivo desta dissertação é planear e criar o protótipo desta plataforma. Com o intuito de desenvolver um protótipo desta natureza pedimos a colaboração de alguns seniores para realizar estudos de duas tipologias diferentes. Primeiro, foi elaborado um estudo de requisitos para obter as suas opiniões sobre o planeamento do protótipo. Por fim, após o desenvolvimento do protótipo, foi elaborado um estudo de usabilidade para testar como os idosos interagem com o mesmo

Ageing and Technology: Perspectives from the Social Sciences

The booming increase of the senior population has become a social phenomenon and a challenge to our societies, and technological advances have undoubtedly contributed to improve the lives of elderly citizens in numerous aspects. In current debates on technology, however, the "human factor" is often largely ignored. The ageing individual is rather seen as a malfunctioning machine whose deficiencies must be diagnosed or as a set of limitations to be overcome by means of technological devices. This volume aims at focusing on the perspective of human beings deriving from the development and use of technology: this change of perspective - taking the human being and not technology first - may help us to become more sensitive to the ambivalences involved in the interaction between humans and technology, as well as to adapt technologies to the people that created the need for its existence, thus contributing to improve the quality of life of senior citizens