A people-oriented paradigm for smart cities

Most works in the literature agree on considering the Internet of Things (IoT) as the base technology to collect information related to smart cities. This information is usually offered as open data for its analysis, and to elaborate statistics or provide services which improve the management of the city, making it more efficient and more comfortable to live in. However, it is not possible to actually improve the quality of life of smart cities’ inhabitants if there is no direct information about them and their experiences. To address this problem, we propose using a social and mobile computation model, called the Internet of People (IoP) which empowers smartphones to recollect information about their users, analyze it to obtain knowledge about their habits, and provide this knowledge as a service creating a collaborative information network. Combining IoT and IoP, we allow the smart city to dynamically adapt its services to the needs of its citizens, promoting their welfare as the main objective of the city.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Mobile recommender apps with privacy management for accessible and usable technologies

The paper presents the preliminary results of an ongoing survey of the use of computers and mobile devices, interest in recommender apps and knowledge and concerns about privacy issues amongst English and Italian speaking disabled people. Participants were found to be regular users of computers and mobile devices for a range of applications. They were interested in recommender apps for household items, computer software and apps that met their accessibility and other requirements. They showed greater concerns about controlling access to personal data of different types than this data being retained by the computer or mobile device. They were also willing to make tradeoffs to improve device performance

Ontology-based personalisation of e-learning resources for disabled students

Students with disabilities are often expected to use e-learning systems to access learning materials but most systems do not provide appropriate adaptation or personalisation to meet their needs.The difficulties related to inadaptability of current learning environments can now be resolved using semantic web technologies such as web ontologies which have been successfully used to drive e-learning personalisation. Nevertheless, e-learning personalisation for students with disabilities has mainly targeted those with single disabilities such as dyslexia or visual impairment, often neglecting those with multiple disabilities due to the difficulty of designing for a combination of disabilities.This thesis argues that it is possible to personalise learning materials for learners with disabilities, including those with multiple disabilities. This is achieved by developing a model that allows the learning environment to present the student with learning materials in suitable formats while considering their disability and learning needs through an ontology-driven and disability-aware personalised e-learning system model (ONTODAPS). A disability ontology known as the Abilities and Disabilities Ontology for Online LEarning and Services (ADOOLES) is developed and used to drive this model. To test the above hypothesis, some case studies are employed to show how the model functions for various individuals with and without disabilities and then the implemented visual interface is experimentally evaluated by eighteen students with disabilities and heuristically by ten lecturers. The results are collected and statistically analysed.The results obtained confirm the above hypothesis and suggest that ONTODAPS can be effectively employed to personalise learning and to manage learning resources. The student participants found that ONTODAPS could aid their learning experience and all agreed that they would like to use this functionality in an existing learning environment. The results also suggest that ONTODAPS provides a platform where students with disabilities can have equivalent learning experience with their peers without disabilities. For the results to be generalised, this study could be extended through further experiments with more diverse groups of students with disabilities and across multiple educational institutions

PROVIDING CONTEXT-AWARE SERVICES TO DEMENTIA PATIENTS AND CAREGIVERS

As a result of increased human lifespan, dementia becomes a national public health and social care priority worldwide. Although, there is no cure for dementia, the wandering behavior of dementia patients can be managed by an ambient assisted living system. In this paper, Wandering Behavior Ontology (WBO) used for dealing with wandering behavior seen in early stage dementia patients is proposed. WBO is used in iCarus, which is an intelligent ambient assisted living system, for providing context-aware services to dementia patients and their caregivers. Knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse and logical reasoning are provided by using ontologies. iCarus aims to reduce the problems and financial burden associated with a wandering episode for the patients and their caregivers. It provides longer independent living for the elderly people and a cost-effective way of remotely monitoring them. The actions that are to be taken are determined by rule-based reasoning. These actions are sequential and they are defined in the developed ontology. These actions include warning the patient and informing the caregiver and the emergency service

Cognitive assisted living ambient system: a survey

The demographic change towards an aging population is creating a significant impact and introducing drastic challenges to our society. We therefore need to find ways to assist older people to stay independently and prevent social isolation of these population. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide various solutions to help older adults to improve their quality of life, stay healthier, and live independently for a time. Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is a field to investigate innovative technologies to provide assistance as well as healthcare and rehabilitation to impaired seniors. The paper provides a review of research background and technologies of AAL

Using Hidden-Markov Model in Speech-based Education System for the Visually Impaired Learner

Speech-based e-Education technology allows users to access learning content on the web by dialing a telephone number. Speech-enabled applications, particularly in the domain of education are primarily implemented to cater for the plight of the visually impaired towards addressing the shortcomings of user interface (UI) design of a mobile learner. However, with the increase in learning resources on the web, using telephone to find suitable content has become a painstaking task for speech-based online users to achieve improved performance. The problem of finding suitable content with speech e- learning applications is more difficult when the sight impaired learner is involved. It is convenient to use existing mobile speech-enabled e-learning applications, but it can be exceptionally time-consuming when the user is forced to navigate through several levels of options before finding exact content. The adoption of Hidden markov model (HMM) for interface and interaction design is required to provide easy navigation and adaptation in speech-enabled learning towards solving the problem of finding suitable content. The objective of this study is to provide a design and implementation of a HMM- based speech interactive education. The system will be useful especially for the physically challenged students such as the visually impaired. It also offers an alternative platform of learning for the able- bodied learners

Implementing ALiS: Towards a Reference Architecture for Augmented Living Spaces

Augmented reality (AR) is currently discussed as an approach to promote the personal health of elderly and cognitively impaired people, with spatial AR being a promising, wearable-less solution to enable. an augmented living space (ALiS) that immersively provides and communicates individual, needs-oriented functionalities in the areas of perception, mobility, organization, and medicine. To address the knowledge gap of missing knowledge concerning the implementation of such assistance systems that support autonomy in everyday life, we derived a reference architecture (RA) based on an existing design theory. Our RA contains UML diagrams for components and sequence flows, accompanying text descriptions, and a user interface design. We successfully implemented a prototype to show the RAs feasibility and conducted an expert survey for its general usefulness with positive results. Our contributions add to the prescriptive knowledge base of the community as the results may be adapted by researchers and practitioners

Personalized Alert Notifications and Evacuation Routes in Indoor Environments

The preparedness phase is crucial in the emergency management process for reaching an adequate level of readiness to react to potential threats and hazards. During this phase, emergency plans are developed to establish, among other procedures, evacuation and emergency escape routes. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can support and improve these procedures providing appropriate, updated and accessible information to all people in the affected zone. Current emergency management and evacuation systems do not adapt information to the context and the profile of each person, so messages received in the emergency might be useless. In this paper, we propose a set of criteria that ICT-based systems could achieve in order to avoid this problem adapting emergency alerts and evacuation routes to different situations and people. Moreover, in order to prove the applicability of such criteria, we define a mechanism that can be used as a complement of traditional evacuation systems to provide personalized alerts and evacuation routes to all kinds of people during emergency situations in working places. This mechanism is composed by three main components: CAP-ONES for notifying emergency alerts, NERES for defining emergency plans and generating personalized evacuation routes, and iNeres as the interface to receive and visualize these routes on smartphones. The usability and understandability of proposed interface has been assessed through a user study performed in a fire simulation in an indoor environment. This evaluation demonstrated that users considered iNeres easy to understand, to learn and to use, and they also found very innovative the idea to use smartphones as a support for escaping instead of static signals on walls and doors

A multi modal interface for a visually impaired pupils educational environment

The aim of this paper is to describe a multi modal user interface integrated within an architecture allowing visually impaired pupils and sighted people to work on the same station. This architecture is developed to face the problem of the inclusion of visually impaired pupils in mainstream education. The system is able to display the same original multi-media content converted in different ways on screen, Braille terminal and vocal synthesizers. It accepts various interactions from keyboard, Braille bar and mouse. Both blind and sighted users can manage the same tools, cooperate together on the same content, and thus perform the same activities. Blind pupils may be assisted by sighted teachers or tutors that don’t know how to read Braille characters