Crowd-based ambient assisted living to monitor the elderly's health outdoors

The Safeneighborhood Approach Combines Data From Multiple Sources With Collective Intelligence. It Merges Mobile, Ambient, And Ai Technologies With Old-Fashioned Neighborhood Ties To Create Safe Outdoor Spaces For The Elderly. We&#39 Re Exploring Aal Techniques In Outdoor Environments To Increase The Elderly&#39 S Independence Without Them Having To Interact With Technology. Current Research In Outdoor Monitoring Relies Solely On Sensor Data.4 Our Approach, Which We Call Safeneigborhood (Sn), Crowdsources People In The Neighborhood To Revise The Computer&#39 S Inferences From Contextual And Sensor Data. So, Sn Brings The Community Together To Provide A Safer Environment For The Elderly

Smart Outdoors: a proposal for a public park in Campo de Ourique

Assistive technology-based innovation is a promising idea that aims to achieve and improve the well-being of humans. Currently, the focus of technology has changed, seeking to serve specific populations, especially the elderly, reducing the barriers they face on a daily basis when conducting outdoor activities. Most research carried out in an assisted environment is concentrated mainly in private spaces, such as homes, nursing homes and others. This research aims to propose design solutions based on the concept of an assisted environment on a city scale. By doing so, the elderly population can experience and live in collective and public environments (specifically in a public park) independently. In this context, interviews with specialists and observation studies were developed to understand the problems and needs of this specific population. Interviews were targeted to obtain insight from experts regarding the use of technology to solve the elderly’s problems in cities. However, the results did not give adequate insight to use within the study. Next, observations were also carried out in a public park in Campo Ourique, Lisbon to acquire insight from the field to observe/witness the problems of the elderly from a first-person point of view. The observation results showed the difficulties that the population in question faced. Consequently, design solution ideas were proposed to design a smart public park which might overcome the problems that were found in the literature and in the user observations. During the observations, it was seen that the elderly population is very active and highly values an outdoor space to spend time. In this sense, the design proposal could improve and facilitate the lives of the elderly, seeking as much as possible to reduce the barriers that were both observed and reported by experts throughout the interviews. Due to COVID-19, the study had limited access to the users and an evaluation phase could not be done. However, as a future work, user studies will continue to discover more about the elderly’s problems and eventually the scenarios and proposed solutions will be evaluated by them. Furthermore, applicability, usability and feasibility of the proposed ideas will be tested by more users (i.e., experts, stakeholders).A inovação baseada em tecnologia assistiva ainda é uma ideia promissora que visa alcançar e melhorar o bem-estar dos humanos. Atualmente, o foco da tecnologia mudou, buscando atender populações específicas, principalmente os idosos, reduzindo as barreiras que eles enfrentam no dia a dia na realização de atividades ao ar livre. A maioria das pesquisas realizadas em ambiente assistido concentra-se principalmente em espaços privados, como residências, asilos e outros. A pesquisa tem como objetivo propor soluções de design baseadas no conceito de ambiente assistido à escala da cidade, onde a população idosa pode vivenciar e viver os ambientes coletivos e públicos (especificamente num parque público) de forma independente. Nesse sentido, foram desenvolvidas entrevistas com especialistas e estudos de observação para entender os problemas e necessidades dessa população específica. As entrevistas foram direcionadas para obter insights de especialistas sobre o uso de tecnologia para resolver os problemas dos idosos nas cidades. No entanto, os resultados não forneceram percepções adequadas para serem usadas no estudo. Em seguida, foram também realizadas observações num parque público do Campo D’Ourique, em Lisboa, para obter insights do campo para observar / testemunhar os problemas dos idosos do ponto de vista da primeira pessoa. Os resultados da observação evidenciaram as dificuldades enfrentadas pela população em questão. Consequentemente, ideias de soluções de design foram propostas para projetar um parque público inteligente que pudesse superar os problemas que foram encontrados na literatura e nas observações do usuário. Durante as observações, percebeu-se que a população idosa é muito ativa e valoriza muito um espaço ao ar livre para passar o tempo. Nesse sentido, a proposta do projeto poderia melhorar e facilitar a vida dos idosos, buscando ao máximo reduzir as barreiras que foram observadas e relatadas pelos especialistas ao longo das entrevistas. Devido ao COVID-19, o estudo limitou-se ao acesso aos usuários e não foi possível realizar a fase de avaliação. No entanto, como um trabalho futuro, os estudos de usuários continuarão a descobrir mais sobre os problemas dos idosos e, eventualmente, os cenários e as soluções propostas serão avaliados por eles. Além disso, a aplicabilidade, usabilidade e viabilidade das ideias propostas serão testadas por mais usuários (ou seja, especialistas, partes interessadas)

Physical environment of residential aged care facilities in northeast China

The increasing number of "empty nest elderly" has attracted much attention to the living environment of care facilities for, the elderly. For this reason, this research mainly studies and analyzes the living environments of elderly care facilities in China. With the increasing number of China’s aging and self care elderly people, the demand of residential aged care facilities (RACFs) is also growing in this country. This study compares elderly care facilities in China and UK, with focus on the merits of some RACFs in the United Kingdom. In addition, this study also selected 305 elderly people in a city, and summarized the elements that encouragement the elderly residents’ quality of life (QoL). Through the method of hierarchical coding associated with grounded theory, the relevant factors of the elderly resident’s QoL and the living environment are summarized. Yet, the RACFs are in short supply in China, and attention to this situation is insufficient. There are also problems regarding resource allocation. The system of elderly care facilities in UK is more rational organized with better caring facilities, which provides lessons for China. Drawing on the experience of the UK’s provision of aged care facilities helps to explore and develop facilities that meet the needs of China’s elderly care. Three main elements that have influence on the elderly’s QoL are: “What do they need; Why do they needed; and What choices are available for them” which can be approached through grounded theoretical research and analysis. The three factors play an central part in the QoL of the elderly and affect their choice behavior. In addition, the physical environment is one of the important influencing factors. The health of the elderly is poor, and any surrounding factors will affect the feeling of the elderly. Therefore, the elderly have higher requirements for RACFs. The physical environments of the RACFs were found to be highly correlated with the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) rating, which includes acoustic, lighting, and thermal environment, and indoor air quality (IAQ). The survey found that IEQ ratings are affected by seasonality, with rating of bedrooms higher than that of activity rooms. Among them, the satisfaction threshold related to sound is higher in summer than in winter, while the satisfaction threshold related to lighting is less affected by the season. The study of architectural composition, indoor building environment and residential satisfaction on the QoL of the elderly in the RACFs in the northeast China shows that IEQ and residential satisfaction RS as intermediary variables indirectly affect the effect of AC building component on QoL. Meanwhile, the influences of building types, seasonal distribution and RACFs scale on IEQ were analyzed in the 34 RACFs of northeast China. The results have shown that despite the reconstruction of RACFs and seasonal distribution, the satisfaction of the participants have changed, while the scale of RACFs has less influence on the satisfaction. Research into elderly residents’ rating of acoustic comfort in an activity hall in a residential aged care facility in Harbin, China, showed that the elderly had a low satisfaction with the acoustic environment of the activity hall. As the sound pressure level (SPL) raised, the elderly’s rating of their satisfaction with the acoustic environment declined. The elderly’s satisfaction and preference for music sounds were higher than other sound types, such as chatting or machine noises. The satisfaction towards music can also decline due to certain factors, but was slower than other sound types. Although the pension system has been established in China for a long time, improving the living environments of the elderly has not attracted attention, and the psychological factors of the elderly people are normally ignored due to the immature architectural understanding of the elderly. The devise of the living environment for the elderly people in China is not adequately sophisticated. The design of housing suitable for the elderly should attract social attention. In short, the investigation and analysis of this study have significance for the living environment of the elderly in China

Human experience in the natural and built environment : implications for research policy and practice

22nd IAPS conference. Edited book of abstracts. 427 pp. University of Strathclyde, Sheffield and West of Scotland Publication. ISBN: 978-0-94-764988-3

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC