No Pets Allowed: Housing Issues and Companion Animals

Companionship, emotional support, assistance for disabled family members, and general health benefits are just a few examples of why people choose to keep pets in their homes. This article explores the major legal issues that arise when people desire to keep companion animals in various types of housing. The Author examines the effects of federal, state, and local laws, as well as common contracts clauses

The Examination on Mobile Banking’s Use Behavior of Retired Chinese in Shaoxing

This study aims to determine the factors that affect how retired Chinese customers use mobile banking. The conceptual framework focuses on the relationship between perceived usefulness, trust, pricing value, user satisfaction, behavioral intention and use behavior of mobile banking applications. The researcher employed quantitative method to distribute questionnaires to 450 retired Chinese in Shaoxing, who have been using the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), China Construction Bank (CCB), and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)’s mobile banking applications. The nonprobability sample includes judgmental, quota, convenience sampling. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) were used for data analysis, including model fit analysis, reliability and construct validity. The results show that perceived usefulness, pricing value, trust, and user satisfaction have significant impacts on behavioral intention, and perceived usefulness has a significant impact on user satisfaction, while behavioral intention has a significant impact on user behavior. Six hypotheses were accepted to fulfill research objectives. Therefore, mobile banking application development needs to pay more attention to the perceived usefulness, pricing value, trust, behavioral intention, and user satisfaction aspects of the research and development efforts

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

Canines on Campus: Companion Animals at Postsecondary Educational Institutions

This Article focuses on the issues that arise when students wish to attend a postsecondary institution accompanied by an animal. The Article begins by analyzing the federal law applicable to students bringing service and assistance animals to campus. The use of animal-assisted activities on campus is also explored. The Article continues with an examination of policies allowing students to have companion animals in campus housing. Concerns raised by administrators about allowing animals on campus are then considered. Finally, the Article sets forth the measures an educational institution should implement to ensure compliance with the law and proposes actions that can be taken to protect humans and safeguard the companion animals on campus

Robotic-based well-being monitoring and coaching system for the elderly in their daily activities

The increasingly ageing population and the tendency to live alone have led science and engineering researchers to search for health care solutions. In the COVID 19 pandemic, the elderly have been seriously affected in addition to suffering from isolation and its associated and psychological consequences. This paper provides an overview of the RobWell (Robotic-based Well-Being Monitoring and Coaching System for the Elderly in their Daily Activities) system. It is a system focused on the field of artificial intelligence for mood prediction and coaching. This paper presents a general overview of the initially proposed system as well as the preliminary results related to the home automation subsystem, autonomous robot navigation and mood estimation through machine learning prior to the final system integration, which will be discussed in future works. The main goal is to improve their mental well-being during their daily household activities. The system is composed of ambient intelligence with intelligent sensors, actuators and a robotic platform that interacts with the user. A test smart home system was set up in which the sensors, actuators and robotic platform were integrated and tested. For artificial intelligence applied to mood prediction, we used machine learning to classify several physiological signals into different moods. In robotics, it was concluded that the ROS autonomous navigation stack and its autodocking algorithm were not reliable enough for this task, while the robot’s autonomy was sufficient. Semantic navigation, artificial intelligence and computer vision alternatives are being sought.This research was funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Univesidades, Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) under project ROBWELL (RTI2018-095599-A-C22) and by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation

Live Piloting and Prototyping Services

This paper presents current trends in service design research concerning large scale projects aimed at generating changes at a local scale. The strategy adopted to achieve this, is to co-design solutions including future users in the development process, prototyping and testing system of products and services before their actual implementation. On the basis of experience achieved in the European Project Life 2.0, this paper discusses which methods and competencies are applied in the development of these projects, eliciting the lessons learnt especially from the piloting phase in which the participatory design (PD) approach plays a major role. In the first part, the topic is introduced jointly with the theoretical background where the user center design and participatory design methods are presented; then the Life 2.0 project development is described; finally the experience is discussed from a service design perspective, eliciting guidelines for piloting and prototyping services in a real context of use. The paper concludes reflecting on the designers’ role and competencies needed in this process

The Perceptions of People with Dementia and Key Stakeholders Regarding the Use and Impact of the Social Robot MARIO

People with dementia often experience loneliness and social isolation. This can result in increased cognitive decline which, in turn, has a negative impact on quality of life. This paper explores the use of the social robot, MARIO, with older people living with dementia as a way of addressing these issues. A descriptive qualitative study was conducted to explore the perceptions and experiences of the use and impact of MARIO. The research took place in the UK, Italy and Ireland. Semi-structured interviews were held in each location with people with dementia (n = 38), relatives/carers (n = 28), formal carers (n = 28) and managers (n = 13). The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The findings revealed that despite challenges in relation to voice recognition and the practicalities of conducting research involving robots in real-life settings, most participants were positive about MARIO. Through the robot’s user-led design and personalized applications, MARIO provided a point of interest, social activities, and cognitive engagement increased. However, some formal carers and managers voiced concern that robots might replace care staff

Accessibility of Health Data Representations for Older Adults: Challenges and Opportunities for Design

Health data of consumer off-the-shelf wearable devices is often conveyed to users through visual data representations and analyses. However, this is not always accessible to people with disabilities or older people due to low vision, cognitive impairments or literacy issues. Due to trade-offs between aesthetics predominance or information overload, real-time user feedback may not be conveyed easily from sensor devices through visual cues like graphs and texts. These difficulties may hinder critical data understanding. Additional auditory and tactile feedback can also provide immediate and accessible cues from these wearable devices, but it is necessary to understand existing data representation limitations initially. To avoid higher cognitive and visual overload, auditory and haptic cues can be designed to complement, replace or reinforce visual cues. In this paper, we outline the challenges in existing data representation and the necessary evidence to enhance the accessibility of health information from personal sensing devices used to monitor health parameters such as blood pressure, sleep, activity, heart rate and more. By creating innovative and inclusive user feedback, users will likely want to engage and interact with new devices and their own data