Inter-organization cooperation for ambient assisted living

In the last years we have witnessed to a substantial increase on the number of people in need of care services, espe-cially among the elderly, a phenomenon related to population ageing. However, this is becoming not exclusive of the elderly, as diseases like obesity, diabetes, and blood pressure have been increasing amongst young adults. This is a new reality which needs to be dealt by the healthcare sector, specifically the public one. Given these new scenarios, the importance of finding new and cost-effective ways for health care delivery are of particular relevance, especially when it is believed that these new patients should not be removed from their natural, day-to-day life, environment. The evolution of the, so called, new technolo-gies may pay here a very important role as they may become part of the solution for this new problematic. Actually, they are already been used as, in recent years, several projects have raised in this relatively new area of work. These projects, although legitimate ones, were essential for delineating a path to pursue for others to come, as they were in some case, very simple ones (e.g. panic buttons), and, especially, reactive ones. In this paper, we are going to present how we are trying to evolve these projects a step further, through the introduction of proactiveness as a key factor, taking advantage of “new”, as in applied to this areas, techniques of decision making, idea generation, argumentation and data quality, applied, not only to the in transit information, but also to the one provided by the several intervenient as well as themselves. In order to be able to pursue this delineated path, a new approach for knowledge representation, reasoning, and even for problem solving is proposed. To achieve these goals, the VirtualECare environment is presented, together with its sustaining infrastructure and architecture. Particular attention will be paidto how it may be used to simulate a virtual Assisted Living Environment in order to, later, bet-ter monitor real ones, attending to its customers’ needs

Information Based Hierarchical Brain Organization/Evolution from the Perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness

Introduction: This article discusses the brain hierarchical organization/evolution as a consequence of the information-induced brain development, from the perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness. Analysis: In the frame of the Informational Model of Consciousness, a detailed info-neural analysis ispresented, concerning the specific properties/functions of the informational system of the human body composed by the Center of Acquisition and Storing of Information, Center of Decision and Command, Info-Emotional Center, Maintenance Informational System, Genetic Transmission System, Info Genetic Generator and Info- Connection center, in relation with the neuro-connected brain areas, with a special attention to the Info-Connection and its specific properties. Besides a meticulous analysis of the info-connections/neuro-functions of these centers, a special attention was paid to limbic/cingulate cortex activities. Defined as a trust/confidence center, additional features are highlighted in correlation with the activity of the anterior cingulate cortex, consisting in the intervention/moderation of amygdala emotional signals, conflicting opposite YES/NO data and error elimination in the favor of the organism adaptation/survival, the intervention in the certainty/uncertainty balance to select a suitable pro-life information (antientropic effect), in moderation of pain and in the stimulation of the empathic inter-human relations/communication. Representing the correspondence between the informational subsystems and the brain area map, itis shown that the up/down integration of information by epigenetic mechanisms and the down/ up evolution are correlated. Results: The analysis of the functions of the anterior cingulate opens new gates of investigations concerning the involved intimate mechanisms at the level of cell microstructure, specifically on the compatibility with quantum assisted processes admitted by the Informational Model of Consciousness and the quantum-based models The discussion on the information integration/codification by epigenetic mechanisms shows that this process starts from the superior levels of brain conscious info-processing areas and progressively advances to the automatic/autonomic inferior levels ofthe informational system, under insistent/repetitive cues/stress conditions, pointing out an hierarchical functional/anatomical structure of the brain organization. Additional arguments are discussed, indicating thatthe down/up progressive scale representation is a suggestive illustration of the brain evolution, induced/assisted/determined by information, accelerated at humans by the antientropic functions of the Info-Connection center. Conclusions: The hierarchical organization of the brain is a consequence of the integration process of information, defining its development accordingly to the adaptation requirements for survival during successive evolution stages of the organism, information playing a determinant/key role

Better health and ambient assisted living (AAL) from a global, regional and local economic perspective

Assisting technologies aim to provide more support in the meeting of one's daily needs and the preservation of one's autonomy and quality of life. Continual developments in medicine, medical equipment, nursing and medical care are assumed to lead to new types of care being created. A high degree of social and economic relevance has been attributed to assisting technologies, as well as information and communication systems, by scientists and politicians alike, particularly in connection with the development, promotion and organization of so-called senior-friendly environments and with ambient assisted living (AAL). Here the focus is especially upon the aged of the future, their specific demands and resources, which these technologies should be able to serve while adhering to their individual requirements. These new technologies can also be extremely relevant to people surrounding the elderly. They can make a considerable difference to the way in which people are able to live together for example by assisting the nursing care provided by close relatives and they may represent new opportunities to the providers of outpatient and inpatient nursing and medical care. -- Assistierende Technologien sollen der besseren Unterstützung bei der Deckung von Bedürfnissen des täglichen Lebens und zur Erhaltung von Selbständigkeit und Lebensqualität dienen. Es ist davon auszugehen, dass durch die kontinuierliche Entwicklung in der Medizin, der Medizintechnik sowie assistierender Technologien in der medizinischen und pflegerischen Versorgung neue Versorgungsmöglichkeiten geschaffen werden. Insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit der Entwicklung, der Förderung und der Ausgestaltung sogenannter altersgerechter Lebenswelten bzw. eines ambient assisted living (AAL) wird den unterstützenden Technologien und Informations- und Kommunikationstechniken von wissenschaftlicher und politischer Seite eine hohe gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Relevanz zugewiesen. Im Fokus stehen dabei vor allem die zukünftigen Älteren und ihre spezifischen Bedarfe und Ressourcen, die diese Technologien ihren individuellen Bedürfnissen entsprechend nutzen können sollen. Derartige Techniken können aber auch für Personen aus dem sozialen Umfeld der Älteren von hoher Relevanz sein. So können diese die Gestaltung des Zusammenlebens erheblich ändern - beispielsweise durch die Unterstützung bei der pflegerischen Versorgung durch Angehörige - und beispielsweise den Anbietern im Bereich der gesundheitlichen und pflegerischen ambulanten und stationären Versorgung neue Möglichkeiten der Versorgung bieten.

Better Health and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) from a global, regional and local economic perspective

Assisting technologies aim to provide more support in the meeting of one's daily needs and the preservation of one's autonomy and quality of life. Continual developments in medicine, medical equipment, nursing and medical care are assumed to lead to new types of care being created. A high degree of social and economic relevance has been attributed to assisting technologies, as well as information and communication systems, by scientists and politicians alike, particularly in connection with the development, promotion and organization of so-called senior-friendly environments and with ambient assisted living (AAL).economic development; ambient assisted living; health care system; assisting technologies; health care; new technologies; health economy

On the Integration of Adaptive and Interactive Robotic Smart Spaces

© 2015 Mauro Dragone et al.. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)Enabling robots to seamlessly operate as part of smart spaces is an important and extended challenge for robotics R&D and a key enabler for a range of advanced robotic applications, such as AmbientAssisted Living (AAL) and home automation. The integration of these technologies is currently being pursued from two largely distinct view-points: On the one hand, people-centred initiatives focus on improving the user’s acceptance by tackling human-robot interaction (HRI) issues, often adopting a social robotic approach, and by giving to the designer and - in a limited degree – to the final user(s), control on personalization and product customisation features. On the other hand, technologically-driven initiatives are building impersonal but intelligent systems that are able to pro-actively and autonomously adapt their operations to fit changing requirements and evolving users’ needs,but which largely ignore and do not leverage human-robot interaction and may thus lead to poor user experience and user acceptance. In order to inform the development of a new generation of smart robotic spaces, this paper analyses and compares different research strands with a view to proposing possible integrated solutions with both advanced HRI and online adaptation capabilities.Peer reviewe

A collaborative platform for an ambient assisted living ecosystem

The population ageing is a global trend that affects almost all countries in the world. The global share of people with 60 years or over is expected to reach 21.6% by 2050. The social and economic impact of this tendency is huge, creating new challenges to healthcare and social support services. Furthermore, population ageing is linked to an increased number of people with physical limitations together with the isolation of persons. The Ambient Assisted Living paradigm seeks to answer to some of this challenges through the integration of innovative technologies, products, systems and services. Aiming the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living, the AAL4ALL project was created joining more than thirty research, academic and industry partners. During the AAL4ALL project a 3-layered model of services ecosystem was adopted for the conceptual architecture. This work presents a collaborative platform as a contribution to the top layer of the conceptual architecture - AAL Ecosystem.O envelhecimento da população é uma tendência global que afeta quase todos os países no mundo. A nível mundial, a percentagem de pessoas com mais de 60 anos deve atingir os 21,6% até 2050. Os impactos sociais e económicos desta tendência são enormes, criando novos desafios aos serviços de saúde e de assistência social. Além disso, o envelhecimento populacional significa um aumento do número de pessoas com limitações físicas bem como o seu isolamento. O paradigma de Ambient Assisted Living procura responder a alguns destes desafios através da integração de tecnologias, produtos, sistemas e serviços inovadores. Com o objetivo de desenvolver um ecossistema de produtos e serviços de Ambient Assisted Living, o projeto AAL4ALL foi criado reunindo mais de trinta parceiros das áreas académica, de investigação e indústria. Durante o projeto AAL4ALL, um modelo de ecossistema de serviços de 3 camadas foi adotado para a arquitetura conceptual. Este trabalho apresenta uma plataforma colaborativa como contributo para a camada superior da arquitetura conceptual – Ecossistema AAL

How Resilient Are Our Societies? Analyses, Models, and Preliminary Results

Traditional social organizations such as those for the management of healthcare and civil defence are the result of designs and realizations that matched well with an operational context considerably different from the one we are experiencing today: A simpler world, characterized by a greater amount of resources to match less users producing lower peaks of requests. The new context reveals all the fragility of our societies: unmanageability is just around the corner unless we do not complement the "old recipes" with smarter forms of social organization. Here we analyze this problem and propose a refinement to our fractal social organizations as a model for resilient cyber-physical societies. Evidence to our claims is provided by simulating our model in terms of multi-agent systems.Comment: Paper submitted for publication in the Proc. of SERENE 2015 (http://serene.disim.univaq.it/2015/

A brave new world of Ambient Intelligence in the casinos of Macau: reality or fiction?

The article scrutinizes the brave new world of ambient intelligence in the casinos of the Macau, Special Administrative Region of People´s Republic of China, chiefly in regards to the (candent) issue of privacy of the casino patrons. Moreover, this scientific article provides an overview about the secondary use of big data of the casino patrons for law enforcement purposes