Wearable Computing for Health and Fitness: Exploring the Relationship between Data and Human Behaviour

Health and fitness wearable technology has recently advanced, making it easier for an individual to monitor their behaviours. Previously self generated data interacts with the user to motivate positive behaviour change, but issues arise when relating this to long term mention of wearable devices. Previous studies within this area are discussed. We also consider a new approach where data is used to support instead of motivate, through monitoring and logging to encourage reflection. Based on issues highlighted, we then make recommendations on the direction in which future work could be most beneficial

Smart textiles for improved quality of life and cognitive assessment

Smart textiles can be used as innovative solutions to amuse, meaningfully engage, comfort, entertain, stimulate, and to overall improve the quality of life for people living in care homes with dementia or its precursor mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This concept paper presents a smart textile prototype to both entertain and monitor/assess the behavior of the relevant clients. The prototype includes physical computing components for music playing and simple interaction, but additionally games and data logging systems, to determine baselines of activity and interaction. Using microelectronics, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and capacitive touch sensors woven into a fabric, the study demonstrates the kinds of augmentations possible over the normal manipulation of the traditional non-smart activity apron by incorporating light and sound effects as feedback when patients interact with different regions of the textile. A data logging system will record the patient’s behavioral patterns. This would include the location, frequency, and time of the patient’s activities within the different textile areas. The textile will be placed across the laps of the resident, which they then play with, permitting the development of a behavioral profile through the gamification of cognitive tests. This concept paper outlines the development of a prototype sensor system and highlights the challenges related to its use in a care home setting. The research implements a wide range of functionality through a novel architecture involving loosely coupling and concentrating artifacts on the top layer and technology on the bottom layer. Components in a loosely coupled system can be replaced with alternative implementations that provide the same services, and so this gives the solution the best flexibility. The literature shows that existing architectures that are strongly coupled result in difficulties modeling different individuals without incurring significant costs. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Fall prevention intervention technologies: A conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art

In recent years, an ever increasing range of technology-based applications have been developed with the goal of assisting in the delivery of more effective and efficient fall prevention interventions. Whilst there have been a number of studies that have surveyed technologies for a particular sub-domain of fall prevention, there is no existing research which surveys the full spectrum of falls prevention interventions and characterises the range of technologies that have augmented this landscape. This study presents a conceptual framework and survey of the state of the art of technology-based fall prevention systems which is derived from a systematic template analysis of studies presented in contemporary research literature. The framework proposes four broad categories of fall prevention intervention system: Pre-fall prevention; Post-fall prevention; Fall injury prevention; Cross-fall prevention. Other categories include, Application type, Technology deployment platform, Information sources, Deployment environment, User interface type, and Collaborative function. After presenting the conceptual framework, a detailed survey of the state of the art is presented as a function of the proposed framework. A number of research challenges emerge as a result of surveying the research literature, which include a need for: new systems that focus on overcoming extrinsic falls risk factors; systems that support the environmental risk assessment process; systems that enable patients and practitioners to develop more collaborative relationships and engage in shared decision making during falls risk assessment and prevention activities. In response to these challenges, recommendations and future research directions are proposed to overcome each respective challenge.The Royal Society, grant Ref: RG13082

Pediatriapp 2D. Gamification of pediatric health procedures

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2020/2021This document represents the Final Degree Work report of Fernando Soria Mascarós in Video Game Design and Development. This work consists of the development of an application aimed at minors that will explain, through mini-games and text, the paediatric procedures that are carried out when trying to diagnose diseases or solve health problems that minors may have when they go to a health centre or hospital. All these procedures will be adapted to the sensitivity of the child audience and will be explained from a real approach but in a moderate way and according to the perception of a child. The main objective of this application is to allow children to be informed about what will be done to them in health centers in such situations and to lose their fear of the unknown. It is a 2-dimensional application developed in Unity for computer

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

Information technology for active ageing: A review of theory and practice

Active Ageing aims to foster a physically, mentally and socially active lifestyle as a person ages. It is a complex, multi-faceted problem that involves a variety of different actors, such as policy makers, doctors, care givers, family members, friends and, of course, older adults. This review aims to understand the role of a new actor, which increasingly plays the role of enabler and facilitator, i.e., that of the technology provider. The review specifically focuses on Information Technology (IT), with a particular emphasis on software applications, and on how IT can prevent decline, compensate for lost capabilities, aid care, and enhance existing capabilities. The analysis confirms the crucial role of IT in Active Ageing, shows that Active Ageing requires a multidisciplinary approach, and identifies the need for better integration of hardware, software, the environment and the involved actors

Sports in Digital Era

The thesis's primary purpose is to demonstrate the growth of the digital era on the sports industry for awareness and better management. Moreover, it aims to explain the digital technology revolution and its effect on physical activities and sports. The paper presents a social analysis of sports regarding the effects of the IV Industrial Revolution, driven by an unprecedented level of development in materials sciences, digital technology, and biology. The future views on the evolution of the sports industry and options for the sports manager in the phase of digital transition are illustrated. The conclusion summarizes the implications and represents the direction of the sports industry.O objetivo desta tese é demonstrar o crescimento da era digital na indrústia desportiva para a consciencialização e uma melhor gestão. Além disso, visa explicar a revolução tecnológica digital e a sua influência na atividade física e desporto. O documento apresenta uma análise social do desporto em relação aos efeitos da IV Revolução Industrial, impulsionada pelo sem precedente nível de desenvolvimento nas ciências materiais, tecnologia digital e biologia. O futuro da evolução da indústria do desporto e as opções dos gestores desportivos na fase de transição do digital. A conclusão resume as implicações e reflete a direção da indústria do desporto

An Automated Mobile Game-based Screening Tool for Patients with Alcohol Dependence

Traditional methods for screening and diagnosis of alcohol dependence are typically administered by trained clinicians in medical settings and often rely on interview responses. These self-reports can be unintentionally or deliberately false, and misleading answers can, in turn, lead to inaccurate assessment and diagnosis. In this study, we examine the use of user-game interaction patterns on mobile games to develop an automated diagnostic and screening tool for alcohol-dependent patients. Our approach relies on the capture of interaction patterns during gameplay, while potential patients engage with popular mobile games on smartphones. The captured signals include gameplay performance, touch gestures, and device motion, with the intention of identifying patients with alcohol dependence. We evaluate the classification performance of various supervised learning algorithms on data collected from 40 patients and 40 age-matched healthy adults. The results show that patients with alcohol dependence can be automatically identified accurately using the ensemble of touch, device motion, and gameplay performance features on 3-minute samples (accuracy=0.95, sensitivity=0.95, and specificity=0.95). The present findings provide strong evidence suggesting the potential use of user-game interaction metrics on existing mobile games as discriminant features for developing an implicit measure to identify alcohol dependence conditions. In addition to supporting healthcare professionals in clinical decision-making, the game-based self-screening method could be used as a novel strategy to promote alcohol dependence screening, especially outside of clinical settings

Serious game augmented reality 3D for physical rehabilitation

This research consists in the development of a PhysioAR framework (Augmented Reality Physiotherapy) that consider a set of two wearable sensors (Left Controller and Right Controller and Meta/Oculus Quest headset controller for use in natural interactions with a set of AR therapeutic serious games developed on the Unity 3D. The system allows to perform training sessions for hands and fingers, knees and legs motor rehabilitation bearing in mind that the games are for people who have suffered from stroke. The training is part of special care that must be taken for this through the serious games that are properly adapted to be a source of motivation and easy to be played. This FisioAR project includes, two different apps designed, one for calendar and for physiotherapists has a background data with all information needed to do and other to make login in main app and have the possibility to interact with our three types of games specifically designed, developed and implemented for Oculus Quest. Two different mobile apps were constructed on Outsystems platform, where one is destinated to physiotherapists and other is destinated to AVC patient’s. Three Different types of serious games were developed on Unity Platform Engine and all the games have specific contents to be played according with motor and cognitive rehabilitation objectives. The first game called Boxes Game, has six cubes displayed with different colors and six spheres also with six different colors. The main goal of this game is to put the maximum number of spheres in a box with the same color. This game will involve the use of legs, knees and arms and can be easily adapted to each patients’ conditions, making it more or less demanding. The Second Game is called Garden Care Game. Its scenario was made with prefabs (assets) and materials from Unity asset store to simulate a realistic garden, with a watering can, fences and a set of flowers. The main goal of this game is to care the flowers with water. This simple goal is related with the measurement of the wrist rotation made by the patient through wearable sensors while watering each flower. This game as a score for each flower watered. In the Third Game called Puzzle Game, there’s a white screen with the same number of divisions as the existing image blocks in project.Esta pesquisa consiste no desenvolvimento de uma solução do projeto FisioAR baseada em dispositivos vestíveis, combinando um conjunto de sensores vestíveis e controlador de headset para uso em interações naturais com um conjunto de serious games terapêuticos VR desenvolvidos na plataforma de games 3D Unity. O sistema permite realizar treinos de reabilitação motora de mãos e dedos, joelhos e pernas tendo em vista que os jogos são para pessoas que sofreram AVC e devem ser tomados cuidados especiais com isso e que os jogos estão devidamente adaptados para serem mais simples. ser jogado. Este projeto FisioAR tem em todas as implementações, dois aplicativos diferentes projetados, três tipos diferentes de jogos projetados no Oculus Quest. Dois aplicativos diferentes foram construídos na plataforma Outsystems sendo um destinado a fisioterapeutas e outro a pacientes AVC. Três tipos diferentes de jogos foram especialmente projetados no Unity Platform Engine e todos os jogos possuem conteúdos específicos para serem jogados. O primeiro jogo denominado Boxes Game, tem seis cubos apresentados com cores diferentes e seis esferas também com seis cores diferentes. O principal objetivo deste jogo é colocar o número máximo de esferas em uma caixa com a mesma cor e com distância mínima percorrida. Este jogo envolverá o uso de pernas, joelhos e braços e pode ser facilmente adaptado às condições de cada paciente, tornando-o mais ou menos exigente. O segundo jogo é chamado de jogo de cuidado de jardim. Seu cenário foi feito com pré-fabricados e materiais da loja de ativos da unidade para simular um jardim realista, com regador, cercas e um conjunto de flores. O objetivo principal deste jogo é regar as flores. Esse objetivo simples está relacionado à medição da rotação do punho feita pelo paciente por meio de sensores vestíveis ao regar cada flor. Este jogo é uma pontuação para cada flor regada. No terceiro jogo, chamado Puzzle Game, há uma tela branca com o mesmo número de divisões que os blocos de imagem existentes no projeto