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

Design Strategies for Playful Technologies to Support Light-intensity Physical Activity in the Workplace

Moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity has an established preventative role in obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. However recent evidence suggests that sitting time affects health negatively independent of whether adults meet prescribed physical activity guidelines. Since many of us spend long hours daily sitting in front of a host of electronic screens, this is cause for concern. In this paper, we describe a set of three prototype digital games created for encouraging light-intensity physical activity during short breaks at work. The design of these kinds of games is a complex process that must consider motivation strategies, interaction methodology, usability and ludic aspects. We present design guidelines for technologies that encourage physical activity in the workplace that we derived from a user evaluation using the prototypes. Although the design guidelines can be seen as general principles, we conclude that they have to be considered differently for different workplace cultures and workspaces. Our study was conducted with users who have some experience playing casual games on their mobile devices and were able and willing to increase their physical activity.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Video: http://living.media.mit.edu/projects/see-saw

Development platform for elderly-oriented tabletop games

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Informática e Computação. Universidade do Porto. Faculdade de Engenharia. 201

Using natural user interfaces to support synchronous distributed collaborative work

Synchronous Distributed Collaborative Work (SDCW) occurs when group members work together at the same time from different places together to achieve a common goal. Effective SDCW requires good communication, continuous coordination and shared information among group members. SDCW is possible because of groupware, a class of computer software systems that supports group work. Shared-workspace groupware systems are systems that provide a common workspace that aims to replicate aspects of a physical workspace that is shared among group members in a co-located environment. Shared-workspace groupware systems have failed to provide the same degree of coordination and awareness among distributed group members that exists in co-located groups owing to unintuitive interaction techniques that these systems have incorporated. Natural User Interfaces (NUIs) focus on reusing natural human abilities such as touch, speech, gestures and proximity awareness to allow intuitive human-computer interaction. These interaction techniques could provide solutions to the existing issues of groupware systems by breaking down the barrier between people and technology created by the interaction techniques currently utilised. The aim of this research was to investigate how NUI interaction techniques could be used to effectively support SDCW. An architecture for such a shared-workspace groupware system was proposed and a prototype, called GroupAware, was designed and developed based on this architecture. GroupAware allows multiple users from distributed locations to simultaneously view and annotate text documents, and create graphic designs in a shared workspace. Documents are represented as visual objects that can be manipulated through touch gestures. Group coordination and awareness is maintained through document updates via immediate workspace synchronization, user action tracking via user labels and user availability identification via basic proxemic interaction. Members can effectively communicate via audio and video conferencing. A user study was conducted to evaluate GroupAware and determine whether NUI interaction techniques effectively supported SDCW. Ten groups of three members each participated in the study. High levels of performance, user satisfaction and collaboration demonstrated that GroupAware was an effective groupware system that was easy to learn and use, and effectively supported group work in terms of communication, coordination and information sharing. Participants gave highly positive comments about the system that further supported the results. The successful implementation of GroupAware and the positive results obtained from the user evaluation provides evidence that NUI interaction techniques can effectively support SDCW

Natural User Interfaces (NUI): review

The article summarizes and systematizes knowledge concerning natural user interfaces. The most important facts related to this problem have been supplemented with examples of possible practical use of such type of human-computer communication. Moreover, the article contains descriptions of three most popular controllers: Microsoft Kinect, Nintendo Wii and Sony Move

Developing a multi-touch serious game to fight the digital divide : the Portuguese ATM a pilot case study

The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has grown substantially over the past few years. However, a portion of the world’s society has not been able to keep up with these technological advances. For this purpose, we present a serious game with a multi-touch interface envisioned to encourage and teach digitally excluded people on how to use the Portuguese Automated Teller Machine (ATM): a commodity much needed by society, but still avoided by some, mainly due to their fear of the digital world. An exploratory study was conducted to investigate if a serious game based on a new interaction paradigm can have a positive influence in the struggle against the Portuguese digital divide. We believe that the findings of our pilot case study can be useful to determine if a multi-touch serious game, due to its intuitiveness and ease of use, can stimulate the digitally excluded people to handle the ATM on a regular basis. The results that were obtained suggest that this approach may indeed produce a positive impact in the attempt to bridge the Portuguese digital divide.We would like to acknowledge the support and contribution of the two Parishes of Vila Real and their Chairmen. Diana Carvalho has a PhD fellowship granted by FCT - Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/81541/2011)

A flexible object orientated design approach for the realisation of assistive technology

This thesis contributes to a growing body of research conducted by the Interactive Systems Research Group (ISRG) at Nottingham Trent University within the fields of accessibility and accessible technologies. Core to this research is the exploration of how interactive technologies can be developed and applied as platforms for education, rehabilitation and social inclusion. To this end the group has been actively evolving the User Sensitive and Inclusive Design (USID) methodology for the design, development and evaluation of accessible software and related technologies. This thesis contributes to the further development of the USID method with a focus on its application for the design of assistive technology

Exploring heritage through time and space : Supporting community reflection on the highland clearances

On the two hundredth anniversary of the Kildonan clearances, when people were forcibly removed from their homes, the Timespan Heritage centre has created a program of community centred work aimed at challenging pre conceptions and encouraging reflection on this important historical process. This paper explores the innovative ways in which virtual world technology has facilitated community engagement, enhanced visualisation and encouraged reflection as part of this program. An installation where users navigate through a reconstruction of pre clearance Caen township is controlled through natural gestures and presented on a 300 inch six megapixel screen. This environment allows users to experience the past in new ways. The platform has value as an effective way for an educator, artist or hobbyist to create large scale virtual environments using off the shelf hardware and open source software. The result is an exhibit that also serves as a platform for experimentation into innovative ways of community co-creation and co-curation.Postprin

Towards ai-based interactive game intervention to monitor concentration levels in children with attention deficit

—Preliminary results to a new approach for neurocognitive training on academic engagement and monitoring of attention levels in children with learning difficulties is presented. Machine Learning (ML) techniques and a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) are used to develop an interactive AI-based game for educational therapy to monitor the progress of children’s concentration levels during specific cognitive tasks. Our approach resorts to data acquisition of brainwaves of children using electroencephalography (EEG) to classify concentration levels through model calibration. The real-time brainwave patterns are inputs to our game interface to monitor concentration levels. When the concentration drops, the educational game can personalize to the user by changing the challenge of the training or providing some new visual or auditory stimuli to the user in order to reduce the attention loss. To understand concentration level patterns, we collected brainwave data from children at various primary schools in Brazil who have intellectual disabilities e.g. autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Preliminary results show that we successfully benchmarked (96%) the brainwave patterns acquired by using various classical ML techniques. The result obtained through the automatic classification of brainwaves will be fundamental to further develop our full approach. Positive feedback from questionnaires was obtained for both, the AI-based game and the engagement and motivation during the training sessions

Design, Implementation, and Performance Study of an Open Source Eye-Control System to Pilot a Parrot AR.Drone Quadrocopter

Natural user interface is a fairly new concept in the field of human-computer interaction. It is the idea of using every day natural human behaviors and actions to control a device. An example of a natural user interface is touch control technology in smartphones, tablets, and new laptops. The interaction is more direct when compared to artificial input devices like a keyboard and mouse. Though natural user interface devices might not perform as well as standard input devices for certain applications, for other applications they are now the de facto standard. A new user interface that is poised to be the next natural user interface in human-computer interaction is eye-control, or the ability to control an interface with just the user’s eyes using technology that has been around for a long time called eye trackers. The problem for much of the existence of eye trackers is the cost. Most modern commercial eye trackers cost anywhere between $10,000 and$40,000, and that is too expensive for regular consumers to buy and use. In this paper, we build a low cost system for eye-control using an open source program called ITU Gaze Tracker. In the process, we developed an interface which allows a user to pilot a Parrot AR.Drone quadrocopter using just their gaze. In this explorative study, we explore the performance of this eye-control system to keyboard control in the operation of an AR.Drone around an obstacle course. We collected certain performance metrics like lap completion time