Web-Based Solat Courseware for Children

Our children today are growing up in the digital age, a courseware is always comes in handy including for fardhu ain education. Fardhu ain is a knowledge that is compulsory to learn and practice by every Muslim and solat is a part of it. Technology assist human in many aspect of their life including education. This web-based courseware can be used on a computer or any portable gadget with an internet browser; therefore parents can let their children to learn about solat independently regardless of place and time. In addition to that, the courseware can also be used as a teaching aid at school. This project represents a framework of personalizing courseware according to the user’s characteristic as to ensure to deliver the right and relevant learning contain to the right learner. This project also uses the elements of multimedia such as text, video, audio and interactivity

Web-Based Solat Courseware for Children

Our children today are growing up in the digital age, a courseware is always comes in handy including for fardhu ain education. Fardhu ain is a knowledge that is compulsory to learn and practice by every Muslim and solat is a part of it. Technology assist human in many aspect of their life including education. This web-based courseware can be used on a computer or any portable gadget with an internet browser; therefore parents can let their children to learn about solat independently regardless of place and time. In addition to that, the courseware can also be used as a teaching aid at school. This project represents a framework of personalizing courseware according to the user’s characteristic as to ensure to deliver the right and relevant learning contain to the right learner. This project also uses the elements of multimedia such as text, video, audio and interactivity

Robotic ubiquitous cognitive ecology for smart homes

Robotic ecologies are networks of heterogeneous robotic devices pervasively embedded in everyday environments, where they cooperate to perform complex tasks. While their potential makes them increasingly popular, one fundamental problem is how to make them both autonomous and adaptive, so as to reduce the amount of preparation, pre-programming and human supervision that they require in real world applications. The project RUBICON develops learning solutions which yield cheaper, adaptive and efficient coordination of robotic ecologies. The approach we pursue builds upon a unique combination of methods from cognitive robotics, machine learning, planning and agent- based control, and wireless sensor networks. This paper illustrates the innovations advanced by RUBICON in each of these fronts before describing how the resulting techniques have been integrated and applied to a smart home scenario. The resulting system is able to provide useful services and pro-actively assist the users in their activities. RUBICON learns through an incremental and progressive approach driven by the feed- back received from its own activities and from the user, while also self-organizing the manner in which it uses available sensors, actuators and other functional components in the process. This paper summarises some of the lessons learned by adopting such an approach and outlines promising directions for future work

Occupants' quality of life experience with sustainable work environments : using a mixed-methods approach to develop a humane and sustainable framework for assessing the indoor environmental quality in office buildings

Cette recherche étudie la perception de la qualité de vie (QV) et de la qualité de l'environnement intérieur (QEI) du point de vue des occupants d’espaces de travail certifiés « durables » selon le système d'énergie et de conception environnementale (LEED) et des occupants des immeubles de bureaux conventionnels. Dans cette étude, la QV est définie en termes de santé perçue, confort, et productivité. La qualité des environnements intérieurs est importante, car les gens passent la majorité de leur vie à l'intérieur des immeubles et, dans notre société contemporaine, plus de ce temps est passé dans des espaces de travail, tels que les espaces de bureaux. Les préoccupations grandissantes pour la durabilité des espaces de vie et la prise de conscience des effets négatifs que des bâtiments peuvent avoir sur les occupants font émerger les constructions dites ‘vertes’ comme étant des alternatives plus durables. LEED est le système d’accréditation le plus populaire de nos jours en Amérique du Nord qui évalue les bâtiments verts en terme de leur performance environnementale. Toutefois, la revue de littérature indique que des occupants des édifices de bureaux certifiés LEED ne sont pas toujours satisfaits avec la QEI. Les bâtiments certifiés LEED sont en effet uniquement évalués selon des critères techniques de performance. Pourtant, il y peut avoir des écarts entre les performances mesurées et celles perçues par les occupants. Cela soulève la question suivante: à quel point les bâtiments construits selon les critères LEED prennent-ils en compte la qualité de vie (QoL) et les facteurs humains dans l’évaluation des espaces de travail ? Cette recherche a donc pour but de proposer un nouveau cadre qui prend en considération non seulement des facteurs durables, mais aussi humains pour évaluer les environnements de travail. Cette recherche utilise une approche mixte – quantitative et qualitative – en trois phases afin d’étudier de manière approfondie la perception de la qualité de vie des occupants de deux bâtiments certifiés LEED et d’un immeuble de bureaux conventionnel. La phase I est dédiée à l’observation des environnements de travail et la documentation des traces d’interaction entre l’utilisateur et l’espace. La phase II est dédiée aux entrevues permettant aux participants de décrire leur expérience de la QV et les facteurs de la QEI qui façonnent leur expérience. Ils nous aident aussi à identifier les éléments constitutifs d'un environnement humain de travail. Parallèlement, des questionnaires aident à comprendre la relation entre la qualité de vie perçue par les occupants et les facteurs de QEI dérivés de la littérature. À l’aide de groupes de discussion, menés lors de la phase III, nous cherchons à valider les résultats préliminaires. Les données sont ensuite analysées séparément en utilisant la ‘triangulation’ afin d’interpréter et corroborer les résultats. Cette étude compare les expériences des espaces de travail « verts » et « conventionnels » et révèle 32 facteurs (30 facteurs QEI et deux autres) qui peuvent affecter de manière significative l'expérience des édifices de bureaux. De plus, des éléments constitutifs d'un environnement de travail humain du point de vue des occupants ont été identifiés. Ceux-ci nous permettent donc de mettre au point un nouveau cadre global, intégrant des critères humains pour évaluer la QEI dans des environnements de travail durables. Ce cadre met en relation la QEI des environnements de travail et la QV des occupants en tant que système environnement-comportement.This research studies perceived Quality of Life (QoL) and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of occupants’ in the work environments of sustainable office buildings certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system (green buildings) and in conventional office buildings. QoL is defined in this research in terms of perceived health, comfort, and productivity. The quality of indoor environments is important because people spend most of their time inside buildings, and in contemporary society, much of the time spent in work environments is in office buildings. In this era of growing concerns about sustainability and the increased awareness of buildings’ negative impacts on occupants, green buildings have been promoted as sustainable solutions to these issues. LEED is the most popular rating system for measuring the performance of green buildings in North America. However, the literature review indicates that there are user complaints about the IEQ of LEED-certified office buildings. LEED-certified buildings are assessed based on technical measures of building performance. This assessment way may create a gap between measured and perceived performance from the user perspective. This raises the question of whether buildings certified with the LEED criteria are humane from the QoL experience of occupants in office buildings. Hence, this research is therefore to propose a new framework that takes into account not only sustainable but also humane factors for evaluating work environments. The study uses a mixed-methods approach – using both quantitative and qualitative methods and proceeds in three phases to comprehensively study occupants’ perceived QoL experience in two LEED and one conventional office building. Phase I uses observations to document the physical work environment and users’ behavioral interactions with the environment. Phase II uses interviews to describe the occupants’ QoL experience, explore the possible IEQ factors shaping their QoL, and to define the constructs of a humane work environment. Questionnaires were distributed concurrently to measure the relationship between occupants’ perceived QoL and IEQ factors that are derived from the literature. Phase III uses focus groups to converge and focus the results of the study. The results are analyzed separately and triangulated using an integrative mixed-methods analysis to interpret, corroborate, conclude, and increase the validation of the findings. The study compared occupants’ perceived QoL in «green» and «conventional» office buildings and revealed 32 quality factors (30 IEQ factors and two others) that influence the QoL experience in office work environments. Also the constructs of what composes a humane work environment based on occupants’ viewpoints have been identified. A new comprehensive, sustainable, and humane framework for assessing IEQ in work environments is developed. This framework guides the relationship between IEQ in work environments and occupants’ QoL as an environment-behavior system

Video Conference as a tool for Higher Education

The book describes the activities of the consortium member institutions in the framework of the TEMPUS IV Joint Project ViCES - Video Conferencing Educational Services (144650-TEMPUS-2008-IT-JPGR). In order to provide the basis for the development of a distance learning environment based on video conferencing systems and develop a blended learning courses methodology, the TEMPUS Project VICES (2009-2012) was launched in 2009. This publication collects the conclusion of the project and it reports the main outcomes together with the approach followed by the different partners towards the achievement of the project's goal. The book includes several contributions focussed on specific topics related to videoconferencing services, namely how to enable such services in educational contexts so that, the installation and deployment of videoconferencing systems could be conceived an integral part of virtual open campuses

A COMPARATIVE EXPLORATION OF CULTURE CHANGE IN NURSING HOMES: THE RESIDENTS’ PERSPECTIVE

The need to provide an environment that ensures both quality care and quality of life for residents of nursing homes has long been recognized. The culture change movement in nursing homes emphasizes both principles. This mixed-methodology research explores the culture change process in nursing homes by evaluating to what extent core principles of culture change: quality of life, resident choice and control, and resident satisfaction, are demonstrated in the behaviors, attitudes, and day-to-day experiences of the residents. Four groups of subjects in two not-for-profit nursing homes, in which culture change is being implemented, participated in this study. Data were collected in the form of surveys and interviews from nursing home administrators, residents, direct care staff, and family members or friends of residents. The level of the culture change process was found to vary between the two nursing homes and a comparative inferential analysis of the quantitative data as to the resident quality of life, perceptions of choice and control, and level of satisfaction at the two nursing homes showed statistically significant differences in the quality of life domains of privacy and security only. No significant differences were found in resident satisfaction with the nursing home or resident perceived latitude of control. The analysis of the qualitative data from the four groups of participants identified the major themes in the categories of resident quality of life, perceptions of choice and control, and level of satisfaction. Common themes in the factors reported as essential to quality of life by the residents at both nursing homes were quality of care, relationships, activities, physical/functional ability, faith, and safety/security. Relationships and faith were again identified as common themes in the factors reported as essential to maintaining control in their lives by the residents at both nursing homes as were attitude and the ability to advocate for oneself. Only one theme common to both residents at both nursing homes was identified as the worst thing about living in a nursing home and as the best thing about living in a nursing home, the noise/behavior of other residents and relationships respectively. Implications for practitioners include the recognition of the importance of both peer-relationships and relationships with staff to resident quality of life, choice and control, and satisfaction and the process of adjustment to institutional living and the influence of resident attitude towards their living situation. Privacy and security were found to be important factors in the experience of the residents as was quality of care. Recommendations for future research include longitudinal and qualitative studies to explore resident perceptions of ongoing culture change and additional research to provide an increased understanding of the mechanisms by which relationships are formed and maintained between residents and staff in the long-term care environment. Further research exploring resident adjustment to institutional living, both in the short and long- term, would also be of value

Comparing the effects of augmented virtual reality treadmill training versus conventional treadmill training in patients with stage II-III Parkinson’s disease: the VIRTREAD-PD randomized controlled trial protocol

BackgroundIntensive treadmill training (TT) has been documented to improve gait parameters and functional independence in Parkinson’s Disease (PD), but the optimal intervention protocol and the criteria for tailoring the intervention to patients’ performances are lacking. TT may be integrated with augmented virtual reality (AVR), however, evidence of the effectiveness of this combined treatment is still limited. Moreover, prognostic biomarkers of rehabilitation, potentially useful to customize the treatment, are currently missing. The primary aim of this study is to compare the effects on gait performances of TT + AVR versus TT alone in II-III stage PD patients with gait disturbance. Secondary aims are to assess the effects on balance, gait parameters and other motor and non-motor symptoms, and patient’s satisfaction and adherence to the treatment. As an exploratory aim, the study attempts to identify biomarkers of neuroplasticity detecting changes in Neurofilament Light Chain concentration T0-T1 and to identify prognostic biomarkers associated to blood-derived Extracellular Vesicles.MethodsSingle-center, randomized controlled single-blind trial comparing TT + AVR vs. TT in II-III stage PD patients with gait disturbances. Assessment will be performed at baseline (T0), end of training (T1), 3 (T2) and 6 months (T3, phone interview) from T1. The primary outcome is difference in gait performance assessed with the Tinetti Performance-Oriented Mobility Assessment gait scale at T1. Secondary outcomes are differences in gait performance at T2, in balance and spatial–temporal gait parameters at T1 and T2, patients’ satisfaction and adherence. Changes in falls, functional mobility, functional autonomy, cognition, mood, and quality of life will be also assessed at different timepoints. The G*Power software was used to estimate a sample size of 20 subjects per group (power 0.95, α < 0.05), raised to 24 per group to compensate for potential drop-outs. Both interventions will be customized and progressive, based on the participant’s performance, according to a predefined protocol.ConclusionThis study will provide data on the possible superiority of AVR-associated TT over conventional TT in improving gait and other motor and non-motor symptoms in persons with PD and gait disturbances. Results of the exploratory analysis could add information in the field of biomarker research in PD rehabilitation

Transforming our World through Universal Design for Human Development

An environment, or any building product or service in it, should ideally be designed to meet the needs of all those who wish to use it. Universal Design is the design and composition of environments, products, and services so that they can be accessed, understood and used to the greatest extent possible by all people, regardless of their age, size, ability or disability. It creates products, services and environments that meet people’s needs. In short, Universal Design is good design. This book presents the proceedings of UD2022, the 6th International Conference on Universal Design, held from 7 - 9 September 2022 in Brescia, Italy.The conference is targeted at professionals and academics interested in the theme of universal design as related to the built environment and the wellbeing of users, but also covers mobility and urban environments, knowledge, and information transfer, bringing together research knowledge and best practice from all over the world. The book contains 72 papers from 13 countries, grouped into 8 sections and covering topics including the design of inclusive natural environments and urban spaces, communities, neighborhoods and cities; housing; healthcare; mobility and transport systems; and universally- designed learning environments, work places, cultural and recreational spaces. One section is devoted to universal design and cultural heritage, which had a particular focus at this edition of the conference. The book reflects the professional and disciplinary diversity represented in the UD movement, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves inclusive design