Visualization of Data for Ambient Assisted Living Services

Ambient assisted living (AAL) services that provide support for people to remain in their homes are increasingly being used in healthcare systems around the world. Typically, these ambient assisted living services provide additional information though location-awareness, presence-awareness, and context-awareness capabilities, arising from the prolific use of telecommunications devices including sensors and actuators in the home of the person receiving care. In addition there is a need to provide abstract information, in context, to local and remote stakeholders. There are many different viewing options utilizing converged networks and the resulting explosion in data and information has resulted in a new problem, as these new ambient assisted living services struggle to convey meaningful information to different groups of end users. The article discusses visualization of data from the perspective of the needs of the differing end user groups, and discusses how algorithms are required to contextualize and convey information across location and time. In order to illustrate the issues, current work on nighttime AAL services for people with dementia is described

Detecting the Onset of Dementia using Context-Oriented Architecture

In the last few years, Aspect Oriented Software De- velopment (AOSD) and Context Oriented Software Development (COSD) have become interesting alternatives for the design and construction of self-adaptive software systems. An analysis of these technologies shows them all to employ the principle of the separation of concerns, Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and Component-based Software Development (CBSD) for building high quality of software systems. In general, the ultimate goal of these technologies is to be able to reduce development costs and effort, while improving the adaptability, and dependability of software systems. COSD, has emerged as a generic devel- opment paradigm towards constructing self-adaptive software by integrating MDA with context-oriented component model. The self-adaptive applications are developed using a Context- Oriented Component-based Applications Model-Driven Architec- ture (COCA-MDA), which generates an Architecture Description language (ADL) presenting the architecture as a components- based software system. COCA-MDA enables the developers to modularise the application based on their context-dependent behaviours, and separate the context-dependent functionality from the context-free functionality of the application. In this article, we wish to study the impact of the decomposition mechanism performed in MDA approaches over the software self-adaptability. We argue that a better and significant advance in software modularity based on context information can increase software adaptability and increase their performance and modi- fiability

An ambient assisted living solution for mobile environments

An Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) mobile health application solution with biofeedback based on body sensors is very useful to perform a data collection for diagnosis in patients whose clinical conditions are not favourable. This system allows comfort, mobility, and efficiency in all the process of data collection providing more confidence and operability. A physical fall may be considered something natural in the life span of a human being from birth to death. In a perfect scenario it would be possible to predict when a fall will occur in order to avoid it. Falls represent a high risk for senior people health. Those falls can cause fractures or injuries causing great dependence and debilitation to the elderly and even death in extreme cases. Falls can be detected by the accelerometer included in most of the available mobile phones or portable digital assistants (PDAs). To reverse this tendency, it can be obtained more accurate data for patients monitoring from the body sensors attached to the human body (such as, electrocardiogram (ECG), electromyography (EMG), blood volume pulse (BVP), electro dermal activity (EDA), and galvanic skin response (GSR)). Then, this dissertation reviews the related literature on this topic and introduces a mobile solution for falls prevention, detection, and biofeedback monitoring. The proposed system collects sensed data that is sent to a smartphone or tablet through Bluetooth. Mobile devices are used to process and display information graphically to users. The falls prevention system uses collected data from sensors in order to control and advice the patient or even to give instructions to treat an abnormal condition to reduce the falls risk. In cases of symptoms that last more time it can even detect a possible disease. The signal processing algorithms plays a key role in the fall prevention system. These algorithms in real time, through the capture of biofeedback data, are needed to extract relevant information from the signals detected to warn the patient. Monitoring and processing data from sensors is realized by a smartphone or tablet that will send warnings to users. All the process is performed in real time. These mobile devices are also used as a gateway to send the collected data to a Web service, which subsequently allows data storage and consultation. The proposed system is evaluated, demonstrated, and validated through a prototype and it is ready for use

The challenges of using biodata in promotional filmmaking

We present a study of how filmmakers collected and visualised physiological data---'biodata'---to construct a series of short promotional films depicting people undergoing 'thrilling' experiences. Drawing on ethnographic studies of two major advertising campaigns, we highlight key concerns for integrating sensors and sensor data into film production. Our findings address the perceived benefits of using biodata within narratives; the nature of different on-screen representations of biodata; and the challenges presented when integrating biodata into production processes. Drawing on this, we reconsider the nature of information visualisation in the filmmaking context. Further implications from our case studies provide recommendations for HCI collaborations with filmmaking and broadcast industries, focussing both on the practical matters of fitting sensor technologies into and handling data within production workflows, as well as discussing the broader implications for managing the veracity of that data within professional media production

Flexible context aware interface for ambient assisted living

A Multi Agent System that provides a (cared for) person, the subject, with assistance and support through an Ambient Assisted Living Flexible Interface (AALFI) during the day while complementing the night time assistance offered by NOCTURNAL with feedback assistance, is presented. It has been tailored to the subject’s requirements profile and takes into account factors associated with the time of day; hence it attempts to overcome shortcomings of current Ambient Assisted Living Systems. The subject is provided with feedback that highlights important criteria such as quality of sleep during the night and possible breeches of safety during the day. This may help the subject carry out corrective measures and/or seek further assistance. AALFI provides tailored interaction that is either visual or auditory so that the subject is able to understand the interactions and this process is driven by a Multi-Agent System. User feedback gathered from a relevant user group through a workshop validated the ideas underpinning the research, the Multi-agent system and the adaptable interface

Flexible context aware interface for ambient assisted living

A Multi Agent System that provides a (cared for) person, the subject, with assistance and support through an Ambient Assisted Living Flexible Interface (AALFI) during the day while complementing the night time assistance offered by NOCTURNAL with feedback assistance, is presented. It has been tailored to the subject’s requirements profile and takes into account factors associated with the time of day; hence it attempts to overcome shortcomings of current Ambient Assisted Living Systems. The subject is provided with feedback that highlights important criteria such as quality of sleep during the night and possible breeches of safety during the day. This may help the subject carry out corrective measures and/or seek further assistance. AALFI provides tailored interaction that is either visual or auditory so that the subject is able to understand the interactions and this process is driven by a Multi-Agent System. User feedback gathered from a relevant user group through a workshop validated the ideas underpinning the research, the Multi-agent system and the adaptable interface

Multi-dimensional Well-being Recognition System Using Daily Activity Data for Sustainable Living

芝浦工業大学2019年

Intelligent data processing to support self-management and responsive care

This research is situated in the area of ambient intelligent systems for assisted living. The motivation for the research was to understand how ambient intelligent systems could be used to support people with learning disabilities in providing more personalised care, as well as function as an aid to support independent living. In the first phase of the research a series of interviews conducted with formal carers of people with learning disabilities highlighted kitchen activities as a potential area of support. This provided a focal point for the research whereby subsequent research involved the development of sensor data mining techniques and machine learning methods to recognise specific meal-preparation activities with a view to supporting task prompting. The goal of task prompting is to enable automated intervention for service users performing meal-preparation activities by tracking the activity in real-time by analysing ambient sensor data. In the second phase of the research a public smart-home dataset was used to develop a novel methodology which uses "temporal clusters" of sensor events as a pre-processing step for extracting features from the data and creating visualisations. In the third phase of the research, a data set comprising different meal-preparation activities undertaken by three participants in a shared kitchen was collected over a period of 8 weeks. This fully annotated dataset includes a combination of data from a range of ambient smart-home sensors and low-resolution thermal cameras. This dataset was used to experiment with knowledge-driven activity recognition techniques, which were used to develop a novel hybrid offline-online learning methodology for real-time activity recognition and prediction. This methodology is shown to overcome the shortcomings of existing supervised activity recognition methods, which require re-training with new data if the activity changes. The new methodology has been designed to enable learning from the user in order to track meal-preparation activities in real-time, detect deviations from the activity, and adapt to changes in the user's performance without requiring re-training. The research presented in this thesis, together with the meal-preparation dataset, are a crucial stepping-stone for the development of future technologies that offer the potential for real-time task prompting and thus could be useful in supporting people with learning disabilities in performing activities more independently. The approaches developed can also generate information that could help carers better understand how their service users are able to perform these activities and hence personalise and adapt the support they provide

Integración de tecnologías de apoyo para educación especial.

El objetivo principal de esta tesis es realizar una plataforma de servicios de ambient assisted living (AAL) como tecnología de apoyo para el sector de educación especial que enfoque principalmente en la capacidad cognitiva del alumno y sirva para adiestrar y dar apoyo tanto a esa capacidad cognitiva como a la emocional y social. El apoyo tecnológico resuelve algunos problemas específicos en: un control de entorno cognitivamente accesible, entrenamiento en orientación temporal (OT) orientado a aumentar la autonomía personal del alumno y un control más potente y sincronizable de los elementos de la sala de estimulación multisensorial.También se hace constatar que los servicios solicitados también pueden ser útiles para personas mayores con pérdida de capacidad mental.A nivel teórico se persigue la estrategia de aprovechar aprendizajes cognitivos previos y trasladarlos a nuevas habilidades y entrenamientos cognitivos y de habilidades sociales, desarrollando como objetivo de este trabajo de tesis la tecnología que posibilite esta estrategia. En particular se busca aprovechar el entrenamiento en el uso de lenguaje pictográfico como comunicación alternativa y aumentativa (CAA) para la comprensión de la interacción con el control de entorno y contextos singulares, la agenda y secuencias de acciones propuestas. También se aprovecha el avance cognitivo previo en orientación temporal, como ejemplo ilustrativo, para apoyar el entrenamiento en contención emocional.A nivel práctico u operativo se busca integrar varios servicios demandados por los profesionales e investigadores del campo educativo y que cumpla con las especificaciones planteadas por los diferentes agentes de la comunidad educativa, universitaria y de educación especial. Se trata de poner a disposición de los docentes de educación especial una herramienta para servicios heterogéneos en un sistema de tecnología de información y comunicación (TIC) simple, modular, ampliable y abierto. El resultado cognitivo de utilización de CAA se aplica a los servicios elegidos de control de entorno, en el que se establecen analogías de anidamiento, secuenciación y semántica; de orientación temporal en que se establece analogía con los elementos de la agenda añadiendo elementos que representan intervalos temporales; de contención de conductas disruptivas donde la secuencia de acciones y el mostrar el paso del tiempo apoyan la contención emocional del alumno; y a un servicio de anticipación de contextos donde entrenar habilidades de gestión emocional y social, tiempos, interacciones, etc.El diseño y desarrollo busca servir de instrumento educativo y posibilitar la investigación en tecnologías de apoyo cognitivo en ese ámbito. Por ello la metodología de diseño y desarrollo ha sido colaborativa para ajustarse a estas dos necesidades, dentro de las capacidades tecnológicas y económicas del equipo que la desarrolla. Tanto para identificar sus necesidades principales, como para comprobar que los avances se ajustaban a los requerimientos de la comunidad, como para realizar formaciones que permitieran la comprensión del desarrollo y por tanto el trabajo eficaz en equipo, se llevaron a cabo varias reuniones.Como resultado, se identificó la clara necesidad de una plataforma integral móvil que fuera fácil de manejar, compatible con las herramientas de trabajo empleadas diariamente con los niños, que se manejaran desde diferentes dispositivos móviles (tabletas, móviles, ordenadores), que fuera económico y dentro de un solo dispositivo hardware. La plataforma también debería cumplir una serie de aspectos relacionados con la usabilidad y el diseño.Se realizó una búsqueda exhaustiva de literatura para verificar el alcance de anteriores estudios de investigación, patentes o productos comerciales existentes que pudieran satisfacer las necesidades planteadas. Los resultados mostraron que no había un sistema similar o apropiado.Cada uno de los servicios que integra la plataforma ha sido desarrollado, instalado y probado: el control de entorno y el dispositivo de OT en la biblioteca del colegio durante dos años, la contención conductual puntualmente según necesidad en el colegio en la misma aula, y la sala multisensorial se probó aparte durante un año. Los tres primeros han tenido una realimentación excelente por parte del profesorado, que además de los positivos resultados de evaluación que se describirán han mostrado su sensación subjetiva de eficacia y entusiasmo. El último apenas ha sido probado con alumnos, por lo que se cuenta con la realimentación positiva del profesorado implicado como primera evidencia de resultado positivo.Se han realizado evaluaciones metódicas de los servicios de control de entorno y de orientación temporal, aunque el objetivo de la tesis deja fuera de su alcance una evaluación completa por entender que ha de realizarse desde el campo especialista de la pedagogía y ciencias sociales, dentro del grupo investigador interdisciplinar. El objetivo básico de esta tesis es el desarrollo de la tecnología que permita posteriormente diseñar intervenciones pedagógicas y aplicar evaluaciones metódicas que corroboren su valía y amplíen su campo de acción.Tanto en las evaluaciones sistemáticas realizadas, como en las percepciones subjetivas del profesorado, los resultados obtenidos fueron positivos y mostraron un alto nivel de aceptación del prototipo tanto por los alumnos como por sus cuidadores o maestros.<br /