Informing caregivers through an assistive tool: an investigation of elderly care metrics

Abstract Elderly care is a pressing societal challenge: government’s financial burden is expected to exponentially increase in the next 20 years as the population is aging rapidly. Solutions to mitigate this challenge include the use of IoT and software solutions to minimise the effort of elderly care, in care centres and at home. To accomplish this, we set to quantify what are the most important elderly care metrics (i.e., what is important to support caregivers’ work) through field observations and interviews at a local care centre housing 14 old adults. We designed iteratively and evaluated the usefulness of a mobile application with 8 caregivers, to summarise and communicate the care metrics, juxtaposed with wellbeing data (e.g., social interaction, mobility and others), part of a larger elderly care support platform, CARE. The goal of the mobile application is to enable a better care service by raising awareness to daily needs and routines of the elderly and to provide quick access to their wellbeing information. Our findings advocate that our design could positively benefit the care personnel and assist them carrying out the daily duties at the care centre

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved