Development of an automated speech recognition interface for personal emergency response systems

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Demands on long-term-care facilities are predicted to increase at an unprecedented rate as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age. Aging-in-place (i.e. aging at home) is the desire of most seniors and is also a good option to reduce the burden on an over-stretched long-term-care system. Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERSs) help enable older adults to age-in-place by providing them with immediate access to emergency assistance. Traditionally they operate with push-button activators that connect the occupant via speaker-phone to a live emergency call-centre operator. If occupants do not wear the push button or cannot access the button, then the system is useless in the event of a fall or emergency. Additionally, a false alarm or failure to check-in at a regular interval will trigger a connection to a live operator, which can be unwanted and intrusive to the occupant. This paper describes the development and testing of an automated, hands-free, dialogue-based PERS prototype.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The prototype system was built using a ceiling mounted microphone array, an open-source automatic speech recognition engine, and a 'yes' and 'no' response dialog modelled after an existing call-centre protocol. Testing compared a single microphone versus a microphone array with nine adults in both noisy and quiet conditions. Dialogue testing was completed with four adults.</p> <p>Results and discussion</p> <p>The microphone array demonstrated improvement over the single microphone. In all cases, dialog testing resulted in the system reaching the correct decision about the kind of assistance the user was requesting. Further testing is required with elderly voices and under different noise conditions to ensure the appropriateness of the technology. Future developments include integration of the system with an emergency detection method as well as communication enhancement using features such as barge-in capability.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The use of an automated dialog-based PERS has the potential to provide users with more autonomy in decisions regarding their own health and more privacy in their own home.</p

Integration of Random Forests and MM-Wave FMCW Radar Technology for Gait Recognition

Technologies that identify and monitor walking, and other charac-teristics could support detection, evaluation, and monitoring of pa-rameters related to changes in mobility, cognition, and frailty. Inte-grating with a Random Forests classifier, we develop an ultrahigh-frequency FMCW (frequency modulated continuous wave) radarsensor that can distinguish walking from other activities

Ethical Tech Innovation: Uniting Educational Initiatives and Professional Practice

This Knowledge Synthesis Report, “Ethical Tech Innovation: Uniting Educational Initiatives and Professional Practice,” is co-funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Government of Canada’s Future Skills program.Engineers and other workers at the forefront of technological innovation play a central role in shaping the future of our digital economy, and the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed with stark clarity the urgent need for ethical conversations about the ways technologies are developed and integrated into society. However, there is inadequate understanding about effective methods for integrating ethical training in engineering academia, both in terms of the types of training required and how best to implement this training within existing engineering programs. This neglect poses significant challenges for the engineering profession, particularly since it makes it difficult for educators to effectively deliver and assess ethical training. Going beyond engineering, the consequences of this lack are significant: perpetuating technological bias and inequities, environmental degradation, and a culture that is apathetic to the impacts of technological innovation. This Knowledge Synthesis report, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), responds to this gap in two ways: summarising preliminary findings of a literature review from the past ten years to identify recent knowledge and gaps on effective approaches to embedding ethics in the tech industry; and, synthesizing results of semi-structured interviews with 10 key industry leaders and experts about the need for and barriers of ethics training in engineering. Recommendations for academia, industry, and government are provided to cultivate ethical interventions in academia and industry teaching and training. While the literature presents a great deal of exemplary efforts to grow and embed ethics training, our analysis finds that the status of these efforts in engineering disciplines remain sporadic, transitory, and idiosyncratic. This report therefore aims to empower engineers, engineering educators, administrators, industry professionals, policymakers, and even members of the public to develop new ways to prioritize and embed robust frameworks for ethical thinking in tech sector and engineering culture more broadly.Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada || Canada's Future Skills Progra

The Tools and Technologies of Transdisciplinary Climate Change Research and Community Empowerment in Barbuda

Focusing on the smaller sister-island of Barbuda, part of the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda, a group of collaborating anthropologists, archaeologists, biologists, education specialists, geographers, and environmental scientists are studying long-term human ecodynamics, the relationship amongst people, place, and the environment from the beginning of the peopling of a place through modern day. Our transdisciplinary approach brings together various field methods, tools and technologies from each field and crosses the boundaries of conventional science. This approach furthers our knowledge of climate change and facilitates practical and sustainable solutions for vulnerable populations

2D-Multiple Signal Processing Approach to Human Orientation Monitoring Using Millimeter-wave FMCW Radar

In recent years, unobtrusive continuous monitoring devices havebeen subjects of research interest. These sensors enable remotemonitoring of human vital signs and activity levels, which can beused in an expensive list of applications including the detection ofdistracted driving, gait analysis, and fall detection - applications thatare highly dependent on information regarding the posture of thesubject under test. In this work, a method of human posture orientation estimation is proposed using a high frequency mmwave(millimeter-wave) Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW)radar

A haptic-robotic platform for upper-limb reaching stroke therapy: Preliminary design and evaluation results

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>It has been shown that intense training can significantly improve post-stroke upper-limb functionality. However, opportunities for stroke survivors to practice rehabilitation exercises can be limited because of the finite availability of therapists and equipment. This paper presents a haptic-enabled exercise platform intended to assist therapists and moderate-level stroke survivors perform upper-limb reaching motion therapy. This work extends on existing knowledge by presenting: 1) an anthropometrically-inspired design that maximizes elbow and shoulder range of motions during exercise; 2) an unobtrusive upper body postural sensing system; and 3) a vibratory elbow stimulation device to encourage muscle movement.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A multi-disciplinary team of professionals were involved in identifying the rehabilitation needs of stroke survivors incorporating these into a prototype device. The prototype system consisted of an exercise device, postural sensors, and a elbow stimulation to encourage the reaching movement. Eight experienced physical and occupational therapists participated in a pilot study exploring the usability of the prototype. Each therapist attended two sessions of one hour each to test and evaluate the proposed system. Feedback about the device was obtained through an administered questionnaire and combined with quantitative data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Seven of the nine questions regarding the haptic exercise device scored higher than 3.0 (somewhat good) out of 4.0 (good). The postural sensors detected 93 of 96 (97%) therapist-simulated abnormal postures and correctly ignored 90 of 96 (94%) of normal postures. The elbow stimulation device had a score lower than 2.5 (neutral) for all aspects that were surveyed, however the therapists felt the rehabilitation system was sufficient for use without the elbow stimulation device.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>All eight therapists felt the exercise platform could be a good tool to use in upper-limb rehabilitation as the prototype was considered to be generally well designed and capable of delivering reaching task therapy. The next stage of this project is to proceed to clinical trials with stroke patients.</p

Age-Related Changes in Vibro-Tactile EEG Response and Its Implications in BCI Applications: A Comparison Between Older and Younger Populations

© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The rapid increase in the number of older adults around the world is accelerating research in applications to support age-related conditions, such as brain-computer interface (BCI) applications for post-stroke neurorehabilitation. The signal processing algorithms for electroencephalogram (EEG) and other physiological signals that are currently used in BCI have been developed on data from much younger populations. It is unclear how age-related changes may affect the EEG signal and therefore the use of BCI by older adults. This research investigated the EEG response to vibro-tactile stimulation from 11 younger (21.7 ± 2.76 years old) and 11 older (72.0 ± 8.07 years old) subjects. The results showed that: 1) the spatial patterns of cortical activation in older subjects were significantly different from those of younger subjects, with markedly reduced lateralization; 2) there is a general power reduction of the EEG measured from older subjects. The average left vs. right BCI performance accuracy of older subjects was 66.4 ± 5.70%, 15.9% lower than that of the younger subjects (82.3 ± 12.4%) and statistically significantly different (t(10) = -3.57, p = 0.005). Future research should further investigate age-differences that may exist in electrophysiology and take these into consideration when developing applications that target the older population.This work was supported in part by the University of Waterloo’s Starter Grant 203859, in part by Schlegel Research Chair funds, and in part by the Early Researcher Award from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Science of Ontario under Grant ER17-13-183