Estimation of glottal closure instants in voiced speech using the DYPSA algorithm

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Integrating Social Assistive Robots, IoT, Virtual Communities and Smart Objects to Assist at-Home Independently Living Elders: the MoveCare Project

The integration of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) frameworks with Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) has proven useful for monitoring and assisting older adults in their own home. However, the difficulties associated with long-term deployments in real-world complex environments are still highly under-explored. In this work, we first present the MoveCare system, an unobtrusive platform that, through the integration of a SAR into an AAL framework, aimed to monitor, assist and provide social, cognitive, and physical stimulation in the own houses of elders living alone and at risk of falling into frailty. We then focus on the evaluation and analysis of a long-term pilot campaign of more than 300 weeks of usages. We evaluated the system’s acceptability and feasibility through various questionnaires and empirically assessed the impact of the presence of an assistive robot by deploying the system with and without it. Our results provide strong empirical evidence that Socially Assistive Robots integrated with monitoring and stimulation platforms can be successfully used for long-term support to older adults. We describe how the robot’s presence significantly incentivised the use of the system, but slightly lowered the system’s overall acceptability. Finally, we emphasise that real-world long-term deployment of SARs introduces a significant technical, organisational, and logistical overhead that should not be neglected nor underestimated in the pursuit of long-term robust systems. We hope that the findings and lessons learned from our work can bring value towards future long-term real-world and widespread use of SARs

Heterogeneous Non Obtrusive Platform to Monitor, Assist and Provide Recommendations to Elders at Home: The MoveCare Platform

MoveCare develops and field tests an innovative multi-actor platform that supports the independent living of the elder at home by monitoring, assist and promoting activities to counteract decline and social exclusion. It is being developed under H2020 framework and it comprises 3 hierarchical layers: (1) A service layer provides monitoring and intervention. It endows objects of everyday use with advanced processing capabilities and integrates them in a distributed pervasive monitoring system to derive degradation indexes linked to decline. (2) A context-aware Virtual Caregiver, embodied into a service robot, is the core layer. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to propose to the elder a personalized mix of physical/cognitive/social activities as exer-games. It evaluates the elder status, detects risky conditions, sends alerts and assists in critical tasks, in therapy and diet adherence. (3) The users\u2019 community strongly promotes socialization acting as a bridge towards the elders\u2019 ecosystem: other elders, clinicians, caregivers and family. Gamification glues together monitoring, lifestyle, activities and assistance inside a motivating and rewarding experience. More information can be found at http://www.movecare-project.eu

LBS AUGMENTED REALITY ASSISTIVE SYSTEM FOR UTILITIES INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT THROUGH GALILEO AND EGNOS

There is a continuous and increasing demand for solutions, both software and hardware-based, that are able to productively handle underground utilities geospatial data. Innovative approaches that are based on the use of the European GNSS, Galileo and EGNOS, sensor technologies and LBS, are able to monitor, document and manage utility infrastructures’ data with an intuitive 3D augmented visualisation and navigation/positioning technology. A software and hardware-based system called LARA, currently under develop- ment through a H2020 co-funded project, aims at meeting that demand. The concept of LARA is to integrate the different innovative components of existing technologies in order to design and develop an integrated navigation/positioning and information system which coordinates GNSS, AR, 3D GIS and geodatabases on a mobile platform for monitoring, documenting and managing utility infrastruc- tures on-site. The LARA system will guide utility field workers to locate the working area by helping them see beneath the ground, rendering the complexity of the 3D models of the underground grid such as water, gas and electricity. The capacity and benefits of LARA are scheduled to be tested in two case studies located in Greece and the United Kingdom with various underground utilities. The paper aspires to present the first results from this initiative. The project leading to this application has received funding from the European GNSS Agency under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 641460