An Innovative Face Emotion Recognition-based Platform by using a Mobile Device as a Virtual Tour

Emotions are the base of human evolution. They help us to survive and to face up all problems of our life. Without emotions human evolution was not possible and we would be in caves. Nowadays, emotions are a very important aspect in different field not only in psychology. They are very important to understand human mind and decision-making process.Emotional tourism is an example of a new way to use emotions analysis. In this field emotions are used to create a most deep experience from the begin of a travel to each steps of the journey. They help tourism to make traveler the protagonist of his travel and not just a spectator.In this paper, we are going to show an app which predicts a travel destination based on user’s mood and facial expressions to specifics visual and auditory trigger to encounter his reactions. This app uses different technology linked together to make this solution versatile and dynamic. It implements different technology modules to perform facial and mood analysis, capturing the image, store image and show all trigger to the user. By adopting this solution is possible to easily upgrade the app and each module can be changed with no large problem adapting it to the current version of the app

An IoT-oriented fast prototyping platform for BLE-based star topology networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) is characterized by many technologies, standards, tools and devices for a wide range of application fields and often, for the end-users (makers and developers), is hard to orientate in an equally wide range of offers from various manufacturers. In recent years, the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication protocol is achieving a large portion of the market, thanks to its low-power and low-cost orientation and its pervasiveness in mobile devices, like smartphones. For these reasons, BLE is increasingly used in IoT-oriented Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPAN), where a small set of devices arranged in star topology network and connected to a smartphone and a Wi-Fi gateway, can cover a large number of monitoring and controlling use case scenarios. This work presents the ST’s STM32 Open Development Environment (ODE), a complete suite of hardware and software tools representing a reference point for end-users willing to create BLE-based star topology networks for a wide range of applications. Through a simple use case in a smart home context, it is shown how all provided tools can be used to fast prototype applications addressing all user requirements

A critical analysis of an IoT—aware AAL system for elderly monitoring

Abstract A growing number of elderly people (65+ years old) are affected by particular conditions, such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and frailty, which are characterized by a gradual cognitive and physical decline. Early symptoms may spread across years and often they are noticed only at late stages, when the outcomes remain irrevocable and require costly intervention plans. Therefore, the clinical utility of early detecting these conditions is of substantial importance in order to avoid hospitalization and lessen the socio-economic costs of caring, while it may also significantly improve elderly people's quality of life. This work deals with a critical performance analysis of an Internet of Things aware Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) system for elderly monitoring. The analysis is focused on three main system components: (i) the City-wide data capturing layer, (ii) the Cloud-based centralized data management repository, and (iii) the risk analysis and prediction module. Each module can provide different operating modes, therefore the critical analysis aims at defining which are the best solutions according to context's needs. The proposed system architecture is used by the H2020 City4Age project to support geriatricians for the early detection of MCI and frailty conditions

Discovery and Mash-up of Physical Resources through a Web of Things Architecture

The Internet of Things has focused on new systems, the so-called smart things, to integrate the physical world with the virtual world by exploiting the network architecture of the Internet. However, defining applications on top of smart things is mainly reserved to system experts, since it requires a thorough knowledge of hardware platforms and some specific programming languages. Furthermore, a common infrastructure to publish and share resource information is also needed. In this paper, we propose a software architecture that simplifies the visual development and execution of mash-up applications based on smart things, exploiting Internet Web protocols and their ubiquitous availability even on constrained devices. We have developed a distributed architecture that allows to create and control mash-up applications in an easy and scalable way, without specific knowledge on both hardware and programming languages. In addition, we have also defined a centralized public database deployed on the Internet, to manage and share physical resource information. The effectiveness of the proposed framework has been tested through a real use case and experimental results have demonstrated the validity of the whole system

A Smart IoT-Aware System For Crisis Scenario Management

In most dangerous events, involving many people in large buildings, rescue workers need to intervene in a timely and targeted manner in order to help most number of people and secure the environments without wasting resources. This work presents an Internet of Things(IoT)-based framework, aiming at monitoring environmental parameters in order to alert rescuers when they exceed some alarm thresholds. A hardware infrastructure driven by a software layer adds flexibility and adaptability to the Complex Event Processing engine and to a rule engine-based reflective middleware that manages and analyzes raw data in conjunction with a knowledge base modeling the application domain

A Smart IoT-Aware System For Crisis Scenario Management

In most dangerous events, involving many people in large buildings, rescue workers need to intervene in a timely and targeted manner in order to help most number of people and secure the environments without wasting resources. This work presents an Internet of Things(IoT)-based framework, aiming at monitoring environmental parameters in order to alert rescuers when they exceed some alarm thresholds. A hardware infrastructure driven by a software layer adds flexibility and adaptability to the Complex Event Processing engine and to a rule engine-based reflective middleware that manages and analyzes raw data in conjunction with a knowledge base modeling the application domain

An IoT-Aware Approach for Elderly-Friendly Cities

The ever-growing life expectancy of people requires the adoption of proper solutions for addressing the particular needs of elderly people in a sustainable way, both from service provision and economic point of view. Mild cognitive impairments and frailty are typical examples of elderly conditions which, if not timely addressed, can turn out into more complex diseases that are harder and costlier to treat. Information and communication technologies, and in particular Internet of Things technologies, can foster the creation of monitoring and intervention systems, both on an ambient-assisted living and smart city scope, for early detecting behavioral changes in elderly people. This allows to timely detect any potential risky situation and properly intervene, with benefits in terms of treatment's costs. In this context, as part of the H2020-funded City4Age project, this paper presents the data capturing and data management layers of the whole City4Age platform. In particular, this paper deals with an unobtrusive data gathering system implementation to collect data about daily activities of elderly people, and with the implementation of the related linked open data (LOD)-based data management system. The collected data are then used by other layers of the platform to perform risk detection algorithms and generate the proper customized interventions. Through the validation of some use-cases, it is demonstrated how this scalable approach, also characterized by unobtrusive and low-cost sensing technologies, can produce data with a high level of abstraction useful to define a risk profile of each elderly person

An IoT-aware Remote Monitoring System for Emergencies in Rallying

Current manually-operated SOS systems used in Rallying are ineffective when driver and co-driver cannot push the SOS button due to loss of consciousness after the impact. The SafeRally service proposes a low-cost pilot monitoring system, to associate with existing tracking systems, able to automatically notify a serious accident, when both the driver and the co-driver cannot request help by themselves. First tests of the system have been performed during the “Rally of Salento” race, demonstrating the efficacy and the ease of use of the implemented functionalities

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AN INTERNET OF THINGS-AWARE SMART VENTILATED INSULATION SYSTEM

The considerable thicknesses of common insulation systems, applied to the internal or external building envelope, can be inappropriate in the Mediterranean climates for improving buildings’ energy efficiency and their internal comfort at the same time; in fact, the high thicknesses of insulating material provided by legislation standards can be cause of environments’ over-heating and formation of condensation. In this framework, the S-MUnSTa system is an innovative dynamic ventilated insulation system able to overcome condensation and overheating phenomena, also exploiting Internet of Things (IoT) technologies; the main characteristic of the proposed smart insulation is that the ventilated external layer is equipped with dynamic valves of insulating material, for opening and closing the air channel, with the aim to optimize the thermal performance. In order to guarantee the expected performance of the system, as it has been patented, in this paper an innovative fixing system to install the insulating panels is presented. This new method allows a rapid and easy installation, without any specialization required and with low maintenance costs

Unobtrusive Detection of Home Appliance’s Usage for Elderly Monitoring

Many elderly people spend a lot of time in their homes, doing simple or complex activities that often involve the usage of electrical devices. Therefore, detecting how elderly people use household appliances and digital devices is indicative for early detecting the onset of Mild Cognitive Impairments (MCI) and frailty conditions. This paper proposes a novel approach for monitoring elderly behavior by detecting home appliance's usage. It is based on an unobtrusive infrastructure composed of a smart meter that constantly measures the global power consumption in the house, supported by some smart-plugs for monitoring specific electrical devices. This infrastructure has been implemented and validated within the H2020 City4Age Project