Evdokimos I. Konstantinidis

On the Classification of Emotional Biosignals Evoked While Viewing Affective Pictures: An Integrated Data-Mining-Based Approach for Healthcare Applications

Recent neuroscience findings demonstrate the fundamental role of emotion in the maintenance of physical and mental health. In the present study, a novel architecture is proposed for the robust discrimination of emotional physiological signals evoked upon viewing pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Biosignals are multichannel recordings from both the central and the autonomic nervous systems. Following the bidirectional emotion theory model, IAPS pictures are rated along two dimensions, namely, their valence and arousal. Following this model, biosignals in this paper are initially differentiated according to their valence dimension by means of a data mining approach, which is the C4.5 decision tree algorithm. Then, the valence and the gender information serve as an input to a Mahalanobis distance classifier, which dissects the data into high and low arousing. Results are described in Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, thereby accounting for platform independency, easy interconnectivity, and information exchange. The average recognition (success) rate was 77.68% for the discrimination of four emotional states, differing both in their arousal and valence dimension. It is, therefore, envisaged that the proposed approach holds promise for the efficient discrimination of negative and positive emotions, and it is hereby discussed how future developments may be steered to serve for affective healthcare applications, such as the monitoring of the elderly or chronically ill people.

Design, Implementation, and Wide Pilot Deployment of FitForAll: An Easy to use Exergaming Platform Improving Physical Fitness and Life Quality of Senior Citizens

Many platforms have emerged as response to the call for technology supporting active and healthy aging. Key requirements for any such e-health systems and any subsequent business exploitation are tailor-made design and proper evaluation. This paper presents the design, implementation, wide deployment, and evaluation of the low cost, physical exercise, and gaming (exergaming) FitForAll (FFA) platform system usability, user adherence to exercise, and efficacy are explored. The design of FFA is tailored to elderly populations, distilling literature guidelines and recommendations. The FFA architecture introduces standard physical exercise protocols in exergaming software engineering, as well as, standard physical assessment tests for augmented adaptability through adjustable exercise intensity. This opens up the way to next generation exergaming software, which may be more automatically/smartly adaptive. 116 elderly users piloted FFA five times/week, during an eight-week controlled intervention. Usability evaluation was formally conducted (SUS, SUMI questionnaires). Control group consisted of a size-matched elderly group following cognitive training. Efficacy was assessed objectively through the senior fitness (Fullerton) test, and subjectively, through WHOQoL-BREF comparisons of pre-postintervention between groups. Adherence to schedule was measured by attendance logs. The global SUMI score was 68.33±5.85%, while SUS was 77.7. Good usability perception is reflected in relatively high adherence of 82% for a daily two months pilot schedule. Compared to control group, elderly using FFA improved significantly strength, flexibility, endurance, and balance while presenting a significant trend in quality of life improvements. This is the first elderly focused exergaming platform intensively evaluated with more than 100 participants. The use of formal tools makes the findings comparable to other studies and forms an elderly exergaming corpus.

A Game-Like Interface for Training Seniors’ Dynamic Balance and Coordination

The current work focuses on the development of a game platform that can help elderly people to exercise and maintain their physical status and well being through an innovative, low-cost ICT platform, such as Wii Balance Board. As it is widely admitted, Third Age suffers from severe problems such as frailty and instability. Falling remains one of the main causes of severe injuries and death among people aged 65 or older. In the present paper, a set of games that make use of Wii Balance Board will be discussed, in combination with interface design principles that could improve accessibility and force seniors to engage to the training process through gaming. The main scope of the research conducted and presented here, is the design and development of a game-like interface that incorporates the characteristics of a Human-Computer Interaction system such as user input and system feedback according to user’s movement patterns and the investigation of how such a platform could meet the special needs of a target group, such as elderly people and its potential use as a physical training platform in general. Accessibility issues and seniors’ possible ease of adaptation to the system will also be thoroughly discussed.

Gains in cognition through combined cognitive and physical training: the role of training dosage and severity of neurocognitive disorder.

Physical as well as cognitive training interventions improve specific cognitive functions but effects barely generalize on global cognition. Combined physical and cognitive training may overcome this shortcoming as physical training may facilitate the neuroplastic potential which, in turn, may be guided by cognitive training. This study aimed at investigating the benefits of combined training on global cognition while assessing the effect of training dosage and exploring the role of several potential effect modifiers. In this multi-center study, 322 older adults with or without neurocognitive disorders (NCDs) were allocated to a computerized, game-based, combined physical and cognitive training group (n = 237) or a passive control group (n = 85). Training group participants were allocated to different training dosages ranging from 24 to 110 potential sessions. In a pre-post-test design, global cognition was assessed by averaging standardized performance in working memory, episodic memory and executive function tests. The intervention group increased in global cognition compared to the control group, p = 0.002, Cohen’s d = 0.31. Exploratory analysis revealed a trend for less benefits in participants with more severe NCD, p = 0.08 (cognitively healthy: d = 0.54; mild cognitive impairment: d = 0.19; dementia: d = 0.04). In participants without dementia, we found a dose-response effect of the potential number and of the completed number of training sessions on global cognition, p = 0.008 and p = 0.04, respectively. The results indicate that combined physical and cognitive training improves global cognition in a dose-responsive manner but these benefits may be less pronounced in older adults with more severe NCD. The long-lasting impact of combined training on the incidence and trajectory of NCDs in relation to its severity should be assessed in future long-term trials.

Using affective avatars and rich multimedia content for education of children with autism

Autism is a communication disorder that mandates early and continuous educational interventions on various levels like the everyday social, communication and reasoning skills. Computer-aided education has recently been considered as a likely intervention method for such cases, and therefore different systems have been proposed and developed worldwide. In more recent years, affective computing applications for the aforementioned interventions have also been proposed to shed light on this problem. In this paper, we examine the technological and educational needs of affective interventions for autistic persons. Enabling affective technologies are visited and a number of possible exploitation scenarios are illustrated. Emphasis is placed in covering the continuous and long term needs of those persons by unobtrusive and ubiquitous technologies with the engagement of an affective speaking avatar. A personalised prototype system facilitating these scenaria is described. Last but not least, we examine the feedback educators for autistic persons provide for the system in terms of its usefulness, efficiency and the envisaged reaction of the autistic persons, which has been collected by means of an anonymous questionnaire. Results illustrate the clear potential of this effort in facilitating a very promising autism intervention.

A Web services-based exergaming platform for senior citizens: The long lasting memories project approach to e-health care

This piece of research describes an innovative e-health service that supports the cognitive and physical training of senior citizens and promotes their active ageing. The approach is adopted by the Long Lasting Memories (LLM) project, elements of which are discussed herein in the light of the functionalities provided to the users and the therapists. The aim of this work is to describe those technical elements that demonstrate the unique and integrative character of the LLM service, which is based on a modular Web service architecture, rendering the system available in different settings like the homes of seniors. The underlying database as well as the remote user interface empower therapists to set personalized training schemes, to view the progress of training sessions, as well as, adding new games and exercises into the system, thereby increasing the services sustainability and marketability.

An Integrated Approach to Emotion Recognition for Advanced Emotional Intelligence

Emotion identification is beginning to be considered as an essential feature in human-computer interaction. However, most of the studies are mainly focused on facial expression classifications and speech recognition and not much attention has been paid until recently to physiological pattern recognition. In this paper, an integrative approach is proposed to emotional interaction by fusing multi-modal signals. Subjects are exposed to pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). A feature extraction procedure is used to discriminate between four affective states by means of a Mahalanobis distance classifier. The average classifications rate (74.11%) was encouraging. Thus, the induced affective state is mirrored through an avatar by changing its facial characteristics and generating a voice message sympathising with the users mood. It is argued that multi-physiological patterning in combination with anthropomorphic avatars may contribute to the enhancement of affective multi-modal interfaces and the advancement of machine emotional intelligence.

Real time emotion aware applications: A case study employing emotion evocative pictures and neuro-physiological sensing enhanced by Graphic Processor Units

In this paper the feasibility of adopting Graphic Processor Units towards real-time emotion aware computing is investigated for boosting the time consuming computations employed in such applications. The proposed methodology was employed in analysis of encephalographic and electrodermal data gathered when participants passively viewed emotional evocative stimuli. The GPU effectiveness when processing electroencephalographic and electrodermal recordings is demonstrated by comparing the execution time of chaos/complexity analysis through nonlinear dynamics (multi-channel correlation dimension/D2) and signal processing algorithms (computation of skin conductance level/SCL) into various popular programming environments. Apart from the beneficial role of parallel programming, the adoption of special design techniques regarding memory management may further enhance the time minimization which approximates a factor of 30 in comparison with ANSI C language (single-core sequential execution). Therefore, the use of GPU parallel capabilities offers a reliable and robust solution for real-time sensing the users affective state.

A proposed framework of an interactive semi-virtual environment for enhanced education of children with autism spectrum disorders

Education of people with special needs has recently been considered as a key element in the field of medical education. Recent development in the area of information and communication technologies may enable development of collaborative interactive environments which facilitate early stage education and provide specialists with robust tools indicating the persons autism spectrum disorder level. Towards the goal of establishing an enhanced learning environment for children with autism this paper attempts to provide a framework of a semi-controlled real-world environment used for the daily education of an autistic person according to the scenarios selected by the specialists. The proposed framework employs both real-world objects and virtual environments equipped with humanoids able to provide emotional feedback and to demonstrate empathy. Potential examples and usage scenarios for such environments are also described.

Moving Real Exergaming Engines on the Web: The webFitForAll Case Study in an Active and Healthy Ageing Living Lab Environment

Exergames have been the subject of research and technology innovations for a number of years. Different devices and technologies have been utilized to train the body and the mind of senior people or different patient groups. In the past, we presented FitForAll, the protocol efficacy of which was proven through widely taken (controlled) pilots with more than 116 seniors for a period of two months. The current piece of work expands this and presents the first truly web exergaming platform, which is solely based on HTML5 and JavaScript without any browser plugin requirements. The adopted architecture (controller application communication framework) combines a unified solution for input devices such as MS Kinect and Wii Balance Βoard which may seamlessly be exploited through standard physical exercise protocols (American College of Sports Medicine guidelines) and accommodate high detail logging; this allows for proper pilot testing and usability evaluations in ecologically valid Living Lab environments. The latter type of setups is also used herein for evaluating the web application with more than a dozen of real elderly users following quantitative approaches.