Leslie D. Ball

Linking Recorded Data with Emotive and Adaptive Computing in an eHealth Environment

Telecare, and particularly lifestyle monitoring, currently relies on the ability to detect and respond to changes in individual behaviour using data derived from sensors around the home. This means that a significant aspect of behaviour, that of an individuals emotional state, is not accounted for in reaching a conclusion as to the form of response required. The linked concepts of emotive and adaptive computing offer an opportunity to include information about emotional state and the paper considers how current developments in this area have the potential to be integrated within telecare and other areas of eHealth. In doing so, it looks at the development of and current state-of-the-art of both emotive and adaptive computing, including its conceptual background, and places them into an overall eHealth context for application and development.

Emotive computing may have a role in telecare

This brief paper sets out arguments for the introduction of new technologies into telecare and lifestyle monitoring that can detect and monitor the emotive state of patients. The significantly increased use of computers by older people will enable the elements of emotive computing to be integrated with features such as keyboards and webcams, to provide additional information on emotional state. When this is combined with other data, there will be significant opportunities for system enhancement and the identification of changes in user status, and hence of need. The ubiquity of home computing makes the keyboard a very attractive, economic and non-intrusive means of data collection and analysis.

eHealth and the internet of things

To respond to an ageing population, eHealth strategies offer significant opportunities in achieving a balanced and sustainable healthcare infrastructure. Advances in technology both at the sensor and device levels and in respect of information technology have opened up other possibilities and options. Of significance among these is what is increasingly referred to as the Internet of Things, the interconnection of physical devices to an information infrastructure. The paper therefore sets out to position the Internet of Things at the core of future developments in eHealth

Towards an affective self-service agent

While emotional intelligence plays a key role in facilitating satisfactory interactions between people, its application is both underexplored and underexploited in human–computer interaction. Self-service technology is increasingly being incorporated by goods and service providers, however user satisfaction is still less than ideal. Studies have been carried out in which an affective embodied agent has been found to reduce frustration in users of interactive computer systems. This paper presents a preliminary study as a part of research aimed at designing and implementing an agent which detects negative emotions in a human user and expresses its own emotional reaction with the aim of improving the user’s mood and therefore their level of satisfaction in the context of a self-service interaction. We describe a study to determine customer facial expressions using facial Action Units (AUs) during interactions with self-service supermarket checkouts. Our preliminary results indicate that AU 23 and AU 24 were displayed with particular frequency.

Automated Counter-Terrorism

We present a holistic systems view of automated intelligence analysis for counter-terrorism with focus on the behavioural attributes of terrorist groups.