Lill Kristiansen

Nurse calls via personal wireless devices; some challenges and possible design solutions

We have carried out a qualitative case study of the new combined fixed and wireless nurse call system at St. Olavs University Hospital. We have used rapid ethnography and carried out document studies, interviews and observations. The paper offers a detailed description on how the nurse call system is intended to work, as well as some aspects of how it works in practice. Our focus has been a study of the nuanced, contextual decisions taken by the nurses, and how the ICT system may support the nurses (e.g. via awareness), or may raise issues for the nurses (e.g. via unwanted interrupts). The paper concludes with some rather detailed proposals for improvements by considering more closely the role of redundancy of function and redundancy of data.

ENME: an ENriched MEdia application utilizing context for session mobility; technical and human issues

We look into the combination of a SIP application (IP based multimedia telephony) together with a context-aware smart environment. We start by describing a scenario where it is highly relevant to use such a combination. The combined application is called ENME, and is managing and moving communication sessions based on user context. We are realizing the service with SIP REFER and SIP extensions. We also discuss briefly other solutions such as ’virtual terminals’, and we identify pros and cons of the different solutions. The application is implemented, and runs on a model railroad system, but the context model itself is more general. A next step would be to deploy the application in other smart environments, and we look briefly into a hospital environment. We end the paper by identifying some human issues for the service to work properly, and relate these issues to the technical solutions.

Spatial, organizational, and social dimensions of intra-hospital communication

Based on ethnographic field observations and interviews with clinicians, we compare communication patterns and use of communication technology at a geriatric department and an emergency department at a Norwegian hospital. Both departments used a similar wireless telephone system, but in different ways. We use three dimensions to analyze the structuring of cooperative work — spatial, organizational, and social — and explain the difference in communication technology use by the different degree of overlap between physical space and the wider notion of place in the two departments. The higher degree of space-place overlap at the geriatric department contributed to a lesser need for the technological support of “virtual placeness” provided by communication technology, whereas these functions were more welcome at the emergency department. We think an analysis that takes into account the notion of space and place and our three structuring dimensions can aid in the requirement elicitation process of intra-hospital communication technology.

ENME: An ENriched MEdia application utilizing context for session mobility in a telecom system

– In many settings, the users are mobile (e.g. away from their desks) while high quality multimedia telephony equipment has fixed locations. This may result in unsuccessful multimedia calls and motivates a context aware system which supports session mobility. This paper aims to address these issues., – The approach is to utilize state‐of‐the‐art in‐context awareness and integrate this into a real time telecom system based on SIP. System requirements are formulated and the system is designed, implemented and (technically) tested., – The paper contains a thorough analysis of why baseline SIP and SIP REFER alone cannot solve our case and why a new SIP extension is introduced. The solution is evaluated and compared to solutions such as “virtual terminals”., – It is pointed out that the context model does not directly support roaming between two different business domains. This issue is however of limited impact in an enterprise setting. The current prototype is thoroughly tested from a technical viewpoint, but user studies in real organizations are recommended as further work., – The paper shows that human issues and issues relating to computer mediated communication (CMC) are strongly linked to technical details in SIP. In practice this means that researchers in CMC and CSCW should look more into building prototypes where real time conversational features are supported together with dynamic change of media types., – The main value of the paper is a thorough described technical realization of the context aware multimedia application ENriched MEdia (ENME). The background material and the appendix should be of value to anyone interested in convergence between computing and communication.

An Exergame Concept for Improving Balance in Elderly People

Video exercise games (exergames) are becoming increasingly popular among elderly people. Many elderly experience reduced balance and muscle strength which make them at increased risk of falling. Muscle strength and balance training are the key components for preventing function decline and falls at old age. Exergames that are to be used among elderly users should be specifically designed for this group of people. This study aims to design and evaluate an exergame concept developed to fit the need and preferences of elderly users. First, seven elderly people tested three commercially available exergames. Feedback from focus group interviews revealed that the design of the existing exergames should be simplified and more closely related to activities that can be associated with older people’s daily life. Based on the feedback a new exergame concept “in nature” was designed. The new exergame concept had a simple design, and included balance and muscle strengthening exercises related to real life activities. In the results of the workshop, the study provides eight design recommendations for exergame design for seniors.

Mobility and Intelligence in Telecom: How and Where to Handle It?

We will look into handling of mobility and intelligence in new mobile systems. Our aim is to build telecom system(s) enabling many types of mobility, as well as many different types of ‘rich’ or ‘intelligent’ applications. We will look into ‘beyond 3G systems’ based on middleware. We will look back to the design of the 3GPP system UMTS IMS. We analyze different choices and solution in IMS with an eye to the needed co-operation (standardization) vs. the possibilities for competitiveness. I.e., we investigate the possibility to deploy services that shall not be standardized. Based on this we introduce some new refined mobility definitions aimed at middleware based systems. We also identify some further research issues to be solved before middleware can be fully introduced in new ‘intelligent’ telecom systems.