Pilar Sala

A Modelling Framework for Ambient Assisted Living Validation

This paper describes a modeling framework that facilitates and streamlines the process of creation, design, construction and deployment of technological solutions in the context of AAL assuring that they are accessible and usable for senior citizens. The framework supports the design of the Human Interaction aspects of an AAL solution in all the stages of a user centered design methodology, putting in practice the guidelines for the verification and validation of the accessibility and usability facets. Two environments are defined: The authoring environment allow the definition of the user, environment and service models. The simulation environment is composed by software and hardware components that constitute a physical ensemble that in conjunction allow the ICT designer to implement actual Virtual Reality scenarios of AAL. It will be used to verify interaction designs and validate the accessibility of the AAL products by means of immersing the users in 3D virtual spaces.

Ontology for Modeling Interaction in Ambient Assisted Living Environments

This paper describes a set of ontologies created in the framework of the European project VAALID that allows designers of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) services to model and characterize an AAL environment, the involved actors and different kinds of spaces and devices. These ontologies also include aspects related to interactions among the different elements that have been defined in the modelled AAL solution. Interactions are described in terms of capabilities of each element by means of the Common Accessibility Profile.

Ambient assisted living spaces validation by services and devices simulation

The design of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) products is a very demanding challenge. AAL products creation is a complex iterative process which must accomplish exhaustive prerequisites about accessibility and usability. In this process the early detection of errors is crucial to create cost-effective systems. Computer-assisted tools can suppose a vital help to usability designers in order to avoid design errors. Specifically computer simulation of products in AAL environments can be used in all the design phases to support the validation. In this paper, a computer simulation tool for supporting usability designers in the creation of innovative AAL products is presented. This application will benefit their work saving time and improving the final system functionality.

Process choreography for Interaction simulation in Ambient Assisted Living environments

AAL solutions and Universal Design are more and more used to empower individuals to manage his needs by using ICTs. Nevertheless, the use of design-for-all principles in ICTs is a very difficult task. Products that may seem great ideas in design time can be useless for people with limitations. The use of systems that can simulate the interaction between the user and AAL services and devices can help designers to make fewer design errors and create more useful products.

Virtual reality for AAL services interaction design and evaluation

AAL Solutions are not part of mainstream industry yet, being one of the main reasons the complexity of the technologies involved in relation to its targeted beneficiaries, the elderly, and its acceptance by them. Applying HCD methodologies for user involvement and creating physical prototypes is both costly and time consuming, particularly in this domain that combines software artifacts, devices and physical environments. VR techniques are very suited to create Virtual Prototypes that offer the beneficiaries the possibility to visualize and interact with proposed solutions before they exist. This paper presents the results of VAALID project in developing this approach of creating tools for design and simulation of AAL Solutions using VR and Mixed Reality, supporting the early involvement of beneficiaries in the process.

Implementation of the ISO/IEC 24756 for the interaction modeling of an AAL space

This paper presents the results of the implementation of an accessibility verifier tool for AAL systems using the ISO/IEC 24756 standard. The accessibility verifier tool is based in an interaction model where the Common Accessibility Profile (CAP), as defined by the standard, is used to perform the checking of the accessibility constrains of the system configuration against the user capabilities. The paper gives information of the major design decisions in developing the tool, the context of use in the VAALID project and the relation with the standard.

Cloud Computing for Context-Aware Enhanced m-Health Services

m-Health services are increasing its presence in our lives due to the high penetration of new smartphone devices. This new scenario proposes new challenges in terms of information accessibility that require new paradigms which enable the new applications to access the data in a continuous and ubiquitous way, ensuring the privacy required depending on the kind of data accessed. This paper proposes an architecture based on cloud computing paradigms in order to empower new m-Health applications to enrich their results by providing secure access to user data.

Self care system for heart failure out of hospital patients

CUORE is a Heart Failure (HF) Disease Assessment System that makes use of innovative approaches, based on Information Technologies (IT) and portable monitoring devices, for the continuous assessment of HF progression and cardiovascular risk stratification. The system valuates the cardiac condition integrating patient data from different sources with special emphasis in the information obtained for ECG processing. Rather than just evaluate the cardiovascular status, the system also aims to motivate patients to have an active role in their health management and to improve their cardiac condition by promotion of an active lifestyle. In order to make the system usable the methodology adopted to create the final solution is iterative and it involves users in all stages. This paper presents the conceptualization of CUORE as a solution to self care for heart failure out of hospital patients.

Interactive Information Environment for the controlled practice of physical training to improve cardiovascular fitness

Physical inactivity is one of the risk factors of coronary heart disease. Physical activity protects against the development of CVD and also favorably modifies other risk factors, however a huge part of the population lead a relatively sedentary lifestyle. Virtual trainer (vt) concept is a technological platform for the controlled practice of physical training to achieve better cardiovascular fitness results that includes a motivational environment created to support the long term compliance with the training program. VT consist of a technological platform, a method for the fitness condition assessment and the motivational multimedia environment. This paper describes the firsts results achieved in the project on the technological platform and the fitness condition assessment

Process choreography for human interaction computer-aided simulation

Design errors can suppose a unaffordable load for the production costs. Allowing product designers to de ne behavioral patterns that describe the interaction of future users of the system can reduce the number of design errors. These patterns can be used to simulate how users respond to stimuli of products detecting problems at early stages of product development. Choreography systems to simulate the interaction among devices and services defined using commercially available workflow engines have been used in previous work (as the European project VAALID). However, the complexity of human behavior models requires much more expressive workflow languages for their definition. In this work, a highly expressive Workflow engine is presented. This system solves the problem of expressiveness in the representation of the interaction of human behavior models in the VAALID project