Leader: Marco Sacco (CNR); Other collaborator(s): Daniele Spoladore, Marta Mondellini, Atieh Mahroo, Chiara Tagliaferri (CNR-STIIMA)
This task focuses on customization and personalization of different solutions that can be deployed in living environments. It leverages the results of the tasks investigating the human-centered approach to gather a set of needs and expectations. This enables the definition of the elderly population formally. The formalization adopts ontology-based solutions to model users (skills, abilities, impairments, needs, expectations), living environments (domestic environments, working places, public places), solutions and their features, and available adaptations. Moreover, the semantic approach allows to leverage clinical and expert knowledge to represent and reason over the user’s clinical status, thus supporting a more efficient personalization of solutions and services, while ensuring a safe use of AI techniques.
Custom and user-based solutions are then tested. Specific case studies will be proposed using virtual reality environments, on the one hand, to offer ecological environments and activities and, on the other, to allow user safety and instant feedback on performance. The use of VR will also allow for a cheaper and faster change of environments and customization of tasks compared to real environments, as well as more agile access to users User experience (i.e. and usability of technological solutions, immersion, engagement) will be evaluated to validate solutions an maximize their take over.
In the period considered, the following intra-WP activities for Task 1.6 were conducted:
Main policy, industrial and scientific implications. Considering the expected outcomes of the activities under Task 1.6, the practical implications are many. On the one hand, Task 1.6 offers prototypes that leverage a semantic approach to information by formalizing data with "standard de-facto" technologies (such as RDF for knowledge graphs). This implies reflection on the technologies to be adopted at local, regional, and supra-regional levels for personalizing services. On the other hand, some prototypes take advantage of technologies that can offer services to citizens, such as the use of virtual reality and semantics within medical waiting rooms: again, in addition to asking a question about the practical implications of the use and acceptability of such technologies, from the perspective of organizing future Community Homes and continuity of care pathways, it is necessary to think about policies and the organization of services that can integrate and take advantage of such technologies.
Finally, the decision-support system developed in collaboration with Task 1.3 impacts the relationship between AAL device companies, the national health care system, and the citizen: the spillovers in terms of practical implications are in line with the goals of AAL (assisting the elderly at home and increasing their autonomy), while from a policy perspective the prototype helps stimulate discussion on the creation of appropriate policies for the use and management of AAL devices and the data they generate.
Please see the next reporting period.
Brief description of the activities and of the intermediate results. During the quarter of interest, the following intra-WP activities were continued:
Main policy, industrial and scientific implications. Following the further specification of the scientific activities, the practical implications of the results from Task 1.6 are twofold: regarding the development of the semantic layer to be adopted in the design solutions for living environments of frail elderly individuals, it allows designers, architects, and planners to use a prototypical tool for personalizing living spaces. This personalization takes into account the specific physical-cognitive needs of the end user (the clinical condition) and enables non-experts (architects, designers, etc.) to make “safe” choices for the frail elderly user concerning the introduction of assistive devices, while also considering the physical space and its limitations. As for the use of VR technologies in the waiting rooms of the Community Health Center, the planned prototype experimentation allows the evaluation of the effectiveness of these tools on target patients: in this way, it is possible to understand which policies need to be integrated to make the use of these technologies a concrete reality in the citizen’s care pathway. In general, both activities impact the production system of AAL devices and the National Health Service, with potential consequences for the redefinition of the care pathway (to include the home environment for the frail elderly).
During the quarter of interest, the following intra-WP / extra-WP activities were carried out:
In the quarter of interest, the following intra-WP / extra-WP activities were continued:
1. Prototype of the smart waiting room: Finalization of the virtual environment of the waiting room proposed by UniFi through a three-dimensional model; resolution of issues related to file import (textures, materials) and prototype development. Elicitation and acquisition of knowledge regarding the impact of the (waiting) environment on the occupant through a study based on the WELL standard. Contacts with IRCCS INRCA for the development of a testing protocol for the waiting room, with particular reference to the effectiveness of (virtual) adaptations and customizations resulting from the accommodation of certain environmental features for the occupants (based on WELL standards).
2. Bedroom Environment Configurator: Continue the development of the application to enable communication between the ontological layer and Revit; study of Dynamo BIM within Revit for metadata management – as a possible candidate for data exchange. In March, two STIIMA thesis students were involved in activities related to metadata study and development. The ontology continues to be populated with additional case studies, which serve as tests for the core of the ontology's rule engine.
Dissemination Events