scholarly journals Robots for Elderly Care in the Home: A Landscape Analysis and Co-Design Toolkit

Author(s):  
Gianluca Bardaro ◽  
Alessio Antonini ◽  
Enrico Motta

AbstractOver the last two decades, several deployments of robots for in-house assistance of older adults have been trialled. However, these solutions are mostly prototypes and remain unused in real-life scenarios. In this work, we review the historical and current landscape of the field, to try and understand why robots have yet to succeed as personal assistants in daily life. Our analysis focuses on two complementary aspects: the capabilities of the physical platform and the logic of the deployment. The former analysis shows regularities in hardware configurations and functionalities, leading to the definition of a set of six application-level capabilities (exploration, identification, remote control, communication, manipulation, and digital situatedness). The latter focuses on the impact of robots on the daily life of users and categorises the deployment of robots for healthcare interventions using three types of services: support, mitigation, and response. Our investigation reveals that the value of healthcare interventions is limited by a stagnation of functionalities and a disconnection between the robotic platform and the design of the intervention. To address this issue, we propose a novel co-design toolkit, which uses an ecological framework for robot interventions in the healthcare domain. Our approach connects robot capabilities with known geriatric factors, to create a holistic view encompassing both the physical platform and the logic of the deployment. As a case study-based validation, we discuss the use of the toolkit in the pre-design of the robotic platform for an pilot intervention, part of the EU large-scale pilot of the EU H2020 GATEKEEPER project.

Author(s):  
Krzysztof Jurczuk ◽  
Marcin Czajkowski ◽  
Marek Kretowski

AbstractThis paper concerns the evolutionary induction of decision trees (DT) for large-scale data. Such a global approach is one of the alternatives to the top-down inducers. It searches for the tree structure and tests simultaneously and thus gives improvements in the prediction and size of resulting classifiers in many situations. However, it is the population-based and iterative approach that can be too computationally demanding to apply for big data mining directly. The paper demonstrates that this barrier can be overcome by smart distributed/parallel processing. Moreover, we ask the question whether the global approach can truly compete with the greedy systems for large-scale data. For this purpose, we propose a novel multi-GPU approach. It incorporates the knowledge of global DT induction and evolutionary algorithm parallelization together with efficient utilization of memory and computing GPU’s resources. The searches for the tree structure and tests are performed simultaneously on a CPU, while the fitness calculations are delegated to GPUs. Data-parallel decomposition strategy and CUDA framework are applied. Experimental validation is performed on both artificial and real-life datasets. In both cases, the obtained acceleration is very satisfactory. The solution is able to process even billions of instances in a few hours on a single workstation equipped with 4 GPUs. The impact of data characteristics (size and dimension) on convergence and speedup of the evolutionary search is also shown. When the number of GPUs grows, nearly linear scalability is observed what suggests that data size boundaries for evolutionary DT mining are fading.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Sumit Kumar Gupta ◽  

Nanotechnology is new frontiers of this century. The world is facing great challenges in meeting rising demands for basic commodities(e.g., food, water and energy), finished goods (e.g., cellphones, cars and airplanes) and services (e.g., shelter, healthcare and employment) while reducing and minimizing the impact of human activities on Earth’s global environment and climate. Nanotechnology has emerged as a versatile platform that could provide efficient, cost-effective and environmentally acceptable solutions to the global sustainability challenges facing society. In recent years there has been a rapid increase in nanotechnology in the fields of medicine and more specifically in targeted drug delivery. Opportunities of utilizing nanotechnology to address global challenges in (1) water purification, (2) clean energy technologies, (3) greenhouse gases management, (4) materials supply and utilization, and (5) green manufacturing and hemistry. Smart delivery of nutrients, bio-separation of proteins, rapid sampling of biological and chemical contaminants, and nano encapsulation of nutraceuticals are some of the emerging topics of nanotechnology for food and agriculture. Nanotechnology is helping to considerably improve, even revolutionize, many technology and Industry sectors: information technology, energy, environmental science, medicine, homeland security, food safety, and transportation, among many others. Today’s nanotechnology harnesses current progress in chemistry, physics, materials science, and biotechnology to create novel materials that have unique properties because their structures are determined on the nanometer scale. This paper summarizes the various applications of nanotechnology in recent decades Nanotechnology is one of the leading scientific fields today since it combines knowledge from the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Medicine, Informatics, and Engineering. It is an emerging technological field with great potential to lead in great breakthroughs that can be applied in real life. Novel Nano and biomaterials, and Nano devices are fabricated and controlled by nanotechnology tools and techniques, which investigate and tune the properties, responses, and functions of living and non-living matter, at sizes below100 nm. The application and use of Nano materials in electronic and mechanical devices, in optical and magnetic components, quantum computing, tissue engineering, and other biotechnologies, with smallest features, widths well below 100 nm, are the economically most important parts of the nanotechnology nowadays and presumably in the near future. The number of Nano products is rapidly growing since more and more Nano engineered materials are reaching the global market the continuous revolution in nanotechnology will result in the fabrication of nanomaterial with properties and functionalities which are going to have positive changes in the lives of our citizens, be it in health, environment, electronics or any other field. In the energy generation challenge where the conventional fuel resources cannot remain the dominant energy source, taking into account the increasing consumption demand and the CO2 .Emissions alternative renewable energy sources based on new technologies have to be promoted. Innovative solar cell technologies that utilize nanostructured materials and composite systems such as organic photovoltaic offer great technological potential due to their attractive properties such as the potential of large-scale and low-cost roll-to-roll manufacturing processes


2018 ◽  
Vol 231 ◽  
pp. 05003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Matysiak ◽  
Paula Razin

The article presents the analysis of the performance of the vehicles equipped with automated driving systems (ADS) which were tested in real-life road conditions from 2015 to 2017 in the state of California. It aims at the effort to assess the impact on the road safety the continuous technological advancements in driving automation might have, based on of the first large-scale, real-life test deployments. Vehicle manufacturers and other stakeholders testing the highly automated vehicles in California are obliged to issue yearly reports which provide an insight on the test scale as well as the technology maturity. The so-called 'disengagement reports' highlight the range and number of control takeovers between the ADS and driver, which are made either based on driver's decision or information provided by the vehicle itself. The analysis of these reports allowed to investigate the development made in automated driving technology throughout the years of tests, as well as the direct or indirect influence of the external factors (e.g. various weather conditions) on the ADS performance. The results show that there is still a significant gap in reliability and safety between human drivers and highly automated vehicles which has been yet steadily decreasing due to technology advancements made while driving in the specific infrastructure and traffic conditions of California.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Beauvais ◽  
Thao Pham ◽  
Guillaume Montagu ◽  
Sophie Gleizes ◽  
Francesco Madrisotti ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Mobile health applications (apps) are increasing in interest for enhancing patient self-management in rheumatology. Inflammatory arthritis (IA) represents painful chronic conditions impairing quality of life, for which disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) are used to control disease activity and reduce functional disability. DMARDs are increasing in availability (>15 DMARDs in France) and have a wide variety of targets and modes of administration, but their use is associated with risk of adverse effects such as infections. Few apps in rheumatology have been developed with the involvement of patients and health professionals (HPs) and are actually used by patients. Patient education, including e-education, is advocated to improve patients’ autonomy over their own health. Apps may be appropriate tools for self-managing medications, problem-solving or care coordination. OBJECTIVE To develop a self-management mobile app for patients with IA by using a user-centred step-by-step approach and assess its real-life use. METHODS The development was promoted by the French Society of Rheumatology. A mixed-method qualitative–quantitative study including 42 and 344 patients, respectively, identified the impact of IA on daily life, patients’ treatments practices, social relationships, use of health apps and potential use needs. A multidisciplinary team including 7 rheumatologists, 3 patient association representatives and 5 members of a digital company developed the first version of the app via face-to-face meetings and patient feedback during the process. After launch, 2 in-depth users’ tests including 13 patients and 3 rheumatologists led to the app’s current version. The number of app installations, current users, and user requests were collected, as were scores and comments at stores. RESULTS The qualitative study revealed needs for information and counselling, development of a HP–patient partnership, development of skills to cope with daily life and risk situations with treatment aids; 86.8% participants in the quantitative study would be ready to use an app primarily on their rheumatologist’s recommendation. Six functionalities were implemented: a safety checklist before treatment administration, aids in daily life situations, treatment reminders, global well-being self-assessment, periodic counselling messages, and a diary. Aids for risk situations were based on the French academic recommendations for DMARD management, drug leaflets and websites of national health authorities. The app is free, with no personal data collection. The presentation is a “companion” called Hiboot (“owl” in English). Hiboot was installed 20,500 times from 2017 to 2020, with 4300 regular current users and still-increasing usage curves. Overall, 18,000 requests on treatment self-management were identified over an 8-month period in 2020. Scores were 4.4/5 stars at Android and iOS stores. CONCLUSIONS Hiboot is a free self-management app for patients with inflammatory arthritis developed by a step-by-step process including patients and HPs. The number of current users is substantial. Further evaluation of the Hiboot benefit is needed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Kohn ◽  
Jan Heidkamp ◽  
Guillén Fernández ◽  
Jurgen Fütterer ◽  
Indira Tendolkar

AbstractPeople often experience high level of distress during invasive interventions, which may exceed their coping abilities. This may be in particular evident when confronted with the suspicion of cancer. Taking the example of prostate biopsy sampling, we aimed at investigating the impact of an MRI guided prostate biopsy on the acute stress response and its mechanistic basis. We recruited 20 men with a clinical suspicion of prostate cancer. Immediately before an MRI guided biopsy procedure, we conducted fMRI in the same scanner to assess resting-state brain connectivity. Physiological and hormonal stress measures were taken during the procedure and associated with questionnaires, hair cortisol levels and brain measures to elucidate mechanistic factors for elevated stress. As expected, patients reported a stress-related change in affect. Decreased positive affect was associated with higher hair but not saliva cortisol concentration. Stronger use of maladaptive emotion regulation techniques, elevated depression scores and higher within-salience-network connectivity was associated with stronger increase in negative affect and/or decrease of positive affect during the procedure. While being limited in its generalization due to age, sample size and gender, our proof of concept study demonstrates the utility of real-life stressors and large-scale brain network measures in stress regulation research with potential impact in clinical practice.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Helmberger ◽  
Dirk Arnold ◽  
José I Bilbao ◽  
Niels de Jong ◽  
Geert Maleux ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Radioembolization, also known as transarterial radioembolization or selective internal radiation therapy with yttrium-90 (90Y) resin microspheres, is an established treatment modality for patients with primary and secondary liver tumors. However, large-scale prospective observational data on the application of this treatment in a real-life clinical setting is lacking. OBJECTIVE The main objective is to collect data on the clinical application of radioembolization with 90Y resin microspheres to improve the understanding of the impact of this treatment modality in its routine practice setting. METHODS Eligible patients are 18 years or older and receiving radioembolization for primary and secondary liver tumors as part of routine practice, as well as have signed informed consent. Data is collected at baseline, directly after treatment, and at every 3-month follow-up until 24 months or study exit. The primary objective of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe Registry for SIR-Spheres Therapy (CIRT) is to observe the clinical application of radioembolization. Secondary objectives include safety, effectiveness in terms of overall survival, progression-free survival (PFS), liver-specific PFS, imaging response, and change in quality of life. RESULTS Between January 2015 and December 2017, 1047 patients were included in the study. The 24-month follow-up period ended in December 2019. The first results are expected in the third quarter of 2020. CONCLUSIONS The CIRT is the largest observational study on radioembolization to date and will provide valuable insights to the clinical application of this treatment modality and its real-life outcomes. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02305459; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02305459 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT DERR1-10.2196/16296


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 4937-4941
Author(s):  
B. M. Alshammari

This paper presents a novel practical technique developed and applied for assessment of reliability and quality in real-life power systems. System-wide integrated performance indices are capable of addressing and revealing areas of deficiencies and bottlenecks as well as shortfalls in the composite generation-transmission-demand structure of large-scale power grids. The new evaluation methodology offers a general and comprehensive framework to assess the harmony and compatibility of generation capacities, transmission and required demand in a power system. The technique used in this paper is evaluated by the shortfall generation capacity index which is based on three dimensions introduced to represent the relationship between certain system generation capacity and demand. Also, practical applications to the Saudi power grid are presented for demonstration purposes.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 72-82
Author(s):  
Sophia Price

Brexit is likely to herald fundamental changes in the operation, scope and practice of EU development policy, due to the UK’s key role in leading and defining the geographical and sectoral remit of policy, and through its provision of large-scale funding. Through a focus on the EU’s relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, this article explores these potential impacts. It highlights the importance of the timing of Brexit in relation to the contemporaneous renegotiation of EU–ACP relations and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework and argues that the focus on static impacts of Brexit, in terms of removing the UK from the ‘EU equation’, overlooks the broader dynamics of political economy in which it is situated. Through the analysis of the anticipatory adjustments and discursive dynamics in EU development policy that articulate the pursuit of material interests, the article helps understand both the dynamics of Brexit and the broader transformations in which it is located.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Tibor Kovács ◽  
Gábor Simon ◽  
Gergely Mezei

Knowledge bases often utilize graphs as logical model. RDF-based knowledge bases (KB) are prime examples, as RDF (Resource Description Framework) does use graph as logical model. Graph databases are an emerging breed of NoSQL-type databases, offering graph as the logical model. Although there are specialized databases, the so-called triple stores, for storing RDF data, graph databases can also be promising candidates for storing knowledge. In this paper, we benchmark different graph database implementations loaded with Wikidata, a real-life, large-scale knowledge base. Graph databases come in all shapes and sizes, offer different APIs and graph models. Hence we used a measurement system, that can abstract away the API differences. For the modeling aspect, we made measurements with different graph encodings previously suggested in the literature, in order to observe the impact of the encoding aspect on the overall performance.  


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (12) ◽  
pp. 114-124
Author(s):  
В. О. Пашков ◽  
В. І. Правдін

The article deals with the problem of the migration crisis that has hit the EU. Since 2015, there has been a sharp increase in the number of refugees from the region, to which European countries were not ready. By the end of 2019, Europe has already exhausted its economic capacity to receive and accommodate refugees, but their flow is continuing. Over the last 5 years, more than 4 million refugees from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia have come to Europe. In 2015, the flow of migrants was over 1.5 million people, in 2016 - 900 000, in 2017 - 650 000, in 2018 - 600 000, in 2019 - almost 550 000.The main causes of large-scale movement of migrants to Europe have been identified. Among them are wars and conflicts that destabilize the situation in their native countries; demographic outbreak in Africa and the Middle East, deteriorating funding for refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, exacerbation of the 2018-2019 Syrian crisis; the availability of high social guarantees and diaspora relatives in many EU countries.The political, social, cultural consequences of the migration crisis for individual countries and the EU are analyzed. The increasing flow of refugees has exacerbated in European societies the problems of terrorism, the increase in crime rates, the poor cultural compatibility of the local population with refugees, the increased right-wing sentiment and the high social costs of migrant adaptation.The importance of the ideology of multiculturalism for the current migration crisis in the EU is substantiated. The phenomenon of multiculturalism is compared with the phenomena of globalization and shows the impact on the situation in society, which lead to conflict. Multiculturalism has recently been perceived as a means that can mitigate the negative (primarily for traditional cultures, ethnic and religious groups) consequences of globalization, but narrowing the philosophical view of the phenomenon of multiculturalism to the institutional level, modern representatives of the humanities and practices in Europe (political scientists, sociologists, politicians) faced with the fact that the interaction of cultures has not been adequately reflected in theory and held in practice.


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