Geological Reserve Estimation of Limestone Deposit: A Comparative Study Between ISDW and OK

Geostatistics plays an important role for reserve estimation in mining industry. Geostatistical tools became popular because of its high degree of accuracy and time saving process for estimation. The uncertainty of geological deposit can be populated by geo-statistical tools. The limestone ore deposit was studied in this paper. The assay value of individual constituents of limestone ore i.e CaO, SiO2, Al2O3 and Fe2O3 were determined for a block by using Inverse Square Distance Weighting (ISDW) method. The average assay value of those individual constituents were 45.85, 15.94, 1.56 and 0.82 percentage respectively. The assay value of CaO was also estimated by two linear method of estimation i.e ISDW and Ordinary Kriging (OK). The assay value of CaO were determined 45.85 and 44.67 percentage respectively. The assay values were properly validated and concluded accordingly. The application of ISDW and OK were implemented to build the resource model together in order to assess the uncertainty of the deposit. Grade estimation by using different geo-statistical techniques are done by SURPAC mine planning software.

In Situ Abnormal Behaviours Detection

This work describes a ‘detection of abnormal activities and health-related changes’ system for an elderly person at her/his home. The analysis is based on the data collected by a domotic box of the market. The box was initially designed to continuously recognize the owner’s daily activities in order to anticipate anomalies and consequently prevent health complications and enhance the rate of disease prevention. The box uses non-intrusive home automation sensors to detect the activity level of the occupants. It is equipped also with other technologies, including humidity sensors, bed and chair sensors to name a few. In order to build a system capable of intercepting warning signs for early intervention, we adopt a Hidden Markov Model based approach that we will initialize beforehand with the activity sequences of the user within a given period. The outcomes of the model paves the way for deducting the final judgement and reporting a relevant context-aware alert to healthcare service experts. Other statistical processes might complete this behavioural analysis later on to enhance the alerts accuracy.

A User-Centered Approach to Design a Mobile Application for Chronic Pain Management

This paper presents a user-centered approach for the design/re-design of a mobile application for chronic pain management, with a focus on chronic low back pain, sometimes referred to as "invisible disability". Within the framework of a multidisciplinary project involving physicians, patients and computer scientists, the work presented here describes firstly an identification and representation process of the needs/expectations of the users of such an application (patients/physicians), based on a data-driven persona development method and, secondly, an evaluation process of the user experience (UX) of the current version of the application, using among others usability tests. The aim of the approach is to establish (re-)design guidelines in order to improve this kind of application.

Benefit of a Mobile Application to Motivate People with Multiple Sclerosis to Practice Self-Rehabilitation at Home

Rehabilitation is essential to Multiple Sclerosis (MS) treatment. Its efficacy can be maintained by self-rehabilitation but its execution often remains unpredictable. A mobile application could help people with MS (pwMS) practice these self-rehabilitation exercises at home. We are reporting the results of a study aiming to guide the design of a mobile application that would motivate pwMS to do so. With this aim in mind, a study has been conducted among the rehabilitation staff who work with these people. The results are steering the design of the application towards an occupation-centric application, in addition with some playful elements in order to provoke interest and commitment.

Cochlear Implant: Effect of the Number of Channel and Frequency Selectivity on Speech Understanding in Noise Preliminary Results in Simulation with Normal-Hearing Subjects

The cochlear implant is the most successful implantable device for the rehabilitation of profound deafness. However, in some cases, the electrical stimulation delivered by the electrode can spread inside the cochlea creating overlap and interaction between frequency channels. By using channel-selection algorithms like the “nofm” coding-strategy, channel interaction can be reduced. This paper describes the preliminary results of experiments conducted with normal hearing subjects (n = 9). Using a vocoder, the present study simulated the hearing through a cochlear implant. Speech understanding in noise was measured by varying the number of selected channels (“nofm”: 4, 8, 12 and 16of20) and the degree of simulated channel interaction (“Low”, “Medium”, “High”). Also, with the vocoder, we evaluated the impact of simulated channel interaction on frequency selectivity by measuring psychoacoustic tuning curves. The results showed a significant average effect of the signal-to-noise ratio (p < 0.0001), the degree of channel interaction (p < 0.0001) and the number of selected channels, (p = 0.029). The highest degree of channel interaction significantly decreases intelligibility as well as frequency selectivity. These results underline the importance of measuring channel interaction for cochlear implanted patients to have a prognostic test and to adjust fitting methods in consequence. The next step of this project will be to transpose these experiments to implant users, to support our results.

Open and Configurable Heterogeneous Data Recording Device for Clinical Trials

This article presents a heterogeneous, open and configurable data recording device to facilitate the implementation of clinical trials. It includes an embedded system connected via USB to an Android device, and a database in the Cloud. Using an Android application, it is possible to configure each clinical trial according to the needs of the test protocol and the people involved in the study. This device ensures the recording and storage of data from both the various sensors used and the questionnaires. This original device was used during the implementation of the clinical trials for a powered wheelchair “Obstacle Alerting System”. This system will be mounted on the wheelchairs of the people participating in the clinical trials and used for 14 days in their real life environment.

Autonomous Navigation of a Visually Impaired Person with Loss of Limb Sensitivity, via a Smart Wheelchair (Case Study)

Presentation and analysis of the first experimentation of autonomous navigation, for a young man suffering from category 4 blindness, associated with disorders of the sensitivity of the limbs, moving thanks to the feelings of the accelerations and decelerations of an anti-collision and anti-fall electric wheelchair.

Power Wheelchair Virtual Reality Simulator with Vestibular Feedback

Autonomy and the ability to maintain social activities can be challenging for people with disabilities experiencing reduced mobility. In the case of disabilities that impact mobility, power wheelchairs can help such people retain or regain autonomy. Nonetheless, driving a power wheelchair is a complex task that requires a combination of cognitive, visual and visuo-spatial abilities. In practice, people need to pass prior ability tests and driving training before being prescribed a power wheelchair by their therapist. Still, conventional training in occupational therapy can be insufficient for some people with severe cognitive and/or visio-spatial functions. As such, these people are often prevented from obtaining a power wheelchair prescription from their therapist due to safety concerns. In this context, driving simulators might be efficient and promising tools to provide alternative, adaptive, flexible, and safe training. In previous work, we proposed a Virtual Reality (VR) driving simula-integrating vestibular feedback to simulate wheelchair motion sensations. The performance and acceptability of a VR simulator rely on satisfying user Quality of Experience (QoE). Therefore, our simulator is designed to give the user a high Sense of Presence (SoP) and low Cyber-sickness. This paper presents a pilot study assessing the impact of the vestibular feedback provided on user QoE. Participants were asked to perform a driving task whilst in the simulator under two conditions: with and without vestibular feedback. User QoE is assessed through subjective questionnaires measuring user SoP and cyber-sickness. The results show that vestibular feedback activation increases SoP and decreases cyber-sickness. This study constitutes a mandatory step before clinical trials and, as such, only enrolled people without disabilities.

MemoRob: Studying Robots Distractor Effects

MemoRob is a model about how to optimize the use of robots for learning. It is based on a list of each possible robotic source of distraction associated with its relevant effects according to its nature and to the target learning mode. While collecting the sources of distraction that the robotics literature provides, the instantiation method of pairing each source and each learning mode with the nature of the distraction as well as its distracting effects allows to consider how to remedy these effects of robotic distraction effects although still having the robotic input as a learning medium. In this article, we provide the motivations that led to the need for the MemoRob model, the list of sources and effects generated by the Human-Robot interaction that may interfere with learning situations, the learning modes described according to their processes and mechanisms and, finally, a set of predictions on whether a given robotic learning situations might promote attention or distraction.

Novel Robotic Assistive Technologies: Choosing Appropriate Training for Healthcare Professionals

One of the key challenges for the training of healthcare professionals (HCPs) is to maintain a good understanding and knowledge of new assistive technologies (ATs) that are currently on the market [1]. Indeed, at present, available training on ATs is limited and does not meet the practice-related needs of HCPs. It is in this context that the ADAPT European project aims to develop a new AT training programme for healthcare professionals, which will also introduce them to the project’s new AT developments - a smart powered wheelchair and a virtual reality wheelchair-driving simulator. The program consists of six multimodal units; five delivered via e-learning and one through a blended method of e-learning and face-to-face sessions. The development of the content is guided by findings from an earlier literature review and an online survey of AT training needs for HCP’s, both undertaken by the ADAPT cross-national research team, comprised of UK and French experts. The level of technical difficulty increases with successive units in order to train all HCPs to use innovative ATs more widely in their practice. A Learning Management System enables the dissemination of the e-learning AT program. Preliminary results from participant unit-specific evaluations available at this stage are overall positive and encouraging.