Category Archives: CAPSIL

April 2009 – Aware Home – Aware Care

Last week I presented on our CAPSIL project during a workshop on Opportunities in Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Geron-technology. The focus of this 2nd Workshop was on the Users Perspective and how Ireland can build a competitive advantage in the emerging AAL market.

Speaking during the session on “Emerging European Trends for Inclusive AAL Solutions” the attendees were able to hear from three of the European Coordinated Actions in this space on their “Road Mapping” activities and suggested frameworks for AAL Development.

For more details visit the workshop website:
“AWARE HOMES | AWARE CARE
Opportunities in Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Geron-technologyBuilding Competitive Advantage in the Emerging AAL Market
2nd Workshop – The Users Perspective
Date | Tuesday 7th April 2009
Time | 8.30 – 5.00pm
Venue | Nursing Building, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Dundalk, Co Louth

Europe’s ageing population is a challenge for our job market and its social and health systems. But it is also an economic and social opportunity. By 2020, 25% of the EU’s population will be over 65. Spending on pensions, heslth and long-term care is expected to increase by a factor of three by 2050. However, older Europeans are also important consumers with a combined wealth of over €3,000 billion. ”

Mar 2009 Holiday! What holiday?

March 15 – 21st was a week of CAPSIL events in the USA which I’ve blogged about previously. The week after was intended as a family holiday week. However due to various deadlines and upcoming events I had to slot in some work tasks along the way. Looking back at what I did this week made me realise I accomplished more “work” tasks during my holidays than most people do in a good work week. Normally I try to disconnect but I think this blend of holiday activity and work (during travel times) worked out quite well. Sweden is a big place so there were lots of opportunities while travelling from A to B.

Ice Hotel

The first part of the week was spent in Kiruna mainly at the Ice Hotel. We got to go hiking, dog sledding, sleeping in our Ice Room and drinking in the Ice Bar along with other activities. Some of these pics are below.

FP7

During the week I worked on the final versions of my contributions to an EU FP7 grant submission. Along with colleagues in 8 European countries we are submitting a request for a new support action. Some late evenings were required and work on trains and flights but the new workpackages look very strong.

COST action

In parallel to the FP7 submission I also submitted a pre-proposal to the COST framework. Following a number of past events and special journal issues a set of academics around Europe and the world came to the realise we need the support a COST action can offer to help develop the field of multi-device surface user interfaces. A Surface User Interface is a class of user interface that relies on a self illuminated (e.g. LCD, PDA or iPhone) or projected horizontal, vertical or spherical interactive surface (e.g. a touch-screen or video wall) tied with the control of computation in the same physical surface. New applications with interfaces that transcend one device onto a class of other devices (i.e. multi-device surface user interfaces) are now emerging. When one considers applications that support multi-device, multi-touch or multi-hand (e.g. an iPhone working with a Microsoft Surface or a PDA working with a public touch-screen) then the underlying interface assumptions break down. There are real problems in terms of knowledge of suitable design, seamless operation, coupling, gesture interaction, middleware, interaction design, usability study and evaluation. Sharing and documenting knowledge for all around these problems is the central goal of our very timely proposal. Take for example Ann Morrison in HITT who has been involved in the FP6 Integrated project on Interaction and Presence in Urban Environments called IPCity. Last year she presented some of their group work at PPD08 in Naples and with a support like this COST action we can have student and researcher exchange to work with their very novel systems and setup in Helsinki. This is but one example of the many projects ongoing in this space.

Spring Summit Umeå Institute of Design

Later in the week, thanks to a tweet from an Interaction Designer I hired for TRIL on the Umeå Institute of Design I discovered they were having a conference called “Sensing And Sensuality” the day I was in town. This spring summit 2009 was held on Friday March 27, 2009 at 10:00 and was hosted by the Umeå Institute of Design & Tellart. Sadly I couldn’t attend the entire day but I got to hear some very interesting presentations from speakers including, Mikael Wiberg on “Interaction & Textures”, Matt Cottam from Tellart & Rhode Island School of Design and Lennart Andersson on “Industrial Design meets Interaction Design”. There were many pragmatic design solutions presented along with a number of artistic endeavours. Having just come from the Ice Hotel in Kiruna I wasn’t convinced by Mikael Wiberg’s talk on their work with the Ice Bar in Copenhagen “Purity with a twist”. The idea is interesting but blending low-res led displays with the amazing ice cut from the Torne river struck me as Neanderthal Man making “art” on cave walls with stone. It’s art but this attempt to blend the digital and the physical is sadly misguided. There was also too much focus on the invisibility of pervasive systems. As a community I think we have come to realise we need “invisibility in action” not literal invisibility to progress our user interfaces. Other talks on interaction design and industrial design struck a better cord with me.

Research Assistant

[ Academic Jobs EU advert ]

My advert for a new research assistant also required my attention during this week and went live towards the end of the week.
I am looking for a Research Assistant for a 20 month period to work on ‘Tabletop, Mobile and Interactive Surfaces”. This is a funded research project and based in UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics working with me based in the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory.
This project forms the first part of a phased program of research exploring the role of tabletop computing along with coupled public and private displays in rehabilitation, gaming and computer supported corporative work. The research assistant is expected to explore questions posed by the project lead and other team members. A large component of this post will be the development of research prototypes, using off the shelf development toolkits along with contributing to our open source developments in this area. Strong programming skills along with the ability to work with software and hardware co-design. The research assistant is further expected to support and maintain the tabletop physical hardware systems in place within the CASL along with developing new forms of system is called upon in the course of this research.

LoCA 2009

Over the past two weeks I’ve been working with Springer Verlag on getting the final copy correct for the proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Location and Context Awareness (LoCA) which will be held on May 7–8, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan. Location and context awareness are fundaments to next-generation mobile and pervasive computing systems. Pervasive computing is a model of computing in which computation is everywhere and computer functions are integrated into everything. The ultimate aim is to make information, applications and services available anywhere and at anytime in the human environment in a fluid manner appropriate to our current context. In addition to working on the final copy of the proceedings I announced our keynote Dr. Atsushi Shionozak’s title and abstract on our website. The title of his keynote will be From PlaceEngine to Location Amplifier: Rolling Out Commercial Location Based Services.

Overall


So the lesson is I need to leave my laptop at home if I want to relax I suppose? However, given these deadlines and the fact I’m involved in collaborative research efforts this week required me online. The other way to look at this is I need to take more holidays to boost my productivity!

Mar 2009 NCOA Panel Las Vegas

[ See Details ] Along with colleagues from around the world we are having a panel on Technologies for Successful Aging at the Aging in America Conference in Las Vegas on March 17th. While my family and friends are enjoying St. Patrick’s day in Ireland, I’ll be busy at work at this conference and panel! I will also be busy with a series of one on one meetings on the 16th and morning of the 17th with researchers and others interested in our roadmap and CAPSILs of knowledge. I’m seeing at least one St. Patrick’s festival event in Dublin before I leave.

This panel represents an opportunity for you to learn more about “Technologies for Successful Aging” from leading experts from the USA, Japan and Europe (EU). Members of the CAPSIL consortium along with representatives of the European Commission will present state of the art overviews on technology for the EU, US, and Asia. CAPSIL is an EU “support action” which is developing a series of “CAPSILs” see [ Wiki ] of knowledge along with a technology detailed roadmap for future research to achieve effective and sustainable solutions to independent living. This panel session will also provide you an opportunity to hear more about this roadmap along with posing questions to the panel on current and future directions.

Panel Members:
Dr. Terry Dishongh, Intel – Digital Health Group, USA
Prof. Shuji Hashimoto, Waseda University, Tokyo Japan
Prof. Holly Jimison, Oregon Health and Science University, USA
Dr. Benjamin Knapp, Queen’s University, Belfast UK
Prof. Misha Pavel, Oregon Health and Science University, USA
Dr. Aaron Quigley, University College Dublin, Ireland
Peter Wintlev-Jensen, European Commission, eInclusion directorate, Brussels, Belgium

Agenda:
Welcome and CAPSIL overview
State of the art technology review – USA
State of the art technology review – Japan
State of the art technology review – Europe
CAPSIL roadmap for future research
Question and Answer Session

This panel session is an action of CAPSIL and International Support of a Common Awareness and Knowledge Platform for Studying and Enabling Independent Living.

March 2009 CAPSIL events in the USA

From March 16th – 20th the CAPSIL consortium comes together in the USA for several leading events we have organised to reach out to the independent living research and development community and the US based policy and funding bodies. We are doing this by having events from panel sessions with members of the European Commission to small meetings between the European Commission, CAPSIL and US funding agencies. I fly to Las Vegas on the 15th and then to Washington DC on the evening of the 17th, I fly back to Dublin on the evening of the 20th, so it’s a packed week of events.

NCOA logo
On the March 17 at 1-2pm in Bally’s – Las Vegas 4 (South Tower – Third Floor) CAPSIL with host a panel session on Technologies for Successful Aging. This panel is part of the Aging in America conference, the 2009 Annual Conference of the American Society on Aging and the National Council on Aging. This panel includes an Overview of CAPSIL, State of the Art of Technology in Aging in the EU, US and Asia along with our Roadmap – Recommendations for the Future.

From the 18th to the 20th of March the CAPSIL consortium comes together in Washington DC for our 4th General Assembly, 4th working session along with a very large program of events with US based funding and decision makers. Our 3 days of events are being hosted at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Rockville Maryland.

The CAPSIL consortium will be holding our 4th general assembly during this time along with further time devoted to roadmap development. Over the course of three days CAPSIL will host bilateral meetings between representatives from the EU with representatives from the US. Those from the EU include, members of CAPSIL, representatives of the Delegation of the European Commission in Washington DC, representatives of the European Commission, Information Society & Media D-G and representatives of the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) Joint Programme. Those from the US for example include, representatives of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Further meetings with the NSF and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering will happen during this three day period.

The goal for these bilateral meetings is to further understand the activities underway in each area focussed on independent living supported by technology and to strengthen the opportunities for EU and US researchers to collaborate. There are many funded and unfunded research and development programs in the EU, US and Japan and if the agencies can aid, rely and build on each others efforts then the collective efforts of not just one region but all can be brought to bear on the challenges in independent living.

Nov 2008 Invited Speaker, ICT Lyon 2008 “Health@Home”

I have been invited to speak at the Eurescom’s networking session on “Health@Home – A new paradigm for prevention and chronic disease management”. The session will take place at the Lyon Congress Centre, room Saint Clair 4, on Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 9:00 – 10:30 during the ICT 2008 in Lyon from the 25-27th of November.

“The biennial ICT Event (formerly called the “IST Event”) is the most important forum for discussing research and public policy in information and communication technologies at European level. The Event brings together researchers and innovators, policy and business decision-makers working in the field of digital technologies.” [ Read More ]

“The purpose of this session is to initiate multi-disciplinary projects between network operators, service providers, manufacturers and e-health experts on the research challenges to create Health@Home applications and services. These services will empower citizens to manage their own health in the home environment with optimal medical support through remote monitoring and reliable on-demand health advice. This is particularly relevant in the context of the ageing European society and increases in chronic diseases.

It is now necessary to integrate the expertise of the health, technology, telecoms and homecare sectors to re-invent both active health management and treatment in the home environment. The Health@Home paradigm on health-supporting ICT solutions integrates health management, disease prevention and treatment of chronic conditions in the home environment. The Health@Home vision entails a seamless continuation of healthcare from the hospital to the home.” [ Read PDF ]

Aug 2008 Invitation to Speak SENIOR project Brussels

I have been invited to present a talk on Ubicomp User Interfaces at the SENIOR project workshop in Brussels on Ubiquitous Computing on Sept 8th.

The SENIOR project is examining issues related to ethics, privacy, and social inclusion in the context of ICT for the Elderly. The dialogue that they are conducting on these topics will lead to a roadmap for policy and technology development as this area continues to grow and evolve. As a part of this dialogue, they are conducting a series of five workshops beginning on the 8th of September, and the first one is focused upon Ubiquitous Computing, technologies expected to have a significant impact in the living environment for the elderly in the years to come.

Aug 2008 CAPSIL Tokyo

Capsil LogoDr. Aaron Quigley the CAPSIL co-ordinator attended the second CAPSIL Workshop, held in Waseda University Tokyo from 30-31, July. He presented a co-ordinator report to the CAPSIL consortium members.

CAPSIL (International Support Action of a Common Awareness and Knowledge Platform for Studying and Enabling Independent Living) is an EU funded support action under FP7. This workshop brought together consortium members from three regions (US, Japan, and EU). These represent extensive teams who are developing hardware/software/knowledge solutions in independent living. Each CAPSIL meeting will have an increasingly expansive set of objectives in order to involve the entire independent living community from all three regions (US, Japan, and EU), in the process of developing our roadmap and instantiating CAPSILs. Included during the two day event was a visit to the Waseda University Joint Institution for Advanced Biomedical Sciences along with policy, funding and independant living research presentations from, Prof. Toshiyo Tamura (Chiba University), Mr. Dai Hiyama (Yamatake Co.), Mr. Tatsuya Yamazaki (NICT) and Mr. Kunihiko Niwa (JST/CRDS).

Each of the work packages within CAPSIL will be used to create the technical research roadmap for independent living. This roadmap will be used to help inform upcoming funding calls in the EU, Japan and the US.
To learn more, visit http://www.capsil.org/

Apr 2008 EU Coordinating Action: CAPSIL

I have recently become the UCD PI for an EU Support Action CAPSIL we coordinate. CAPSIL is an ‘International Support of a Common Awareness and Knowledge Platform for Studying and Enabling Independent Living’. Our first kick off meeting is in London on April 10th with follow up meetings in Japan, Boston, Oregon and Ireland.

The aging of society is the single most important aspect of health care in the 21st century. Many intriguing ICT solutions are being developed within the EU, USA, and Japan for helping older people remain independent longer. However, these solutions tend to be fragmented and heterogeneous. The CAPSIL Coordinating Support Action (CSA) team is a strategic international coalition of University and Industrial partners that already have extensive teams developing hardware/software/knowledge solutions to independent living based on user requirements. All partners of CAPSIL are already members of regional and national centres on aging engaged in the process of helping to establish public policy and international standards. This support action is to launch initiatives, coordinated and disseminated by a series of workshops in the US, EU, and Japan (two per year for two years), with three fundamental goals:

* to develop a detailed CAPSIL Roadmap for EU research to achieve effective and sustainable solutions to independent living based on an in-depth analysis of independent living requirements and the ICT scenarios developed or under development in the EU, as well as the US and Japan (societies where the aging of the population are currently on par or exceeding the challenges that will be found within the EU).

* to support aging research by proposing procedures to incorporate all of these diverse solutions into WiKi entries (CAPSIL WiKi). These CAPSILs will enable researchers and the ICT industry to get the information they need to quickly and easily test solutions for prolonging independent living within the many and various heterogeneous communities. Only with this knowledge will the relevance and efficacy of technological solutions be maintained and be empowered with the capability to be adapted for various cultures.

* to use the CAPSIL Roadmap and the CAPSIL Workshops to help policy makers in the US and Japan coordinate research agendas and funding efforts across the three continents.