ICT Development Services & Technologies for Well-Being of People with Dementia

The SEIT Lab has the following experience/competences related to the Ambient Assistive Living Call:

-       Ambient Assisted Living, Smart Middleware for Context Awareness and User Profiling, e-Health Platforms: In this area the focus of the lab is on the development of ambient assisted living, smart middleware for context awareness and user profiling for detecting the health status of the patient and finally on e-health platforms for effective life-long training of technical and practical skills. We apply our research expertise on context-awareness for the specification, design and implementation of ubiquitous and intelligent systems that support collaborative, creative and personalized e-Learning and e-health platforms to assist people with Dementia. We have defined, designed and developed such systems and platforms during participation in EU projects such as CVN AAL, idSpace FP7, V-ALERT LLP, VALS LLP, UNITE IST, healthservice24, MEDFORIST and MEDICATE. In these projects our strategic role was enhancing creativity, learning, health monitoring and support by defining and building context management and context-aware recommendation capabilities in e-learning platforms, creativity support tools and platforms and e-commerce platforms. Most related project:

o   AAL CVN: The European AAL ConnectedVitality project aimed to develop 'the second best connection' a video communication network, coined 'The ConnectedVitality Network', enabling immobile senior citizens to organize their social network, choose the activity and select levels of social interaction according to their individual needs, abilities and chosen lifestyle. More particularly, the goal of this project was to develop a technological answer to the growing problem of loneliness amongst elderly people in Europe. For elderly, loss of a life partner or immobility problems greatly contribute to feelings of helplessness and isolation. Reconnecting to others has huge advantages, both emotional and practical.

-       Context-Aware Computing and Distributed Systems: In this area, the competences, experience and expertise of the lab stem from various EU projects; e.g. Prosperity4All FP7, AsTeRICS FP7, COIN FP7, MUSIC FP6, MADAM FP6. In these projects the lab is mainly involved with the specification, design and implementation of context-aware middleware architectures and platforms that enable communication between diverse, distributed components, systems and applications. In specific, we focus on modular development (e.g., OSGi, Android services) for the definition and implementation of adaptive, pluggable, re-configurable and reusable context-aware modules, by utilizing the power of component-based software development, middleware and reflection, to support the operation of middleware platforms in distributed and embedded systems. This forms the basis for the definition, design and implementation of ubiquitous context management systems and in the research and development of novel methodologies that aid the implementation of adaptive services and applications for ubiquitous environments. Most closely related projects:  

o   Prosperity4All FP7: Over 2 billion people worldwide have different types, degrees, or combinations of disability, literacy, digital literacy or aging related barriers that impede or prevent use of ICT. The project aims to develop the infrastructure, tools and ecosystem that will facilitate accessibility mainly through assistive technologies and allow for a ubiquitous auto-personalization of interfaces and materials, based on user needs and preferences, to grow (promote self-rewarding collaboration, reduce redundant development, lower costs, increase market reach and penetration internationally). The core goal is at creating an ecosystem in which everyone will benefit, matching user needs with product and service developers.

o   AsTeRICS FP7: Developed a platform for realising user driven assistive technologies by combining emerging sensor techniques, such as Brain-Computer Interfaces and computer vision with basic actuators. The platform provides people with reduced motor capabilities a flexible and adaptable technology at hand which enables them to access the Human-Machine-Interfaces (HMI) at the standard desktop, but in particular also of embedded systems like mobile phones or smart home devices. The University of Cyprus was mainly involved in the development of the design of a modular middleware architecture that manages devices such as sensors and actuators that facilitate the operation of the AsTeRICS platform.