The CLARITY modular ambient health and wellness measurement platform

Emerging healthcare applications can benefit enormously from recent advances in pervasive technology and computing. This paper introduces the CLARITY Modular Ambient Health and Wellness Measurement Platform:, which is a heterogeneous and robust pervasive healthcare solution currently under development at the CLARITY Center for Sensor Web Technologies. This intelligent and context-aware platform comprises the Tyndall Wireless Sensor Network prototyping system, augmented with an agent-based middleware and frontend computing architecture. The key contribution of this work is to highlight how interoperability, expandability, reusability and robustness can be manifested in the modular design of the constituent nodes and the inherently distributed nature of the controlling software architecture.Emerging healthcare applications can benefit enormously from recent advances in pervasive technology and computing. This paper introduces the CLARITY Modular Ambient Health and Wellness Measurement Platform:, which is a heterogeneous and robust pervasive healthcare solution currently under development at the CLARITY Center for Sensor Web Technologies. This intelligent and context-aware platform comprises the Tyndall Wireless Sensor Network prototyping system, augmented with an agent-based middleware and frontend computing architecture. The key contribution of this work is to highlight how interoperability, expandability, reusability and robustness can be manifested in the modular design of the constituent nodes and the inherently distributed nature of the controlling software architecture.

Market-oriented new product development of functional beverages

Strategic reviews of the Irish Food and Beverage Industry have consistently emphasised the need for food and beverage firms to improve their innovation and marketing capabilities, in order to maintain competitiveness in both domestic and overseas markets. In particular, the functional food and beverages market has been singled out as an extremely important emerging market, which Irish firms could benefit from through an increased technological and market orientation. Although health and wellness have been the most significant drivers of new product development (NPD) in recent years, failure rates for new functional foods and beverages have been reportedly high. In that context, researchers in the US, UK, Denmark and Ireland have reported a marked divergence between NPD practices within food and beverage firms and normative advice for successful product development. The high reported failure rates for new functional foods and beverages suggest a failure to manage customer knowledge effectively, as well as a lack of knowledge management between functional disciplines involved in the NPD process. This research explored the concept of managing customer knowledge at the early stages of the NPD process, and applied it to the development of a range of functional beverages, through the use of advanced concept optimisation research techniques, which provided for a more market-oriented approach to new food product development. A sequential exploratory research design strategy using mixed research methods was chosen for this study. First, the qualitative element of this research investigated customers’ choice motives for orange juice and soft drinks, and explored their attitudes and perceptions towards a range of new functional beverage concepts through a combination of 15 in-depth interviews and 3 focus groups. Second, the quantitative element of this research consisted of 3 conjoint-based questionnaires administered to 400 different customers in each study in order to model their purchase preferences for chilled nutrient-enriched and probiotic orange juices, and stimulant soft drinks. The in-depth interviews identified the key product design attributes that influenced customers’ choice motives for orange juice. The focus group discussions revealed that groups of customers were negative towards the addition of certain functional ingredients to natural foods and beverages. K-means cluster analysis was used to quantitatively identify segments of customers with similar preferences for chilled nutrient-enriched and probiotic orange juices, and stimulant soft drinks. Overall, advanced concept optimisation research methods facilitate the integration of the customer at the early stages of the NPD process, which promotes a multi-disciplinary approach to new food product design. This research illustrated how advanced concept optimisation research methods could contribute towards effective and efficient knowledge management in the new food product development process.

Designing an adaptive salutogenic care environment

Humans are profoundly affected by the surroundings which they inhabit. Environmental psychologists have produced numerous credible theories describing optimal human environments, based on the concept of congruence or “fit” (1, 2). Lack of person/environment fit can lead to stress-related illness and lack of psychosocial well-being (3). Conversely, appropriately designed environments can promote wellness (4) or “salutogenesis” (5). Increasingly, research in the area of Evidence-Based Design, largely concentrated in the area of healthcare architecture, has tended to bear out these theories (6). Patients and long-term care residents, because of injury, illness or physical/ cognitive impairment, are less likely to be able to intervene to modify their immediate environment, unless this is designed specifically to facilitate their particular needs. In the context of care settings, detailed design of personal space therefore takes on enormous significance. MyRoom conceptualises a personalisable room, utilising sensoring and networked computing to enable the environment to respond directly and continuously to the occupant. Bio-signals collected and relayed to the system will actuate application(s) intended to positively influence user well-being. Drawing on the evidence base in relation to therapeutic design interventions (7), real-time changes in ambient lighting, colour, image, etc. respond continuously to the user’s physiological state, optimising congruence. Based on research evidence, consideration is also given to development of an application which uses natural images (8). It is envisaged that actuation will require machine-learning based on interpretation of data gathered by sensors; sensoring arrangements may vary depending on context and end-user. Such interventions aim to reduce inappropriate stress/ provide stimulation, supporting both instrumental and cognitive tasks.