Information and Technology Implementation Issues in AAL Solutions

With the population ageing effect, the technological developments, and pressure to reduce the cost with healthcare, are reunited the conditions for the development of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) solutions. This work is a revision of the current state of the art. Its aim is the characterization of the AAL solutions, within the AAL4ALL scope. Therefore, it is presented features, scenarios and projects, referring the limitations and the opportunities for the future developments of prototypes using high level information and technology in AAL environments. Moreover, it is presented guidelines of operation, exposing the conceptual approach, and the discussion and conclusion, which present recommendations and current AAL4ALL project positions in terms of concepts and technologies.

Reducing fuel consumption through modular vehicle architectures

By identifying energy waste streams in vehicles fuel consumption and introducing the concept of lean driving systems, a technological gap for reducing fuel consumption was identified. This paper proposes a solution to overcome this gap, through a modular vehicle architecture aligned with driving patterns. It does not address detailed technological solutions; instead it models the potential effects in fuel consumption through a modular concept of a vehicle and quantifies their dependence on vehicle design parameters (manifesting as the vehicle mass) and user behavior parameters (driving patterns manifesting as the use of a modular car in lighter and heavier mode, in urban and highway cycles). Modularity has been functionally applied in automotive industry as manufacture and assembly management strategies; here it is thought as a product development strategy for flexibility in use, driven by environmental concerns and enabled by social behaviors. The authors argue this concept is a step forward in combining technological solutions and social behavior, of which eco-driving is a vivid example, and potentially evolutionary to a lean, more sustainable, driving culture.

Ambient assisted living technology: comparative perspectives of users and caregivers

Developed societies are currently facing severe demographic changes: the world population is ageing at an unprecedented rate. This demographic trend will be also followed by an increase of people with physical limitations. New challenges are being raised to the traditional health care systems, not only in Portugal, but also in all other European states. There is an urgent need to find solutions that allow extending the time people can live in their preferred environment by increasing their autonomy, self-confidence and mobility. AAL4ALL is a project currently being developed in cooperation with 34 Portuguese interdisciplinary partners, from industry to academia, R&D and social disciplines, which employs a novel conceptual approach through the development of an ecosystem of products and services for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) associated to a business model and validated through large scale trial. This paper presents a comparative perspective of the needs and attitudes towards technology of the AAL users and caregivers identified in the analysis of a set of three different surveys: a users survey targeted at the Portuguese seniors and pre-seniors; an informal caregivers survey targeted at the family, friends and neighbours who provide care without any financial compensation; and a formal caregivers survey targeted at physicians, nurses,psychologists, social workers, and direct-care workers providing care to elders. The first results indicate that AAL solutions must be affordable,user friendly and have a true perceived benefit to their users.

Applying complex network theory to the understanding of high-aspect-ratio carbon-filled composites

This work demonstrates that the theoretical framework of complex networks typically used to study systems such as social networks or the World Wide Web can be also applied to material science, allowing deeper understanding of fundamental physical relationships. In particular, through the application of the network theory to carbon nanotubes or vapour-grown carbon nanofiber composites, by mapping fillers to vertices and edges to the gap between fillers, the percolation threshold has been predicted and a formula that relates the composite conductance to the network disorder has been obtained. The theoretical arguments are validated by experimental results from the literature.

Information technology supporting healthcare and social care services

The authors are developing a pilot project for a Municipality in the North of Portugal, envisaging the definition and implementation of an e-marketplace for healthcare and social services, in order to facilitate the interaction between healthcare and social services professionals and people with special needs (or their relatives). Based on the results of a survey on user needs analysis and expectations conducted in 2011, the paper discusses the relevance and interest of such platforms and the main drivers and motivations of the population for using such services, as well as which services would motivate citizens to use the platform. The results of the study will be used to select the products and services perceived to be the most desired by the potential users. The paper thus makes three main contributions: (1) the results of the study confirm the interest and the perceived potential of such a service, from the end-users perspective; (2) the findings support the advantage of expanding this pilot project to a full scale implementation; and (3) the performed analysis improves our understanding of the relations between the characteristics of the inquired population and the perceived interest in such platforms.