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Older adults want to live independently as long as possible in their own homes. At the same time, they need to feel safe and secure. Technical assistance systems can be used to achieve these goals. However, technological innovations are not always developed in correspondence with specific needs and aims of their end-users, in our case older adults. To meet the needs of the end-users and to ascertain that end-users fully accept products, it is essential to adapt the products to older adults’ requirements and to reduce elderly people's fears of using technology. To ensure this we suggest long-term testing of innovations in real-world experimental environments called Living Labs (usually the older adults’ homes).

Assisting older adults at work is of critical importance in nowadays fast-emerging computerized environments. Therefore, it is paramount to provide support to mitigate age-related cognitive degradation and to relieve their fear towards technological changes. In this demo paper, we present CogniWin, an integrated framework for providing personalized support to older adults at work, which aims to achieve the above goals and to make them feel more positive in prolonging their stay at work. We present an overall description of the system components and the integration architecture, and highlight the benefits of using the system. 1618 Sponsors: Conference code: 123010

BACKGROUND: PlayMancer is a video game designed to increase emotional regulation and reduce general impulsive behaviors, by training to decrease arousal and improve decision-making and planning. We have previously demonstrated the usefulness of PlayMancer in reducing impulsivity and improving emotional regulation in bulimia nervosa (BN) patients. However, whether these improvements are actually translated into brain changes remains unclear. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this case study was to report on a 28-year-old Spanish woman with BN, and to examine changes in physiological variables and brain activity after a combined treatment of video game therapy (VGT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). METHODS: Ten VGT sessions were carried out on a weekly basis. Anxiety, physiological, and impulsivity measurements were recorded. The patient was scanned in a 1.5-T magnetic resonance scanner, prior to and after the 10-week VGT/CBT combined treatment, using two paradigms: (1) an emotional face-matching task, and (2) a multi-source interference task (MSIT). RESULTS: Upon completing the treatment, a decrease in average heart rate was observed. The functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) results indicated a post-treatment reduction in reaction time along with high accuracy. The patient engaged areas typically active in healthy controls, although the cluster extension of the active areas decreased after the combined treatment. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest a global improvement in emotional regulation and impulsivity control after the VGT therapy in BN, demonstrated by both physiological and neural changes. These promising results suggest that a combined treatment of CBT and VGT might lead to functional cerebral changes that ultimately translate into better cognitive and emotional performances.

Although standard psychological treatments have been successful in treating several core features in eating disorders (ED), other characteristics such as emotional regulation or impulsivity appear to be more resistant to change. There is a growing body of evidence to support the efficacy of cognitive remediation for cognitive and emotional difficulties in ED. Playmancer/ Islands is a video game (VG) designed to specifically treat mental disorders, characterized by problems in impulse control. The objective of the game is to increase self-control over emotions, decision making and behaviours. The aim of this study is to describe the results from a consecutive series of nine bulimia nervosa patients who were treated with the VG in addition to cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). The outcomes included clinical and psychopathological questionnaires, and physiological measures were obtained during the VG. Emotional regulation improved, heart rate variability increased, and respiratory rate and impulsivity measures reduced after the treatment. These findings suggest that VG training may enhance treatment for ED. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Reviews and few non-controlled studies showed the effectiveness of several specific designed computer video-games as an additional form of treatment in several areas. However, there is a lack in the literature of specially designed serious-games for treating mental disorders. Playmancer (ICT European initiative) aims to develop and assess a serious videogame that may help to treat underlying processes (e.g. lack of self-control strategies) in Eating and Impulse control disorders. Preliminary data will be shown.

Mobile wireless communication systems often need to maximize their network lifetime (defined as the time until the first node runs out of energy). In the broadcast network lifetime problem, all nodes are sending broadcast traffic, and one asks for an assignment of transmit powers to nodes, and for sets of relay nodes so that the network lifetime is maximized. The selection of a relay set consisting of a single node (the ‘master’), can be regarded as a special case of this problem. We provide a mean value analysis of algorithms controlling the selection of a master node with the objective of maximizing the network lifetime. The results show that already for small networks simple algorithms can extend the average network lifetime considerably.

In wireless sensor network (WSN) applications with multiple gateways, it is key to route location dependent subscriptions efficiently at two levels in the system. At the gateway level, data sinks must not waste the energy of the WSN by injecting subscriptions that are not relevant for the nodes in their coverage area and at WSN level, energy-efficient delivery of subscriptions to target areas is required. In this paper, we propose a mechanism in which (1) the WSN provides an accurate and up-to-date coverage area description to gateways and (2) the wireless sensor network re-uses the collected coverage area information to enable efficient geographical routing of location dependent subscriptions and other messages. The latter has a focus on routing of messages injected from sink nodes to nodes in the region of interest. Our proposed mechanisms are evaluated in simulation.

Mobile service providers (MoSPs) emerge, driven by the ubiquitous availability of mobile devices and wireless communication infrastructures. MoSPs’ customers satisfaction and consequently their revenues, largely depend on the quality of service (QoS) provided by wireless network providers (WNPs) available at a particular location-time to support a mobile service delivery. This chapter presents a novel method for the MoSP’s QoS-assurance business process. The method incorporates a location- and time-based QoS-predictions’ service, facilitating the WNP’s selection. We explore different business cases for the service deployment. Particularly, we introduce and analyze business viability of QoSIS.net, an enterprise that can provide the QoS-predictions service to MoSPs, Mobile Network Operators (as MoSPs), or directly to their customers (i.e. in B2B/B2C settings). QoSIS.net provides its service based on collaborative-sharing of QoS-information by its users. We argue that this service can improve the MoSP’s QoS-assurance process and consequently may increase its revenues, while creating revenues for QoSIS.net.

In this paper, we explore the usefulness of elaborating process models with norms, especially focusing on the Norm Analysis Method (NAM) as an elaboration tool that can be combined with a process modeling tool, such as Petri Net (PN). The PN-NAM combination has been particularly considered in the paper in relation to a challenge that concerns the design of context-aware applications, namely the challenge of specifying and elaborating complex behaviors that may include alternative (context-driven) processes (we assume that a user context space can be defined and that each context state within this space corresponds to an alternative application service behavior). Hence, the main contribution of our paper comprises an adaptability-driven methodological and modeling support to the design of context-aware applications; modeling guidelines are proposed, considered together with corresponding modeling tools (in particular PN and NAM), and partially illustrated by means of an e-Health-related example. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of the e-Health domain, it is expected that the current research will be useful for it. In particular, e-Health system developers might benefit from the relevant methodological and modeling support, proposed in the paper.

Today’s mobile data applications aspire to deliver services to a user anywhere - anytime while fulfilling his Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. However, the success of the service delivery heavily relies on the QoS offered by the underlying networks. As the services operate in a heterogeneous networking environment, we argue that the generic information about the networks’ offered-QoS may enable an anyhow mobile service delivery based on an intelligent (proactive) selection of ‘any’ network available in the user’s context (location and time). Towards this direction, we develop a QoS-predictions service provider, which includes functionality for the acquisition of generic offered-QoS information and which, via a multidimensional processing and history-based reasoning, will provide predictions of the expected offered-QoS in a reliable and timely manner. We acquire the generic QoS-information from distributed mobile services’ components quantitatively (actively and passively) measuring the applicationlevel QoS, while the reasoning is based on statistical data mining and pattern recognition techniques.

During the last fours years a consortium of universities, hospitals and commercial companies has been working together for the development of innovative systems and services for mobile health care. Two major projects were financed by the European Union allowed us to develop a complete mobile healthcare system and validate it with extensive medical trials. MobiHealth and HealthService24 have developed a generic Body Area Network (BAN) for healthcare and an m-health service platform. Biosignals measured by sensors connected to the BAN are transmitted to a remote healthcare location over public wireless networks (GPRS/UMTS), where doctors can monitor, diagnose and provide advice to patients in real time. The developed system is in the last phases of the pre-commercial validation and a commercial product is expected to be available in late 2006.

In this chapter we examine the potential use of remote health monitoring using Body Area Networks (BANs) to support individuals who are working or pursuing recreational activities in extreme environments.

A model driven engineering (MDE) approach is positioned w.r.t. collaborations of multiple agents acquiring information society technology (IST) capabilities. Our focus is on the stakeholders of work systems, their adaptive cycles, and their aligned assets, computation independent models in particular. When referring to the state-of-the-art in the software application interoperability area, three "missing" fragments of the domain model for the IST Infrastructure are explored: a Total Asset Methodology (TAM), an Extended Generic Activity Model (EGAM), and a concept for TOken-based eXecution In Knowledge Spaces (TOXIKS).

The introduction of third generation (3G) public wireless network infrastructures, such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), enable the development of innovative mobile services. For example, deploying m-health services which embed tele-monitoring and tele-treatment services become feasible with the role-out of 3G networks. These services allow healthcare professionals to monitor a mobile patient's vital signs and provide feedback to this patient anywhere and any time. The performance of m-health services perceived by end-users depends on the serviceableness of 3G networks to support these services. Hence, the performance of 3G networks is a critical factor for successful development of m-health services. In this paper, we present a methodology for measurements-based performance assessment of 3G networks that aim to support m-health services. This methodology has been applied to evaluate end-user perceived service performance, in relation to the performance (i.e. serviceableness) of a 3G network. In addition, we analyse the measurements with the purpose to improve the end-to-end delay characteristics of the tele-monitoring service as well as optimize the (derived) goodput behaviour of this 3G network. Our results show that the goodput behaviour is asymmetric and depends on a bearer assignment policy of the network. Based on our results we provide guidelines for the design of application protocols for m-health services and how these protocols deal with the changing performance behaviour of 3G networks.

The forthcoming wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks will give rise to new mobile healthcare services. To this end, the MobiHealth project has developed and trialed a highly customisable vital signs monitoring system based on a body area network (BAN) and a mobile-health (m-health) service platform utilising next generation public wireless networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signs over public wireless networks to healthcare providers. Nine trials with different healthcare scenarios and patient groups in four different European countries have been conducted. These have been performed to test the service and the network infrastructure including its suitability for mobile healthcare applications. Preliminarly results have documented the feasibility of using the system, but also demonstrated logistical problems with use of the BANs and the infrastructure for transmitting mobile healthcare data.

The forthcoming wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks will give rise to new mobile health care services. Towards this direction the MobiHealth1 project has developed and trialed a highly customisable vital signals’ monitoring system based on a Body Area Network (BAN) and an m-health service platform utilizing next generation public wireless networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signals over public wireless networks to healthcare providers. Nine trials with different health care cases and patient groups in four different European countries have been conducted to test and verify the system, the service and the network infrastructure for its suitability and the restrictions it imposes to mobile health care applications.

Health care is one of the most prominent areas for the application of wireless technologies. New services and applications are today under research and development targeting different areas of health care, from high risk and chronic patients' remote monitoring to mobility tools for the medical personnel. In this direction the MobiHealth1 project developed and trailed a system and a service that is using UMTS for the continuous monitoring and transmission of vital signals, like Pulse Oximeter sensor , temperature, Marker, Respiratory band, motion/activity detector etc., to the hospital. The system, based on the concept of the Body Area Network, is highly customisable, allowing sensors to be seamlessly connected and transmit the monitored vital signal measurements. The system and service was trialed in 4 European countries and it is presently under market validation.

The forthcoming wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks combined with the evolution of performant body area networks will give rise to new mobile health care services. The MobiHealth , , project has developed and trialed a customisable vital signals’ monitoring system based on a Body Area Network (BAN) and an m-health service platform utilizing UMTS and GPRS networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signals over public wireless networks to healthcare providers. Nine trials with different healthcare cases and patient groups in four different European countries have been conducted to test and verify the system, the service and the network infrastructure for its suitability and the restrictions it imposes to mobile health care applications.

The forthcoming wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks will give rise to new mobile health care services. Towards this direction the MobiHealth project has developed and trialed a highly customisable vital signals' monitoring system based on a Body Area Network (BAN) and an m-health service platform utilizing next generation public wireless networks. The developed system allows the incorporation of diverse medical sensors via wireless connections, and the live transmission of the measured vital signals over public wireless networks to healthcare providers. Nine trials with different health care cases and patient groups in four different European countries have been conducted to test and verify the system, the service and the network infrastructure for its suitability and the restrictions it imposes to mobile health care applications.

The wide availability of high bandwidth public wireless networks as well as the miniaturisation of medical sensors and network access hardware allows the development of advanced ambulant patient monitoring systems. The MobiHealth project developed a complete system and service that allows the continuous monitoring of vital signals and their transmission to the health care institutes in real time using GPRS and UMTS networks. The MobiHealth system is based on the concept of a Body Area Network (BAN) allowing high personalization of the monitored signals and thus adaptation to different classes of patients. The system and service has been trialed in four European countries and for different patient cases. First results confirm the usefulness of the system and the advantages it offers to patients and medical personnel.

A challenge of current innovation in healthcare processes is to improve the time to treatment. This paper addresses the benefits of telematic services and mobile & wireless devices such as vital sign sensors and head mounted cameras for healthcare processes. It explores the telematic requirements for a distributed healthcare environment of Body Area Networks of the mobile devices which are connected by wireless (public) networks (e.g. GPRS and UMTS) to healthcare centres. Our main contribution is the development of Enterprise models, which are expressed in terms of the Unified Modelling Language, for the purpose of identification and justification of the telematic system requirements. The developed Enterprise models separate organizational modelling concerns such as the separation of medical roles from the agents acting in these roles. This separation enables roles to be dispatched virtually to a point of care without transporting along with all the agents, but it requires support of a telematic system to bridge the distance gap. We validate the proposed models against a trauma team scenario and consequently obtain the telematic system requirements which enable improved time to treatment for emergency services.

Optimal operation of network based multimedia applications requires a precise specification of the network parameters. Different models have been used in the past in calculating the behavior of the network and defining parameters like throughput and delays of packets, using among others fluid analogy. In this paper we extend the bundled packet level perspective towards the macroscopic level of propagation dynamics focusing on the impedance that observed packets experienced during propagation using the analogy of particles propagating in a wave-guide. By defining notions like packet pressure, packet velocity and stream impedance, we define the required frame that allows us to directly use existing methods and equations for the study of streaming networks.

The MobiHealth IST project aims in the integration of existing and forthcoming technologies in developing and trial new mobile value-added services in the area of healthcare, based on 2.5 (GPRS) and 3G (UMTS) technologies. The target is to develope the means contributing to the reduction of costs in hospitals and health care, by allowing the patients to have complete and personalized monitoring of their health in-home, while pursuing a normal life (instead of being confined in hospital for long periods of monitoring). This will be achieved with the use of a customisable Body Area Network (BAN) integrating the required sensors and actuators, which will continuously monitor the vital signals of the "patient" and relay them to the health center. The complete system will be validated with a series of trials in different European test sites. The MobiHealth trials will implement simple but complete services that can be immediately deployed over the UMTS and GPRS networks. The MobiHealth patient/user will be equipped with different interoperating or independent vital constant sensors, ranging from blood pressure and pulse rate to blood glucose and cholesterol, to electrocardiograms and even brain activity sensors, and from different actuators, such as insulin or morphine pumps, pace maker controllers and even electrical muscle stimulation (Functional Electrical Stimulation or FES). Audio and video I/O devices may also be incorporated in the BAN depending on the needs of the application. The vital constant measurements are sent to a health broker (which may be a hospital or a medical call center) where specialists are able to observe the evolution of the patient and intervene when needed. The communication will be based on 2.5-3G wireless technologies so that the patient/user has complete freedom of movement and can pursue a normal life despite the need for continuous monitoring. Depending on the patient and the treatment, feedback might be sent to the sensors/actuators (for example instructions to increase the sampling frequency, insulin pump control, pace maker tuning etc) or directly to the patient in the form of audible or visual signals. The MobiHealth BAN will handle transmission details and problems such as network disconnection (eg. entering a tunnel) and quality of service adaptation due to hand-over situations.

MobiHealth aims at introducing new mobile value added services in the area of healthcare, based on 2.5 (GPRS) and 3G (UMTS) technologies, thus promoting the use and deployment of GPRS and UMTS. This will be achieved by the integration of sensors and actuators to a Wireless Body Area Network (BAN). These sensors and actuators will continuously measure and transmit vital constants along with audio and video to health service providers and brokers, improving on one side the life of patients and allowing on the other side the introduction of new value-added services in the areas of disease prevention and diagnostic, remote assistance, para-health services, physical state monitoring (sports) and even clinical research. Furthermore, the MobiHealth BAN system will support the fast and reliable application of remote assistance in case of accidents by allowing the paramedics to send reliable vital constants data as well as audio and video directly from the accident site.

The subject of this research proposal is the design and development of novel applications and services targeting 4G wireless technologies. In previous papers [1, 2] we presented a vision of two future healthcare applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. These are two instances of the wider concept of Virtual Health Care Teams. These applications are based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies. The technical research required to realise the vision of Virtual Health Care Teams (VHCTs) involves a number of areas including wireless transmission systems supporting broadband access, vehicle-based (fast roaming) networks (VANs), Body Area Networks (BANs), Personal Area Networks (PANs) and ambient intelligent environments, with ad hoc networking enabling communication between (roaming) professionals, clients and patients. In our vision of future delivery of healthcare by VHCTs we anticipate ubiquitous use of BANs by citizens in general and by health professionals, other carers and patients. This current research proposal focuses on applications relating to the BAN elements of the VHCT vision.

The subject of this research proposal is the design and development of novel applications and services targeting 4G wireless technologies. In previous papers [1, 2] we presented a vision of two future healthcare applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. These are two instances of the wider concept of Virtual Health Care Teams. These applications are based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies. The technical research required to realise the vision of Virtual Health Care Teams (VHCTs) involves a number of areas including wireless transmission systems supporting broadband access, vehicle-based (fast roaming) networks (VANs), Body Area Networks (BANs), Personal Area Networks (PANs) and ambient intelligent environments, with ad hoc networking enabling communication between (roaming) professionals, clients and patients. In our vision of future delivery of healthcare by VHCTs we anticipate ubiquitous use of BANs by citizens in general and by health professionals, other carers and patients. This current research proposal focuses on applications relating to the BAN elements of the VHCT vision.

The first hour following the trauma is of crucial importance in trauma care. The sooner treatment begins, the better the ultimate outcome for the patient. Generally the initial treatment is handled by paramedical personnel arriving at the site of the accident with an ambulance. There is evidence to show that if the expertise of the on-site paramedic team can be supported by immediate and continuous access to and communication with the expert medical team at the hospital, patient outcomes can be improved. After care also influences the ultimate recovery of the patient. After-treatment follow up often occurs in-hospital in spite of the fact that care at home can offer more advantages and can accelerate recovery. Based on emerging and future wireless communication technologies, in a previous paper [1] we presented an initial vision of two future healthcare settings, supported by applications which we call Virtual Trauma Team and Virtual Homecare Team. The Virtual Trauma Team application involves high quality wireless multimedia communications between ambulance paramedics and the hospital facilitated by paramedic Body Area Networks (BANs) [2] and an ambulance-based Vehicle Area Network (VAN). The VAN supports bi-directional streaming audio and video communication between the ambulance and the hospital even when moving at speed. The clinical motivation for Virtual Trauma Team is to increase survival rates in trauma care. The Virtual Homecare Team application enables homecare coordinated by home nursing services and supported by the patient's PAN which consists of a patient BAN in combination with an ambient intelligent home environment. The homecare PAN provides intelligent monitoring and support functions and the possibility to ad hoc network to the visiting health professionals’ own BANs as well as high quality multimedia communication links to remote members of the virtual team. The motivation for Virtual Homecare Team is to improve quality of life and independence for patients by supporting care at home; the economic motivation is to replace expensive hospital-based care with homecare by virtual teams using wireless technology to support the patient and the carers. In this paper we develop the vision further and focus in particular on the concepts of personal and body area networks.