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The EU project Pharaon aims to support older European adults by integrating digital services, tools, interoperable open platforms, and devices. One of the objectives is to validate the integrated solutions in large-scale pilots. The integration of mature solutions and existing systems is one of the preconditions for the successful realization of the different aims of the pilots. One such solution is an intelligent, privacy-aware home-care assistance system, SmartHabits. After briefly introducing the Pharaon and SmartHabits, the authors propose different Pharaon models in the Ambient/Active Assisted Living (AAL) domain, namely the Pharaon conceptual model, Pharaon reference logical architecture view, AAL ecosystem model, meta AAL ecosystem model, and Pharaon ecosystem and governance models. Building on the proposed models, the authors provide details of the holistic integration and deployment process of the SmartHabits system into the Pharaon ecosystem. Both technical and supporting integration challenges and activities are discussed. Technical activities, including syntactic and semantic integration and securing the transfer of the Pharaon sensitive data, are among the priorities. Supporting activities include achieving legal and regulatory compliance, device procurement, and use-case co-designing in COVID-19 conditions.

Many researchers and product developers are striving toward achieving ICT-enabled independence of older adults by setting up Enhanced Living Environments (ELEs). Technological solutions, which are often based on the Internet of Things (IoT), show great potential in providing support for Active Aging. To enhance the quality of life for older adults and overcome challenges in enabling individuals to achieve their full potential in terms of physical, social, and mental well-being, numerous proof-of-concept systems have been built. These systems, often labeled as Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), vary greatly in targeting different user needs. This paper presents our contribution using SmartHabits, which is an intelligent privacy-aware home care assistance system. The novel system comprising smart home-based and cloud-based parts uses machine-learning technology to provide peace of mind to informal caregivers caring for persons living alone. It does so by learning the user&rsquo, s typical daily activity patterns and automatically issuing warnings if an unusual situation is detected. The system was designed and implemented from scratch, building upon existing practices from IoT reference architecture and microservices. The system was deployed in several homes of real users for six months, and we will be sharing our findings in this paper.

Independent living of older adults is one of the main challenges linked to the ageing population. Especially those living with diseases like COPD, MCI or frailty, need more support in everyday life and this is by itself a big societal challenge with impact in multiple sectors. In this paper we present eWALL, an innovative open-source eHealth platform that aims to address these challenges by means of an advanced cloud-based infrastructure. eWALL is designed in an innovative manner and achieved technical breakthroughs in eHealth platforms, while prioritizing user and market needs that are often abandoned and are the major reason for technically sound solutions that fail. We consider this as an opportunity and we aim to change the eHealth systems’ experience for older adults and break the barriers for the penetration of ICT solutions.

The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) has been recognized as a reference next-generation network architecture for offering multimedia services over an Internet Protocol (IP)-based infrastructure. One of the key benefits of the IMS is efficient and flexible introduction of new services and access to third-party application providers, thanks to standard interfaces and standardized service capabilities. To support novel media-rich applications across a wide range of user devices and access networks, IMS must support negotiable quality of service (QoS) for IP multimedia sessions. In this article, we describe the application-level QoS signaling as specified by the 3GPP and propose some enhancements based on advanced QoS parameter matching and optimization functionality to be included along the signaling path. We outline various signaling flow scenarios and discuss them in the context of a case study involving an IMS-supported 3D virtual environment, featuring a treasure-hunt-like game.

The biggest challenges in the area of AAL service development is heterogeneity. Possible solution to accommodate dynamic behavior of AAL system needs and diversity of system requirements is to use higher level of system abstraction by using ontology. We describe a development methodology, structure, format selection and evaluation of a proposed AAL ontology building on top of well established ontologies. We give further details on the AAL cloud system utilizing this ontology as an underlying ontology-based data model. In the case study we discuss how the AAL ontology enables service creation and orchestration and discuss needed and planned future work.

This paper discusses current status and recent advancements of 3D graphics on mobile platforms and describes open issues concerning its usage in different applications. We have treated two particular application fields. Firstly, we deal with problems of visualization of complex data structures on mobile devices. The implementation of a 3D visualization renderer on the Symbian platform for mobile devices is written as a C++ application and based on the DieselEngine&reg ; ; as a rendering engine. 3D visualization of data is generated in the form of a Virtual Reality Modelling Language (VRML) file meaning that actually any kind of 3D content written in VRML file format can be rendered on such a device. It was the result of a project the objective of which was to provide a user interface on a mobile platform displaying visualization of hierarchical Grid monitoring data. Secondly, we describe the system that brings face animation to embedded platforms. Face animation is considered to be one of the toughest tasks in computer animation today and its delivery to mobile platforms brings possibilities for development of new innovative and attractive services for the mobile market.

With evolution in computer and mobile networking technologies comes the challenge of offering novel and complex multimedia applications and end-user services in heterogeneous environments for both developers and service providers. This paper describes one novel service, called LiveMail that explores the potential of existing face animation technologies for innovative and attractive services intended for the mobile market. This prototype service allows mobile subscribers to communicate using personalized 3D face models created from images taken by their phone cameras. The user can take a snapshot of someone's face – a friend, famous person, themselves, even a pet – using the mobile phone's camera. After a quick manipulation on the phone, a 3D model of that face is created and can be animated simply by typing in some text. Speech and appropriate animation of the face are created automatically by speech synthesis. Furthermore, these highly personalized animations can be sent to others as real 3D animated messages or as short videos in MMS. The clients were implemented on different platforms, and different network and face animation techniques, and connected into one complex system. This paper presents the architecture and experience gained in building such a system.

One common approach in dealing with increased number of elderly is provisioning of IT based applications that strive to prolong their independent life. However, development of such applications is cumbersome and expensive. In order to simplify and ease the development of such applications, MPOWER framework has been developed. The MPOWER framework provides service based architecture and a set of predefined services that can be assembled into applications for elderly. In this article we give a brief overview of the MPOWER framework and concentrate on the issue of providing usable interfaces for the elderly. Specifically, we compare two versions of an application for the elderly, one using a thin and other a fat client. We demonstrate that although thin clients are simpler to develop, in many situations fat clients should be used as they can provide interfaces that are better accustomed to the elderly.

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a standardized architectural framework for the provision of multimedia services over a packet based next generation network (NGN). We present an overview of IMS, with emphasis on use of IMS application servers and enablers for service delivery, and show how an innovative prototype service can be designed and developed based on principles of service composition and reuse of common service enablers and content resources. The prototype service, dubbed LocalNote, may be described as a location triggered messaging service enhanced with presence. It allows the originating user to create a location-based ldquosticky noterdquo in form of a SMS message, to be delivered to the recipient user(s) upon entering a designated geographical area. The service is based on a new application server in IMS and it also makes use of the presence, location, and location context enablers, as well as a map content server.

As a result of the evolution of computer and networking technologies, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has proposed the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as a key element in the UMTS architecture supporting multimedia services in the packet switched domain. Extending the IMS with support for location based services (LBS) will enable enhanced services and offer new revenues to the system. Connecting the IMS core network with a real positioning system providing support for LBS is an open issue. This paper addresses this issue and presents the design and implementation of an IMS Location Server (ILS) connecting the IMS with a positioning system. From the IMS perspective, ILS serves as a service enabler for LBS in the mentioned subsystem. In order to demonstrate proof-of-concept in enhancing IMS-based services, a Location-aware Push-to-Talk (LaPoC) prototype service has been developed. The service has been integrated with the Ericsson Mobile Positioning System (MPS). This paper also gives the results of performance measurements including traffic load analysis and session establishment time.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has proposed the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as a key element in the next-generation network (NGN) converged architecture supporting multimedia services. Extending the IMS towards provisioning support for location based services (LBS) will enable enhanced services and offer new revenues to the system. However, conveying location information in the IMS and connecting the IMS with a real positioning system are still open issues. This paper presents the design and implementation of an IMS Location Server (ILS) integrating IMS with a positioning system. From the IMS perspective, the ILS serves as a service enabler for LBS. Considerable work has been done by the IETF in the area of location information transport based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This paper proposes some improvements in this area. In order to demonstrate proof-of-concept in enhancing IMS-based services, a Location-aware Push-to-Talk (LaPoC) prototype service has been developed. The service has been integrated and tested with the Ericsson Mobile Positioning System (MPS). The paper also gives the results of performance measurements including traffic load analysis and session establishment time.

LiveMail is a prototype system that allows mobile subscribers to communicate using personalized 3D face models created from images taken by their phone cameras. The user takes a snapshot of someone's face— a friend, famous person, themselves, even a pet— using the mobile phone's camera. After a quick manipulation on the phone, a 3D model of that face is created and can be animated simply by typing in some text. Speech and appropriate animation of the face are created automatically by speech synthesis. Animations can be sent to others as real 3D animated messages or as short videos in MMS. They can be used as fun messages, greeting cards etc. The system is based on a client/server communication model. The clients are mobile devices or web clients so messages can be created, sent and received on the mobile phone or on a web page. The client has a user interface that allows the user to input a facial image and place a simple mask on it to mark the main features. The client then sends this data to a server that builds a personalized face model. The client also provides an interface that lets the user request the creation of animated messages using speech synthesis. It is planned to have several versions of the client: Symbian, midlet-based, web-based, wap-based, etc. The server is responsible for sending messages adjusted to the capabilities of the receiving platform. The server, Symbian client, midlet-based client and the web client have been implemented as prototypes. We present the system architecture and the experience gained building LiveMail.

Most current Grid monitoring systems provide a visual user interface. With recent advances in multimedia capabilities in user terminals, there is a strong trend towards interactive, multi-modal and multi-platform visualization. In this paper we describe a multi-platform visualization architecture and a Web based service built upon it, which provides a view of the monitored Grid hierarchy, and the values of selected monitoring parameters for different Grid sites. We demonstrate the application on four platforms: a desktop Personal Computer (PC), a handheld PC, a Java-enabled new-generation mobile phone, and a Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled mobile phone.

This paper discusses the current status and recent advancements of 3D graphics on mobile platforms and describes an application that is used for 3D visualization of data on such platforms. The implementation of a 3D visualization renderer on the Symbian platform for mobile devices is written as a C++ application and based on the diesel engine as a rendering engine. 3D visualization of data is generated in the form of a VRML (virtual reality modelling language) file so this application can also be considered as a VRML browser. This means that actually any kind of 3D content written in VRML file format can be rendered on such a device. The implementation was tested on the Sony Ericsson P800 mobile device. The results of a project, whose main objective is to provide a user interface on a mobile platform displaying the visualization of the hierarchical grid monitoring data, are also presented in this article.