Ambient Intelligence Perspectives Ii

Contains selected papers from the second international Ambient Intelligence Forum - AmIF 2009, held in Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic. This book aims to point to a multifaceted nature of ambient intelligence. It presents ambient intelligence in five different perspectives.

The concept of an intelligent agent - a computational system capable of performing certain tasks autonomously - derived from the growing potential of digital computers in the mid 20th century and had been widely adopted by the early 1990s. Partly in parallel with this concept, the perspective of ambient intelligence (AmI) emerged in the late 1990s. Agent technology and AmI have many similarities, and the main purpose of this book is to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of the scientific area that integrates these two. The book addresses a wide variety of topics related to agents and AmI, including theoretical, practical, design, implementation, ethical and philosophical issues. The 12 chapters are arranged in four sections. The first consists of three chapters discussing ethical and philosophical issues; the second part explores various approaches that can be used to develop agent-based AmI Systems; the third part contains three chapters that share the goal to endow AmI systems with useful properties like intelligence and adaptivity and the last section presents concrete applications of agent-based AmI systems. This book provides an insight into recent achievements and future challenges at the intersection of agent technology and ambient intelligence and will assist the development of more intelligent, flexible, effective and user-friendly systems as well as posing critical questions about the future of the role of agents within the AmI perspective.

Ambient Intelligence Perspectives contains selected papers from the first international Ambient Intelligence Forum AmIF 2008 in Hradec Kraacute;loveacute;, Czech Republic. The forum is intended as the beginning of a series of rather broadly oriented discussion opportunities for discussing interdisciplinary, if not transdisciplinary aspects of rapidly evolving areas of Ambient Intelligence. Its aims were to review and discuss recent advances and promising research trends in AmI technology, intelligent environments, methods, middleware development, as well as applications in areas such as healthcare, product lifecycle and transport services. The intention to provide an opportunity of a very broad interaction among a wide rank of A01s coming from different surroundings means a great enrichment to all participants and gives ground to the success of the conference. Finally it led towards an interesting choice of three invited and twenty-five contributed papers, which are published in this book. All papers were carefully reviewed by the international program committee. Participants from twelve countries contributed to the scientific program and established a fruitful discussion atmosphere.

"This book covers the cutting-edge aspects of AMI applications, specifically those involving the effective design, realization, and implementation of a comprehensive ambient intelligence in smart environments"--

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) is a recent paradigm emerging from Artificial Intelligence (AI), where computers are used as proactive tools assisting people with their day-to-day activities, making everyone’s life more comfortable. Another main concern of AmI originates from the human computer interaction domain and focuses on offering ways to interact with systems in a more natural way by means user friendly interfaces. This field is evolving quickly as can be witnessed by the emerging natural language and gesture based types of interaction. The inclusion of computational power and communication technologies in everyday objects is growing and their embedding into our environments should be as invisible as possible. In order for AmI to be successful, human interaction with computing power and embedded systems in the surroundings should be smooth and happen without people actually noticing it. The only awareness people should have arises from AmI: more safety, comfort and wellbeing, emerging in a natural and inherent way. ISAmI is the International Symposium on Ambient Intelligence and aiming to bring together researchers from various disciplines that constitute the scientific field of Ambient Intelligence to present and discuss the latest results, new ideas, projects and lessons learned, namely in terms of software and applications, and aims to bring together researchers from various disciplines that are interested in all aspects of this area.

Title page -- AALIANCE - The European Ambient Assisted Living Innovation Platform -- Foreword -- Executive Summary -- Table of contents -- List of Roadmaps -- List of Scenarios -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Introduction -- Structure of the Roadmap -- Roadmapping Process -- Scope of AAL -- Technological trends and barriers in AAL -- Technological trends -- Technological barriers -- AAL for persons -- AAL for health, rehabilitation and care -- Support for chronic disease management -- Biorobotics for neuro-rehabilitation -- Support for multi-disciplinary care teams -- Consolidated view -- Coping with impairments and disabilities -- Motor disabilities -- Personal activity management and monitoring -- Physical activity -- Mental activity -- Consolidated view -- Personal and home safety and security -- Open issues -- Safety in the face of specific threats -- Activities of Daily Life oriented support -- Other "common" activities -- Shopping -- Eat and drink -- Social interaction and communication -- AAL in the community -- Social inclusion -- Participation in community activities -- Creativity, hobbies and sports -- Cultural and experience exchanges -- Entertainment and leisure -- Training the brain -- Exercise and gaming -- Mobility -- Supporting individual physical mobility -- AA-driving (cars/private vehicles) -- Public transport -- AAL at work -- Background -- Work ability -- Employers' attitudes to older workers -- Training in and for the workplace -- Issues of work-life balance -- Needs of older workers in the workplace -- Access to working space -- Assuring environmental working conditions -- Support for working -- Prevention of diseases and injuries -- Safety and health regulations -- Enabling Technologies -- Sensing -- Sensors for safety and security in the environments -- Sensors for monitoring persons -- Sensor networks.

This book presents the combined proceedings of three workshops which make up part of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Environments. The remarkable advances in computer sciences throughout the last few decades are already making an impact

The ageing population of Europe is a well-documented phenomenon and there is general agreement that it has serious implications for all European citizens as well as for policymakers and politicians. The current paradigm of caring for elderly citizens in residential homes is becoming untenable and it is also unpopular with many elderly people themselves. New ways of caring which engage and empower older adults more actively, and are also more cost-effective, must be found.The four-year DREAMING elDeRly-friEndly Alarm handling and MonitorING project carried out randomized controlled trials across six pilot sites to assess the impact