A Mobile Application for Supporting Dementia Relatives: A Case Study.

This work presents DILP, a project and solution for caregivers and relatives of persons with dementia. The app aims at providing help on demand and covers topics like medical and psychological issues, communication, legal and financial issues, practical advice for everyday challenges, and more. The technology is explained in detail, and special attention is given to the user-centered development and content authoring. The final solution was tested in the field by relatives of persons with dementia and health workers with many encouraging results regarding usefulness, usability, structure, and others. However, the trials also showed that functionality like search and find-ability of information was difficult to achieve.

The Use of Social Robots for Supporting Language Training of Children.

A number of studies have found that robots can contribute to engagement and motivation in educational settings. We wanted to explore the possibilities and challenges of using a social robot as an assistive tool for learning and training of basic concepts and words. Robots are considered promising tools in language training because they can contribute to systematic interaction and repetition. A prototype was developed using an Aldebaran NAO robot combined with pictures that could be presented on a tablet, PC or on the wall using a projector. The prototype was piloted in two pre-projects with different groups of children learning Norwegian. One project targeted second language learners in a kindergarten and the other targeted young primary school pupils with autism spectrum disorder. Both of these groups need more systematic training than they usually get during the normal kindergarten and school schedule. We wanted to study whether and how the use of a social robot could contribute to more systematic training, increased learning intensity, more repetitions and ultimately more effective language learning. In this paper we present experiences from developing, implementing and using the prototype in the two different settings. The prototype is described, as well as the pedagogical settings of the two pilots. We present results from observations of the children and interviews with teachers and supporting personnel. We discuss differences between the two cases and methodological limitations. Finally, we discuss possibilities and challenges of using robots in language learning and training of children.

A user profile ontology based approach for assisting people with dementia in mobile environments.

Personalization and context-aware applications have attracted increasing amounts of attention over recent years due to the emergence of pervasive computing applications. Nevertheless, it still remains a challenge to meet the needs of users while they are on the move. This paper introduces a novel approach for providing personalized, context-aware assistance services for users in mobile environments. Central to the approach is the use of ontological user profile modeling which captures various characteristics of a user in order to create a unique set of profile information. In addition, user profiles can adapt to changing user behavior, thus enabling services to respond to evolving user needs and preferences. We describe the overall system architecture of the proposed approach with special emphasis being placed on the user profile modelling and its expected utility based on a typical use case scenario, i.e., using a smart-phone to address the problem of the outdoor mobility of a person with Dementia. A prototype based on the Android OS is used to illustrate the application. The use of everyday technology for a real world problem highlights the potential and utility of our approach.