lorenza tiberio

The International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) consists of 34 codes per person at the one digit level and, at more detailed levels, the number of codes can reach 1,424 items. This degree of complexity has led research groups to develop core sets of ICF codes for specific health conditions and disabilities. The ICF core sets typically include the least number of domains to be practical, but as many as required to sufficiently characterize a specific condition. The purpose of this article is to present an ICF core set addressed to older adults with dementia in the process of receiving Assistive Technology (AT) for their functioning and well-being. The ICF Core Set development involved a formal decision-making and consensus process, integrating evidence gathered from preliminary studies that included focus groups of health professionals, a systematic review of the literature, and empirical data collected from patients and caregivers. In the ICF core set for older adults with dementia in an AT selection process, the body functions and structures codes are decreased but those related to activities and participation and personal and environmental factors are increased. To further achieve a biopsychosocial and user-driven Core Set that can be applied internationally, ICF categories have been supplemented with items in a measure of AT predisposition and use that is used in many countries. The combination is named the ICF core set for Matching Older Adult with Dementia and Technology (MOADT).

This paper analyzes the problem of evaluating elderly people’s perception of assistive robots and domotic environments. Specifically, we focus on aspects related to the modalities in which interaction can occur between an elder user and an assistive robotic agent. Our work benefits from the products of project RoboCare, namely, a domestic environment in which sensors, intelligent software components and a domestic robot provide a set of cognitive support services for the elder user. This paper analyzes a number of evaluation criteria in detail, specifically related to the robot’s aspect, the way in which it communicates with the user, and the perceived usefulness of its support services. Among these criteria, the paper proposes and reports an evaluation of the Proactive interaction modality (where the system takes the initiative) and On-demand interaction (in which the user explicitly requests a service). Users evaluate the On-demand support services in personal safety scenarios as particularly useful, and less so in scenarios which are not critical. The paper also provides a discussion which can be useful for the design of future assistive agents and robotic companions.

ABSTRACT Aging has a negative effects on cognitive abilities and can often make independent living difficult. It has been shown that cognitive training programs can significantly mitigate the effects of age-related cognitive decline. Cognitive Technologies that incorporate intelligent techniques can synthesize now devices able to enhance memory functioning of older person through cognitive exercises based on neuropsychological aspects of cognitive aging. In designing new technology is very important to maintain a strict contact with the problems of the actual users. These paper presents a brief review of two research programs both concerning the synthesis of intelligent systems for old people and underscores aspect connected to evaluation criteria related to acceptability, usefulness and other cognitive features of such technology.

The transition to college or university can lead to the challenge of adapting to a new setting. Homesickness has been frequently investigated as a potential negative consequence of relocation. This study analyzed the role of multiple place attachment in the development of homesickness among university students. The study used a multicausal framework. Situational, personality, and environmental psychological variables were considered. Different factors of a person’s personality were associated with vulnerability to homesickness. In addition, multiple place attachment and vulnerability to homesickness impacted the homesickness felt by students.

This article describes aspects of a fully implemented artificial intelligence (AI) system that integrates multiple intelligent components to actively assist an elderly person at home. Specifically, we describe how constraint-based scheduling technology is used to actively monitor a pattern of activities executed by the person and how detected temporal constraint violations are used to trigger meaningful and contextualized proactive interactions. This article also presents a psychological evaluation of the system focusing on elderly people's attitudes, in which system acceptability, perceived utility, interaction modality, and emotional response are considered.

This paper describes aspects of a training environment for crisis decision makers who, notoriously, operate in highly stressful and unpredictable situations. Training such decision makers is the goal of Pandora-Box, a system which is able to teach a class of trainees representing different authorities that coordinate their interventions in critical situations. This paper dwells on the selection and modeling of the relevant human features that are shown to have an influence in decision making under crisis. The chosen features are used to create a trainee model on the basis of which the system adjusts the training exercises with the ultimate goal of maximizing the effectiveness of training. Trainees models are built by merging physiological and psychological data, and are represented by means of a timeline-based approach, a representation derived from planning technology. The infrastructure built for the trainee modeling constitutes the basis to assess the influence of specific variables (e.g., personality traits, self efficacy, stress and anxiety) on the performance of crisis managers during the training.