Newsletter Autumn '24

Innovation in trustworthy video-based solutions for Active and Assisted Living (AAL)

Follow the details of our projects on our Youtube channel

Would you like to know first-hand the work of our researchers?
Did you miss the Joint Conference of the visuAAL and  GoodBrother projects?
Would you like to remember some of the presentations of our researchers?
Well, you are in luck because we have compiled all the videos and we have made them available to you, published openly on our Youtube channel.
Follow us, enter, comment, and discover all the advances about privacy-aware and acceptable video-based technologies and services for active and assisted living
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Tamara Mujirishvili, our first visuAAL doctor 

On September 13th, Tamara Mujirishvili successfully defended her PhD thesis, titled "Perceptions of personal safety and privacy in older adults and their caregivers in the context of video-based lifelogging technologies," at the University of Alicante. Her research, supervised by Professors Francisco Florez-Revuelta, Miguel Richart Martínez, and Julio Cabrero Garcia, explored the vital connections between technology, privacy, and well-being in caregiving environments.

The thesis committee, Drs. Belén Díaz Pulido, Rocio Juliá-Sanchis, and Alex Mihailidis, praised the rigor and significance of her work. Dr. Mujirishvili is the first PhD graduate of the visuAAL MSCA Innovative Training Network, marking an important milestone for the project.

 
 

In July 2024 our ESR Zhicheng He presented at the IVR World Congress in Seoul, South Korea. His talk, titled "Bridging Science and Privacy: Legal Approaches to Health Data Governance in the EU and China," explored how both regions balance scientific progress and privacy protection in health data governance. He discussed how the European Union and China address the challenges of balancing scientific progress with privacy protection in the digital age.

New article by Zhicheng He: "When Data Protection Norms Meet Digital Health Technology" .This study explores China's 2021 Personal Information Protection Law and its impact on health data amidst an ageing population. It addresses data protection concerns and highlights areas needing clarification.
Read more

 

Irene Ballester returned home this summer to participate in the International Computer Vision Summer School (ICVSS24) at the University of Zaragoza.
The event featured interesting lectures by leading researchers who are experts in various areas of computer vision.
Undoubtedly, a great opportunity to contrast academic points of view with former colleagues and meet other doctoral students with whom to connect and establish future work opportunities. 

The article "Action Recognition from 4D Point Clouds for Privacy-Sensitive Scenarios in Assistive Contexts," by Irene Ballester and Martin Kampel, was published on July 5, 2024, in Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14751, pp 359-364. The study proposes using 4D point clouds to address privacy concerns in assistive technologies for dementia care. Validated with a real-world dataset, the P4Transformer model shows potential for privacy-preserving action recognition, though further adaptation is needed for complex scenarios.
Read more

The article "Depth-Based Interactive Assistive System for Dementia Care", by Irene Ballester , Markus Gall, Thomas Münzer, and Martin Kampel, published in Artificial Intelligence Review, introduces ToiletHelp, a system that assists individuals with dementia during bathroom use, using depth sensors to preserve privacy. Developed with 60 participants, it provides automated guidance and received positive feedback for improving users' security and independence, while also satisfying caregivers. Read more

 

Researchers Wiktor Mucha, Kentaro Tanaka, and Martin Kampel have introduced REST-HANDS, a groundbreaking remote rehabilitation method for stroke survivors, at the ECC024V 2. Using smart glasses like RayBan Stories, the system records hand exercises from a first-person perspective, achieving 98.55% accuracy in exercise recognition and 86.98% in form evaluation. This approach offers a new way for stroke survivors to continue their therapy at home, reducing the strain on healthcare resources.

 

Maksymilian Kuźmicz’s recent paper, presented at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face and Gesture Recognition (FG), delves into the ethical and social dimensions of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) technologies. As these technologies evolve to better assist the elderly, they also raise concerns, particularly regarding stakeholder interests. The paper identifies and categorizes the main interests of AAL users—personal autonomy, quality of life, privacy, and economic interests—while highlighting the legal protections associated with each. By combining legal perspectives with social sciences, Kuźmicz offers a comprehensive view aimed at enhancing trust and acceptance of AAL technologies.
Read more

Maksymilian Kuźmicz has also contributed to Volume 16 of Data Protection and Privacy with the chapter ‘Who Should We Care About in the Digital World? Challenges of Stakeholders‘ Identification - The Case Study of AAL’. With his contribution, our researcher introduces an innovative stakeholder classification model for video-based AAL technologies, critically assessing existing legal frameworks and proposing a new composite categorisation, improving the understanding of rights and relationships between stakeholders in the digital world.
More here

 

Tamara Mujirishvili, alongside Julio Cabrero-García, Francisco Flórez-Revuelta, and Miguel Richart-Martínez, contributed to "Digital Health" with a qualitative study that explored the intersection of aging, caregiving, and technology". Set in southern Spain, the study investigated the challenges faced by caregivers, healthcare professionals, and older adults in the context of active and assisted living (AAL) technologies. Through in-depth interviews and focus groups, the research highlighted both the readiness for technological solutions and the concerns over privacy and trust. This study provided key insights to guide the development of human-centric, vision-based AAL technologies that addressed the real needs of older adults. Read more

 
The aim of visuAAL is to bridge the knowledge gap between users’ requirements and the appropriate and secure use of video-based AAL technologies to deliver effective and supportive care to older adults managing their health and wellbeing
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 861091.
MSCA - ITN
2024
visuAAL is an Innovative Training Network that brings together 5 beneficiaries and 14 partner organizations from Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
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