Smart Environments for Active Aging

我的研究计划的目标是通过赋予领域专家可适应的工具来编程这些应用程序，从而在智能环境中为老年人提供有用的应用程序。智能环境是最有前途的技术之一，它将各种传感器、执行器和计算集成到日常物品中。利用这些环境为老年人提供有用的支持服务，以及提高他们的幸福感是关键。然而，智能环境应用程序的数量是有限的，并且构建这些应用程序仅限于技术用户。*领域专家，如医生和护理员，是非技术用户，但为帮助老年人做好了充分的准备。他们通过有效地将过去的经验与现有的和外部的资源相结合来识别老年人的情况和行为。这些专家必须能够对应用程序进行编程，以扩大对智能环境的开发。然而，智能环境与信息泛滥和管理复杂的设备/服务的多样性相关。因此，编写这些智能环境的程序是一项挑战，尤其是对于非技术用户。这种情况阻碍了充分利用智能环境的机会。*该研究计划旨在为智能环境应用程序的编程提供创新方法。我们的目标是开发用于快速原型制作和轻松管理应用程序的工具。我们设想这些应用程序是持续服务于目标用户的智能环境组件的一部分。为了实现我们的目标，我们将解决三个重要的计算组件：*1)促进领域专家编写应用程序的应用程序构建器平台；*2)允许管理应用程序/服务并根据域和部署要求解释应用程序的服务平台；以及*3)支持在不同智能环境中高效部署应用程序的环境平台。*此外，我们将研究几个相关的重要问题，包括支持轻松应用编程的上下文感知编程模型，包括自动适应动态用户活动的功能。*研究计划将与领域专家合作，并在与我们的目标用户(即老龄化人群)的真实环境密切相关的背景下进行。这项研究计划的结果预计将从根本上改变智能环境的编程方式，并体现出在智能环境中试验辅助应用的变革性方法。此外，我的计划将为医疗系统提供新的工具，促进在家住院，这意味着优化使用有限的医疗资源，降低医院护理成本。

The goal of my research program is to provide aging people with useful applications in Smart Environments, by empowering domain-experts with adaptable tools to program these applications. The smart environments are among the most promising technologies that integrate diverse sensors, actuators and computations in everyday objects. Taking advantage of these environments is central to provide aging people with useful support services, as well as enhance their well-being. Yet, the number of smart environment applications is limited, and building these applications is restricted to technical users. ******Domain-experts such as physicians and caregivers are non-technical users, but are well prepared to assist aging people. They recognize situations and behavior of the aging people by efficiently combining past experiences with available and external resources. These experts have to be able to program applications in order to augment the exploitation of the smart environments. However, the smart environments are associated with flooding of information and diversity of devices/services that are complex to manage. As a result, programing these smart environments is a challenge, especially for non-technical users. This situation prevents taking full advantage of the smart environment opportunities. ******The research program aims to provide innovative methods for programing smart environment applications. We target developing tools for rapid prototyping and easy management of applications. We envision the applications as part of the smart environment components that continuously serve the targeted users. To achieve our goal, we will address three important computation components: ***1) An application builder platform that facilitates programing of applications by domain-experts; ***2) A service platform that enables to manage applications/services and interpret the application according to domains and deployment requirements; and ***3) An ambient platform that enables efficient deployment of applications in diverse smart environments. ***Furthermore, we will investigate several related important issues including context-aware programing model that enables easy application programing, including functionalities for automatic adaptation to dynamic user activities.******The research program will be carried out in collaboration with domain-experts, and in a context closely related to real environment of our target users, i.e., aging people. Outcomes from this research program are expected to fundamentally change how smart environments are programed, and embody a transformative approach to experimenting assistive applications in smart environments. Additionally, my program will provide healthcare systems with novel tools that promote hospitalization at home, which means optimize the use of the limited healthcare resources and decrease the cost of hospital care.