Smart Environments for Active Aging

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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.