Ubiquitous Computing Systems & Methods for Supporting Activities of Daily Living

在加拿大，据估计，每七个人中就有一个有身体、认知或感官残疾，限制了他们的日常活动。我提议探索如何开发普适计算(Ubiomp)系统和方法，专门帮助残疾人完成日常生活活动(ADL)并在社区内独立运作，作为研究重要计算机科学问题的研究平台。特别是，我将开发和评估软件工具、模型和方法，以促进未来设计和实施ubiomp系统，特别是支持残疾人继续自己完成重要的ADL。 对于任何失去一些认知、运动和/或知觉功能的人来说，许多ADL可能很难执行。因此，有特殊需要的个人往往必须依靠非正式的照顾者来帮助他们完成活动。我将开发人们如何在不同情况下在照顾者的帮助下完成ADL的模型。我将创建新的技术，无缝地集成到用户的环境和他们每天使用的人工制品中，以感知他们的上下文并推断可能需要帮助完成的活动。此外，我还将探讨如何对该信息进行建模和存储，以及如何将当前用户体验的上下文与其他可能帮助用户完成ADL的相关体验和信息进行链接和关联。 上述研究成果将促进新型ubiomp应用的开发。拟议的工作将不同于建立ubiomp应用程序的现有方法，重点是不断地将当前/实时用户体验与其他相关体验和信息联系起来，并将其联系起来。此外，拟议的工作将探索如何包括和使用各种其他类型的背景，例如社会和历史背景。 虽然拟议的工作将促进ubiomp应用程序的开发，这些应用程序可能会帮助任何用户，但受益最大的可能是某些特定功能受损的个人，这些功能是完成某些ADL所需的(如计划、沟通、记忆等能力)。我将把我的研究放在为三个特定的用户群体开发和评估辅助技术的基础上：患有痴呆症的老年人、患有运动神经元疾病(如ALS)的个人和患有自闭症的儿童。通过使用这种方法，我将为普适计算领域和人机交互领域做出贡献。这一方法还将使我能够通过调查拟议的方法和模型在实际使用中如何工作的研究来验证拟议的研究。同时，这项工作将应用于真实用户的真实问题。

In Canada, it is estimated that one in seven people has a physical, cognitive, or sensory disability that limits their daily activities. I proposed to explore how to develop ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) systems and methods specifically to help people with disabilities complete activities of daily living (ADLs) and function independently within a community as a research platform for investigating important computer science issues. In particular, I will develop and evaluate software tools, models, and methods to facilitate the future design and implementation of ubicomp systems specifically to support people with disabilities continue in the completion of important ADLs on their own. Many ADLs can be difficult for anyone who has lost some cognitive, motor and/or perceptual functions to perform. Thus, individuals with special needs often must rely on informal caregivers to help them complete their activities. I will develop models of how people complete ADLs with the help of caregivers in different contexts. I will create new technologies that seamlessly integrate into the users’ environments and the artefacts that they use on a daily basis to sense their contexts and infer the activities that may need help completing. Additionally, I will explore how to model and store that information, and how to link and associate the context of the current user experience to other relevant experiences and information that may help the users complete ADLs. The research contributions described above will facilitate the development of novel class of ubicomp applications. The proposed work will depart from existing approaches for building ubicomp applications by focusing on continuously contextualizing and relating the current/live user experiences with other relevant experiences and information. Furthermore, the proposed work will explore how to include and use a variety of other types of context, such as social and historical ones. Although the proposed work will facilitate the development of ubicomp applications that can potentially help any users, those who might be able to benefit the most are individuals with impairments to particular functions that are needed to complete some ADLs (such as the ability to plan, communicate, remember, etc.). I will ground my research in the development and evaluation of assistive technologies for three specific groups of users: older adults with dementia, individuals with a motor-neuron disease (such as ALS), and children with autism. In using this approach, I will make contributions to both the ubiquitous computing area and human-computer interaction area. This approach will also allow me to validate the proposed research through studies investigating how the proposed methods and models work in authentic use. At the same time, the work will be applied towards real problems for real users.