IE 2016 - Special Sessions

"Ambient Intelligence for Elderly or Cognitively Impaired People"
Organisers : Antonio Coronato, CNR-ICAR (Italy), Giovanna Morgavi, CNR-IEIIT (Italy), Marco Sacco, CNR-ITIA (Italy)

"Robotics and Intelligent Environments"
Organised by Eris Chinellato (Middlesex University, London, U.K.)

"Design and Research for Advanced Human Augmentation"
Organised by Dr. Tiina Kymäläinen (VTT, Finland)

Specification and Calls for Papers:

"Ambient Intelligence for Elderly or Cognitive Impaired People"

The trend of progressive aging of population of European countries is requiring for new policies of national healthcare systems. The development of new technologies may become a key factor in order to improve the quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.

Ambient Intelligence is the computing paradigm that can provide support both for elderly and cognitive impaired people within their domestic environments. A novel class of applications can potentially emerge from the specialization of AmI technologies to the special domain of users. However, such applications must be able to deal with peculiarities due to critical conditions of their end-users (frailty, comorbidities, irrational behaviors) within their environments, and their general attitude to not accepting wearable technologies.

This special session aims at reporting the state of the art regarding the realization of effective, intelligent, secure, acceptable and reliable AmI applications for the support of elderly and cognitive impaired people. We invite authors to submit their original papers and contributions addressing (but not limited to) the following topics:

• Non-invasive sensing and monitoring
• Action identification and behavior analysis
• Context-Awareness in environments with elderly or cognitive impaired users
• Interaction mechanisms and multimedia technologies
• Cognitive Assistance
• AmI applications for training and rehabilitation
• Safety assurance
• Security and privacy issues
• AmI Applications for elderly cognitive impaired user

Authors of some selected papers will be invited to expand their papers and submit to a journal special issue (TBC).

"Design and Research for Advanced Human Augmentation"

Advanced Human Augmentation suggests moving towards technologies that augment human actions, senses and cognition in new, yet unexplored ways, in order to enhance human senses, to provide assistive augmentation and to create a seamless technology environment for human interaction. The concept builds upon earlier technological visions like Ubiquitous and Pervasive computing; Virtual-, Mixed- and Augmented Reality; Wearable Computing and Smart Textiles; Artificial and Computational Intelligence and Autonomous Systems. The concept aims to provide human-controllable tools to enhance whole spectrum of technology-aided human activities and, consequently, human-centred design is a strong focus in its agenda.

The design, implementation, evaluation and societal impact of Advanced Human Augmentation are highlighted as the main critical research topics for this session. Contributions that aim towards the defining of new design strategies that benefit and increase the knowledge, expertise and experience of the new application domain are highly encouraged. The contributions may well be established upon preceding HCI research that could provide strong basis for the creation of a completely new design methodology. The topics for the contributions may relate - but are not limited to - the following technological possibilities:

• Virtual-, Mixed- and Augmented Reality
• Multimodel Human-Computer Interaction and Natural Interface Metaphors
• Augmented Context- and Intention awareness
• Methods for effortless communication with Artificial and Computational Intelligence
• Advanced Human Augmentation for the Work context
• Assistive Augmentation and Sensory Substitution (e.g. for elderly and people with special needs)

Advanced Human Augmentation technologies should foremost be seen as a tool for expanding and improving human activity. At the same time, the interactions with technologies should be smart and e.g. adapt to the context to avoid negative side effects. The reasons why the session is interesting and timely is the fact that currently several international companies are investigating the prospects for Advanced Human Augmentation.

"Robotics and Intelligent Environments"

This special session is dedicated to tasks and applications in Intelligent Environments related to robotics research.
Service and companion robots are progressively becoming a reality, and the increasingly reliable and versatile skills of complex autonomous robots are making of them a real alternative to fixed and more specialised sensors and actuators.

Topics covered by the special session include, but are not limited to:

• service household robots
• robot companions
• assistive robotics
• human-centred robotics
• social robots
• human-robot interaction

Mobile platforms, prehensile arms, social robots, autonomous agents are all welcome to the session, and, more in general, all intelligence environment developments which include substantially moving parts, as opposed to chiefly static sensors and actuators, can be considered for the special session in robotics.