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In human action recognition based on wearable sensors, most previous studies have focused on a single type of sensor and single classifier. This study aims to use a wearable sensor based on flexible sensors and a tri-axial accelerometer to collect action data of elderly people. It uses a statistical modeling approach based on the ensemble algorithm to classify actions and verify its validity.

Nine types of daily actions were collected by the wearable sensor device from a group of elderly volunteers, and the time-domain features of the action sequences were extracted. The dimensionality of the feature vectors was reduced by linear discriminant analysis. An ensemble learning method based on XGBoost was used to build a model of elderly action recognition. Its performance was compared with the action recognition rate of other algorithms based on the Boosting algorithm, and with the accuracy of single classifier models.

The effectiveness of the method was validated by three experiments. The results show that XGBoost is able to classify nine daily actions of the elderly and achieve an average recognition rate of 94.8 per cent, which is superior to single classifiers and to other ensemble algorithms.

The research could have important implications for health care, including the treatment and rehabilitation of the elderly, and the prevention of falls.

Instead of using a single type of sensor, this research used a wearable sensor to obtain daily action data of the elderly. The results show that, by using the appropriate method, the device can obtain detailed data of joint action at a low cost. Comparing differences in performance, it was concluded that XGBoost is the most suitable algorithm for building a model of elderly action recognition. This method, together with a wearable sensor, can provide key data and accurate feedback information to monitor the elderly in their rehabilitation activities.

This paper aims to focus on applying a range of traditional classification- and semantic reasoning-based techniques to recognise activities of daily life (ADLs). ADL recognition plays an important role in tracking functional decline among elderly people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. Accurate recognition enables smart environments to support and assist the elderly to lead an independent life for as long as possible. However, the ability to represent the complex structure of an ADL in a flexible manner remains a challenge.

This paper presents an ADL recognition approach, which uses a hierarchical structure for the representation and modelling of the activities, its associated tasks and their relationships. This study describes an approach in constructing ADLs based on a task-specific and intention-oriented plan representation language called Asbru. The proposed method is particularly flexible and adaptable for caregivers to be able to model daily schedules for Alzheimer’s patients.

A proof of concept prototype evaluation has been conducted for the validation of the proposed ADL recognition engine, which has comparable recognition results with existing ADL recognition approaches.

The work presented in this paper is novel, as the developed ADL recognition approach takes into account all relationships and dependencies within the modelled ADLs. This is very useful when conducting activity recognition with very limited features.

United Nations’ World Population Ageing Report states that falls are one of the most common problems in the elderly around the world. Falls are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among mature adults, and the second leading cause of accidental or unintentional injury/death after road traffic injuries. The rates are higher in hospitalized patients and nursing home residents. Major contributing reasons for falling are loss of footing or traction, balance problem in carpets and rugs, reduced muscle strength, poor vision, mobility/gait, cognitive impairment: in other words lack of balance. Balance can be improved by the practice of yoga which helps to balance both body and mind through a series of physical postures called asanas, breathing control and meditation. Elders, especially women, are often unable to practice yoga regularly, largely brought on by a feeling of discomfort at having to do so in full public view, preferring instead to have private sessions at home, and at leisure. A computer-assisted self-learning system can be developed to help such elders, though improper training and the postures associated with it may harm the body’s muscles and ligaments. To have a flawless system it is essential to classify asanas, and identify the one the practitioner is currently practicing, following which the system can offer the guidance necessary. The purpose of this paper is to propose a posture recognition system, especially of sitting and standing postures. Asanas are chiefly classified into two: sitting and standing postures. This study helps to decide the values of the parameters for classification, which involve the hip and joint angles.

To model human bodies, skeleton parts such as head, neck (which are responsible for head movements), arms, hands (to decide on hand postures), and legs and feet (for standing posture identification) have been modeled and stored as a vector. Each feature is defined as a set of movable joints. Every interaction among the skeleton joints defines an action. Human skeletal information may be represented as a hierarchy of joints, in a parent–child relationship. So that whenever there is a change in joint its corresponding parent joint may also be altered.

The findings have to do with analyzing the reasons for falls in the elderly and their need for yoga as a precautionary measure. As yoga is ideally suited to self-assisted learning, it is feasible to design a system that assists people who do not wish to practice yoga in public. However, asanas are to be classified prior to doing so. In this paper, the authors have designed a posture identification framework comprising the sitting and standing postures that are fundamental to all yoga asanas, using joint angle measurements. Having fixed joint angle values is not possible, given the variations in angle values among the participants. Consequently, such parameters as the hip joint and knee angles are to be specified in range for a classification of asanas.

This work identifies the angle limits of standing and sitting postures so as to design a self-assisting system for yoga. Yoga asanas are classified and tested to enable their accurate identification. Extensive testing with older people is needed to assess the system.

The increase in the population of the elderly, coupled with their need for medical care, is a major concern worldwide. As older people are reluctant to practice yoga in public, it is anticipated that the proposed system will motivate them to do so at their convenience, and in the seclusion of their homes.

As older people are reluctant to adapt as well as practice yoga in public view, the proposal motivates and helps them to carry out yoga practices at their convenience.

This paper fulfills the initial study on the need and feasibility of creating a self-assisted yoga learning system. To identify postures and classify them joint angles are used; their range of motion has been calculated in order to set them as parameters of classification.

The Equal Pay Act 1970 (which came into operation on 29 December 1975) provides for an “equality clause” to be written into all contracts of employment. S.1(2) (a) of the 1970 Act (which has been amended by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975) provides:

Discrimination against the elderly people is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Despite the obvious fact of the aging of societies, everlasting youth, fitness, and thus usefulness of a person are promoted. Discrimination also extends to the field of healthcare. It can be concluded that a sick and weak person is more exposed to it. Manifestations of such behaviors are regulations that do not give equal rights to all age groups and limit access to selected services for the elderly people. Such actions also include the attitudes of the medical staff, which, often imbued with stereotypes about old age, approaches the elderly patient with disregard.

The aim of this chapter is to show the problem of discrimination against elderly patients in the Polish healthcare system, and to indicate possible measures to improve the situation of such people. An attempt will also be made to answer the question about the causes of discriminatory behavior. On the one hand, it is connected with the attitude of the medical personnel, who often treat such patients with superiority. On the other hand, the cause of limited access to some treatments and medical procedures are systemic solutions. Systemic solutions cause that such patients have limited access to some treatments and medical procedures. It is important to consider how these two issues are related. Do social attitudes, stereotypes, influence regulations, or regulations limiting the rights of the elderly cause a change in the reactions of medical staff? To answer this question, an appropriate solution can be proposed. Should the actions fighting discrimination be actions aimed at changing legal regulations or should the burden be shifted to education and social campaigns?

The objective of this chapter is to outline an integrating picture of the situation, representativeness, contradictions, and challenges that the treatment of diversity assumes in Brazilian society and in its organizations. The aim is to reply to the research question: “How are public policies and organizational practices constructing ways of inserting and valuing the diversity of Brazilians?” We provide a brief background of the changes in the global and Brazilian contexts over the last few decades and analyze the demographic data presented in the 2010 Census and in studies on diversity that were published in the main periodicals in the Administration area in Brazil, between 2000 and 2014 with regard to the segments most widely studied in the academic literature: Afro-descendants, homosexuals, the elderly, Indians, women, and people with a disability. The conclusion reached is that, in a short period of time, Brazil has made great strides in constructing the mechanisms and legal devices for recognizing the rights of its diverse population and that private companies are in the initial stages of introducing diversity programs.

The rousing phenomenon of the ageing population is becoming a vital issue and demanding fulminant actions. Population ageing is a resultant of the enhanced health-care system, groovy antibiotics, medications and economic well-being. Old age leads to copious amounts of ailments. Aged people, owing to their reduced mobility and enervating disabilities, tend to rely upon caretakers and/or nursing personnel. With the increasing vogue of nuclear families in the society, the elderly are at the risk of being unveiled to emotional, physical and fiscal insecurities in the years to come. Caring for those seniors will be an enormous undertaking.

There is a dire need for an intelligent assistive system to meet out the requirements of continuous holistic care and monitoring. Assistive robots and systems used for elderly care are studied. The design motivation for the robots, elderly–robot interaction capabilities and technology incorporated in the systems are examined meticulously.

From the survey, it is suggested that the subsystems of an assistive robot revamped for better human–machine interactions will be a potential alternative to the human counterpart. Affirmable advancements in the robot design and interaction methodologies that would increase the holistic care and assistance for aged people are analyzed and listed.

This paper reviews the available assistive technologies and suggests a synergistic model that can be adopted for the caring of the elderly.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of recognition in learning processes among female nurses, social and health care assistants and occupational therapists working with people with dementia and other age‐related illnesses.

The paper highlights the need to experience recognizing learning spaces among social and health care workers dealing with elderly care. Such learning spaces are crucial/imperative in order to come to terms with emotionally stressing experiences from daily work, and in order to be prepared for future challenges, such as new tasks or patients with a complex diagnosis. Drawing on Nordic research into health and care work, it is argued that, particularly in work fields which are mentally loaded or which are not held in high esteem culturally, this condition seems to be important.

The main argument is that learning is related to recognition – especially when it comes to groups of professionals, who are low ranked in the workplace hierarchy and therefore seldom experience recognition in their daily work. According to interviews with members of the mentioned professional groups, learning spaces, in which the medical and professional hierarchies are suspended, promote learning processes.

Axel Honneth's critical theory of recognition is used as the theoretical framework for understanding more generally the relational nature of human learning processes and the need for recognizing contexts. The paper concludes that this need is particularly imperative in health and care work for the elderly, but may also promote learning more generally.

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to group coaching in the workplace that can enhance shared learning in groups and teams through dialogue as opposed to group members’ individual positioning through discussion and debate.

An action research project conducted throughout one year in collaboration between the management groups of the Elderly Care in a Danish municipality, two organizational consultants and two researchers from the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University. The dialogical approach to group coaching is developed in the interaction between dialogue theory and the performance and close analysis of 12 video-taped coaching sessions with four management groups. The development of the dialogic group coaching concept is further supported through common reflections between researchers and groups in initial meetings as well as during the coaching sessions and final interviews, reflections between researchers and groups in initial meetings as well as during the coaching sessions and final interviews.

The non-directive approach of dialogic group coaching is inspired by Transformative Mediation. This approach includes a focus on empowerment and recognition within the group in terms of promoting common reflection and learning. This also appears to diminish conflict talk and conflict-based relationships. Further, the dialogic approach emphasizes the importance of a coaching contract to create a common basis for reflection and action, which is found to reduce individual positioning.

The paper develops a dialogic concept of group coaching in theory and practice, while focusing on the learning processes and development of the participating management groups.

Real‐time multimedia supervisory systems generally include a distributed system that delivers live video input captured with cameras at the watched person's site, using a PC or hand‐held device at the distant supervisor's site. The system comprises many entities such as cameras for image capture, transmission software, network connections, receiver software, a display device, multimedia processing software and hardware, control software, etc. The purpose of this paper is to realize a safe and convenient supervisory system that autonomously provides users with services that fulfill users' requirements related to quality and privacy in a ubiquitous information environment.

A system is designed by integrating environmental information acquired from the real world and knowledge related to human social activities. A real space understanding mechanism is proposed to infer the situations and relationships of users by combining sensing information and social knowledge. Social knowledge related to human relationships, the life style of the watched person, home structure, etc. is used with ontology to infer the situations of users.

An early prototype was implemented for supervising elderly people and some experiments were performed based on several scenarios. Results obtained from some experiments confirmed that this supervisory system can provide real‐time multimedia supervisory services for elderly people, with reasonable quality‐of‐service and privacy that meet the users' requirements.

The system described in this paper assesses the situation of users and surrounding environmental information to provide appropriate supervisory services. This paper provides insight into the design and development of ubiquitous application systems to realize comfortable and safe services using a combination of environmental information and social knowledge.