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- A methodology for creating an adapted command language for driving an intelligent wheelchairPublication . Faria, Brigida Monica; Reis, Luís Paulo; Lau, NunoIntelligent wheelchairs (IW) are technologies that can increase the autonomy and independence of elderly people and patients suffering from some kind of disability. Nowadays the intelligent wheelchairs and the human-machine studies are very active research areas. This paper presents a methodology and a Data Analysis System (DAS) that provides an adapted command language to an user of the IW. This command language is a set of input sequences that can be created using inputs from an input device or a combination of the inputs available in a multimodal interface. The results show that there are statistical evidences to affirm that the mean of the evaluation of the DAS generated command language is higher than the mean of the evaluation of the command language recommended by the health specialist (p value = 0.002) with a sample of 11 cerebral palsy users. This work demonstrates that it is possible to adapt an intelligent wheelchair interface to the user even when the users present heterogeneous and severe physical constraints.
- A Survey on Intelligent Wheelchair Prototypes and SimulatorsPublication . Faria, Brigida Monica; Reis, Luís Paulo; Lau, NunoNowadays more than 700 million persons around the world have some kind of disability or handicap. During the last decades the elderly population in most of the European countries and across all the most civilized countries is also growing at an increasing pace. This phenomenon is receiving increasing attention from the scientific community, during the last years, and several solutions are being proposed in order to allow a more independent life to the people belonging to those groups. In this context Intelligent Wheelchairs (IW) are instruments that are a natural development of the scientific work that has been conducted to improve the traditional Wheelchair characteristics using health informatics, assistive robotics and human computer interface technologies. Some of the most important features of the IW are their navigation capabilities and automatic adaptation of their interface to the user. This paper presents the evolution and state of art concerning IWs prototypes and simulators and intelligent human-computer interfaces in the context of this devices. Our study enabled us to conclude that although several Intelligent Wheelchair prototypes are being developed in a large number of research projects, around the world, the adaptation of their user interface to the patient is an often neglected research topic. Thus, projects aiming at developing new concepts of Intelligent Wheelchairs are needed mainly using multimodal interfaces and wheelchair interfaces adapted to the user characteristics.
- Hand gestures recognition for an intelligent wheelchair steering commandPublication . Almeida, Patrícia; Faria, Brígida Mónica; Reis, Luís PauloThe independence and autonomy of both elderly and dis abled people have been a growing concern of today’s society. Conse quently, the increase in life expectancy combined with the ageing of the population has created the ideal conditions for the introduction of Intelli gent Wheelchairs (IWs). For this purpose, several adapted sensors should be used to optimize the control of a wheelchair. During this work, the Leap Motion sensor was analyzed to convert the user’s will into one of four fundamental driving commands, move forward, turn right, left, or stop. Leap Motion aims to determine the direction to follow according to the hand gesture identified. For this task, data was collected from volunteers while they were performing certain gestures. Thereby it was possible to produce a data set that after being processed and extracted some features enabled the classification of the data with an F1-Score higher than 0.97. Additionally, when tested in a real-time application, this sensor reinforced its high performance.
- Higher education access prediction using data-miningPublication . Reis, Luís Paulo; Vieira, João; Lemos, Patrícia; Novais, Rita; Faria, Brígida MónicaThe national panel for higher education is a big social impact event, one which mobilizes thousands of candidates. However, the heterogeneity of the Portuguese university and polytechnic infrastructure and the sheer dimension of the reality in study makes an eventual interpretation of the data obtained from that panel, and the official data only present generic and global information. This work will bring to light information with added value to those responsible on these institutions, in their decision taking processes by extracting data from the education minister site and processing it using data mining techniques.
- QVida+: Quality of life continuos estimation for clinical decision supportPublication . Reis, Luís Paulo; Faria, Brígida Monica; Gonçalves, Joaquim; Rocha, Álvaro; Carvalho, VictorAdvances in the last decades in the areas of medical science and patients treatment resulted in a decrease in the mortality rate but also an increase in the number of patients with chronic diseases. This increased life expectancy of patients with chronic diseases often involves great suffering and considerable adverse effects for the patients. Thus, in addition to prolonging life, it is essential to increase the quality of life (QoL) of patients. QoL is now considered an important aspect in clinical practice for patients with chronic illnesses, but the methods to assess, in an automatic or semi-automatic manner, QoL, and their use in clinical decision support are still underexplored and their applications are virtually inexistent. The QVida + solution is based on scientific and technological developments in the areas of quality of life and mobile devices, with the goal of creating a new paradigm for the evaluation and use of QoL in clinical practice. The solution devised is based on an adaptive information system (IS) able to use physical and behavioral data of the patient, gathered by sensors and mobile devices, in conjunction with machine learning techniques, allowing continuous assessment of QoL based on measurement tools that significantly reduce the questionnaires response time without affecting the patients daily life. Continuous assessment of QoL and its rapid use on a clinical decision support system will enable a better quality and more supported decision, patient-centered, by the physician, allowing for an increased quality of life of patients.
- Evaluation of distinct input methods of an intelligent wheelchair in simulated and real environments: a performance and usability studyPublication . Faria, Brigida Monica; Vasconcelos, Sérgio; Reis, Luís Paulo; Lau, NunoThis paper focuses on evaluating the usability of an Intelligent Wheelchair (IW) in both real and simulated environments. The wheelchair is controlled at a high-level by a flexible multimodal interface, using voice commands, facial expressions, head movements and joystick as its main inputs. A Quasi-experimental design was applied including a deterministic sample with a questionnaire that enabled to apply the System Usability Scale. The subjects were divided in two independent samples: 46 individuals performing the experiment with an Intelligent Wheelchair in a simulated environment (28 using different commands in a sequential way and 18 with the liberty to choose the command); 12 individuals performing the experiment with a real IW. The main conclusion achieved by this study is that the usability of the Intelligent Wheelchair in a real environment is higher than in the simulated environment. However there were not statistical evidences to affirm that there are differences between the real and simulated wheelchairs in terms of safety and control. Also, most of users considered the multimodal way of driving the wheelchair very practical and satisfactory. Thus, it may be concluded that the multimodal interfaces enables very easy and safe control of the IW both in simulated and real environments.
- Special Issue JOMS – Journal of Medical Systems, 2016 on Agent-Empowered HealthCare SystemsPublication . Abreu, Pedro Henriques; Silva, Daniel Castro; Schumacher, Michael Ignaz; Reis, Luís Paulo; Faria, Brígida Mónica; Ito, MárciaThe Agent-Empowered HealthCare Systems Special Issue includes a selection of papers that provide discussion on the most recent and innovative work regarding the study and application of agent-based technology to healthcare.
- Analysis on the selection of course and institution of engineering studentsPublication . Barros, David; Vasconcelos, Rosa; Costa, António Pedro; Reis, Luís Paulo; Faria, Brígida MónicaEvery year thousands of students apply for access to higher education in Portuguese universities. These students are allocated according to their application, secondary school grades and their preference to distinct establishment-course pairs. Despite official statistics provided by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (MCTES), it is not always possible to have the relevant indicators for universities make a good decision concerning courses and vacancies to offer. This study evaluates the factors that influence students in their choice of a pair establishment-course as well as understand the different variables that are related to the same attribution of influence. The study is observational and empirical using questionnaires, with the appropriate statistical analysis. The results showed a relation in greater number among the studied factors and gender. In conclusion the prestige of the institution, employment and intellectual development are the factors most valued by students.
- A survey on clinical decision support systems concerning quality of lifePublication . Reis, Luís Paulo; Faria, Brígida Mónica; Goncalves, Joaquim; Rocha, Álvaro; Carvalho, VictorAs a result of improved living conditions and the progress achieved in areas related to medicine, there is a decrease in the mortality rate but an increase in the number of patients with chronic diseases. Contrary to what happened until a few decades ago, patients with chronic diseases now have a high life expectancy. However, the patients increased life expectancy, often causes great pain and significant adverse effects. In addition to prolonging life, it is essential to increase the quality of life (QoL) of patients. The QoL is now considered an important aspect in clinical practice for patients with chronic illnesses, but the methods to assess QoL, in automatic or semi-automatic manners and their use in clinical decision support are still underexplored and their applications are virtually non-existent. This paper presents an overview of research related to health quality of Life, estimation of quality of life including its continuous estimation, modeling and behavioral recognition and representation of knowledge in this area and decision support systems for clinical decision making and quality of life related applications.
- IntellWheels: Intelligent wheelchair with user-centered designPublication . Petry, Marcelo R.; Moreira, António Paulo; Faria, Brígida Mónica; Reis, Luís PauloIntelligent wheelchairs can become an important solution to assist physically impaired individuals who find it difficult or impossible to drive regular powered wheelchairs. However, when designing the hardware architecture several projects compromise the user comfort and the wheelchair normal usability in order to solve robotic problems. In this paper we describe the main concepts regarding the design of the IntellWheels intelligent wheelchair. Our approach has a user-centered perspective, in which the needs and limitations of physically impaired users are given extensive attention at each stage of the design process. Finally, our design was evaluated through a public opinion assessment. A statistical analysis suggested that the design was effective to mitigate the visual and ergonomic impacts caused by the addition of sensorial and processing capabilities on the wheelchair