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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMPATHIC (Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly)

Teaser

Summary

Social Challenges of Aging: Technology at the Service of People.

The EMPATHIC project contributes to respond to one of the main social challenges that demographic change poses on European society: maintaining the health, well-being and independent life of people as they age. Longevity has been explained by attributing 75% to socio-behavioural conditions and 25% to genetic factors. From this assumption, the range of variability introduced by environmental factors is very broad and would explain, in part, the different ways of aging: from an active and positive aging to an aging with illness and dependence. In this context, the European Commission (EC) promotes technology and innovation, with particular emphasis on challenges related to aging. Furthermore, Information and communication technologies (ICT) play an important role in improving the quality of life, being able to enhance autonomy and independence and enabling the group of elders to remain active, both in the workplace and in the community. EMPATHIC proposal is based on a conceptual and ethical framework focused on the people rights and responsibilities, which is based on principles established by the United Nations: a) Dignity, which includes privacy, informed consent, autonomy, obtrusiveness and equal access; b) Autonomy, which requires respect for self-determination of people including recognition of the heterogeneity of people and respect to their preferences; c) Participation, established as one of the pillars of active aging, together with health and safety, according to the World Health Organisation.

EMAPTHIC overall Objectives:

- Design a virtual coach (EMPATHIC-VC), to engage the healthy-senior user to enhance wellbeing through awareness of personal physical status, by improving diet and nutritional habits, by developing more physical exercise and by social activity
- Involve end-users and to reach a degree of fit to their personalised needs and requirements, derived by the coach, which will enhance their well-being
- Supply the coach with Incorporate non-intrusive, privacy-preserving, empathic, expressive interaction technologies.
- Validate the coach efficiency and effectiveness across 3 distinct European societies (Norway, Spain, and France), with 200 to 250 subjects â€“ who will be involved from the start
- Evaluate/validate the effectiveness of EMPATHIC designs against relevant userâ€™s personalised acceptance and affordance criteria.
- Drive the developed methodology and tools to industry acceptance and open-source access in the software engineering process of implementing socially-centred ICT products.

The Multidisciplinary and Multi-sectorial nature of the EMPATHIC Consortium:

- Geriatrician, Neuroscientist, Psychiatric, health and social work specialists.
- Psychologist, Neuroscientist and Computer Science experts.
- Engineers and Computer Scientists in speech and language technologies, biometrics, image analysis, and machine learning.
- Telecare services, a senior association and a hospital interested in testing and validating EMPATHIC.
- Companies interested in providing and developing technology for the project and commercialising the products and derived services

Consortium members include:

Universidad del Pais Vasco, Academic partner, Spain
OSATEK Public health provider , Social services for elders, Spain
Oslo University Hospital, Academic and health provider, Norway
E-Seniors Association, Association of end users, France
Tunstall Healthcare (UK) Ltd., Telecare Industry, UK
Intelligent Voice Ltd., Research SME, UK
Acapela Group S.A., Research SME, Belgium
Institut Mines-TÃ©lÃ©com, Academic partner, France
UniversitÃ degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Academic partner, Italy
Universitat de Barcelona, Academic partner, Spain

Work performed

Achievements at Mid- term (April 2019)

- User and technical requirements identified, architecture and specifications defined; support to guarantee user privacy, data security and ethical considerations fully implemented;
- Model of emotions and coaching model and strategies fully selected and defined
- A simulated virtual EMPATHIC coach (Wizard of Oz technology), fully developed and running for two scenarios and three languages
- First field trial validation study through the virtual coach carried out in Spain, France and Norway (275 interactions by 145 users); first feedback of the users obtained and analysed.
- First corpus transcribed and partially annotated in terms of semantics, dialog acts and emotions from speech, language and video)
- First versions of the user recognition, automatic speech recognition, Natural Language Understanding, Dialog Management and Natural Language Generation in various languages, Dialog Manager, emotion identification from speech, text and facial analysis, emotional voice generation and visual agent modules already running and delivered for integration
- Mid-term prototype, fully automatic, nearly ready for mid-term evaluations. Standarization strategies considered for further exploitation plans.
- All managements structures set and running. Data management as well as communication and dissemination plans defined
- A significant set of communication and dissemination actions delivered
- New H2020 action for continuing major research involving several main EMPATHIC partners already granted (MENHIR MSCA-RISE 823907)

Final results

Impact of the project

- Seniors will benefit from EMPATHIC-VC toward physical and mental health improvements, promoting healthy lifestyles. Independent seniors are less likely to be socially excluded, thus maintain their sense of value and importance to the society to which they contribute.
- Potential cost-effectiveness due to enhanced self-care, life-style and care management: improving the emotional and psychological well-being reduces risk factors for depression; physical activity minimises the adverse health effects and costs associated with sedentary lifestyles; a new concept in telecare and health services supports new service models.
- The meeting of different and complementary research profiles will produce a transfer of knowledge bridging the gap existing within disciplines such as Artificial Intelligence, Social and Neuro-Cognitive Psychology, Human-Machine and Human-Robot Interaction, Computer Science, Medical and Social Care Disciplines, in benefit of the EU research scientific community;
- PhD students and Early Stage Researchers: The exchanges and training opportunities on such multifaceted scientific area creates new expertise opening new research careers and jobs;
- Enhance European innovation capacity by developing the software components and integration according to standards such as Fiware (docker), Kurento, and WebRTC, allowing the EMPATHIC application to be accessed on billions of existing devices, and without any setup or configuration, making it accessible to a broad spectrum of users.
- The transfer of the scientific results allows the development new ICT products, and thus enhances the ICT-EU market:
- The new social service developments envisioned by the project will change the way social assistance is offered by providing e-personal helpers;
- EMPATHIC concept includes user-driven design, personalisation and user adaptation. Distinct needs and preferences of females are taken into consideration when designing and developing the EMPATHIC-VC, thus assuring a higher impact in elder women due to their longer life expectancy.