associated scientific and non-scientific publications

    Publications

    2022

    IT Professional

    Abstract: Nowadays, service providers’ (SPs) need for efficient resource utilization solutions is more demanding than ever. The optimal use of the physical and virtual infrastructures guarantees that the waste of resources due to overdesign is minimized while the provided services enjoy the required quality of service levels. However, the prediction of the exact amount of the required resources per service at any time of its lifecycle is not an easy process. For this purpose, we propose a solution that handles the infrastructure in a holistic manner introducing a novel architecture that exploits the monitoring data from three layers (hardware, virtualization, and application) and uses them to train machine learning models, which can accurately predict the exact amount of the required resources per service. Its implementation using open-source tools and its performance are also presented.

    By Panagiotis Karkazis, Dimitris Uzunidis, Panagiotis Trakadas, Helen C. Leligou

    8th European Health Law Conference, Ghent, Belgium

    By Danaja Fabcic Povse

    2021

    2021 IEEE/ACM Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies (CHASE)

    Abstract: There is a huge challenge to reach efficiency of national health systems and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a significant role towards such objective. The increasing connectivity and the fast development and availability of imaging and biometric sensors as well as of the Internet of Things devices have opened a world of possibilities. One of these examples is given by the automatic distant monitoring of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients by the collection of data that could be analyzed to reveal valuable insights for early detection and/or prevention of events related to their condition. In this paper, a complete overview of a system intended to improve the Quality-of-Life (QoL) of such patients is presented. The system collects signals from diverse sensors, identifies the user behavior and context, and triggers proper actions for improving the patient’s QoL. The system offers comparable/improved results for the detection of abnormal behavior in daily motion with respect to the state-of-the-art.

    By Vassilis Solachidis, Jaime Rodriguez Moreno, Gustavo Hernández-Penaloza, Nicholas Vretos, Federico Álvarez, Petros Daras

    PETRA 2021: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

    Abstract: It is a priority to promote the autonomy and empowerment of patients and carers due to the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, improving their quality of life (QoL), and to provide tools aimed at improving monitoring by professionals. Remote monitoring of health parameters and lifestyles through devices is an emerging field in healthcare. The TeNDER project incorporates a wide variety of sensors and devices that are integrated into a single platform. The aim of this paper is to provide a description of the TeNDER ecosystem at home. Methodology: Based on the specific requirements of the social and health conditions of the patients, different scenarios of the system are designed. The TeNDER architecture follows a modular structure with multiple levels of functionality to provide person-specific services which are differentiated into three entities: the Low-Level Subsystem (LLS), the High-Level Subsystem (HLS), and the Services Layer (SL). Conclusions: The use of TeNDER in home environment can improve the QoL of patients and caregivers and improve clinical care by their healthcare professionals.

    By Rodrigo Medina-García, Cristina María Lozano-Hernández, Juan Mercado Gómez, Jennifer Jiménez Ramos, Špela Glišović Krivec, Martina Steinböck, Agostino Chiaravalloti, Panagiotis Karkazis, Vassilis Solachidis, Nicholas Vretos, Javier Serrano, Federico Álvarez

    PETRA 2021: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

    Abstract: In the context of chronic diseases, it is difficult to maintain adherence and motivation in rehabilitation treatment. The inclusion of technological tools that help to obtain objective data that allow the patient to be monitored and provide feedback on the development of exercises is very useful to increase long-term adherence to treatment.

    Devices such as depth sensors and smartbands, which collect information on movement angles and heart rate among other parameters, can be introduced into the rehabilitation room without being intrusive.

    In the TeNDER project, a tool has been developed that allows the monitoring of activities performed during the execution of regular therapy and the analysis of these data to be presented as feedback via a mobile application to patients and caregivers/family members; and thanks to a web app as evolution data to health professionals.

    By Jennifer Jiménez, Juan Mercado, Laura Carrasco, Verónica Ruíz, Vassilios Solachidis, Javier Serrano, Nicholas Vretos, Federico Álvarez

    PETRA 2021: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

    Abstract: The world’s population is ageing rapidly while cognitive impairment in older ages is more evident than ever. Hence, the health and wellbeing among the elderly is an issue of paramount importance. The speedy growth of technology and its application within healthcare has advanced computerized cognitive interventions, which aim to delay the onset and potential progression of cognitive decline. Consequently, the traditional cognitive interventions have made a swift to novel multimedia systems to promote independent, active and healthy ageing. The primary objective of the present study is to introduce an innovative computerized cognitive gamified training and social activation program for health and mildly cognitive impaired older adults. The platform is designed as an extension and adaptation of a previous computerized cognitive training program called ‘SOCIABLE’. Evaluation of the newly designed platform through a single-arm feasibility study followed by a full randomized double-blind controlled trial is recommended as future steps for this piece of work.

    By Kitty Kioskli and Eva Danassi

    IEEE Access (Volume: 9)

    Abstract: Most of the established neural network architectures in computer vision are essentially composed of the same building blocks (e.g., convolutional, normalization, regularization, pooling layers, etc.), with their main difference being the connectivity of these components within the architecture and not the components themselves. In this paper we propose a generalization of the traditional average pooling operator. Based on the requirements of efficiency (to provide information without repetition), equivalence (to be able to produce the same output as average pooling) and extendability (to provide a natural way of obtaining novel information), we arrive at a formulation that generalizes average pooling using the Zernike moments. Experimental results on Cifar 10 , Cifar 100 and Rotated MNIST data-sets showed that the proposed method was able to outperform the two baseline approaches, global average pooling and average pooling 2×2 , as well as the two variants of Stochastic pooling and AlphaMEX in every case. A worst-case performance analysis on Cifar-100 showed that significant gains in classification accuracy can be realised with only a modest 10% increase in training time.

    By Thomas Theodoridis, Kostas Loumponias, Nicholas Vretos, and Petros Daras

    • Dementia Inclusive Design of Affective Based Integrated Care for Better Quality of Life Tool

    Alzheimer’s Disease International’s 35th Global Conference 

    Abstract: Spominčica – Alzheimer Slovenija (SPO) was invited to present the paper they co-wrote with the Centre for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH) on TeNDER’s service co-creation approach. Their submission was accepted under the title “Dementia Inclusive Design of Affective Based Integrated Care for Better Quality of Life Tool.” It was presented during the conference session “Well-being and quality of life II.”

    By Špela Glišović Krivec, David Krivec, Nicholas Vretos, and Vassilis Solachidis

    2020

    MDPI Open Access Journals

    On 30 October, several EU-funded initiatives participated in an online workshop organised within the general framework of the Sustainable Places Conference 2020. The workshop, titled “Sustainable Housing Supporting Health and Wellbeing,” centred on the benefits of and the ways to create living spaces fit for all walks of life. This paper summarises the proceedings.

    By Régis Decorme, Silvia Urra, Olatz Nicolas, Carina Dantas, Annelore Hermann, Gustavo Hernández Peñaloza, Federico Álvarez García, Aline Ollevier, M. Charalampos Vassiliou, and Willeke van Staalduinen