which is used to describe a third component of thinking processes, particularly preverbal, and it denotes the concept that the world is activated by some generalized "energy" that links together causally all objects and events ; it is presumably revealed by a person's lack of curiosity about causal connections, as though they were self-evident. Aside from the rather frequent use of such key words, having strong connotations for this reviewer far away from what the author is aiming to denote, the book is written in a lucid and stimulating style that makes reading it an invigorating intellectual exercise. It is a book that is likely to have somewhat limited attraction to the full-time clinician, especially one treating adult patients. And child psychiatrists and psychologists, if reasonably well read, will most likely be familiar with the majority of references from which this author has synthesized his material. On the other hand, the scholarly and refreshing con¬ ceptual approaches of the author will appeal to psychologists, philosophers, linguists, and psychiatrists with a research bent and anyone else who wants to be provoked to do some thinking on the problems of language, language development, and the psychology of cognition. Louis A. GOTTSCHALK, M.D. Plans and the Structure of Behavior. By George A Miller, Eugene gALANTER, and Karl H. Pribram. Price, $5.00. Pp. 226. Henry Holt & Co., Inc., New York 17, 1960. This is an important book for psychiatrists and behavioral scientists, since it presents a clear, concise study of the application of cybernetics, information and computer theory to the problem of analyzing behavior. The authors have been actively engaged in behavioral research in different areas\p=m-\Millerin information and communication, Galanter in experimental psychology, and Pribram in neurophysiology. The book resulted from a series of discussions which they engaged in during a year they spent together at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto, Calif. Their original intent was to write a diary, as it were, of the development of their ideas and, fortunately, enough of this remains to make the book clear, easy to read, and interesting. It is also fortunate, however, that in the final writing a variety of studies comparing the "behavior" of computing machines with human "cognitive behavior" have been reviewed and summarized. The result is one of the best presentations of the present status of the brain-computer problem. The authors, however, do not discuss certain aspects of this problem, such as the difference between the brain and its vast number of parallel channels, but few operations, and the modern high-speed computer with its few channels and vast numbers of operations. This omission is consistent with their interest, since it would introduce the question of mechanisms rather than the problem of the structure of behavior as it is observed in everyday life in the clinic and in experiments on learning, conditioning, etc. Similarly, they do not discuss the qualitative differences between mechanisms of memory in the computer and those in the brain. In the former, a "memory"\p=m-\ i.e., stored information\p=m-\isidentified, metaphorically speaking, by an address, whereas no such mechanism is known in the brain (personal communication, Dr. Julian Bigelow). With few exceptions, however, the data, concepts, and theories presented are handled with elegant precision, as illustrated by the discussion of Sherrington's concepts of the "Reflex" and the "Synapse," Kurt Lewin's ideas of "tension states," and the numerous references to the work of Newell, Shaw, and Simon on computers and logic. There are, nevertheless, areas with

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjors.1968.86.pdf

Plans and the Structure of Behavior

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is an emerging multi-disciplinary field aiming at exploiting information and communication technologies in personal healthcare and telehealth systems for countering the effects of growing elderly population. AAL systems are developed for personalized, adaptive, and anticipatory requirements, necessitating high quality-of-service to achieve interoperability, usability, security, and accuracy. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of the AAL field with a focus on healthcare frameworks, platforms, standards, and quality attributes. To achieve this, we conducted a literature survey of state-of-the-art AAL frameworks, systems and platforms to identify the essential aspects of AAL systems and investigate the critical issues from the design, technology, quality-of-service, and user experience perspectives. In addition, we conducted an email-based survey for collecting usage data and current status of contemporary AAL systems. We found that most AAL systems are confined to a limited set of features ignoring many of the essential AAL system aspects. Standards and technologies are used in a limited and isolated manner, while quality attributes are often addressed insufficiently. In conclusion, we found that more inter-organizational collaboration, user-centered studies, increased standardization efforts, and a focus on open systems is needed to achieve more interoperable and synergetic AAL solutions.

/pdf/ambient-assisted-living-healthcare-frameworks-platforms-nk3i0fdkiv.pdf

Ambient assisted living healthcare frameworks, platforms, standards, and quality attributes.

For more than two decades, capacitive sensing has played a prominent role in human-computer interaction research. Capacitive sensing has become ubiquitous on mobile, wearable, and stationary devices - enabling fundamentally new interaction techniques on, above, and around them. The research community has also enabled human position estimation and whole-body gestural interaction in instrumented environments. However, the broad field of capacitive sensing research has become fragmented by different approaches and terminology used across the various domains. This paper strives to unify the field by advocating consistent terminology and proposing a new taxonomy to classify capacitive sensing approaches. Our extensive survey provides an analysis and review of past research and identifies challenges for future work. We aim to create a common understanding within the field of human-computer interaction, for researchers and practitioners alike, and to stimulate and facilitate future research in capacitive sensing.

/pdf/finding-common-ground-a-survey-of-capacitive-sensing-in-5aw8g2v2ro.pdf

Finding Common Ground: A Survey of Capacitive Sensing in Human-Computer Interaction

Cognitive assisted living ambient system: A survey

Human environments are typified by walls, homes, offices, schools, museums, hospitals and pretty much every indoor context one can imagine has walls. In many cases, they make up a majority of readily accessible indoor surface area, and yet they are static their primary function is to be a wall, separating spaces and hiding infrastructure. We present Wall++, a low-cost sensing approach that allows walls to become a smart infrastructure. Instead of merely separating spaces, walls can now enhance rooms with sensing and interactivity. Our wall treatment and sensing hardware can track users' touch and gestures, as well as estimate body pose if they are close. By capturing airborne electromagnetic noise, we can also detect what appliances are active and where they are located. Through a series of evaluations, we demonstrate Wall++ can enable robust room-scale interactive and context-aware applications.

Wall++: Room-Scale Interactive and Context-Aware Sensing

In Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), the context-dependent adaption of a system to a person's needs is of particular interest. In the living area, a fine-grained context may not only contain information about the occupancy of certain furniture, but also the posture of a user on the occupied furniture. This information is useful in the application area of home automation, where, for example, a lying user may effect a different system reaction than a sitting user. In this paper, we present an approach for determining contextual information from furniture, using capacitive proximity sensors. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of Naive Bayes classifiers, decision trees and radial basis function networks, regarding the classification of user postures. Therefore, we use our generic classification framework to visualize, train and evaluate postures with up to two persons on a couch. Based on a data set collected from multiple users, we show that this approach is robust and suitable for real-time classification.

/pdf/classification-of-user-postures-with-capacitive-proximity-39cesz7lnl.pdf

Classification of user postures with capacitive proximity sensors in AAL-Environments

Sleep disorders are a wide-spread phenomenon that can gravely affect personal health and well-being. An individual sleep analysis is a first step in identifying unusual sleeping patterns and providing suitable means for further therapy and preventing escalation of symptoms. Typically such an analysis is an intrusive method and requires the user to stay in a sleep laboratory. In this work we present a method for detecting sleep patterns based on invisibly installed capacitive proximity sensors integrated into the bed frame. These sensors work with weak electric fields and do not disturb sleep. Using the movements of the sleeping person we are able to provide a continuous analysis of different sleep phases. The method was tested in a prototypical setup over multiple nights.

/pdf/movibed-sleep-analysis-using-capacitive-sensors-5dthckqw5a.pdf

MoviBed - Sleep Analysis Using Capacitive Sensors

Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) comprises methods, systems, and services applied to improve the quality of daily life for humans, especially elderly people. Recent research emphasizes the implementation of comprehensive AAL platforms which control all technological components included in the entire environment such as one's apartment. The behavior of the system is often determined by a specific set of rules. Thus, personalization according to the person's needs and preferences includes a configuration of the given rule system. Assuming that configuration is not only conducted by technical staff but also by the person him or herself, this process can be regarded as complex, requiring technical knowledge. In this work, we present an interactive and architectural approach to support at the personalization of an AAL system by different types of users.

/pdf/interactive-personalization-of-ambient-assisted-living-2o6ryg581c.pdf

Interactive personalization of ambient assisted living environments

When realizing gestural interaction in a typical living environment there often is an offset between user-perceived and machine-perceived direction of pointing, which can hinder reliable selection of elements in the surroundings. This work presents a support system that provides visual feedback to a freely gesturing user; thus enabling reliable selection of and interaction with reactive elements in intelligent environments. We have created a prototype that is showcasing this feedback method based on gesture recognition using the Microsoft Kinect and visual support provision using a custom built laser-robot. Finally an evaluation has been performed, in order to prove the efficiency of such a system, acquire usability feedback and determine potential learning effects for gesture-based interaction.

Providing Visual Support for Selecting Reactive Elements in Intelligent Environments

Concerning gestural interaction in realistic environments there often is an offset between perceived and actual direction of pointing that makes it difficult to reliably select elements in the environment. This work presents a visual support system that provides feedback to a user gesturing freely in an environment and thus enabling reliable selection of and interaction with reactive elements in intelligent environments. A prototype has been created that is showcasing this feedback method based on gesture recognition using the Microsoft Kinect and feedback provision using a custom laser-robot. Finally an evaluation has been performed, in order to prove the efficiency of such a system, acquire usability feedback and determine potential learning effects for gesture-based interaction.

/pdf/visual-support-system-for-selecting-reactive-elements-in-3jzi3ydm04.pdf

Alexander Marinc

Papers

Classification of user postures with capacitive proximity sensors in AAL-Environments

MoviBed - Sleep Analysis Using Capacitive Sensors

Interactive personalization of ambient assisted living environments

Providing Visual Support for Selecting Reactive Elements in Intelligent Environments

Visual support system for selecting reactive elements in intelligent environments