- Date:
- 2011-2014
- Theme:
- Pervasive Healthcare and Telemedicine
- Funding:
- EUFP7
Quantitative EEG is used in medical laboratories to determine the brain connectivity in autistic children but due to the artificial nature of this lab-based approach its validity under a real-life scenario is doubtful. Also therapeutic interventions are executed typically in a clinical setting and have a limited extension in time while it has been proved the beneficial effect of an intensive intervention. Moreover, although pointed out by several researcher the need of a personalized treatment for each child, there is a little knowledge about how to identify the most suitable treatment or integration of treatments for a specific child. The MICHELANGELO project intends to bring the assessment and the therapy of the autism out of the clinical environment and develop a patient-centric home-based intervention solution requiring a minimal human involvement and therefore extremely cost effective. The main outcomes of the project are intended to address both the assessment and the therapeutic intervention in autistic children :
1. Autism Assessment ââ¬Â¢ A camera-based system that ââ¬â triggered by a wearable EEG solution ââ¬â will take snapshots of the scenes according to the eye movement and will allow to identify the stimuli that in a natural environment (the childââ¬â¢s home) cause significant responses in the autistic child; ââ¬Â¢ The same pervasive wearable EEG system that - used in conjunction with an eye-tracking device - measures the brain activity while the patient is presented with the reproduction of the identified stimuli and allows to better characterize them. The eye tracking system will record the eyesââ¬â¢ fixations and will enable to see how the brain connectivity changes with naturalistic stimuli and allows determining the particular properties of the objects (e.g. shape, colour etc.) the child is looking at and most responsible for the abnormal brain wave behaviour. The system - being pervasive in nature - makes the patient ââ¬Åless awareââ¬? about the artificial nature of the experiment and therefore affects the cognitive activity far less than the currently employed systems. ââ¬Â¢ A set of advanced and sophisticated signal processing algorithms enabling accurate characterisation of stimulation-specific brainwave anomalies and connectivity between different brain regions and hence giving vivid insight into the process of information integration ability of the brain in a stimulus-specific way. 2. Autism Therapy ââ¬Â¢ The design of a personalized intervention protocol based on a heterogeneous strategy where well consolidated developmental/behavioural thera peutic approaches are combined with neurophysiologically established new connectivity-guided neuro feedback techniques. Intervention will use also ICT-based solutions such as virtual reality, serious game and robotics. ââ¬Â¢ A set of unobtrusive tools for the continuous monitoring of the autistic children during the therapeutic program allowing the adaptation and personalization of the intervention. They include a wearable multi-parametric platform measuring relevant vital signs together with a camera-based system for the recognition of repetitive behaviors. ââ¬Â¢ Sophisticated algorithms for advanced imaging techniques (Diffusion Tensor Imaging and fMRI) which are used by the doctor to check the anatomical and functional connectivity of the brain at different steps during the therapy and assess its effectiveness. ââ¬Â¢ A novel system enabling intensive intervention in ââ¬Åpatient-centricââ¬? way in the home settings with minimal human intervention leading to significant cost reduction while substantially enhancing effective clinical outcome. Finally the MICHELANGELO project will set the bases to validate the results of its research work in an exploratory study executed in Italy and in France.
Primary investigator
Secondary investigators
Partner
- 7 EU partners
Associated research groups
- Electronic and Software Systems
- Pervasive Systems Centre
- Date:
- 2010-2013
- Theme:
- Pervasive Healthcare and Telemedicine
- Funding:
- Artemis Joint Undertaking EU
The CHIRON Project intends to combine state-of-the art technologies and innovative solutions into an integrated framework designed for an effective and person-centric health management along the complete care cycle. In this vision, a. CHIRON will address and harmonize the needs and interests of all the three main beneficiaries of the healthcare process, i.e., the citizens using the services, the medical professionals and the whole community; b. CHIRON will position the citizens at the core of the whole healthcare cycle by considering them as ââ¬Åpersonsââ¬? with specificities and identities and will empower them to manage their own health; c. CHIRON will enlarge the boundaries of healthcare by fostering a seamless integration of clinical setting, at home setting and mobile setting in a concept of a continuum of care; d. CHIRON will speed up the move from treatment of acute episodes to prevention; e. CHIRON will provide the physicians with extensive support for treatment monitoring and management, timely decisions and appropriate actions in both the clinical and home environments; More specifically CHIRON intends: a. to design ââ¬â according to this integrated approach ââ¬â a reference architecture for personal healthcare which will ensure the interoperability between heterogeneous devices and services, a reliable and secure patient data management and a seamless integration with the clinical workflow; b. to develop sophisticated solutions of complex data analysis, feature extraction and knowledge management; c. to introduce beyond state of the art solutions in various specific parts of the system; d. to provide new, advanced tools for real time processing, computer-aided analysis and accurate visualization of medical images; and e. to validate the result of the research and assess the proposed solutions in relation to their technical and clinical aspects and from a socio-economic perspective. The CHIRON system will provide powerful supporting ICT tools and at the same time it will ensure that the patients and the doctors remain the protagonists of the healthcare process that has been designed around them.
Primary investigator
Secondary investigators
Partner
- 27 EU partners
Associated research groups
- Electronic and Software Systems
- Pervasive Systems Centre
- Date:
- 2011-2012
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
- Funding:
- Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Technology Strategy Board
The SBRI Plain Sailing competition focuses on enabling users to produce and navigate digital information independently, anytime, anywhere and in a user-friendly way. Companies who succeeded in attracting funding will champion the use of freely accessible, open source software packages which can run on the latest technology platforms. A number of the proposed developments feature the use of cloud, desktop and mobile applications, building (not duplicating) on many of the freely available Apps and tools on the market. The funding has been awarded to iansyst, enabling the company to lead a consortium to develop a multi-platform, accessible document conversion & management tool.
MyDocStore will use cloud, desktop and mobile based file management and address the missing link in accessible transfer of files with usersââ¬â¢ preferences for accessing all forms of digital resources. MyDocStore aims to make it quick and easy to transfer files between devices whilst simultaneously converting them into the userââ¬â¢s preferred format - whether text, audio or a combination of both. This service will not only benefit learners who experience difficulties with reading due to a disability such as dyslexia or a visual impairment, but also those who want to read documents and content when on the move.
This project has received a second round of funding from the SBRI and a working version of the iPhone app and web service will be launched mid 2012
For further information about iansyst Ltd, please visit the web site at www.iansyst.co.uk or Tel: 01223 420101.
This project is supported by a Department for Business Innovation & Skills SBRI programme and is run by JISC TechDis
Primary investigators
- Mike Wald
- E.A. Draffan
- Sebastian Skuse
Secondary investigators
- Abi James - Iansyst
- Ian Litterick - Iansyst
- Raspberry Software
Partners
- Iansyst
- Raspberry Software
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2011-
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
- Funding:
- Roberts Enterprise Scheme
The objective of the training is to provide 60 research postgraduates (more could be accommodated through more workshops) with the skills to improve their understanding of the needs of ââ¬Ëcustomersââ¬â¢ in order to foster exploitation of research. This involves gaining an understanding of individual preferences and needs (e.g. disabled, elderly) as well as ensuring all material communicated (e.g. research or entrepreneurial activities and outcomes) is accessible and easy to use. The requirement for enterprises and entrepreneurs not to have discriminatory practices related to disability is paramount and has been mentioned in QAA code of practice (1999) and Disability Discrimination Act (1995/2004) and Equality Act 2010. Information will be online (http://access.ecs.soton.ac.uk/projects/training) and linked to modules available on the Synote lecture capture service (http://www.synote.org)
Primary investigator
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2011-2013
- Themes:
- Web Science, Pervasive Computing and Networks, Healthcare
- Funding:
- NIHR Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) (PB-PG-0909-20145)
Development and pilot evaluation of a web-supported programme of Constraint Induced Therapy following stroke (LifeCIT)
Persisting non-use of the hemiplegic upper limb is a common and disabling consequence of stroke. Constraint Induced Therapy (CIT) has recently been shown to improve upper limb function, but is currently rarely implemented in the NHS. CIT involves restricting use of the unaffected limb (using a mitt) and encouraging use of the hemiplegic limb for several hours a day (using repetitive exercises and normal activities). Barriers to implementation include insufficient resources to provide supervised clinic-based CIT, and lack of patient confidence and motivation to carry out CIT alone at home. We have developed a web-based software tool (the LifeGuide) that could be used to provide and monitor motivating individualised programmes for home-based CIT at home with online therapist support.
Primary investigators
- Professor Jane Burridge
- Professor Lucy Yardley
- Mark Weal
Secondary investigators
- Ann-Marie Hughes
- Damian Jenkinson
- David Turner
- Mark Mullee
Partners
- Southampton City PCT
- the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (RBCH)
- Surrey Community Health (South West locality)
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2011-2014
- Themes:
- Healthcare, Pervasive Computing and Networks, Web Science
- Funding:
- EPSRC
UBhave: ubiquitous and social computing for positive behaviour change
Our overall aim is to devise tools to study and influence human behaviour through mobile phone and social networking technology. We will develop a broad-based but in-depth understanding of the roles that social and mobile digital technologies can play in delivering successful behaviour change interventions. We will determine the technological, psychological and social factors influencing uptake, usage and effectiveness of different intervention characteristics and components in promoting positive behaviour change. Our objective is to lay foundations for a systematic science that can underpin future developments of digital behaviour change interventions. Specific outputs will be findings from a series of studies of a range of behaviour change interventions implemented through mobile phones and social networking sites, including statistical analyses of the mediators and moderators of intervention outcomes in very large-scale population applications.
Primary investigators
- Professor Lucy Yardley
- Mark Weal
- Professor Peter Smith
- Professor David De Roure
Secondary investigators
- Dr Cecilia Mascolo
- Dr Peter Rentfrow
- Dr Mirco Musolesi
- Professor Susan Michie
- Danius Michaelides
Partners
- University of Cambridge
- University of Brimingham
- University of Oxford
- University College London
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science
- Date:
- 2011-
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
Do you surf the web?
As a user ATbar is free, can change the look and feel of webpages, have text read aloud and spell check forms.
Are you designing websites?
As a developer ATbar is free and easy to add to webpages, offers user preference options and comes free with the added benefit of advice on accessibility if required.
Give your website added value and work within Equality Act 2010 and BS8878 guidelines.
ATbar has been created as an open-source, cross-browser toolbar to help students customise the way they view and interact with web pages to help their study skills.
The concept behind ATbar is simple: One toolbar to provide all of the functionality you would usually get in many different products, and which will run in any desktop web browser.
There are two versions of ATbar available:
If you are a user, you have a choice of either installing the Lite bookmarklet version that can be accessed within your browser, or a full install which will load automatically for every page. If you manage a website, you are able to embed ATbar Lite into a link on your website, which will allow your visitors to utilise ATbar, without installation.
Primary investigators
- Mike Wald
- E.A. Draffan
- Sebastian Skuse
Partner
- Mada Center, Qatar
Associated research group
- Learning Societies Lab
- Date:
- 2009-2011
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
- Funding:
- Department
The project funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF, now DfE) was lead by the Dolphin Inclusive Consortium. It tested a model for the provision of textbooks and other curriculum materials in electronic files for pupils who struggle to read books in their standard format due to problems with sight or reading e.g. Dyslexia.
40 pupils aged 11 to 14 across 9 schools were given laptops and software so that they could adapt and read the files in a format best suited to their own particular circumstances.
At present, many children are not able to access the full curriculum because materials are not made available to them in a format that they can use and at the time that they need them. It is hoped that this project will lead to a sustainable model that can be extended throughout schools to meet the needs of many more pupils who are disadvantaged by the lack of curriculum materials in formats that they can readily access. We also aspire to providing pupils with valuable skills and tools that they will be able to use throughout the rest of their education and lives.
Primary investigator
Partners
- Dolphin Computer Access
- Inclusive Technologies
- Carol Allen
- Kay Wrench
Associated research group
- Learning Societies Lab
- Date:
- 2011-2011
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
- Funding:
- JISC
The ALUIAR project software will be open source and freely available and will build on the open source, freely available cross browser web based tool Synote1 to enable researchers and undergraduate and postgraduate students to analyse recordings. ALUIAR will facilitate the collaborative analysis and coding of video or audio recordings and the synchronising of notes and any associated tags they create during research observations or interviews with audio or video recordings of these activities as part of a qualitative study (e.g. ethnographic research). These synchronised annotations will support research by making the recordings easier to access, search, manage, code and analyse than any existing applications.
Synote, developed by the JISC funded MACFOB project2 is a freely available open source web based application that was developed to enable people to individually or collaboratively annotate recordings during or after a lecture or meeting with synchronised notes and tags to make it easy to bookmark, search, find, or associate their notes or resources with any specific section of that recording. Synote provides the interactivity and functionality for recorded material that contents pages, indexes and page numbers provide for a text book. ALUIAR will build on Synoteââ¬â¢s ability to use either automatic speech recognition or manual transcription of recordings to empower non-specialist users, and increase their research efficiency. Although Synote was not originally developed to analyse recordings for research purposes its power, flexibility and adaptability was identified by users as offering something valuable that was not offered by tools developed specifically for research purposes.
The ALUIAR project will provide an adaptable and learnable user interface for Synote to support the coding and analysis of recordings for research purposes.
Primary investigators
- Mike Wald
- E.A. Draffan
- Gary Wills
- Sebastian Skuse
- yl2
- Lester Gilbert
- Mary Gobbi
- Lisa Harris
- Lisa Roberts
Associated research groups
- Web and Internet Science
- Electronic and Software Systems
- Date:
- 2011-
- Theme:
- Accessible Technologies
- Funding:
- University of Southampton Student Centredness Fund
Bringing Inclusive Technologies up to Date
The first phase of this project is a complete evaluation of existing inclusive technologies across the University in conjunction with Student Services
A report was presented to the SCF Advisory Group on completion of the evaluation, and discussions with the Enabling Services resulted an update of the work completed with students on LexDis (Student strategies for the use of technology, in particular elearning and assistive technologies) and Web2Access (evaluating Web 2.0 services used for teaching and learning).
The Student Centredness project evaluations are taking place on software and websites held on university servers using student logins. There will also be advice about the links to the guidance available to students and support for access to these sites.
Primary investigators
Secondary investigator
- University of Southampton Enabling Services
Associated research group
- Web and Internet Science