Movement-based interaction has brought about new possibilities in healthcare environments. Concretely, rehabilitation therapies represent an adequate domain in which this kind of systems can produce significant benefits. In this sense, the authors have developed SIVIRE, a movement-based interaction system whose main contributions are a virtual online editor of exercises with the capacity to adapt the rehabilitation to the patients’ conditions and evolution. During the development process, we have considered some aspects regarding the monitoring process to improve the quality and accuracy of the system, such as monitoring the patient’s postures, which is a critical procedure to properly correct and guide them. Specifically, this paper presents the different monitoring techniques the authors have analysed. We have analysed three mechanisms that address the monitoring process in a different way: the first one using joint coordinates, the second one based on bones coordinates and the last one using the angles generated by the bones. After the analysis of these three different mechanisms, the authors discuss the reason to identify the use of joint coordinates as the best technique to monitor patients in this kind of movement-based interaction systems. Finally, we present the results of the evaluation of the system implemented with this monitoring mechanism.

This work shows the evolution of teaching HCI in the university studies of computer engineering at the University of Lleida. The progress is described in terms of the content and the teaching methodologies based on the experience acquired during the last 25 years. The article details the changes made in the different degrees, from the methodology to the content perspective. The intent is to provide a reference document that can be useful for the teaching community interested in the Human-Computer Interaction discipline.

Context-aware systems represent an appropriate tool for healthcare environments. The capability to offer necessary information and functionality on the basis of a user’s context makes it possible to create better working environments for medical staff. Current technology supports greater customization, thus enabling the improvement of user interaction. This paper describes a significant step forward in the concept of context-awareness with a comprehensive solution: Ubi4Health. The solution enhances context-awareness by adapting the user experience in accordance with the device, interface and interaction mechanism used in a given context.

Every day the number of diseases related to brain problems increases dramatically. Medical facilities are full of people who need complex rehabilitation processes as a result of suffering from Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, brain stroke, or multiple sclerosis, as well as other conditions. Patients often spend a long time travelling every day to get to the corresponding rehabilitation clinics. Physiotherapists carefully attend patients over a period of time, and the exercises are often extremely repetitive. The type of patient suffering from these type of illnesses is unable to perform many common every day actions such as getting-up from a chair, walking in a straight line, picking up objects, etc. The system we propose in this paper provides a way for patients to perform the common rehabilitation process of getting- up from a chair. It monitors and guides the patient when the specialist considers they are prepared to do so. The specialists can focus on the results and the way to improve each rehabilitation process and not just on iterations.

Background: Healthcare environments are continuously improving their conditions, especially regarding the use of current technology. Considering the field of rehabilitation, the use of videogames and related technology has helped to develop new rehabilitations procedures. Patients are able to work on their disabilities through new processes which are more motivating and entertaining. However, these patients have a duty to leave their home environment in order to complete their rehabilitation program.

Objective: The authors have focused their research interests on finding a solution for patients to eliminate the need to leave their routines in order to attend rehabilitation therapy. In this way, a novel system has been developed which allows patients with a balance disorder to perform a specific rehabilitation exercise at home. Additionally, the system features an assistant tool to complement the work of physiotherapists. The medical staff is provided with a system which avoids the need for them to be present during the exercise in specific cases under adequate supervision.

Methods: Regarding videogames techniques, an essential element of the system we have developed is the interaction based on movement offered by Kinect. The system includes a framework that analyzes the patient’s movements to create indications and corrections during the rehabilitation exercise.

Results: Two professional therapists, who are specialists in balance disorder rehabilitation, have evaluated the system. They used the system freely during a period of time and provided interesting and optimistic opinions. They found the system to be an interesting and useful tool to be applied in rehabilitation therapies. In addition, they gave essential feedback based on their experience to improve the features of the system.

Conclusions: The system developed improves rehabilitation conditions of people with balance disorder. The main contribution comes from the fact that it allows patients to perform the rehabilitation process at home under the supervision of physiotherapists. As a result, patients avoid having to attend medical centers. Additionally, medical staff obtains an assistant that means their presence is not required in many cases where there is a need for constant repetition of the exercise.

Trial Registration: The research presented in this paper has not needed patient enrollment.

A residential care home is a suitable environment to implement a software system providing users the functionality and the information required at any time, whichever place, and circumstance. The advances of technology in the last few years have made the design of the system possible; the system will employ features regarding collaboration, ubiquity, and context-awareness. Firstly, defining the architecture of the system is necessary to guarantee a proper design and implementation. This chapter deals with those subjects. The architectural proposal is described from the hardware and software perspectives. The hardware architecture shows the distribution of the hardware components to be used: mobile devices, servers, communications, etc.; on the other hand, the software architecture shows the distribution of the system components by layers based on the functionality and information processing. Awareness is a key issue to be considered in the design of the proposed system from the point of view of collaboration; therefore, an analysis about how to handle and consider this feature on both architectures is depicted.

Neuro-rehabilitation process usually implies the patients’ need of going to medical centers. This situation makes patients go out of their daily life environment and routine. In this way, authors have developed a system that allows balance disorder patients to perform a specific rehabilitation exercise (to control the balance when walking) at home. Thanks to that, the patients are able to recover from their disability in a more comfortable and appropriate environment always under the physiotherapist supervision. In this sense, the system complements the physiotherapists’ work, avoiding in many cases the need of their presence during the repetition of the rehabilitation exercise. To that end, the system is based on movement interaction through Kinect devices and a specific framework which analyzes the patients’ movements in order to generate adequate indications and corrections during the rehabilitation process. Medical staff finds the system as an assistant tool with which enables to control the rehabilitation process in the distance if patients’ conditions allow.

Healthcare environments have always been considered an important scenario in which to apply new technologies to improve residents and employees conditions, solve problems and facilitate the performance of tasks. In this way, the use of sensors based on user movement interaction allows solving complicated situations that should be immediately addressed, such as controlling falls and fainting spells in residential care homes. However, ensuring that all the residents are always visually controlled by at least one employee is quite complicated. In this paper, we present a ubiquitous and context-aware system focused on geriatrics and residential care homes, but it could be applied to any other healthcare centre. This system has been designed to automatically detect falls and fainting spells, alerting the most appropriate employees to address the emergency. To that end, the system is based on movement interaction through a set of Kinect devices that allows the identification of the position of a person. These devices imply some development problems that authors have had to deal with, including camera location, the detection of head movements and people in horizontal position. The proposed system allows controlling each resident posture through a notification and warning procedure. When an anomalous situation is detected, the system analyses the resident posture and, if necessary, the most adequate employee will be warned to react urgently. Ubiquity and context-awareness are essential features since the proposed system has to be able to know where any employee is and what they are doing at any time. Finally, we present the outcomes of an evaluation based on the ISO 9126-4 about the usability of the system.

Current technology allows educational environments to offer teachers and students the functionality and the information required at any time, whatever the place and circumstance. Concretely, these environments mix three remarkable features: ubiquity, contextawareness and collaboration. Accordingly, a system which is developed with these three features can avoid oversights when performing tasks. Additionally, many aspects of learning fundamentals can be improved, such as collaboration and cooperative learning or students’ behaviour. In this paper, we present the definition of a system architecture, which is the first step in obtaining our proposed environment, as the adequate support is not found in any other related works. The architecture presents both a software architecture and a hardware architecture. The software architecture shows the layers in which the system distributes functionality and information. The hardware architecture shows the hardware components to be used, such as smartphones, server, communication elements, etc.

Medical staff conditions can be improved in many cases avoiding problems and accelerating procedures that finally affect to patients’ health and well-being. Current technology allows the development of systems which automatically offer information and functionality based on users’ needs. Additionally, new interaction mechanisms make it possible to detect and analyze the patient’s posture, and react accordingly to it. In this way, this paper presents Ubi4health, a system based on new technological opportunities, which automatically manages tasks and emergencies, detects falls and fainting spells and also, incorporates an innovative rehabilitation procedure. The system allows patients to perform their rehabilitation process at home always under the physiotherapists’ supervision. Finally, adequate staff can define each rehabilitation plan through an online tool at anytime and anywhere by recording their own exercises through Kinect. The system functionality is deployed by a set of five modules that are interconnected composing an integral solution. Each module offers its interface by distributing it among those devices which require its functionality.

Healthcare environments imply natural work conditions, which increase the complexity of employees’ tasks. Employees must adapt their behaviour due to continuous environment changes. Medical staff has a very well defined agenda, but unforeseen urgencies appear with the necessity to be attended immediately. In this situation, employees have to solve urgencies and later, take up pending tasks again reorganizing their agenda. Current technology allows creating systems that can help medical staff to complete their daily work avoiding problems of adaptation and organization. Collaboration, ubiquity and context-awareness are essential features to create an adequate work atmosphere in healthcare environments. In this way, this paper describes UBI4HEALTH, a healthcare collaborative system that provides users with information and functionality, based on their current context, anywhere and anytime. Finally, we present the outcomes of an evaluation based on the ISO 9126-4 about the usability of the system.

Ubiquitous environments are a main objective for new technologies. In this paper, we propose to improve ubiquitous environments through collaborative features: collaboration, cooperation, coordination, communication, information sharing, awareness, time, and space. The proposed model will allow users to work in an environment where collaborative applications will adapt its behavior depending on the environment state: user tasks, used and free resources, who is working, user location, etc. Applications need to incorporate a distributed interface in order to allow users to run the same application in different devices and in different situations.

Ubiquitous environments are a main objective for new technologies. In this paper, we propose to improve ubiquitous environments through collaborative features: collaboration, cooperation, coordination, communication, information sharing, awareness, time, and space. The proposed model will allow users to work in an environment where collaborative applications will adapt its behavior depending on the environment state: user tasks, used and free resources, who is working, user location, etc. Applications need to incorporate a distributed interface in order to allow users to run the same application in different devices and in different situations. Our proposal could be applied in real-life scenarios as Residential Care Homes. The integrative proposal can help by reducing human errors and optimizing tasks and information management. The application will give them the appropriate functionality according to the tasks they should perform and the environment state. Hence, employees will be able to focus their attention only on their tasks.

Collaborative applications are common in any environment. Google Docs is one of the most used groupware tools, which offer word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools between other possibilities. Google Documents, as part of Google Docs, focuses on word processing. In this paper, it is analyzed as a collaborative application. The analysis consists of finding how the tool deals with each groupware feature: collaboration, cooperation, communication, information sharing, awareness, time and space. Additionally, the analysis has been completed with an experiment which consists of organizing a task to be done by a number of users in Google Documents. This evaluation suggested some ideas about how to enhance Google Documents. Therefore, some improvements are proposed based on the user experience and on the authors’ expertise in the research field.

This paper describes the parallelization process of the code PROMES, which represents a regional atmospheric model developed by some of the authors. The parallel code, called PROMESPAR, has been carried out under a distributed platform (cluster of PCs) and using Message Passing Interface (MPI) communication subroutines.

Este artículo describe el proceso de paralización del código PROMES, el cual representa un modelo atmosférico regional desarrollado por algunos de los autores. El código paralelo, denominado PROMESPAR, ha sido llevado a cabo bajo una plataforma distribuida (clúster de PCs) y haciendo uso de las subrutinas de comunicación de la Interfaz de Paso de Mensajes (MPI).