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INRIA is a French public sector scientific and technological institute operating under the dual authority of the Ministry of Research and the Ministry of Industry. INRIA’s missions are “to undertake basic and applied research, to design experimental systems, to ensure technology and knowledge transfer, to organize international scientific exchanges, to carry out scientific assessments, and to contribute to standardization”. The research carried out at INRIA brings together experts from the fields of computer science and applied mathematics covering the following areas: Networks and Systems; Software Engineering and Symbolic Computing; Man-Machine Interaction; Image Processing, Data Management, Knowledge Systems, Simulation and Optimization of Complex Systems. INRIA’s ambition is to be an international research institute at the heart of the information society. INRIA aims to network skills and talents from the fields of information and computer science and technology from the entire French research system. This network allows scientific excellence to be used for technological progress, for creating employment and wealth and for new uses in response to socioeconomic needs.

Within INRIA, the Pulsar team will work in the Dem@Care project. Pulsar research themes deal with the design of intelligent systems based on knowledge representation, learning and reasoning techniques. In cognitive vision we study two kinds of automatic image understanding: video sequence understanding and complex object recognition. Pulsar has several international and industrial relations in video understanding; participation in European and national projects such as the Sweet-Home project on long-term monitoring of older people to build an innovative framework for modelling activities of daily living (ADLs) at home. These activities can help assessing diseases of the elderly (e.g. Alzheimer‘s, depression, apathy), detecting pre-cursors such as unbalanced walking, speed, walked distance, psychomotor slowness, frequent sighing and frowning, social withdrawal as a result of spending increasing time indoors.

In Dem@Care, INRIA‘s research group Pulsar will be involved in the investigation of human-interactions/behaviours perception from fixed video cameras (contributing to WP4 – Situational Analysis of Daily Activities). Moreover, Pulsar will study video scene understanding algorithms to take advantage of multi-modal behavioural cues extracted in the project to provide adequate services to older people (WP5 – Medical Ambient Intelligence). For instance, Pulsar will investigate the design of a new framework to endow monitoring systems with capabilities for learning behaviour profiles.

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LTU is one of three technical universities in Sweden and focuses on applied research in collaboration with industry and society. LTU conducts research in 70 research subjects with an annual turnover of 70 million €. The Department of Computer Science, Space and Electrical Engineering (CSSEE) at LTU conducts research in pervasive and mobile computing, computer science, computer networks, embedded internet systems, biomedical engineering, control technology and signal processing. CSSEE has around 150 employees including 70 PhD students, where research projects often are conducted at the Centre for Distance-spanning Technology (CDT) which is a centre bridging academic research with industrial and societal needs through partner organisations like Ericsson Research, the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, the County Administrative Board of Norrbotten, Norrbotten County Council, and the City of Luleå.

The Media Technology research group at LTU has been involved in several large-scale projects at the European level, often at CDT and EIC, since 1995. The Esprit project MATES was central in founding the IST prize winning company Marratech in 1998, which was acquired by Google in 2007. This research was continued in the FP5 projects Roxy and MediaSite. The FP5 project MobiHealth supported elderly people with mobile solutions and the FP6 project FP6 COGKNOW successfully prototyped and is commercialising assistive technologies for people with dementia, which was later continued in the European regional project MemoryLane focusing on adding memory support through life-logging concepts, and in the FP7 coordination action AALIANCE.(roadmap and strategic research agenda for Europe). In the FP6 integrated project WearIT@work the group was involved in electronic meeting tools for wearable computers. The ERA pilot BrainBridges sought a wider distribution of collaborative working environments to sponsor electronic co-creativity, which later was a continued focus of the group in the FP6 integrated project Laboranova. A number of national and regional projects have in addition been conducted together with local industry, such as Alipes, Situate, MobiGroup, Turbûla and GroupMedia.

In Dem@Care, and through the Media Technology group, LTU leads WP6 – Client-side Interaction, bringing its longstanding expertise in mobile, context-aware and pervasive computing systems for advanced e-Health applications, which can support people with dementia with life-logging based memory support tools as part of cognitive prosthetics. The group will lead research in context discovery and prediction, proactive adaptation, multimedia communication and social networking technologies, and will continue pursuing applying research results to life-logging based memory support tools. LTU is also responsible for the running of the pilots in Sweden.

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CLARITY, the Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, at Dublin City University (DCU), is an Irish national research centre that develops innovative new technologies towards improving the quality of life of people in areas such as personal health, digital media and management of our environment. CLARITY is a partnership between University College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the Tyndall National Institute (TNI) Cork. The overarching theme of CLARITY’s research programme refers to harvesting and harnessing of large volumes of sensed information, from both the physical world in which we live, and the digital world of modern communications & computing. CLARITY brings the expertise of more than 100 researchers plus a management and administration team in areas as diverse as text and multimedia semantic analysis and searching, personal and environmental sensing technologies, wireless networking, distributed artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. The group has taken part in previous and current EU projects including the FP6 Integrated Project aceMedia, the FP7 NoEs 3DLife and K-Space, and the FP7 Integrated Project AXES.

In addition to the expertise from the CLARITY centre, Dublin City University also brings in clinical and research expertise in dementia through the Memory Works clinic. Memory Works is a screening clinic aimed at identifying people with a pathological reason for their memory problems and those who do not. It is a patient-facing clinic that works on s self-referral or general practitioner referral basis and a referral hub to secondary services. Finally, the University’s Institute of Ethics contributes to Dem@Care by creating an awareness of the importance and role of throughout the project, of issues related to the privacy and confidentiality of any interactions with people with dementia or their careers. The Institute will develop ethics-related procedures (notifications, approvals, etc.), an analysis of ethical challenges, and development of key ethical principals for the project, in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and European Standards on Confidentiality and Privacy in Healthcare.

In Dem@Care, DCU will lead WP2 – Requirements and Impact, bringing expertise regarding clinical requirements and ethical issues pertaining to the remote monitoring and management of people with dementia, and will also be responsible for the running of the pilots in Ireland. DCU will also address the lifestyle monitoring and analysis tasks, as well as for the lifelogging related research activities.

Philips Electronics Nederland (PENB) is a global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology, focused on improving people‘s lives through timely innovations. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Royal Philips Electronics employs approximately 121,400 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of 26 billion € in 2008, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, personal care and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics. In 2008, PENB spent 1.6 billion € on R&D and holds 80,000 registered patents, which shows the innovative nature of the company.

Since a couple of years ago PENB ha focused its research and development activities mainly on health and well-being with the strong Philips Healthcare and Lifestyle divisions. PENB seeks to improve the quality of people‘s lives through focusing on their health and well-being. Philips Healthcare develops tools that deliver value throughout the complete cycle of care, starting from prevention, via screening/diagnosis, to treatment, home health management and aging independently services. Philips Lifestyle goes beyond medical-related aspects of health, but also keeping fit, eating a healthy diet, generally feel well and living a healthy lifestyle. PENB has a long heritage of pioneering innovation currently also focusing on eHealth technologies such as remote patient monitoring and wellbeing services, as well as their standardisation in organizations such as Continua Health Alliance, IHE and HL-7. Philips Research works in very close cooperation with Philips product divisions. Thereby, the work done results in techniques and systems that find their way into Philips products and international standards. Furthermore, Philips Research is active in various international co-operations, a number of European projects, and contributes scientific papers to many international conferences.

In Dem@Care, PENB leads WP3 – Health and Lifestyle Monitoring and Analysis, bringing its long standing expertise in physiological signs and activities monitoring and analysis for wellbeing services, and specifications and requirements for remote healthcare platforms development, and leads. Furthermore, PENB will contribute to the development of the closed-loop for the dementia clinicians, building on its significant experience in relevant techniques and products for this domain. PENB is also responsible for tasks related to data privacy and security matters, related to the collection and management of patient data.

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The Memory Resource and Research Centre (CMRR) of the University Hospital in Nice (CHUN) was officially established on December 19, 2002, following a call from the Department of Health (DHOS) (April 16, 2002 and 16 July 2002). The CMRR is founded on the following four pillars: i) care, ii) teaching, iii) research, and iv) activation and maintenance of professionals’ networks. The research activities of CMRR involve behavioural and affective (mood) disturbances related to dementia. Behavioural disturbances are, in essence, an expression of brain function enabling an individual to adapt to his or her environment. Alzheimer‘s disease is characterised by such behavioural and psychological disturbances, which are referred to by the acronym “BPSD”. BPSD are a focus of interest since they occur very frequently and may play an important role in causing suffering to both people with dementia and their carers.

CMRR in the University Hospital in Nice has an international and national reputation in the research and care of these problems, particularly, the behavioural syndrome of apathy. A particular strength of the CMRR is the development, validation and use of scales and diagnostic criteria for the evaluation of behavioural problems (BPSD) in dementia. Examples include the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), the Apathy Inventory (AI) diagnostic criteria for apathy. CMMR is also strongly involved in research concerning non-pharmacological treatments for behavioural disturbances in dementia. Non-pharmacological treatments are a key recommendation from various national agencies, for which there is a dearth of welldesigned scientific studies supporting the validity of such techniques. The CMRR of the University Hospital in Nice, with the support of the Department of Health (Direction Générale de la Santé), has recently completed the first randomised-controlled trial evaluating the effect of a specially-trained care team for the management of behavioural disturbances in nursing home (“EHPAD”) residents with dementia in France. Furthermore, CMRR has a strong participation in wider research networks, including the European Alzheimer‘s Disease Consortium (EADC) and the National Alzheimer data basis (BNA). The latter is composed of 327 centres (27 CMRR and 300 memory centres) and is coordinated by Professor Philippe Robert of CMMR, CHUN. Further information for a complete view of the CMMR activities and publications can be found at.

In Dem@Care, CMMR will provide clinical knowledge expertise regarding diagnostic criteria for dementia, behavioural and affective disturbances, the definition and validation of protocols and methodologies for the clinical assessment of people with dementia and of care management and feedback guidelines. CMMR will also have a key role in the overall assessment, from a clinical point of view, of Dem@Care’s performance and effectiveness, and will lead WP8 – Pilots, Evaluation and Clinical Validation, while also being responsible for the running of pilots in France.

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VISTEK ISRA VISION is a spin-off company from Sabancı University, VPALAB, the only vision laboratory in Turkey, which has been selected as a “potential center of excellence” by the EU. VISTEK ISRA VISION is specialized in developing the following solutions for application areas addressing hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living for the elderly:

• Monitoring patients in the anesthetic recovery room: automatically detecting wake-up and possible self-threatening behaviour (e.g. manipulating intravenous infusion lines)
• Monitoring patients beds: falling out of bed, unusual movements, sleep anomalies (e.g. apnea, unusual motion) – with a single untethered audio-visual sensor-
• Activity monitoring for assisted living: measure daily activity and interactions of residents in assisted living homes. Alert in case of substantial activity reduction e.g. due to dementia.
• Provide data for protocols to be analyzed by human experts.

VISTEK ISRA VISION addresses these topics in close collaboration with clinical institutions such as hospitals and nursing homes that will provide us the possibility for data collection in the clinical environment. The clinical partners will also help us to identify the exact need and will help us understand the issues that will arise in practical use. Concerning exploitation, VISTEK ISRA VISION is currently involved in two European projects related to these tasks.
The first is the FP7 ITEA2 VICOMO that addresses the extraction of the visual context in which an environment is or objects are being observed by multiple video sensors. The system is based on advanced video interpretation algorithms and data are typically acquired with multiple cameras. The second if the VIPSAFE project, jointly carried out with Karlsruhe University, VIDEMO and Sabancı University has the goal to develop novel techniques for automated visual monitoring of persons with dementia and elder people living in nursing homes or in their (assisted) home environments. VISTEK ISRA VISION researchers are extremely active and visible within the research community and will use these connections to promote Dem@Care project outputs. Prof. Aytul Ercil is on the executive committee of IAPR (International Association of Pattern Recognition). She was the conference chair for ICPR 2010. Furthermore, VISTEK ISRA VISION currently has close contacts with key players in the healthcare sector in Turkey and collaborates with prominent healthcare service providers to promote the concept of remote monitoring and care services.

In Dem@Care, VISTEK ISRA VISION will contribute to the development of the closed-loop for the person with dementia, building on its significant experience in this domain. Furthermore, it will lead WP9 – Dissemination & Exploitation and will promote and advertise the components of the prospective Dem@Care system to national elderly care facilities and private services, taking the lead in establishing a good exposure for the outcomes of the Dem@Care system.

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The creation of Link Care Services (LCS) was inspired by two personal stories that are common today: the arrival of Alzheimer’s disease in two families – Richard Saccone’s and Laurent Hirsch’s – both distraught by a lack of information, support and most importantly, solutions. Some 250,000 families in France live the same story every year. These families are in similar distress and are also looking for ways to cope. They created LCS in 2006 to offer these families a solution.

LCS is the first to offer a solution that is perfectly adapted to Alzheimer’s disease and the complexities of people with dementia and their needs. The innovative service has been tested, studied and evaluated by professionals throughout the stages of the company‘s creation and development. The First Capital increase occurred in 2008, funding provided by Isource- Gestion, a venture capital firm for innovative businesses, and the second, in July 2009 to expand development countrywide.

LCS is now a 25 people company who develops and distributes solutions and services for Home and for Care Facilities thru the brand EDAO, to help the dependent people. LCS offers a specially designed monitoring service to assist dependent people and their caregivers. This computer-assisted video monitoring system takes over from caregivers for a few hours using software that automatically analyzes a person‘s behaviour and detects anything unusual.

In Dem@Care, LCS brings its expertise in the installation and operation of ICT, home- and care facilities-based, solutions for the monitoring and support of people affected by the Altzheimer disease. Specifically, LCS will contribute to the set-up and smooth running of the pilots, as well as to the assessment and measuring of the resulting impact and the effects on the associated dissemination and exploitation policies.

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