Periodic Reporting for period 2 - sustAGE (Smart environments for person-centered sustainable work and well-being)
Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-06-30
sustAGE aims to develop a person-centered smart solution to support the employment and later retirement of older adults from work, optimize the workforce management, supporting employers and ageing employees to jointly increase well-being, wellness at work and productivity, and promote the concept of ”sustainable work” for EU industries. The actions in sustAGE follow three main dimensions:
- Dimension A: Improve occupational safety and health via risk assessment and prevention strategies based on workplace and person-centred health surveillance monitoring.
- Dimension B: Provide personalized recommendations for physical and mental health improvement and skill building, enhancing the individual’s motivation and promoting wellbeing.
- Dimension C: Optimize the overall workforce productivity by assessing the abilities and characteristics of individual persons (e.g. physical, mental, social, experience) in relation to work demands and risks, supporting decision making related to task/job role modifications.
The objectives of the project are:
Develop and deliver a highly adaptive and person-centric service to support older adults in work life by creating a positive work environment to employee wellbeing.
Develop smart environment technologies to improve occupational safety and health.
Enhance the perception and cognition of smart devices towards human-centered and intuitive human-computer interaction.
Develop and validate a solution in real-world environments, capitalizing on ICT innovations that will increase the competitiveness of EU industries by accommodating the ageing workforce.
Guarantee cost-effectiveness and create socio-economic benefits.
- Dimension A: Improve occupational safety and health via risk assessment and prevention strategies based on workplace and person-centred health surveillance monitoring.
- Dimension B: Provide personalized recommendations for physical and mental health improvement and skill building, enhancing the individual’s motivation and promoting wellbeing.
- Dimension C: Optimize the overall workforce productivity by assessing the abilities and characteristics of individual persons (e.g. physical, mental, social, experience) in relation to work demands and risks, supporting decision making related to task/job role modifications.
The objectives of the project are:
Develop and deliver a highly adaptive and person-centric service to support older adults in work life by creating a positive work environment to employee wellbeing.
Develop smart environment technologies to improve occupational safety and health.
Enhance the perception and cognition of smart devices towards human-centered and intuitive human-computer interaction.
Develop and validate a solution in real-world environments, capitalizing on ICT innovations that will increase the competitiveness of EU industries by accommodating the ageing workforce.
Guarantee cost-effectiveness and create socio-economic benefits.
Some of the project highlights are:
Integration and use case demonstration. The project successfully delivered the Final integrated sustAGE prototype (FIP) (M39), considering the lessons learnt from the evaluation of the first integrated prototype (1IP) that was the first feature-complete integrated version of the sustAGE system. Both prototypes were validated in both use case industry domains, manufacturing and transportation & logistics, for a period of minimum of one month, engaging real workers.
Work highlights per WP:
WP2: The work carried out led to the definition of user-system interaction requirements and system functionalities, the definition of the conceptual framework for OSH and well-being management for older employees; the development of a recommendation framework including the specification of OSH interventions that correspond with work practice and worker needs in the two industrial domains; the development of a set of exercises for the improvement of psychophysiological fitness for the working and the off work contexts; and finally, the specifications and clinical requirements for the game-based cognitive training intervention.
WP3: The work carried out led to scientific advances in algorithms for visual monitoring of user- and context-related aspects, as well as for sentiment analysis, based on the linguistic information from speech, supporting three languages English, Italian and Greek. Furthermore, mechanisms for user localization in indoor and outdoor environments, and the streaming and event monitoring framework were implemented. The interface framework for users-system interaction was developed, featuring a voice-based empathetic dialog manager that provides a more natural human-computer interaction.
WP4: The work carried out led to advances in algorithms for human activity recognition from wearable devices, speech emotion recognition from paralinguistic information in English, Italian, and Greek, and to the design and implementation of the knowledge abstraction mechanisms based on the specifications of the Micro-Moments, which are used to extract re-usable behavioral patterns and properties. Reasoning mechanisms were developed based on the exploitation of past user data and ML-based frameworks. The recommendation engine functionalities were implemented. The workforce analytics module was developed.
WP5: The work carried out led to the development of an operational infrastructure environment in both use case environments in which all software modules that are part of the sustAGE solution have been deployed. A set of 10 mini-games were created to train cognitive skills for ageing workers.
WP6: The work carried out led to the definition of scenarios in both pilots supporting a holistic paradigm. The experimental protocol was defined and since the early months of the project the limitations for conducting a field intervention study in the final cycle of the project have been considered. Several aspects of the system were assessed targeting both technical and usability aspects providing useful insights for further exploitation.
WP7: The dissemination of work carried out has gained a strong public interest. The experiences gained during sustAGE lifetime has allowed broader synergies with other EU projects.R&D efforts in sustAGE led to innovative developments at partner level, from an IT perspective, that fully leveraged exploitation of assets and code for each partner.
Integration and use case demonstration. The project successfully delivered the Final integrated sustAGE prototype (FIP) (M39), considering the lessons learnt from the evaluation of the first integrated prototype (1IP) that was the first feature-complete integrated version of the sustAGE system. Both prototypes were validated in both use case industry domains, manufacturing and transportation & logistics, for a period of minimum of one month, engaging real workers.
Work highlights per WP:
WP2: The work carried out led to the definition of user-system interaction requirements and system functionalities, the definition of the conceptual framework for OSH and well-being management for older employees; the development of a recommendation framework including the specification of OSH interventions that correspond with work practice and worker needs in the two industrial domains; the development of a set of exercises for the improvement of psychophysiological fitness for the working and the off work contexts; and finally, the specifications and clinical requirements for the game-based cognitive training intervention.
WP3: The work carried out led to scientific advances in algorithms for visual monitoring of user- and context-related aspects, as well as for sentiment analysis, based on the linguistic information from speech, supporting three languages English, Italian and Greek. Furthermore, mechanisms for user localization in indoor and outdoor environments, and the streaming and event monitoring framework were implemented. The interface framework for users-system interaction was developed, featuring a voice-based empathetic dialog manager that provides a more natural human-computer interaction.
WP4: The work carried out led to advances in algorithms for human activity recognition from wearable devices, speech emotion recognition from paralinguistic information in English, Italian, and Greek, and to the design and implementation of the knowledge abstraction mechanisms based on the specifications of the Micro-Moments, which are used to extract re-usable behavioral patterns and properties. Reasoning mechanisms were developed based on the exploitation of past user data and ML-based frameworks. The recommendation engine functionalities were implemented. The workforce analytics module was developed.
WP5: The work carried out led to the development of an operational infrastructure environment in both use case environments in which all software modules that are part of the sustAGE solution have been deployed. A set of 10 mini-games were created to train cognitive skills for ageing workers.
WP6: The work carried out led to the definition of scenarios in both pilots supporting a holistic paradigm. The experimental protocol was defined and since the early months of the project the limitations for conducting a field intervention study in the final cycle of the project have been considered. Several aspects of the system were assessed targeting both technical and usability aspects providing useful insights for further exploitation.
WP7: The dissemination of work carried out has gained a strong public interest. The experiences gained during sustAGE lifetime has allowed broader synergies with other EU projects.R&D efforts in sustAGE led to innovative developments at partner level, from an IT perspective, that fully leveraged exploitation of assets and code for each partner.
The major sustAGE state of the art advances and innovations are:
WP2 advanced the state of the art by defining age-relevant indicators for OSH and well-being also directly from end-users, specifying personalizable recommendation-based interventions that address the most prevalent needs of older workers with respect to OSH and healthy ageing, personalizing game-based cognitive trainings according to the individual cognitive abilities.
WP3 advanced the state of the art by novel methods for sentiment analysis, in-the-wild visual monitoring of safety-critical objects from a moving platform, assessment of the ergonomic risk level from abnormal time-varying body postures during assembly tasks, and implementation of an empathetic dialog manager with sentiment analysis and arousal recognition capabilities.
WP4 advanced the state of the art by releasing a novel multimodal smartwatch-based dataset for human activity recognition, enabling the combinatorial exploitation of multi-modal data to infer micro-moments on users’ states and activities, and by developing inference mechanisms that exploit individual user data to devise personalized recommendations that enhance their OSH and wellbeing.
WP5 innovations include the realization of the sustAGE solution using a multi-layer approach to monitor complex behavioural work’s states using multi-dimensional, event-stream monitoring along with a correlation on multiple input parameters addressing challenges of synchronization, temporal resolution, authentication and encryption, storage and retrieval of information, development of personalized mini-games to improve cognitive skills and work performance.
WP6: has defined the experimental protocol and validated the sustAGE system in two different industry domains – manufacturing and transportation & logistics. A number of different quantitative and qualitative metrics have been exploited to systematically assess technical and usability related aspects of sustAGE and the impact of the developed system on the industry and the users (workers).
WP7 established the framework for exploitation and innovation by defining an innovation roadmap. Exploitation efforts are united and orchestrated, and include exploitations per partner, per innovation bundle and on the perspective of the complete sustAGE solution.
WP2 advanced the state of the art by defining age-relevant indicators for OSH and well-being also directly from end-users, specifying personalizable recommendation-based interventions that address the most prevalent needs of older workers with respect to OSH and healthy ageing, personalizing game-based cognitive trainings according to the individual cognitive abilities.
WP3 advanced the state of the art by novel methods for sentiment analysis, in-the-wild visual monitoring of safety-critical objects from a moving platform, assessment of the ergonomic risk level from abnormal time-varying body postures during assembly tasks, and implementation of an empathetic dialog manager with sentiment analysis and arousal recognition capabilities.
WP4 advanced the state of the art by releasing a novel multimodal smartwatch-based dataset for human activity recognition, enabling the combinatorial exploitation of multi-modal data to infer micro-moments on users’ states and activities, and by developing inference mechanisms that exploit individual user data to devise personalized recommendations that enhance their OSH and wellbeing.
WP5 innovations include the realization of the sustAGE solution using a multi-layer approach to monitor complex behavioural work’s states using multi-dimensional, event-stream monitoring along with a correlation on multiple input parameters addressing challenges of synchronization, temporal resolution, authentication and encryption, storage and retrieval of information, development of personalized mini-games to improve cognitive skills and work performance.
WP6: has defined the experimental protocol and validated the sustAGE system in two different industry domains – manufacturing and transportation & logistics. A number of different quantitative and qualitative metrics have been exploited to systematically assess technical and usability related aspects of sustAGE and the impact of the developed system on the industry and the users (workers).
WP7 established the framework for exploitation and innovation by defining an innovation roadmap. Exploitation efforts are united and orchestrated, and include exploitations per partner, per innovation bundle and on the perspective of the complete sustAGE solution.