CORDIS

EU research results

CORDIS

Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly

Fact Sheet

Reporting

Results

Objective

The EMPATHIC Research & Innovation project will research, innovate, explore and validate new paradigms and platforms, laying the foundation for future generations of Personalised Virtual Coaches to assist elderly people living independently at and around their home.
Innovative multimodal face analytics, adaptive spoken dialogue systems and natural language interfaces are part of what the project will research and innovate, in order to help dependent aging persons and their carers.
The project will use remote non-intrusive technologies to extract physiological markers of emotional states in real-time for online adaptive responses of the coach, and advance holistic modelling of behavioural, computational, physical and social aspects of a personalised expressive virtual coach. It will develop causal models of coach-user interactional exchanges that engage elders in emotionally believable interactions keeping off loneliness, sustaining health status, enhancing quality of life and simplifying access to future telecare services.
The project will include a demonstration and validation phase with clearly-defined realistic use cases. It will focus on evidence-based, user-validated research and integration of intelligent user and context sensing methods through voice, eye and facial analysis, intelligent heuristics (complex interaction, user intention detection, distraction estimation, system decision), visual and spoken dialogue system, and system reaction capabilities.
Through measurable end-user validation, to be performed in 3 different countries (Spain, Norway and France) with 3 distinct languages and cultures (plus English for R&D), the proposed methods and solutions will ensure usefulness, reliability, flexibility and robustness.
The project partners include health-maintenance end-user organisations, technology developers, academic / research institutes and system integrators.
The project, planned for a 36-month duration, is estimated to require total funding of 4 M€

Programme(s)

H2020-EU.3.1.4. - Active ageing and self-management of health

Topic(s)

SC1-PM-15-2017 - Personalised coaching for well-being and care of people as they age

Call for proposal

H2020-SC1-2017-CNECT-1

See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

RIA - Research and Innovation action

Leaflet | Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, Credit: EC-GISCO, © EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries

Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA

Address

Barrio Sarriena S N
48940 Leioa

Spain

Activity type

Higher or Secondary Education Establishments

EU Contribution

€ 796 250

Website

Contact the organisation

Participants (10)

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OSATEK SA

Spain

EU Contribution

€ 561 800

OSLO UNIVERSITETSSYKEHUS HF

Norway

EU Contribution

€ 390 000

E-SENIORS: INITIATION DES SENIORS AUX NTIC ASSOCIATION

France

EU Contribution

€ 160 000

TUNSTALL HEALTHCARE (UK) LIMITED

United Kingdom

EU Contribution

€ 289 375

TECHNION - ISRAEL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Israel

EU Contribution

€ 6 023,66

INTELLIGENT VOICE LIMITED

United Kingdom

EU Contribution

€ 655 000

ACAPELA GROUP BABEL TECHNOLOGIES SA

Belgium

EU Contribution

€ 289 750

INSTITUT MINES-TELECOM

France

EU Contribution

€ 387 250

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DELLA CAMPANIA LUIGI VANVITELLI

Italy

EU Contribution

€ 291 782,50

UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA

Spain

EU Contribution

€ 172 568,84

Project information

EMPATHIC

Grant agreement ID: 769872

Project website

Status

Ongoing project

Start date

1 November 2017
End date

31 October 2020

Funded under:

H2020-EU.3.1.4.

Overall budget:

€ 3 999 800
EU contribution

€ 3 999 800

Coordinated by:

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA

Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMPATHIC (Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly)

Reporting period: 2017-11-01 to 2019-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Social Challenges of Aging: Technology at the Service of People.

The EMPATHIC project contributes to respond to one of the main social challenges that demographic change poses on European society: maintaining the health, well-being and independent life of people as they age. Longevity has been explained by attributing 75% to socio-behavioural conditions and 25% to genetic factors. From this assumption, the range of variability introduced by environmental factors is very broad and would explain, in part, the different ways of aging: from an active and positive aging to an aging with illness and dependence. In this context, the European Commission (EC) promotes technology and innovation, with particular emphasis on challenges related to aging. Furthermore, Information and communication technologies (ICT) play an important role in improving the quality of life, being able to enhance autonomy and independence and enabling the group of elders to remain active, both in the workplace and in the community. EMPATHIC proposal is based on a conceptual and ethical framework focused on the people rights and responsibilities, which is based on principles established by the United Nations: a) Dignity, which includes privacy, informed consent, autonomy, obtrusiveness and equal access; b) Autonomy, which requires respect for self-determination of people including recognition of the heterogeneity of people and respect to their preferences; c) Participation, established as one of the pillars of active aging, together with health and safety, according to the World Health Organisation.

EMAPTHIC overall Objectives:

- Design a virtual coach (EMPATHIC-VC), to engage the healthy-senior user to enhance wellbeing through awareness of personal physical status, by improving diet and nutritional habits, by developing more physical exercise and by social activity
- Involve end-users and to reach a degree of fit to their personalised needs and requirements, derived by the coach, which will enhance their well-being
- Supply the coach with Incorporate non-intrusive, privacy-preserving, empathic, expressive interaction technologies.
- Validate the coach efficiency and effectiveness across 3 distinct European societies (Norway, Spain, and France), with 200 to 250 subjects – who will be involved from the start
- Evaluate/validate the effectiveness of EMPATHIC designs against relevant user’s personalised acceptance and affordance criteria.
- Drive the developed methodology and tools to industry acceptance and open-source access in the software engineering process of implementing socially-centred ICT products.

The Multidisciplinary and Multi-sectorial nature of the EMPATHIC Consortium:

- Geriatrician, Neuroscientist, Psychiatric, health and social work specialists.
- Psychologist, Neuroscientist and Computer Science experts.
- Engineers and Computer Scientists in speech and language technologies, biometrics, image analysis, and machine learning.
- Telecare services, a senior association and a hospital interested in testing and validating EMPATHIC.
- Companies interested in providing and developing technology for the project and commercialising the products and derived services

Consortium members include:

Universidad del Pais Vasco, Academic partner, Spain
OSATEK Public health provider , Social services for elders, Spain
Oslo University Hospital, Academic and health provider, Norway
E-Seniors Association, Association of end users, France
Tunstall Healthcare (UK) Ltd., Telecare Industry, UK
Intelligent Voice Ltd., Research SME, UK
Acapela Group S.A. Research SME, Belgium
Institut Mines-Télécom, Academic partner, France
Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, Academic partner, Italy
Universitat de Barcelona, Academic partner, Spain

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

An example of user understanding

Emotion recognition from speech

Data flow

Empathic Architecture

Emotion, gaze and blink estimation from facial expression

Project information

EMPATHIC

Grant agreement ID: 769872

Project website

Status

Ongoing project

Start date

1 November 2017
End date

31 October 2020

Funded under:

H2020-EU.3.1.4.

Overall budget:

€ 3 999 800
EU contribution

€ 3 999 800

Coordinated by:

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA

Deliverables

Websites, patent fillings, videos etc. (1)

D8.1 Project Public Website

A public web site will be set up. This web site will be the primary platform for the dissemination activities, including publishing information about the project goals, research, tasks and achievements

Documents, reports (2)

D9.1 Project Management, Collaboration Infrastructure and Quality Assurance Manual

Internal collaborative web-based platform

D7.1 Report on mid-Period EMPATHIC validation

Mid-period report on EMPATHIC mid-Period validation, including feedback on revisions to the original requirements analysis and specification definition

Publications

Conference proceedings (8)

Seniors’ Sensing of Agents’ Personality from Facial Expressions

Author(s): Anna Esposito, Stephan Schlögl, Terry Amorese, Antonietta Esposito, Maria Inés Torres, Francesco Masucci, Gennaro Cordasco

Published in: In: Miesenberger K., Kouroupetroglou G. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Issue volume 10897, 2018, Page(s) 438-442

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-94274-2_63

A Differentiable Generative Adversarial Network for Open Domain Dialogue.

Author(s): III. A. López Zorrilla, M. De velasco-Vázquez and M. I. Torres

Published in: Proceedings of International Workshop on Spoken Dialog System Technology (IWSDS), 2019., 2019

The EMPATHIC Project: Building an Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly.

Author(s): Brinkschulte, Luisa & Mariacher, Natascha & Schlögl, Stephan & Torres, M & R, Justo & Mikel Olaso, Javier & Esposito, Anna & Cordasco, Gennaro & Chollet, Gerard & Glackin, Cornelius & C, Pickard & Petrovska-Delacrétaz, Dijana & Hmani, Mohamed & Mtibaa, Aymen & A, Fernandez & D, Kyslitska & Fernandez-Ruanova, Begoña & J, Tenorio-Laranga & M, Aksnes & O, Gordeeva.

Published in: Conference: Innovative Lösungen für eine alternde Gesellschaft – Konferenzbeiträge der SMARTER LIVES 18, 2018, Page(s) 36-52

Iruzurrezko portaeren detekzioa crowd motako etiketazioan

Author(s): De Velasco Vázquez, Mikel; López Zorrilla, Asier; Justo Blanco, Raquel

Published in: IkerGazte, 2019, Issue 1, 2019

An Spoken Dialog System for the Empathic Virtual Coach

Author(s): M. Inés Torres, Cornelius Glackin, Raquel Justo and Gérard Chollet

Published in: International Workshop on Spoken Dialog System Technology, 2018

A Differentiable Generative Adversarial Network for Open Domain Dialogue

Author(s): López Zorrilla, Asier; De Velasco Vázquez, Mikel; Torres Barañano, María Inés

Published in: IWSDS 2019, Siracusa, Italy, April 24-26, 2019, Issue 1, 2019

Euskaraz hitz egiten ikasten duten makina autodidaktak

Author(s): López Zorrilla, Asier; De Velasco Vázquez, Mikel; Justo Blanco, Raquel

Published in: IkerGazte, 2019, Issue 1, 2019

Emotion Detection from Speech and Text

Author(s): Mikel de Velasco, Raquel Justo, Josu Antón, Mikel Carrilero, M. Inés Torres

Published in: IberSPEECH 2018, 2018, Page(s) 68-71

DOI: 10.21437/iberspeech.2018-15

Peer reviewed articles (6)

A Dialogue-Act Taxonomy for a Virtual Coach Designed to Improve the Life of Elderly

Author(s): Cesar Montenegro, Asier López Zorrilla, Javier Mikel Olaso, Roberto Santana, Raquel Justo, Jose Antonio Lozano, María Inés Torres

Published in: Multimodal Technologies and Interaction, Issue 3/3, 2019, Page(s) 52, ISSN 2414-4088

DOI: 10.3390/mti3030052

Corrective Focus Detection in Italian Speech Using Neural Networks

Author(s): Asier López-Zorrilla, Mikel deVelasco-Vázquez, Sonia Cenceschi, M. Inés Torres

Published in: Acta Polytechnica Hungarica, Issue 15/5, 2018, ISSN 1785-8860

DOI: 10.12700/APH.15.5.2018.5.7

EMPATHIC: Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly

Author(s): López Zorrilla, Asier; Velasco Vázquez, Mikel de; Irastorza, Jon; Olaso Fernández, Javier Mikel; Justo Blanco, Raquel; Torres Barañano, María Inés

Published in: Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural, Issue 61, 2018, ISSN 1135-5948

DOI: 10.26342/2018-61-24

EMPATHIC: Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly

Author(s): López Zorrilla, Asier; Velasco Vázquez, Mikel de; Irastorza, Jon; Olaso Fernández, Javier Mikel; Justo Blanco, Raquel; Torres Barañano, María Inés

Published in: Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural, Issue 61, 2018, ISSN 1135-5948

DOI: 10.26342/2018-61-24

Detection of Sarcasm and Nastiness: New Resources for Spanish Language

Author(s): Raquel Justo, José M. Alcaide, M. Inés Torres, Marilyn Walker

Published in: Cognitive Computation, 2018, ISSN 1866-9956

DOI: 10.1007/s12559-018-9578-5

User-aware dialogue management policies over attributed bi-automata

Author(s): Manex Serras, María Inés Torres, Arantza del Pozo

Published in: Pattern Analysis and Applications, 2018, ISSN 1433-7541

DOI: 10.1007/s10044-018-0743-y

Book chapters (1)

Tracking the Expression of Annoyance in Call Centers

Author(s): Jon Irastorza, María Inés Torres

Published in: Topics in Intelligent Engineering and Informatics, 2018, Page(s) 131-151

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-95996-2_7

Project information

EMPATHIC

Grant agreement ID: 769872

Project website

Status

Ongoing project

Start date

1 November 2017
End date

31 October 2020

Funded under:

H2020-EU.3.1.4.

Overall budget:

€ 3 999 800
EU contribution

€ 3 999 800

Coordinated by:

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA

Project information

EMPATHIC

Grant agreement ID: 769872

Project website

Status

Ongoing project

Start date

1 November 2017
End date

31 October 2020

Funded under:

H2020-EU.3.1.4.

Overall budget:

€ 3 999 800
EU contribution

€ 3 999 800

Coordinated by:

UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA

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Last update: 12 August 2019

Record number: 401906

CORDIS

Objective

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Participants (10)

Project information

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EMPATHIC (Empathic, Expressive, Advanced Virtual Coach to Improve Independent Healthy-Life-Years of the Elderly)

Project information

Deliverables

Publications

Project information

Project information

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