Bavaria California Technology Center


BaCaTeC - Summer School


Pervasive Healthcare Systems


July 30 to August 03 2007, at Kloster Seeon, Germany

Kultur und Bildungszentrum des Bezirks Oberbayern, Klosterweg 1, D- 83370 Seeon
http://www.kloster-seeon.de/seeon_engl/index.html
Fotostudio Christoph Vohler, München


   


Organizers

Paul Lukowicz, Embedded Systems Lab, University of Passau, Germany

Dirk Balfanz, Computer Science Lab, PARC Palo Alto Research Center, USA

Alois Ferscha, Institute for Pervasive Computing, University of Linz, Austria


Aim

Provide a comprehensive, multidisciplinary introduction to health and wellness related applications of Pervasive Computing. Topics will include

  1. Overview of key technologies to be presented by leading international experts.

  2. Overview of the requirements in the different application areas to be presented by leading practitioners and researchers

  3. Examples of applications presented first hand by individuals involved in the respective projects.

Ample time will be provided for off-line discussions with the experts and networking.


Lecturers (Tentative)

D. Balfanz (PARC,), G. Faberger, (Swedish Handicapped Institute), A. Ferscha (U. Linz), R. Haux (U. Braunschweig), P. Lukowicz (U. Passau), J. Paradiso (MIT, Cambridge Ma), T. Starner (Georgia Tech), T. Ziegert (SAP Research, Germany), G. Tröster (ETH Zurich),


Cost and Registration

The cost is Euro 370 per participant. This includes 5 days of full board lodging, all the lectures, electronic access to lecture material. Registration by June 15th at http://www.emsys.fim.uni-passau.de/bacatec.html. Number of places limited (first come first serve).


Content of the Summer School:

The concept of an intelligent environment proactively providing the user with the right service/information and the right time and place goes back to the proposal of Marc Weiser at the Xerox PARC Research Center in 1988. With recent advances in mobile communications, sensor technology and computing power what has initially been little more then a fascinating idea has become a hotly contested research topic. As Ubiquitous Computing, Ambient Intelligence or Pervasive Computing different flavours of the original idea have been at the center of large research initiatives on European and national level. Key technological and scientific questions are the integration of electronics into every day objects, on body sensing, situation awareness, novel methods for human computer interaction as well as appropriate middleware and communication infrastructure. Beyond pure technology the issue of convincing real life applications is increasingly becoming a central topic in the field. Here the area of health and healthcare has emerged as a promising domain. So called Pervasive Healthcare Systems encompasses a broad range of topics such as advanced hospital information and logistics systems, mobile health monitoring, assisted living for the elderly and the handicapped, and lifestyle and wellness related personal systems. All of the above are both socially and economically highly relevant. The demographic trend towards a more elderly society and the rising healthcare costs lead to a strong demand for solutions that provide adequate care at affordable cost. Furthermore consumers are increasingly health conscious and looking for lifestyle, wellness and health related products.

As promising as it is as an application domain, the field of Pervasive Healthcare is scientifically and technologically highly challenging. Healthcare applications involve complex processes often within strict regulatory constraints. Reliability, security and privacy are central to many applications. In addition since the systems are often closely integrated with the user’s everyday activities and relate to very private issues subtle, human computer interaction issues play an important role in the system design.


The aim of the summer school is to leverage the expertise of the organisers to provide an in-depth understanding of the opportunities and problems specific to the field of Pervasive Healthcare and give examples of state of the art solutions. To this end the summer school will be organized as follows:

  1. Overview of key technologies to be presented by leading international experts. Topics will include communications, on body sensing (with a focus on biomechanical and physiological sensing), activity and context recognition, hardware issues with a focus on textile electronics and other electronic integration techniques, middleware, user centered application design, and human computer interaction.

  2. Overview of the requirements in the key application areas to be presented by leading practitioners and researchers. Main topics will include mobile health monitoring, rehabilitation, sports and wellness, behavioural monitoring (healthy lifestyle support), and hospital information systems. The latter will encompass general process optimization (assets tracking, medication delivery control) as well as on the job information access and collection for medical personnel.

  3. Examples of applications presented first hand by individuals involved in the respective projects. This will include large EU funded efforts such as the MyHeart and MonAmi as well as small, focused local projects in both Europe and the US.

  4. Panel sessions that allow the participants to present their ideas

In addition ample time will be reserved for off-line contacts with the experts that will allow the participants to network and consult with leading international players in the field.