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Human Activity Recognition (HAR) can be defined as the automatic prediction of the regular human activities performed in our day-to-day life, such as walking, running, cooking, performing office work, etc. It is truly beneficial in the field of medical care services, for example, personal health care assistants, old-age care services, maintaining patient records for future help, etc. Input data to a HAR system can be (a) videos or still images capturing human activities, or (b) time-series data of human body movements while performing the activities taken from sensors in the smart devices like accelerometer, gyroscope, etc. In this work, we mainly focus on the second category of the input data. Here, we propose an ensemble of three classification models, namely CNN-Net, Encoded-Net, and CNN-LSTM, which is named as EnsemConvNet. Each of these classification models is built upon simple 1D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) but differs in terms of the number of dense layers, kernel size used along with other key differences in the architecture. Each model accepts the time series data as a 2D matrix by taking a window of data at a time in order to infer information, which ultimately predicts the type of human activity. Classification outcome of the EnsemConvNet model is decided using various classifier combination methods that include majority voting, sum rule, product rule, and a score fusion approach called adaptive weighted approach. Three benchmark datasets, namely WISDM activity prediction, UniMiB SHAR, MobiAct, are used for evaluating our proposed model. We have compared our EnsemConvNet model with some existing deep learning models such as Multi Headed CNN, hybrid of CNN, and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) models. The results obtained here establish the supremacy of the EnsemConvNet model over the other mentioned models.

Exploring the specific field of care robot orientation generates many questions regarding the meaning, content and how it should be conducted. The issue is important due to the general digitalisation and implementation of welfare technology and care robots. The aim of the study was to explore perceptions of care robot orientation from the potential users’ perspective. Data were collected by focus group interviews in Finland, Germany and Sweden. In all three countries, potential user groups were represented: older adults, relatives, professional caregivers and care service managers. A qualitative descriptive method was used for analysing data. The data revealed three aspects of care robot orientation: (1) What care robot orientation is, (2) Who needs it and by Whom it should be given and (3) How it should be performed. The need for care robot orientation is general in society. In the absence of knowledge about care robots, it is nearly impossible to know what to ask for or actually seek information about. Therefore, care robot orientation must be founded on agile implementation planning for care robots, with a firm basis in trustworthy knowledge and information and respecting individuals’ wishes. This also gives rise to an ethical challenge when care robots are offered to people having reduced decision-making ability (dementia, cognitive impairment), along with the issue of who then should make the decision. The mapping of the What , Who/Whom and How aspects of care robot orientation offers a foundation for the creation of orientation models, which might facilitate structured and goal-oriented care robot orientation strategies.

Home care and aged care in English-speaking countries around the globe have enthusiastically taken up a model of work known as ‘relationship-based care’ (RBC). Part of the popularity of RBC is because it does not challenge austerity, underfunding, and extensive managerialism. Instead it works within and through them to foster caring connections between patients, staff, and families, and is able to do so because workers are willing to self-sacrifice for clients. Drawing on case study data collected using a ‘rapid ethnography’ methodology in two large Australian aged care organisations, this article explores workers’ experience of work and contributes to Bolton’s typology of emotion management in the relationship-based care endeavour. Our typology includes: (1) austerity-linked sacrifice; (2) official discourse; (3) faux control; and (4) compulsory time philanthropy. The article contributes to debates on care work, relationship-based care, emotional labour, and emotion management and working in the context of austerity and managerialism.

Improvements in life expectancy achieved by technological advancements in the recent decades have increased the proportion of elderly people. Frailty of old age, susceptibility to diseases, and impairments are inevitable issues that these senior adults need to deal with in daily life. Recently, there has been an increasing demand on developing elderly care services utilizing novel technologies, with the aim of providing independent living. Internet of things (IoT), as an advanced paradigm to connect physical and virtual things for enhanced services, has been introduced that can provide significant improvements in remote elderly monitoring. Several efforts have been recently devoted to address elderly care requirements utilizing IoT-based systems. Nevertheless, there still exists a lack of user-centered study from an all-inclusive perspective for investigating the daily needs of senior adults. In this paper, we study the IoT-enabled systems tackling elderly monitoring to categorize the existing approaches from a new perspective and to introduce a hierarchical model for elderly-centered monitoring. We investigate the existing approaches by considering the elderly requirements at the center of the attention. In addition, we evaluate the main objectives and trends in IoT-based elderly monitoring systems in order to pave the way for future systems to improve the quality of elderly’s life.

In the situation of high maternal morbidity and mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa, less than 80% of pregnant women receive antenatal care services. To date, the overall effect of antenatal care (ANC) follow up on essential newborn practice have not been estimated in East Africa. Therefore, this study aims to identify the effect of ANC follow up on essential newborn care practice in East Africa. We reported this review according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). We searched articles using PubMed, Cochrane library, African journal online (AJOL), and HINARI electronic databases as well as Google/Google scholar search engines. Heterogeneity and publication bias between studies were assessed using I 2 test statistics and Egger’s significance test. Forest plots were used to present the findings. In this review, 27 studies containing 34,440 study participants were included. The pooled estimate of essential newborn care practice was 38% (95% CI 30.10–45.89) in the study area. Women who had one or more antenatal care follow up were about 3.71 times more likely practiced essential newborn care compared to women who had no ANC follow up [OR 3.71, 95% CI 2.35, 5.88]. Similarly, women who had four or more ANC follow up were 2.11 times more likely practiced essential newborn care compared to women who had less than four ANC follow up (OR 2.11, 95% CI 1.33, 3.35). Our study showed that the practice of ENBC was low in East Africa. Accordingly, those women who had more antenatal follow up were more likely practiced Essential newborn care. Thus, to improve the practice of essential newborn care more emphasis should be given on increasing antenatal care follow up of pregnant women in East Africa.

Technological innovation in robotics and ICT represents an effective solution to tackle the challenge of providing social sustainable care services for the ageing population. The recent introduction of cloud technologies is opening new opportunities for the provisioning of advanced robotic services based on the cooperation of a number of connected robots, smart environments and devices improved by the huge cloud computational and storage capability. In this context, this paper aims to investigate and assess the potentialities of a cloud robotic system for the provisioning of assistive services for the promotion of active and healthy ageing. The system comprised two different smart environments, located in Italy and Sweden, where a service robot is connected to a cloud platform for the provisioning of localization based services to the users. The cloud robotic services were tested in the two realistic environments to assess the general feasibility of the solution and demonstrate the ability to provide assistive location based services in a multiple environment framework. The results confirmed the validity of the solution but also suggested a deeper investigation on the dependability of the communication technologies adopted in such kind of systems.

The aim of this paper is introduced the importance of information technology for all petshop business units. Givaro Petshop is a business to provides products for the needs of pet supplies and pet care services. Recently the Givaro Petshop still managed product inventory manually. To improve the business, Givaro Petshop need an e-commerce website that can improve the effectiveness of business processes.The development of the Givaro Petshop e-commerce website uses Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with the Rapid Application Development Prototyping methodology. The results of this study are an e-commerce website that can be used to record inventory of products owned, record sales transactions, receive orders for animal care services, manage various reports needed and provide information to the general public.

The Internet of Things (IoT) technology has recently experienced popularity and growth in every facet of life, and it has been applied to every industry in recent years. The healthcare system has not been left out of the equation, where various services are considered toward improved healthcare and patient delivery. It is important to emphasize that related literature on the applications of IoT in healthcare explored various services on an individual basis without considering the consolidated services as we have introduced. Here, the consolidation of those services proffers improved healthcare delivery, which impacts and collaborates in an IoT-based healthcare environment. In this paper, we have utilized the newly formed Saskatchewan Health Authority comprising of various healthcare regions as our case study. In essence, we have proposed a Smart Saskatchewan Healthcare System based on IoT technology in the context of four services, namely: business analytics and cloud services, cancer care services, emergency services, and operational services. Further, the paper highlights the design implementation of a smart healthcare system for the province of Saskatchewan for enhanced electronic medical record initiative and also to augment and support the existing healthcare delivery options to ensure the quality of life of patients by integrating IoT technology and other pertinent technologies in the contexts of those services. It also features IoT-based network mapping, designs, methodologies, frameworks, architectures, platforms, and applications for the IoT based solution for all connected things (network resources and sites) towards efficient healthcare delivery. We have combined all these services to foster faster and more efficient healthcare delivery. We have also alluded that the stream of patient health data generated by the IoT smart/connected devices will be helpful in decision making and gaining insights. The operational challenges and security concerns pertinent to the design of the smart healthcare system are discussed. Lastly, from the design network solutions, it is evident to admit that the solution arguments and delivers improved healthcare delivery using IoT/WSN technologies.

We evaluated the prevalence of visual impairment (VI) and blindness among Chinese adults in the Singapore Chinese Eye Study (SCES, 2009–2011), and compared the trends with the Tanjong Pagar Survey, Singapore (TPS), conducted a decade earlier. The SCES comprised of 3,353 Chinese adults aged ≥40 years (response rate, 72.8%). Participants underwent standardized examinations, including measurements of presenting, and best-corrected visual acuity (VA). Bilateral VI (VA < 20/40 to ≥20/200) and blindness (VA < 20/200) were defined based on the United States definition (better-seeing eye). Age-standardized prevalence was calculated using the 2010 Singapore Chinese Population Census. Primary causes and factors associated with VI and blindness were evaluated. In SCES, the age-standardized prevalence of presenting bilateral VI and blindness were 17.7% and 0.6%, respectively; the age-standardised prevalence of best-corrected bilateral VI and blindness were 3.4% and 0.2%, respectively. The previous TPS reported similar rates of best-corrected bilateral VI (3.8%) and blindness (0.3%). In SCES, cataract remains the main cause for both best-corrected bilateral VI (76.0%) and blindness (50.0%). Older age, female, lower income, lower educational level, and smaller housing type were associated with presenting bilateral VI or blindness (all P  ≤ 0.025). These findings will be useful for the planning of eye care services and resource allocation.

Introduction Emergency departments (ED) worldwide are under pressure. Older people are disproportionally represented in ED, and many of these presentations are for nonlife‐threatening ailments that could be attended to elsewhere. Urgent care services have been established to relieve ED pressures and may be a better alternative for older people with urgent but nonlife‐threatening health issues. The purpose of this study was to understand the needs and preferences of older people when accessing urgent care, and what an ideal journey through an urgent care service would look like. Methods This qualitative study consisted of three consumer workshops with engagement activities designed and facilitated by an organisation designed to advocate for the rights and interests of older people in Adelaide, South Australia. Primary analysis was completed using a framework analysis approach, which consisted of identifying key themes and meanings in the audio‐recorded data and workshop outputs (including maps, notes and lists). Regular team meetings were held to discuss findings to enhance study rigour. Results A total of 39 participants aged 65 and above took part in the workshops. Most participants were female (n = 24, 62%), born in Australia (n = 26, 67%) and only spoke English at home (n = 36, 92%). Most participants (n = 33, 85%) had recent experience with ED. Four themes emerged regarding the needs and preferences for urgent care services: (1) accessible and responsive, (2) age appropriate with expert care, (3) listen to me, my story and (4) safe and well‐planned discharge. Participants felt that there needs to be more information available to the public about urgent care services for older people. Conclusions This study has identified needs and preferences of older people when accessing urgent care services. Services should consider these preferences when implementing or refining urgent care services to maximise acceptability. Patient and Public Involvement Our workshops engaged service users to explore and articulate their needs and preferences for service development in an urgent care setting for individuals aged 65 and older. These workshops involved public participation to evaluate the currently available services and reflect on their ideal future design. Service user experiences and priorities were the primary data sources. This study underscored the significance of lived experience, aiming to listen, learn and collaboratively reflect to understand and propose ideas for enhancing urgent care through a co‐design process.