Publications
Visual Working Memory Training of the Elderly in VIRTRAEL Personalized Assistant
Visual Working Memory Training of the Elderly in VIRTRAEL Personalized Assistant
Hornos, M. J., Rute-Pérez, S., Rodríguez-Domínguez, C., Rodríguez-Almendros, M. L., Rodríguez-Fórtiz, M. J., & Caracuel, A. (2018). Visual Working Memory Training of the Elderly in VIRTRAEL Personalized Assistant. In Personal Assistants: Emerging Computational Technologies (pp. 57-76). Springer, Cham.
Personal assistants using emerging technologies are showing a great potential to provide an important impact in different aspects of daily human life currently and during the near future. They are usually intended to help people with especial needs. The one presented in this chapter, called VIRTRAEL, is especially designed to assess, stimulate and train several cognitive skills that experience a decline as people age, reason why its target public is the elderly, as well as the therapists who treat them. VIRTRAEL is made up of different types of exercises, each of them specifically designed to evaluate and stimulate a different cognitive function. After presenting an overview of our tool, we focus on one of its exercises, the one devoted to the classification and memorization of images, which is intended to train the visual working memory. We also present a configuration tool that allows the therapists to customize and adapt each exercise to the preferences and needs of a given user. Moreover, we show some results of a pilot study carried out with a sample of elderly people.
SIGUEME: Technology-based intervention for low-functioning autism to train skills to work with visual signifiers and concepts
SIGUEME: Technology-based intervention for low-functioning autism to train skills to work with visual signifiers and concepts
Vélez-Coto, M., Rodríguez-Fórtiz, M. J., Rodriguez-Almendros, M. L., Cabrera-Cuevas, M., Rodríguez-Domínguez, C., Ruiz-López, T., ... & Martos-Pérez, J. (2017). SIGUEME: Technology-based intervention for low-functioning autism to train skills to work with visual signifiers and concepts. Research in developmental disabilities, 64, 25-36.
People with low-functioning ASD and other disabilities often find it difficult to understand the symbols traditionally used in educational materials during the learning process. Technology-based interventions are becoming increasingly common, helping children with cognitive disabilities to perform academic tasks and improve their abilities and knowledge. Such children often find it difficult to perform certain tasks contained in educational materials since they lack necessary skills such as abstract reasoning. In order to help these children, the authors designed and created SIGUEME to train attention and the perceptual and visual cognitive skills required to work with and understand graphic materials and objects.
A neural blockchain for a tokenizable e-Participation model
A neural blockchain for a tokenizable e-Participation model
Currently, Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) and, especially, Blockchain technology represent a great opportunity for public institutions to improve citizen participation and foster democratic innovation. These technologies facilitate the simplification of processes and provide secure management of recorded data, guaranteeing the transmission and public transparency of information. Based on the combination of a Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform and G-Cloud solutions, our proposal consists of the design of an e-Participation model that uses a tokenizable system of the actions and processes undertaken by citizens in participatory processes providing incentives to promote greater participation in public affairs. In order to develop a sustainable, scalable and resilient e-Participation system, a new blockchain concept, which organizes the blocks as a neural system, is combined with the implementation of a virtual token to reward participants. Furthermore, this virtual token is deployed through a smart contract that the block itself produces, containing information about the transaction and all the documents involved in the process. Finally, our Neural Distributed Ledger (NDL) framework facilitates the interconnection of blockchain networks in a transparent, certified, secure, auditable, scalable and traceable way.