1
Future Life and Services:
What is actuality living, and how to improve the quality of life
in the city
Cristina Queirós1,2, Mariana Kaiseler1,2 & António José Marques1,3
1 Psychosocial Rehabilitation Laboratory (FPCEUP / ESTSPIPP), Porto, Portugal2 Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Porto University, Portugal3 School of Allied Health Sciences, Porto Polytechnic Institute, Portugal
www. labrp.com
● Before the city of the present, a nostalgic return to the city of the pastwithin a pre-automobile age: re-pedestrianization of streets and banningthe car from the city core (Brill, 1989).
● Loss of public/neighbourhood life, removing citizen from the city.
● Different cities: affairs, commerce, pleasure and families (Brill, 1989).
● Spaces in the city (Francis, 1989): public or private spaces; users; the
control/appropriation of a public space; space or place (meaning, utility,
modification).
● Actual negative characteristics of the city actually: road traffic, garbage, air
pollution…
● Actual negative characteristics of the city actually: overcrowd, urban
isolation, crime…
● Which kind of city do we want to live (Censos 2011 – “big” urban areas)?
● How can “human factors” be studied in the city?
● Future Cities Project : Porto as a living lab to study citizen’s perceptions
about spaces and urban plans, fear of crime, stress, healthy living styles.
● The study of citizen’s perceptions about spaces: Environmental
Psychology (e.g. Nasar, 1988; Cave, 1998); environmental preferences
and aesthetics; stress, noise, perceptions of danger or care of the space.
● The study of citizen’s perceptions about spaces: rehabilitation of
buildings on Porto as an example of care.
● The study of citizen’s fear of crime: “broken windows” theory (Wilson &
Kelling, 1982), contagious effect of space degradation.
● The study of citizen’s fear of crime: hotspots of crime and criminal career
of the place (Sherman, 1989; London statistics on NIJ 2006),
Environmental Criminology (Brantingham & Brantingham, 1981).
The study of citizens’ fear of crime:
● Jeffery (1977): Crime Prevention trough Environmental Design (CPTED).
● Newman (1996): defensible spaces.
● The study of citizens’ fear of crime (e.g. Virginia city, 2000; PSP Aveiro 2012).
● Crime Prevention trough Environmental Design (CPTED)
● The study of citizens’ stress during driving: road rage problem.
● The study of stress and occupational stress (burnout): Freudenberger (1974)
Maslach (1976, 2011), emotional exhaustion, cynism, reduced professional
accomplishment, agressivity, suicide.
● The study of stress and occupational stress (burnout): job dissatisfaction, work-
family conflict, physical diseases, depression, absenteeism, low productivity.
● Actually, the opposite of burnout: job satisfaction and engagement (Schaufeli &
Baker, 2003) as a positive mental state of vigour, dedication to work, absorption
(Positive Occupational Health Psychology - Bakker, 2012).
● Present and future to ameliorate the human life in the city using technologies:
continuous assessment of stress to prevent burnout among several professions
(e.g. heart rate variability, cloud wit longitudinal data of stress), virtual reality to
train rescue professionals to deal with disasters and critical incidents, studying
movements or helping emotional recognition among persons with
schizophrenia or autism (improving communication skills, social inclusion).
● The study of drivers’ stress: FEUP projects (J. Barros) with taxi drivers and bus
drivers (partnership of FPCEUP); future evaluation with My Driving Droid
application (A. Aguiar).
● Other stress studies inside of the projects:
- VOCE (A. Aguiar, FEUP) – online classification of stress from live speech
with the goal of providing feedback cues to the speaker in real-time to
improve communication skills.
- VITAL JACKET (M. Coimbra, FCUP) – real time evaluation of heart rate
and stress among fire-fighters.
● Other stress studies (FPCEUP):
- SCOPE (M. Kaiseler, 2012 -…) – investigates stress and coping among police
officers (PSP and PM-Porto) using a longitudinal design and an interdisciplinary
approach.
- PhD of S. Rodrigues (2012 -…) - “Stress & Coping among police Officers,
interdisciplinary methods” with ambulatory assessment and electronic diaries.
- PhD of A. Leitão da Silva (2008-2012) – longitudinal stress study among officers of
Polícia Municipal do Porto.
- Master and PhD thesis (2005-…) about stress/burnout (transversal and quantitative
methods) among police officers, fire-fighters, teachers, nurses…
GPS
● (FPCEUP) Continuous assessment of
stress to prevent burnout among several
professions (using cloud with
longitudinal data of stress) and virtual
reality to train rescue professionals to
deal with disasters and critical incidents
(PhD S. Quintas and CISM “Critical
Incident Stress Managagement” courses
from ICISF – EUA).
● Virtual reality to train rescue professionals to deal with disasters and
critical incidentsADMS: Advanced Disaster Management Simulator
Code Orange Emergency Medical
Management Training for Mass
Catastrophe
● Emotional recognition of facial expression
among adult people with schizophrenia or
children with autism: LifeIsGame Project
(FCEUP, V.Orvalho) using real time
synthesis and automatic facial expression
analysis, and PhD T. Souto (FPCEUP) using
avatars within daily environments.
● Movement analysis in real time among patients with schizophrenia (ESTSP-IPP,
A.J. Marques & M.J Trigueiro, 2012).
● PING (Porto Interactive Neuroscience Group): PIC + LabRP, development
of studies about Virtual Reality and Social Cognition.
● PING: development of studies about Motor Rehabilitation
(Move2Improve Project) and fibromyalgia (Improve project submitted jan
2013 at FP7 call).
● PING: development of studies about Biofeedback and funcionality.
● Future cities: using technologies developed in Univ. Porto, try to improve the
quality of professional and personal life in the city.
● Healthy life style within safe and healthy environments: Porto.