Using Smart Technologies to promote

Physical Activity

Federico CrucianiUlster UniversitySupervisors:

C. Nugent, I. Cleland, P. McCullagh, G. Breslin

24 October 2017

Role in ACROSSING

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2016

ESR Background

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➢ 2006: BScEng in Computer Engineering (University of Florence)

➢ 2007-2016: worked as software project manager at I+ and

Orthokey on Connected Health and Computer Assisted Surgery

➢ 2015: MScEng in Computer Engineering (University of Florence)

➢ 2016: Joined Ulster University starting PhD within ACROSSING

2006 2007 2011 2015

Research Project Objectives

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Unhealthy Behaviours 40% of premature

(including sedentarism) deaths*

Project Aim: investigate the use of Smart Technologies to support

Behaviour Change Interventions.

Objectives:

O1: Support the intervention with

Activity Recognition

O2: Design of a dynamic model for Behaviour

Change

O3: Implement Virtual Coaching

* D. Spruijt-Metz and W. Nilsen, “Dynamic models of behavior for just-in-time

adaptive interventions,” IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 13–17,

2014.

Research Project

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Research Achievements

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Smartphone Android App

Server application for virtual coaching

Fitbit wearable integration

Speech interaction via virtual assistant

Conducted investigation and early results have been published at the 39th

EMBC International conference (July 2017)

F. Cruciani, C. Nugent, I. Cleland, and P. McCullagh, “Rich context information for just-in-time adaptive intervention promoting physical activity,” in Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2017 39th Annual International Conference of the IEEE. IEEE, 2017, pp. 849–852.

F. Cruciani, C. Nugent, I. Cleland, and P. McCullagh, “A multi-modal virtual coach for behavior change,” in 39th Annual International Conference of the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), (poster presentation). IEEE, 2017.

ACROSSING Training Experiences

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ACROSSING Training Events: CERTH, PASSAU, DMU

Other Events Organizer Date

Doctoral Studies Induction Course Ulster University October 2016

ALEC Artic Light E-health Conference Lulea (Sweden) February 2017

Behaviour Change Workshop NUI Galway (Ireland) June 2017

mHealth: Behavioural Science and Technology

Conference

NUI Galway (Ireland) June 2017

Connected Health Summer School Ulster University June 2017

Secondments Host Institution Date

Networking, Engaging with medical experts LTU (Sweden) 30 Jan - 6 Feb 2017

Literature review, Industry best practice I+ (Italy) 1-22 April 2017

Networking, Cross discipline training LTU (Sweden) 29 Aug - 22 Sep

2017

Impact on Future Career

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The training within ACROSSING will help to acquire new skills.

Short Term Objectives (within the project):

Conducting Multi-disciplinary research

Provide contribution to knowledge in activity recognition and

behaviour change

Workgroups: SO1 and APP3

Long Term Objectives:

Extend professional collaboration network

How to lead academic and/or industrial research teams

Acquire managerial and communication skills

Conclusions

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Next Steps Assessing use of Weak-Labels for automatic groundtruth annotation and

online training (PerCom2018 ARDUOUS Workshop submission 11th Nov 2017)

Energy efficient spotting of eating episodes from inertial sensors (PerCom2018 ACROSS Workshop submission 11th Nov 2017)

Gamifying exercising and learning for school children (LTU collaboration –Elsevier Special Issue “Strengthening Gamification” submission Dec 2017)

Expected ContributionComputer Science: Investigating new approaches to facilitate deployment of Activity Recognition

functionalities in smart environments in the real world

Behaviour change: Exploring new ways of supporting interventions through virtual coaching

Thank you!

Any Questions?

Acknowledgement of EU-funding

This research work is funded by the EU H2020 Marie Curie

Actions Programme

Thank you!

Any Questions?

Acknowledgement of EU-funding

This research work is funded by the EU H2020 Marie Curie

Actions Programme

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