OASIS is composed of 5 SPs, interrelated as shown in the figure below.

Sub-Project 1: Open Reference Architecture, User Interface, Platform and Tools

Within SP1, the new innovative, open-ended reference architecture is built (called COF: Common Ontological Framework) for organising, maintaining and applying heterogeneous ontologies. This new architecture framework is aimed to achieve:

• Interoperability between different web services from the same or different application domains.
• Sharing of contextual information between different objects and services.
• Seamless connectivity between hardware, from hardware to service and from service to service.

In order to link existing and newly developed ontologies to this new hyper-ontology, efficient tools are needed, that will automate the process and support the service providers and developers in making their services OASIS-compliant, such as the ontology application graphical user interface and content connection tools, the necessary AMI framework and agents, the HCI interaction prototyping tool for UI self- adaptation and personalisation and, finally, the instantiation of the overall architecture to the project applications. The reference architecture and tools will all be made available as open source for maximal impact on development practice.

The development of the hyper-ontology will follow an iterative process, as displayed below.

Sub-Project 2: Independent Living Applications

Usually elderly people are involved in a process involving frailty, functional, cognitive and muscular decline and possible loss of autonomy. This process can be postponed and mitigated if some changes in daily life, as nutrition, physical activity, mental training and social relationships, are adopted, thus, based on SP1, a wide number of applications is being connected to the new reference architecture, or developed according to it, in SP2 (and SP3).

The connected applications serve as a proof of concept of the new reference architecture but incorporate also a wide set of innovations on their own right, in order to holistically satisfy the independent living and autonomous mobility needs of the elderly users.

The set of services, are oriented to maintain the independence of the ageing persons by means of sharing of a common living context. The applications to be developed, are listed below:

Ιt will deal with the personalization and adaptation of the recommendation and advices provided to the elder for improving his/her nutrition in a way that they can easily be put in practice and even become a part of his/her normal habits. The relevant application elements are shown beside.

Ιt will monitor, support and coach several physical activities of the elderly. One application is to monitor the activity of the user and to motivate him/her to perform for example some sport activities, aiming to reduce the age-related declines in the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems and to improve his/her mental health. The activity of the user is classified regarding the movement type and a quantitative activity measured is derived. The user obtains feedback and advices concerning his/her activity. Moreover, the health status during the sportive activity is taken into account, for example to prevent the user from exhausting him/herself. Another application is the support of rehabilitation exercises, for example due to a fracture.

Ιt will promote, though different exercises and simulated scenarios, the mental health of persons. Using 3D based multimedia interactions systems, computer games, and other related technologies, the person will be immersed in a simulated scenario, to improve his/her skills in daily activities: shopping, transport, travelling, and many situations where he/she could feel frightened.

On the other hand, a set of personalized exercises will maintain his/her memory and mental activities level. Thus, fundamental neuropsychological functions will be transferred into specific tasks (e.g. finding the way out of a virtual maze by following adaptable and scaleable cognitive clues). These different tasks assess the actual performance and functioning. The outcome serves as baseline for a specific training plan, with different difficulty levels, which can be adapted to the individual performance level to create an effective training. Part of the brain trainer is also the Stress Management tool with the aim to enhance peoples’ stress management capabilities.

This application relates to the building of a social community platform, at different levels, in order to fight the social isolation of elderly people living alone and to facilitate new collaborative experiences, including those related to sharing or discussing with other users of other OASIS services (i.e. brain trainer or nutritional advisor or …). The platform for social relationships will be composed by a set of tools for improving the social aspects of the elderly, including e-learning systems, virtual communities, collaborative working and social web trends: blogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, instant messaging, etc.

This application will go beyond the monitoring of the health status, allowing the management of the elderly people’s health and the assurance of their optimal health status while realising the rest of their daily lives activities. The Health Monitoring system will be distributed in several modules: the sensors module, the terminal that will be carried by the elder person and the health applications server.

Controlling the house is one of the more demanded applications when some physical decline comes. Domotics applications will allow the elderly to be confident in his/her house and contribute to the comfort of the person. The knowledge of the status of the comfort parameters inside the home (temperature, humidity, window opening,..) will allow the tuning of the use of the others applications. Relevant OASIS work focuses on the integration of technologies, products and services in the domestic environment. Relevant functionalities, considered within OASIS to be incorporated in this application, are security, energy saving, additional functions, comfort and entertainment.

All the above applications will be re-evaluated and specified in the UC’s, with the active participation of elderly users and key stakeholders.

Sub-Project 3: Autonomous Mobility and Smart Workplaces Applications

This SP promotes activities to “push” the elderly user out of his/her home, however guaranteeing safety, security and comfort. More specifically, new functionalities will be provided, that can give the elderly users more independency and safety in their trips, by easing their driving, avoiding the exposure to risks and accelerating the emergency rescue procedures. Relevant research issues and services in OASIS are highlighted in the table below:

A new route guidance prototype, incorporating elderly cognitive needs and behavioural patterns, will be developed. The route guidance will consider special requirements of elderly people regarding safety, easiness to walk or drive and leisure. Appropriate mobility services will be offered to the elderly, including journey planning and support while driving (assistance navigation, extended emergency call and tele-diagnostics, driver monitoring and comfort), accessible tourism, leisure and social activities.

Furthermore, the need of older people to remain active in the business domain can be supported both while at home, at their business as part timers, or anywhere in between, as mobile users.

Sub-Project 4: Integration, Pilot sites and devices

The individual applications are integrated in terms of user interfaces, services, devices and telecommunication networks. The resulting integrated systems and services are tested in 4 sites Europewide (UK – north, Germany – central, Italy – south and a combined eastern site in Greece, Romania and Bulgaria). This is the ultimate step to evaluate the overall success of the reference architecture and tools as well as each individual application and to get the required data to optimise them within the project and beyond.

Applications will support all types of mobile devices (tablet PC, PDA, smart-phone, automotive device, ITV, infokiosk, …) and all types of environments (living labs, sheltered homes, private homes, two car demonstrators, public transport, DSRT, etc.).

The pilots will differ in their functionality and size, depending on the availability of infrastructure, users and environment. The following types of pilots will be created:

• Living Labs (as controlled environments),
• Sheltered Homes,
• Independent Living Homes, and
• In Car/Transport infrastructures.

The following figure presents the infrastructure to be used per pilot site.

Sub-Project 5: Horizontal activities

SP5 incorporates the necessary support activities to ensure proper realisation of the rest SPs, such as management, dissemination, marketing and exploitation (including business scenarios and cost-effectiveness analysis) of the project concept and results, ethical and gender issues protection, training and standardisation. Training is needed in order to familiarize the partners with the technology requirements and in this way to provide a smooth collaboration between the project partners. Another aim of the training activities is the training of the users of the OASIS outcomes. The training activities in OASIS project will be organized according to the specific groups needs.

Within the standardisation activities, all existing and emerging standards will be identified so as to be taken into account by OASIS development, but also strategies and plans will be defined for the dynamic introduction of the OASIS Reference Architecture and its key elements into standardisation actions and incentives.

As user friendliness and acceptability is a top priority for the project, a “user centred-design” approach is followed along the service and application development. Tested iteratively and thoroughly by hundreds of end users, their caregivers and other stakeholders, the OASIS platform and applications will be optimised and submitted for standardisation by the purpose-established OASIS world-wide Industrial Forum.