Paper Reading #9, "Creating Salient Summaries of Home Activity Lifelog Data"

http://chi2010-cskach.blogspot.com/2011/02/paper-reading-9-everybodylovessketch-3d.html
http://dlandinichi.blogspot.com/2011/02/paper-reading-9-ir-ring-authenticating.html

Creating Salient Summaries of Home Activity Lifelog Data
Matthew Lee, Carnegie Mellon
CHI 2010 Doctoral Consortium
10-15 April 2010, Atlanta, GA

Summary
This is a research pitch for a doctoral thesis, somewhat different from the papers previously assigned. In it, Mr. Lee proposes that he conduct research to find out whether monitoring how well seniors (or "elders", as he calls them. Did "seniors" become un-PC when I wasn't paying attention?) perform everyday tasks could aid in the early detection of ailments such as Alzheimer's or related disorders.

The three questions he proposes to address are, in order: Is such an assessment something of value for seniors, relatives, & other interested parties (doctors, caregivers, etc)? What is information is useful to the aforementioned, and how can it be organized and summarized? Finally, how can said information be collected?

He reports that his proof of concept preliminaries were very positive with all stakeholders believing that the information he proposed to collect was of value. Equipment to conduct the research was still in the design stage as of the paper's presentation.

He hopes to carry out the research by placing the devices, when ready, in the homes of ten seniors. The first few months would be to validate the sensors, while after 1-3 the data would be presented to the seniors and after six or more to the rest of the stakeholders.

Discussion
This looks like a very valid field of inquiry. Doctors say you should get tested often for serious diseases - constant statistic monitoring takes that to the next level. Further, there are no privacy concerns with this project since everyone knows it is going on and has agreed to it.

The biggest weaknesses of the proposal - and I suspect both are systematic and unavoidable - are that the process remains somewhat vague, especially the equipment, and that ten is not a very large sample size. However, he can't give knowledge he doesn't have and there are always budget restrictions.

Now, in this space I am supposed to discuss the next place I would take the research were I in charge of it. In this case, I can't really do that as this is a detail pitch for more research and not a "something" I can build on. The best thing I can say is the obvious "if successful, expand it beyond ten".

"Elder" performing an everyday task. I found it on Flickr via GIS,

and I suspect it originated at www.jeffcampbell.org.