The technological maturity of AI solutions has been consistently increasing over the years, expanding its application scope and domains. Smart home systems have evolved to act as proactive assistants for their residents, autonomously detecting behavioral patterns, inferring needs, and making decisions pertaining to the management and control of various home subsystems. The implementation of explainable AI (XAI) solutions in this challenging domain can improve user experience and trust by providing clear and understandable explanations of the system’s behavior. The article discusses the increasing importance of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) in smart home systems, which are becoming progressively smarter and more accessible to end-users, and presents an agent-based approach for developing explainable Internet of things (IoT) systems and an experiment conducted at the Centre of Real Time Computer Systems at the Kaunas University of Technology. The proposed method was adapted to build an explainable, rule-based smart home system for controlling light, heating, and ventilation. The results of this study serve as a demonstration of the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed theoretical approach in real-world scenarios.

Regardless of age, it is always important to detect deviations in long-term blood pressure from normal levels. Continuous monitoring of blood pressure throughout the day is even more important for elderly people with cardiovascular diseases or a high risk of stroke. The traditional cuff-based method for blood pressure measurements is not suitable for continuous real-time applications and is very uncomfortable. To address this problem, continuous blood pressure measurement methods based on photoplethysmogram (PPG) have been developed. However, these methods use specialized high-performance hardware and sensors, which are not available for common users. This paper proposes the continuous systolic blood pressure (SBP) estimation method based on PPG pulse wave steepness for low processing power wearable devices and evaluates its suitability using the commercially available CMS50FW Pulse Oximeter. The SBP estimation is done based on the PPG pulse wave steepness (rising edge angle) because it is highly correlated with systolic blood pressure. The SBP estimation based on this single feature allows us to significantly reduce the amount of data processed and avoid errors, due to PPG pulse wave amplitude changes resulting from physiological or external factors. The experimental evaluation shows that the proposed SBP estimation method allows the use of off-the-shelf wearable PPG measurement devices with a low sampling rate (up to 60 Hz) and low resolution (up to 8-bit) for precise SBP measurements (mean difference MD = −0.043 and standard deviation SD = 6.79). In contrast, the known methods for continuous SBP estimation are based on equipment with a much higher sampling rate and better resolution characteristics.

Background and objective: The successful adoption of technology is becoming increasingly important to functional independence and successful ageing in place. A better understanding of technology usage amongst older people may help to direct future interventions aimed at improving their healthcare. We aimed to obtain the first data regarding technology use, including gerontechnologies, represented by fall detectors, from older adults in Lithuania. Material and methods: The research was carried out in the framework of the project Smart Gerontechnology for Healthy Ageing, which involved assessing the use of technologies and the readiness to use gerontechnologies, as represented by fall detectors. A total of 375 individuals that were more than 60 years of age were enrolled in the study. The self-reporting questionnaires were completed by geriatric in-patients, hospitalized in the geriatric department, and also by community-dwelling older adults. Results: Geriatric in-patients’ use of computers and the internet was associated with age (every year of age decreased the probability of computer and internet use by 0.9-times) and a positive attitude towards new technologies—this predictor increased the use of a computer by six-times in comparison with people who did not have such an attitude. Sex and education had no influence on computer use for geriatric in-patients. For community-dwelling older adults, the use of computers and internet was associated with age, education (a university education increased the use of computers and the internet by four times), and a positive attitude towards technologies. Conclusions: Lithuanian older women in the study used computers, the internet, and cell phones equally with men. Increasing age was a strong negative predictor of technology use. A positive attitude to new technologies was a strong positive predictor of technology use. Most geriatric patients and community-dwelling older adults were ready to use technologies that permit ageing in place.

Identification of Dependency among Energy Consumption and Wi-Fi Protocol Security Levels within the Prototype Module for the IoT

There are different approaches in different areas of what the risk is. ISO 31000 risk management standards describe risk as the effect of uncertainty on objectives. Many existing risk assessment procedures are based on the assumption that risk is the amount of any damage or loss multiplied by the probability of an event that could cause the damage. We are proposing a new risk approach, based on Hillson’s positive risk philosophy, that risk is not just a threat but also a composition of new opportunities, efforts that need to be put in, and uncertainty. For this approach, we composed a risk formula and a methodology based on that formula. A prototypical software tool was developed, and an experiment was performed using this tool to evaluate the risk of several interconnected projects and validate the developed risk assessment methodology. It should be mentioned that, in the methodology, the decision-making process is performed traceably; therefore, it can be stated that it has explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) traits.

The paper is devoted to: (1) investigate risk as an inherently fundamental entity that exists in all aspects of our life; (2) show that up until now, the majority of available risk definitions are suitable only for particular application areas; (3) propose a relatively unified risk paradigm and a fuzzy logic based risk evaluation methodology and (4) to present a set of computerized risk evaluation tools. This paper confirms and strongly advocates the possibility to use the newly developed, unified/generalized and theoretically based risk control methodology and a set of networked ICT tools for risk evaluation, mitigation and monitoring. Our conclusions emphasize that such methodology, if delivered through a networked academic community would increase the competences of university graduates and enable professionals from governmental and public organizations to properly maintain problems associated with risk and risk control.