Smart homes and health telematics

We often conceptualize that older adults retire into a life of carefree luxury among palm trees, golf courses, and pristine beaches. Unfortunately, reality differs today – many retire in place, and often it is the case they retire in rural areas far from hospitals and care-giving centers. For instance, over half of the older population in the state of Minnesota lives in small towns away from the center of care, which is Minneapolis/St. Paul. This year, ICOST 2008 aimed at focusing on this important reality and on gerontechnology––the use of technology to enhance the quality of life of older adults in rural lands. We had a strong technical program this year spanning many critical topics incl- ing: remote monitoring and tele-care, access control and privacy preservation, und- standing user requirements and needs, autonomic learning and reasoning about user behavior, activities and contexts, user interface design, middleware for sensing and actuation in smart homes, cognitive assistants, context-aware service provisioning, among other topics. We received a total of 54 submissions of papers, abstracts and posters, from 14 diff- ent countries. Through a blind review process, we accepted 24 full papers, 9 abstracts, and 7 posters. Each submission received two or three reviews with the exception of a few that received four reviews. We are thankful to all the reviewers who helped in the review process including members of the Technical Committee and the additional reviewers that we needed to compensate for unreturned reviews.