Transcultural Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Health and Social Care

Transcultural Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in Health and Social Care provides healthcare professionals with a deeper understanding of the incredible opportunities brought by the emerging field of AI robotics. In addition, it provides robotic researchers with the point-of-view of healthcare professionals to understand what the healthcare sector – as well as the market – really needs from robotics technology. By doing so, the book fills an important gap between both fields in order to leverage new developments and collaborative work in favor of global patients.

The book is aimed at the non-technical reader, especially health and social care professionals, and explains in a simple way the technological principles applied in the development of socially assistive humanoid AI robots (SAHR), the values which guide such developments, the ethics related to them, and research approaches in the field, with a focus on achieving a culturally competent SAHR.

Irena Papadopoulos, PhD, MA, BA, DipNEd, DipN, RN, RM, NDNCert, has been Professor for Transcultural Health and Nursing at Middlesex University for 18 years and Head of the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health, which she established, for nearly 25 years. She was the chair of her school's ethics committee, and the former chair of the research team for nursing, midwifery and allied health professions. She has been working within NHS and academic sector for over 40 years. Her main research interests are culture, compassion, diversity, health inequalities, migration and new technologies in health. She has authored/co-authored eight books, over 50 book chapters, over 100 articles, research reports and knowledge transfer tools, learning units and online modules. She was founding member of a European/Japanese universities consortium, funded by EU's HORIZON 2020 and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs, for CARESSES (Culturally Aware Robots and Environmental Sensor Systems for Elderly Support) project, the first artificially intelligent autonomous robot sensitive to people cultures.

Christina Koulouglioti, PhD, is senior research fellow in the Department Research and Innovation at the Western Sussex Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a research fellow at the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health, Middlesex University. She worked with Prof I. Papadopoulos on the CARESSES research project which developed the first set of guidelines for culturally competent artificially intelligent social robots. During the project, along with Prof Papadopoulos and other partners, they authored and published many articles related to the use of social robots in health care and the importance of culture.

Chris Papadopoulos, PhD, is principal lecturer in public health and director of health research at School of Healthcare Practice, University of Bedfordshire. He teaches on a range of health post-graduate health courses, is Chair of the School of Healthcare Practice's Ethics Committee, associate editor of the Journal of Pedagogic Development, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, European Commission expert evaluator on Public Health Best Practices award scheme, Member of the Council of Deans of Health Research Leads Network and co-lead of the Institute for Health Research's Statistics and Epidemiology Group. He researches in health-related areas within the social sciences, particularly stigma, autism, mental health, informal carers/parents, older adults, culture, ethics, health technology and social robotics. He co-led the testing and evaluation phases of CARESSES project, including designing and implementing an ethically sensitive, complex and ground-breaking experimental trial of culturally competent autonomous social robots in social care settings across England.

Antonio Sgorbissa, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Università degli Studi of Genova and teacher in EMARO+ and JEMARO+, the European and Japanese Masters' in Advanced Robotics. He has 20 years of experience teaching ICT-related topics to students of non-technical universities in a simple, accessible, and appealing way. He has been coordinator of H2020 CARESSES (Culturally Aware Robots and Environmental Sensor Systems for Elderly Support) and Principal Investigator in National and EU projects, including DIONISO (a multidisciplinary effort focusing on ICT for intervention in earthquakes) and WearAmI (focusing on assistive robotics in smart environments). He is Associate Editor of the International Journal of Social Robotics, Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems, and Intelligent Service Robotics. He is executive vice president of I-RIM, Italian Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Director of the Social Robotics Lab at University of Genova and RASES, the inter-university center on Robotics and Autonomous Systems in Emergency Scenarios. He is the author of more than 150 scientific articles indexed in international databases and awarded five patents as an inventor. As coordinator of H2020 CARESSES, he has been a founding member of a European/Japanese universities consortium funded by the European Commission and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.