With the development of technologies, such as big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), digital twin is being applied in industry as a precision simulation technology from concept to practice. Further, simulation plays a very important role in the healthcare field, especially in research on medical pathway planning, medical resource allocation, medical activity prediction, etc. By combining digital twin and healthcare, there will be a new and efficient way to provide more accurate and fast services for elderly healthcare. However, how to achieve personal health management throughout the entire lifecycle of elderly patients, and how to converge the medical physical world and the virtual world to realize real smart healthcare, are still two key challenges in the era of precision medicine. In this paper, a framework of the cloud healthcare system is proposed based on digital twin healthcare (CloudDTH). This is a novel, generalized, and extensible framework in the cloud environment for monitoring, diagnosing and predicting aspects of the health of individuals using, for example, wearable medical devices, toward the goal of personal health management, especially for the elderly. CloudDTH aims to achieve interaction and convergence between medical physical and virtual spaces. Accordingly, a novel concept of digital twin healthcare (DTH) is proposed and discussed, and a DTH model is implemented. Next, a reference framework of CloudDTH based on DTH is constructed, and its key enabling technologies are explored. Finally, the feasibility of some application scenarios and a case study for real-time supervision are demonstrated.INDEX TERMS Digital twin, elderly healthcare, personal health management, cloud computing, precision medicine, interaction, convergence. I. INTRODUCTIONAccording to the latest statistics from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the elderly population is forecasted to be 2.1 billion in 2050, with the aging population in the developing regions growing faster than in the developed regions [1]. In the aging society of the future, it is projected that nearly 50% of medical resources will be The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Tai-Hoon Kim.

Abstract. In many applications, such as E-Passport and driver's license, the enrollment of face templates is done using visible light (VIS) face images. Such images are normally acquired in controlled environment where the lighting is approximately frontal. However, Authentication is done in variable lighting conditions. Matching of faces in VIS images taken in different lighting conditions is still a big challenge. A recent development in near infrared (NIR) image based face recognition [1] has well overcome the difficulty arising from lighting changes. However, it requires that enrollment face images be acquired using NIR as well.In this paper, we present a new problem, that of matching a face in an NIR image against one in a VIS images, and propose a solution to it. The work is aimed to develop a new solution for meeting the accuracy requirement of face-based biometric recognition, by taking advantages of the recent NIR face technology while allowing the use of existing VIS face photos as gallery templates. Face recognition is done by matching an NIR probe face against a VIS gallery face. Based on an analysis of properties of NIR and VIS face images, we propose a learning-based approach for the different modality matching. A mechanism of correlation between NIR and VIS faces is learned from NIR→VIS face pairs, and the learned correlation is used to evaluate similarity between an NIR face and a VIS face. We provide preliminary results of NIR→VIS face matching for recognition under different illumination conditions. The results demonstrate advantages of NIR→VIS matching over VIS→VIS matching.

Crowding, the inability to recognize objects in clutter, is known to play a role in developmental changes in reading speed. Here, we investigated whether crowding also plays a role in age-related changes in reading speed. We recruited 18 young (mean age: 22.6 ± 3.5; range: 18~31) and 21 older adults (mean age: 58.2 ± 7.0; range: 50~73) with normal vision. Reading speed was measured with short blocks of text. The degree of crowding was determined by measuring crowding zone (the distance between a target and flankers required to yield a criterion recognition accuracy) and the size of the visual span (an uncrowded window in the visual field within which letters can be recognizable reliably). Measurements were made across the central 16-degree visual field using letter-recognition tasks. Our results showed that, compared to young adults, older adults exhibited significantly slower reading speed (a decrease by 30%) and larger crowding: an enlargement of crowding zone (an increase by 31%) and shrinkage of the visual span (a decrease by 6.25 bits). We also observed significant correlations between reading speed and each of the crowding measures. Our results suggest that crowding increases with age. Age-related changes in crowding may in part explain slower reading in older adults.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper presents the design of climbing robots for glass-wall cleaning. Design/methodology/approach -A systemic analysis of the basic functions of a glass-wall cleaning system is given based on the research of working targets. Then the constraints for designing a glass-wall cleaning robot are discussed. The driving method, the attachment principle, mechanical structure and unique aspects of three pneumatic robots named Sky Cleaners follow. In the end a summary of the main special features is given. All three climbing robots are tested on site. Findings -Our groups spent several years in designing and developing a series of robots named Sky Cleaners which are totally actuated by pneumatic cylinders and sucked to the glass walls with vacuum grippers in mid-air. It was found that they can meet the requirements of glass-wall cleaning.Research limitation/implications -The air source, cleaning liquid and control signals should be provided by the supporting vehicle stationed on the ground. Even if the robots are intelligent, the suitable working height is below 50 m because the weight of the hoses has to be taken into account when the robots work in mid-air. Practical implications -The cleaning robotic systems can avoid workers presence in a hazardous environment and realize an automatic cleaning, furthermore reduce operation costs and improve the technological level and productivity of the service industry in the building maintenance. Originality/value -Sky Cleaner robots can move and do cleaning on the plane glass wall or the special curve wall with a small angle between the glasses. The first two prototypes are mainly used for research and the last one is a real product designing for cleaning the glass surface of Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.