This year's Best Paper Award at the PETRA conference was awarded to a team of authors with strong participation from the Rostock Business Informatics Department. The award went to the paper "CareCam: Towards user-tailored Interventions at the Workplace using a Webcam" by the authors Dimitri Kraft, Angelina Clara Schmidt, Lea Büttner, Frederike Marie Oschinsky, Fabienne Lambusch, Kristof Van Laerhoven, Gerald Bieber and Michael Fellmann. The contribution of the eight-member interdisciplinary team of researchers deals with the CareCam. This is a system that specifically and individually prevents health problems during computer work. For this purpose, various relevant parameters such as posture, eyelid movement and facial expression are analysed in an application that can run completely locally without an internet connection. Without the need for additional sensors, this can only be done via the image of a standard webcam integrated into a computer. On the basis of the analysis, the system can then automatically generate messages during work that remind the user to work in a healthy manner. One example of this is messages that encourage people to change their sitting position in order to avoid back pain. In addition, the CareCam also offers guided exercises that are also automatically displayed depending on the need. This specifically prevents typical problems with computer work, which is becoming more and more widespread worldwide due to digitalisation and is sometimes carried out under ergonomically unfavourable conditions in the home office. Because it is easy to use without additional sensors, the system can make an effective contribution to prevention.
The annual conference "PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments" (PETRA for short), organised under the umbrella of the ACM organisation, took place for the 15th time this year. The conference venue was Corfu in Greece. Out of a total of 138 submissions from 27 countries, 33 contributions were accepted after review as full papers. The PETRA conference is thus a demanding and competitive environment for the presentation of scientific results, which is why the team of authors is all the more pleased about the Best Paper Award and thanks all those who directly and indirectly contributed to the paper.