Fausto Sainz de Salces

COMET Technology · Research and Development

The consequences of climate change and reduced energy security are becoming increasingly apparent, especially on islands. At the same time, the energy transition is quickly spreading and its value to society becoming clearer. Two main obstacles to this transition, rigid policy and lack of local understanding, are particularly troubling on islands,...

In this paper an approach to understand ethical issues in green energy innovation actions among participants in a research programme in a small island is presented. Issues related to the participation of citizens in research activities carried out under the frame of energy transition are explored directly with participants through interviews perfor...

Background: This study on the use of personas was carried out during a building trade related software development EU project. Participants were introduced to the personas tool and encouraged to use it in their work in technical development. Methods: A questionnaire was delivered three months after presentation and explanation of the remote tool, i...

Resumen: El artículo presenta un enfoque sobre cuestiones éticas en ac-ciones de innovación en energías renovables entre los participantes de un programa de investigación en una pequeña isla. Se exploraron asun-tos relacionados con la participación de la ciudadanía en las actividades de investigación realizadas en el marco de la transición energéti...

In this paper we present the perceptions of those engaged in a digital research project. We explored participants' ethical knowledge, understanding and feelings about the whole process. We also tried to implement a plan in order to see if certain proactive actions will benefit the understanding of ethical issues among those stakeholders. The invest...

Sainz de Salces, F. J. y Bustamante Donas, J. (2016): “Estudio sobre percepción de valores éticos en un proyecto de desarrollo tecnológico”. Revista Española de Discapacidad, 4 (2): 241-251.

Este artículo presenta una descripción práctica de las cuestiones y procedimientos necesarios para la involucración de personas con discapacidad en proyectos tecnológicos de I+D+i. Se parte de la justificación de esta necesidad, fundamentada en nuevos paradigmas como la investigación inclusiva o emancipatoria. Se realiza un repaso de aspectos práct...

La involucración de personas con diversidad funcional en proyectos de investigación tecnológica tiene ciertas peculiaridades en el plano ético que deben ser consideradas por todos aquellos implicados en el proceso. El estudio de estas consideraciones desde un punto de vista teórico sustentado por la praxis nos lleva a presentar una aproximación a l...

A prototype for an accessible home control system was tested for usability and accessibility appropriateness. A comprehensive subjective user-centred design evaluation methodology was used to validate the system accessibility and usability. The paper makes a contribution in terms of validating the developed evaluation approach on one side and the p...

Living labs represent an important step in the development of research solutions based on the inclusive design paradigm. To ensure participants’ rights and the adoption of an ethical approach to technological research, this paper presents some tools and strategies that comply with the needs and rights of those less advantaged groups to ensure that...

The article presents part of the research carried out within a project aimed at procuring interaction of people with disabilities and elderly with their environment through the use of information and communication technologies. We present methodological aspects related to participation models, user experience, technology acceptance and peer trainin...

This article presents the preliminary results of an innovative experience of user involvement, which employs a methodology anchored in the Nordic participatory design tradition. The activities conducted cover early stages of the design process for electronic identity (eID) card applications in rural areas of Southern Spain. People Led Innovation (P...

This paper describes the investigation of the development of future technological products to support older people in everyday living through the agency of a community art group. Recent research has identified a number of challenges facing designers seeking to use traditional participatory design approaches to gather technology requirements data fr...

During disaster response, networks can become overloaded and are susceptible to complete failure in the disaster area. This disables mobile communication, hindering response efforts from mobile users. Mobile users make use of various heterogeneous devices and require infrastructure to facilitate the communication of distributed information. Communi...

Virtual Distributed Teams (VDT) need to face physical and logical communication challenges during emergency response. Physical problems include heterogeneous technology infrastructures, ubiquitous accessibility, alternative media communication or real-time interaction. Logical problems are related to the accomplishment of a coordinated activity, su...

The elderly population in the world is increasing rapidly and consequently so is demand for new technologies that allow them to live independently. Facilitating the control of household appliances and the home environment through various devices that encompass multimodal and ambient interfaces seems a way to achieve this. In this paper, we lay out...

Cooperation and mutual assistance in emergency situations is one of the main objectives of the Latin-American Association of Governmental Organisms of Civil Defense and Protection. To promote such collaboration m-ARCE has been developed; an ubiquitous mobile office for disaster mitigation where users can send and receive information anywhere and an...

In this paper we discuss an approach to teaching web site design to higher education (HE) students that attempts to balance the artistic and scientific aspects of the web site design process. The design of IT systems has traditionally been viewed as a technical activity. However, unlike existing types of IT systems, an organization's web site is av...

The elderly population in the world is increasing rapidly and consequently so is demand for new technologies that allow them to live independently. Facilitating the control of household appliances and the home environment through various devices that encompass multimodal and ambient interfaces seems a way to achieve this. We tested three modalities...

An evaluation of musical earcons was carried out to see whether they are an effective and efficient method of delivering information about household appliances to elderly people. A test was carried out to explore the ability of the elderly subjects in remembering and learning the musical earcons. This test indicated a poor rate of recognition of th...

In this paper, the foundations of a research in course are described. The development of a set of design patterns for its use in the area of emergency notification to be used among older people that live independently seems like a step further in the development of technologies for smart homes. The advances in mobile technology and its use by elder...