TeleCARE Time Bank: A Virtual Community

supported by Mobile Agents

Octavio Castolo, Filipa Ferrada, L. M. Camarinha-Matos

New University of Lisbon / Uninova, Monte Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal

Abstract. The virtual community concept, when supported by adequate ICT

and organizational infrastructures, represents a very promising approach for a

new philosophy in elderly care and active aging. A mobile agents based

approach to implement services to support a Time Bank virtual community in

elderly care is introduced and a prototype system developed in the context of

the TeleCARE project is presented.

1 Introduction

Participation in a community is an important aspect of life for most people. In fact

most humans have a natural affinity for living in community. The structural process

that is associated with community building is communication. Without

communication there can be no action to organize social relations [1]. Today’s fast

emerging information and communication technologies have stimulated virtual

communities to grow using the Internet.

Virtual communities can be defined [2] as being “social aggregations that emerge

from the Net when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient

human feeling to form webs of personal relationships”. A virtual community is also

seen as “a community of people sharing interests, ideas, and feelings over the

Internet” [3]. However, as mentioned in [4], “due the lack of a formal definition,

virtual communities are casually defined as distributed online services connecting a

group of people that gather to keep in touch, focused on some common interest or

purpose”.

An important application context for virtual communities is elderly care.

Traditional approaches to care provision are based on support from either the

relatives, or the elderly care centers. However, these two solutions have become

increasingly insufficient due to the following reasons:

(i) Shifting the burden of responsibility onto relatives is increasingly impractical,

given the fact that more and more family members have to work to secure steady

incomes.

(ii) Provision of enough care centers is costly and invariably necessitates the

relocation of the elderly people, often beyond their home communities.

(iii) Many elderly people preserve enough robustness to be in their homes, a

situation that is often preferable to them, and as such better for their welfare.

Castolo O., Ferrada F. and M. Camarinha-Matos L. (2004).

TeleCARE Time Bank: A Virtual Community supported by Mobile Agents.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Tele-Care and Collaborative Virtual Communities in Elderly Care, pages 13-26

DOI: 10.5220/0002679100130026

 SciTePress

Due to the rapid growth of the elderly population, finding more effective ways of

providing care to a growing number of elderly became a major challenge.

In this context, the IST TeleCARE project [5] was launched with the aim of

designing and developing a configurable framework, based on mobile agents, focused

on the establishment of virtual communities for elderly support. The underlying

principle is that an integrated elderly care system consists of a number of

organizations such as care centers / day centers, health care institutions, social

security institutions, and involves the cooperation of a number of different human

actors e.g. social care assistants, health care professionals, the elderly people, and

their relatives. When supported by computer networks and adequate supporting tools,

the collaboration among the care institutions may evolve towards operating as a long-

term virtual organization and the various involved actors become part of a virtual

community (VC). In this paper the TeleCARE Time Bank virtual community concept

is presented and the developed supporting infrastructure is discussed.

2 The Time Bank Concept

The Time Bank concept provides a mechanism for collaborative community building

/ re-enforcement, i.e. a way for people to come together and help each other. The idea

is quite simple: people “deposit” time they are willing to contribute to the community

by giving practical help and support; in exchange they are able to “withdraw” their

time when they need something done to themselves by others. One key principle here

is that one hour is equal for everybody. One hour of helping out with gardening is

equal to an hour of legal advice. Thus, time banks create reciprocal relationships

between people and institutions, as well as between people and people, which are hard

to achieve in other volunteering services.

So what can be “exchanged” in this way? From existing cases a large number of

examples can be found, including: child care, breastfeeding support, children’s

activities, computer set-up, concrete/masonry, carpentry, plumbing, electrical repairs,

cooking, meal planning, first aid classes, massage, nursing assistance, nutritional

counseling, tutoring, gardening services, bedside companionship, saying prayers,

hairstyling, office help, house-cleaning, translating, etc.

The bank is some form of organization that takes care of registering members and

implementing some bookkeeping mechanisms. Most of the existing cases run in a

quasi ad-hoc manner, usually associated to the city hall or any charity organization,

and mainly resorting to telephone and some complementary “get together” meetings.

This “institution” also requires an administrator or broker that acts as the driving

force (catalyst) of the community.

How does it work?

Let’s suppose you would like some help — maybe two hours' help in the

garden. You contact the Time Bank and let them know what kind of help you

will need, and when.

The Time Bank administrator (or broker) checks the members’ records for

a “match.” The administrator calls the match, then calls you back to confirm.

At the time you need, your Time Bank friend comes by and helps in the

garden. Two hours help means two credits spent. You sign a form (cheque) for

two credits. The person who helped you hands in the form to the administrator,

who logs the exchange in the Time Bank's records. That person now has two

credits to spend!

Some day later on, you might get a call from the Time Bank administrator

asking you: would YOU like to help someone else and earn some time credits?

The Time Bank idea was originated in the USA in mid-80s by Edgar Cahn,

motivated by the need not to feel useless, as he stated: “I did not like feeling useless

[…] in the 1980’s society was declaring a lot of people useless, the unemployed, the

elderly and the young”. Then he came up with the idea “why not reward decency and

caring?” and set up the Time Dollar movement in the United States [6]. The

following principles formulated by Cahn [7] are the fundamental basis for the Time

Bank:

• Assets

: the real wealth of our society is its people.

• Redefining work

: to include all those things that support healthy individuals and

communities ― the work that is not currently valued in the market economy.

• Reciprocity

: we need each other.

• Social capital

: humans need social networks as much as they need roads and utility

lines.

Time Bank is therefore a response of the civil society trying to harmonize the

social structures with working and family life [8]. This initiative turned into a

“movement” that has gained rapid acceptance not only in the USA, but also in various

other countries. Their main goals, as defined in [8], are the following:

• Time Banks promote that people participate actively in their daily life.

• Time Banks offer opportunities to give and receive, simultaneously. They are

spaces where it is learned to choose services and activities that combine with the

necessities and desires of the community.

• Time Banks are innovating instruments of social policy on local scale, rooted in the

territory and near the people.

• Time Banks are instruments of mutual aid based on the interchange that have as

change and value unit the hour of time.

• Time Banks facilitate realistic actions in current environments; do not need

excellent social scenarios.

The TeleCARE Time Bank aims at applying this concept in the elderly care

domain and to provide adequate ICT support tools to facilitate the establishment and

operation of such communities. The aim is to provide the elderly people a way to feel

useful to society, an opportunity to share their experiences with others and to have

their days fulfilled. At the same time, by being integrated in such community they

obtain better support for their own needs.

In fact, the current paradigms of aging as a “dependent” stage of life do no match

up either with current realities of elderly people or with likely scenarios for 21

century. Aging is less and less synonymous with dependency, because not all elderly

people suffer from chronic illnesses, and even persons with chronic conditions and

functional limitations retain other significant capabilities [9].

The active aging concept reflects the desire and ability of many elderly people to

remain engaged in (economically and socially) productive activities. Active aging

means more than simply encouraging paid employment among elderly people. Our

societies should foster socially important activities such as volunteering, household

and child-care help, care-giving to the disabled elderly, and support for social service

organizations, like the time bank concept.

The Technological Solutions. There are not many tools for supporting Time Bank

activities reported in the literature. For instance, solutions found on Internet are

usually focused on local or specific problems of every Time Bank, depending on its

location and environment.

One of the tools for Time Bank administration is the Timekeeper [10], developed

for the Time Dollars concept. This software is used by agencies of Time Dollars in

USA and agencies of Time Bank in UK. It provides simple administrative services for

Time Banks based on Microsoft Access 97. Nonetheless, the Timekeeper software

only supports administration of Time Bank members’ account. It does not provide

support for virtual communities, as the concept is understood in the literature.

3 The TeleCARE Time Bank

The TeleCARE Time Bank is one of the vertical (application) services that run on top

of the TeleCARE platform (Fig. 1). This platform provides an infrastructure for the

implementation of distributed, Internet-based systems in elderly care [11]. The

infrastructure is based on multi-agent technology (mobile and stationary agents),

federated information management, and safe communications (virtual private

network). The TeleCARE multi-agent system (MAS) platform is installed in each site

(elderly homes, care centers, etc.) creating a flexible infrastructure that supports the

idea of plug-and-play vertical services (which can be progressively added top the

system).

Vertical Services Level

TeleCARE MAS Platform

Enter-

tainment

service

Virtual Community

Support

Status

Monitoring

service

Time Bank

service

Specialized interfaces

for elderly

Agenda

service

Web services

access

Fig. 1. The TeleCARE architecture

The TeleCARE Time Bank service supports the following macro-functionalities:

• Creation and management of the Time Bank virtual community.

• Perform the matching process between a service required by a member and the

potential provider members that could accomplish it.

• Support the negotiation process between members.

• Provide member’s account management and account statements.

The Time Bank is managed by a Coordinator, who is in charge of members’

account, promoting active participation of members, and assisting in finding the best

provider for a requested service. Participants in the TeleCARE Time Bank virtual

community include: (i) elderly people, (ii) their relatives, and (iii) a care center (that

performs the coordination role). An UML use case diagram of the main activities of

the participants in the TeleCARE Time Bank is depicted in Fig. 2.

Time Bank

management

requesting services

account statement

matching member's service

request to potential /

available providers

Elderly people

Relatives

Administrator

requesting account

statements

account statement

management

provision of

services

request for

subscription

account(s) creation

and maintenance

log access

Member

Care Center

Fig. 2. UML case diagram of participants’ activities of the TeleCARE Time Bank service

Typically, a transaction between members in a Time Bank includes the following

main phases: service request, service performance, and confirmation of a service

accomplishment. This process can be further detailed in the following steps:

A. Request a service:

a) A member, the Requester, needs a service.

b) The Requester contacts the Time Bank agency (Coordinator) for requesting the

service.

c) The Coordinator matches the requested service with the available potential

provider member(s).

d) The Coordinator contacts the potential provider(s).

e) The [potential] Provider receives the service requirement.

f) The [potential] Provider confirms acceptance or refusal to provide the service.

g) Once one member (the Provider) agrees to provide the requested service, the

Coordinator confirms service acceptation to Requester, indicating whom the

Provider is.

h) If necessary, Requester and Provider interact between them to negotiate terms

and conditions for service accomplishment.

B. The service is performed…

C. Service accomplishment:

a) The Requester issues a cheque to the Provider corresponding to the received

service, indicating how much time (in hours) the task took to be accomplished.

b) The cheque is “deposited” in the Time Bank agency, where

c) The Coordinator / Administrator registers the transaction, updating the account

statement of both Requester and Provider members.

The Multi-Agent Architecture. In order to support this process, a number of mobile

and stationary TeleCARE agents [11] are associated to Time Bank participants, as

illustrated in Fig. 3. These agents run in the different TeleCARE platforms installed at

every site of the Time Bank participants.

1. TBAdministratorAgent

2. TBMemberAgent

3. TBNegotiatorAgent

4. TBSubscriptionAgent

Internet

Relatives’ Office

Elderly Home

Care Center

Internet

Relatives’ Office

Elderly Home

Care Center

Fig. 3. The TeleCARE Time Bank MAS architecture

The TBAdministratorAgent is a stationary agent located at the care center and

supports the following tasks:

− Time Bank creation.

− Member subscription / discard subscription facilities.

− Creation of an agent to assist the subscription process.

− Update member’s credit account.

− Issue member’s account statements.

− Accept service requests.

− Matching a service request to potential providers.

− Assist selection of adequate provider.

− Issue log files.

− Interface with human Time Bank administrator.

− Generation of service’s accomplished key / application form.

The TBMemberAgent is a stationary agent that represents the members (elderly

and/or their relatives) of the Time Bank. It assists members in performing the

following tasks:

− Request for member subscription.

− Fill up application form for requesting a service.

− Creation of an agent for negotiation process.

− Fill up application form for service accomplished.

− Request member statement account.

− Interface with human Time Bank members.

The TBNegotiatorAgent is an agent created by the TBMemberAgent in order to

execute the negotiation process whenever a member requests a service. Each time a

service is requested, a TBNegotiatorAgent is created. This is a mobile agent that has

the following characteristics:

− Capacity to migrate to other platforms (Administrator and potential provider

Member(s) sites).

− Capacity of interaction with the agent TBAdministratorAgent, at the

Administrator’s site, and the TBMemberAgent located at the potential providers

sites.

The TBSubscriptionAgent is a mobile agent created by TBAdministratorAgent

when a subscription process is solicited. It has the following features:

− Capacity to migrate to other platforms (Administrator and/or Member).

− Capacity of interaction with the member who realizes a request for subscription,

when the subscription is requested from Member’s place.

− Capacity of interaction with the Time Bank administrator who realizes the

subscription of a member, when the subscription is requested from Administrator’s

place.

− Fill up the application form for Time Bank subscription.

Please note that a subscription can be requested remotely (from the potential

member’s home) or in the care center.

The participants of the Time Bank interact with the TBAdministratorAgent, in

case of the care center, and TBMemberAgent, in case of elderly people and/or their

relatives, in order to realize the various tasks of the Time Bank activity. An AUML

sequence diagram [12] is depicted in Fig. 4 showing some of the Time Bank agents’

activities for the process of requesting a service, and notification of service

accomplishment.

TBMemberAgent:Requester

TBNegotiatorAgent

TBAdministratorAgent TBMemberAgent:Provider

request a service

travels to

Administrator

place /platform

request for a service

return list of potential providers

send list of potential providers

select pot. provider

inform selected provider

matching w potential providers

Accept?->Yes

return response

return "ok"

inform acceptance of the service

update account statement & store data

inform selected provider

send email to selected provider

generates a key & store data

creates a

TBNegotiatorAgent

The requested service is being realized .

acknowledges service accomplishment (generating a cheque)

send cheque to Administrator

travels to

[selected]

Provider

place /platform

request for a service (a window's request is displayed at Provider)

Fig. 4. Service transaction in the TeleCARE Time Bank

Taxonomy of the Services. In order to facilitate the searching of a service and the

matching with the potential providers a taxonomy of services is maintained. The

initial taxonomy was defined based on information provided by GRAAL, a

Portuguese NGO that promotes the Time Bank concept in Portugal.

Table 1. The TeleCARE Time Bank services’ taxonomy

Category Services

A01 – Babysitting

A02 – Taking/looking for children to the school

A. Babyminding

A0x – …

B01 – Bicycling (bicycle)

B02 – Walking

B. Leisure

B0x – …

C01 – Washing the car

C02 – Washing dishes

C. Housekeeping

C0x – …

D01 – Gardening

D02 – Keeping animals or plants on vacation / holydays

D. Animals and plants

D03 – Helping in animals’ bath (dogs, cats, etc.)

E01 – Little domestic reparations

E02 – Carpentry

E. Bricolage (do-it-yourself)

E03 – Electrical reparations

F01 – Accompanying to doctor

F02 – Talking

F. Accompany (accompanying)

F0x – …

G01 – Cooking a special dish G. Cooking

G02 – Cooking food for freezing

H01 – Seam adjustments

H02 – Embroidering / embellishment

H. Working (workings)

H03 – Knitting

I01 – Teaching to study

I02 – Giving explications

I. Lessons

I0x – …

J01 – Literary corrections

J02 – Processing texts

J. Secretaryship

J0x – …

K01 – Supporting bureaucratic activities K. Time Bank collaboration

K02 – Helping meetings’ organization

The services to be offered by an operational Time Bank are specified according to

the skills and necessities of its members. Therefore new categories and services can

be defined (or removed) if necessary.

Time Bank Ontology. Ontologies play a key role in supporting proper interaction

among the various components of this (geographically) distributed multi-agent

system. The Time Bank ontologies are modeled using the Protégé [13] system and

Java classes are automatically generated out of these ontologies by the DOSG tool

developed by a TeleCARE partner, the University of Amsterdam. The UML diagram

of the Java classes and relations corresponding to the Administrator side ontology is

shown in Fig. 5.

-description : String

-credits : Integer

-date : String

-hour : String

AccountDetails

-balance : Integer

-accountDetailsList : AccountDetails

-member : Member

Account

-day : String

-beginHour : String

-endHour : String

Availability

-SkillsToOfferList : SkillsTB

-SkillsToRequestList : SkillsTB

-availabilityList : Availability

-member : Member

Skills

-memberNumber : Integer

-user : User

-photo : PhotoTB

-refPeopleList : RefPeople

Member

0..*

depends

1..*

depends

-isMemberTB : Boolean

-person : Person

RefPeople

1..*

-code : String

-codeDescription : String

-skillsCategory : SkillsCategory

SkillsTB

-URL : String

-username : String

-password : String

-lastMemberNumber : Integer

-emailTemplate : EmailTemplate

Administrator

-emailFrom : String

-emailSubject : String

-hostSMTP : String

EmailTemplate

depends

-code : String

-date : String

-beginHour : String

-endHour : String

Service

-serviceToAccomplish : Service

-memberRequester : Integer

-memberProvider : Integer

ServiceRequested

depends

-category : String

-catDescription : String

-skillsTBList : SkillsTB

-enableCategory : Boolean

SkillsCategory

1..*

-firstName : String

-lastName : String

-gender : Symbol

-birthdate : String

-IDDocument : String

-nationality : String

-profession : String

-addressList : Address

-nodeList : Node

-telephoneList : Telephone

-electronicAddressList : ElectronicAddress

Person

-addressText : String

-postalCode : String

-city : String

-state : String

-country : String

-addressType : Symbol

Address

-URL : String

-logicalName : String

-subscriptionDate : String

-physicalAddress : Address

Node

1..*

0..*

1..*

-person : Person

-elderlyData : String

-disabilityList : Disability

-physician : Person

Elderly

1..*

-relationKind : Symbol

-elderlyPerson : Elderly

-relative : Person

RelationType

-roleName : String

-description : String

Role

1..*

-telephoneNumber : String

-telephoneExtensionNumber : String

-telephoneNumberType : Symbol

Telephone

-electronicAddressText : String

-electronicAddressType : Symbol

ElectronicAddress

-person : Person

-username : String

-password : String

-subscriptionDate : String

-roleList : Role

-picture : Photo

User

0..*

-image : byte

Photo

-description : String

-careToTake : String

Disability

0..*

Fig. 5. The Administrator side ontology

The left side of Fig. 5 depicts the part of the ontology that is common to all vertical

services running on the TeleCARE platform. The right hand side shows the Time

Bank specific structures for the Administrator side. Each member of the Time Bank

(Member) is identified by his/her personal data that is held in the common ontology;

and at Administrator ontology by his/her skills (Skills) and availability time to realize

services (Availability). There are also definitions of structures for members’ account

statement (Account and AccountDetails), services that are being realized and by

whom (ServiceRequested and Service), and what services can be requested/offered

(SkillsCategory and SkillsTB). The structure Administrator represents the

Administrator entity, and the structure EmailTemplate is used for e-mail notifications

of requested services. It is important to observe that it is mandatory for every Time

Bank member to be a registered TeleCARE user. Each member must have from one

to three reference people (RefPeople).

In Fig. 6 the Java classes and relationships corresponding to the Members side are

depicted. The heart of this ontology is the member definition at TheMember,

TBMember and PhotoM. The structures SkillsTBM and SkillsAvailable indicate the

services that can be requested. The structures SkillM and AvailabilityM contain data of

skills and availability time of the local member, respectively. Finally the structures

Service, ServiceRequested and ServiceToProvide track the service accomplishment.

-code : String

-codeDescription : String

-skillsCategory : String

SkillsTBM

-day : String

-beginHour : String

-endHour : String

AvailabilityM

-skillsToOfferList : SkillsTBM

-availabilityList : AvailabilityM

-theMember : TheMember

SkillsM

1..*

-image : Byte

PhotoM

-member : TBMember

-serviceReqList : ServiceRequested

-serviceProList : ServiceToProvide

TheMember

-code : String

-codeDescription : String

-date : String

-beginHour : String

-endHour : String

Service

-firtsName : String

-lastName : String

-photo : PhotoM

-memberNumber : Integer

TBMember

-serviceToAccomplish : Service

-memberProvider : TBMember

-key : int

ServiceRequested

1..*

-category : String

-catDescription : String

-skillsDescriptionList : SkillsTBM

SkillsAvailable

1..*

-serviceToAccomplish : Service

-memberRequester : TBMember

-key : int

ServiceToProvide

1..*

Fig. 6. The Member(s) side ontology

Implementation Aspects. The Time Bank service prototype was developed in Java,

on top of the TeleCARE multi-agent platform [14] that extends AGLETS and

integrates a distributed / federated information management sub-system. In Fig. 7 and

Fig. 8 some of the user interfaces of the developed system are illustrated.

Fig. 7. Requesting a service

Fig. 8. Issuing a cheque after a service is accomplished

Provided functionalities can be accessed both via the TeleCARE user interfaces

(running in the multi-agent platform) or via a web browser, using the component Web

Services Access of the TeleCARE architecture (see Fig. 1) developed by the

TeleCARE partner Skill, Consejeros de Gestión. The web interface is shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9. Example of the web interface to Time Bank — list of potential providers for a requested

service

For the implementation of this particular service other implementation approaches

(not necessarily agent-based) could have been adopted. It was however quite

convenient to take advantage of the functionalities provided by the TeleCARE

platform. The goal was to also have this service integrated with other services

provided to the elderly care community. Thinking in terms of future developments,

the use of agents and the underlying TeleCARE platform will also facilitate the

development of more intelligent matching and negotiation processes.

4 Conclusions

The Time Bank mechanisms seem particularly adequate to support the “active aging”

concept and represent a good example of a virtual community. It is now commonly

accepted that while there is no one magic formula for successfully living a long life in

a healthy manner, the concept of active aging, and remaining active and engaged in

society is a critical component of maintaining a quality of life. Actively engaged

older persons are more likely to remain cognitively and physically stimulated, to

mature healthy interpersonal relationships and remain involved as contributing

members of their societies. The integration of a Time Bank support service within an

elderly care system seems thus a promising contribution to:

- Help the sense of “being involved in / part of the society” and being useful.

- Let elderly share and apply to the benefit of the community their valuable

experiences.

- Facilitate the inter-generation interaction.

The mobile-agents based prototype system developed in the framework of the

TeleCARE project illustrates a good set of functionalities to support such virtual

communities. Nevertheless it shall be noted that the actual success of implantation of

the system depends on further progress on the elderly user interfaces, namely its

integration with TV sets and other home appliances, as well as the creation of a new

attitude towards elderly care in the various actors and institutions involved in this

domain.

Acknowledgements. This work was funded in part by the IST program of the

European Commission. The authors thank the contribution of the TeleCARE

consortium members.

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