Caroline Langensiepen

Nottingham Trent University | NTU · Department of Computer Science

Wearable inertial measurement units incorporating accelerometers and gyroscopes are increasingly used for activity analysis and recognition. In this paper an activity classification algorithm is presented which includes a novel multi-step refinement with the aim of improving the classification accuracy of traditional approaches. To do so, after the...

We present a segmentation algorithm capable of segmenting exercise repetitions in real time. This approach uses subsequence dynamic time warping and requires only a single exemplar repetition of an exercise to correctly segment repetitions from other subjects, including those with limited mobility. This approach is invariant to low range of motion,...

Autism is a heterogenous condition, encompassing many different subtypes and presentations. Of those people with autism who lack communicative speech, some are more skilled at receptive language than their expressive difficulty might suggest. This disparity between what can be spoken and what can be understood correlates with motor and especially o...

One of the imminent challenges for assistive robots in learning human activities while observing a human perform a task is how to define movement representations (states). This has been recently explored for improved solutions. This paper proposes a method of extracting key frames (or poses) of human activities from skeleton joint coordinates infor...

Human activity recognition (HAR) has mainly been directed to the recognition of static or quasi-periodic activities like sitting, walking or running, typically for fitness applications. However, activities like eating or drinking are neither static nor quasi-periodic. Instead, they are composed of sparsely occurring motions or gestures in continuou...

Different computational methodologies for anomaly detection has been studied in the past. Novelty detection involves classifying if test data differs from the training data. This is applicable to a scenario when there are sufficiently many normal training samples and little or no abnormal data. In this research, a novelty detection algorithm known...

In this paper, a clustering-based fuzzy finite state machine approach for human activity modelling and recognition is proposed. It Incorporates the Fuzzy C-means (FCMs) clustering algorithm with a Fuzzy Finite State Machine (FuFSM) in order to generate the state transitions more effectively. This unsupervised approach will overcome the deficiency i...

Falls are one of the greatest risks for older adults living alone at home. This paper presents a novel visual-based fall detection approach to support independent living for older adults through analysing the motion and shape of the human body. The proposed approach employs a new set of features to detect a fall. Motion information of a segmented s...

In this paper, a novel approach to the container loading problem using a spatial entropy measure to bias a Monte Carlo Tree Search is proposed. The proposed algorithm generates layouts that achieve the goals of both fitting a constrained space and also having “consistency” or neatness that enables forklift truck drivers to apply them easily to real...

Encouraging rehabilitation by the use of technology in the home can be a cost-effective strategy, particularly if consumer-level equipment can be used. We present a clinical qualitative and quantitative analysis of the pose estimation algorithms of a typical consumer unit (Xbox One Kinect), to assess its suitability for technology supervised rehabi...

Assistive robots in ambient assisted living environments can be equipped with learning capabilities to effectively learn and execute human activities. This paper proposes a human activity learning (HAL) system for application in assistive robotics. An RGB-depth sensor is used to acquire information of human activities, and a set of statistical, spa...

Activities of daily living (ADL) or activities of daily working (ADW) may be affected by changes in a person's health or well-being. Measuring progressive changes in one activity or multiple activities is representative of behavioural variations. By inspecting the trends in multiple activities, it is possible to identify and predict human behaviour...

Technology designed for clinical use requires validation before it can be adopted by healthcare services. Clinicians are the best evaluators we have to determine the suitability of new technology. However, our results show that clinicians can have a low level of agreement when assessing the performance and suitability of technology. Thus, solid gol...

Assisted living homes aim to deploy tools to promote better living of elderly population. One of such tools is assistive robotics to perform tasks a human carer would normally be required to perform. For assistive robots to perform activities without explicit programming, a major requirement is learning and classifying activities while it observes...

Despite the increasing attention given to inertial sensors for Human Activity Recognition (HAR), efforts are principally focused on fitness applications where quasi-periodic activities like walking or running are studied. In contrast, activities like eating or drinking cannot be considered periodic or quasi-periodic. Instead, they are composed of s...

Human Activities Recognition (HAR) based on low-level sensory data has become an active research topic and attracting attention in many application domains. Many approaches are employed to process and analyse the collected sensory data for modelling and representing Activity of Daily Working (ADW) and/or Activity of Daily Living (ADL). In this pape...

An overview of a system of fuzzy transfer learning in human activity recognition for applications in assistive robotics

An overview of activity and gesture recognition using inertial signals.

Physical activities have tremendous benefit to older adults. A report from the World Health Organization has mentioned that lack of physical activity contributed to around 3.2 million premature deaths annually worldwide. Research also shows that regular exercise helps the older adults by improving their physical fitness, immune system, sleep and st...

The impact of learner affect state in goal achievement and educational performance is discussed. Different learning theory models are explored and compared, a new combined state diagram for modelling learning challenge and skill level is adopted and expanded for the purpose of an adaptive learning platform. To accomplish this, a thorough understand...

Family care is the most accepted and preferred care setting for both long-term care patients and their relatives. However, many of these caregivers are elderly people themselves, and often reach the point where they also need support. Care poses a substantial burden, so often it is not the health of the patient but the overload of stress for the ca...

Assistive living has gained increased focus in recent years with the increase in elderly population. This has led to a desire for technical solutions to reduce cost. Learning to perform human activities of daily living through the use of assistive technology (especially assistive robots) becomes more important in areas like elderly care. This paper...

Activity recognition with the use of inertial sensors, namely accelerometers and gyroscopes, has gained increasing attention during the last decades. In this work, we propose a novel way of tackling activity classification by developing a multi-step hierarchical classification algorithm. While previous research has looked at the problem as a whole,...

Analysis of human behaviour changes is a subject of interest for many researchers. This could be obtained considering either short-term or long-term changes. The aim of this study is to find long-term changes (behaviour evolution) in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) or Activities of Daily Working (ADW) of users in an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) envi...

In this paper a new robotic system is introduced that will engage, coach, assess and motivate the elderly in physical exercises that are recommended by the National Health Services (NHS) in the UK. With the rise in the population of the elderly which is expected to triple by 2050, this robotic system will aims to improve the quality of life for a s...

Nowadays, the energy performance of building and occupant comfort are both priorities. The aim of building technology is to achieve energy efficiency and at the same time increase occupants’ satisfaction. Rapid progress in software and hardware have made it possible to improve Intelligent Applications for human behavior monitoring in the building e...

Companion robots are becoming more common in home environments, as such a greater emphasis is required on analysis of human behaviour. An important aspect of human behaviour is emotion, both the ability to express and comprehend. While humans have developed excellent skills in inferring the emotional states of their counterparts via implicit cues s...

Our and others' research indicates that in fully a third of people with autism who lack communicative speech, the communication deficit may actually be a deficit in motor skills necessary to move the mouth and the vocal tract. These individuals have difficulties in fine, gross and especially oral motor skills, and a disparity between impaired expre...

Family care is the most accepted and preferred care setting for both long-term care patients and their relatives. However, many of these caregivers are elderly people themselves, and often reach the point where they also need support. Care poses a substantial burden, so often it is not the health of the patient but the overload of stress for the ca...

Analysing changes of the behaviour of an occupant who lives in an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environment is addressed in this paper. Changes in Activities of Daily Living (ADL) are indicators of the social and health status of the occupant. This research, therefore, aims to identify trends in ADL and interpret them in a suitable form for carers. It...

Due to the progressive ageing of the world population, new care models are required to maintain elderly’s quality of life. These models should include the informal carer (IC) who usually lacks of skills and knowledge to develop assistance tasks. Therefore, support in decision making and informal carer empowerment are crucial to prevent and reduce t...

The care of the elderly is complex, with multiple agencies and individuals involved. We propose a new way of developing an ontology to reflect these aspects within a real-time home monitoring system so that it captures real-life circumstances and interactions. Our new methodology incorporates iterative and evaluative stages to ensure the ontology ca...

Family care is the most accepted and preferred care setting for both long-term care patients and their relatives. However, many of these caregivers are elderly people themselves, and often reach the point where they also need support. Care poses a substantial burden, so often it is not the health of the patient but the overload of stress for the ca...

Gamification is a recent phenomenon that emphasizes the process of incorporating game elements, for a specific purpose, into an existing system in order to maximise a user's experience and increase engagement with the system. In this paper, we discuss the effects of the introduction of the principles of gamification to a system for solving real-wor...

Gait is the pattern of movement of limbs and can indicate people's health status. Most of the proposed systems for gait analysis either use complex facilities or only provide statistical data to describe gait parameters. An affordable system is required which is able to cover the complete process of gait analysis. To address this requirement, a mac...

The availability of datasets for monitoring the activities of daily living is limited by difficulties associated with the collection of such data. There have been many suggested software solutions to overcome this issue. In this paper, a new technique to generate realistic data is proposed. The new method provides virtual data to the researchers wi...

Human behaviour can be difficult to interpret even with the sophistication of modern smart homes, yet an understanding of the way people conduct their activities of daily living is essential for any attempts to detect problems. We discuss the key indicators for various activities that can be relatively robustly measured, and how these indicators ca...

In the context of the long-term care for older adults, informal carers play a key role. Daily competing priorities or a care-skills deficit may lead them to stress, anxiety and/or depression. The iCarer project (AAL-2012-5-239) proposes the design and implementation of a cloud-inspired personalised and adaptive platform which will offer support to...

This paper demonstrates a comprehensive analysis method using formal methods such as finite-state machine. First, we describe the modified version of our new protocol and briefly explain the encrypt-then-authenticate mechanism, which is regarded as more a secure mechanism than the one used in our protocol. Then, we use a finite-state verification t...

We derive a measure by which 2D container layouts can be rated in terms of their disorderliness. This measure of disorder is known as entropy, and is a combination of different measures that make a layout desirable. The entropy measure is calculated by first creating a connected graph that contains all items in the layouts and their relationships....

Ambient Intelligent (AmI) technology can be used to help older adults to live longer and independent lives in their own homes. Information collected from AmI environment can be used to detect and understanding human behaviour, allowing personalized care. The behaviour pattern can also be used to detect changes in behaviour and predict future trends...

This paper investigates the challenges in developing a semantic-based Dementia Care Decision Support System based on the non-intrusive monitoring of the patient's behaviour. Semantic-based approaches are well suited for modelling context-aware scenarios similar to Dementia care systems, where the patient's dynamic behaviour observations (occupants...

Government information is a vital asset that must be kept in a trusted environment and efficiently managed by authorised parties. Even though e-Government provides a number of advantages, it also introduces a range of new security risks. Sharing confidential and top-secret information in a secure manner among government sectors tend to be the main...

Government information is a vital asset that must be kept in a trusted environment and efficiently managed by authorised parties. Even though e-Government provides a number of advantages, it also introduces a range of new security risks. Sharing confidential and top-secret information in a secure manner among government sectors tends to be the main...

Analysis of the office workers' activities of daily working in an intelligent office environment can be used to optimize energy consumption and also office workers' comfort. To achieve this end, it is essential to recognise office workers' activities including short breaks, meetings and non-computer activities to allow an optimum control strategy t...

In this article, a hybrid technique for user activities outliers detection is introduced. The hybrid technique consists of a two-stage integration of principal component analysis and fuzzy rule-based systems. In the first stage, the Hamming distance is used to measure the differences between different activities. Principal component analysis is the...

A hybrid heuristic approach based on the collaborative combination of a genetic algorithm (GA), a greedy algorithm and another GA integrated with a rectangle packing algorithm is presented for solving the container loading problem (CLP). The approach reduces the CLP into subproblems, collaboratively combining the resulting constituent algorithms to...

As computer games have become more complex emphasis has shifted from graphics to the use of artificial intelligence to make the behaviour of non-player characters (NPCs) richer and more believable. In order to do this successfully it is necessary to understand what realistic behaviour actually is. In the world of neurological science, the Morris Wa...

In this paper, the application of soft computing techniques in prediction of an occupant's behaviour in an inhabited intelligent environment is ad-dressed. In this research, daily activities of elderly people who live in their own homes suffering from dementia are studied. Occupancy sensors are used to extract the movement patterns of the occupant....

In this paper, the application of soft computing techniques in prediction of an occupant's behaviour in an inhabited intelligent environment is ad-dressed. In this research, daily activities of elderly people who live in their own homes suffering from dementia are studied. Occupancy sensors are used to extract the movement patterns of the occupant....

Many of the best texture filtering techniques are unsuitable for modern shader based graphics hardware, either because of performance considerations or simply because they do not fit in with the way the hardware operates. Those that are compatible with modern hardware often suffer other shortcomings. This paper presents a new texture filtering tech...

We present a simple method of achieving realistic extreme depth of field effects at real time rates with suitable hardware. The method combines the accumulation buffer with per-pixel stochastic sampling. We introduce a novel approach whereby the scene is drawn from a large number of different viewpoints simultaneously. The results avoid the multi-i...

We derive a measure that describes the complexity and consistency of a 3D virtual scene, so as to be able to compare scenes used for training purposes, and to allow changes in a scene to generate appropriate responses within games. The measure is calculated by constructing an entropy tree that links all the objects within the scene together. The to...

In this paper, a user activities outlier detection system is introduced. The proposed system is implemented in a smart home environment equipped with appropriate sensory devices. An activity outlier detection system consist of a two-stage integration of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Fuzzy Rule-Based System (FRBS). In the first stage, the H...

In this paper, a user activities outlier detection system is introduced. The proposed system is implemented in a smart home environment equipped with appropriate sensory devices. An activity outlier detection system consist of a two-stage integration of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Fuzzy Rule-Based System (FRBS). In the first stage, the H...

In this paper we present an ambient intelligence system for modelling and control of power use within an office environment. We define a multi-scale model of the office worker, consisting of a coarse grained office user profile, together with a fine grained characteristics model to summarise their behaviours. Sensor data gathered from individual of...

This paper presents a conceptual design for a mobility scooter capable of outdoor autonomous navigation in an urban environment. The presented design of the mobility scooter has three stages. The first being the modification of a mobility scooter’s current drive system to accommodate steering by wire on top of manual steering. The next stage presen...

In this paper, we have described a solution for supporting independent living of the elderly by means of equipping their home with a simple sensor network to monitor their behaviour. Standard home automation sensors including movement sensors and door entry point sensors are used. By monitoring the sensor data, important information regarding any a...

The aim of this paper is to examine the suitability of binary similarity and dissimilarity measures in identifying frequent and abnormal human behavioural patterns in a smart home. There has been an increasing interest in this subject to help the elderly and disabled people to live alone in their own homes with little help and support from their ca...

In this paper, the simulation of the environmental condi- tions in university offices is addressed. Based on the real data collected from the environment, a flexible simulator is developed which accepts different office worker pro- files including expected office occupancy and computer usage. The simulator generates sensory signals which represents...

Identifying abnormal behaviour is an important factor in activity recognition. The aim of this paper is to design a system able to detect the abnormal behaviours of daily activity living in an intelligent environment. We approach this by applying dissimilarity (distance) measures on data collected from a single inhabitant environment. The data are...

This paper proposes a method by which the contents of novels may be automatically parsed to extract the key events, characters, locations and significant objects. A technique of clustering relevant to the textual content of novels was derived in order to extract the pertinent elements. The resultant information is presented in the form of a timelin...