Issue 6, 2015

Editor(s)-in-Chief: Silvia Gabrielli and Tiziana Catarci

Harmony: A Hand Wash Monitoring and Reminder System using Smart Watches
Appears in:
amsys 15(6): e4

Authors:
Md Abu Sayeed Mondol, John A. Stankovic

Abstract:
Hand hygiene compliance is extremely important in hospitals, clinics and food businesses. Caregivers' compliance with hand hygiene is one of the most effective tools in preventing healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in hospitals and clinics. In food businesses, hand hygiene compliance is essent…Hand hygiene compliance is extremely important in hospitals, clinics and food businesses. Caregivers' compliance with hand hygiene is one of the most effective tools in preventing healthcare associated infections (HAIs) in hospitals and clinics. In food businesses, hand hygiene compliance is essential to prevent food contamination, and thus food borne illness. Washing hands properly is the cornerstone of hand hygiene. However, the hand wash compliance rate by the workers (care givers, waiters, chefs, food processors and so on) is not up to the mark. Monitoring hand wash compliance along with a reminder system increases the compliance rate significantly. Quality of a hand wash is also important which can be achieved by washing hands in accordance with standard guidelines. In this paper, we present Harmony, a hand wash monitoring and reminder system that monitors hand wash events and their quality, provides real time feedback, reminds the person of interest when he/she is required to wash hands, and stores related data in a server for further use. Worker worn smart watches are the key components of Harmony that can differentiate hand wash gestures from other gestures with an average accuracy of about 88%. Harmony is robust, scalable, and easy to install, and it overcomes most of the problems of existing related systems.
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RF-Care: Device-Free Posture Recognition for Elderly People Using A Passive RFID Tag Array
Appears in:
amsys 15(6): e2

Authors:
Lina Yao, Quan Z. Sheng, Wenjie Ruan, Tao Gu, Xue Li, Nick Falkner, Zhi Yang

Abstract:
Activity recognition is a fundamental research topic for a wide range of important applications such as fall detection for elderly people. Existing techniques mainly rely on wearable sensors, which may not be reliable and practical in real-world situations since people often forget to wear these s…Activity recognition is a fundamental research topic for a wide range of important applications such as fall detection for elderly
people. Existing techniques mainly rely on wearable sensors, which may not be reliable and practical in real-world situations since people often forget to wear these sensors. For this reason, device-free activity recognition has gained the popularity in recent years.
In this paper, we propose an RFID (radio frequency identification) based, device-free posture recognition system. More specifically, we analyze Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) signal patterns from an RFID tag array, and systematically examine the impact of tag configuration on system performance. On top of
selected optimal subset of tags, we study the challenges on posture recognition. Apart from exploring posture classification, we
specially propose to infer posture transitions via Dirichlet Process
Gaussian Mixture Model (DPGMM) based Hidden Markov Model (HMM), which effectively captures the nature of uncertainty caused
by signal strength varieties during posture transitions. We run a pilot study to evaluate our system with 12 orientation-sensitive postures and a series of posture change sequences. We conduct extensive experiments in both lab and real-life home environments. The results demonstrate that our system achieves high accuracy in both
environments, which holds the potential to support assisted living of elderly people.
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Recurring contact opportunities within groups of devices
Appears in:
amsys 15(6): e3

Authors:
Nuno Cruz, Hugo Miranda

Abstract:
The capability to anticipate a contact with another device can greatly improve the performance and user satisfaction not only of mobile social network applications but of any other relying on some form of data harvesting or hoarding. One of the most promising approaches for contact prediction is …The capability to anticipate a contact with another device can greatly improve the performance and user satisfaction not only
of mobile social network applications but of any other relying on some form of data harvesting or hoarding.
One of the most promising approaches for contact prediction is to extrapolate from past experiences. This paper investigates the recurring contact patterns observed between groups of devices using an 8-year data-set
of wireless access logs produced by more than 70000 devices. This effort permitted to model the probabilities of occurrence of a contact at a predefined date between groups of devices using a power law distribution that varies according to neighbourhood size and
recurrence period.

In the general case, the model can be used by applications that need to disseminate large data-sets by groups of devices. As an example, the paper presents and evaluates an algorithm that provides daily contact predictions, based on the history of past pairwise contacts and their duration.
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TADL-V2: An Improved Trust-Aware Dynamic Location-based Adaptation Protocol For Discovering Multiple Paths in MANETs
Appears in:
amsys 15(6): e1

Authors:
Helen Bakhsh, Ning Zhang, Andy Carpenter

Abstract:
Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have a number of features that make the provisioning of Quality of Services (QoS) particularly challenging. One of the most challenging issues is how to discover more reliable paths for high priority traffic delivery in a highly mobile network and do so with minimum …Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) have a number of features that make the provisioning of Quality of Services (QoS) particularly challenging. One of the most challenging issues is how to discover more reliable paths for high priority traffic delivery in a highly mobile network and do so with minimum overhead costs. This paper attempts to address this issue by designing and evaluating a multi-path discovery protocol. This protocol, named as Trust-Aware Dynamic Location-based protocol version 2 (TADL-V2), is an improved version of our earlier published protocol, TADL. TADL-V2 has improved TADL in two aspects: (1) it uses a hybrid approach to node-disjoint path discovery based on the network mobility level and (2) it uses a mobility based approach to search area resizing. These measures enable TADL-V2 to discover more paths with reduced number of control packets injected into the network. Our simulation study shows that TADL-V2 outperforms TADL in terms of reducing control overheads when the network is highly mobile. This overhead reduction can have a positive effect on QoS provisioning.
more »
A Method to Assign Spread Codes Based on Passive RFID Communication for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensors Using Spread Spectrum Transmission
Appears in:
amsys 15(6): e5

Authors:
Ken Takahashi, Kenji Inoue, Yuusuke Kawakita, Jin Mitsugi, Haruhisa Ichikawa

Abstract:
Considerable research has been conducted on systems that collect real-world information by using numerous energy harvesting wireless sensors. The sensors need to be tiny, cheap, and consume ultra-low energy. However, such sensors have some functional limits, including being restricted to wireless c…Considerable research has been conducted on systems that collect real-world information by using numerous energy harvesting wireless sensors. The sensors need to be tiny, cheap, and consume ultra-low energy. However, such sensors have some functional limits, including being restricted to wireless communication transmission. Therefore, when more than one sensor simultaneously transmits information in these systems, the receiver may not be able to demodulate if the sensors cannot accommodate multiple access. To solve this problem, a number of proposals have been made based on spread spectrum technologies for resistance to interference. In this paper, we point out some problems regarding the application of such sensors, and explain the assumption of spread codes assignment based on passive radio frequency identification (RFID) communication. During the spread codes assignment, the system cannot work. Hence, efficient assignment method is more appropriate. We consider two assignment methods and assessed them in terms of total assignment time through an experiment. The results show the total assignment time in case of Electronic Product Code (EPC) Global Class-1 Generation-2 which is an international standard for wireless protocols and the relationship between the ratio of the time taken by the read/write command and the ratio of total assignment time by the two methods. This implies that more efficient methods are obtained by considering the time ratio of read/write command.
more »

Scope

The design of Ambient Systems is a cross disciplinary endeavour aimed at supporting and augmenting people’s activities in everyday life, by embedding computational intelligence in the distributed network of devices available in their living environment. While technology needs to become more and more invisible to provide smart support, novel forms of user experience and multimodal interaction need to be devised to enable fluid, intuitive and appealing transitions between the physical and digital world. This journal seeks contributions from leading experts and visionary thinkers in industry and research, about the principles, interaction paradigms, methods and applications that best can drive the future design of Ambient Systems and their human-centred, situated interfaces. Relevant topics covered by this journal concern: * Methods and tools for the development of Pervasive Environmental infrastructure * Design of highly immersive contents for Ambient Media * Trustful mechanisms for context awareness, social sensing and inference * AIterative design and evaluation studies of multimodal interfaces * Adaptive and personalized solutions for ambient intelligence * Embodied agents and affective interfaces * Personal, social, safety and ethical issues raised by Ambient system applications, such as Domotics, Ambient Assisted Living, Pervasive Edutainment Environments

Methods and tools for the development of Pervasive Environmental infrastructure
Design of highly immersive contents for Ambient Media
Trustful mechanisms for context awareness, social sensing and inference
AIterative design and evaluation studies of multimodal interfaces
Adaptive and …

Methods and tools for the development of Pervasive Environmental infrastructure
Design of highly immersive contents for Ambient Media
Trustful mechanisms for context awareness, social sensing and inference
AIterative design and evaluation studies of multimodal interfaces
Adaptive and personalized solutions for ambient intelligence
Embodied agents and affective interfaces
Personal, social, safety and ethical issues raised by Ambient system applications, such as Domotics, Ambient Assisted Living, Pervasive Edutainment Environments

DOAJ
DBLP
CrossRef
EBSCO Discovery Service
[OCLC Discovery Services](https://www.worldcat.o…

Andrea Marin (Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia) Ambient Pervasive Sensing and Applications
Aniruddha Bhattacharjya (Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Department of Electronics Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China)
Armir Bujari (Università …

Andrea Marin (Università Ca' Foscari, Venezia) Ambient Pervasive Sensing and Applications
Aniruddha Bhattacharjya (Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Department of Electronics Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China)
Armir Bujari (Università degli Studi di Padova)
Artur Lugmayr (Curtin University)
Binh P. Nguyen (Senior Lecturer, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealan)
Huynh Xuan Hiep (Can Tho University, Vietnam)
Issam W. Damaj (College of Arts and Sciences, American University of Kuwait)
Chien-Chih Yu (National ChengChi University)
Vijender Kumar Solanki (CMR Institute of Technology, Autonomous, Hyderabad, TS, India)
Giacomo Cabri (Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia)
Gabriellie Peko (The University of Auckland)
Huynh Xuan Hiep (Can Tho University, Vietnam)
Juan Carlos Augusto (Middlesex University at London, UK)
Khoa X. Le (Ulster University, United Kingdom)
Loc Nguyen (Director of International Engineering and Technology Institute)
Krishna Asawa (Associate Professor)
Manik Sharma (DAV University, India)
Muhammad Athar Javed Sethi (University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar)
Nguyen Ha Huy Cuong (Quang Nam University)
Oscar Mayora (CREATE-NET, Trento, Italy)
Pedro Santos (Fraunhofer IGD, Germany)
Pietro Cipresso (Applied Technology for Neuro-Psychology Lab - IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano)
Prashant Vats(FIMT, GGSIPU, Delhi, India)
Rohin Mittal (State University of New York at Buffalo, NY, United States)
Silvia Mirri (Università degli Studi di Bologna)
Shahed Mohammadi (Ragheb Isfahani Higher Education Institute, Iran)

Journal Blurb

This journal has been renamed to:

EAI Endorsed Transactions on Bioengineering and Bioinformatics

This journal has been renamed to:

EAI Endorsed Transactions on Bioengineering and Bioinformatics

Publisher: EAI
ISSN: 2032-927X
Volume: 2

Published: 2015-11-02

Harmony: A Hand Wash Monitoring and Reminder System using Smart Watches

RF-Care: Device-Free Posture Recognition for Elderly People Using A Passive RFID Tag Array

Recurring contact opportunities within groups of devices

TADL-V2: An Improved Trust-Aware Dynamic Location-based Adaptation Protocol For Discovering Multiple Paths in MANETs

A Method to Assign Spread Codes Based on Passive RFID Communication for Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensors Using Spread Spectrum Transmission

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