Deep Room Recognition Using Inaudible Echos

Recent years have seen the increasing need of location awareness by mobile applications. This paper presents a room-level indoor localization approach based on the measured room's echos in response to a two-millisecond single-tone inaudible chirp emitted by a smartphone's loudspeaker. Different from other acoustics-based room recognition systems that record full-spectrum audio for up to ten seconds, our approach records audio in a narrow inaudible band for 0.1 seconds only to preserve the user's privacy. However, the short-time and narrowband audio signal carries limited information about the room's characteristics, presenting challenges to accurate room recognition. This paper applies deep learning to effectively capture the subtle fingerprints in the rooms' acoustic responses. Our extensive experiments show that a two-layer convolutional neural network fed with the spectrogram of the inaudible echos achieve the best performance, compared with alternative designs using other raw data formats and deep models. Based on this result, we design a RoomRecognize cloud service and its mobile client library that enable the mobile application developers to readily implement the room recognition functionality without resorting to any existing infrastructures and add-on hardware. Extensive evaluation shows that RoomRecognize achieves 99.7%, 97.7%, 99%, and 89% accuracy in differentiating 22 and 50 residential/office rooms, 19 spots in a quiet museum, and 15 spots in a crowded museum, respectively. Compared with the state-of-the-art approaches based on support vector machine, RoomRecognize significantly improves the Pareto frontier of recognition accuracy versus robustness against interfering sounds (e.g., ambient music).Comment: 29 page

Collecting Shared Experiences through Lifelogging: Lessons Learned

The emergence of widespread pervasive sensing, personal recording technologies, and systems for the quantified self are creating an environment in which one can capture fine-grained activity traces. Such traces have wide applicability in domains such as human memory augmentation, behavior change, and healthcare. However, obtaining these traces for research is nontrivial, especially those containing photographs of everyday activities. To source data for their own work, the authors created an experimental setup in which they collected detailed traces of a group of researchers over 2.75 days. They share their experiences of this process and present a series of lessons learned for other members of the research community conducting similar studies

SoK: Inference Attacks and Defenses in Human-Centered Wireless Sensing

Human-centered wireless sensing aims to understand the fine-grained environment and activities of a human using the diverse wireless signals around her. The wireless sensing community has demonstrated the superiority of such techniques in many applications such as smart homes, human-computer interactions, and smart cities. Like many other technologies, wireless sensing is also a double-edged sword. While the sensed information about a human can be used for many good purposes such as enhancing life quality, an adversary can also abuse it to steal private information about the human (e.g., location, living habits, and behavioral biometric characteristics). However, the literature lacks a systematic understanding of the privacy vulnerabilities of wireless sensing and the defenses against them. In this work, we aim to bridge this gap. First, we propose a framework to systematize wireless sensing-based inference attacks. Our framework consists of three key steps: deploying a sniffing device, sniffing wireless signals, and inferring private information. Our framework can be used to guide the design of new inference attacks since different attacks can instantiate these three steps differently. Second, we propose a defense-in-depth framework to systematize defenses against such inference attacks. The prevention component of our framework aims to prevent inference attacks via obfuscating the wireless signals around a human, while the detection component aims to detect and respond to attacks. Third, based on our attack and defense frameworks, we identify gaps in the existing literature and discuss future research directions

Exploring midwives’ challenges and strategies to provide care in maternity settings during the harsh winter weather in the northern areas of Pakistan: A qualitative study

Background: Midwives play a vital role in enhancing the quality of care and achieving substantial reductions in maternal and newborn mortality rates. However, in Gilgit Baltistan, the harsh winter weather and frequent heavy snowfall present distinct challenges for midwives providing essential maternal care. These challenges can lead to an increased risk of maternal infections and newborn hypothermia. Consequently, the limited accessibility to healthcare facilities due to frequent harsh winter weather and the resulting scarcity of resources like heating, electricity, and water exacerbate the situation.Objective: The study aims to explore the challenges and barriers midwives face in maternity settings and the strategies they use to overcome those challenges during winter weather in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.Methodology: The qualitative exploratory design was used in this study. A total of 9 midwives were purposely selected. Data were collected using individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed through qualitative content analysis.Results: Five main themes emerged from the data analysis. These themes included; 1) Harsh Winters: Hindrances & Adversities. 2) Indigenous Strategies for Warmth and Wellness. 3) Coldness Jeopardizing Midwives Well\u27 Being. 4) Midwives\u27 Resilience and Struggles: Harsh Winters. 5) Future Directions for Advancement.Conclusion: Midwives experience numerous challenges in delivering maternal care, especially in remote areas with harsh winter conditions. Effectively addressing these challenges demands a comprehensive approach. This approach should include providing adequate resources and infrastructure improvements, including the prevention and management of hypothermia, the implementation of telemedicine services, the availability of dedicated emergency transport services, the establishment of maternity health centers in each remote area, and specialized training for midwives to enhance their capacity to handle winter emergencies, including cases of hypothermia

Gendering Labour Geography: Mapping women’s world of labour through everyday geographies of work-life at a Special Economic Zone in Tamil Nadu, India.

The thesis looks at the experiences of work and life of young women workers who have migrated from their villages to work in an electronics factory in a Special Economic Zone in Tamil Nadu, India. Moving beyond the lens of exploitation or emancipation, the thesis attempts to understand the meaning of work and relations that develop around it. It does so by focusing on the everyday lived experiences and practices of women inside and outside the factory. The thesis pays attention to individual stories to create linkages between lives as waged workers in a formal workspace with the informal nature of work-life outside. It tries to understand the processes through which women enter formal waged work in global production sites and the choices they make in their everyday lives, both within the workplace and outside of it; and how everyday social relations are constituted and re-constituted through work and practices of labour. The research finds that the everyday lived experiences of work and life in the factory form a ‘complex web of relations’ to which women grow attached to and from which they derive new meanings of work. While the thesis does not claim that the women were able to transcend the larger politics of gender or labour, it does show that waged work did create possibilities for reworking gender relations for the women. Finally the thesis argues for Labour Geography to look beyond the factory gates to understand the nuanced politics of labour as relations get ‘reworked’ within a patriarchal-capitalist society. It recommends paying close attention to the ‘small-scale geographies’ of workers (McDowell, 2015), their life narratives and experiences, but without losing sight of the larger struggles of labour and global processes, to develop a more grounded understanding of worker’s agency and actions

Athletics & Recreation Master Plan Sub‐Committee Final Report

In 2000 the Athletics & Recreation Department at UMass Boston Implemented a five year strategic plan that would more realistically align sports sponsorship with available financial and facility resources. We reduced the number of sports sponsored from 20 to 14 maintaining 7 sports for women and 7 sports for men. The only sports maintained without a facility were Men’s baseball and Cross Country Track. We eliminated football, swimming and indoor & outdoor track and field for men and women. Since 2005 The Athletics & Recreation Department has been focused on University wide transition and planning efforts. In that period we have experienced three changes in the Chancellors office, two changes in Athletics Director Position and our operation has moved from a university department to a university division. We have engaged in university‐wide strategic planning and master planning while redefining the role of athletics within the campus community. This four year process of transition & planning has been at the same time taxing and invigorating while allowing the Division of Athletics & Recreation, Special Programs & Projects to emerge as a university service entity supportive of the primary mission of the university. The division has engaged in areas of the university heretofore out of its purview. It has established internal and external partnerships that are transformative and beneficial to the entire community. This report focuses on facilities that will allow for the established partnerships to flourish, that will uphold the new standards for high quality facilities that have been implemented over the last four years on our campus and most importantly this report addresses in a comprehensive way a vision for athletics & recreation at UMass Boston that will put us in the fore front of those institutions that offer athletics & recreation for the purpose of the health and both physical and mental wellness of students, faculty and staff. It does begin with a pride of place

Co-designing patient-centred technology for chronic kidney disease : supporting the patient journey

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients endure their chronic condition, in addition to complicated treatment pathways and trajectories, high treatment burden and great volumes of information which is not always applicable to their individual situations. There are calls for more patient-centred care, with greater patient involvement in treatment decisions and routine collection of patient outcomes. Digital health innovations have the potential to address these points, but poorly designed or implemented interventions can increase treatment burden, and many fail to reach implementation, described as “pilotitis” in the literature. This thesis explores the use of a Participatory Action Research approach to designing CKD interventions, involving multidisciplinary stakeholders and patients in the design process. First a scoping review on implemented technology-based and patient-centred interventions for high treatment burden populations was conducted, with results providing factors for promoting patient-centredness in technological interventions. A multidisciplinary group of domain experts from academia and medicine was then formed, to identify issues within the community, provide initial design requirements and guide development of a prototype intervention. This prototype would be implemented and evaluated after 6 weeks use by CKD patients in routine care, as part of a vascular access-specific quality-of-life measure (VASQoL) validation study. This resulted in a System Usability Scale (SUS) evaluation and qualitative feedback from 26 CKD patients as well the feedback and observations of a clinical researcher. This evaluation identifies further design requirements as well as the idiosyncratic needs of dialysing CKD patients, such as situational impairment and perceived value of technology. The focus then shifted to patient education, with iterative design and feedback on prototype designs with the MDG, clinical stakeholders and CKD patients in online and in-person workshops, and an interactive symposium. Through multidisciplinary co-design and iterative development, the research produced extensive design requirements and prototype systems for CKD patient education and decision-making aids.Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients endure their chronic condition, in addition to complicated treatment pathways and trajectories, high treatment burden and great volumes of information which is not always applicable to their individual situations. There are calls for more patient-centred care, with greater patient involvement in treatment decisions and routine collection of patient outcomes. Digital health innovations have the potential to address these points, but poorly designed or implemented interventions can increase treatment burden, and many fail to reach implementation, described as “pilotitis” in the literature. This thesis explores the use of a Participatory Action Research approach to designing CKD interventions, involving multidisciplinary stakeholders and patients in the design process. First a scoping review on implemented technology-based and patient-centred interventions for high treatment burden populations was conducted, with results providing factors for promoting patient-centredness in technological interventions. A multidisciplinary group of domain experts from academia and medicine was then formed, to identify issues within the community, provide initial design requirements and guide development of a prototype intervention. This prototype would be implemented and evaluated after 6 weeks use by CKD patients in routine care, as part of a vascular access-specific quality-of-life measure (VASQoL) validation study. This resulted in a System Usability Scale (SUS) evaluation and qualitative feedback from 26 CKD patients as well the feedback and observations of a clinical researcher. This evaluation identifies further design requirements as well as the idiosyncratic needs of dialysing CKD patients, such as situational impairment and perceived value of technology. The focus then shifted to patient education, with iterative design and feedback on prototype designs with the MDG, clinical stakeholders and CKD patients in online and in-person workshops, and an interactive symposium. Through multidisciplinary co-design and iterative development, the research produced extensive design requirements and prototype systems for CKD patient education and decision-making aids

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences