Visual Speaker Identification Using Lip and Body Movements

Speaker identification has been studied in many fields such as image processing, audio processing, artificial intelligence and speech recognition. Two of these areas are integrated together in order to identify the speaker. This research will focus on two main approaches which are lip movements and body movements. We will work on the two approaches to achieve the speaker identification. The expected outcome of this study will be to identify the speaker in different scenarios, if there is a single speaker or if there is multiple speakers in the video or if the speaker’s lips are not in view

Viewing versus Experiencing in Adopting Somatosensory Technology for Smart Applications

Emerging somatosensory technology offers unprecedented opportunities for researchers and industrial practitioners to design a touchless smart home system. However, existing touchless smart home systems often fail to attract a satisfying level of acceptance among home owners. The experience users have with the touchless system is key to making somatosensory technology a pervasive computing home application, yet little research has been conducted to assess the influence of direct and indirect experience on user’s behavioral intention to use somatosensory technology. To address this research gap, this paper set up an experimental design to investigate the influence of direct and indirect experience in user technology acceptance. Using an in-house developed touchless system, two experimental studies (i.e., video observation versus product trial) were conducted with sixty-two participants to investigate whether the user experience has an impact on the adoption decision. Our findings indicate that direct experience has an impact on a user’s acceptance of somatosensory technology. We found a significant difference in the relationships between perceived complexity and usage intentions. Perceived complexity was a significant predictor of an individual’s behavioral intention to use the touchless system after video observation, while its relationship to usage intention was insignificant after the user had direct experience with touchless system. Our study reveals an important implication for somatosensory technology marketers, in which product trial (direct experience) engenders more reliable inferences than does exposure to video demonstration (indirect experience). Based on this, companies should devise marketing programme involving direct experience (e.g., product trial and showroom visit) to promote new somatosensory-enabled smart home systems. The results of the study also demonstrate that user experience in research design may influence the results of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) studies. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol6/iss3/2

Estimation of dominant sound source with three microphone array

Several real-life applications require a system that would reliably locate and track a single speaker. This can be achieved by using visual or audio data. Processing of an incoming signal to obtain the location of a source is known as Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation. The basic setting in audio based DOA estimation is a set of microphones situated in known locations. The signal is captured by each of the microphones, and the signals are analyzed by one of the following methods: steered beamformer based method; subspace based method; or time delay estimation based method. The aim of this thesis is to review different classes of existing methods for DOA estimation and to create an application for visualizing the dominant sound source direction around a three-microphone array in real time. In practice, the objective is to enhance an algorithm for a DOA estimation proposed by Nokia Research Center. As visualization of dominant sound source creates a basis for many audio related applications, a practical example of such applications is developed. The proposed algorithm is based on time delay estimation method and utilizes cross correlation. Several enhancements are developed to the initial algorithm to improve its performance. The proposed algorithm is evaluated by comparing it with one of the most common methods, general cross correlation with phase transform (GCC PHAT). The evaluation includes testing all algorithms on three types of signals: speech signal arriving from a stationary location, speech signal arriving from a moving source, and a transient signal. Additionally, using the proposed algorithm, a computer application with a video tracker is developed. The results show that the initially proposed algorithm does not perform as well as GCC PHAT. The enhancements improve the algorithm performance notably, although they did not bring the efficiency of the algorithm to the level of GCC PHAT when processing speech signals. In case of transient signals, the enhanced algorithm was superior to GCC PHAT. The video tracker was able to successfully track the dominant sound source

Human Localization and Activity Recognition Using Distributed Motion Sensors

The purpose of this thesis is to localize a human and recognize his/her activities in indoor environments using distributed motion sensors. We propose to use a test bed simulated as mock apartment for conducting our experiments. The two parts of the thesis are localization and activity recognition of the elderly person. We explain complete hardware and software setup used to provide these services. The hardware setup consists of two types of sensor end nodes and two sink nodes. The two types of end nodes are Passive Infrared sensor node and GridEye sensor node. Passive Infrared sensor nodes consist of Passive Infrared sensors for motion detection. GridEye sensor nodes consist of thermal array sensors. Data from these sensors are acquired using Arduino boards and transmitted using Xbee modules to the sink nodes. The sink nodes consist of receiver Xbee modules connected to a computer. The sensor nodes were strategically placed at different place inside the apartment. The thermal array sensor provides 64 pixel temperature values, while the PIR sensor provides binary information about motion in its field of view. Since the thermal array sensor provides more information, they were placed in large rooms such as living room and bed room. While PIR sensors were placed in kitchen and bathroom. Initially GridEye sensors are calibrated to obtain the transformation between pixel and real world coordinates. Data from these sensors were processed on computer and we were able to localize the human inside the apartment. We compared the location accuracy using ground truth data obtained from the OptiTrack system. GridEye sensors were also used for activity recognition. Basic human activities such as sitting, sleeping, standing and walking were recognized. We used Support Vector Machine (SVM) to recognize sitting and sleeping activities. Gait speed of human was used to recognize the standing and walking activities. Experiments were performed to obtain the accuracy of classification for these activities.Electrical Engineerin

An IoT based Virtual Coaching System (VSC) for Assisting Activities of Daily Life

Nowadays aging of the population is becoming one of the main concerns of theworld. It is estimated that the number of people aged over 65 will increase from 461million to 2 billion in 2050. This substantial increment in the elderly population willhave significant consequences in the social and health care system. Therefore, in thecontext of Ambient Intelligence (AmI), the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) has beenemerging as a new research area to address problems related to the aging of the population. AAL technologies based on embedded devices have demonstrated to be effectivein alleviating the social- and health-care issues related to the continuous growing of theaverage age of the population. Many smart applications, devices and systems have beendeveloped to monitor the health status of elderly, substitute them in the accomplishment of activities of the daily life (especially in presence of some impairment or disability),alert their caregivers in case of necessity and help them in recognizing risky situations.Such assistive technologies basically rely on the communication and interaction be-tween body sensors, smart environments and smart devices. However, in such contextless effort has been spent in designing smart solutions for empowering and supportingthe self-efficacy of people with neurodegenerative diseases and elderly in general. Thisthesis fills in the gap by presenting a low-cost, non intrusive, and ubiquitous VirtualCoaching System (VCS) to support people in the acquisition of new behaviors (e.g.,taking pills, drinking water, finding the right key, avoiding motor blocks) necessary tocope with needs derived from a change in their health status and a degradation of theircognitive capabilities as they age. VCS is based on the concept of extended mind intro-duced by Clark and Chalmers in 1998. They proposed the idea that objects within theenvironment function as a part of the mind. In my revisiting of the concept of extendedmind, the VCS is composed of a set of smart objects that exploit the Internet of Things(IoT) technology and machine learning-based algorithms, in order to identify the needsof the users and react accordingly. In particular, the system exploits smart tags to trans-form objects commonly used by people (e.g., pillbox, bottle of water, keys) into smartobjects, it monitors their usage according to their needs, and it incrementally guidesthem in the acquisition of new behaviors related to their needs. To implement VCS, thisthesis explores different research directions and challenges. First of all, it addresses thedefinition of a ubiquitous, non-invasive and low-cost indoor monitoring architecture byexploiting the IoT paradigm. Secondly, it deals with the necessity of developing solu-tions for implementing coaching actions and consequently monitoring human activitiesby analyzing the interaction between people and smart objects. Finally, it focuses on the design of low-cost localization systems for indoor environment, since knowing theposition of a person provides VCS with essential information to acquire information onperformed activities and to prevent risky situations. In the end, the outcomes of theseresearch directions have been integrated into a healthcare application scenario to imple-ment a wearable system that prevents freezing of gait in people affected by Parkinson\u2019sDisease

The influence of induced mutagenesis on reproductive behavior of Drosophila subobscura and the role of sexual selection in relationto the level of mutational load

Prema teorijskim očekivanjima seksualna selekcija može smanjivati mutaciona opterećenja u populacijama. Mužjaci koji su boljeg genetičkog kvaliteta bi trebalo da budu uspešniji u parenju u poređenju sa mužjacima lošijeg genetičkog kvaliteta. Na taj način ženke, prilikom izbora partnera za parenje, mogu da eliminišu one mužjake koji nose štetne alele, i da smanje mogućnost prenošenja štetnih alela u sledeću generaciju. Seksualna selekcija će redukovati mutaciona opterećenja i povećavati adaptivnu vrednost populacije, ako je većina mutacija štetna i za adaptivnu vrednost i za osobine koje utiču na uspešnost mužjaka u parenju. Istraživanja poslednjih godina su dala rezultate koji idu u prilog ovoj teoriji, ali i oprečne rezultate. Ovakva kontradiktornost proizilazi iz kompleksnosti problematike usled različitih reproduktivnih strategija vrsta, kao i različitih reproduktivnih strategija mužjaka i ženki. Takođe, osobine koje utiču na komponente adaptivne vrednosti, kao i na uspešnost u parenju, su veoma složene, pod determinacijom velikog broja gena, i u čijoj osnovi leže kompleksne genske interakcije. Iako se kao osobine koje su cilj seksualne selekcije najčešće analiziraju sekundarne polne karakteristike, i mnoge druge osobine određuju atraktivnost mužjaka. To su i morfološke, fiziološke, ponašajne i druge osobine koje utiču na uspešnost u parenju, a mogu se nazvati osobinama koje su zavisne od opšteg stanja mužjaka (eng. condition-dependent traits)...According to theoretical predictions sexual selection can reduce mutational load in populations. Males of good genetic quality should be more successful in matings, compared to the males of low genetic quality. In this way females, through the choice of mating partners, can eliminate males carriers of deleterious alleles, and reduce transmission of deleterious alleles to the next generation. Sexual selection will purge mutational load and increase fitness if most mutations were deleterious to both nonsexual fitness and condition-dependent traits affecting mating success. Studies in recent years have yielded results that support this theory, but opposite results are obtained, as well. This contradiction arises from different reproductive strategies of species, and different reproductive strategies of males and females. Traits that affect fitness components, as well as mating success, are under polygenic determination, with very complex gene interactions. Although secondary sexual traits were usually analyzed as target of sexual selection, many other traits can determine male attractiveness. Traits such as morphological, physiological, behavior and other, affecting mating success, can be termed as condition-dependent traits. In order to test this hypothesis, that sexual selection can reduce mutational load, two experimental groups were formed from the same population genetic pool of Drosophila subobscura, which differed in the level of mutational load. Mutations were induced in one group, using 30Gy ionizing radiation. The effect of sexual selection in reduction of mutational load was measured through different components of male mating behavior (courtship occurrence, courtship latency, courtship intensity, mating occurrence,latency to mating and duration of mating)...