An active learning approach to home heating in the smart grid

A key issue for the realization of the smart grid vision is the implementation of effective demand-side management. One possible approach involves exposing dynamic energy prices to end-users. In this paper, we consider a resulting problem on the user’s side: how to adaptively heat a home given dynamic prices. The user faces the challenge of having to react to dynamic prices in real time, trading off his comfort with the costs of heating his home to a certain temperature. We propose an active learning approach to adjust the home temperature in a semiautomatic way. Our algorithm learns the user’s preferences over time and automatically adjusts the temperature in real-time as prices change. In addition, the algorithm asks the user for feedback once a day. To find the best query time, the algorithm solves an optimal stopping problem. Via simulations, we show that our algorithm learns users’ preferences quickly, and that using the expected utility loss as the query criterion outperforms standard approaches from the active learning literature

RFID localisation for Internet of Things smart homes: A survey

The Internet of Things (IoT) enables numerous business opportunities in fields as diverse as e-health, smart cities, smart homes, among many others. The IoT incorporates multiple long-range, short-range, and personal area wireless networks and technologies into the designs of IoT applications. Localisation in indoor positioning systems plays an important role in the IoT. Location Based IoT applications range from tracking objects and people in real-time, assets management, agriculture, assisted monitoring technologies for healthcare, and smart homes, to name a few. Radio Frequency based systems for indoor positioning such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a key enabler technology for the IoT due to its costeffective, high readability rates, automatic identification and, importantly, its energy efficiency characteristic. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art RFID technologies in IoT Smart Homes applications. It presents several comparable studies of RFID based projects in smart homes and discusses the applications, techniques, algorithms, and challenges of adopting RFID technologies in IoT smart home systems

Additional file 1: of Validity of the Stages of Change in Steps instrument (SoC-Step) for achieving the physical activity goal of 10,000 steps per day

The SoC-Step, a Stages of Change instrument relevant to the physical activity goal of 10,000 steps per day. (PDF 175 kb

Additional file 1: of The effectiveness of a web 2.0 physical activity intervention in older adults – a randomised controlled trial

CONSORT checklist. (DOC 218 kb

Additional file 3: of The effectiveness of a web 2.0 physical activity intervention in older adults – a randomised controlled trial

TIDieR checklist of the interventions. (PDF 129 kb