The Euphrosyne family's contribution to the low albedo near-Earth asteroids

The Euphrosyne asteroid family is uniquely situated at high inclination in the outer Main Belt, bisected by the nu_6 secular resonance. This large, low albedo family may thus be an important contributor to specific subpopulations of the near-Earth objects. We present simulations of the orbital evolution of Euphrosyne family members from the time of breakup to the present day, focusing on those members that move into near-Earth orbits. We find that family members typically evolve into a specific region of orbital element-space, with semimajor axes near ~3 AU, high inclinations, very large eccentricities, and Tisserand parameters similar to Jupiter family comets. Filtering all known NEOs with our derived orbital element limits, we find that the population of candidate objects is significantly lower in albedo than the overall NEO population, although many of our candidates are also darker than the Euphrosyne family, and may have properties more similar to comet nuclei. Followup characterization of these candidates will enable us to compare them to known family properties, and confirm which ones originated with the breakup of (31) Euphrosyne.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Ontology-based Activity Recognition Framework and Services

This paper introduces an ontology-based integrated framework for activity modeling, activity recognition and activity model evolution. Central to the framework is ontological activity modeling and semantic-based activity recognition, which is supported by an iterative process that incrementally improves the completeness and accuracy of activity models. In addition, the paper presents a service-oriented architecture for the realization of the proposed framework which can provide activity context-aware services in a scalable distributed manner. The paper further describes and discusses the implementation and testing experience of the framework and services in the context of smart home based assistive living

Asteroid family identification using the Hierarchical Clustering Method and WISE/NEOWISE physical properties

Using albedos from WISE/NEOWISE to separate distinct albedo groups within the Main Belt asteroids, we apply the Hierarchical Clustering Method to these subpopulations and identify dynamically associated clusters of asteroids. While this survey is limited to the ~35% of known Main Belt asteroids that were detected by NEOWISE, we present the families linked from these objects as higher confidence associations than can be obtained from dynamical linking alone. We find that over one-third of the observed population of the Main Belt is represented in the high-confidence cores of dynamical families. The albedo distribution of family members differs significantly from the albedo distribution of background objects in the same region of the Main Belt, however interpretation of this effect is complicated by the incomplete identification of lower-confidence family members. In total we link 38,298 asteroids into 76 distinct families. This work represents a critical step necessary to debias the albedo and size distributions of asteroids in the Main Belt and understand the formation and history of small bodies in our Solar system.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. Full version of Table 3 to be published electronically in Ap

Goal Lifecycles and Ontological Models for Intention Based Assistive Living within Smart Environments

Current ambient assistive living solutions have adopted a traditional sensor-centric approach, involving data analysis and activity recognition to provide assistance to individuals. The reliance on sensors and activity recognition in this approach introduces issues with scalability and ability to model activity variations. This study introduces a novel approach to assistive living which intends to address these issues via a paradigm shift from a sensor centric approach to a goal-oriented one. The goal-oriented approach focuses on identification of user goals in order to pro-actively offer assistance by either pre-defined or dynamically constructed instructions. This paper introduces the architecture of this goal-oriented approach and describes an ontological goal model to serve as its basis. The use of this approach is illustrated in a case study which focuses on assisting a user with activities of daily living

Automatic Metadata Generation Through Analysis of Narration Within Instructional Videos

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Current activity recognition based assistive living solutions have adopted relatively rigid models of inhabitant activities. These solutions have some deficiencies associated with the use of these models. To address this, a goal-oriented solution has been proposed. In a goal-oriented solution, goal models offer a method of flexibly modelling inhabitant activity. The flexibility of these goal models can dynamically produce a large number of varying action plans that may be used to guide inhabitants. In order to provide illustrative, video-based, instruction for these numerous actions plans, a number of video clips would need to be associated with each variation. To address this, rich metadata may be used to automatically match appropriate video clips from a video repository to each specific, dynamically generated, activity plan. This study introduces a mechanism of automatically generating suitable rich metadata representing actions depicted within video clips to facilitate such video matching. This performance of this mechanism was evaluated using eighteen video files; during this evaluation metadata was automatically generated with a high level of accuracy

From Activity Recognition to Intention Recognition for Assisted Living Within Smart Homes

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The global population is aging; projections show that by 2050, more than 20% of the population will be aged over 64. This will lead to an increase in aging related illness, a decrease in informal support, and ultimately issues with providing care for these individuals. Assistive smart homes provide a promising solution to some of these issues. Nevertheless, they currently have issues hindering their adoption. To help address some of these issues, this study introduces a novel approach to implementing assistive smart homes. The devised approach is based upon an intention recognition mechanism incorporated into an intelligent agent architecture. This approach is detailed and evaluated. Evaluation was performed across three scenarios. Scenario 1 involved a web interface, focusing on testing the intention recognition mechanism. Scenarios 2 and 3 involved retrofitting a home with sensors and providing assistance with activities over a period of 3 months. The average accuracy for these three scenarios was 100%, 64.4%, and 83.3%, respectively. Future will extend and further evaluate this approach by implementing advanced sensor-filtering rules and evaluating more complex activities

Main Belt Asteroids with WISE/NEOWISE: Near-Infrared Albedos

We present revised near-infrared albedo fits of 2835 Main Belt asteroids observed by WISE/NEOWISE over the course of its fully cryogenic survey in 2010. These fits are derived from reflected-light near-infrared images taken simultaneously with thermal emission measurements, allowing for more accurate measurements of the near-infrared albedos than is possible for visible albedo measurements. As our sample requires reflected light measurements, it undersamples small, low albedo asteroids, as well as those with blue spectral slopes across the wavelengths investigated. We find that the Main Belt separates into three distinct groups of 6%, 16%, and 40% reflectance at 3.4 um. Conversely, the 4.6 um albedo distribution spans the full range of possible values with no clear grouping. Asteroid families show a narrow distribution of 3.4 um albedos within each family that map to one of the three observed groupings, with the (221) Eos family being the sole family associated with the 16% reflectance 3.4 um albedo group. We show that near-infrared albedos derived from simultaneous thermal emission and reflected light measurements are an important indicator of asteroid taxonomy and can identify interesting targets for spectroscopic followup.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; full version of Table1 to be published electronically in the journa