Fine-Grained Product Class Recognition for Assisted Shopping

Assistive solutions for a better shopping experience can improve the quality of life of people, in particular also of visually impaired shoppers. We present a system that visually recognizes the fine-grained product classes of items on a shopping list, in shelves images taken with a smartphone in a grocery store. Our system consists of three components: (a) We automatically recognize useful text on product packaging, e.g., product name and brand, and build a mapping of words to product classes based on the large-scale GroceryProducts dataset. When the user populates the shopping list, we automatically infer the product class of each entered word. (b) We perform fine-grained product class recognition when the user is facing a shelf. We discover discriminative patches on product packaging to differentiate between visually similar product classes and to increase the robustness against continuous changes in product design. (c) We continuously improve the recognition accuracy through active learning. Our experiments show the robustness of the proposed method against cross-domain challenges, and the scalability to an increasing number of products with minimal re-training.Comment: Accepted at ICCV Workshop on Assistive Computer Vision and Robotics (ICCV-ACVR) 201

The value of handhelds in smart environments

The severe resource restrictions of computer-augmented everyday artifacts imply substantial problems for the design of applications in smart environments. Some of these problems can be overcome by exploiting the resources, I/O interfaces, and computing capabilities of nearby mobile devices in an ad-hoc fashion. We identify the means by which smart objects can make use of handheld devices such as PDAs and mobile phones, and derive the following major roles of handhelds in smart environments: (1) mobile infrastructure access point; (2) user interface; (3) remote sensor; (4) mobile storage medium; (5) remote resource provider; and (6) weak user identifier. We present concrete applications that illustrate these roles, and describe how handhelds can serve as mobile mediators between computer-augmented everyday artifacts, their users, and background infrastructure services. The presented applications include a remote interaction scenario, a smart medicine cabinet, and an inventory monitoring applicatio

Новый вектор развития

Article is devoted to the oil and gas situation in Russia. The article presents the forecasts of demand for natural gas, also referred to is not a stable situation in the country and Russian companies are struggling with these changes

Preliminary results in anterior cervical discectomy and fusion with an experimental bioabsorbable cage - clinical and radiological findings in an ovine animal model

Background: Bioabsorbable implants are not widely used in spine surgery. This study investigated the clinical and radiological findings after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) in an ovine animal model with an experimental bioabsorbable cage consisting of magnesium and polymer (poly-ε-caprolactone, PCL) in comparison to a tricortical bone graft as the gold standard procedure. Materials and Methods: 24 full-grown sheep had ACDF of C3/4 and C5/6 with an experimental bioabsorbable implant (magnesium and PCL) in one level and an autologous tricortical bone graft in the second level. The sheep were divided into 4 groups (6 sheep each). After 3, 6, 12, or 24 weeks postoperatively, the cervical spines were harvested and conventional x-rays of each operated segment were conducted. The progress of interbody fusion was classified according to a three-point scoring system. Results: There were no operation related complications except for one intraoperative fracture of the anterior superior iliac spine and two cases of screw loosening and sinking, respectively. In particular, no vascular, neurologic, wound healing or infectious problems were observed. According to the time of follow-up, both interbody fusion devices showed similar behaviour with increasing intervertebral osseointegration and complete arthrodesis in 10 of 12 (83.3%) motion segments after 24 weeks. Conclusions: The bioabsorbable magnesium-PCL cage used in this experimental animal study showed clinically no signs of incompatibility such as infectious or wound healing problems. The radiographic results regarding the osseointegration are comparable between the cage and the bone graft group.Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen (AiF)German Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology (BMWi

A probabilistic approach to address uncertainty of RFID

Abstract. The popularity of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has increased in recent years. Although RFID has many benefits over other identification technologies, there are certain situations that can lead to uncertainty about the true location of the tagged object. In this paper we incorporate the knowledge about the operation of an RFID system and its various failure modes, and evidence from the RFID reader such as low-level diagnostic information in a single probabilistic model. The probabilistic model allows us to quantify and reduce the uncertainty associated with RFID operation, since we can provide the application with a single probability value that expresses the belief that a certain tagged object is present. The probabilistic framework is demonstrated with the help of a smart medicine cabinet. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems have become common in places where access control and tracking of physical objects is required. Examples include cattle herding, car immobilizers, and transport ticketing [3]. Mor

Vom Internet der Computer zum Internet der Dinge

ISSN:0170-6012ISSN:1432-122

Smart Playing Cards - Enhancing the Gaming Experience with RFID

The idea of pervasive gaming, where traditional, tabletop games are enhanced with wireless computing devices, has recently received increased attention. In this paper, we present a card game that is augmented with information technology to advise novice players and to relieve the players of mundane tasks, such as score keeping. The paper outlines in particular our e#orts to build a system that preserves the assets of conventional card games. The paper shows how appropriate RFID system design results in a portable solution which requires minimal changes and disruptions to the conventional game flow and which works reliably. We also illustrate how the players' mobile phones can be used as user interfaces, thus reducing the overall system costs

RFIDSim - A physical and logical layer simulation engine for passive RFID

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) poses a number of research challenges, such as interference mitigation, throughput optimization and security over the RF channel. A number of new approaches to address these issues have been proposed recently, but due to the highly integrated nature of passive RFID tags, it is difficult to evaluate them in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we present an RFID simulation engine, RFIDSim, which implements the ISO 18000-6C communication protocol and supports pathloss, fading, backscatter, capture, and tag mobility models. This paper also shows that our implementation of RFIDSim that relies on a discrete event simulator can be used to simulate large populations featuring thousands of RFID tags. RFIDSim also simulates the deep fades that lead to frequent power losses of the battery-less RFID tags by modeling the multipath effects statistically.IEEE Robotics and Automation Societ

Improving the Effectiveness of Medical Treatment with Pervasive Computing Technologies

Hippocrates, the father of medicine... will benefit from the ubiquitous communication infrastructure, the storage functionality and the familiar user interface the mobile phone provides