The International Symposium on Wearable

Computers

Mark the dates...Submissione due: April 7 2013 (papers, notes, or posters)Conference: September 9-12, 2013

...and follow us, like us, plus us...www.iswc.net

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The 12th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia

Mark the dates...Submission due : Aug 17 (Short and Full Paper), Oct 14 (Posters/Demos)

Conference: Dec 9–12

...and follow us, like us, plus us...www.mum2013.org

Ulf BlankeWearable Computing Lab - ETH Zürich

Dagstuhl, 3-7 Dec 2012

Human Activity Recognition...

What I have been doing

time continuous data

Recognizing composite activities by decomposition into isolated activity events• Wearable motion sensors • Daily routines, maintenance, or construction tasks

http://www.ulfblanke.de/research/activity-recognition.html

Other projectsPlace recognition

http://www.ulfblanke.de/research/localization.html

Other projectsLocation recognitionSleep studies

Other projectsLocation recognitionSleep studies

Improving the kinectImproving Kinect’s depth camera

http://www.ulfblanke.de/research/kinect.html

Main challenges for the activity recognition research (as a process)

1. „Under“-validated vision

2. Missing conceptualization of activity

Real world problem

1. „Under“-validated vision

1. „Under“-validated vision

Do we know the value of activity recognition?– We assume (healthcare, industrial tasks...)– We should validate more with (end!) users

Did we make progress with respect to our vision?

Example: Activities of Daily Living (ADL)

• Definition given• So far some of top level ADL are well recognized

• Often subset of activities selected – Only 3 to 4 out of 6 top-level categories addressed– Different activities across different papers

• ADL aim also at assessing quality of activities performed

Did we solve any real world problem by recognizing ADLs?

State of the art

Proposal of solution

Research Cycle

Clear problem definition

Analysis

1.

2.

Rosy pictureunclear Hard to evaluate

Yes, technical challenges have to be adressedBut: Our real challenge is the vision/application To get beyond a technical artifact To prepare innovation, impact to society identify new topics for research justification for research (for selection of activities)

Excursion: Lean Start up

„not about asking what customers wants but testing the original vision based on what customers do”

„having an original vision and then refining and testing it along the way through tightly controlled experiments“

Some Lean Startup principles

• Driven by a compelling vision, and rigorously testing each element of this vision.

• Vision & motivation is backed up with data

• The Lean Startup applies to all companies that face uncertainty about what customers will want.

• ....

Main challenges for the activity recognition research (as a process)

1. „Under“-validated motivation

2. Missing conceptualization of activity

2. Missing conceptualization of activity

What is an activity?Activity Theory (A. N. Leont’ev 1978)*

(1) Structure of activityJ. Zacks (2001), (Bobick 1997), (Ampft 2007)...

(2) Object orientedness(Philipose 2004; Buettner 2009)...

(3) Internalization and externalization(Craik, 1967) „mental model“

(4) Mediation(Gibson 1977, Norman 1988)

(5) Development

No formal and sufficient explanation for activity in activity recognition research(Recall discussion)

*c.f. (Vygotsky, 1978), (Engestro m, 1987) or (Rubinstein, 1957) �

Discussion

Our frontier is not technology but vision/application!– Look for use cases– Don‘t rely on intuition:

validate with users: test the vision.– Activity Recognition + HCI as a field?

Is a theoretical concept important?– Standardizing effect?– Problem definition easier?