The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides access to information on a variety of topics related to the environment and strives to inform citizens of health risks. The EPA also has an extensive library network that consists of 26 libraries throughout the United States, which provide access to a plethora of information to EPA employees, scientists, and researchers. The EPA implemented a reorganization project to digitize their materials so they would be more accessible to a wider range of users, but this plan was drastically accelerated when the EPA was threatened with a budget cut. It chose to close and reduce the hours and services of some of their libraries. As a result, the agency was accused of denying users the “right to know” by making information unavailable, not providing an adequate strategic plan, and discarding vital materials. This case study explores the background of the digitization project, the practices implemented, and the critiques of the project.

/pdf/the-environmental-protection-agency-3gx4opzrjm.pdf

The Environmental Protection Agency

The evolution of ubiquitous sensing technologies has led to intelligent environments that can monitor and react to our daily activities, such as adapting our heating and cooling systems, responding to our gestures, and monitoring our elderly. In this paper, we ask whether it is possible for smart environments to monitor our vital signs remotely, without instrumenting our bodies. We introduce Vital-Radio, a wireless sensing technology that monitors breathing and heart rate without body contact. Vital-Radio exploits the fact that wireless signals are affected by motion in the environment, including chest movements due to inhaling and exhaling and skin vibrations due to heartbeats. We describe the operation of Vital-Radio and demonstrate through a user study that it can track users' breathing and heart rates with a median accuracy of 99%, even when users are 8~meters away from the device, or in a different room. Furthermore, it can monitor the vital signs of multiple people simultaneously. We envision that Vital-Radio can enable smart homes that monitor people's vital signs without body instrumentation, and actively contribute to their inhabitants' well-being.

/pdf/smart-homes-that-monitor-breathing-and-heart-rate-425fzf6qc1.pdf

Smart Homes that Monitor Breathing and Heart Rate

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) monitor dynamic environments that change rapidly over time. This dynamic behavior is either caused by external factors or initiated by the system designers themselves. To adapt to such conditions, sensor networks often adopt machine learning techniques to eliminate the need for unnecessary redesign. Machine learning also inspires many practical solutions that maximize resource utilization and prolong the lifespan of the network. In this paper, we present an extensive literature review over the period 2002–2013 of machine learning methods that were used to address common issues in WSNs. The advantages and disadvantages of each proposed algorithm are evaluated against the corresponding problem. We also provide a comparative guide to aid WSN designers in developing suitable machine learning solutions for their specific application challenges.

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3963&context=sis_research

Machine Learning in Wireless Sensor Networks: Algorithms, Strategies, and Applications

Photoplethysmography and its application in clinical physiological measurement

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) is the extraction of vehicle license plate information from an image or a sequence of images. The extracted information can be used with or without a database in many applications, such as electronic payment systems (toll payment, parking fee payment), and freeway and arterial monitoring systems for traffic surveillance. The ALPR uses either a color, black and white, or infrared camera to take images. The quality of the acquired images is a major factor in the success of the ALPR. ALPR as a real-life application has to quickly and successfully process license plates under different environmental conditions, such as indoors, outdoors, day or night time. It should also be generalized to process license plates from different nations, provinces, or states. These plates usually contain different colors, are written in different languages, and use different fonts; some plates may have a single color background and others have background images. The license plates can be partially occluded by dirt, lighting, and towing accessories on the car. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art techniques for ALPR. We categorize different ALPR techniques according to the features they used for each stage, and compare them in terms of pros, cons, recognition accuracy, and processing speed. Future forecasts of ALPR are given at the end.

https://romisatriawahono.net/lecture/rm/survey/computer%20vision/Du%20-%20Automatic%20License%20Plate%20Recognition%20-%202013.pdf

Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR): A State-of-the-Art Review

Embedding cardiac system sensing devices in wheelchairs is both necessary and attractive. Elders, diabetics, or stroke victims are a substantial group needing permanent cardiac monitoring, without restriction of their already limited mobility. A set of sensing devices was embedded in a wheelchair to monitor the user without his awareness and intervention. A dual-wavelength reflection photoplethysmogram (PPG), and a ballistocardiogram (BCG) based on MEMS accelerometers and on electromechanical film sensors are output by the hardware. Tests were conduced on twenty one subjects, for an immobility scenario. Additional recordings were made for helped propulsion over a tiled floor course, with good results in keeping track of acceleration BCG and PPG. A treadmill was also used for tests, providing a smooth floor and constant speed and inclination. The PPG and acceleration BCG could be continuously monitored in all the tests. The developed system proves to be a good solution to monitor cardiac activity of wheelchair users even during motion.

/pdf/study-on-ballistocardiogram-acquisition-in-a-moving-xqsribgfby.pdf

Study on ballistocardiogram acquisition in a moving wheelchair with embedded sensors

This paper presents an infrared turbidity sensor characterised by a flexible structure that permits the materialisation of different turbidity measurement schemes (transmission, scattering, ratio) in order to increase the measurement accuracy limiting the critical design factors and diminishing the common mode factors. As parts of the work are mentioned the design, implementation, calibration and test of the new turbidity sensor. For an automatic measurement process different "virtual instrument" components are developed and different intelligent processing structures based on neural network and fuzzy systems are implemented in order to obtain the turbidity information.

An IR turbidity sensor: design and application [virtual instrument]

Demographic developments, social changes, and the rising costs of health and social care due to people with chronic disease, people with mobility limitations and elderly population make necessary to rethink care delivery. A practical way to improve care and cut healthcare costs is to develop integrated electronic health (e-health) solutions that permit monitoring of physiological parameters and motor activities of the users in their homes.

Unobtrusive and Non-invasive Sensing Solutions for On-Line Physiological Parameters Monitoring

Ubiquitous Computing has the main goal of building computing systems that support and facilitate the daily lives of users, but being the least intrusive possible. There are many technological advances reported in literature, but the current scenario is still far away from an everyday life fulfilled with ubiquitous systems. The main objective of this work is to present a pervasive biomedical assistive environment for the elderly, with a wheelchair as a smart object. The wheelchair includes embedded sensors to measure physiological parameters such as heart rate and respiratory rate, mechanical quantities such acceleration. A LF RFID reader is associated with in order to assure the wheelchair user identification and wheelchair trajectory estimation considering different RFID tags that are distributed on the floor. Based on the implemented RFID system accompanying persons of the wheelchair's user are identified too. A generic architecture was designed to implement this kind of computing infrastructure in any physical space, like a home for elderly. It takes into account the distribution of the system by the various entities in the environment, which are users (elderly, watcher, and clinic), objects (e.g., the wheelchair) and situated displays.

UbiSmartWheel: a ubiquitous system with unobtrusive services embedded on a wheelchair

This paper describes the development of a health monitoring platform for physiotherapy patients, particularly focused on the ones suffering from stroke disease. Using the Kinect sensor, the presented system intends to provide technical data about the patients that could help therapists during physiotherapy assessments. For helping quantifying the patients' performance, a mechanism for human poses and gestures recognition was built using a sequence of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). Furthermore, through remote physiotherapy our system helps ensuring the continuity of the treatments outside the clinics and a considerable cost reduction.

Pedro Silva Girao

Papers

Study on ballistocardiogram acquisition in a moving wheelchair with embedded sensors

An IR turbidity sensor: design and application [virtual instrument]

Unobtrusive and Non-invasive Sensing Solutions for On-Line Physiological Parameters Monitoring

UbiSmartWheel: a ubiquitous system with unobtrusive services embedded on a wheelchair

Kinect based system and Artificial Neural Networks classifiers for physiotherapy assessment