Activity recognition aims to recognize the actions and goals of one or more agents from a series of observations on the agents' actions and the environmental conditions. Since the 1980s, this research field has captured the attention of several computer science communities due to its strength in providing personalized support for many different applications and its connection to many different fields of study such as medicine, human-computer interaction, or sociology.
To understand activity recognition better, consider the following scenario. An elderly man wakes up at dawn in his small studio apartment, where he stays alone. He lights the stove to make a pot of tea, switches on the toaster oven, and takes some bread and jelly from the cupboard. After taking his morning medication, a computer-generated voice gently reminds him to turn off the toaster. Later that day, his daughter accesses a secure website where she scans a check-list, which was created by a sensor network in her father's apartment. She finds that her father is eating normally, taking his medicine on schedule, and continuing to manage his daily life on his own. That information puts her mind at ease.
Many different applications have been studied by researchers in activity recognition; examples include assisting the sick and disabled. For example, Pollack et al. show that by automatically monitoring human activities, home-based rehabilitation can be provided for people suffering from traumatic brain injuries. One can find applications ranging from security-related applications and logistics support to location-based services. Due to its many-faceted nature, different fields may refer to activity recognition as plan recognition, goal recognition, intent recognition, behavior recognition, location estimation and location-based services.
Read more about Activity Recognition: Labs in The World, Related Conferences
Famous quotes containing the words activity and/or recognition:
“A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“While you are nurturing your newborn, you need someone to nurture you, whether it is with healthful drinks while you’re nursing, or with words of recognition and encouragement as you talk about your feelings. In this state of continual giving to your infant—whether it is nourishment or care or love—you are easily drained, and you need to be replenished from sources outside yourself so that you will have reserves to draw from.”
—Sally Placksin (20th century)