In this paper we present a plug and play dialogue system for smart environments. The environment description and its state are stored on a domain ontology. This ontology is formed by entities that represent real world contextual information and abstract concepts. This information is complemented with linguistic parts that allow to automatically create a spoken interface for the environment. The...

In real settings, natural body movements can be erroneously recognized by whole-body input systems as explicit input actions. We call body activity not intended as input actions background activity. We argue that understanding background activity is crucial to the success of always-available whole-body input in the real world. To operationalize this argument, we contribute a reusable study meth...

This subanalysis of the Canadian Human Activity Pattern Survey examines environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure in non-smoking respondents relative to age, sex, socioeconomic status and prevalence of asthma. 2,381 respondents (response rate 64.5%) from Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Saint John completed a 24-hour recall time-activity diary. For each activity and location, respondents were ...

This paper presents a system to recognize distress speech in the home of seniors to provide reassurance and assistance. The system is aiming at being integrated into a larger system for Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) using only one microphone with a fix position in a non-intimate room. The paper presents the details of the automatic speech recognition system which must work under distant speech ...

In Experiment 1, groups of Korsakoff amnesics and alcoholic controls learned a list of paired-associate words in a standard testing room or in a room with distinctive contextual features. Recall was tested 48 hr later in the same or other context. This procedure was repeated in Experiment 2 with old people living in institutions or in the community, but matched for age, health, education, and s...

A cold storage room for Umudike has been designed to provide a better storage facility for perishable food stuff in the community and to promote the living standard of the people. It is an adaptive design aimed at designing the cold room to suit the prevailing factors of Umudike community with reference to some design calculations. This is timely, and a first of its kind within the locality. Th...

Calculations of the activity concentration of RaA (218Po) in the air within living rooms and in the outside air were made at 87 dwellings in England and Scotland. From these measurements together with a determination of the ventilation rate existing in the room at the time of the measurements, the rate at which 222Rn is emanating from room surfaces into room air in pCil-1 h-1, can be calculated...

Abstract Human–computer interaction (HCI) is particularly interesting because full-immersive technology may be approached differently by users, depending on the complexity of interaction, users’ personality traits, and their motivational systems inclination. Therefore, this study investigated relationship between psychological factors attention towards specific tech-interactions in a smart home...