The UK is an ageing society. Currently, more than one-fifth of its population is over 60. The number of people aged 85 will double by 2041 and treble by 2066. Research shows that 82% of 85-year-olds suffer from at least one long-term condition. Robots have the great potential to mitigate the upcoming elderly care challenges. However, existing robots are still far away from delivering satisfactory care services. One of the main reasons lies in the lack of intelligence in understanding human behaviour. In this proposal, we aim to address this challenge by developing advanced human action recognition algorithms to help the robot understand the intention of human subjects and further provide instant assistance in home-based environments. Despite active research and significant progress in the last few decades, human action recognition in home-based environments remains challenging due to the occlusion, viewpoint and biometric variation, various execution rates etc. This project will develop a smart sensing platform which consists of a humanoid robot and several RGBD sensors mounted in different locations to cover the human activity areas. Advanced multi- sensor-based human action recognition algorithms will be developed to recognize human intention in various home-based environments. The system will be able to simultaneously conduct action detection and recognition in a real-time performance so that the robot can provide an instant response.
OPTIcut, developed by DIGITS at DMU, is proof of a concept that uses of CI methods to deliver cutting strategies which minimize waste. Tests in the field in Central America showed a reductions in waste levels of between 5% and 10%.
Most models in the current data analysis require perfect data without missing or incomplete data. However, the real-world data are in most cases are not perfect at all. Incomplete data are common in most situations. As a model dedicated to incomplete data, grey data analysis appears as a prospective model to deal with such data. This research originated from China during the 1970’s when China recovered from the cultural revolution. At that time, China faced a huge gap in available data in nearly all areas due to the significant interruption of the cultural revolution. The theory of grey systems developed quickly in China and made a significant contribution to China’s economic boom from a seriously frozen economy. However, it is still relatively unknown outside China although it has achieved significant success in China.
To further promote grey data analysis in the world, we successfully applied and secured an advanced Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship in FP7 for Prof. Sifeng Liu to join us at DMU for 2 years during 2015-2016. In this project, the international incoming research fellow, Prof. Sifeng Liu, has spent two years at De Montfort University conducting the proposed research together with Prof. Yingjie Yang. They have published over 30 research papers in academic journals and conferences.
The research is going to have a significant impact in the development of grey systems and data mining both in China and Europe. As a developing subject, there are still gaps in grey systems both in theoretical and applied research, and they have restricted its further development in Europe. The progress made in this project has showcased the feasibility of grey systems in data mining and its great potential with limited and poor data. Given the big data-oriented research in Europe, this project fills the gap for data mining with limited and poor data and will contribute greatly to those areas with limited and poor data, such as social economic analysis, healthcare, new product development, etc. It is valuable, especially for business and corporate decision-makers, public policy makers and public system managers to obtain useful information from limited and poor information.
Prof. Liu and Prof. Yang have made a number of outreach activities to deliver visits, seminars, and training courses. For example, they have visited and delivered seminars at Napier University, South Bank University, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Fuzhou University, Xiamen University, Lanzhou University, Shihezi University, Hebei University of Engineering, etc. They have also delivered several training courses at De Montfort University and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Furthermore, they organized the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Grey Systems and Intelligent Services at De Montfort University. They have also initiated the establishment of the International Association of Grey Systems and Uncertainty Analysis in 2016. The results of this project will certainly help to establish a new subject in Europe and complement the existing big data initiatives.
Prof Liu has delivered a series of training events in grey systems at De Montfort University in 2015 and 2016, each training consisting of three days of intensive lectures, seminars and discussion sessions. The scientist in charge, Prof. Yingjie Yang, has also delivered equivalent training at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2015 and 2016 on uncertainty modeling. In addition to these training events, Prof. Liu has also been involved in PhD supervision at De Montfort University (Archie Singh), Prof. Liu has contributed to research meetings at DMU and attended training sessions organized by DMU. As an active member, Prof. Liu has enjoyed close integration at DMU and participated in our research life actively. Prof. Yang and Prof. Liu had jointly supervision several PhD students at Grey Data Analysis
DMU and the University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Archie Khuman, Lifeng Wu, and Xiaojun Guo). Prof. Liu has also brought several visiting scholars from China to De Montfort University (Lifeng Wu, Chong Li and Mingli Hu). Prof. Yang and Prof. Liu have also initialized several research proposal applications involving both European partners and Chinese partners.
The project has turned out to be a huge success. In the 2017 MSCA competition, The fellow, Prof. Sifeng Liu, has been ranked as one of the top 10 in Europe for his work in this project.
Prof. Liu has also been cited as one of the few Chinese scholars who had a significant impact on the world in Merkel’s speech in China in 2019.
The great success of the project has also attracted attention from industry in the world. For example, Surbana Jurong Consultants Pte Ltd from Singapore invited Prof. Yang to carry out a consultant project with DMU in 2018 where grey systems are applied to their data mining and decision-making practice.
