Imtidad: A Reference Architecture and a Case Study on Developing Distributed AI Services for Skin Disease Diagnosis over Cloud, Fog and Edge

Developing Smartness in Emerging Environments and Applications with a Focus on the Internet of Things

The smartness that underpins smart cities and societies is defined by our ability to engage with our environments, analyze them, and make decisions, all in a timely manner [...].

LidSonic V2.0: A LiDAR and Deep-Learning-Based Green Assistive Edge Device to Enhance Mobility for the Visually Impaired

Over a billion people around the world are disabled, among whom 253 million are visually impaired or blind, and this number is greatly increasing due to ageing, chronic diseases, and poor environments and health. Despite many proposals, the current devices and systems lack maturity and do not completely fulfill user requirements and satisfaction. Increased research activity in this field is required in order to encourage the development, commercialization, and widespread acceptance of low-cost and affordable assistive technologies for visual impairment and other disabilities. This paper proposes a novel approach using a LiDAR with a servo motor and an ultrasonic sensor to collect data and predict objects using deep learning for environment perception and navigation. We adopted this approach using a pair of smart glasses, called LidSonic V2.0, to enable the identification of obstacles for the visually impaired. The LidSonic system consists of an Arduino Uno edge computing device integrated into the smart glasses and a smartphone app that transmits data via Bluetooth. Arduino gathers data, operates the sensors on the smart glasses, detects obstacles using simple data processing, and provides buzzer feedback to visually impaired users. The smartphone application collects data from Arduino, detects and classifies items in the spatial environment, and gives spoken feedback to the user on the detected objects. In comparison to image-processing-based glasses, LidSonic uses far less processing time and energy to classify obstacles using simple LiDAR data, according to several integer measurements. We comprehensively describe the proposed system's hardware and software design, having constructed their prototype implementations and tested them in real-world environments. Using the open platforms, WEKA and TensorFlow, the entire LidSonic system is built with affordable off-the-shelf sensors and a microcontroller board costing less than USD 80. Essentially, we provide designs of an inexpensive, miniature green device that can be built into, or mounted on, any pair of glasses or even a wheelchair to help the visually impaired. Our approach enables faster inference and decision-making using relatively low energy with smaller data sizes, as well as faster communications for edge, fog, and cloud computing.

Deep Journalism and DeepJournal V1.0: A Data-Driven Deep Learning Approach to Discover Parameters for Transportation

We live in a complex world characterised by complex people, complex times, and complex social, technological, economic, and ecological environments. The broad aim of our work is to investigate the use of ICT technologies for solving pressing problems in smart cities and societies. Specifically, in this paper, we introduce the concept of deep journalism, a data-driven deep learning-based approach, to discover and analyse cross-sectional multi-perspective information to enable better decision making and develop better instruments for academic, corporate, national, and international governance. We build three datasets (a newspaper, a technology magazine, and a Web of Science dataset) and discover the academic, industrial, public, governance, and political parameters for the transportation sector as a case study to introduce deep journalism and our tool, DeepJournal (Version 1.0), that implements our proposed approach. We elaborate on 89 transportation parameters and hundreds of dimensions, reviewing 400 technical, academic, and news articles. The findings related to the multi-perspective view of transportation reported in this paper show that there are many important problems that industry and academia seem to ignore. In contrast, academia produces much broader and deeper knowledge on subjects such as pollution that are not sufficiently explored in industry. Our deep journalism approach could find the gaps in information and highlight them to the public and other stakeholders.

LidSonic for Visually Impaired: Green Machine Learning-Based Assistive Smart Glasses with Smart App and Arduino

Smart wearable technologies such as fitness trackers are creating many new opportunities to improve the quality of life for everyone. It is usually impossible for visually impaired people to orientate themselves in large spaces and navigate an unfamiliar area without external assistance. The design space for assistive technologies for the visually impaired is complex, involving many design parameters including reliability, transparent object detection, handsfree operations, high-speed real-time operations, low battery usage, low computation and memory requirements, ensuring that it is lightweight, and price affordability. State-of-the-art visually impaired devices lack maturity, and they do not fully meet user satisfaction, thus more effort is required to bring innovation to this field. In this work, we develop a pair of smart glasses called LidSonic that uses machine learning, LiDAR, and ultrasonic sensors to identify obstacles. The LidSonic system comprises an Arduino Uno device located in the smart glasses and a smartphone app that communicates data using Bluetooth. Arduino collects data, manages the sensors on smart glasses, detects objects using simple data processing, and provides buzzer warnings to visually impaired users. The smartphone app receives data from Arduino, detects and identifies objects in the spatial environment, and provides verbal feedback about the object to the user. Compared to image processing-based glasses, LidSonic requires much less processing time and energy to classify objects using simple LiDAR data containing 45-integer readings. We provide a detailed description of the system hardware and software design, and its evaluation using nine machine learning algorithms. The data for the training and validation of machine learning models are collected from real spatial environments. We developed the complete LidSonic system using off-the-shelf inexpensive sensors and a microcontroller board costing less than USD 80. The intention is to provide a design of an inexpensive, miniature, green device that can be built into, or mounted on, any pair of glasses or even a wheelchair to help the visually impaired. This work is expected to open new directions for smart glasses design using open software tools and off-the-shelf hardware.