1
$\begingroup$

I installed a flow meter on a faucet in one of my school's dorm buildings, with the intention of trying to gather some interesting data on patterns at the faucet. It collects flow readings on the sink, every second.

I have gathered the duration, the amount of water used, and whether they used the hot or cold faucet.

I would like to use this data to train a neural network model to identify hand-washing events from a set of data that it doesn't know the classification vector for.

What types of models (I'm using Python) could I use to train a neural network to identify patterns like this? Also, what types of other stats aside from average wash duration time could I gather from the data?

enter image description here

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ There doesn't appear to be any explicit information about hand-washing in your data, so how do you propose to identify "hand-washing events"? $\endgroup$
    – whuber ♦
    Commented Feb 19, 2017 at 15:05
  • $\begingroup$ So, every event in this data set is assumed to be a hand-washing event. Could I use these events to train a model on faucets that have events that include handwashing, brushing teeth, and more? $\endgroup$
    – Gary
    Commented Feb 19, 2017 at 17:41
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ If every observed event is a hand-washing event, then you know nothing at all about non hand-washing events! How, then, could you hope to discriminate between them? $\endgroup$
    – whuber ♦
    Commented Feb 19, 2017 at 18:10

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5
$\begingroup$

Neural networks need targets for training. If you have data for handwashing events and for other faucet activities but you haven't labeled them as handwashing/other then there's no way of knowing which flow rates correspond to handwashing and which correspond to other things.

The most you can do is to perform cluster analysis to group data into similar sets. However, from this there is no way of telling which group is handwashing or if a handwashing group was even identified. If you had two groups you might get a group of data where people washed their hands or their clothes at a high temperature, and people who washed their hands or clothes at a low temperature.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.