Research

My research focuses on the combination of techniques from artificial intelligence, machine learning, and ubiquitous computing and their application to practical domains, such as human activity recognition and robotics. My current project --- Assisted Cognition --- aims to create novel computer systems that will enhance the quality of life for people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. My advisors are Professor Dieter Fox and Henry Kautz.

Recent publications:

Conferences:

• L. Liao, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Location-Based Activity Recognition. in Proceedings of the Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS), 2005. (pdf)
• E. Horvitz, J. Apacible, R. Sarin, and L. Liao. Prediction, Expectation, and Surprise: Methods, Designs, and Study of a Deployed Traffic Forecasting Service. in Proceedings of the Conference on Uncertainty and Artificial Intelligence (UAI),2005
• L. Liao, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Location-Based Activity Recognition using Relational Markov Networks. in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artifical Intelligence (IJCAI), 2005. (pdf)
• B. Limketkai, L. Liao, and D. Fox. Relational Object Maps for Mobile Robots. in Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artifical Intelligence (IJCAI), 2005. (pdf)
• D. J. Patterson, L. Liao, K. Gajos, M. Collier, N. Livic, K. Olson, S. Wang, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Opportunity Knocks: a System to Provide Cognitive Assistance with Transportation Services.  in Proceedings of The Sixth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UBICOMP), 2004. (pdf)
• L. Liao, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Learning and Inferring Transportation Routines. in Proceedings of AAAI-04 , 2004. Outstanding Paper Award. (pdf)
• D. Patterson, L. Liao, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Inferring High-Level Behavior from Low-Level Sensors. in Proceedings of The Fifth International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UBICOMP), 2003. (pdf)
• L. Liao, D. Fox, J. Hightower, H. Kautz and D. Schulz. Voronoi Tracking: Location Estimation Using Sparse and Noisy Sensor Data. in Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2003. (pdf)

Journals and Magazines:

• D. Fox, J. Hightower, L. Liao, D. Schulz, and G. Borriello. Bayesian Filtering for Location Estimation. IEEE Pervasive Computing, vol. 2, no. 3, IEEE Computer Society Press, July-September 2003.

Workshops and Technical Reports:

• L. Liao, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Hierarchical Conditional Random Fields for GPS-based Activity Recognition. International Symposium of Robotis Research (ISRR), 2005. (pdf)
• L. Liao, D. J. Patterson, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Building Personal Maps from GPS Data. IJCAI-05 Workshop on Modeling Others from Observations (MOO), 2005. (pdf)
• L. Liao, D. J. Patterson, D. Fox, and H. Kautz. Behavior Recognition in Assisted Cognition. AAAI-04 Workshop on Supervisory Control of Learning and Adaptive Systems (invited), 2004. (pdf)
• L. Liao. Stock Option Pricing using Bayes Filters. Technical report, 2004. (pdf)
  
• D. Fox, J. Hightower, H. Kautz, L. Liao, and D. J. Patterson. Bayesian Techniques for Location Estimation. UbiComp Workshop on Location Estimation (invited), 2003. (pdf)
• P. Domingos, et al. Research on Statistical Relational Learning at the University of Washington. IJCAI Workshop on Learning Statistical Models from Relational Data, 2003. (pdf)

Thesis: 

• L. Liao. Learning Motion Patterns from Sensor Data. Master Thesis, Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, 2003. (pdf)

I am also interested in databases. Before coming to the University of Washington, I got a master degree at Tsinghua University, Beijing and my master thesis was on data warehousing.

Research just means "search again and again"!
                               ----  My first English teacher