Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), deep learning (DL), and computer vision have revolutionized various industrial processes through image classification and object detection. State-of-the-art Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and object detection (OD) technologies, such as YOLO and PaddleOCR, have emerged as powerful solutions for addressing challenges in recognizing textual and non-textual information on printed stickers. However, a well-established framework integrating these cutting-edge technologies for industrial applications still needs to be discovered. In this paper, we propose an innovative framework that combines advanced OCR and OD techniques to automate visual inspection processes in an industrial context. Our primary contribution is a comprehensive framework adept at detecting and recognizing textual and non-textual information on printed stickers within a company, harnessing the latest AI tools and technologies for sticker information recognition. Our experiments reveal an overall macro accuracy of 0.88 for sticker OCR across three distinct patterns. Furthermore, the proposed system goes beyond traditional Printed Character Recognition (PCR) by extracting supplementary information, such as barcodes and QR codes present in the image, significantly streamlining industrial workflows and minimizing manual labor demands.

Due to wearables’ popularity, human activity recognition (HAR) plays a significant role in people’s routines. Many deep learning (DL) approaches have studied HAR to classify human activities. Previous studies employ two HAR validation approaches: subject-dependent (SD) and subject-independent (SI). Using accelerometer data, this paper shows how to generate visual explanations about the trained models’ decision making on both HAR and biometric user identification (BUI) tasks and the correlation between them. We adapted gradient-weighted class activation mapping (grad-CAM) to one-dimensional convolutional neural networks (CNN) architectures to produce visual explanations of HAR and BUI models. Our proposed networks achieved 0.978 and 0.755 accuracy, employing both SD and SI. The proposed BUI network achieved 0.937 average accuracy. We demonstrate that HAR’s high performance with SD comes not only from physical activity learning but also from learning an individual’s signature, as in BUI models. Our experiments show that CNN focuses on larger signal sections in BUI, while HAR focuses on smaller signal segments. We also use the grad-CAM technique to identify database bias problems, such as signal discontinuities. Combining explainable techniques with deep learning can help models design, avoid results overestimation, find bias problems, and improve generalization capability.

The banking industry has been employing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance the quality of its services. More recently, AI algorithms, such as natural language understanding (NLU), have been integrated into chatbots to improve banking applications. These chatbots are typically designed to cater to customers’ needs. However, research in the development of troubleshooting chatbots for technical purposes remains scarce, especially in the banking sector. Although a company may possess a knowledge database, a standard methodology is essential to guiding an AI developer in building a chatbot, making the modeling of technical needs into a specialized chatbot a challenging task. This paper presents a novel methodology for developing troubleshooting chatbots. We apply this methodology to create an AI-powered chatbot capable of performing technical ATM maintenance tasks. We propose the TroubleshootingBot, an experimental protocol to obtain data for evaluating the chatbot through two scenarios. The first scenario detects user intent, and the second recognizes desired values in a user’s phrase (e.g., three beeps or two beeps). For these scenarios, we achieved accuracies of 0.93 and 0.88, respectively. This work represents a significant advancement in virtual assistants for banking applications and holds potential for other technical problem-solving applications.

Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is a complex problem in deep learning, and One-Dimensional Convolutional Neural Networks (1D CNNs) have emerged as a popular approach for addressing it. These networks efficiently learn features from data that can be utilized to classify human activities with high performance. However, understanding and explaining the features learned by these networks remains a challenge. This paper presents a novel eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) method for generating visual explanations of features learned by one-dimensional CNNs in its training process, utilizing t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE). By applying this method, we provide insights into the decision-making process through visualizing the information obtained from the model’s deepest layer before classification. Our results demonstrate that the learned features from one dataset can be applied to differentiate human activities in other datasets. Our trained networks achieved high performance on two public databases, with 0.98 accuracy on the SHO dataset and 0.93 accuracy on the HAPT dataset. The visualization method proposed in this work offers a powerful means to detect bias issues or explain incorrect predictions. This work introduces a new type of XAI application, enhancing the reliability and practicality of CNN models in real-world scenarios.

The rapid evolution of intelligent chatbots has been largely driven by the advent of Large Language Models (LLMs), which have greatly enhanced natural language understanding and generation. However, the fast-paced advancements in generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and LLM technologies present challenges for developers to stay up-to-date and to select optimal architectures or approaches from a wide range of available options. This survey article addresses these challenges by providing a overview of cutting-edge techniques and architectural application choices in modern generative chatbot development. We explore various approaches involving retrieval strategies, chunking methods, context management, embeddings, and the utilization of LLMs. Furthermore, we analyze paradigms such as naive Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) compared to Graph-Based RAG, as well as single-agent versus multi-agent systems. We examine agent-based methodologies, comparing single-agent systems with multi-agent architectures, and analyze how multi-agent systems can proficiently handle intricate tasks, enhance scalability, and mitigate faults such as hallucinations through collaborative efforts. Additionally, we review tools and frameworks such as LangGraph that facilitate the implementation of stateful, multi-agent LLM applications. By categorizing and analyzing these modern techniques, this survey aims to present the current landscape and future directions in chatbot development.

Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Deep Learning (DL), and computer vision have revolutionized various industrial processes through image classification and object detection. State-of-the-art Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Object Detection (OD) technologies, such as YOLO and PaddleOCR, have emerged as powerful solutions for addressing challenges in recognizing textual and non-textual information on printed stickers. However, a well-established framework integrating these cutting-edge technologies for industrial applications still needs to be discovered. In this paper, we propose an innovative framework that combines advanced OCR and OD techniques to automate visual inspection processes in an industrial context. Our primary contribution is a comprehensive framework adept at detecting and recognizing textual and non-textual information on printed stickers within a company, harnessing the latest AI tools and technologies for sticker information recognition. Our experiments reveal an overall macro accuracy of 0.88 for the sticker OCR across three distinct patterns. Furthermore, the proposed system goes beyond traditional Printed Character Recognition (PCR) by extracting supplementary information, such as barcodes and QR codes present in the image, significantly streamlining industrial workflows and minimizing manual labor demands.