Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering

This paper addresses one of the main problems to solve in a multi-robot system, allocating tasks to a set of robots (multi-robot task allocation-MRTA). Among all the approaches proposed in the literature to face up MRTA problem, this paper is focused on swarm-like methods called response threshold algorithms. The task allocation algorithms inspired on response threshold are based on probabilistic Markov chains. In the MRTA problem literature, possibilistic Markov chains have proved to outperform the probabilistic Markov chains when a Max-Min algebra is considered for matrix composition. In this paper we analyze the system behavior when a more general algebra than the Max-Min one is taken for matrix composition. Concretely, we consider the algebra $$([0,1], S_{M},T)$$, where $$S_{M}$$ denotes the maximum t-conorm and T stands for any t-norm. The performed experiments show how only some well-known t-norms are suitable to allocate tasks and how the possibility transition function parameters are related to the used t-norm.

In this research we designed and developed an ontology-driven decision support system (DSS) for (1) electronic recruitment processes in organizations operating in Thailand and for (2) job seekers trying to find appropriate employment in the country. The database holding the job profiles has been designed in accordance with the standards of the Department of Employment (Ministry of Labour, Thailand), and it is used to mutually match the required criteria with the offered properties. For this, a score is calculated from the required properties that gives a percentage based fit rate harnessing the statistical part of the ontology. The DSS can also be used for staffing project teams or preparing for succession through channeling employees to appropriate positions within the company by matching the required and the offered profile data.

One of the main problems to solve in multi-robot systems is to select the best robot to execute each task (task allocation). Several ways to address this problem have been proposed in the literature. This paper focuses on one of them, the so-called response threshold methods. In a recent previous work, it was proved that the possibilistic Markov chains outperform the classical probabilistic using a celebrated possibility transition function. In this paper we use a new possibility transition function and we make several experiments in order to compare both, the new one and the tested before. The experiments show that the number of steps that a possibilistic Markov chain needs to converge does not depend on the response function used. This paper also emphasizes that these possibility transition functions are indistinguishably operators.

This paper investigates why end-users sometimes find difficult to fully invest themselves in a Living Lab initiative, at least on the long run. The paper builds insights on the basis of users’ feedback about four projects currently managed by the Wallonia e-health Living Lab (WeLL) and paves the way for renewed models of collaboration that could lead to sustainable satisfaction and long-term commitment of end-users.

When people work collaboratively on a shared document, they have two contradictory requirements on their editors that may affect the efficiency of their work. On the one hand, they would like to know what other people are currently doing on a particular part of the document. On the other hand, they would like to focus their attention on their own current work, with as little disturbance from the concurrent activities as possible. We present some features that help the user handle disturbance and awareness of concurrent updates. While collaboratively editing a shared document with other people, a user can create a focus region. The user can concentrate on the work in the region without being interfered with the concurrent updates of the other people. Occasionally, the user can preview the concurrent updates and select a number of these updates to be integrated into the local copy. We have implemented a collaborative editing subsystem in the GNU Emacs (https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs) text editor with the described features.

This paper deals with case-based reasoning (CBR) which is adapted in the Computer Aided Design (CAD) system. The specialized CAD tools of the system allow the designer to visualize general ideas about projects in the form of design drawings and automatically transform them into graph data structures. The system’s library provides source cases representing previously created solutions. Designer’s requirements are represented by graph patterns and the case library is automatically searched for cases which fit these patterns. Target cases result from the cooperation among the human designer and intelligent software agents. The retrieved cases are evaluated on the basis of specific design knowledge the agents are equipped with. The presented approach is illustrated on the example of designing an indoor swimming pool.

This paper deals with smart home technologies which provide a flexible and comfortable home environment improving the quality of life for residents. The model of the Home Automation System proposed here integrates devices with one another under the control of an agent system. The research primarily focuses on the collaboration among agents which are responsible for the following problems: sensing the data, diagnosing states, running predefined rules and evaluating the system actions by gathering feedback from participants.

Information security is an important yet challenging area of education. Much of the difficulty lies in the complexity of security schemes and the often perceived disjoint between theory and practice. This paper investigates the topic of adopting cooperative learning for teaching secret sharing concepts and schemes. The aim of this is to motivate and cultivate an interest in students to learn more about the topic. By designing hands-on cooperative learning activities, the goal is help students appreciate the connection between theory and practice, and to be able to help and encourage each other in their understanding of the area. In this paper, we analyze the suitability of this group-based learning approach in relation to addressing the five essential elements of cooperative learning.

Crowdsourcing is a growing topic that has proved to be capable and cost effective solution for various tasks. Over the last decade it has been applied to numerous domains, both in research and enterprise contexts. Though there are several issues that remain open and challenging in crowdsourcing, here we address the issues of quality control and motivation. In this paper we present an ongoing work which explores the use of gamification in crowdsourcing settings, as means to: improve the task assignment and performance, incentivize people to participate and control the quality of their work. The developed crowdsourcing hybrid mobile application is applied to data within cultural heritage domain.

Nowadays, there is an increasing development of intelligent systems like online social networks, personalized recommendation systems and knowledge-based systems which are especially based on ontologies. Personalized recommendation systems applied with online social networking assist delivering a personalized content to Web-based application users. Indeed, these systems offer services that can greatly improve the response to users’ needs in their search for persons or for some products. In order to model these users, semantic web technologies such as ontologies are used to explicit the hidden knowledge through using rules. In this paper, we propose to measure the similarity between the user context and other users’ contexts in our ontology. Then, we integrate this measure in recommendation model to infer recommendation items (raw material, production tool, supplier name, etc.) based on SWRL rules. The experiments and evaluations show the applicability of our approach.

Storytelling is a main source of information for cultural heritage. Many of our knowledge comes indeed from discussing events with other people. This paper addresses the benefits of storytelling for preserving cultural heritage. After introducing a policy for storing, harnessing and reusing personal and common narratives, it analyses the concrete impact of this storytelling policy for unleashing the information potential of the narratives.

This paper describes a collaborative digital story telling environment which uses a tablet, an augmented reality visor and an advanced data mining back-end system. This paper primarily focuses on collaboration as a method of designing new stories (from new or existing contents), sharing the experiences and improving sense of presence, flow and place. It further enhances the experience through the use of gamification to encourage collaboration and interaction between users. It also examines issues relating to visualization of stories.

This article discusses the development of a simple webapp, based on the famous pong game, using our Internet of Interfaces (I-o-I) architecture, the application uses virtual interfaces for its interaction. The game allows the interaction of a variable number of users and different forms of interaction.

Social media are using several automatic, semi-automatic or even manual labeling approaches in order to match the shared contents with their users’ interests. The low degree of Click Through Rate (CTR) on the social media platform, however, suggests that labeling of shared contents and users’ active interests contain inaccuracies, leading to unsuccessful matching. One of the main reasons of unsuccessful matching is the heterogeneity of the labels assigned to the contents and users’ interest. In our previous work, we have proposed the Interactive and Dynamic Collaborative Labeling (IDCOLAB) framework in order to collect homogeneous and commonly agreed opinion of a group of users who are knowledgeable about the assigned labels dynamically. An essential step of IDCOLAB is Semantic Augmentation Method (SAM) which enables collaborative labeling of shared contents by dynamically augmenting semantically related labels to labels assigned initially to the contents and users’ interests. A goal of the augmentation process is to avoid irrelevant and noisy labels. We have applied SAM on COD which is a collaborative labeling platform based on IDCOLAB framework and evaluated SAM with two separate focus groups in the domains of Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship.

Nowadays, mobile-based data collection can advantageously replace paper-and-pencil questionnaires. The data rate production is very high and the to collect and store them are increasing as fast as the strategies for analysing and processing reducing the time for data processing. This paper describes how to improve traditional paper based methodologies with a mobile-based questionnaires approach. The mSIREMAP system was tested by monitors, persons who supervise the teacher’s classes, and teachers from Apurimac Peru. The monitors used the mobile based questionnaires to gather the information from the classes. To validate this proposal, we used focus groups and daily meetings methodology. The proposed strategy was tested with 10865 mobile-based questionnaires in 1453 schools during the years 2015 and 2016. A mobile device based questionnaire was developed using a cooperative design where the users are involved during all the phases of the Software Development Life Cycle, SDLC, providing immediate feedback to the development team to correct designs and performance specially in the user interface. The test result shows that monitors are satisfied with this new approach of filling the questionnaires out using mobile devices due to the ease of use, quick report generation, and decision making for teacher’s classes improvement.

The modelling of 3D shapes is a challenging problem. Many innovative approaches have been proposed, however most 3D software require advanced skills that hinders collaboration and spontaneous ideation. This paper proposes a novel framework that allows designers to express their ideas in 3D space without extensive training such that they can reuse their 2D sketching skills collaboratively in teams.

The digital transition is changing the way architectural firms are making design. The BIM technology, which tends to become mandatory for legal and competitive reasons is both convincing because of its parametric and global modeling sides and frightening because of changes caused by the arrival of new digital tools. Indeed, our basic postulate is that the emergence of new digital tools must necessarily be followed by the emergence of new practices and new project management in design stage.This research focuses on innovative project management methods and collaborative practices allowing to facilitate the integration of new digital tools in order to create innovative practices and methods adapted to computer-assisted and collaborative architectural design. We take inspiration from agile methods and practices born in the software engineering world in the 1990s. Agile methods are innovative project management methods that focus mainly on a better reactivity. We have thus identified that a better reactivity is corroborated to a better collaboration around the understanding and repartition of design tasks.Thus, we focus in particular in this paper on elicitation of architectural intentions and refinement of design tasks in collaborative groups of students working on a BIM project. For this purpose, we have set up a collaborative matrix that students fill up by explaining together their architectural wills and intentions for this project exercise. Naturally follows a defining “tasks to be done” process, which we will detail in this paper.

This article describes the first implementation of a new SAR, spatial augmented reality, equipped here with a IPM, interactive projection mapping. It presents and analyses it as a new configuration of CSCW, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. It reveals its success (support encouraging the collective understanding of complex shapes) but also the precautions and limits of this system of graphic interactive projection on a 3D model (delicate calibration, cognitive overload of utilization). It gives details of the adjustments to the status of co-participants (more passive), the status of work space (becoming an extended we-space) and the status of the common artifact (unmovable but polymorphic).

As one of the networked collaborative manufacturing modes, cloud manufacturing was put forward in the early 2000s and has gained more and more attention by governments and research institutions in recent years. Because of the diversity and uncertainty of cloud resource, the cloud manufacturing platform should have the ability of manufacturing risk evaluation to search a suitable alternative resource when a certain cloud resource fails suddenly during the manufacturing process, with the aim of making the probability of the alternative resource failing again come down to the lowest and enabling the manufacturing process implemented well. In this article, a new risk evaluation method based on the extension theory is proposed. The details and a theoretical example study are introduced, and the result shows that the proposed method reflected accurately the manufacturing risk and could effectively support alternative resource selection for cloud manufacturing.

Spacescapes are often shaped by spatial behaviour. However, their dynamic complexity makes it difficult for them to be simulated in AI-based environments. As a result, degrees of uncertainty often arise when one describes spaces, trying to give shared importance to structural, fundamental, peculiar spacescape qualities.This paper explores space ontologies built by human agents. With the use of app features of personal smartphones, students of the Technical University of Bari have explored an urban commercial street. The results they obtained in the context of spatial cognition have been analysed and discussed for environment planning and management.

The success of a digitally developed architecture project requires a new vision of collaboration and design practices and the adaptation of the current ones. The recent innovative tools and media extend the design capabilities, and foster the proposal of complex architectural solutions.This paper aims to evaluate the existing interactive synchronous collaboration technologies and solutions. The evaluation must reveal their potential advantages and future uses for professionals and education in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry are assessed. Furthermore, suggestions are made on how to improve the current synchronous collaboration practices in decision-making sessions. Such suggestions consider the complexity of 3D-based project and the multidisciplinary of a project team.The paper introduces a summary of the current digital AEC practices and identifies digital synchronous collaboration requirements for an efficient decision-making session through observation and evaluation of several collaborative session experiments.

In this paper we suggest an ubiquitous system with an implicit HCI. A basic concept of a middleware as well as design recommendations for future creativity and collaboration environments in an engineering context are presented in this paper.

Research emphasizes the importance of BIM use to be collaborative in order to reap its benefits. However, little research has been conducted regarding the impact at the organizational level of breaking boundaries between specialties for a more collaborative approach to design using BIM. The originality of this longitudinal research is to present not only the challenges of an architecture firm in adopting a multidisciplinary collaborative design, but also the challenges of a Construction Engineering approach to research. Various research strategies derived from activity theory and cognitive sciences were used more or less successfully to accelerate the transition from fragmented to integrated design practices.

This paper deals with evaluation of architecture designed by multiple users. Presented approach concentrates on comparison of two languages – a language of an assessed building and a language of its context. The proposed method requires a CAD-like system to be equipped with an agent capable of some cognition and creative thinking that will allow to assess the project on the basis of its structure and given surroundings. Therefore, the system must contain a knowledge base about the context language and be able to extend it on the basis of designer’s actions. The internal structure of the design requires conceptualization, which is performed on the basis of a visual perception model. Also, some sense of aesthetics should be present. Methods of graph representation of a design, defining the context language by automatic preparation of its graph grammar, and evaluating aesthetic fitness are presented.

Multimodal operating systems such as Apple or Android are being integrated into several platforms and devices, increasing users’ connectivity experience. Recently, both operating systems (OS) had been integrated into modern vehicles, extending connectivity possibilities to road transport, providing them with new driving experiences for the user. In the present study we attempt to evaluate, under a holistic scope, the users’ experience with these systems while driving. We have developed a new scale based on a user-centered and cooperative design approach which will be tested for the first time in a two-case study. With this scale, we will assess the main variables that influence the user’s experience when interacting with in-vehicle smartphone integration systems while driving. We hypothesized that the scale will be capable of discriminating between both systems, their tested functions and between users. Despite results seeming to support this hypothesis, further research with wider samples and systems is needed.

In the construction industry, an efficient management of information flow as well as enhanced communication and collaboration among stakeholders are crucial to improve construction process management. Construction processes are still managed by means of paper-based documents, e.g. scheduling. To ensure on-time delivery of projects and automate construction management, especially scheduling and monitoring process, a mobile application based on Lean Construction methods is being developed within the ACCPET project. This application aims to improve productivity, collaboration between project participants as well to provide tailored information to the user. To reach this goal the following methods and technologies have been adopted: Location-based Management System, Last Planner System, Tiered Structure methodology and Building Information Modelling. This paper describes concept, framework and functionalities of this mobile application.

In current industrial settings, data is dispersed on numerous devices, systems and locations without integration and sharing capabilities. With this work, we present a framework for the integration of various data sources within an industrial setting, based on a mediating data hub. Within the data hub, data sources and sinks for this industrial application are equipped with data usage policies to restrict and enable usage and consumption of data for shared analytics. We identify such policies, their requirements and rationale. This work addresses an industrial setting, with manufacturing data being the primary use-case. Requirements for these policies are identified from existing use-cases and expert domain knowledge. The requirements are identified as reasonable via examples and exemplary implementation.

In this article, a surface tension fluid simulation algorithm based on IISPH is proposed. Based on the SPH algorithm, the surface tension and the adhesion model are constructed to solve the problem about particle clustering, fluid surface area minimization and interaction between different particles. The method can make the simulation effect of fluid be more in line with the actual physical scene. Furthermore, an adaptive time-stepping method is added in the algorithm. The efficiency of the simulation is significantly improved compared to the constant time-stepping.

Ubiquitous is one of the essential features of what should be the desktop of the future. In practice, this concept covers several issues related to multi-users collaboration, remote applications control or remote display and secure access over IP networks. With its standards and capabilities, WebRTC provides a new vision of real-time communications services that can raise these challenges. In this paper we present a WebRTC-based middleware solution for real-time multi-users remote collaboration. It allows a full desktop setup where everyone can see what other users are doing and where they position themselves in the shared workspace. In contrast to standard WebRTC’s Peer-to-Peer architecture, our system supports a synchronous communication model through a star topology. It also improves network bandwidth efficiency by using hardware video compression when the GPU resource is available, though assuring a very low latency streaming. In this way, we can maintain awareness and sense of presence without changing the usual practices of the users in front of a desktop. Several use cases are provided and a comparison of advantages and drawbacks of this solution is also presented to guide users in applying this technology under real-life conditions.

Scheduling analysis, which focuses on the evaluation, testing and verification of the scheduling systems and the algorithms used in real-time operations, is critical to a number of research areas such as databases and transaction management. In order to better understand the field of scheduling, we select and investigate 9,611 papers about scheduling from five SCI journals which have published many excellent papers about scheduling. This paper presents a collaboration analysis of the scheduling field. In addition, we generate three networks to analyze collaboration patterns between scientists, including co-authorship network, keyword co-occurrence network and author co-keyword network to show the collaboration relationship between authors in the field of scheduling. The research findings from our work can help researchers understand the research status of scheduling and gain valuable insights on future technical trends in the scheduling field.

Digital 3D models and their visualizations are increasingly being used in many fields of research, engineering design and humanities. They enable people to see objects in perspectives not available in 2D images. It would be useful if a group of people in a classroom, laboratory or across distances can collaboratively discuss their observations drawn using 3D models. We describe a simple system that allows a group of people to share in real-time their views of a 3D model using their devices ranging from mobile phones to large video walls. We evaluated the system performance and usability with 3D models of digitized cultural heritage objects.

In the procedure of the Chinese medical tongue diagnosis, it’s necessary to carry out the original tongue image segmentation to reduce interference to the tongue feature extraction caused by the non-tongue part of the face. In this paper, we propose a new method based on enhanced HSV color model convolutional neural network for tongue image segmentation. This method can get a better in tongue image segmentation results compared with others. This method also has a great advantage over other methods in the processing speed.

In this paper, we propose an interactive visualization system for tropical cyclone data analysis. We collect historical tropical cyclone data, clean and preprocess them into a unified form for the following visual analysis. We design several views based on direct visualization and feature visualization to facilitate user understanding of the physical characteristics of tropical cyclones. Additionally, we use Support Vector Machines (SVM) to predict the tropical cyclone trajectories for users to make a deep analysis and assessment of the cyclone’s movement features. In this visual analysis process, we provide multiple linked views for physical characteristics exploration and cyclone trajectories prediction. Our system also supports multi-resolution analysis with temporal and spatial filtering. The experiments and user study demonstrate the effectiveness of our system.

This paper improves the anisotropic kernels surface reconstruction method and apples it to multiphase immiscible fluid surface reconstruction. An unexpected phenomenon appears when using the anisotropic kernels surface reconstruction directly (e.g. the gap and overlap at the interface of multiphase fluid surface). We eliminate the gap by considering the neighbor particles of other phase fluid in the kernels function and eliminate the overlap by signed color field in the marching cube process. The improved method will be able to reconstruct a common surface at the interface of the multiphase fluid.

Recently knowledge has been obtained about the Cooperative meta-dynamics in performance teams, and also on the fit between the manager’s and team member’s beliefs about teamwork and performance. To obtain this, a specific instrument has been created and validated, the Questionnaire on Cooperation in Performance Teams (CWQ). The need for such this kind of tool is double fold: first, to combine the most relevant conceptual theories in a short and friendly usable instrument, and to obtain easily applicable knowledge addressed to managers and coaches working with performance teams. In order to accomplish fully with this aim, a confirmatory analysis of the new instrument is required too. Consequently, the CWQ was administered to 218 players of performance sports teams (Mean age = 21.12; SD = 6.72; mean years of experience = 11.42; SD = 6.33). The data analysis consisted on the study of the main components (forcing and without forcing the number of factors), with a Varimax rotation. The results confirm the validation of the CWQ both for the “A” and “B” versions of the questionnaire and the existence of four meta-factors: 1. Global cooperation with the team; 2. Cooperation for personal growth in the team; 3. Emotional cooperation, and 4. Conditional cooperation. The four factors shown factorial weights similar to those obtained in the previous exploratory study. These data confirms its transcultural and transituational invariance of the CWQ, as along with its conceptual validity and the solid theoretical conception of the abovementioned factors, and also its applicability in various performance environments. In addition, a mathematical analysis has been introduced to evaluate the symmetry between cooperative work beliefs from both coach and player views, embedded in the conceptual framework of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory.

In this paper, we design and implement a visual analytics system to visualize dynamic protein structure and amino acid network. Specifically, we propose a mixed layout method based on Force-Directed Algorithm and Circular Layout Model to visualize protein structure. We design a dynamic visualization framework of the amino acid network with multiple coordinated views. We implement a prototype system and present case studies based on the molecular simulation data of the β2-Adrenergic receptor (β2AR, a protein) to demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of our system.