HCI International 2015 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts

With the growing complexity in Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) and their integration in the decision-making process, user acceptance of these TUI systems continues to be an important issue. Drawing upon recent findings in computer-mediated communication, human computer interaction, computer-supported-cooperative work, and social psychology, the present research extends the coding schemes for observational video analysis by incorporating the variables of communication and collaboration in the context of systems designed for urban planning and modeling.

Nowadays touchscreen smartphones are the most common kind of mobile devices. However, gesture-based interaction is a difficult task for most visually impaired people, and even more so for blind people. This difficulty is compounded by the lack of standard gestures and the differences between the main screen reader platforms available on the market. Therefore, our goal is to investigate the differences and preferences in touch gesture performance on smartphones among visually impaired people. During our study, we implemented a web-based wireless system to facilitate the capture of participants’ gestures. In this paper we present an overview of both the study and the system used.

This paper suggests that the relation of politics

and

the aesthetic in interaction design depends on a situated knowledge of how to interact with each other. Its aim is to open a new way to approach interaction design philosophy in the perspective of “We” human-and-technology. As a case, interaction design with BCI stimulates a network of conceptual relations rather than merely perceptions of the visible aspects of singles works. The investigation of relations between politics

and

the aesthetic in interaction design reveals that the instrumental understanding of technology is the colonization by tolerance-tactic.

In order to study and develop adaptive user interfaces with the purpose to guarantee socialization, safety and environmental sustainability in a domestic day-by-day living space, a new method of holistic and adaptive user interface is proposed to support the modelling of information related to the user and the context of the interaction to generate the user profiles, subjects older than 40 years with different levels of technology affinity have been considered. The new adaptive user interfaces prototypes will be tested through different use cases in the context of smart home environments.

In analogy to the concept of usability, learnability and playability, the concept of Affectibility was conceived to inform the design process – in this case with affective aspects of interaction. In this paper we present a revised set of the Principles for the Design for Affectibility, together with practical examples of use and application. The objective is to support designers in the process of creating educational systems for children, considering aspects of affect.

Every command consists of an action and an object, suggesting that a usability problem can occur whenever the user is unable to identify an appropriate action and/or the object associated with his/her current goal. The recent shift from mouse-based to touch-based interaction demands that any usability evaluation method be sensitive to not only object-related but also action-related usability problems. This study involved a total of 32 participants, four kinds of tasks differing in the difficulty of identifying objects and executing actions, and four qualitative methods of usability evaluation. Analyses of sets of observation data with concurrent and retrospective protocol by the same participant and interpretive protocol by a new participant indicate that while the oral instruction method seems least appropriate, the newly-devised narration method seems to have better prospects than the observation and the think aloud method for the usability evaluation of touch-based interaction.

Currently Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major issues in academia and industry. However, studies so far have tended to focus on technical aspects. The future technologies need to be developed in user perspectives because users center in connected situations based on IoT. As a part of addressing this issue, the present study proposes a conceptual model for the IoT process, which can be likened to a human activity process based on ‘Activity Theory (AT)’. Focusing on how people actually work in IoT situations, we attempt to draw an analogy between IoT and AT in terms of three interaction types among input device, sensor/network, task of IoT device, standard/protocol, and output device. The proposed model provides new viewpoint and direction for future research in IoT domains.

Why do people learn after playing a serious game versus a game for entertainment? Serious games impart knowledge because there is a pedagogy driving the learning process. Serious games must successfully employ pedagogical methods and theories to increase the likelihood that knowledge is. The process of learning is hindered when an unusable interface demands cognitive resources that should be allocated to learning. Despite the creation of a usable system, if the player’s interaction with the model is hindered, can real transfer of knowledge occur? Within the context of serious games that make use of model-based training, we suggest that a measure of pedagogical usability is warranted. The authors provide a conceptual basis for measuring pedagogical usability, specifically targeting serious games that employ modeling as the mechanism of action.

Content using animation is widely available, and animation is often used in educational content to promote the understanding of mechanical structures and concepts. However, animations are currently created with software that requires complicated operations and programming. Such software inhibits intuitive and creative animation design. In this study, we analyze animations and determine the factors that inhibit intuitive and creative animation design. Moreover, we have developed a design support tool to make designing animations easier.

Recently, the word “User Experience (UX)” has been often used in usability-related areas such as web design and system design. Although it was defined in ISO 9241-210 and its importance has been growing, details of the notion and results of introduction of it have not been well clarified yet. In the previous paper, a new integrated evaluation framework of usability and UX, based on ISO 9241-11 and ACSI (American Customer Satisfaction Index) was proposed. Since the proposed framework does not consider influences to other people by the utilization but considers only interactions of a user with a product or service, it may be narrow-minded in a social age. Thus, this paper slightly extends the framework to consider influences to other people by the utilization in the related context of use.

The Mass Media involve mechanisms that are intended to reach a wide audience by means of radio, television, newspapers, and Internet, among others. The Mass Media are also responsible for providing the suitable perception of news from different areas such as for instance politics, business, crime, or technology. However, this perception is often manipulated in order to accommodate the information according to a given criteria. This manipulation of the information is suddenly not captured by everyone causing a distortion of the real scenario. In this paper, we illustrate how the use of discourse analysis can improve understanding of such hidden information. We present a case study where this methodology is effectively used to analyze the information provided by news about a social phenomena related to the dehumanization of the female gender. Interesting results are discussed about how this useful methodology could be used to detect communication products that are not usable nor understandable for a wide audience.

This article makes an investigation on international and regional standards highly related to the usability and user experience through looking up relevant committees and sub-committees and by key words and standard-tracing on the websites of the main organizations for standardization, including ISO, ISO/IEC, IEC, ETSI, ITU, etc., and briefly introduces and analyzes the history, status and trend of development for the usability and user experience standardization.

In the study, we attempts to define coherent experience as those where user experience is maintained in a harmonious and coherent manner in a multi-screen environment, and identify the items that offer such experience. If user experiences are provided naturally and consistently without any sense of difference, irrespective of the change of devices when user utilize the contents, loyalty to the contents will be increased automatically. In this study, specific guidelines of each screen are produced, which should be observed to provide consistent user experiences.

Usability evaluation has received extensive attention in both academic and applied arenas. Despite this, there have been few formal attempts to integrate past research and best practices in an effort to develop a newly updated and adaptable approach. This poster provides an overview of the types of results yielded by a novel usability assessment approach (i.e., Experienced-based Questionnaire for Usability Assessments Targeting Elaborations [EQUATE]) when applied to a post mission reporting tool. The goal of this study was to develop software to automate performance tracking for anti-submarine aircraft, digitize performance and training information, and automate the display of post mission summaries. Although some of these technologies exist, the prototype tested during this research was the first, of which the authors are aware, to provide a single point of access for data entry, analysis and reporting. Due to the potential benefits across a variety of naval aviation platforms, the program’s usability goals focused on identifying means to optimize the tool by gathering novice user feedback. Traditional methods for end-user feedback have tended to focus on user performance and satisfaction, rather than providing prescriptive inputs to identifying and rectifying issues. The results of this study provided usability input for post mission reporting, as well as identified and narrowed the heuristic dimensions used for final validation.

Heuristic-based usability assessment is a popular approach to assessing system usability in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) [

1

]. Despite the benefits of the approach (e.g., flexibility across time and platform, efficiency, utility of feedback) [

1

], it is also associated with sub-par reliability, validity, and comprehensiveness and requires a Human Factors (HF) expert for the analysis and interpretation of subjective feedback. While this approach has a place in the usability lifecycle of a project, tight budgets and schedule constraints can limit the variety of usability approaches that teams can implement. The purpose of the current effort is to develop a validated heuristic approach based on a review of past literature and practice and integrate this information to inform an improved system. Leveraging previous efforts as a baseline (i.e., [

2

] ), this approach extends previous work by improving the comprehensiveness of the system by broadening the scope of past usability research and providing end-users with specific practical examples of

do’s

and

don’ts

to better define broad heuristic-based categories for non-expert end-users. The logic is that broad heuristic categories have little practical meaning to end-users not familiar or educated in HF/HCI. The provision of practical examples should improve their ability to identify important usability issues while helping them communicate this information in language that is understandable to system designers. The result of this research is presented in this poster, and provides a method for the assessment of system usability that is more flexible, efficient, comprehensive and useful than past approaches.

Rather than simply reporting product information, many advertisements nowadays employ images that convey a certain life values. How do consumers respond to advertisements of this type? This study analyzed consumer responses to the advertising card of C’N’C Costume National using eye-tracking technology and a questionnaire survey. Research findings were as follows: (1) It was found that participants scanning figure and text repeatedly on the copy referencing life values more than on the copy referencing product information. This was confirmed by chi-squared testing. (2) Factor analysis identified three significant factors, namely, psychological interaction, a sense of specialness, and anticipation. (3) We discovered that females with a background in design tended to spend more time watching a male model than men of all backgrounds did. This study contributes to marketing research, demonstrating the effectiveness of conveying messages about life values to achieve more desirable advertising effects while also conveying social concern.

Attention plays an important role in guaranteeing the safety and efficiency of task operation. People may get distracted by various internal and external causes. There are differences between individuals in their reaction to the distractions. Understanding the characteristics of attention is the basis for human-machine interface design. In this study, a questionnaire was designed, which concerned personality, environment, task, biological clock, self awareness and self control etc. 138 questionnaires were collected from young adults. Based on the questionnaires, the features of young adults’ attention were described. The study results are helpful for the designer to know young people better in the attention characteristics, so as to get benefits for man-machine interface and task design.

The effect of spatial layout on visual performance and eye-movements characteristics was analyzed and the results would provide theoretical guidance for the ergonomics design of man-computer interface. A division method was proposed to divide the optimum visual field into nine regions based on the anatomical characteristics of human retinal and the horizon characteristics of quadrants, and corresponding software with the target displaying in different regions dynamically was completed for the experiment. Twelve subjects participated in the experiment and their reaction time and eye movement data were recorded. The significant differences and the prioritizations of different visual regions were analyzed. The results indicated that, there was significant time difference among the regions with different eccentricity, and the visual performance decreased along with the increase of eccentric distance; for the same eccentric distance, the visual performance of lower visual field was superior to the upper visual field, while the left visual field was superior to the right visual field, and the former difference was more apparent compared with the latter one. In the ergonomic study of display interface of man-computer, spatial effect of target display should be considered.

About color combination using general VDT works, to clarify that feature color combination patterns considered usability are favorable color combination for human from the view point of fatigue, physiological data change during 30 min VDT works with low cognitive load were measured and subjective evaluation was carried out. In this experiment, as feature color combination patterns located on each quadrant in color combination image scale, black, blue, green and pink are used, and as fatigable color, cyan is used. As physiological data, ECG, pupil meter and GSR is measured. From the results of experiment, feature color combination patterns considered usability got higher evaluation from the view point of physiological data and subjective evaluation than a fatigable color combination. Therefore, we concluded that feature color combination patterns considered usability are no significant difference about fatigue and human can use these colors without fatigue.

In affective computing an accurate emotion recognition process requires a reliable emotion elicitation method. One of the arising questions while inducing emotions for computer-based emotional applications is age group differences. In the present study, we investigate the effect of emotion elicitation on various age groups. Emotion elicitation was conducted using standardized movie clips representing five basic emotions: amusement, sadness, anger, disgust and fear. Each emotion was elicited by three different clips. The different clips are individually rated and the subjective choice of the most relevant clip is analyzed. The results show the influence of age on film-clip choice, the correlation between age and valence/arousal rating for the chosen clips and the differences in valence and arousal ratings in the different age groups.

The increasing cyber attacks result in an emergent need for Information Assurance professionals in the government and private sector. Young adults’ psychological factors related to the career field of Information Assurance (IA) remain largely understudied despite Information Assurance Workforce (IAW) becoming a crucial issue. Gender disparity, in particular, is a concern for Information Assurance. The first of its kind, this study investigates the gender gap in the field of IA by examining psychological factors affecting young adults, including attitudes, interests, self-efficacy, and goals. Our findings on gender difference in IA from psychological perspectives provide insight for understanding gender disparity in the IA field and initiate studies to explore this issue further. The practical purpose of this study is to contribute information related to gender differences, understood with regard to psychological aspects, for IA recruitment strategies to inspire young adults, especially the underrepresented population of women, to join the IAW.

Nowadays people live in the deluge of information. Although dissemination of information, people wander in excessive alternatives while they make decisions. This study deals with degree how well users can access and control the products or services, namely levels of users’ functional intervention. To demonstrate correlation between situational confusion and levels of users’ functional intervention, we examine related work such as multiple tasks, automation and cognitive load. We consider levels of users’ functional intervention as a criterion to find an effective way to reduce mistakes from cognitive load. The conceptual model between levels of users’ functional intervention and cognitive load is established, and then we propose an experimental design and present a method to elicit the optimal level of functional intervention that generates minimum cognitive load.

In this paper, we examined the effects of life-like movements on persuasion and attention-drawing in a Mobile Digital Signage (MDS). The study employed a one-factor three-level between-participants design where we manipulated the life-likeness of movement of the MDS (life-like movement vs. simple movement vs. no-movement). We set up the three versions of the MDS at our department building for eight days in rotation, and collected the data of the number of users and the percentage of the users who answered YES at the end of the interactions. As the results of our analysis on the data of the number of users, we found that there was a main effect in the movements of MDS and the MDS with life-like movement had higher than the MDS with no movement. In addition, the analysis on the percentage of the users who answered Yes showed that there were statistically significant differences between the MDS with life-like movements and the MDS with sim ple movement, and the MDS with life-like movement and the MDS with no movement. The results indicated that the power of persuasion and attention drawing increased when the MDS performed life-like movement.

By adopting the method of user experience, this research studies the influence of the layout of the lighting source for the visual comfort of refrigerator inner illumination. There are three kinds of layout, including the lighting source on the top, at the side wall and at the back of the refrigerator, which are conducted experiments under the environment of nighttime, kitchen, living room, common market and high-end store. The result shows that with the vacancy of the refrigerator, there is few influence of the different layout of light source on the visual comfort under the same environment of external illumination. There is a significant difference on the comfort illumination level on the top light and back light under the nighttime environment. But under other outer illumination environments, there is no significant difference among these three lighting source layout.

We experimentally investigated the effects of using a high-resolution 4K tablet on physiological and psychological states while viewing various types of content. The results showed the scores for “precise–coarse,” “feeling of invigoration–no feeling of invigoration” and “enjoyable–boring” when viewing 4K scenic content to be significantly higher than those for 2K scenic content. Moreover, NIRS values, an index of nervous system activity, during viewing tests of 4K scenic content, were significantly higher for 4K content than for 2K content.

With the improvement of the degree of informatization, digital human-computer interface (hereinafter referred to as DHCI) has been gradually replacing the traditional display and control interface, which plays an essential role in the efficient and precise operation of complex informative system. In recent years, unreasonable visual information design of DHCI has been proved to be one of the main reasons that cause a lot of serious accidents, which leads to users’ mistakes in cognitive understanding and decision-making periods. Complex system has a great amount of information and a complicated information structure, which is easy to result in the imbalance between visual information design and cognitive mechanism. This poster is planning to start from the brain mechanism research of visual information cognition, and carrying out visual information design research through a perspective that close to the origin attribute of human cognition, making the research on visual information analysis of the information structure and encoding method in DHCI.

A comparative experiment was conducted to make clear whether dynamic visual search performance is sensitivity to the visual comfort of LED TVs by testing dynamic visual search performance and visual fatigue of eight LED TVs. 16 ordinary man from 18 to 45 years old were paid to participate in the experiment. And all subjects were arranged to doing the dynamic visual search task when velocity was 5°/s. Each participant took the same dynamic visual search tasks on the eight LED TVs in the experiment. The search time and accuracy of each participant were recorded. The results shows that there is significant difference about the accuracy and dynamic visual search time in the course of 5°/s movement velocity between different LED TVs. And there is corresponding mode of comfort, satisfaction, the subjective fatigue feeling between different LED TVs. Those results revealed that dynamic visual search performance was sensitive to visual fatigue and comfort under the situation of 5°/s movement velocity. The obtained results could be a reference for evaluating the quality of LED TVs for a specific visual search task.

Nowadays the trend in the industry is to centralize production systems. For example almost autonomous power plants will be spread over the regions. In case of malfunctions the maintenance staff has to react very fast to reduce downtimes and costs. Based on a user analysis, different requirements such as fast information gathering and straightforward handling have been determined. Required documents are often spread across the company. This leads to time-intensive searching and obtaining. Modern technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) can support the staff. AR-applications have great potential for practical use, however, essential parts of today’s popular desktop-based interaction concepts have to be redesigned. Computer games provide solutions for presenting complex information in a way that is easy to understand. Anforderungen an AR-Anwendungen in der Instandhaltung.

Driving simulators require extensive road environments, with roads correctly modeled and similar to those found in real world. The modeling of extensive road environments, with the specific characteristics required by driving simulators, may result in a long time consuming process. This paper presents a procedural method to the modeling of large road environments. The proposed method can produce a road network design to populate an empty terrain and produce all the related road environment models. The terrain model can also be edited to produce well-constructed road environments. The road and terrain models are optimized to interactive visualization in real time, applying all the stet-of-art techniques like the level of detail selection. The proposed method allows modeling large road environments, with the realism and quality required to the realization of experimental work in driving simulators.

This study examined the effectiveness of adaptive camouflage patterns according to environmental contexts. We performed visual search tasks using photo simulation to evaluate the effectiveness of camouflage strategies. Pattern combination strategies from a previous study were used. Each one of the 4 strategies (Average [A], AverageRandom [AR], Main [M], and MainRandom [MR]) were presented in 3 environmental contexts (Woodland, Rural, and Urban), and performance (Error Rate) was measured. An analysis of performance revealed the main effect of strategy and a significant interaction between strategy and the context. Strategy A appeared to be more effective than the others. The A and AR strategies were better in the Woodland context, and strategies A and M appeared to be superior to the others in the Urban and Rural contexts. This study can be the foundation for determining optimal adaptive camouflage patterns in different environmental contexts and provide a theoretical basis for future military uniforms.

The central venous access procedure is used for placing a catheter for venous interventions, defibrillator devices or even filters when required. The access depends on patient-related factors that may increase the procedure’s difficulty. However, when performing the procedure on newborns, the level of difficulty rises considerably and any mistake may cause damages on tissues, lungs or the accessed vein, those can affect the medical condition of the patient. This work focus on the development of an augmented reality application for training pediatricians in the central venous access in newborns while allowing handling surgical tools. The system has a 3D marker tracking, that enables the user interact with models of surgical tools such as syringe, blunt guidewire, dilating device and catheter, each one of them shows up over the marker. The prototype is programmed in Unity3D with the use of AR Vuforia library and an Oculus VR with an attached webcam. The system makes a suitable tracking of the surgical instruments within a controlled lighting. To conclude, finished and suitable prototype will be tested with the help of medical students to validate their impact as simulator training in this technique.

Previous research has shown occupants’ behavior and interactions with building systems and components have a significant impact on the total energy consumption of buildings. Incorporating occupant requirements to the design process could result in better operations, and therefore, improve the total energy consumption of buildings. Currently, buildings are primarily designed based on several common assumptions about occupant requirements, which in many cases are incorrect and result in inefficiencies during the buildings’ operation phase. With the recent improvements in the fields of virtual and augmented reality, designers now have the opportunity to accurately collect and analyze occupants’ behavioral information. In this research, through the use of immersive virtual environments, the influence of different design features on end-user behavior (preferences and patterns) and performances are examined. A case study is presented, in which the authors measure the end-users’ lighting preferences to better understand the impact of preferences on end-users’ performances and lighting-related energy consumption.

We have been studied virtualization of draping which is one of a design method for clothing. It is desirable to adopt a man-machine interface in the same way as the real world for virtual draping. For this purpose, motion of hand is detected by Leap Motion as a sensor. This sensor can detect not only the motion of hand but the motion of fingers. According to the motion of hand or fingers in the real world, hand model in the virtual world is moved. Cloth is modeled with simple particles and springs, and dynamical change of cloth model form is obtained by numerical integration of motion equation. The interaction between the hand model and the cloth model is enabled, and then it is possible to grab the cloth model by the hand model in the virtual world.

We learned that the present challenges are the stabilization of the wrists, representation of gravity, and the sensation of diminishing solder. The issue of wrist stabilization is difficult to improve because, with control from the haptic device, there exists an area for which stabilization is not possible. On the other hand, for the representation of gravity and sensation of diminishing solder, the representation can be changed in the software program and further experimental investigation is needed in the future.

Virtual reality environments are great tools for training as they are very cheap compared to on-site training for many tasks. While the focus has mostly been on the visual experience, we present a system that combines real world interactions with the virtual visual world to train motor skills that are applicable to the real world. Body pose tracking is combined with an Oculus Rift to create such an interactive virtual environment. As an example application, we taught users to juggle using a virtual training course. A third of the users were able to immediately transfer the newly acquired skills and juggle with real balls.

In this article, two artificial intelligence techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms were incorporated into a 3D working environment and turned into a game engine, which simulates a working environment in order to obtain possible warning signs to different hazards. These techniques were incorporated in the perception and reasoning of a character in the virtual environment, in order to react intelligently to given warning signs.

In this paper we propose a definition for Peripheral Head-Mounted Display (PHMD) for Near Field Displays. This paper introduces a taxonomy for head-mounted displays that is based on the property of its functionality and the ability of our human eye to perceive peripheral information, instead of being technology-dependent. The aim of this paper is to help designers to understand the perception of the human eye, as well as to discuss the factors one needs to take into consideration when designing visual interfaces for PHMDs. We envision this term to help classifying devices such as Google Glass, which are often misclassified as a Head-Up Display (HUD) following NASA’s definition.

In this paper, we propose the efficient approach for constructing virtual reality simulation of ship navigation that supports navigator. Therefore, we propose that simple constructing environments surrounding ships. Structures along the yard can easily displayed with one texture mapping on one NURBS (Non Uniform Rational B-spline) surface. Using this method, we take only 15 s to make one structure including cutting textures.

Forest wood harvesting in mountain areas needs a deep and accurate planning to avoid possible failures and criticalities due to the complex morphology of the terrain. Steepness, difficult accessibility and on the field manual work are cost effective factors to reckon, but not always taken into account on all phases, due to the heterogeneity of competences and instruments adopted by the involved actors. Geographical information systems planning tools, demonstrated their usefulness to analyze spatial data in such conditions, but their specificity makes their adoption difficult among operators especially in a conservative industry like forestry. This document introduces an interactive web 3D planning tool based on an accurate virtual forest environment reconstruction, to support the entire wood processing chain in mountain areas, from tree marking to timber production within sawmills, accommodating the needs of all the involved actors bringing novel simulation, planning and monitoring tools at their disposal.

When flight time is not available, flight simulators are an effective task rehearsal tool used by the military to train and maintaining aviator proficiency. Unfortunately, the physical characteristics of traditional simulator architectures prevent their use in most operational environments. Previous research has demonstrated that the embedded training (ET) simulator concept is viable but also has limitations in the display of immersive visuals (Lennerton,

2004

). Recent advancements in virtual display devices and aircraft design can overcome challenges of the past and should rapidly advance the realization of ET simulators. However, the ability of technology to provide an ET solution must be supported by user acceptance and confidence that effective training transfer will occur with such a system. This effort explored the feasibility of using a modern, user worn, 3D, projection based Augmented Reality (AR) system as the visual interface for a hypothetical ET system with two fixed wing and one rotary wing aircraft. Eight Naval Aviation Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) were given a preflight questionnaire, participated in a simulated flight using the AR display, and completed a post-flight questionnaire. Results indicated that both the ET concept and the prototype AR system were highly regarded.

Virtual Reality (VR) technologies are increasingly used in many engineering and entertainment applications. In order to make users feel more immersed in the VR environments, many studies have focused on enhancing the sensory feedback for the users. Other than visual feedback, haptic feedback has drawn a lot of attention for increasing the realism of the VR environments. This study creates a realistic key click haptic feedback system in a 3D VR environment. The system can be used to create complex vibrations that match measured vibrations from a real keyboard. The system uses immersive 3D stereo displays to render a virtual environment and a virtual keyboard, a finger-wised data glove to track finger motions, and micro-speakers to create low-frequency 50 Hz vibrations for realistic tactile haptic feedback for each finger. When the users press a virtual key, realistic tactile feedback can be provided to the users. Since the virtual keyboard is not anchored on any physical surfaces or objects in the real world, it does not limit the VR workspace. As a result, the haptic VR keyboard can enhance human-computer interactions in an immersive VR environment.

Control Yourself is a natural user interaction system with a camera and depth sensor, a processor and a display. The user’s image is separated from the background of a camera’s output and rendered in the program in real-time. The result is that a display shows a video of a person inside the application. The software also recognizes various types of movement such as gestures, changing positions, moving in frame and multiplayer interaction. The technology utilizes the obtained gestures and movements for GUI transformations and creation and for positioning the image or mesh of a user with the background removed. Users of the system can manipulate virtual objects and various features of the program by using gestures and movements while seeing themselves as if they were viewing a mirror with an augmented reality around them. This approach allows users to interact with software by natural movements via intuitive gestures.

This paper will discuss the methodology for the development of interface design according to cultural dimensions of Malaysian culture. This paper will discuss previous works of cultural interface design development and the application of Malaysian cultural dimensions in interface design.

The number of foreigners who visit Japan is increasing lately, however most of the services or products for foreigners are designed based on their superficial understanding and do not meet their true needs. This research’s goal is to propose place oriented Internet radio called “Re:Radio”, as a new media to help foreigners understand Japan at a deeper level, by providing individually customised contents. Specifically, the dialogue between a guest and personality is used as main contents. Listening to the contents at the place induces listener’s self-reflection, which helps further understanding of the place. This paper introduces the concept and implementation, and the experimental results conducted in Tokyo.

This short paper covers the advent of Project Cul. The researcher examined the feasibility of support for the combined usage of mobile operating systems (including Omni-Touch device), markerless augmented reality, global systems for mobile communications (hybrid positioning systems), and cloud computing (public and community cloud). Since Project Cul is in its initial phase, the existing version aims to reinvent adaptability across cultures using mixed technology and anticipates creating a game-based learning simulator to ease the adjustment period of an individual upon relocating to his or her destination country, using an interaction method coined by the researcher as “poke, swipe, and pinch”. Using this interaction method, users can experience Omni-Touch functionality by practicing accurate control of the hand on any surface or even in mid-air. A discussion of protocols to achieve the project aim, most similar work, how Project Cul is original, development methodology, and evaluation method are conducted.

In order to understand the factors that affect the operating safety of Chinese pilots more deeply, we designed the “Chinese pilots’ operating safety questionnaire”. In this study, a total of 2130 questionnaires were received, of which 2094 copies are valid. We conducted a statistical analysis of the closed questions, collected the various open answers, and compared the different insights of the pilots in the same question. Finally, we summarized the discoveries and potential problems in operation risk, fatigue risk, safety awareness, the pilot’s health care and the application of new technology. Through this survey and research, we are more systematic and comprehensive understanding of the major factors affecting the pilots’ operations safety, and get some management problems existing in civil aviation and airlines of China, such as the flight time limit prescribed to be fine enough, non-precision approach of training is not enough. The conclusion of the investigation is very important for improving the safety management of airlines and revising China civil aviation related safety policies and regulations.

With the wide spread of mobile media around the world, the cross-cultural users could get the tourism destinations’ information instant and convenient by mobile phones and other mobile terminals. However, the differences on region, culture, cognition, behavior, concepts etc. make cross-cultural users having distinctive experience of products. The effects of regional culture on user experience become more significant in tourism App’s user interface (UI) design. It is a research focus at present that to solve the communication issues between the cross-cultural users and product’s regional culture experience in theory and practice. In this paper, by taking the tourism App’s UI design of Xin’ an Hangu Guan (Chinese famous historical site of the Silk Road, world cultural heritage 2014) as an example, the methods on exploring and using regional culture when facing the experience design for cross-cultural users was discussed. At last, a method to ascend influence of regional culture by product’s experience value was proposed, and expected to provide a theoretical reference for improving development of regional culture.

The interaction between culture and business, culture and economy, is increasingly close under the background of the integration of the knowledge economy and the world economy. Material comforts are no longer able to meet the demand of modern products. The pursuit of products receives more attention in personal emotion, psychology and other aspects. This requires the product design should meet the cultural values of the times, and correctly interpret the values. Therefore, this paper takes lighting products as an example, firstly makes the reverse model for the product, then improves the design on the basis of three-dimensional digital model, and finally produces samples with the application of rapid prototyping 3D printing technology. Moreover, this paper uses the Kansei Engineering Theory to collect users’ emotional data on product awareness and experience by questionnaires. It uses Factor analysis method and considers of product design principles, constructs cultural values and the objectives and the values for lighting design elements. The paper determines the criteria associated with perceptual weighting coefficients on the basis of users’ data, and accurately designs the lighting products based on the cultural values, then forms the method of product design that upgrades the cultural values.

This paper presents Renewed Voice, a software application designed to replace the collection methodology of using paper survey forms to conduct Life Story Work (LSW) in a resident care community. Renewed Voice integrates multiple design elements customized for older adults including an intuitive user interface, larger fonts and navigational buttons, specific color and contrast schemes, standardized page layouts, a dynamic progression and completion rate, and touch screen capability. A trial version is currently being tested at a local personal care home and memory care community.

Hand-held computer devices, such as smartphone, tablet etc., are popularly used at present. The icon styles for the apps in those devices can be generally classified into two types, namely, Aqua and Metro. How they can be perceived and preferred by people in different ages? What are the design features of these styles? This study aims to explore the relationship between icons’ style and perception on different ages.

10 Aqua and 10 Metro icons with same meanings were sampled. 300 respondents, evenly distributed in genders, aged 16–65 years old, stratified in ten age groups were recruited to do the test. A 5-point Likert scale was used to evaluate the perception of icons. The study examined the perception and preference of different age groups in using app icons of Metro and Aqua style. Four distinct design features, i.e. concrete, abstract, flatness and stereoscopic were also examined. In particular, it investigated whether an icon image that is concrete and solid at the same time can be more legible and preferable by the respondent. It also analyzed whether male and female exhibit different degree of perception and preference over different styles.

It was found that the perception on Aqua icons was not significantly different among 10 age groups. In contrast, the perception of Metro icons was significantly different between two age groups: 16–30 and 31–65. All age groups prefer Aqua to Metro, especially on older groups aged beyond 31. Younger groups tend to be more comfortable with Metro than the older groups did. The study also found that perception was strongly influenced by concrete and abstract features.

The objective of this project is to propose a prototype of an iPad application that will satisfy the demand of old adults, whose interest is a long lasting healthy brain. Developing an application for old adults is reasonable because of rapid increase of their population. This paper focuses on a development of an iPad application within mobile UD (Universal Design) principles for older adults that will lead to further research on user testing.

Home use medical device industry prospers due to the ageing society. In both physiological and psychological domain, home use medical devices have received much attention in recent years. Seniors usually feel depressed or anxious because of losing health and living abilities. They can use the heart rate variability (HRV) device in analyzing their emotional response, however the interface of commercial HRV devices are not easy for them to operate. Therefore, the usability test of these devices was introduced for the senior users. Five senior user were recruited to conduct usability test of the two commercial HRV devices: ANSWatch (Taiwan Scientific Corp.) and CheckMyHeart Handheld HRV (DailyCare BioMedical Inc.) follow the typical operation task. Then the in-depth interview were conducted to find operational failure factors. All of senior users indicated that the serious failure factors are: “unable to understand English instructions” and “unable to determine the meaning of illustration”. Four of them indicated that the minor ones are: “no appropriate guide”; “text is too small”; and “layout is not appropriate”. Three of them indicated that “illustration surface reflection” is another problem. Therefore, we suggests that the home use HRV device interface design should consider principles such as (1) the language and icon properties, (2) step guides and text properties, (3) consistency of interface configuration, (4) color scheme to improve the operational satisfaction for the senior users.

Aim: A study was conducted to explore the experiences of older patients with chronic conditions in a home telehealth program, Philips’ Intensive Ambulatory Care (IAC) at Banner Health in Phoenix AZ, which targets complex chronic patients. Methods: A purposive sampling approach was followed. The number of participants in the sample depended on data saturation. Interviews were conducted at participants’ homes and audio recorded. Interviews were transcribed and the text was analyzed. An inductive approach to the analysis was adopted, whereby explanations and patterns were sought with a bottom-up approach. Specifically, first, codes were identified and created. Then, data (text) was assigned to codes. The emerging themes were captured. Results: Patients (N = 16) named benefits to being in the IAC program, including staying out of the hospital, feeling safe and having an increased peace of mind, practical and emotional support, and usefulness of the services provided within the program (e.g. pharmacological services, social work). Participants described many benefits of the program in comparison to their previous care, including reduced time to get an answer to a medical issue, increased access to doctors, better communication with medical staff, less travel time to receive care and more personal attention. Patients indicated that their experiences in the program change over time. Starting out, they experience confusion relating to new services, technologies and care professionals, which subsides over time. Many participants appreciated the support provided by professionals within the program. Most participants also accepted the technology and could easily use it, although for a minority of participants technology use and attitudes towards technology remain a challenge to adequate program engagement. Conclusion: Patients perceive many benefits to being in an intensive ambulatory home telehealth program and have in general positive experiences with it. Challenges include acclimating to telehealth and, for some patients, technology adoption and use.

Public address system can provide useful information for the audience, which are especially important at the railway station or the subway station. Effective public address can offer help to evacuate people at these places.

Isolation is a well-known problem amongst the elderly. This isolation might be ameliorated by engaging the elderly in social media. Unfortunately, the devices most commonly used to access social media (PCs, tablets, and phones) might not be the most appropriate for this demographic. A more appropriate device might be television. Using modern technology, it is possible to aggregate specially tagged social media posts from friends and family and narrow-cast it to other family members. Our research involves creating a television-based social media channel that is appropriate for the elderly. We present our initial work which involves developing a proof-of-concept for the Family Channel and identifying user profiles for the 65+ demographic with respect to technology use.

This paper presents an application that is designed to reduce the loneliness of elderly and to support them in elderly care homes. The social application ‘APPointment’ allows users to plan social activities to undertake with fellows living within a closed community. The app was designed after conducting extensive user research and evaluation sessions with elderly. The results indicate that the target user group found the new app accessible, easy to use and most importantly quite effective in improving their social lives at the elderly care home.

Due to increasing technologization and demographic changes, more and more elderly people are facing the challenge to use internet-based services for information and communication (ICT). In order to reduce frustrating experiences with ICT, such as feelings of helplessness and fear as well as motivational barriers, gamification and serious games are a promising approach. However, we assume that, when designing gamified applications for senior citizens, social aspects play an important role. Our research question aimed at comparing subjective enjoyment and motivational effects by providing different sociable gameplay conditions.

In a laboratory experiment 18 pairs of seniors from 58–85 years of age played an online version of the dice game “Yahtzee”. Each participant worked in a separate room. The pairs were assigned to one of the following social modalities: (1) isolated condition with no interaction at all, (2) shared screen-condition and playing the game against each other knowingly, or (3) shared screen-condition plus video and audio feedback between both participants. By using a set of questionnaires we measured perceived attractiveness, emotional enjoyment, and motivation during the game as well as after the experiment.

Repeated measures during the experiment show that social aspects significantly enhance positive feelings and the willingness to maintain the gaming task.

Computer based recreational activities can be solution for aging. We are addressing memory related problems using a computer. We propose “Old Photos on Map” application (Vanhat Kuvat). The aim of Vanhat Kuvat is to activate one’s memory by using old photos and an assistant agent to wake up the past memories and experiences of childhood surroundings and architecture as well as personal hidden stories. We describe design issues related to user interfaces and interactions.

A plethora of research studies have recently examined different approaches for designing playful learning interactive systems. The design challenges of offering fun, engaging and creative learning experiences for children are often coupled with complexities in objectively measuring the impact of different designs with younger populations. Consequently, the evaluation of children’s experience with playful learning websites is essential for designing and improving these interactive systems to comply with the child’s cognitive, physical, and perceptual abilities. This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted on a sample of 64 children in an elementary school in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Its aim was to explore and analyze the user experience (UX) on Arabic educational and entertainment website de-signed for children ranging in age from 7 to 12 years. To help understand the children better and gather impression data about how they use these types of websites, observation and heuristic evaluations have been used. Observational analysis included metrics for measuring UX and usability during interaction with the web pages to understand the efficacy of these evaluation approaches in uncovering general usability issues and opportunities for design improvements. The study took place in the school’s computer lab where each child interacted with the website separately from her mates. Questionnaires were designed specifically to assess the momentum emotion of the user while interacting with different sections of the website. Also, children were provided with sticky notes to freely describe their experience, perceptions, and opinions about the website. The results of our study showed that the age of the child interacting with the website has a significant impact on how she experienced the different sections in each web page. Methodological design implications for conducting UX and usability evaluations for children are discussed.

A library is a crucial place for children to learn. However, different environmental designs have differing effects on users. We used the Taipei Public Library (Main Library) as case to explore the environments of different reading areas and parent-child user behavior. Field survey and focus group methods were used to observe and analyze factors influencing parent-child interaction. The research results indicated that the table shape affected parent-child interaction. For example, a table in a shape of flower enabled the parent and child to work individually, whereas a round table improved parent-child interaction. Children tended to sit or stand by the bookshelf for reading. Comfortable and undisturbed reading space is the primary factor in seat selection by the users. Secondary factors included the dimensions of the table and chair set, style of the table and chairs, and illumination.

Double-salary families are very common nowadays in the modern society. Parents may neglect to be there with their children as their children grow up. In 2014, the Child Welfare League Foundation conducted a survey and found that almost 64 % of parents believing the biggest problem was “no time after getting off work”. To avoid the lack of interaction and care in the long run, this study aimed to explore the influence of parenting time on children’s growth performances. There were two parts of this study: (1) literature review. This part discussed the lifestyles of families with children based on a survey regarding time use and the important features of accompanying activities for growth performances of children aged 0–12; and (2) questionnaire analyses, exploring the influence of time parents spent with their children aged 0–12 on these children’s performances. The questionnaires were issued in Oct, 2014. A total of 30 questionnaires were retrieved. The results are summarized below (ordered by after-work time):

1.

Spending time with children after getting off work, during 17:30–18:30 could lead to children positive and cheerful emotions as well as good performances in auditory comprehension.

2.

Spending time with children when they were reading during 20:0–21:30 helped them to pay attention to meaningful messages and information regarding the leading role of the story they were reading as well as improving their performances in language capability.

3.

Spending time with children during 22:30–24:00 helped to improve their social capability and performances in peer relations.

Young children with severe motor impairments face a higher risk of secondary impairments in the development of social, cognitive, and motor skills, owing to the lack of independent mobility. Although power wheelchairs are typical tools for providing independent mobility, the steep learning curve, safety concerns, and high cost may prevent children aged 2–5 years from using them. We have developed a 3D wheelchair simulation system using gaming technologies for these young children to learn fundamental wheelchair driving skills in a safe, affordable, and entertaining environment. Depending on the skill level, the simulation system offers different options ranging from automatic control (i.e., the artificial intelligent (AI) module fully controls the wheelchair) to manual control (i.e., human users are fully responsible for controlling the wheelchair). Optimized AI algorithms were developed to make the simulation system easy and efficient to use. We have conducted experiments to evaluate the simulation system. The results demonstrate that the simulation system is promising to overcome the limitations associated with real wheelchairs meanwhile providing a safe, affordable, and exciting environment to train young children.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often have difficulty recognizing emotional cues in ordinary interaction. To address this, we are developing a social robot that teaches children with ASD to recognize emotion in the simpler and more controlled context of interaction with a robot. An emotion recognition program using the Viola-Jones algorithm for facial detection is in development. To better understand emotion expression by social robots, a study was conducted with 11 college students matching animated facial expressions and emotionally neutral sentences spoken in affective voices to various emotions. Overall, facial expressions had greater recognition accuracy and higher perceived intensity than voices. Future work will test the recognition of combined face and voices.

This paper describes the serious game contents for the evaluation of cognitive function for kids. The game contents were designed for measuring and enhancing the cognitive function of the kids (ages 5–7). We clustered the measurable cognitive functions as auditory attention, visual attention, attention shift, and impulse control. This study is based on the advisory of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine. In impulse control task, we applied the vision based head tracking technology. This study is meaningful on the point view that we can evaluate and enhance the cognitive function of kids who are familiar with the computer environments.

In modern world, children need to get familiar with interactive toys to quickly improve their learning and imagination. Our approach is to add augmented information and interaction to common toys on the surface containing them, which is called Smart Playground. Popular methods use three color channels and local features to recognize objects. However, toys of children usually have various pictures with different colors drawn on many small components. Therefore depth data is useful in this case. Each toy usually have unique shape that is distinguishable from others. In this paper, we use an RGB-D sensor to collect information about both color and shape of objects. To learn the training set of toys, an approach of convolutional neural network is used to represent data (both color and depth) by high-level feature vectors. Using the combined results, the accuracy of 3D recognition is more than 90 %.

Autism is a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by limited social skills. This paper explores a design process of interactive soft toys for children with autism that might enhance various ways of their communication. For local autism awareness events, two soft design prototypes were developed utilizing different sensory modalities (light, sound, and vibration). The researchers include the result of preliminary observation in the paper. The preliminary analysis suggests that interactive soft toys have potentials to engage children with autism through different features of the toys and evoke sensory relaxations and encourage them to talk about their experience.

School children from 6 to 12 years have characteristics of trying new things, lack of complete reasoning ability and staying in a group. It is easier for them to be in dangerous situations during this stage, which concerns parents. However, parents do not have enough time to accompany and monitor children the whole day. In this paper, we propose an interface design model for remote communicating and monitoring of children care to meet parents’ requirements. After describing this model, we discuss the situation awareness and group proximity inference as implicit input in details, which is a crucial part of iCare model. Finally, we prospect prototyping and evaluation based on this model.

Recently, presenting Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) images for product design education has become an option. However, visual discomfort caused by interacting with S3D contents should be minimized. In this research, representative S3D virtual models of automobiles were constructed for experiments. These models were displayed on a 50-inch S3D TV and viewed through polarized glasses. The task was to control the rotation of an automobile and identify the design problems. Thirty students, majored in Industrial Design, were invited to participate in these experiments. The result showed that although S3D images had advantages in the task of dimension and distance estimations, the degree of visual discomfort increased significantly while the participants were interacting with the virtual product model intensively. Furthermore, adaptive adjustments of binocular depth cues, such as disparity, could reduce visual discomfort and accommodate individual differences.

This paper will demonstrate what the main benefits of applying Human Centered Design Techniques in a Scrum Project are, especially when they are used by the Product Owner. These techniques, like user observation, prototyping, user evaluation tests can be used in order to connect people to build the best solution and, when they are applied throughout the project sprints they can became a powerful tool to guarantees product success and outstanding results.

We develop a Computer Aided Design (CAD) editor using an open source library, with the aim to minimize the cost in the future, as compared to the development of conventional editors, and to accelerate the expansion by means of standardized languages making the development easier. We focus on snapping, a very important area in computer graphics and without a CAD application inconceivable. CAD applications offer the possibility of snappings to allow the developers an intuitive interaction with the objects in 2D or 3D space. Snapping allows by using constraints the merging of multiple objects into a new object. Two possible approaches for implementing snappings are addressed and presented. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed via a user study.

This study produced motion graphics as an application of basic modeling form design in fashion design and creates a media art work via projection mapping of the motion graphics to a torso thereby aiming at learning a sense of basic modeling form and producing a media art in fusion of fashion and media. Kandinsky (1979), in his book ‘Point and Line to Plane’, suggested that a variety of changes in the most basic formation of modeling can be made by changes in formation, changes in orientation and direction, structural finesse, utilization of space, inter-connected relationships in processing of corner vertices, changes and colors due to repetition, and basic modeling form theory through contrast sense of materials. This basic modeling form theory is studied to develop comprehensive thinking skills into fashion design sense by learning overall unity and harmony and the principle of Gestalt (closure, proximity, similarity) as students perform tasks that present various modeling form conditions step by step using abstract points and lines in fashion design in a process of concept, development, and fashion design application. In this study, motion graphics images are created using plane designs in basic modeling form thereby adding interactive elements to basic modeling form so that two-dimensional (2D) images are re-structured into three-dimensional (3D) works by utilizing projection mapping. A torso, which is a human model used in clothing and textiles, is set as a target of projection mapping to experience processes of conception, development, and application in basic fashion design. This study is a step prior to application of interaction technology, and software called Adobe After Effects was used to display images in the torso. This study is focused on understanding on basic modeling form, development of design sense, and stereoscopic design rather than skills required for works. Through interaction functions via upgrades, this study will be utilized in media work, show-windows in dress shops or fashion shows in future.

User Interface (UI) guidelines, used across various enterprise products or applications of a company bring consistency and cohesiveness between them. This paper discusses the user research studies carried out to arrive at a minimum threshold of visual components required to help multiple products retain the perception of consistency between interfaces. These studies help identify which elements and which combinations of these elements can help build associations. Our results showed that among various UI components, background color, header-footer and button color were the most influential, in that order. We also studied how various combinations in the background color of the content area

plus

header-footer would lead to increase or decrease in association.

The growth of the number of graphic designs to meet the needs of the market has reduced the development process of the same, making them incomprehensible. The use of a suitable method enables new professionals to develop more functional designs. This study lists the problems encountered on the market, using interviews in empreses, and directing the teaching of projetual method in Brazilian schools, focusing on graphic design brands. With that can identify possible improvements in this field.

The universality evaluation standard system of product design on basis of Kansei Engineering and virtual reality constructed in this paper will effectively solve the current practical problems of product design evaluation to the greatest degree. The reasons why people are usually at a loss when conducting product design evaluation are that, on the one hand they do not know what kind of method or means is able to achieve the goal of scientific evaluation, and on the other hand whether there is or what kind of method and model among hundreds of product design evaluation methods and models can deal with the design evaluation problem of this product.This paper aims to carry out in-depth research from the following four aspects. (1) Systemically combing the product design evaluation research results which include Kansei engineering, virtual reality, and cross-over research results of product design evaluation. (2) Scientifically summarizing the construction elements of product design universality evaluation standard system. (3) Scientifically refining construction factor and correlation factor, and extracting universality standard construction factor through researches on comparison of construction factor and correlation factor. (4) Setting priority standard through researches on the reasonable and matched priority relation of various standard construction factors, and finally constructing a product design universality evaluation standard system on basis of Kansei Engineering and virtual reality.

In the protection and inheritance of the traditional cultural heritage, the use of 3-D printing technology has become a trend of globalization. As an important part of Chinese tangible culture heritage, Chinese Ming and Qing Dynasty’s furniture really a rarity in the world classic furniture system. It has scientific structure, fastidious materials, elaborate fabrication, concise modelling, exquisite pattern, appropriate decoration and bears many aspects information of ancient Chinese people life style, aesthetic consciousness and value orientation. This article is starts from the typical artistic features of Chinese Ming and Qing Dynasty’s furniture and using 3-D scanning technology for data acquisition to build an integrated information platform which contains pattern, texture, color, structure, modelling and so on 3-D date. Combines with design, marketing, sociology and so on to innovate and develop, finally assist new product development by using 3-D printing technology to the three dimensional real object way to show. Introduce 3-D printing technology into Chinese Ming and Qing dynasty’s furniture research, ultimately reaches into the neoclassical furniture design point of view that to guide practice of neoclassical furniture research and development. This article strives to explore a new path to inherit, applied and promote Chinese traditional furniture and provide useful reference for the neoclassical furniture’s new product research and development.

With the rapid economic growth in China, Chinese style furniture has revived quietly and “new Chinese furniture” that accords with the demand of the time has also been generated. Not only it is an inheritance of Chinese long-standing history and culture, but also it complies with the international trend. Material is an important design element in new Chinese furniture. With our scientific and technological progress, the methods and means of design have been continuously improving and updating, and the modes of design appraisal have been emerging endlessly. However, few research is on the design appraisal of materials used in new Chinese furniture. Eye-tracking technology takes users’ eye movement as the basis of measurement and appraisal, which is relatively more suitable for the inspection of the visibility, characteristic meaning and interface layout of exterior elements. Thus, it can provide product development with objective, comparable and quantitative standards of measurement.

In this research, eye-tracking technology and the method of subjective assessment are combined and desktops in new Chinese furniture are taken as an example. The eye movement features and subjective assessment results in undergraduate respondents’ preference assessment of four commonly used materials for desktops (bamboo, wood, glass and metal) are recorded. It is found out through analysis and comparison that there are significance differences between professional and non-professional respondents’ assessment of the materials. In the assessment of materials, as the level of subjective assessment rises, the respondents clap their eyes on the materials at a longer time more frequently, and their pupil diameter becomes larger. However, it has nothing to do with the duration of continued watching. Therefore, the time and duration of watching, and pupil diameter can be taken as effective indexes in eye movement assessment of materials of new Chinese furniture.

Top 10 Italy design institutes proposed by “Domus” white paper were taken as original research data to study the influence of different factors on design education orientation in this work. SPSS statistic tool was employed to analyze the internal dependencies between different factors based on the factor analysis method. The results suggest that three potential common factors including the potential market scientific research factor, existing market scientific research factor and market development space of the major factor can be regarded as the main factors affecting design education orientation.

We have developed an eye-gaze input system for people with severe physical disabilities. The system utilizes a personal computer and a home video camera to detect eye-gaze under natural light, and users can easily move the mouse cursor to any point on the screen to which they direct their gaze. We constructed this system by first confirming a large difference in the duration of voluntary (conscious) and involuntary (unconscious) blinks through a precursor experiment. Consequently, on the basis of the results obtained, we developed our eye-gaze input interface, which uses the information received from voluntary blinks. More specifically, users can decide on their input by performing voluntary blinks as substitutes for mouse clicks. In this paper, we discuss the eye-gaze and blink information input interface developed and the results of evaluations conducted.

In the head pose detection system based on 3D positions of the pupils and nostrils which are detected using two stereo-calibrated video cameras and near-infrared light sources, the nostril detection supports the pupil detection as well as the head pose detection. However, the shadows of the nose due to the illumination of the light sources tend to cause the false detection of the nostrils. In order to improve the nostril detection, the present paper proposes a geometrical method using the 3D domain determined as the nostril existable range relative to two pupils considering the horizontal and vertical eyeball rotation. The experimental results show the improvement of the nostril detection.

In our pupil-corneal reflection-based gaze detection system, when users move the head quickly, the image difference method for detecting the pupils does not tend to function accurately. In addition, it becomes more difficult to detect the corneal reflection of the near-infrared light source as well as the pupil under face intense illumination condition because the pupils constrict and the disturbance light source, e.g. the sun, is misdetected as the corneal reflection. Moreover, when the users wear glasses, the reflections of glasses tend to be misdetected as the pupil and corneal reflection (feature points). In the present paper, we introduce a high-speed camera (2,000 fps) and propose a new detection method additionally acquiring a non-lighting image and then differentiating the image from the bright and dark images to detect the feature points even under the face intense illumination condition. In addition, a new light source for removing the glass reflections and enhancing the brightness difference between the bright and dark pupils is developed. The experimental results show that the robustness for the detection of the feature points is improved both under the face intense illumination condition and under the glasses-wearing condition.

In this paper, we describe about our selected method by using the 3D tile menu by hand gesture motion. In the discussion of our approach,it is a mainly subject to realize the efficient selection gesture by user’s arm for any position on the screen. Therefore, we designed the selection method by using relative position of the user’s arm joints. The method uses user’s hands, elbows and shoulder position at each arm. It recognized user’s selected points by the relative position of these joints. We make the prototype system which has been implemented our method. And we examined the basic evaluation of our selection method by comparing with the conventional method. As a result of this evaluation, it is confirmed that our method allows users to perform smooth selecting operation regardless of the position.

This paper presents an integrated framework for real-time sensing and synchronization of both user’s moving speed with direction and viewing direction in walking-in-place experience for virtual training applications. The framework consists of two inertial measurement units (IMU) attached to each shank and a HMD made up of Android mobile device with 3-axis orientation sensor. Although there are several prior works to enable unconstrained omnidirectional walking through virtual environments, an implementation of the low cost interface solution using wearable devices is an important issue for virtual training systems. We provide a simplified technique for implementing ‘Walking in Virtual Reality’ without omnidirectional treadmill. In addition, this research aims to lightweight (in point of software) and portable (in point of hardware) solution to implement the Virtual Reality Walk-In-Place(VR WIP) interface for training applications.

The purpose of this study is to develop a science & art convergence STEAM program that can be experienced through the KINECT interactive activities integration of art based on knowledge of science & technology. The program is structured based on the educational content and textbooks from the current curricula for elementary, middle-, and high-school students. Based on this, we developed the four KINECT program using the motion capture function. By using STEAM with KINECT to promote interest in science, and by providing an entertaining way to learn about science, it is possible for students to be more creative and well-rounded. It is also expected that, because the program combines art with science in a novel way, it has the potential to be widely distributed in the 2016 semester.

We have developed a liver surgery support system that uses two depth cameras and measures positional relationships between a surgical knife and a liver in real time. In this report, the overview of our system, the method for depth camera calibration, the estimation for knife tip positioning, and some experimental results are described.

This paper presents a platform, named Cybertouch, for 3D Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Display (VR HMD) providing both touch and cursor interface using wearable IMU devices to enable real-time selection of operational commands together with recognition of user motions and gestures. One of the constraints of the conventional 3D HMD widely used in VR games or training systems is blocking of user’s visual perception while wearing an HMD. Because the environment and input devices are invisible during the operation, there may be a limitation in an application caused by restriction of user input commands. Proposed Cybertouch provides a User Interface which is a kind of combined functions of traditional mice and touch panel devices, specialized in games or immersive virtual training applications using 3D HMD.

The Human Avatar Robotic Puppeteering (HARP) project is focused on studying whether homologous puppeteering (controlling via mimicry) is an effective control principle for robots, given minimal user training. This project aims to develop a practical implementation at low-cost. The HARP project is a three-joint robotic crane that is capable of grasping objects. In order to control via puppeteering, the system tracks the user’s hand moving in free space in real time as an avatar. This implementation relies on a Microsoft Kinect ($150) and a Leap Motion sensor ($100). This low-cost prototype is a proof-of-concept for a natural interface between user and robot, allowing gestures to be the method of communication rather than the traditional button-and-switch method. The system uses the Xbox Kinect to track the hand in reference to a known point on a table. This position is mapped using the imaging camera sensor in the Kinect, and an inverse kinematic algorithm is used to translate that position to the joint-angles for the crane. The grasping of the user’s hand is sensed with the Leap Motion sensor. A key contribution to the research field is the blending of two different gesture based sensor systems to form a robust control interface.

We propose “Origami” simulation system using finger gesture recognition. “Origami” is a traditional and popular game using a square sheet of paper in Japan. It is built up only by folding called “Ori” operation. Thus the rule of “Origami” is very simple. However, it is difficult for children to use complicated “Ori” and it is necessary to retry “Ori” operation again and again. On the other hand, the durability of paper is limited. Therefore by using virtual paper and finger gesture recognition, there is no limitation of durability and people who play “Origami” can retry “Ori” operation until they are satisfied. Our system projects “Origami” image on the grass table and tracks fingers by using LEAP motion that is one of depth sensors. In addition, our system recognizes “Ori” gestures with finger motions and folds “Origami”. Using our system, people can plays “Origami” with a feeling of folding a real paper.

In this paper we present our study concerning a new approach of automatic detection and analysis of body language in which we propose a method for extracting information related to nonverbal communication between persons. Our approach is based on the kinect sensor that processes the image and provides us many image features that we study. The final goal is to provide blind users access to information that is completely hidden.

In the project

AAMS

, we have developed the e-learning platform

ALM

for

Ilias

as a technical basis for research in education. ALM uses eye tracking data to analyze a learner’s gaze movement at runtime in order to adapt the learning content. As an extension to the actual capabilities of the platform, we plan to implement and evaluate a framework for advanced eye tracking analysis techniques. This framework will focus on two main concepts. The first concept allows for real-time analysis of a user’s

text reading status

by artificial intelligence techniques, at any point in the learning process. This extends and enriches the adaptive behavior of our platform. The second concept is an interface framework for multimedia applications to connect to any eye tracking hardware that is available at runtime to be used as a user interaction input device. Since accuracy can be an issue for low-cost eye trackers, we use an object-specific

relevance factor

for the detection of selectable or related content.

Conditions like Parkinson’s disease (PD) remain largely a mystery in the way that they affect individuals even under today’s modern medical practices. One of the main secondary effects associated with PD can be seen in issues with the individual’s gait and is referred to as Freezing of Gait (FoG). The symptom often responds poorly and sometimes paradoxically to treatment with dopaminergic medication that is traditionally used to treat the other symptoms of PD. However, a linkage found that FoG, during walking, results when the sequence effect is superimposed on a reduced step length. Prior research has focused on the development of technologies that use audio or visual feedback to help the individual adjust their gait. These systems may not be deployable in real-world environments since people rely on sight and sound for navigation. This research proposes the development of a system to measure step length in real-time and to provide haptic feedback to offset the progression of FoG episodes.

In order to develop a system which can precisely and quickly recognize handwritten characters in the air by using a Leap Motion Controller, we propose the following method: (1) A user has to register handwritten characters as template patterns before use. Each pattern is represented by a sequence of motion vectors calculated by using adjacent sampling data. (2) In the recognition phase, an input pattern is represented in the same method as above. The input pattern is compared with each of the registered template patterns by using DP matching and we can obtain a distance (degree of similarity) between them. Our system outputs the character class corresponding to the pattern with a minimum distance as a recognition result. In our experiments for recognition of 46 Japanese hiragana characters and 26 alphabets, a high average recognition rate of 86.7 % and a short average processing time of 196 ms were obtained.

We proposed a biomechanical framework for modeling human-spacesuit arm interaction while carrying out EVAs. In the model, there is detailed definition of spacesuit joint rotations, included spacesuit joint stiffness model and a delicate human arm musculoskeletal model in the Anybody Modeling System. The framework is able to predict human joint torque, muscle forces and joint reactions in various positions and postures while wearing spacesuit. Based on the predicted maximum muscle force, we made an evaluation of the comfort scale in various positions in the reach envelope. The predicted most comfortable area was compared to measured most comfortable area for model prediction validation.

In the physical space, we use our feet to navigate different views of space and turn our head to look up and down to observe the ground and ceiling. Therefore, the objective of the study is to establish a 3D motion sensing spatial navigation system and investigate 3D interaction designs for navigating virtual spaces. The interaction design for the navigation system were divided three parts: (a.) walking by foot to move forward, (b.) turning the shoulder to rotate direction, (c.) tilting head up and down to look up and down. In the usability test, all the subjects can utilize the interactions to navigate the virtual space. A set of preliminary motion sensing design principles for 3D navigation have also been identified in the study.

Various board games, including chess, are now played on PCs, but they differ from actual board games because a mouse is typically used to move the pieces. Moving a piece by pinching it with one’s fingers, as in actual board games, is desirable to increase a player’s sense of reality. That the pieces look as if they were floating in the air is desirable so that the players can pinch them easily. Thus, we used an autostereoscopic display in which a lenticular lens is used to cover the liquid crystal display of a PC. As a result, each piece of the board game looks as if it were popping out of the 3D display screen, without the need for the player to wear special glasses. In addition, we use a Leap Motion Controller, a motion-capture device that is particularly suitable for capturing the position and movement of fingers so that a computer can recognize where in the 3D space the fingers are and whether the fingers are pinching a piece or not. Therefore, the user can operate the piece easily and intuitively.

The use of motion sensing for input devices is becoming increasingly popular. In particular, hands-free gesture input is promising for such devices. We propose a mouse-like hands-free gesture technique for two-dimensional pointing. It is characterized as follows: (1) a user horizontally moves his/her hand to position a cursor shown on a vertical screen; (2) the user activates cursor movement by opening his/her hand, and deactivates it by clenching; (3) the user performs target selection by “clicking” in the air with his/her index finger; (4) the user is assisted in quick but precise cursor movement by automatic acceleration. We present results of a user study that experimentally compared the mouse-like technique with a tablet-like one.

The Set Covering Problem (SCP) has long been concentrating the interest of many researchers in the field of Combinatorial Optimization. SCP is a 0–1 integer programming problem that consists in finding a set of solutions which allow to cover a set of needs at the lowest cost possible. There are many applications of these kind of problems, the main ones are: location of services, files selection in a data bank, simplification of boolean expressions, balancing production lines, among others. Different metaheuristics have been proposed to solve it. Here, we present the possibilities to solve Set Covering Problems with Harmony Search.

To solve many problems modeled as Constraint Satisfaction Problems there are no known efficient algorithms. The specialized literature offers a variety of solvers, which have shown good performance. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of the scientific community in developing new strategies, there is no algorithm that is the best for all possible situations. This paper analyses recent developments of Autonomous Search Constraint Solving Systems. Showing that the design of the most efficient and recent solvers is very close to the Experiential Learning Cycle from organizational psychology.

In this paper we address a recent situation created by the explosive growth of web systems. For these reason we propose a framework to support adaptive elements in Web pages. Web pages can be accessed by different platforms with different browsers and through different devices such as laptops, tablets or cellphones. In particular we focus on adaptive menus for this different kind of devices or browsers to optimize the selection patterns and their implementations. We propose a framework using an Adaptive Constraint Programming technique to optimize the decision of developers. Constraint Programming is a programming paradigm able to find efficient resolution in optimization problems. In Constraint Programming a problem is defined in term of variables and constraints. The variables hold a domain and represent the unknowns of the problem, while the relations among them are modeled as constraints.

We present an approach to solve the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem. This problem consists on executing a group of activities limited by constraints. Precedence relationships force to some activities to begin after the finalization of others. In addition, processing every activity requires a predefined amount of limited resources. The target of this problem is to minimize the duration of whole project. In this paper, an approach based on Artificial Bee Colony algorithm for the Resource Constrained Project Scheduling Problem is presented. That algorithm is one of the most recent algorithms in the domain of the collective intelligence who was motivated by the intelligent behavior observed in the domestic bees to take the process of forage. Thus, ABC combines methods of local search and global search, trying to balance the process of the exploration and exploitation of the space of search.

In order to train and evaluate tools for the automatic transcription of misspelled texts and automatic annotation of over 20 spelling error categories, it is important to create training data. A very large database of children’s freely written text was collected in the past and in this paper we describe the tool that we have developed in order to manually transcribe and annotate the data. The manual transcription comprises the reconstruction of the orthographically correct word sequence. Annotation is performed on a per-word basis with respect to committed (child spelling) and potential (correct word) spelling error categories. The tool supports human transcribers by suggesting automatically generated annotations. Consistent annotations are propagated and data is presented to the user in a sorted manner to minimize human effort. The tool has been implemented as a web application that makes use of PHP on the server side and a lightweight Java GUI on the client side. The annotated data is stored in a custom made XML schema.

Optimization problems can be found in several real application domains such as engineering, medicine, mathematics, mechanics, physics, mining, games, design, and biology, among others. There exist several techniques to the efficient solving of these problems, which can be organized in two groups: exact and approximate methods. Metaheuristics are one of the most famous and widely used approximate methods for solving optimization problems. Most of them are known for being inspired on interesting behaviors that can be found on the nature, such as the way in which ants, bees and fishes found food, or the way in which fireflies and bats move on the environment. However, solving optimization problems via metaheuristics is not always a simple trip. In this paper, we analyze and discuss from an usability standpoint how the effort needed to design and implement efficient and robust metaheuristics can be conveniently managed and reduced.

This paper highlights the current usability issues when solving Sudoku problems. This problem is a well-known puzzle game which consists in assigning numbers in a game board, commonly of

$$9 \times 9$$

size. The board of the game is composed of 9 columns, 9 rows and 9

$$3 \times 3$$

sub-grids; each one containing 9 cells with distinct integers from 1 to 9. A game is completed when all cells have a value assigned, and the previous constraints are satisfied. Some instances are very difficult to solve, to tackle this issue, we have used a filtering technique named Arc Consistency 3 (AC3) from the Constraint Programming domain. This algorithm has revealed which is much related to the strategies employed by users in order to solve the Sudoku instances, but in contrast, this technique is executed in a short time, offering a good resolution guide to the users. In general, filtering techniques make easier solving Sudoku puzzles, providing good information to users for this.

Probabilistic Linear Discriminant Analysis (PLDA) has delivered impressive results in some challenging tasks, e.g. face recognition and speaker recognition. Similar with the most state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, PLDA tries to globally learn the model parameters over the whole training set. However, those globally-learnt PLDA parameters can hardly characterize all relevant information, especially for those data sets whose underlying feature-spaces are heterogeneous and abound in complex manifolds. PLDA has the data homogeneous assumption which could be interpreted by involved parameters estimated through the entire training dataset. Such a global learning idea has been proven ineffective in the case of the heterogeneous data. In this paper, we alleviate this assumption by separating the feature space and locally learning multiple PLDA models of each space. Various standard datasets are performed and the superiority of the proposed method over the original PLDA could be found. We complete this work by assigning a probability to measure which models the test individual data match. This probabilistic scoring approach could further integrate different recognition technologies including other kinds of biological characteristics recognition. We propose the novel log likelihood score in recognition part includes three steps to complete.

When describing complex characteristics of a specific genre, specialist expressions are often used. This can become quite a problematic situation for an inexperienced person, as expressions not used in everyday language are difficult to understand. This is particularly apparent when trying to describe wines, known as winespeak, as a range of specialist expressions are used in a subjective manner. In this paper, we propose that the descriptions of wines can be analyzed from various points of view to automatically predict and visualize the sensory sentiment characteristics described within the expressions as a radar chart. This would enable those not knowledgeable in winespeak to visualize and compare the complex descriptions often found in expert tasting notes.

We propose a method to extract particular sound segments from the sound recorded during the course of a day in order to provide sound segments that can be used to facilitate memory. To extract important parts of the sound data, the proposed method utilizes human behavior based on a multisensing approach. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, we conducted experiments using sound, acceleration, and global positioning system data collected by five participants for approximately two weeks. The experimental results are summarized as follows: (1) various sounds can be extracted by dividing a day into scenes using the acceleration data; (2) sound recorded in unusual places is preferable to sound recorded in usual places; and (3) speech is preferable to nonspeech sound.

We propose a model for a decision support of a group based on estimations of group status through utterance analysis. Based on methods used in prior studies of group dynamics and utterance analysis, we measured the utterance characteristics of group members to estimate group status; moreover, we aim to enhance the overall condition of the group by providing appropriate reference information in a timely manner through a conversational agent system.

The goal of this model is a more satisfying decision-making process. Future work will focus on manufacturing a prototype system to verify both the operations involved in the test case and the ability to estimate group classification and status according to group dynamics.

This paper presents a computer system and its interface for musicians and composers to analyze musical pieces described as a sequence of decision making process during the composition of musical pieces. Representation of musical pieces from the viewpoint of creation process is valuable for both composers and musicians. For composers, it is valuable to verify her own composition techniques and creative process. And for musicians, it offers different viewpoints to understand the musical piece that results in better execution of the musical piece.

Structural topic modeling (STM) is a recently introduced technique to model how the content of a collection of documents changes as a function of variables such as author identity or time of writing. We present two proof-of-concept applications of STM using Russian social media data. In our first study, we model how topics change over time, showing that STM can be used to detect significant events such as the downing of Malaysia Air Flight 17. In our second study, we model how topical content varies across a set of authors, showing that STM can be used to cluster Twitter users who are sympathetic to Ukraine versus Russia as well as to cluster accounts that are suspected to belong to the same individual (so-called “sockpuppets”). Structural topic modeling shows promise as a tool for analyzing social media data, a domain that has been largely ignored in the topic modeling literature.

This paper describes an improved chance index for chance discovery. A chance is an important event or circumstance that can be used by analysts to make decisions. Discovery chance, i.e., chance discovery, is important for knowledge to be used effectively in understanding the background and causes hidden in a dataset. However, chance discovery depends on analyst’s inference. Therefore, we propose a chance index that quantitatively evaluates chance. The method is based on betweenness centrality and the strength of co-occurrence. This study improves the accuracy of chance index by considering cluster information.

In the field of Buzz marketing, it is important to extract knowledge to improve products and services from the voice of the customer represented by customer reviews. In Japanese web review sentences, words that co-occur with onomatopoeia it has been confirmed that easy to combine with use sense of product. For sensory evaluation using a products can be easily associated with the satisfaction is obvious, onomatopoeia can be expected to contribute in knowledge extraction on customer satisfaction. A knowledge model for customer satisfaction is constructed by a regression tree that co-occurrence words with onomatopoeias are used as explanatory variables. Effectiveness of the proposed method I was confirmed through the analysis for the customer review data of ramen shop in Tokyo. The knowledge model acquired by our approach contained many words associated with noodles and food, on the other hand the normal regression tree model was included many meaningless words and unrelated words.

Sockpuppets are online identities controlled by a user or group of users to manipulate the dissemination of information in digital environments. This manipulation can distort computational assessments of public opinion in social media. Using Russian-language Twitter data from the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, we present a proof-of-concept model employing character n-gram methods to detect sockpuppets. Previous research has demonstrated that n-gram authorship attribution methods can capture lexical preferences, including grammatical and orthographic preferences, while also being less computationally intensive than grammatical or compression language models. Additionally, they can be applied to any language data irrespective of orthography. In this study, a Naïve Bayes classifier was constructed using normalized frequencies of parsed character bigrams to contrast author bigram use. The created model illustrated that suspected sockpuppet accounts were less likely to be correctly classified, showing lower precision, recall, and f-measure rates than other accounts, as predicted.

A Controlled-Language like approach with the integration of expert knowledge is applied to the pre-editing or post-editing of specialized terminology from international texts processed by the UNL System developed by Institute of Advanced Studies of United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, Japan. We provide an all-purpose interactive framework focusing on the automatic analysis, ambiguity resolution and editing of German financial terms and English military terms in respect to the Greek language.

Clustering is a popular and effective method for texture image segmentation. However, most cluster methods often suffer the following problems: need a huge space and a lot of computation when the input data is large. To save the space and computation, we construct a novel algorithm for image segmentation. It consists of two phases: Sampling and clustering. First, we put some detectors into the data space uniformly using orthogonal design method. These detectors can move and merge according to the law of universal gravitation. When the detectors are in a stable status (i.e., do not move), these detectors are used as the representative samples to the next step. Second, to further improve the efficiency and avoid dependence on parameters, the Self-tuning Spectral Clustering (SSC) is used to the representative samples to do the clustering. As a result, the proposed algorithm can quickly and precisely realize the clustering for texture image segmentation.

In recent years, the visual object tracking has drawn increasing interests. There are many applications, e.g., video surveillance in airports, schools, hospitals and traffic. The object surveillance may provide crucial information about the behavior, interaction, and relationship between objects of interest. This paper addresses issues in object tracking where videos contain complex scenarios. We propose an adaptive particle filters tracking scheme with exquisite resampling (AERPF), which improves prediction, importance sampling and resampling. In prediction step, an adaptive strategy for search region and particle number is addressed for object disappearing or obstacle disturbance, which can obtain results more effectively. In addition, in importance sampling, we use optical flow to refine the particle weights using the dynamical object motion information, which results the better accuracy of object location updating. Moreover, exquisite resampling (ER) algorithm can be applied for reflecting more the posterior probability density function of true state. The proposed method can be applied for object tracking both on fixed and active camera, handling partial occlusion and full occlusion problem properly. As a result, it outperforms other existing methods.

In this study, we propose to construction of 3-dimensional virtual environment in the bay. To support construction of structure on the route of ship and a large ship’s position for arrival at the pier, it is suitable for utilizing real images. When we construct places to put ships, for example container yards, we need to think an influence toward a route of ships and surrounding environments. There are many things we cannot understand only by design drawings. Therefore, we need to watch real environments to understand the present situation more clearly. A captain probably hopes to simulate on basis of real images before arriving in a port. Then, we consider a method of virtual environmental construction.

Laplacian-based mesh processing technique is a kind of shape deformation in Computer Graphics modeling. It is hard to deform shapes which constructed by a lot of vertices in real time, because computational cost is high. A cages-based mesh deformation method is used in order to control the computational cost. A cage is a polyhedron which envelops an original dense model and is constructed by few meshes. The main advantages of using cages in shape deformations are controlling high speed computation. Currently, the coarse cage is constructed mainly by hand, and the construction usually takes several hours, even longer. Furthermore, when the shape of the model to be deformed is complex, it is very hard to construct its coarse cage by hand. Therefore it is important to develop a convenient method to generate the coarse cage enveloping a model. In this paper, we propose a method of automatic cage generation.

This study is part of the first author’s continued dissertation research in human-machine interaction in visual pattern recognition. Previous research focused on evaluating human-machine interaction using a flower recognition tool. Initial research showed that human interaction in color recognition improved accuracy significantly. We then looked more deeply into various automated color recognition algorithms and ways of combining them with human feedback. Described here is the process of upgrading the initial system into a new mobile application using Appinventor. After data collection, models were built for various color spaces. Sharing this experience may help other researchers incorporating a human-computer interaction component into their work.

This paper is an extension of our work related to a generic classification approach for low-level human body-parts segmentation in RGB-D data. In this paper, we discuss the impact of decision tree parameters, number of training frames and pixel count per object-class during a random forests classifier training. From the evaluation, we observed that a varied non-redundant training samples makes the decision tree learn the most. Pixel count per object-class should be just adequate otherwise it may lead to under/over-fitting problem. We found a highly optimized and a most optimal parameter setup for a random forests classifier training. Our new dataset of RGB-D data of human body-parts and industrial-grade components is publicly available for lease for academic and research purposes.

The purpose of this study is to develop a method for objective evaluation about preference of taste based on brain activities. To achieve this goal, we propose a system estimated the preference from subject’s brain activities by using sensitivity matrix. The system is able to estimate subject’s preference by taking advantage of change of cerebral blood flow based on brain activities in the frontal lobe. The effectiveness of the system was tested through experiment. We measured the subject’s brain activities during drinking a beverage by using near-infrared spectroscopy and verified the effectiveness of the system from the data. From the results, an interesting data on relationship the psychological preference and brain activities in the frontal lobe was obtained. The estimated values corresponded to subject’s psychological values. The obtained data suggest that the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The finding results are a step toward identifying psychological preference of taste.

A great deal of scientific evidence suggests that there is a close relationship between mood and cognitive processes of human in everyday tasks. In this study, we have investigated the feasibility of determining mood from gaze, which is one of the human cognitive processes that can be recorded during interaction with computers. To do so, we have designed a feature vector composed of typical gaze patterns, and piloted the approach on the dataset which we gathered. It consists of 145 samples of 30 people. A supervised machine learning technique was employed for classification and recognition of mood. The results of this pilot test suggests that even during these initial steps, the approach is quite promising and opens other research paths for improvement through multi-modal recognition and information fusion. Multi-modal approach would employ the added information provided by our previously developed mood extraction approach using camera and/or the information gained by the use of EEG signals. Further analysis will be performed in feature extraction process to enhance the model accuracy by enriching the feature-set of each modality.

There are several techniques of data measurement for gesture recognition, with applications ranging from prosthetic or autonomous control to human-computer interfacing. Most of the typical techniques depend on image processing, and might face portability hurdles. This paper discusses a method to classify gestures based on the surface EMG (sEMG) readings, thereby allowing user portability. These sEMG readings acquired from the upper forearm provide a direction towards gesture recognition for Indian Sign Language (ISL) interpretation. An Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based on the Scaled Conjugate Gradient (SCG) assisted learning is used to process the data and classify gestures with an accuracy of 97.5 %. The training involved 120 samples corresponding to four distinct wrist gestures. Additionally, the foundations for user-independent adaptability have been laid in this paper.

A popular brand of consumer EEG headbands claims to be able to detect meditation from the user’s brainwave pattern, and send a signal to your cell phone with the score from 1–100. The invention described in this paper links together the headband with a wireless light bulb. The invention should show a meaningful pattern of flashes of light. Instead only random noise is detected. The author explores possible reasons why.

Since nasal skin temperature is said to provide a good reflection of autonomic nerve activity, nasal skin temperature measurements have been used to assess various human physiological and psychological states, such as pleasant and unpleasant emotions, alertness levels, and mental work load (MWL). In addition, nasal skin temperature has the advantage of enabling non-contact measurement, using such as thermography and radiation thermometers.However, a problem exists with approaches using these device because it is difficult to make accurate assessments if the test subject moves during measurement.

This study aims at resolving this problem via the development of a wearable device that measures nasal skin temperature with small thermopile sensors attached to spectacle frames, thus enabling temperature measurements even when the wearer moves.

In this paper, a system is proposed for decoding upper limb movement from EEG. The signal processing procedure consists of a learning phase and test phase. In the learning phase, a Kinect sensor is utilized to measure the true values for a hand’s movement. Sparse coding is applied to calculate the weight of a linear decoding model. Because sparse coding can be used to derive the sparse weight, most of the elements are zero, with the remaining elements being non-zero. Thus, it is an effective method for reducing the calculation costs. Sparse coding was combined with noise reduction of the EEG signals to achieve good estimation for upper limb movements in the experimental results.

In this paper we describe ongoing work to develop an engagement classifier for human-computer interaction systems. We have successfully classified group and individual engagement in a corpus of a conversation among four people called TableTalk, by using a classifier trained with the Support Vector Machine method and audio-visual features. The goal in this paper is to extend that work for the classification of engagement in videos of interaction between an human and a talking robot. For that purpose we are using a corpus of dialogues between participants and a Lego robot named Herme, which was collected during an exhibition. We describe the techniques to improve the engagement detection by taking into account the differences between the characteristics of the videos between the two datasets. Currently we are also conducting an experiment to manually annotate the Herme videos with engagement labels. These annotations will be used for evaluation and further improvements to engagement detection.

Paralinguistic features such as emotion of an utterance is as important as its linguistic content for generating better response utterances in spoken dialog systems. In this research, we carried out an experiment to reveal the effect of emotional speech synthesis in a dialogue system, and investigated what method was effective for giving emotion to the synthetic speech. Firstly, we carried out an experiment where an agent with various emotional speech talked to the user, and the appropriateness of the emotion was evaluated. As expected, users had better impression on the agent when we added emotion appropriately. Next, we examined methods of automatic estimation of emotion for the system’s response, and we found that the best method was to give the same emotion as the user’s previous utterance regardless of the content of the system’s utterance.

We use a simulated environment for incremental dialogue to show that incremental processing offers new possibilities to make dialogue systems more robust to noise. Traditional dialogue systems wait until the end of the user’s utterance before processing it and they cannot be interrupted when taking the floor. On the contrary, incremental dialogue systems process the user’s speech signal on the flow, therefore, they are able to react quickly if an error is detected. First we show that mixed initiative strategies have the advantages of both system initiative and user initiative strategies and then we show that there is still room for improvement thanks to incremental processing.

In this paper, we will examine how the performance and player believability aspects of abstract intelligent agents within video games interact and affect one another. We will present the study used to assess whether performance and believability do have an effect on one another and how much of an effect. Followed by the results to the study and a discussion on potential design approaches to produce more believable agents that still provide the level of effectiveness expected of them.

In this research, we developed a speech eliciting robot (Neut) that ensures a cooperative brainstorming environment. Neut creates an atmosphere that makes it easier for participants who are often overlooked to express their ideas, by promoting cooperation from the other participants. Neut moves freely on a table and approaches one or the other participant who has not yet had his/her speaking turn. After stopping in front of such a participant, it brings out a microphone and prompts the participant to speak, while looking around restlessly to suggest to others that they give the participant a chance to speak. In this paper, we will discuss the design of Neut in encouraging participants to speak out, while maintaining neutrality by not itself speaking as a participant.